UPDATE: Schedule Changes

So after  few weeks of trying to see if I can handle weekly reviews, I have come to the conclusion that no. I cannot. If everything I reviewed was a 13 episode anime, I could manage it easily, but alas I watch far too many 26 episode ones as well. As such, I'm making some changes in how often I post.

I will now be putting out a review every 1-2 weeks, instead of trying to stay strictly weekly. If a week passes from my last review and nothing gets put up, then expect it to come the following Monday. I'll still stick to having my posts be on Mondays, so I can at least keep some sort of predictable update schedule, and I don't see myself ever needing more than 2 weeks to finish an anime and get my thoughts down.

As you may have guessed, this also means that there will be no review posted today. The next review will be up next Monday. I'm slowly but surely finding my footing here as I learn what I can and can't manage. I hope any followers I may have will be patient with me until I finally figure out just what the hell I'm doing. Thanks for your time!

- Xort

Anime Assessment: Cowboy Bebop

Howdy all, Xort here for another rambling, mostly incomprehensible review on Anime Assessment. This week, we're gonna be talking about a classic that I, shamefully, had not watched before this week, and yet surprisingly enough I managed to avoid any and all spoilers for: Cowboy Bebop.

In addition to being a classic, Cowboy Bebop is the first anime I've reviewed that isn't adapted from a light novel series. It was developed by Sunrise, Inc. and aired from October 24, 1998 to April 24, 1999. There are 2 manga adaptations: Cowboy Bebop: Shooting Star which ran from May 1998 to October 1998, and Cowboy Bebop which ran from April 1999 to April 2000.

So what is Cowboy Bebop? It's an episodic tale set in the year 2071, a distant future where interplanetary travel is not only possible, it's rather commonplace thanks to hyperspace gates that allow for super-fast flight in an alternate dimension. The show follows the adventures of two space-traveling bounty hunters on a ship named Bebop, Spike Spiegel and Jet Black, as they pick up new members for their crew, try to fix their perpetual lack of money, and confront their pasts as they come back to haunt them. In a way, it's a lot like Joss Whedon's Firefly. Yeah, I know, Bebop came before Firefly so I should be saying that Firefly is like Bebop, but I saw Firefly first so it's my basis for comparison. Sue me. In addition to Spike and Jet we have Faye Valentine, a compulsive gambler with a mountain of debt and no memories of her past, Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV (Ed for short), a child prodigy and hacker who's not entirely right in the head, and Ein, a genetically engineered Welsh Corgi who might even be more intelligent than Ed. Every crew member has some sort of trouble in their past that gets explored in some way, but none of it is ever fully explained. Instead, the viewer gets to see bits and pieces of the past in flashbacks across the course of the series and has to figure things out based on that. Like Dantalian no Shoka, which I talked about last week, the show's episodic nature means that there isn't too much in the way of a big plot thread that the characters follow. The only constant outer conflict the characters face is their inability to hold on to money for any extended period of time.

However, there is an overarching storyline of sorts that gets resolved over the course of the series, even if the resolution just leaves more questions that never get answered, so let's jump right in!

Anime Assessment: Dantalian no Shoka

Howdy all, Xort here once again for another review on Anime Assessment! Last time, we talked about Ben-To, an anime that I loved at first sight. This time, we're gonna be looking at one I wasn't too keen on until I re-watched it, and even now I do have a few problems with. Let's talk about Dantalian no Shoka.

Dantalian no Shoka is an anime adapted from a series of light novels written by Gatsuo Mikumo, with 8 volumes released from February of 2008 to February of 2011. The anime adaptation was produced by Studio Gainax and aired from July to October of 2011. There are also three manga: Dantalian no Shoka, Dantalian no Shoka Dalian Days, and Dalian-chan no Shoka, which are all complete. However, as you may have guessed, we're just gonna talk about the anime.

What is Dantalian no Shoka? In a nutshell, it's a story about two characters: Hugh Anthony Disward, once an ace pilot in the British army and now heir to his deceased grandfather's estate and massive collection of books, and Dalian, the small girl who had been living with him before he died and who has what can almost be described as a fetish for eating sweets. Hugh - who prefers to be called 'Huey,' and thus who I will be referring to as Huey from now on - becomes Dalian's Keykeeper, and learns that she's actually a "Biblioprincess," a living gateway to the eponymous Dantalian no Shoka, or the Mystic Archives of Dantalian. The Archives are a massive library containing what are called Phantom Books; books that have for various reasons gained magical powers, and can be read to unleash those powers - though only a select few can reliably control the Books, Huey being one of them. The majority of the episodes serve as a way to develop the relationship between the two as they get to know each other and work to retrieve and contain Phantom Books out in the world.

So, let's get down to business.

Anime Assessment: Ben-To

Howdy all, Xort here for the flagship review on Anime Assessment! Today we're gonna be talking about a relatively simple, quite absurd, and surprisingly inspiring anime: Ben-To.

Ben-To is an anime adapted from a series of light novels written by Asaura, with 10 installments spanning February 2008 up to December 2011. The anime adaptation was made by David Production and aired from October to December of 2011. In addition to the light novels and anime, there are two manga: Ben-To Zero: Road to Witch, which is complete, and Ben-To Another: Ripper's Night, which is ongoing as of February 2013. We're just gonna be talking about the anime adaptation, though.

So what is Ben-To? Well on the surface, Ben-To is easy to enjoy as a mindless action/comedy/fanservice anime, with lots of fighting, a fair bit of considerably inappropriate humor including two borderline rape scenes - played for laughs, of course - and GRATUITOUS amounts of fanservice; one character, "Brunette," doesn't even have a face until a small moment in the last episode shows a glimpse of it. The camera, and everyone else, always just stares at her ample breasts. And if you want to watch Ben-To and enjoy it for that, then it does its job fine. The action is great, if you can stomach the occasional rape joke or other bit of inappropriate humor then the humor is nice, and between a pool episode, the aforementioned borderline rape scenes, and watching schoolgirls kick the crap out of each other, there is fanservice galore. But what if you want to watch it for the plot? Is that any good?

In short, yes. I'll explain.

Hello, all, and welcome to Anime Assessment!

Howdy all. The name's Xortberg. Since you've stumbled upon my blog, I suppose I at least owe you an explanation for what I plan on doing here.

I love anime. I have a list of anime I need to watch, which I started a year ago as of this post. At that time, it was somewhere in the area of 40 items, all in the 13-26 episode range. It was pretty intimidating, but I figured I could make some progress on it if I worked at it. Now, a year later, I've watched most of the original items on the list, but somehow instead of making progress, I've got 78 items now! I never expected I'd make negative progress, but hey. Life's funny that way sometimes.

But that got me thinking: I've been really into anime for a whole year now, and wasted a LOT of time watching so many shows, that I might as well get something out of it. So, enter the wonderful world of Internet reviewing! I absolutely love talking about anime that I enjoy, and that I don't enjoy, so making a channel to do so was the logical conclusion. This way, I get to geek out about stuff and my friends who don't care don't have to put up with me rambling on and on for hours. It's perfect!

But before I begin reviewing, I have a few personal rules I'm gonna have to lay down. Keep in mind, these rules are not set in stone; I make them, I can break them. But they should give you an idea of what I hope to achieve and what sort of content you'll be able to find on my blog.

Rule #1: When the English dub is passable, I will talk about it, even if the original Japanese is overall superior. Why? I can't speak Japanese. I've picked up a few words and phrases over the course of my career watching various anime and Kamen Rider series, but I lack the familiarity with the language to really be able to pick up on the inflections and intricacies in the speech that I do have with the English language. Simply put, I have an easier time identifying a good English performance than a good Japanese one. Plus, I'm a HUGE fan of good voice actors - I'll probably geek out about them a lot in my reviews - and I don't have many Japanese voices I can recognize immediately when I hear them. Only one or two immediately come to mind, whereas I'm often the first one to recognize and place an English voice out of all my other friends. I just have an easier time with English. That said, I have no problem watching Japanese, and it doesn't affect my enjoyment in any way. In fact, several of the anime I'm already thinking about reviewing don't even have English dubs as of this post.

Rule #2: I will not review any extremely long-running shows. This means no Bleach, no One Piece, no Naruto, no Dragonball or any of its sequels, none of that. I'm having enough trouble making progress on my list of short anime. I'm not gonna make that harder by watching a show that spans over a week of total airtime (Looking at you, One Piece). My preferred length is 13-26 episodes. 13 episode animes are easier to run through and enjoy quickly, and while 26 episodes takes a bigger commitment, it often pays off in a more fleshed out story. I'll occasionally venture up to the 40-50 episode range, but I doubt I'll ever go beyond that just because I don't want to spend that much time on a story. I have the attention span of a goldfish.

Rule #3: I'm not going to focus on reviewing exclusively good or bad anime. I know some people have found success in bashing things they hate for comedy, and that's perfectly fine, but that's just not my style. However, if I only talk about things I like, then it'll get boring quickly. There's only so many ways one can say "This is awesome" before it starts to get old. So, I'll review whatever I wanna review. Some will be good, some will be bad, some will be ones I absolutely love with every fiber of my being, and very rarely I'll make the time to talk about ones I fervently hate (There's not many of those, but they do exist). In all those cases, though, I'll do my best to highlight both the good and the bad in the show, because nothing in this world is perfect and nothing in this world is so horrible that it has no redeeming qualities. I am, however, an amateur, and we're talking about something totally subjective to begin with, so don't be surprised if I love something you hate or if I was less than happy with something you love. Different strokes for different folks.

Rule #4: There will be spoilers in my reviews. I'll try not to give away the most important bits, but I have extreme difficulty trying to explain something while holding back information that is fundamentally important to that point. Therefore, if I review an anime you haven't seen and want to watch it spoiler-free, do not read that post beforehand.

And finally, I have this to say: This is, first and foremost, a way for me to have fun. I love anime, and I love talking about it, so I'm gonna talk about anime. However, I would be very excited if sometime in the distant future, I was able to make a place for myself on the Internet and possibly even make a living off of this, like so many people already do. That's a long, long way off - more of a pipe dream than anything - but even if I don't reach that far I'll be happy to just gain an audience that cares to listen to what I have to say. With that in mind, allow me to plug my Facebook and Twitter pages, where I'll talk and share updates and whatnot as they become relevant:

https://twitter.com/AnimeAssessment

https://www.facebook.com/AnimeAssessment

I also have Youtube channel that I plan on using eventually once I get some equipment and a decent place to record myself so I can try my hand at video reviews, although that's a little ways off currently:

http://www.youtube.com/user/AnimeAssessment

At these pages you can tell me what you think of one of my reviews, submit any recommendations or requests for me (though I reserve the right to refuse any of these for any reason, I'll always try to seriously consider a request and give you a good reason if I choose to refuse) or just chat with me.

Thank you all for your time, and I hope you enjoy your stay!