Whilst a fool hardy game to try and watch every Japanese animation in existence, that I can devote an entire blog to covering the animated product of one single country shows how much anime has a cultural legacy which still grows.
The blog premise is simple, one thousand reviews be it per post:
1x Film
1x OVA/Micro-Series
1x Season of a Series at a time (barring exceptions)
Anything at of the ordinary that is still animation of some form (even puppetry)
Bonus reviews (manga adaptations, live action adaptations, scans at animation around the world) on the side.
All in an attempt to cover as many genres and type of anime as possible, hitting (fingers crossed) all the most important works I can alongside all the curiosities left at the wayside.
And one the thousand is reached, 2000 Anime? Yes, why not?
======
Introduction
#1: Gestalt (1997)
Fantasy OVA following a priest and the sorceress he has inexplicably become tied with.
#2: Blood: The Last Vampire (2000)
Production I.G.'s innovative OVA about a young teenage girl who tackles vampires on a U.S. army base in sixties Japan.
#3: A.LI.CE (1999)
The first anime feature to be created with computer animation.
#4: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)
Mamoru Hosoda's breakthrough film about a teenage girl who learns to time travel.
#5: Sword of the Stranger (2007)
Action samurai film of note, something to really get the pulse going and admire.
#11: Cyber City Oedo 808 (1990)
Yoshiaki Kawajiri's three tale sci-fi action OVA about convicts who have to complete dangerous missions to reduce their prison sentences.
#12: Lensman (1984)
Yoshiaki Kawajiri's curious debut, co-directing a Western sci-fi adaptation but presuming they were making a Star Wars cash-in instead.
#14: Gatchaman Crowds (2013)
A very modern and unconventional re-imagining of the Tatsunoko Productions' superhero team.
#15: Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011)
Akiyuki Shinbo's now-seminal dark deconstruction of the magical girl genre.
#20: Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within (2001)
The notorious and expensive CGI Hollywood-Japanese Final Fantasy adaptation that killed off Square Enix's film studio division.
The blog premise is simple, one thousand reviews be it per post:
1x Film
1x OVA/Micro-Series
1x Season of a Series at a time (barring exceptions)
Anything at of the ordinary that is still animation of some form (even puppetry)
Bonus reviews (manga adaptations, live action adaptations, scans at animation around the world) on the side.
All in an attempt to cover as many genres and type of anime as possible, hitting (fingers crossed) all the most important works I can alongside all the curiosities left at the wayside.
And one the thousand is reached, 2000 Anime? Yes, why not?
======
Introduction
| The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006) |
#1: Gestalt (1997)
Fantasy OVA following a priest and the sorceress he has inexplicably become tied with.
#2: Blood: The Last Vampire (2000)
Production I.G.'s innovative OVA about a young teenage girl who tackles vampires on a U.S. army base in sixties Japan.
#3: A.LI.CE (1999)
The first anime feature to be created with computer animation.
#4: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)
Mamoru Hosoda's breakthrough film about a teenage girl who learns to time travel.
#5: Sword of the Stranger (2007)
Action samurai film of note, something to really get the pulse going and admire.
Hapless male student Issei Hyoho is killed by an evil angel, only for the young female demoness to resurrect him as an underling.
An early Akiyuki Simbo production, following a monster hunting magical being in futuristic Japan.
An obscure two part OVA adaptation of the stories of horror manga author Kazuo Umezu.
#9: Another (2012)
Horror series about a cursed classroom in a small town where, when the new classmate refuses the ignore the scapegoat classmate, people start to die in ridiculous ways.
3D animated short about a group of children who play a dangerous game of hide-and-seek in a demon infested urban environment.
 |
| Roujin Z (1991) |
#11: Cyber City Oedo 808 (1990)
Yoshiaki Kawajiri's three tale sci-fi action OVA about convicts who have to complete dangerous missions to reduce their prison sentences.
#12: Lensman (1984)
Yoshiaki Kawajiri's curious debut, co-directing a Western sci-fi adaptation but presuming they were making a Star Wars cash-in instead.
#13: Roujin Z (1991)
Hiroyuki Kitakubo and Katsuhiro Otomo imagine the future of elderly care is a nuclear powered super bed with A.I.
#14: Gatchaman Crowds (2013)
A very modern and unconventional re-imagining of the Tatsunoko Productions' superhero team.
#15: Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011)
Akiyuki Shinbo's now-seminal dark deconstruction of the magical girl genre.
CGI video-game adaption about a teenage ESP-er in futuristic Japan...with bonus nu metal soundtrack.
The theatrical film action extravaganza of Kōsuke Fujishima's fictional Bokuto Police Precinct station and two female traffic cops.
#18: Wanna-Be's (1986)
Female pro-wrestlers uncover a conspiracy involving aliens and gene splicing in this barmy eighties OVA.
The first adaptation of Hideyuki Kikuchi's legendary dhampir vampire hunter D in a post-apocalypse/horror/sci-fi/Gothic western hybrid world.
The notorious and expensive CGI Hollywood-Japanese Final Fantasy adaptation that killed off Square Enix's film studio division.
 |
| Kill La Kill (2013-14) |
#21: Elfen Lied (2004)
The divisive but cult gore melodrama about a female "Diclonius" who escapes a military compound, only with a split personality and living with two cousins.
When (Undead) Sharks (With Mechanical Robo-Legs) Attack.
Hiroyuki Imaishi's chaotic debut about two criminals, one female and one male, who eventually have to escape a prison on the Moon.
A compilation of music videos and short films for a virtual idol star.
A sci-fi dystopian drama whose twenty plus episodes vary in expectations, drama and abrupt game shows.
#26: Paprika (2006)
Satoshi Kon's final production, a tale when technology can allow one to enter dreams but is also possible to abuse.
#27: Roots Search (1986)
An infamous low budget sci-fi horror OVA that surprisingly predates the plot of Event Horizon (1997) by a decade.
#28: Kill La Kill (2013-14)
Hiroyuki Imaishi's smash hit about a school academy and sentient clothing that channels super abilities.
#29: Requiem From The Darkness (2003)
Edo era set horror tale where an aspiring writer finds himself among the midst of a supernatural trio who punish the guilty.
Hiroyuki Imaishi's smash hit about a school academy and sentient clothing that channels super abilities.
#29: Requiem From The Darkness (2003)
Edo era set horror tale where an aspiring writer finds himself among the midst of a supernatural trio who punish the guilty.
The former leader of a giant motorcycle gang becomes a salaryman at the Yamato Construction Company, bringing with him his very unconventional form of nobility with him into the business world.
 |
| Haibane Renmei (2002) |
#31: Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000)
Yoshiaki Kawajiri's even better take on the world of dhampir vampire hunter D.
#32. Black Rock Shooter (2012)
A group of schoolgirls are connected, including the student guidance councilor, to an alternative world where the girls' mirror images fight with superhuman abilities.
Yoshiaki Kawajiri's even better take on the world of dhampir vampire hunter D.
#32. Black Rock Shooter (2012)
A group of schoolgirls are connected, including the student guidance councilor, to an alternative world where the girls' mirror images fight with superhuman abilities.
#33: Midori (1992)
Hiroshi Harada's once difficult to see, and controversial, adaptation of Suehiro Maruo's ero-guro tale about a teenage girl tricked into joining a travelling carnival freak show.
#34: Vampire Princess Miyu (1997-8)
The TV adaptation of Toshiki Hirano's personal protect about a young female vampire who sends demons and other supernatural beings back to whens they came.
Hiroshi Harada's once difficult to see, and controversial, adaptation of Suehiro Maruo's ero-guro tale about a teenage girl tricked into joining a travelling carnival freak show.
#34: Vampire Princess Miyu (1997-8)
The TV adaptation of Toshiki Hirano's personal protect about a young female vampire who sends demons and other supernatural beings back to whens they came.
The life, possibly the afterlife, of a young woman now existing again with angels' wings, living in a community like her new self out the outskirts of a quaint town with walls on all sides.
A much beaker, cerebral interpretation of Tatsunoko's robot fighting hero Casshern.
A spin-off theatrical story from the Rurouni Kenshin franchise, a wandering samurai in the early Meiji era finding himself in the midst of a potential coup de tete here.
#39. King of Thorn (2009)
Sci-fi horror in which, during a virus which literally reduces people to stone threatens the world entirely, a mass cryogenics project to save humanity finishes in the worst possible way, the waking survivors having to face horrible monsters.
#40: Dark Myth (1990)
An obscure horror/supernatural OVA about a young male protagonist who finds himself on the journey to become the Atman, pulled between two warring sides.
 |
| Yurikuma Arashi (2015) |
Kunihiko Ikuhara's tale of a forbidden love between girls and girl-bears.
Spin-off adaptation of the video game detective and greatest puzzle solver.
Made on a Japanese-only game console, the MSX, we take a ride on a renovated Martin M-130 among fruit headed flight stewardesses and animal people into the Hawaiian Pacific and our deepest dreams.
#44: Ichi the Killer: Episode Zero (2002)
A curious and nasty little prequel animation for Takashi Miike's notorious Ichi the Killer adaptation.
#58: Sparrow's Hotel (2013)
An incredible low budget, and short, micro-series in which the young and voluptuous female staff member of a hotel also happens to be a super-strong former assassin in her past life.
#59: Five Star Stories (1989)
The prologue to Mamoru Nagano's elaborate, and fabulous, space opera mecha drama which spans times and conflicts.
#60: Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise (1987)
The legendary, and controversial, first major production by Studio Gainax - an ambitious and cerebral sci-fi drama set on a planet like ours in which one man may be the first person to enter outer space with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
#61: Gdgd Fairies (2011-13)
Three female fairies, and their three voice actresses, muck about with dubbing pools and ridiculous games in a micro-series which tops all micro-series in ambitious and weirdness.
#62: Bubblegum Crash! (1991)
The maligned follow on to the OVA smash hit, Bubblegum Crisis, in which a sci-fi metropolis has to deal with malfunctioning androids and cybercrime.
#74: Junji Ito Collection (2018)
The incredibly divisive attempt at adapt the work of horror manga author Junji Ito as an anthology series.
#75: Kai Doh Maru (2001)
A technical experimental crossed with a Heian period samurai story of black magic, conspiracy and a young girl raised as a male warrior.
#78: Psycho Diver - Soul Siren (1997)
The director of Elfen Lied (2004) tackles a futuristic tale of a man (with an incredibly stupid haircut) who enters people's dreams to help them finding himself in a conspiracy with a young female pop star.
No 79: Gunbuster (1988-89)
Hideaki Anno's legendary sci-fi OVA in which a young female cadet finds herself brought into the war against aliens in an emotionally rich tale of drama and the toll of time decades before Intersteller (2014) played with the theme.
#80: Landlock (1995)
An obscure nineties sci-fi fantasy film in which a young boy is thrown into a war where an evil kingdom are after the sacred powers of the Wind God.
#81: Biohazard 4D-Executer (2000)
The director of M.D. Geist gets to orchestrate a 3D animated short film for a Resident Evil interactive experience.
#82: M.D. Geist (1986)
The infamous anime, which was yet a major financial success for Central Park Media, about a super soldier dropped into the middle of a war between human beings and a robot doomsday weapon.
#83: M.D. Geist II - Death Force (1996)
Koichi Ohata returns to his infamous M.D. Geist, where everything is worse, the last vestige of humanity a fortress ran by M.D. Krauser, a blue skinned former super soldier whose nobility is unfortunately matched by a God-like ego.
#84: Abunai Sisters: Koko & Mika (2009)
The Kano Sisters, half sisters and professional celebrities Kyoko and Miko, wanted to star in an anime, got Production I.G. to animate this farce, a mess in which the sisters have to protect a "boobie stone" from villains like a Hanna-Barbera show. The show was cancelled, buried, presumed lost and got dug up to be available for morbidly curious Western viewers online.
#85: Amon Saga (1986)
A high fantasy tale of a warrior out for revenge against the figure who killed his mother with the distinction that Yoshitaka Amano was the character and conceptual designer.
#86: Urban Square: In Pursuit of Amber (1986)
An obscure eighties OVA in which a deadbeat finds himself in the middle of an action film plot.
#88: Onara Goro (2016)
#89: Ghost Stories (2000-2001)
The infamous children's horror show which was given a profane dub by ADV Films. This time however, this is the original version.
#90: Genius Party Beyond (2008)
The second of Studio 4°C's celebratory anthology showcases.
#91: Plastic Neesan (2011-2012)
A short comedy series about three high school girls who love building models. Actually about being misanthropic, people beating each other up, or the guy who can make his clothes explode off as a super attack.
#92: School Days (2007)
The show whose final episode had to be briefly pulled due an unfortunate real life case. Also what happens when you depict the really, really bad ending of a romantic story in all its horrible, squirm inducing agony.
#93: Samurai Flamenco (2013-14)
One male model wishes to become a superhero like those he grew up watching in his childhood. The show he's in is an ambitious, and truly underrated epic running through all Japanese tokusatsu tropes and a damn good show even if you don't get the joke.
#94: Ai City (1986)
A bizarre piece of eighties culture, where that decade's obsession with psychics in anime is run to its zenith, involving conspiracies, head mounted psychic power gauges and anthropomorphic cats.
#95: The Special Duty Combat Unit Shinesman (1996)
A superhero parody comedy which images a Power Rangers-like team if they were salarymen and women fighting other companies ran by evil aliens.
#96: Paranoia Agent (2004)
Satoshi Kon's only TV series, an anthology like tale all spun around modern social anxiety and a mysterious figure who hits people with a golden bat until they forget their troubles.
#97: Tonari no Seki-kun, The Master of Killing Time (2014)
#111: Dai-Guard (1999-2000)
#129: The Lost Village (2016)
The curious viewing experience, following a bus full of characters who enter in a lost village full of horrors, of whether what you are watching is the most precisely constructed parody of the genre or an utter misfire.
#130: Lunar Legend Tsukihime (2003)
A Type-Moon adaptation which is part vampire melodrama, part action-horror with a giant sack of terminology to wade through.
======
A curious and nasty little prequel animation for Takashi Miike's notorious Ichi the Killer adaptation.
The action series in which a salaryman, after a hijacking, finds himself joining a multinational group of mercenaries named the Black Lagoon Company on their various escapades.
Lengthy OVA adaptation of Kazuo Koike's hyperviolent and hypersexual assassin tale.
A true one-off, a psychedelic medieval tale in which a young French woman finds herself increasingly pushed to witchcraft within her despotic world.
#48: Kekko Kamen (1991-2)
Go Nagai's parody character - a female hero who only wears a mask, a scarf and shoes, and nothing else - brought to OVA.
#48: Mononoke (2007)
Supernatural tales all following a mysterious and nameless medicine seller who can exorcise spirits.
#49. Ghost Hunt (2006)
A group of paranormal investigators, of all walks of life and even various religious denominations, deal with various supernatural incidents.
Osamu Dezaki's first, theatrical, adaption of the legendary and mysterious hit-man Duke Togo.
 |
| Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise (1987) |
#51: The Humanoid (1986)
The most generic, yet inexplicably watchable, anime OVA ever.
#52: Eternal Family (1997)
Kōji Morimoto's segmented short film about an artificial created family of misfits watched by millions.
#53: Sword for Truth (1990)
The moment even legendary Osamu Dezaki, helming this lurid samurai OVA, got a bit ridiculous.
The most generic, yet inexplicably watchable, anime OVA ever.
#52: Eternal Family (1997)
Kōji Morimoto's segmented short film about an artificial created family of misfits watched by millions.
#53: Sword for Truth (1990)
The moment even legendary Osamu Dezaki, helming this lurid samurai OVA, got a bit ridiculous.
A tragically obscure OVA that, this early in that format's existence, mocks tentacle erotic and hentai in scathing and surprisingly progressive ways.
#55: Psychic Wars (1991)
Obscure, maligned, poor reviewed yet strangely close to my heart...also about a man who literally punches cancer tumors with his fists at one point.
#56: Darkside Blues (1994)
An incredibly underrated Hideyuki Kikuchi adaptation combining science fiction and dark fantasy to sumptuous effect.
#57: Robot Carnival (1987)
An incredible anthology bringing the best and brightest of eighties anime, all to tales about robots.
An incredibly underrated Hideyuki Kikuchi adaptation combining science fiction and dark fantasy to sumptuous effect.
#57: Robot Carnival (1987)
An incredible anthology bringing the best and brightest of eighties anime, all to tales about robots.
An incredible low budget, and short, micro-series in which the young and voluptuous female staff member of a hotel also happens to be a super-strong former assassin in her past life.
#59: Five Star Stories (1989)
The prologue to Mamoru Nagano's elaborate, and fabulous, space opera mecha drama which spans times and conflicts.
The legendary, and controversial, first major production by Studio Gainax - an ambitious and cerebral sci-fi drama set on a planet like ours in which one man may be the first person to enter outer space with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
 |
| Princess Tutu (2002-3) |
Three female fairies, and their three voice actresses, muck about with dubbing pools and ridiculous games in a micro-series which tops all micro-series in ambitious and weirdness.
The maligned follow on to the OVA smash hit, Bubblegum Crisis, in which a sci-fi metropolis has to deal with malfunctioning androids and cybercrime.
A stop motion fantasy drama where two female twins become separated by a natural disaster.
Masaaki Yuasa returns to the world of The Tatami Galaxy (2010), following one night of drinking and fun for one young woman, finding herself, in the midst of guerrilla musical theater performances and illegal used book syndicates.
#65: Dragon Half (1993)
Canceled only after two episodes, this OVA which takes the piss out of high fantasy, about a half-dragon girl tragically in love with a pop star male dragon slayer, still has a lot of love and laughs decades on.
An attempt to capture the West, this re-edited version of the original anime, starring Elizabeth Berkley and Kiefer Sutherland in voice roles, follows a sci-fi conspiracy of androids being murdered on Mars.
An ambitious and utterly sweet tribute to ballet, classical music and fairy tales in which a duck, able to turn into a young girl, finds herself also able to turn into the titular heroine in a tale where characters must fight against their storybook roles least tragedy happens.
Various acclaimed anime studios tackle the legendary DC Comic hero.
Taiwanese glove puppetry crosses with acclaimed screenwriter Gen Urobuchi in this puppet fantasy epic.
#70: Bananya (2016)
The daily life of a tiny cat...who is also a banana.
 |
| Gunbuster (1988-89) |
#71: Black Lion (1992)
Go Nagai takes chambara samurai fiction, and adds robots, lasers and time travel machines...
Studio Trigger goes on a victory lap, following a high school girl who abruptly finds herself part of the space police force.
#73: Boogiepop Phantom (2000)
The first Boogiepop light novel adaptation, a fascinating and incredibly experimental series in which a city becomes a center of horrifying mutations, strange phenomena and the titular figure, a strange feminine form who shadows these incidents.
The first Boogiepop light novel adaptation, a fascinating and incredibly experimental series in which a city becomes a center of horrifying mutations, strange phenomena and the titular figure, a strange feminine form who shadows these incidents.
#74: Junji Ito Collection (2018)
The incredibly divisive attempt at adapt the work of horror manga author Junji Ito as an anthology series.
#75: Kai Doh Maru (2001)
A technical experimental crossed with a Heian period samurai story of black magic, conspiracy and a young girl raised as a male warrior.
Take Usamaru Furuya's controversial but acclaimed manga about fascism, transgressive sexual content and lychee powered robots meant to kidnap women...turn its anime adaptation into a comedy micro-series.
[Reviewing the censored English dub versions]. The notorious OVA adaptation of Go Nagai's post apocalypse manga in which human kind has decended into violence and perversity, and a personification of death named Violence Jack exists to rupture this state even further.
#78: Psycho Diver - Soul Siren (1997)
The director of Elfen Lied (2004) tackles a futuristic tale of a man (with an incredibly stupid haircut) who enters people's dreams to help them finding himself in a conspiracy with a young female pop star.
No 79: Gunbuster (1988-89)
Hideaki Anno's legendary sci-fi OVA in which a young female cadet finds herself brought into the war against aliens in an emotionally rich tale of drama and the toll of time decades before Intersteller (2014) played with the theme.
#80: Landlock (1995)
An obscure nineties sci-fi fantasy film in which a young boy is thrown into a war where an evil kingdom are after the sacred powers of the Wind God.
 |
| Genius Party (2007) |
#81: Biohazard 4D-Executer (2000)
The director of M.D. Geist gets to orchestrate a 3D animated short film for a Resident Evil interactive experience.
#82: M.D. Geist (1986)
The infamous anime, which was yet a major financial success for Central Park Media, about a super soldier dropped into the middle of a war between human beings and a robot doomsday weapon.
#83: M.D. Geist II - Death Force (1996)
Koichi Ohata returns to his infamous M.D. Geist, where everything is worse, the last vestige of humanity a fortress ran by M.D. Krauser, a blue skinned former super soldier whose nobility is unfortunately matched by a God-like ego.
#84: Abunai Sisters: Koko & Mika (2009)
The Kano Sisters, half sisters and professional celebrities Kyoko and Miko, wanted to star in an anime, got Production I.G. to animate this farce, a mess in which the sisters have to protect a "boobie stone" from villains like a Hanna-Barbera show. The show was cancelled, buried, presumed lost and got dug up to be available for morbidly curious Western viewers online.
A high fantasy tale of a warrior out for revenge against the figure who killed his mother with the distinction that Yoshitaka Amano was the character and conceptual designer.
#86: Urban Square: In Pursuit of Amber (1986)
An obscure eighties OVA in which a deadbeat finds himself in the middle of an action film plot.
The philosophies of life...as interpreted by anthropomorphic farts.
#89: Ghost Stories (2000-2001)
The infamous children's horror show which was given a profane dub by ADV Films. This time however, this is the original version.
#90: Genius Party Beyond (2008)
The second of Studio 4°C's celebratory anthology showcases.
 |
| Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984) |
#91: Plastic Neesan (2011-2012)
A short comedy series about three high school girls who love building models. Actually about being misanthropic, people beating each other up, or the guy who can make his clothes explode off as a super attack.
#92: School Days (2007)
The show whose final episode had to be briefly pulled due an unfortunate real life case. Also what happens when you depict the really, really bad ending of a romantic story in all its horrible, squirm inducing agony.
#93: Samurai Flamenco (2013-14)
One male model wishes to become a superhero like those he grew up watching in his childhood. The show he's in is an ambitious, and truly underrated epic running through all Japanese tokusatsu tropes and a damn good show even if you don't get the joke.
#94: Ai City (1986)
A bizarre piece of eighties culture, where that decade's obsession with psychics in anime is run to its zenith, involving conspiracies, head mounted psychic power gauges and anthropomorphic cats.
#95: The Special Duty Combat Unit Shinesman (1996)
A superhero parody comedy which images a Power Rangers-like team if they were salarymen and women fighting other companies ran by evil aliens.
#96: Paranoia Agent (2004)
Satoshi Kon's only TV series, an anthology like tale all spun around modern social anxiety and a mysterious figure who hits people with a golden bat until they forget their troubles.
#97: Tonari no Seki-kun, The Master of Killing Time (2014)
The tale of schoolgirl Rumi and her classmate Seki, who keeps distracting her in lessons with his increasingly bizarre activities he manages to get away with instead of studying.
Two sides of Mamoru Oshii - his under-recognized history starting in comedy and his cerebral side - allowed to fully embrace in this piece of the legendary Rumiko Takahashi franchise, in which the cast find themselves by themselves in a world where everyone else has disappeared.
The infamous children's horror show which was given a profane dub by ADV Films. This time, we get to that infamous dub full of things you probably couldn't make a lot of jokes about now and a lot of burying Christian Slater's career.
#100: Lupin III: The Mystery of Mamo (1978)
The first theatrical film of Lupin III - not the family friendly version, but the weirder, more adult Monkey Punch version dealing with sci-fi tropes and a strange diminutive super genius.
#1 to #100 Retrospective: The Worst Anime Covered
#101: Vampire Wars (1990)
#103: Magnos the Robot (1976/1983)
A feature length American made compilation film of an obscure, not necessarily well regarded Japanese giant robot show from their golden decade. Expect gaudiness, funk bass in the soundtrack, and pilots forming the robot's belt buckle.
#104: Strait Jacket (2007)
One of the last times old school Manga Entertainment OVA licenses, an alternative steampunk magic fantasy tale.
#105: Serial Experiments Lain (1998)
#100: Lupin III: The Mystery of Mamo (1978)
The first theatrical film of Lupin III - not the family friendly version, but the weirder, more adult Monkey Punch version dealing with sci-fi tropes and a strange diminutive super genius.
#1 to #100 Retrospective: The Worst Anime Covered
Examining which things hurt most.
Enough weirdness at hand to be the longest category of them all.
Sound and visuals, always worthy of an imaginary award...
Moments of joy, personal favourites and those titles I can't help but like even though it feels wrong to.
#1 to #100 Retrospective: Best Song/Best Opening and Ending Sequences
Clearly my tastes go for the more music choices.
#1 to #100 Retrospective: Best Film/TV Series/OVA and ONA & Other
The grand finale. Also why I should never do these awards each hundred anime I cover in the future because the ballots become insanely long and too many great titles sadly had to be dumped into the Honorable Mentions list.
Clearly my tastes go for the more music choices.
#1 to #100 Retrospective: Best Film/TV Series/OVA and ONA & Other
The grand finale. Also why I should never do these awards each hundred anime I cover in the future because the ballots become insanely long and too many great titles sadly had to be dumped into the Honorable Mentions list.
 |
| X - The Movie (1996) |
#101: Vampire Wars (1990)
Lurid OVA vampire schlock.
The first Gundam work covered on the blog...and in hindsight, covering Yoshiyuki Tomino's notoriously garbled and weird failure of a TV series isn't exactly the best way to begin, but perversely fun to experience.
#103: Magnos the Robot (1976/1983)
A feature length American made compilation film of an obscure, not necessarily well regarded Japanese giant robot show from their golden decade. Expect gaudiness, funk bass in the soundtrack, and pilots forming the robot's belt buckle.
#104: Strait Jacket (2007)
One of the last times old school Manga Entertainment OVA licenses, an alternative steampunk magic fantasy tale.
#105: Serial Experiments Lain (1998)
The tale of Lain, a high school girl who becomes obsessed with an alternative world version of the internet, becoming more relevant as the years pass in this bold, experimental psychological sci-fi series.
#106: Burn-Up W (1996)
The franchise of about busty female future cops that managed to get three sequels for unknown reasons. This is the first sequel.
#107: X - The Movie (1996)
A deeply flawed, structurally misguided attempted at CLAMP's unfinished dark fantasy epic which I yet undeniably still love, flaws and all.
Sci-fi buddy cop comedy-action show which skewers these tropes.
#109: Mad Bull 34 (1990-2)
The infamous Kazuo Koike adaption that shows you how dangerous and violent life is as a New York City policeman is, all whilst causing one to want a shower afterwards.
Probably more of a fascinating sociological document than an anime series, in which the bludgeoning Virtual YouTuber movement, motion captures fictional characters who make YouTube videos, get their own sketch comedy show.
 |
| Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu (2003) |
#111: Dai-Guard (1999-2000)
What happens when an ordinary office staff are the ones who have to pilot a giant robot to defeat monsters.
The incredibly filthy bonus OVAs to the nineties fantasy series.
The high school comedy spin-off series to the action/giant robot franchise. This one however is fondly loved by itself.
Does what it says on the tin...well, sometimes.
Said to be two of the worst anime to come from the 2000s, ultra low budget sci-fi OVAs based on video games made by the same company who made them.
Kunihiko Ikuhara's return just before the end of the 2010s, by way of musical numbers, male friendship and a surprising amount of plot aspects requiring involvement of the anus.
gdgd Fairies co-creator Kōtarō Ishidate's first series of his hardcore, ultra-meta and mostly improvised series, consisting entirely of skits and conversations between anime schoolgirls about anime and manga.
Another candidate for one of the worst anime of the 2000s. Actually a peculiar experimental anime about a mutant family clearly dubbed by the same man.
#120: Gravion (2002)
The first series of legendary animator/character and mecha designer Masami Ōbari's tribute to old school giant robot shows. Put up with the fanservice, stay for the high energy burning passion.
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| The Burning Buddha Man (2013) |
The really strange duo of shorts about a female alien who wants to turn Earth into a yuri (lesbian) paradise. Manages to get away with some really dark and creepy jokes, I think, just by being so relaxed and eccentric.
The second series of Kōtarō Ishidate's meta show about anime and manga, now with more skits.
#123: Gravion Zwei (2004)
Still put up with the fan service, but Gravion ups the ante and melodrama, and gets even more entertaining as a result.
#124: Pom Poko (1994)
The first Studio Ghibli work reviews, Isao Takahata's very adult (yet light hearted) take on Japanese mythology and environmental concerns.
#125: Pupa (2014)
A very unpopular and disturbing tale of incestuous cannibalism and monstrous mutation. Blame the series being so short rather than the fascinating premise mind...
#126: Lily C.A.T. (1987)
Alien (1979)...as a sci-fi anime OVA.
A truly fascinating and rewarding OVA experiment. I expected a tale of a robot girl wanting to become a pop idol, got an ambitious sci-fi/spiritual/tragedy work instead.
The fight between people forcibly melding people to Buddha statues and those trying to stop them. Told through paper cut-out animation by one man naming himself after green tea ice cream.
#129: The Lost Village (2016)
The curious viewing experience, following a bus full of characters who enter in a lost village full of horrors, of whether what you are watching is the most precisely constructed parody of the genre or an utter misfire.
#130: Lunar Legend Tsukihime (2003)
A Type-Moon adaptation which is part vampire melodrama, part action-horror with a giant sack of terminology to wade through.
Bonus Reviews:
Created with a staff involving prominent Japanese animators, this entry into the Batman Beyond spin-off follows a new Batman in futuristic Gotham...but a face from the past seemingly back from the dead.
Bonus #2: Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991)
The notorious, and insanely faithful, Hong Kong splatter-fest adaptation of Tetsuya Saruwatari's delirious fighting manga.
The notorious, and insanely faithful, Hong Kong splatter-fest adaptation of Tetsuya Saruwatari's delirious fighting manga.
Bonus #3 & #4: The Guyver/Guyver: Dark Hero (1991/1994)
The two live action adaptations of the Guyver: one with Luke Skywalker and comedy, the other like a really violent (but awesome) episode of the Power Rangers set in the woodlands.
Bonus #5: Uzumaki (2000)
An ambitious attempt to adapt Junji Ito's manga about a town terrorized by spiral symbolism to live action.
Bonus #6: Crying Freeman (1995)
French director Christophe Gans tackles the Kazuo Koike character with Mark Dacascos in tow.
Bonus #7: Armageddon (1996)
Not to be confused with Bruce Willis on an asteroid from the same period; no, this is the post-apocalyptic South Korean sci-fi animation you might have never even heard of.
French director Christophe Gans tackles the Kazuo Koike character with Mark Dacascos in tow.
Bonus #7: Armageddon (1996)
Not to be confused with Bruce Willis on an asteroid from the same period; no, this is the post-apocalyptic South Korean sci-fi animation you might have never even heard of.
Bonus #8: Wolf Guy - Enraged Lycanthrope (1975)
Sonny Chiba is part werewolf, part bad ass...and faces an invisible psychic tiger.
Bonus #9: Blue Seagull (1994)
An attempt at an erotic action thriller from the South Korean animation industry; it did not turn out well...
An attempt at an erotic action thriller from the South Korean animation industry; it did not turn out well...
Bonus#10: Avalon (2001)
Mamoru Oshii's Polish-Japanese sci-fi tale in which a talented female gamer in a virtual reality war simulator finds herself on the hunt for a fabled secret level and a literal ghost in the machine.
Bonus#11: In the Aftermath (1988)
When faced with Mamoru Oshii's experimental Angel's Egg (1985), Roger Corman's New World Picture inexplicably put live action post-apocalypse footage in the midst of it, and made something that manages to make even less sense.
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Re-Reviews
Re-Review: Sparrow's Hotel (2013)
Revisiting the hotel when the buxom, sweet female staff member is a super strong assassination machine.
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