[Ended] Bakemonogatari: Hum..

Bakemonogatari is quite a brilliant anime. It mixes ghost/monster elements similar to those found in Mushishi and Mokke, with sarcasm and words play like those in Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei, then add in some strange yet intriguing visual effects like those found in Ef and Mononoke. The result? One strangely amusing anime.

Having said all that, however, I wasn't quite satisfied with how the story ended. Granted it's a proper ending, it just feels somewhat out of place. I guess you could say this is a better way to wrap up this story than simply another event.

Supposedly, the anime goes on for three more episodes. But only the first 12 would be broadcasted. Episode 13-15 are to be streamed on their web site. I'm a bit curious what they're going to do with the next three episodes after ending in 12 like that already.

If you haven't read my previous posts about this anime, I have given it the

Anime of the Season for July 2009 Season

award.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 95 (Excellent)

Comedy: 97 (Brilliant)

Action: 91 (Interesting)

Art/Animation: 95 (Strangely amusing)

Sound/Music: 90 (Good music)

Character: 98 (Very interesting characters)

Plot: 93 (Cleverly written)

Ending: 90 (Satisfactory)

Re-watch value: 80 (Still somewhat amusing)

Overall: 95 - Anime of the Season

Recommendation: No doubt this is something that should be on your must-watch list.

[Ended] CANAAN: Another Day

After finishing the entire story of CANAAN, I have to say I'm not as satisfied as I thought I would be at the beginning of the series.

The story is somewhat unique and interesting. However, somewhere along the way, the anime itself start to focus too much on the story and it quit being entertaining. True, the story is a significant part of an anime, but they should never forget that another important element of anime is to provide entertainments. Fortunately, only several episodes in the middle suffers the problem. As a whole, this is still quite an exceptional anime.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 90 (Pretty good)

Comedy: 86 (Interesting)

Action: 91 (Jumping, flying, etc.)

Art/Animation: 90 (Very good)

Sound/Music: 86 (Great Music)

Character: 93 (Well designed)

Plot: 86 (Very insteresting)

Ending: 80 (Open ended)

Re-watch value: 60 (Not really necessary)

Overall: 88 - Still Somewhat Exceptional

Recommendation: I have to say, I've seen better stories by Type-Moon. But even being sub-standard for them, this is still a very good anime. I would put it at the end of the "must-watch" list.

[Ended] Valkyria Chronicles: For Love and For Peace

Can I say that I totally predicted the ending once I saw what Alicia had turn into a while back? Because from that point on, everything in this story follows a very standard end story pattern.

The story of Valkyria Chronicles is somewhat exciting and moving. It was especially satisfying for me because they did not hesitate in killing major characters, important major characters.

However, the story itself is actually quite formulaic. I guess since it's an adaptation from the game, the anime itself can't really be blamed for it, unless they changed the story greatly from the game to the anime.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 83 (Not bad)

Comedy: 87 (Pretty good for what it had)

Action: 86 (Firing rifles...)

Art/Animation: 80 (Typical)

Sound/Music: 86 (Average)

Character: 85 (Interesting)

Plot: 86 (Somewhat formulaic)

Ending: 80 (Predictable)

Re-watch value: 60 (Not really necessary)

Overall: 84 - Standard well executed formulaic anime

Recommendation: It's a good anime, but it's a bit short from a great anime. If you've finished all the "must-watches", this would be a good one to watch next.

[Ended] Pandora Hearts: Incomplete

No, not again!!!

You know what, I'm declaring this month the month of sucky anime endings.

Following 07-Ghost and Phantom, Pandora Hearts continues on to become the next victim of bad endings. To be honest, I kind of saw it coming about two thirds of way through, because the setting of the story is way too massive and complicated to finish within the 25 episode limit.

However, despite that incomplete ending, I think this is a very well made series and I enjoyed watching it quite a bit. It has some slow moments, but like I said in the earlier posts, it's mostly due to the level of complexity of the story, not bad directing or screen writing.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 85 (Very much)

Comedy: 90 (Pretty good for what it had)

Action: 86 (Some are little cheesy, but most are good)

Art/Animation: 90 (Very nice)

Sound/Music: 93 (Love the theme song and BGM)

Character: 88 (Flawed, but interesting)

Plot: 88 (Too ambitious)

Ending: 70 (Incomplete)

Re-watch value: 60 (Not really necessary)

Overall: 88 - Hope there's a second season

Recommendation: Incomplete anime like this may annoying many people. But overall, this is a quite brilliant story.

[Ended] Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~: Unexplained

Is it just me or so many animes finishing this month has unexplained ending events?! I was fine with how they ended this series up till the point the carriage rolled by. What the hell happened?! I hate ending like that, especially when it's obvious that it is highly unlikely to build a sequel upon that.

While the ending is a bit irritating, overall, I think it's quite an interesting story. Although certain part of the story is just too far-fetched to be true, the story as a whole kept itself in a semi-believable realm. Because certain part of the story is just too slow moving, you would need some patience to be able to stay with its pace.

Oh, one more thing, I don't think certain person in this series couldn't have grown that much in only two years.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 91 (All over the place)

Comedy: N/A

Action: 82 (There are good ones, there are cheesy ones)

Art/Animation: 90 (Very nice)

Sound/Music: 88 (Nice BGM)

Character: 85 (Depth, but somewhat unrealistic)

Plot: 88 (Interesting)

Ending: 71 (Unexplained)

Re-watch value: 60 (Too slow to watch all over again)

Overall: 89 - I wish they had explained the ending...

Recommendation: Aside from the unexplained ending, slightly far-fetched human ability, this is a relatively good series. So if the above two flaws don't bother you much, you ought to give this one a try.

[Ended] Spice and Wolf II: Continue on with the Greatness

Spice and Wold II is quite an exceptional anime. Many people would even consider it to be better than the original series. In a sense, it is. However, what the first series brought us that the second series couldn't bring is the new and refreshing feeling of an unique new anime that we've never seen before. And that was one of the major elements made the original series so great in the first place.

Having said all that, I still think this is still one great anime series. It kept all the right things from the first series, it also added some more interesting elements. Although the plot is mostly credited to the book, the execution and screen play of the anime is still quite exceptional.

One thing I wasn't quite fond of is the ending. In my opinion, it's a bit too abrupt.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 91 (All about dramas)

Comedy: 88 (Pretty good for what it has)

Action: N/A

Art/Animation: 96 (Lovely)

Sound/Music: 85 (I like the first series much better)

Character: 94 (Great depth in character development)

Plot: 88 (Somewhat moving)

Ending: 80 (Bit too abrupt)

Re-watch value: 70 (Loses the surprise factor, but would still be interesting)

Overall: 90 - Continue on with the Greatness

Recommendation: If you liked the first series, you're in for a treat. This second series has most goodness of the first series plus something more.

[Ended] Sora no Manimani: Typical

This is one of those very typical slice of life high school romantic drama comedy, nothing special, nothing exciting. I don't know why I just kept watching it.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 78 (Typical)

Comedy: 80 (Typical)

Action: N/A

Art/Animation: 75 (Typical)

Sound/Music: 80 (Average)

Character: 77 (Typical)

Plot: 78 (Typical)

Ending: 73 (Typical)

Re-watch value: 30 (Maybe to see the pretty art and bouncy boobs?)

Overall: 76 - Generic

Recommendation: Unless you've never seen a generic anime, my recommendation woud be "no".

[Ended] 07-Ghost: Ha?!!!!

Are you kidding me?! What kind of crappy ending is that?!!! No resolution, no explanation, this is an epic fail ending. This ought to be the worst ending I've seen lately. Literally, it left everything, I mean everything hanging. They either have already planned for a sequel or this anime is just a huge campaign for boosting its manga sale. Either way, this ending blows.

There has been multiple times that I almost dropped this series due to the slow moving plot. However, it's like it knows where my limit is, and every time I got fed up with it, it gives me a little more "bait" to lure me to stay with it for just a little longer. Now I really wish I had dropped it.

There isn't an ending, but there is a fight that they probably wanted to be the "final battle". In my opinion, it's very typical "unlimited power-up" and "boss vs boss" style battle. And guess what? They ended battle just as bad as they ended the series. So this anime is really just a series of premature endings. Terrible.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 83 (Slow feeding)

Comedy: N/A

Action: 90 (Not too bad)

Art/Animation: 88 (Very interesting chibi style)

Sound/Music: 88 (Nice music)

Character: 85 (Slowly developed)

Plot: 81 (Somewhat interesting)

Ending: 50 (FAIL!)

Re-watch value: 40 (To be disappointed again?! Never)

Overall: 71 - The Ending Killed It...

Recommendation: With a crappy ending like this, I wouldn't recommend this to anybody. However, if you intend to read the manga anyway, this may be a good supplement for your manga reading.

[Ended] Geijutsuka Art Design Class: Fun and Educational

This is one unique anime about art design. It mixes random fun short stories with some art knowledge. It's like a complete copy of Lucky Star but with art design instead of pop culture as the general background. It is indeed a very intriguing anime.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 88 (Random)

Comedy: 90 (Quite fun)

Action: N/A

Art/Animation: 90 (Very interesting chibi style)

Sound/Music: 85 (Also pretty interesting)

Character: 88 (Unique)

Plot: N/A

Ending: N/A

Re-watch value: N/A

Overall: 89 - Very interesting four-panel style anime

Recommendation: Generally, four-panel style anime doesn't have much of a plot nor is anything exciting. But it usually tend to reflect the current pop culture that you can refer to. Depending on how many anime are on your plate, you may make a good addition to your list.

[Preview] October 2009 Anime Season Preview

It's a little late, but it's better than never. Here is the preview of October 2009 new anime season. Maybe it's the global economic downturn, this October season is significantly smaller than usual. On top of that, I'm not seeing many exciting new animes either. Oh, well, we'll see how it is when they're out.



Asura Cryin' 2
http://www.starchild.co.jp/special/asura/

Continuation of the first series.

Forecast: If you have seen the first series, you would want to see this since the first one didn't really end at all.



Darkder than Black Ryusei no Gemini
http://www.d-black.net/

Oh the long awaited Darker Than Black sequel.

Forecast: It's Darker Than Black, what do you think?


Fairy Tail
http://kc.kodansha.co.jp/fairytail/

Story about a kid who is part of the greatest mage guild, Fairy Tail.

Forecast: Standard fantasy story, could be interesting...


Kaidan Restaurant
http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/kaidan_restaurant/

A kid's anime about a "thriller restaurant".

Forecast: Kid's anime...


Kimi ni Todoke
http://myanimelist.net/anime/6045/Kimi_ni_Todoke

Story of a shy and unpopular girl and a popular guy. Typical shoujo story.

Forecast: Shoujo anime is always unpredictable...


Kobato
http://www.kobato.tv/top.html

A girl who goes around gather people's suffering into a bottle.

Forecast: Sounds somewhat like Natsume Yuujinchou, could be very moving...



Kotatsu Neko

A story about two cats and their owner. Couldn't find much info on the Internet.

Forecast: Not enough intell, can't tell...



Kuchu Buranko
http://www.kuchu-buranko.com/

Story about a psychiatrist, whose behavior is quite strange.

Forecast: It looks...trippy


Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Purezza
http://www.nogizaka-haruka.com/

The second season of Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu. Although I wasn't too impressed with the firest season, it's still an above average anime.

Forecast: Probably just another above average anime...


Queen's Blade: Gyokuza no Tsugumono
http://queensblade.tv/

Did you ever think that there could be no broadcast anime that is worse than Queen's Blade in terms of lewd content? Well, you're wrong. Just go to the new Queen's Blade's website and take a look at the preview of the new series. You will be amused.

Forecast: Ahhhhhhhh......


Sasamekikoto
http://www.sasameki.com/

Another high school yuri story. Is it just me or the art style looks extremely like Aoi Hana?

Forecast: I'd give it an episode or two...


Seiken no Blacksmith
http://www.blasmi.com/

Fantasy story about someone trying to find a blacksmith to fix his legendary sword.

Forecast: Might be good...


Seitokai no Ichizon
http://anime.webnt.jp/seitokai/index.html

I've read a little bit the manga it's based on. It's about a student council in high school. The art style in the anime makes the character look more childish than the manga.

Forecast: Looks cute, we'll see...


Shin Koihime Musou
http://www.mmv.co.jp/special/koihime/

Another Koihime Musou anime, let's see how bad this one gets...

Forecast: Very interested to see how much more destruction they can do to The Romance of Three Kingdoms.



Sora no Otoshimono
http://anime.webnt.jp/soraoto/

Some guy been dreaming a girl asking for help. One day, some strange anime fell out of the sky and his life is forever changed.

Forecast: Totally not sure...


Tatakau Shisho - The Book of Bantorra
http://www.bantorra.com/

All I can find is that it's a story about wars fought over library.

Forecast: Unknown...



Tegamibachi
http://www.tegamibachi.com/

Story about a government delivery boy?!

Forecast: Mediocre at best, the art work looks somewhat strange...


Toaru Kagaku no Railgun
http://www.project-railgun.net/index.html

Spin-off of To Aru Majutsu no Index, which focuses on the story of the railgun girl.

Forecast: Could be good, but I wouldn't count on it consider how disappointed I was with Index...

[Ended] Princess Lover: Love, Courage, and Friendship

I ranted on for quite a bit in the October top 5 post, so I'm not going to repeat all that again here.

This is a story about love, courage, and friendship (find me a harem anime that isn't). Since I've talked down so much about it previously, this time I'd like to praise the somewhat unique style and beautiful art work of this series. Though the plot still suffers shortfalls that most harem animes do, and it's just as formulaic as ever, I would agree this is very well made in terms of quality. That's as much praise as it'll ever get from me.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 81 (Ups and downs)

Comedy: 80 (Not bad for what it has)

Action: 80 (Somewhat cheesy)

Art/Animation: 93 (Very pretty)

Sound/Music: 85 (Average)

Character: 81 (Standard harem characters)

Plot: 78 (Standard harem plot)

Ending: 73 (Highly preditable)

Re-watch value: 60 (Maybe to see the pretty art and bouncy boobs?)

Overall: 83 - Not bad for a harem anime

Recommendation: If you know what to expect out of a harem anime, you'd be pretty satisfied with this. In terms of harem anime, this is pretty good.

[Ended] Tokyo Magnitude 8.0: Sentimental

I have to say, judging from the first two thirds of the story, I never thought it would have an ending like this. Being a person who likes surprises, specially bad ones, I quite enjoyed the story. (I guess "enjoy" isn't quite the right word here since nothing in this series is joyful)

The story follows the events of three people that happened to be together when disasters happened. The events around them in turn reflected the bigger picture about how society as a whole were reacting to a huge natural disaster like that.

This story really doesn't have an ending. Or you may call it has a "soft" ending. Stories like this really aren't meant to have a hard ending like most other stories. So I wouldn't hold it against it.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 87 (Somewhat dramatic)

Comedy: N/A

Action: 81 (Some, not it's focus)

Art/Animation: 80 (Nothing special)

Sound/Music: 86 (Nothing too special)

Character: 89 (Depth)

Plot: 90 (What you would expect out of a disaster story)

Ending: 90 ("Soft" ending)

Re-watch value: 60 (Loses the surprise factor, but I think it's still somewhat moving)

Overall: 88 - Pretty good for a disaster story

Recommendation: I wouldn't tag this one as a "must watch" anime. But if you just want an escape from the craziness of what a normal anime is, this is a quite refreshing story of lives of normal people.

[Ended] Aoi Hana: Plain

This is one of those animes that after I finished watching, I would ask myself: "Why did I keep watching this?"

It's a gentle story about love and friendship. There's nothing wrong with that. But in my opinion, it's a bit too "gentle", which in turn makes it flat and plain.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 85 (Girl drama, more specifically, Yuri drama)

Comedy: N/A

Action: N/A

Art/Animation: 89 (Very interesting watercolor feel)

Sound/Music: 80 (Not much impression)

Character: 77 (Little depth, but not much)

Plot: 73 (Very flat)

Ending: 70 (Plain)

Re-watch value: 20 (Why would you ever)

Overall: 77 - Plain

Recommendation: For most people, if you don't watch this anime, you would miss nothing.

[End] Shangri-La: Flawed

Mixing scifi and fantasy is pretty popular for anime stories. Unfortunately, not many are well executed. In the case of Shangri-La, I think it's a somewhat brilliant plot got dragged under by a flawed concept with a flawed execution.

For one, it seems that certain aspects of the story is just too unrealistic. The measurement they took to stop the vibration of ATLAS, I don't believe that any civilized country would ever allow such a thing to happen for this reason. Are they trying to say that Japan would eventually become uncivilized like that when problems like global warming arises?! That's just a bit too hard to believe.

Then there's that final battle. Jump, dodge, throw, flash, bang, bang, we won! What the hell was that?!! Did they run out of budget making this last episode or what? This ought to be the worst final fight I've seen lately.

SciFi and fantasy could be a good mix, but this is definitely not one of them. However, if you could shut off some common sense, the story becomes somewhat acceptable. In fact, I think certain part of the grand plot was quite brilliant if certain stupid plot devices didn't exist.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 83 (Jittery)

Comedy: 80 (Not that good)

Action: 83 (The final fight is terrible)

Art/Animation: 80 (Average at best)

Sound/Music: 90 (Not bad)

Character: 86 (Depth and variety)

Plot: 86 (Interesting plot, flawed concept)

Ending: 76 (Terrible final fight)

Re-watch value: 60 (Once is enough)

Overall: 80 - So so

Recommendation: This is a classic case of flaw concepts and executions ruined an otherwise brilliant plot. Very wasteful. It's hard for me to recommend this to average viewer. But if you are the type of people who can easily shut off your common sense (or don't have any :-) you might actually enjoy this story.

I was hoping this series could earn GONZO a little star. But instead, they just got one more strike from it. Oh well, GONZO just has to earn back my respect some other time.

Basquash: High Intensity

Currently finished: Episode 23

There may have been some slow parts in the middle, but right now it is more exciting than ever. People who hung around with this series are now getting some well deserved excitements. With only three episodes left to go, I think it has enough time and potential to wrap up quite nicely.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0: Wow

Currently finished: Episode 10

I have to say I was a bit stunned about the development in episode 10. Come to think of it, there has been enough of foreshadowing in this episode and previous episode about what would ultimately happen. I guess in the back of my head, I just didn't believe that they would actually do it. And when they did do what I ultimately wanted to see, I was surprised. With only one episode left to go, I'm really interested to see how they would wrap it up.

I guess I should stop talking about it now, otherwise I might accidentally spoil some important plot.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Huh?

Currently finished: Episode 11

Yes, yes, my blog has been extra quiet lately. That's not because I've been slacking off. In fact, I've been spending more time daily watching anime than I had for last a couple of month. Because it's a season ending month, I'll need to catch up with everything so I can write series ending reviews. On top of that, someone just recommended a whole bunch of mangas for me to read, add that to the list of mangas I'm already reading, I literally don't have time to do anything else any more. Only if I can stop time... Anyway, before I digress any further, here is something I would like to say about Umineko no Naku Koro ni:

If you think it took long time for Higurashi no Naku Koroni to make sense, I can tell you that Umineko is worse. While the sub story is somewhat clearer than those in Higurashi, I'm at a complete loss when it comes determining the direction of where the big picture is heading. I guess that's partly why these series has been so interesting, because you see the clues, but you don't see where the clues leads you. However, these little things in Umineko have been a lot more irritating than those in Higurashi have been. Ultimately, I hope it is getting somewhere soon, because I'm running pretty low on patience. And according to many major anime sites reviews and polls, there are quite some people that have already ran out of patience.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0: The Essense of Disaster Story

Currently finished: Episode 9

In a natural disaster story like this, I was kind of expecting a bit more moving moments than what they have presented. Although the outcome was highly predictable, it does fill in the role of giving this story a dose of much needed and long overdue emotion. In my opinion, this should be the core of which a good disaster story build around.

While I normally prefer to see tragedies because they bring out much wider range of human emotions than any happy story could ever do, I could not bring myself to wish for something bad to happen in a disaster story. It just doesn't feel right. The only other anime has ever done that to me was Maria-sama ga Miteru.

[Poll] The Result of July Top 5

Even though there's no way my little poll represents the anime community as a whole, the result of this season's top 5 poll seems to agree with ratings I found from other more respectable sources. While the result is somewhat as I expected, there are something I'm not quite understanding. So let's just take a quick look at the top 5:

Spice and Wolf II being the undisputed winner of the popularity contest is something I've predicted. Who doesn't like the cute and wise wolf deity?

Bakemonogatari being the second is also quite understandable as well, consider it is the best anime from July season quality-wise. The only thing is that you need to be able to cope with is the weirdness and violence. Sometime they do turn people away...

Then there's the close third place, Princess Lover. Honestly, I'm a bit baffled why it has gotten this high on the poll.

True Princess Lover is a good anime. But is it good enough to hold the third place among all series that came out this season? I don't think so. In my opinion, Princess Lover is a well made harem anime. But harem anime is a harem anime. There's no way for it to get away from its formulaic nature. It may throw a twist here and there in the middle, but it doesn't matter how hard they try, it's next to impossible to get a plot or ending that isn't part of the well known and predictable formula.

CANAAN, who managed to outrank Umineko no Naku Koro ni, held the fourth place. Though I still have hope for CANAAN, I have to say the current state of CANAAN is mediocre at best. They need to do a lot more than what they have right now to make it great.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni, I'm glad to see it's still hanging in the top five. It has been somewhat a roller coaster ride. I think the reason it has fallen back so far is due to not live up to audiences' expectation. But since it's a 26 episode series instead of a 13 episode series as it was reported originally, I think there are still quite some time left for it to improve and redeem itself.

Shangri-La: Aha!

Currently finished: Episode 22

While there are still some loose ends, the final piece of the core puzzle has been revealed. I have to say this is a very interesting setup. While it did take quite some time to put everything together, I think it was worth the wait. From this point on, I think everything is going to be somewhat predictable, because everything seems to be on the route to be a classic ending routine. But you never know, they still might throw one last curve ball at us. We'll see...

Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood: On Its Own Course

Currently finished: Episode 21

In the beginning, this new series seems to be on the same course as the same series, except with 2x speed. Slowly, the story itself start to deviate from the course set by the previous one. Especially with what happened in last three episodes, this is now a completely a different story.

Supposedly this new series is more true to the story laid out by the manga. However, someone told me that this too is quite far from the manga. Since I've never read the manga, there is really no way for me to tell. I guess I would just queue it up in my endless to-read list and get back on this when I do finish reading it...

While no one seems to know how many episodes are there in this series, everything that has been happening in the last couple of episodes looks like a beginning of the final showdown. Because of the way they laid out the story, it has much fewer loose ends to tie up than the original series. It would not surprise me if they finish it by episode 26.

Valkyria Chronicles: Alicia, Alicia, Alicia...

Currently finished: Episode 21

"Alicia, Alicia, Alicia..."

Ahhhhhh, make it stop. It feels like it's going on forever. Is it really necessary to do that so many times? After the first 10 time, we got the point, there is really no need to repeat it for another 20 times or so.

Though it didn't last too long (well, I guess if you follow it week by week, it did take a week for people to find out), it was a pretty clever setup at the end of last episode to intentionally mislead the audience onto a different direction. In most story, I would immediately dismiss the event at the end of episode 20, because I know a "normal" story would not go down like that. However, because of what happened in episode 18, it did make me wonder a little bit about whether they're really going to actually let that happen.

Confused? Watch up to episode 21, you'll understand what I'm talking about. Or, if you so desire, go read anime blog sites that do spoil the plots.

One other thing I would like to comment on is that I think they went a bit overboard on the aerobatics. It felt somewhat...misplaced...

Bakemonogatari: Implicitly Creepy

Currently finished: Episode 8

There are many ways to present horror to audiences, but mainly they fall into two categories: implicit and explicit.

An explicit horror in my opinion are quite easy to make because all you need to do is to make something pop out and let the audience "jump". I consider explicit horror as "cheap" horror.

On the other hand, an implicit horror, in my opinion, is a much more difficult thing to accomplish: All contributing factors of a story have to all work well together to create an environment that isn't heavily relying on the visual and audio effects to send chills down the audiences' spines. Instead of using image, it uses audience's own imagination to create the horror effect.

Bakemonogatari is very much a story that uses implicit horror. In fact, it feels very much like a light version of Mononoke that doesn't have the crazy visual effect to help out. It was so well made that a rather simple form of visual effect sent quite a chill down my spine. This is the best type of horror I love.

I think this is the special element I was looking for. With this, I'm going to hand it the award

Anime of the Season for July 2009 Season

[News Flash] A.D.Vision and ADV Films

While browsing around AnimeNewsNetwork, I ran across an article about US anime distributor A.D.Vision in their front page headlines.

If you're too lazy to read the full article and those related to that articles, I'll sum it up for you real quick here (This is merely my understanding of the situation, don't quote me on anything I said here as reliable reference, it could be completely wrong):

In 2007 A.D.Vision (parent company of ADV Films) went into partnership with Japanese company. A year later, the partnership broke-up, and A.D.Vision got the short end of the stick, causing most of the licensed titles acquired by A.D.Vision during 2007 such as Air, Kanon, Tokyo Majin to be transferred to Funimation, which triggered an inventory clearance sale for many anime retailers (which I personally took advantage of, sales! yeah...).

The Bigger problem is that once A.D.Vision's partner from that deal are now hostile towards them but still holds significant amount of stakes of the company. The company's future seems doomed. However, through some clever business maneuver, it seems that the founder and owner of A.D.Vision managed to transfer all the asset of ADV Films out of the hostile environment to new business entities that many suspect are made up of original A.D.Vision's owner and management.

So, that's the short summary about the story of ADV Films. Again, this is only my understanding of collected rumors and facts, I could be completely wrong about it.