For a while the site has kept a small but respectable collection of anime and anime-related goodness including xxxHolic, Death Note, Bleach and (as baffling a choice as it may be) The Slayers, which has been a godsend to external hard-drives everywhere.
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Anime News :: Hulu Features Voltron and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Anime Review :: Read or Die [OVA]
Language – English Dub
Run – 3 Episodes [2001]
Genre – Fantasy / Adventure. Boobs & ...Books?
Having fun with the usual genre boundaries of anime is a difficult task. A narrow line walked gracefully by Jing: King of the Bandits, or to a lesser degree even Gunsmith Cats, but Read or Die’s kitsch wears paper-thin (ha!) quickly and spends three thirty-minute-ish installments clumsily trying to decide how serious or whimsical it wants to be. All while still managing to occasionally stop along the way for the sake of pandering to daydreamers and horny teenagers alike.
Our heroine on this spin through a wontubulous world of books and evil clones is Yomiko Readman (yes, really,) a special agent codenamed "The Paper" working for the British Library's Special Operations Division (yes, really,) who’s special ability is a type of telekinesis involving paper or paper-related products. She’s a quiet, forgetful, polite Japanese girl with an affinity-going-on-obsession for books, who soon finds herself paired with the no-nonsense femme fatale “Miss Deep” Nancy Makuhari (what were the odds!)
I really have no problem with pulp. Give me any standard hero’s journey with a predictable outcome and I’ll be more than glad to snatch out the good parts and take it at face value, but Read or Die seems too haphazard in its attempts to come off unique that it’s difficult to distinguish if it’s coming or going at any given moment. What elements were meticulously planned out and which were simply drawn at random via a dartboard with words on it.
Being an escapist fantasy series with an implausibly one-dimensional character in Agent Drake, the tough-talkin' American who doesn't care one bit for guff, doesn’t help matters, nor do the really uncomfortable lipstick-lesbian undertones (I didn’t realize such a thing could even exist) and unnecessary chest-rubs in an otherwise wholesome story. Read or Die suffers from some severe identity issues.
Still, there are some high notes hit over 100-or-so minutes. Most notably, the score is one of the best I’ve heard in some time, going well out of its way to capture excitement and whimsy even when the story isn’t holding up its end of the bargain. Also, for my teasing earlier, the literary references are cute and not done with such frequency that they ever get irritating. Ultimately, though, neither are enough to let the well-meaning series shine.
Anime Review :: Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage
Language – English Dub
Run – 12 Episodes [2006]
Genre – Action. Modern Pirates. Boobs & Guns
The second installment of the Rei Hiroe-penned and Sunao Katabuchi-directed Black Lagoon series manages to pack equal parts Ranma 1/2-style goof-assery as well as a surprising amount of depth and thrills. This time around utilizing an ensemble cast of characters (most of whom only made brief appearances in season one) to even out the stories with a far greater focus on the lore and landscape of Roanapur Island.
The Second Barrage is broken down into three story arcs. Which, for the sake of naming, we’ll call "The Vampire Twins," "The Roanapur Counterfeiting Clusterfuck," and "Hotel Moscow Vs. Japan," each of which come with their own distinctive style and flow, with progressively more enjoyable results. 
"The Roanapur Counterfeiting Clusterfuck" is where the unbridled silliness comes in, bringing back most every head-hunter, C-character, and general bad-dude from season one, and throwing in a couple of even more ridiculous editions to boot. Think the parade-chase scene from Ranma ½: The Movie, only with more bullets and swearing. Every notable gangster (and a handful of faceless bullet catchers), as well as our old pal Shenhua ("Chinglish") winds up on the hunt for The Lagoon Company’s newest client. Wackiness ensues. 
With the characters beginning to flourish, and Lagoon setting up more roots for the long haul (Season 3 is on the way,) Second Barrage is a clear departure from the "kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out" feel of season one, which plays slightly against it’s strengths, but does make some positive strides to lay the groundwork for more adventures to come.
For all the surprises that season two brings with it, the biggest is how comfortable it’s able to make itself as a semi-serious drama, giving Revy a chance to care for other people without falling into the clichéd world of "killers with a heart of gold" and Balalaika to prove herself quite the frightening motherfucker.
The gore is dialed up slightly and the dialogue isn't quite as slick, and while you won’t find nearly the amount of explosion-based payoffs, the story is far more focused and delivered with a much steadier hand.
While I started iffy on the series and wrote it off as a trite (but very enjoyable) action mess, over 24 episodes and whatever number of misadventures that amounts to, I'm now anxiously looking forward to meeting back up with Revy, Rock, and the crew in the next installment.
Anime News :: Miyazaki's "Ponyo" English Trailer Hits Interwebs
As the anime-god's newest assumed masterpiece gets ready to hit state-side, Disney lines up Matt Damon, Liam Neeson, Tina Fey, and the recently in-vogue Betty White to spin a new tale about the magic of nature and ooze-men.
Anime Review :: Black Lagoon: The First Barrage
Language – English Dub
Run – 12 Episodes [2006]
Genre – Action. Modern Pirates. Boobs & Guns
I am hopelessly devoted to explosions and swearing. Sure, at the end of the day my true loves in life may be slow-burning, thought-provoking travels into the soul, but, it’s hard to deny the sheer joy of a good pistol-whipping at the hands of a foul-mouthed, scantily-clad anime gal with an unreasonably mysterious past.
Substance isn’t exactly a strong-suit of Rei Hiroe’s Black Lagoon. But, honestly who needs substance when things explode.
Black Lagoon: The First Barrage, set in the 1990’s, focuses on the story of The Lagoon Company, a group of loveable smugglers working the high seas of Southeast Asia, and their adventures involving newest kidnapee-turned-recruit Rokuro Okajima. After a classic wrong-place-wrong-time for Rokuro, who’s taken along with a set of classified documents that you wouldn’t expect to be left with a low-level, unarmed company guy, he’s taken onboard by Lagoon after proving himself as a strategic thinker, business asset, and all-around swell fella.
The cast is rounded out by Dutch, the cool-headed gigantic black ex-marine leader of the team, token computer nerd Benny, and Revy, the resident murderous bipolor lunatic who graces most of the series promotional artwork and eats up most of the screen time.
(Benny, Benny's Orange Shirt, Rock, Revy, Dutch)For a series well known for its violence and adult content, it’s actually quite tame outside of the fierce language. With only one notable appearance of boobins and most of Revy’s samurai-like entire-army-killing sprees obscured by smoke, shadows, or camera pans, it’s the sort of violence that’s easy to take if you’re the sort of person who doesn’t stomach it easily. Something that was a wise choice in maintaining the action sequences “oh shit” factors while never becoming a big bloody distraction.
The English dialogue flows remarkably considering its lack of content, mostly filled with quick insults, yelling, and obtuse observations to pull the story along behind the trail of gunsmoke, cigarette butts, and cold bodies. The bad guys always explain their motives at length and the good guys normally wrap everything up in a tight package before the one-to-two-episode arcs finish up. The small plot pay-offs come in the interaction with Revy and Rock who jump from deploring eachother to being bros on an almost daily basis while Dutch shows up for hacky-cool one-liners and Benny stands in the background entirely forgotten were it not for his tacky orange shirt.
Still, there’s enough chair-jump moments and fist-pumps to keep you wanting a little more with each installment and the 12 episodes fly by in no time at all.
Clichéd low-brow action fodder at its absolute best.
Anime Review :: Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Director - Kenji Kamiyama
Language – English Dub
Run – 26 Episodes [2002-2003]
Genre – Cyberpunk. Boobs & Guns. WHOA-BOTS!
Being a huge fan of the original film from my day's as a young lad, I was reluctant to dive into what initially stuck me Ghost In The Shell: The Animated Series. I'd caught a handful of episodes on Adult Swim in random spurts and, without giving it a fair shake, came to the conclusion that I was about ankle deep into "blah blah spandex, blah blah techno, blah blah shooting shit" waters.
Years of really well produced family-oriented anime films trumping most anything action-based mixed with a really horrendous Armitage III sequel had hardened my heart to the "bullets and bitches" genre, but after the drudgery of sitting through the uncut versions of both Kite and Mezzo Forte, I figured if anyone was going to be able to single-handedly redeem how I feel about skin-tight body suits and gunfire, it was going to be Major Motoko Kusanagi.
Now for those familiar with the 1995 classic, but relatively unaware of (or disinterested in) the series, the stories take place around the same characters but in alternate continuities, and the story is a little more slick and ready-to-digest for public consumption. It is, for all intents, a pretty straight-forward crime-drama set in the same future as the original film. So, the setting itself gives Stand Alone Complex a bit of a leg up on it's often banal competition.
To clue you in on it's particularly grim (and pretty awesome) vision of the future would really require more space than is befitting a review so I'll link some supplementary information at the bottom on the philosophy of Ghost, but the gist is basically that your soul connects directly to the internet.
Stand Alone Complex (season 1, commonly referred to as "First Gig") follows the exploits of Public Security Section 9, an intelligence agency headed up by Daisuke Aramaki, a delightful and sly old man with a ridiculous haircut. It's key members: "The Major" Motoko Kusanagi, our building-jumping, fully-prosthetic lead lady; Batou, Section 9's meat-faced lead investigator; and Togusa, an all natural ex-police detective. Section 9 also involves a handful of others who get less than ten-or-so lines the entire first season, sooo we'll skip them for now.
The story-arc of the season follows the squad's investigation into a case from six years prior known as "The Laughing Man Incident" after a strange sequence of events and new information.
While The Laughing Man story arc gets a little too convoluted at times, and the season spends a little too much time trying to establish the boundaries of it's universe rather than just existing in it and forcing the audience to keep up the pace, Stand Alone Complex still not only puts most other "boobs and guns" anime series to shame (not a hard task,) it manages to keep it's pace over a full-length season and captures the imagination like you'd never expect.
Foibles aplenty, what makes Stand Alone Complex recommended reading though is where it goes next
Ah yes. ...a cliffhanger review.
Extra Reading:
Wiki: The Philosophy of Ghost in the Shell
Subs & Dubs: The Yankees and Red Sox of Unwashed Basement Dwellers.
I suppose the question of Subs versus Dubs in the world of anime isn't so much a long-time debate as a pissing contest for fanhood.
"What? You want those terribly inaccurate Dubbed pieces of crap?! You know they totally violate the integrity of the story, right?" Which, depending on the quality of the dub ranges from a slight exaggeration to blathering space-man talk.
But there is a reasonable argument to be made on behalf of those artistic nightmares, and of course I'd be please to make it. First, why Subs simply rule earth:
The theory is that dubs are often inaccurate or the western licensing companies take artistic liberties with the dialog and occasionally the story. Which, is entirely true. Many little chunks of Dialog are frequently bent slightly to help fit the animation or to simply smooth out some of the awkwardness of translation. Japanese tends to be very a literal language and Dubs are geared (of course) towards their respective English-speaking audience.
(Watch a very flattly fan-subbed Hentai film sometimes for a good laugh. If you've got some friends and want to make a drinking game out of it, do a shot any time anyone says "release" and you'll all be wasted by 22-minutes in)
There's also a world of things taken into account. What passes for normal behavior in one culture doesn't nessesarily do so in others. Some jokes would be totally lost on American audiences just as I'm sure dubbed episodes of Cheers would make for just as big of head-scratchers over there
A lot of the distaste stems from where Anime in the west had a much smaller fan base and the artistic librities were greater simply because small distributers were pushing to get a product out with as little money or time as they could. It led to a lot of pretty iffy material.
But, this is less an educational peice as it is an editorial, so enough of that. Subs, in most cases, are the truest form of the original content.
I do, always will, and always have prefered dubs for one very simple reason: I speak english.
Now, I know that seems like something someone says on a message board after getting teased, berated, or generally pwnzd after mentioning he likes dubs, but it's a valid reason. I'll be the first to admit that despite years of anime consumption and a semester of Japanese in college (that I had to withdrawl from due to... never going) my Japanese comprehension ends with "hello" "thank you" and "goodbye." Which makes it completely impossible to watch anything in japanese and acuratly gauge the voice acting.
With no understanding of the words themselves, let alone the inflection, dialect, or timing, you'd be hard pressed to understand the difference in acting talent between Marlin Brando and Pauly Shore, which is going to be the case with 90% of fans.
The subs versus dubs argument, more often than not, is really nothing more than the never-ending "I'm more indie than you" nonsense that has plauged mankind forever. Yes, from the first time one caveman asked another if he liked Animial Collective, and his friend replied "well yes, but only their early stuff" ...we've been doing this same song and dance.
Another good reason is purely an issue of watchability. Yes, I can take in a subtitled film from time to time and deticate my eyes soley to the screen, but really when I'm trying to plow through seven season of Ranma 1/2, trust me, you get the idea regardless of language it's in. Cold Water. Hot Water. Whacky Shit Happens.
Even as I write this I have Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex playing on my secondary monitor and trust me, there is nothing going on in the untranslated version that's going to deeply impact my viewing experience and reading subtitles doesn't make your soul fundimentally more pure. So the next time some poor kid is over at box-torrents asking where he can find this one dubbed, un-do your Caps Lock, take a deep breath, open your blinds and take a look at the sun outside, grab another soda and calm down.
There really are more important things to worry about.
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