After many hours mindlessly downloading from some promising Bit Torrents over the past week or so, I finally had a chance to sit down an watch a couple. My findings:

Scrapped Princess

Scrapped Princess, as translated by the fine folks at AnimeJunkies is one of the best new anime I’ve seen in quite a while. Brought to us by the same people who made Cowboy Bebop, this show demonstates what a made-for-television animated story can do. It has a dabbling of D&D genre cliches. There are dramatic (and well-excuted) fight scenes with swords, sorcery, and the occasional giant monster. There is a hint of romance. There is a healthy dose of comedy, which instead of overriding the story actually seems to help “ground” the protagonists in their comraderie.

The story follows three characters (each of whom is multidimensional without falling into the “woe is I” angst-trap) as they alternately flee and fight the oppressive forces around them. They are faced with a prophecy which fortells that Pacifica, a naive and goodhearted 15-year-old, will destroy the world. Her adoptive brother and sister protect and guide her on a journey to who-knows-what. As the story oscillates from the tragic to the absurd and back again, they face commoners, soldiers, and priests, almost all of whom simply want to do the right thing and save the world from its fated doom at Pacifica’s hands. Scrapped Princess is exceptionally well-crafted, never lingering upon a mood or specific plot mechanism long enough to become tiresome or heavy-handed. The voice acting suits the characters well (I am not fluent in Japanese, so take that as you will). The animation is outstanding for a television series, which makes me wonder if it was exceptionally well-funded, completely done before they aired the first episode, or if something is horribly wrong with the rest of the television animation industry.

Thus far, only 13 episodes have been released, 12 of which have already made it to the fansub-consuming public in English. So far, it is leaning towards “classic” status for me. Let’s see how far they go, shall we?

Narue no Sekai

Narue no Sekai has proven to be a cute, if not-terribly remarkable romantic comedy. If features a lovable loser and a cute alien high school girl. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. I went through a handful of episodes and skipped over to some other titles. Not bad, but I don’t think I’ll be buying the DVD.

Divergence Eve

Divergence Eve was something I spotted in a recent issue of Newtype, and it looked like a somewhat-promising sci-fi epic. Alas, it’s heavy on the melodrama, melodramatically heavy on the CG spaceships and space opera catchphrases, and morbidly overdone on the boobage. It displays an Amazing Nurse Nanako aptitude for placing gigantic hooters on any female in the story that’s over 12 years old, which would be over 3/4 of the cast. I’ve only seen the first episode, so it may yet improve. The closing credits (a somewhat masturbatory “dress up the female lead” sequence that clashed in mood horribly with the melodrama) were the high point of episode one. In light of what preceded it, the credits were hilarious.

Read or Die is a very nicely-done manga and a related 3-part OVA chronicling the adventures of Yomiko Readman, superpowered secret agent for the British government. Now don’t take this to mean that she’s one of those super-cool British secret agents with a “I’m a badass” attitude and cool technology and weapons. Nope, she’s a bookworm. A socially inept recluse that works for the government to enable her reading habits. Her superpower consists entirely of an affinity with paper, hence her codename “The Paper.” She can do just about anything with paper, able to use it as a weapon, shield, vehicle, and multipurpose powertool as need be. Rather neato.

The OVA is definitely of a far more mature and sober nature than the rather silly comic, with far more drama and much less comic relief, but I highly recommend both.

I’ve been reading the Read or Die manga, courtesy of the kind folks at mangaproject.cjb.net and I had the pleasure of seeing a fansub of the animated version.

Rely upon the fansub no longer, and support this super-plus-excellent work by buying the commercial DVD.

A little bit late in the game I picked up on a fansub project called Tenjo Tenge. It’s a scanslation, as opposed to the typical AVI/DIVX stuff that I will post about from time to time. Along with Pretty Face, I”s, Read or Die, and Love Hina, this is one of the few manga that I’ve really enjoyed grabbing off of neferious little scanslation sites. So far I’m reasonably impressed.

I grabbed my copy from the kind folks at mangatranslation.com, and I’d like to extend my appreciation for their hard work in bringing this kung-fu silliness to light. In subject matter, Tenjo Tenge is rather similar to Real Bout High School (a high school/academy where all the students rigorously study martial arts and kung-fu-fight each other all the time).

As with Real Bout High School there is an ample helping of fanservice in just about every issue, but unlike RBHS there’s a bit more deep of a background story, with issues of loyalty, love, betrayal, and fate all mixing together to create an enjoyable story. The extended flashback in which the backstory is revealed takes up over half of what I’ve read so far, and is definately more interesting than the muscle-flexing and predictable love-triangle (actually there are about six people involed, so it’s a love hexangle or somesuch).

Also unlike Real Bout High School, I’m pretty sure this title will never see the light of day in the US English commercial market due to some very adult (not just naughty, but actually “adult” in a sometimes disturbing way) content.

So far, I’d give it an B+. It would have done better, but the constant reliance upon fanservice and the unlikable “main character” just don’t impress me too much. Perhaps I’ll upgrade this after further reading. I have presently completed 47 chapters, and do not know how long the series runs.