I read GITS 2: Man-Machine Interface, and found it to be painfully bad. So I have been thrilled with Stand Alone Complex :) It's got almost everything that I like in anime.

Two stand-out episodes:

Testation where a multiped breaks out from the military testing complex and, driven by the mind of its designer, heads straight for his parents house. A really strong SF story with a nice emotional twist.

Tachikoma Runaway, actually only half of an episode, but it's a really sweet story about a Tachikoma helping a little girl find her dog.

GITS: Stand Alone Complex
Noir
Excel Saga

:)

I really missed a trick in not mentioning these for Christmas. Ho hum.

ive just finished watching last exile which i thought was magic and am now watching wolfs rain,there are so many titles comming out now its hard to keep track of them all,any recomendations people :D

Yesterday I watched/bought 'Kai Doh Maru'' and I'm not entirely sure what to think of it. It looks stunning and there is a good pace to it. But there is so much wrong with it. It keeps cutting to a dark screen (fading out only it stays black for ages) in the middle of a scene. Very annoying. The voice acting is okay but it causes for bad storytelling at times. And being that it was created by those of whom made ''Blood...'' it's really short! So while it's extremely weird in places it just doesn't cut the mustard.

*Warning* The trailer makes it look unbelievably cool but just don't build your hopes up like I did...sigh. Still Average though. And has some violent action.

thinking of buying gungrave,full metal alchemist and planets are they any good,need help deciding how to spend my xmas cash.

Helps if you say what kind of stuff you like... I love Fullmetal Alchemist, for example, but you might not.

my faves are macross plus,orguss o2,last exile,vampire hunter d,akira,ninja scrolland wolfs rain at the moment.

Full Metal Alchemist is well worth a look. I wasn't so impressed with Gungrave, the first episode is pretty cool but it seemed a bit slow thereafter. I haven't watched any of the other volumes beyond the first one, but I gather it does get better (one day I'll watch the rest, but there are other things that are just a tad more compelling for me right now). As for Planetes, I haven't seen it since it was our freelancer Andrew who reviewed it, but he was impressed by it.

I'd also recommend Trigun to you, it'd probably be right up your street :)

cheers for the advice leah,will give trigun a go :lol:

Rewatching the new Appleseed movie. The good one. No, scratch that, the great one.

Watched "Whisper Of The Heart" last night, and now I can't stop humming "Take Me Home, Country Road" :evil:

Though you don't expect to see the name "Olivia Newton-John" appear in Japanese Credits

I am currently (as in, right now, at this moment) watching Elfen Lied for review purposes. I'd only seen bits and pieces of it before. I knew it was violent and nasty, but now I'm watching it properly... holy crap! And that's just based on the first two episodes!

How are you going to sleep tonight!!!!!!

With one eye open. Clutching my pillow tight. Possibly ;)

I've just finished off School Rumble and the 2 OVA episodes.

Aah, SR, how I've missed thee. Roll on spring.

Despite my incredibly limited Japanese, I've been watching a lot of RAW streamed stuff direct off the BandaiChannel and ShowTime.co.jp because all the stuff I used to watch subbed is about to come out on DVD.

Currently I'm following Eureka Seven: Psalms of the Planets (whilst waiting for the gorgeous boxed set release) and Noein: Mou Hitori no Kimi e (very plot and character driven sci-fi!). Of course I'm also watching Monster still (on Leah's recommendation from some time last year)...

currently watching Chobits part 2, a boy finds a Robot type story...well that's what i'm getting so far. I don't know if Dogtanian trually counts as anime as i'm watching that too

Im just watching Outlaw Star at the moment. Will also be starting to watch Fullmetal Alchemist tomorrow with a mate as ive never seen it and keep getting it recommended.

I Am currently Watching (and Reading) D.N.Angel. for those not in thw know DNAngel is the story of Daisuke Niwa an ordinay 14 year old boy. who just happens to have a "condition" that makes him change into the legendary phantom theif Dark whenever he thinks about his first love Risa Harada. the story mostly revolves around Daisuke having to transform into dark and steal painting and other peices of magical art. the Anime (and manga) both follow diffrent arcs with the areaarence of Dark's Nemesis Krad apearing in the 2nd volume of the anime (but appearing in the 5th volume of the Manga). i'm not watching anything else at the moment. I need to go shopping

I'm currently watching:

Bleach
Full Metal Alchemist
D.N. Angel
Cowboy Bebop

Well, I'm about to watch something called Haibane-Renmai from my boxset bought at The Works. Looks interesting.

The last few weeks has seen me work my way through volumes 1 of Paranoia Agent, Serial Experimants Lain, Chobits and Lunar Legend Tsukihime, all of which I want to continue watching!

'Haibane Renmei' is amazing. *_*

I'm not watching much currently. I'm kinda in and out of 'Bible Black' whenever I get a really dull evening. XD I do have a lot of stuff to watch though. Who knows? Maybe I'll finally listen to Leah's nagging and start watching 'Monster'. ;)

Do it do it do it do it do it!!! :D

I just recently finished watching the Paradise Kiss animated series.

Haven't watched much else lately.

I just bought and have finished watching Rayearth. Wt can i say, you gotta love those giant monster battles

Currently watching BubbleGum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 and a DVD a friend in the states sent me of the Viewtiful Joe series. both surprisingly good.

Started watching Naruto again from the beginning. |

I'm currently watching Legend Of The Galactic Heroes, a large space-opera epic series, and Sakura Wars TV.

I've rebelled. I'm watching 'Bleach'. It's not exactly groundbreaking, but it's entertaining enough for now. ^_^

I just started watching something called Gag Manga Biyori. It's weird and terrifying but it has the BEST ENDING SONG EVER for karaoke-based fun. Well, after Excel Saga, that is.

Bleach is great. It's my current fav anime. It's in a filler arc at the minute but it's going back to the manga soon so I'm happy. :D

What episode are you on?

I watched something the other night called Bincho-tan. It's the most soporific anime I've ever seen.

And not in a good way.

I'm cosplaying one of the filler arc characters in a few weeks, you know... :)

Just finished watching the entire lot of Evangelion, including the movies, which were crap. Right now I'm just starting to re-watch Digimon Adventure, Ahh, the nostalgia of my school days...WHY DON'T THEY RELEASE A SUB. VERSION??! :evil:

Same with you brother Saffron! Digimon: qualty! Not like Yu Gi Oh or Other stuff! Proper hiue monster vs. another huge monster with a bunch of kids involved in between! :D

Okay back on topic: Recently i whatched "Porco Rosso". THAT was brilliant (as is all of mr Miyazaki's work), really animation experience Everything is SO good, i'd recommend it to anyone! Although there was no review in last month's SFX! Miss Holmes, you are slipping up a bit!! :wink:

Cool! :P The girl who always laughs then? XD

The last episode was pretty funny in the filler though. I think that Ishida is kinda like the "Velma" of the group nowadays.

I agree that Porco Rosso is a magnificent film on so many levels - I saw it in my teens with the old Troma dub and thought it was wonderful. I decided not to have a review of it in the issue, though, because it's not really sci-fi or fantasy. Apart from the curse that has turned Marco's head into that of a pig, which is never really discussed and plays almost no part in the plot of the film, it's much more of a wartime action/romcom. Pom Poko - which I'll actually confess to having not enjoyed much at all - fitted the bill much better.

What's going to be really annoying for the next few issues is that unless I get some more space for anime reviews, we're going to miss out on carrying reviews of a lot of new releases. Pretty much everyone who's currently distributing anime in the UK has a few new releases out throughout March and April, and it's difficult to decide which ones to take and which ones to cut.

I'm determined to cover everything we can though, simply because anime is no less worthy of coverage than films, DVDs or books, so there'll be a lot of website-exclusive reviews coming up...

Oh! Can't wait for that! More anime and manga!! (now if we could only do the same with the bookstores and DVD shops.....) :wink:

Well with all these recommendations I'm gonna get Paranoia Agent today. Saw Howl's Moving Castle recently and didn't like it, even though it's Ghibli. Watched Gasaraki and Naruto a lot recently, and have one eye on Bleach, although I find the story confusing (I'm a bit simple maybe).

Has anyone seen Serial Experiments Lian?? Its prety cool but quit... not scary, but more unsettling to watch. Love the intro music to it. I think sfx reveiwed it a while back. ( Thinking of watch cowboy beebop next. The film was cool so might have to see what Spike and the gang do next.)