Anime Review Roundup

A big bumper week of anime reviews for you, just two more UK release titles after this to round off 2014. First up was Blast of Tempest Part 2, which had a fair bit of ground to make up in my estimation after the conclusion of Part 1. Its strong Shakespearean influences were a major draw, but some weak writing towards its midpoint dragged it down. Part 2 turns out to be a significant improvement on that, but Blast of Tempest manages it by totally changing tack, embracing another genre altogether. It makes it work though.

Speaking of conclusions, it was the final (so far) instalment of Dragon Ball, and with it the final release of the Dragon Ball saga in the UK. That’s unless we get the other movies as well, and the release of Dragon Ball Kai, and then Dragon Ball Z again on Blu-ray. I’m sure Manga will proceed to milk this fan favourite cash cow, but judging by the state of the first series now that we get to Dragon Ball: Season 5, I’ll be diagnosed as lactose intolerant. I might have liked the original Dragon Ball when it started, but it turns into Dragon Ball Z for its swansong.

Then it was the turn of Space Dandy: Season 1, and all was right with the world once more. Space Dandy comes from the creators of Cowboy Bebop, and once more features the adventures of a hard-up crew on a spaceship, but Space Dandy is played purely for laughs, and with chief director Shinichiro Watanabe taking a hands off approach, letting a different creative team play with his toybox on each episode, you never know what you’re going to get from one episode to the next. The result is one of the most inventive, entertaining, mind-bending, and hilarious series out there.

I rounded off the week with the next instalment of Monogatari Season 2, Kabukimonogatari. I may not have been that impressed with the season opener, Nekomonogatari White, but with the second arc, the show gets back into gear with a gripping and entertaining time travel story. The main character in the show is back, Koyomi Araragi, and this time he spends some quality time with diminutive vampire Shinobu. The snappy dialogue is still there, the wonderful character observations, but this story has some emotion and some heart to it too. For me it’s the best Monogatari yet!