Sexy Voice and Robo (manga)

Sexy Voice is quite the interesting read. It's the story of a girl, Nico Hayashi, a telephone actress (pretends to be a girl in a dating service to make guys's phone bills go up), with an attraction to adventure. She ends up getting involved with a mysterious employer, getting hired to go on cases as a detective, self-named Sexy Voice. She usualy ends up involving her most recent telephone-acting victem, Sudo (forget other name), who she, for no apparant reason, nicknames Robo. Sexy Voice is a great introduction to less-mainstream manga, as well as a title mostly anybody could enjoy. It has elements of comedy, romance, adventure, drama, and mystery; probably something for everybody in there. Nico's adventures are usualy pretty fun to read, although the stories start getting a bit darker near the end. It's only two volumes, and with its very wide appeal, I would say it's definately worth the buy. Of course, I'm not reviewing how good the buy is, but the manga it's self. Sexy Voice and Robo both are quite enjoyable characters, who get into quite enjoyable adventures; the only thing is, theres nothing that makes this manga extremely unique. Also, it doesn't really end. It's last chapter just ends like any other chapter. This manga has gotten pretty darn good reviews in other places, but as I said, I didn't see anything that really made this manga unique, just a really well done average(ish) story. Highly reccomended due to appeal, rated lower for genere.

Rating: 9.0/10
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Haibane Renmei (Anime)

Haibane Renmei is truly a masterpieceful anime. Before watching it, I had only seen media of that caliber in manga, but Haibane Renmei is a great example of a great unconventional anime. It's the story of a girl who gets named Rakka, who wakes up in this new world where she becomes one of the Haibane, angel like creatures with wings (that they can't use to fly) and halos, which are prevented in a very realistic manner for something that could never exist. She lives in Old Home, a house of Haibane in a city of normal humans with walls outside that make sure Haibane can't leave. This is the basic plot layout, but you learn of many more things in this city, as well as ending up having to interpret certain important aspects of the series, sort of like Paranoia Agent. What makes this different than Paranoia Agent though, is it uses no symbolism; just a straightforeward (and very well done) plot that ends up making you think about it a lot anyways. It's first half is very light hearted; just Rakka's experiance getting used to this town with very nice people. Then, halfway through the series, the mood takes a very dramatic shift, where in my opinion, the series gets great. As mentioned before, one thing I like is how nice everybody is to eachother. More so than cheesy yugioh friendship preachers, minus the preaching. This is a series I can say so much about yet give such a little idea of what it's really about, as I don't want to spoil any of the immense things you can spoil in it. While Haruhi in my opinion is better, due to it's well crafted characters and wide appeal. This series has good characters, not as good as Haurhi or River's Edge, and slow pacing, the slow pacing being a big turn off to some people. To quote the anime news network review, "If you’re an adult (or perhaps a mature teenager [like me]) with discerning taste, you’re going to like Haibane Renmei. This show has class and style, and is one of the most unique releases of the year."


Rating: 9.5/10
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Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (anime movie)

Most of you have probably seen this, but for those of you who havn't, here's a review (since I just saw it). Nausicaa is about a girl, Nausicaa (big surprise) who lives in the future, after the downfall of machinery, in a world where humans are the inferior race to giant insects and poisonous spores exist that kill them (although they have ways of dealing with them). Then theres the bad guys, who don't like this "swamp of sorrow" with invincible bugs and poisen, and want to destroy it. Nausicaa sees the necesity of keeping the swamp alive and wants to obviously. One thing I love about Nausicaa (the movie) is the well drawn world. You really get a feel for what their living is like, instead of just what they do there. It's pretty much just like any other Miyazaki movie; a cliche'-ish movie that's still great. I can't say much more about it (I assume most anime fans have seen at least one Miyazaki movie). One thing I loved was the music. It has these extremely cheesy disco songs that I just loved. As I said before, it's somewhat cliche'd but still really fun. It has a great ending as well. If you havn't seen it, see it.


Rating: 9.0/10
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