The 12th One Piece movie was just as awesome as the 10th one, if not even more so. These two movies have one thing in common: the fact that they are called films rather than movies. Oh, and also that Eiichiro Oda himself (the creator of the series, *) wrote the scripts for them, and partially directed them, and with his total freedom in immersing the movies within the main storyline made them not only so much more awesome but also so much more relevant than the rest.

The movie deals with the Neo Navy, an unofficial fraction of the Navy led by one of its former admirals: "Black Arm" Zephyr, Z, who's recently stolen a set of doomsday devices from the Navy and plans to use them to end the reign of piracy once and for all! He runs into Luffy & Co by accident, and things quickly get interesting. All the higher-ups of the Navy get involved. And Avril Lavigne made the credit covers! I wasn't expecting that. I liked the first track, but not sure the latter fit the mood. Apparently Avril is one of Oda's favorite artists, which explains the choice, but it still feels so strange hearing her voice in a One Piece movie!

The animation's great, as is the plot, the battles, the bashing, the personalities, the emotion, the simple and yet so rich and compelling backstory. Oda really knows how to weave together something simple to a real coat of arms, and legs, and a flurry of limbs as the showdowns commence! Great watch.

 rated 5/5: friggin awesome

So... I'm finally catching up with old One Piece movies! Well, they're new to me. I was just recently made aware of their existence and thus I had to see them, and this in the exciting wake of a potential 13th movie celebrating fifteen years of the series (if they'd made one each year these latest two years it'd have been the 15th too)! But anyway, here goes the first one of my short reviews for the two: the 11th movie.. Also, beware of major spoilers with no latter notice. Warning! Spoilers. Warning!

Read on...

Now this is more like it! After watching the recent Hunter X Hunter movie I might've forgotten for a moment how awesome anime movies can actually be. Toriko is an awesome series, every episode of it - but the movies, they are a blast past that, and considering the series is over (for now at least) this was a blast from the past as well!

The plot is this: Toriko heads off with Komatsu and that pilot guy to find one of Acacia's secret ingredients, in a special biotope hidden within the 'Hungry Triangle'. Kinda like the Bermuda Triangle you dig? It's an area surrounded by a huge hurricane, with giant fish swimming in the wind, eying them with red eyes, and the biotope itself is smack in the middle of it.

Right about the same time our main characters are making their way here, another character going by the name of Grim leaves the Bishokukai also in search of this certain ingredient, and ultimately with plans on conquering the world and all ingredients in it. The Bishokukai go after him. Toriko confronts him yet realizes quickly that he doesn't have a chance against this incredibly powerful (and awesome - at this point) dude. The rest of the Heavenly Kings join up shortly and give it a go, one after another - as is the tradition, but they are equally helpless. Most of the other noteworthy characters make an appearance in this movie too, along with an army of GT robots (the fight with them doesn't quite get as much attention as it could have... but it's a movie after all, it goes to show there's no filler here!), and a battle of grand portions and proportions begins!

There's a search for ingredients involved as well, and of course there is a message, some pretty intense battles and power-ups and you know the dealeo, some cliches and some nonsense, but it's great, it's spicy, it's hot, it's good. It's awesome! You want some? Don't wait! Go thaw some today! So you can say you saw some when you wake at dawn some day. Yeah.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

Hunter X Hunter has been - apart from One Piece - pretty much the only anime series I've been following passionately the past two years. I just found out they've made a movie for it, I watched it, and I was... disappointed.

The plot is this: Killua gets his eyes stolen, it turns out there's a puppet master out to steal all their eyes, they fight him, the rest of the Spiders (their enemies) get involved and help out, they keep spouting bullshit, saying each other's names over and over again, emphasizing the value of friendship until it gets tiring, fighting together, helping a girl, yada yada. By normal anime standards I guess it'd be OK.

But the Hunter X Hunter atmosphere wasn't there at all, not the despair nor the sense of adventure; more importantly not the surprise that puts this series in a class of its own. The unexpected never happens. It's so predictable it's embarrassing. HxH is a great series, so of course I had great expectations on a movie with it's name... it just didn't hold up to that name. :/

 rated 3/5: not bad

Humm, why did I watch this anime again? The voice acting is crappy, the animation/graphics look like they just colored the manga and removed all the shading. The only episode that graphically does the plot justice is the one where Gale dies. For that one especially it looks like they put in some extra work in the drawing. Maybe I'm just getting spoiled by graphically superior series such as Bleach and the other large ones.

But it's not just the graphics. The characters are all stereotypes that can't handle any tough situations, get embarrassed easily, get frightened easily, fight with each other, but never really go overboard. People die though it doesn't seem like they'd need to, and the antagonist is killed by a small girl, just like that, and then it's all over. It's eh... it's like... I don't know, apathetic somehow.

Though it's a happy-go-lucky series, there's no real comedy either, just awkward situations and occasionally smiling people. Mostly they're just scared and naive, though. To top it off there's no real action, no pace or fluency in the fights, just gunfights in which people stick their necks out but don't get hit, then get shot when they do something stupid, apparently just to add some suspense, and the terrorists are all over the place but sometimes they are so out of the situation that it's like they're on another planet.

Not to say I didn't enjoy it, it was a feel-good series with some drama, tragedy, romance... all the things that are characteristic to regular anime that will never make it across the ocean from Japan. It's a story about about a bunch of teenagers in space, different kinds of relations, good and bad, a virus, a plot that could have been more that they just threw away... but it's still entertaining to watch. JSYK though, I won't watch it again. I'll give it a...

 rated 3/5: not bad

I decided to review some sequels. So expect sequels. :P

Afro Samurai - Resurrection (2009)

The second part of Afro Samurai fails to beat the original. In difference from the first, it's in movie format and not multiple episodes. The animation is still insanely detailed. The music is still made by the RZA. Overall it's a great anime, but it just doesn't beat the original. We already know Afro's story. The enemies are both new and old, the plot differs but there's really not much to see. If you stil haven't had enough of Afro Samurai I guess it's a must see anyway... though.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

Air Gear - Break On The Sky (2010)

Air Gear was a good anime, but it always felt like it had more potential than what they turned it into. The animation didn't always capture the flow, the movements were not as realistic as they could have been and the series didn't maintain a steady rhythm. sometimes I felt cheated, but overall it was good. In similar to the anime above this is also a sequel in movie format, so no episodes. It's also more detailed, and it goes faster than the anime does, but they still haven't managed to improve enough to keep up with the potential for the plot. Still worth watching if you liked the series, but it could have been oh so much better!

Read on...