Other anime

Well that was my top 5 anime but the listdoes not stop there (yeah there are more), but i am not going to talk about them all, because that will infact take way too long, so this is a brief overvue of some other series that are out there.

Fairy Tail:

This is also a new series that i discover just recendly. I first started to read the manga and they only recently started to produce the anime for it. They keep to the manga quiet nicely and they have a few episodes that are like a filler (just like they do it in One Piece). It has mages and magic, a talking cat, and a guy who can maniulate flames and gets sick on any sort of transport. It's a funny anime set in a fantasy world where people use magic in their every day life and where mage guilds exist to do jobs on commision, so if you have the time i suggest you try it.







Natsu (main character of Fairy Tail)













Afro Samurai:

Well the name says it all, it's a samurai with a afro now that is the definition of cool. It is a american made anime staring Samuel l Jackson. it is a short anime (about 10 episodes), and it's base around this bands of power, the Afro Samurai's dad had the number 1 headband but got killed by number 2 and Afro must set out to avenge his father. This anime has a lot of blodd in it and i would say don't watch it if you don't like that kind of stuff if you do hey it's a afro samurai can't miss that.


D.Gray-man:

Exorcist's, Deamons, and a millenium earl trying to destroy the world, that is preety much the core of this anime. Allen Walker is a exorsist that just joined the Black Order (where all the exorsists work) and he is working to stop the milenium earls plans to take over the world. The powers are based on the substance Innocence that only a few chosen ones can use and the only way that they can stop the deamons made by the milenium earl. The series is a bit weird and it stoped and i don't know if they start again but i hope it does and it does not matter it is still good to watch.







Allen Walker













These are some of the anime that i like but that does not mean they are the only ones, if you have anyother anime that you like just comment on this blog and let me know and my top 5 might change who knows.

Katekyo Hitman Reborn

Right ok and now onto the last of the top 5 anime….. can you guess what number it is? Yeah that’s right it’s number 5 (I just proved to myself that I can count to 5) ok so bad jokes aside the last anime is one that I only recently found out about, it’s Amano Akira’s Katekyo Hitman Reborn. To make it easy for you reading this (and me writing it) I shall call it Hitman Reborn (Katekyo just means “home tutor”). Right so Hitman Reborn is about (get this) a Hitman called Reborn (shocking right). Well it is not really about him, it’s about a high school student called Tsuna, nicknamed at school no-good-Tsuna (hey they stole my nickname….. I will keep doing bad jokes until I run out haha).







Yamamoto Takeshi (Guardian of the Rain)







Reborn comes to Tsuna bringing the news that he is the 10^th Vongola family boss (yes it is a mafia anime…. Come on now that is cool). Reborn is entrusted by the 9^th boss to train Tsuna into becoming a person who is able of having the responsibility of a mafia boss. Along the way Tsuna makes new friends and some of them joing the Vongola family (weather they know it or not). Later in the series it is revealed that seven of Tsuna's friedns will become his guardiens which have the job of protecting (along with Tsuna) the Vongola Family. Each member of the guardiens is given a name that is associated with the weather, and each type of weather tells about the persons personality and the role in the family (such as the guardian of Storm has the job to be the center of every attack like a strom thatfircely blows away everything, so he is good at long range attaks) .







Tsuna's family members









Well the plot is a bit more complicated than that but not to go into to much detail I will give a brief outline (well i hope anyway). So with Reborn making Tsuna training Tsuna into becoming the 10th boss (weather he like it or not, and beive me he doesen't which again adds comedy to the series) he explains the diffrent wepons that the Vongola have, among them is the Dying Will Bullet: a bullet that if you get shot with it you will be reborn for 5 minutes with your body limitations removed (which means you get superstreaght and other cool abilities) and after 5 minutes you get back to normal. The main focuse of the powers in Hitman Reborn is the Dying Will Flame ( a veriasion on aura but unlike it the flame can melt objects). The flame resides with a persons body and the purer the flame the more powerfull the person is. There are seven diffrent types of flames (with their own diffrent colour) which match the title of the Vongola Guardiens: Sky (orange), Storm (red), Rain (blue), Sun (yellow), Cloud (purple), Lightning (green), and Mist (Indigo). Each flame has it's own characteristing and ability. Later in the series we see the characters using rings to make their flame materialise and by using Box Weapons ( it's where they store wepons that are engulffed in the Dying Will Flame or they ahve other abilities) they fight to protect the Vongola Family.







The diffrent Flame Attributes







Ok better stop the explanation of the powers here before i confuse you even more (and myself), so onto the part that you are waiting for (if you are still reading which i hope you are) the reason why i like the anime. Like i said at the begining entry, i just discoverd this anime recently, and thats why i like it. It is something new to watch and something completly diffrently to the anime that i usually watch, in the sense that it does not have a dark story line. The powers in it (yes yet again talk about the powers, well i mean thats what makes anime in my onpinion) they are very varsatile and they anime does not start with how they use the powers staright from the first episode. The series start with only Tsuna being able to use the Dying Will flame when reborn shoots him with the Dying Will Bullet, while the other characters use normal means of fighting e.g. Gokudera Hayato using dynamite (well normal for anime anyway).







Gokudera Hayato












Later on in the series the whole battels fought in the series are by the means of using the Dying Will flame, which in my opinion is quiet a good way to do the series because the first half of the series is a bit boring (funny and entertaining still), but if you keep watching the series it does get great. Another reason is the characters in the series which unlike most of the anime are made to be funny so they are a like comic relief characters (but main characters) which make the series funny and unlike the manga it is a made a bit chieldish altho still good. Also the character of Tsuna is one that i never seen in anime, he does not whant the life of a mafia boss and half the time he never whants to fight, this makes me what to watch the series more to see if he will develop into a character like Naruo or Ichigo who fight to protect people.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost".Thought I would start my number 4 anime with a quote from it, something that is repeated in the anime every five seconds (well not really but I’m try to make this blog more interesting so bare with me). Anyway number 4 on my list is Hiromu Arakawa's Fullmetal Alchemist. Well it is a bit confusing that the series is called FMA Brotherhood (yes I am abbreviating now), the reason for this is that there are actual two versions of the anime. Fullmetal Alchemist is purely anime base, so the story from the manga is gone out the window (apart from some bits) and is basically a completely new story line. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood fallows the story of the manga, which in my opinion is better but if you don’t read the manga not sure of the anime I would suggest watching FMA before watching FMA Brotherhood to get a feel for it.

Right now it’s time for the nice part where I can show off just how much anime crazy I am and explain the anime (by the way if you new to anime all the explanations I have done so far are brief, just so I don’t do like 50 odd entries). Ok so the story line….. Well it’s about two brothers (wow they nailed that in the name, yeah not funny moving on) Alphones and Edward Elric (gonna call them Al and Ed for short) also know as the Elric brothers (hey I don’t come up with this stuff haha). Their father mysterious leaves them when they are small and their mother dies due to a illness, and that is where their whole world change. In the FMA world there are certain people that use alchemy, but not as you would know it (look back at the quote I started this entry with) everything can be made into something else (the basics of it is: understanding, deconstruction and construction) but you have to give something of equal value (so you get a chair if you give wood… something like that). This is done by the means of a Transmutation circle which produces the energy needed to commence the transformation.

Ed making a sword from his metal hand

So back to the story line, when the Elric brother’s loose their mum they do a transmutation which is taboo: Human Transmutation – making a human being. To do this they gathered the ingredients that make a human and for the soul they put some of their blood, but because you can not give a something to equal a human soul the transmutation goes wrong and Al looses his whole body and Ed looses one arm and then his gives his leg in another transmutation to put Al’s soul in a suit of armour. With it so far? Good. Moving on Alchemy in FMA Brotherhood is also used in the army as a weapon (such as colonels Mustang’s ability to make flames from one spark) so because Mustang finds Al and Ed and sees their potential he suggest that they become State Alchemists which will allow them access to information on how they can return their bodies to normal. So with Al’s soul in a suit of armour and Ed with a metal arm and leg they set out to find the answers to how they can return their body’s to normal, but along they way they find out a conspiracy that is shakes their belief in Alchemy (should be a anime reviewer with that last line haha).

Ed and Al Elric

















Colonel Mustang (The Flame Alchemist)








Before moving on i would like to say that each State Alchemist is given a name which represents they teritory of alchemy (Mustang is the flame alchemist becuase he uses and manipulates flames... yeah a bit obivouse). Ed is the Fullmetal Alchemist, because he has a arm and leg made out of metal, but the name is ironic and it is more to do with his personality.

Edward Elric

Right now onto the reason that I like this anime. Well first of it has to be the fact that it is based on alchemy which is made into more of a fantasy item (and come on who does not want to be able to draw a circle and make bread out of grass). The story line is good but again not too much depth in my opinion. The character of Ed and Al is something else that I like about this, because I have a brother and the little arguments that they have just reminds me of me and him, also the fact that Ed does not like being called small and goes nuts if someone does is a joke that can be done again and again and for me does not get old one bit. One thing that I don’t like about FMA Brotherhood or FMA (and I think other people will agree with me here) is the fact that they killed off Maes Hughes (a friend of Mustang) off when he was such a great character (comic relief character) but he was good at that and who knows it could have developed into something better. Apart from that I like the anime a lot and like I said before if you going to watch it you should watch FMA first then move on to FMA Brotherhood so you get a little taster of the sort of things you are to expect from the series.

One Piece

Moving onto anime number 3 we have Eiichiro Oda's One Piece. Now unlike Naruto and Bleach, One Piece is funnier and not as serious when it comes to the story line. The story is easy to get as well; it is about Monkey D Luffy, a pirate who sets out to find the legendary treasure that the king of the pirates left behind “One Piece”, and to become the next king of the Pirates. Along the way he meets other people who he would join his crew and help him along the way.





Luffy's pirate crew (missing Franky, Robin, and Brook)

The powers in One Piece are weird and funny which is another reason I like the anime. The main powers in One Piece come from the “Devil’s Fruits”. When a person eats one of the devil fruits they gain a special ability (such as Luffy becoming a rubber man), but they loose their ability to swim. This is also a thing that makes the anime funny because some of the characters forget about that and just jump into the sea, but it also makes it interesting how they can be a pirate with the ability to swim take away from them. The devil fruits are usually called by what their ability is usually the word of the ability repeated twice, such as Gomu Gomu no Mi (rubber rubber fruit).

Gomu Gomu no Mi

The powers range from being able to split any part of the body to having control over sand. The fruits are separated into three main categories: Paramecia – the person gains supper human physical abilities and they can alters the features of the persons body (such as Luffy becoming a rubber man), Zoan – being able to transform into a animal and Logia – the most powerful of the fruits, this allows the person to generate, manipulate and transform themselves into a element (such as lighting, smoke, water etc). Not only are thier davil fruit users but some people with out them can still fight witch give the series more variety than everyone just having a power from the same sourse. Zoro (the swords man on Luffy's crew) fights with 3 swords while Sanji (the cook on Luffy's crew) fights using his legs and they are counted as strong as a Devil Fruit user which does not mean that the only people than can accualy fight are the people with the devil fruit.

A0kiji's Logia Devil Fruit






Well so far so good with this anime: it has variety of powers and it's funny. The one thing that i really like about it is that the fillers are not nororiouse long and boring like some of the Bleach and Naruto one's, sometime there would be like one or two episodes of a filler and then go back to the accual story line. The one thing i would say is that the fillers appear out of nowhere and they have no relevance to the story that was going on before it. Another thing is the main character Luffy (which most people that i know hate haha), i like him because of his care free personality and even thou he makes some stupid things (such as constantly jumping in the water even thou he can't swim, or he gets distracted during a fight by how "cool" the other persons power is) i still like him because he is not as seriouse as Ichigo or Naruto all the time and when he needs to be he does not go over the top, it's the perfect combination of Ichigo's seriouse personality an Naruto's funny moments. The other characters in it are also round up and make the situation that Luffy gets them in (most of the time into fights they don't have to) more funny, but over all they give they still respect him even though Zoro or Sanji could rival Luffy in combat. So here you have it anim enumber 3.

Bleach

The next anime on my list of top five is Tite Kibo’s Bleach. The reason that I chose this anime as my second one is that like Naruto the anime has a good story line but not as in depth as Naruto. Instead the fighting sequences are what I like about this anime. The story revolves around Kurosaki Ichigo, a high school student who can see ghosts. One day he meets the Soul Reaper Kuchiki Rukia who was on a assignment to destroy a Hollow, but because of Ichigo’s high spiritual pressure (the hollow’s eat the people with the highest spiritual pressure) the hollow attacks Ichigo’s family and when Rukia tries to defend them she is mortally wounded and is force to stab Ichigo with her Zanpakutou just off his hart to transfer her powers into him for a while, but Ichigo ends up and takes out most of her power and becomes a Substituted Soul Reaper and in dragged deeper and deeper into the affairs of Soul Society (the home of all soul reapers, a sort of after life).






Fish Bone D: The first Hollow Ichigo Encounters

The Soul Reapers have two main jobs: to perform Soul Burial on Pulses (good souls) which sends them to Soul Society (which is like I said before the after life in the Bleach universe), and Hollow Cleansing which means destroying the Hollows (souls which have lost their harts to despair and became evil) with their Zanpakutou.

Ichigo performing the Soul Burial on a Plus.

Guess I should explain what a Zanpakuto is now. A Zanpakuto is born with the soul reaper, it is part of there soul and cannot be replaced. Each Zanpakuto is unique in their abilities; they are in the shape of a sword but while they are in the soul reaper’s “inner world”, but they sometimes take a physical form (such as Ichigo’s Zangetsu). Their shape and ability is based on the soul reapers soul and once they learn the Zanpakuto’s name they can grow stronger together. They have two stages of release: Shikai – is when they soul reaper learns the Zanpakuto’s name and is able to change the shape of it a little and gain some of it’s powers, and Bankai – which when release not only does the Zanpakuto changes but in some cases the soul reapers cloths as well. In Bankai the soul reaper power increases 5 to 10 times.

Ichigo in Shikai

Ichigo's Bankai

Right with all the explanations out of the way time to say why I like it. Like I said before it is a good anime when it come to the story line but I don’t find it as good as Naruto. The main reason I put it in second place is that it has good fight scenes and again like Naruto it has a variety of power’s that keep it interesting. One thing I will say that is annoying is the fillers (the anime story lines that have nothing to do with the manga)

Naruto

My first choice of my top 5 anime is Masashi Kishimoto's hit manga Naruto. The reason I chose this to be my first is because Naruto was the first anime I have ever watched and this is how I got introduced to anime. Naruto is sent is the fantasy world of ninjas, (also reffered to as a shinobi or a kunoichi for the females). The story is based around Naruto the main character as he tries to work his way through the rank of ninja and become the Hokage (the strongest ninja in his village). The whole world of naruto is set in a fictional continent that is split into a number of different countries, each of which has a Hidden Village which is where all the ninja operate. There are 15 Hidden Villages but only a few of them are present in the anime and only their Hokages are talked about, these are: Konohagakure (Hidden in the leaf, where Naruto is from), Sunagakure (hidden in the Sand), Kumogakure (hidden in the clouds), Iwagakure (Hidden in the stone), Kirigakure (Hidden in the Mist).

A map of the Naruto univers.

The reason I like this anime is that it has a very complex story line to it and it does not focus on the main character all the time but it also has some episodes dedicated to expanding some of the minor characters. Another reason is the powers that are used in the anime. The whole anime is based around the idea that people have chakra which is the mixture of spiritual and physical energy in the body; with this the ninjas are able to perform jutsu’s. Jutsu’s are the techniques used in the Naruto universe and are performed by hand signs and use up chakra.

The two elements that make up chakra: Physical and Spiritual Energy

There are different types of jutsus from the one that create a water dragon that lunges at the enemy to, ones that causes the enemies body to be paralyse in a illusions, and the one that Naruto himself uses a jutsu that he is able to multiply himself with. I like this because it gives a variety to the series and it does not get boring like seeing the same technique done over and over again (maybe a bit when Naruto at the start of the series can only use the Shadow Clone Jutsu which he uses to no end).

Naruto's Shadow Clone Jutsu












Water Dragon Jutsu







Also the main reason i like Naruto is because i like th main character the most. He started as a drop out but as the series progreesset he became more powerfull and even though i know most anime series do this to their main character Masashi Kishimot does is so well that i can't stop watching it. If only they would get rid of the fillers then the show would not have to deviate from the manga so much.

Anime History

The anime genre started in the 20th century with the Japanese experimenting with the western style of animation. With this the first widley popular anime was Osamu Tezuka's, Astro Boy (in 1963). Anime is besically Japanese animation and created from the western animation and addapted into other genres such as mecha. Anime are usually adapted from a manga of the same name such as Astro Boy being adapted from the manga called Astro Boy. Some fallow the story in the manga while other deviate from them and creat their own stroy such as Fullmetal Alchemist Anime was not only limited to series such as Astro Boy but it also had some succsess as animated films such a Spirited Away.




The first volume of the Astro Boy manga