13 May, 2013

  “I’m sure you’ll love it, it’s just like…” One of the easiest ways to recommend a show to anyone is to cite something it resembles. More even perhaps than western TV, anime is built on the reuse and reinvention of ideas, each one tweaked and modified into new shapes. The shonen battle show, the romantic comedy, the...

16 Apr, 2013

Character is the heart of any story. In some ways, it’s even more important than plot, because when the characters are good enough you’ll be happy to follow them no matter where the plot takes you. Slice-of-life shows are the very epitome of this – the best remain engaging despite the fact that barely anything happens. Why do I make this point...

27 Mar, 2013

The first season of Code Geass ended on one of the all-time great cliffhangers, a shocking moment of revelation that concluded the series on  hugely satisfying, yet tantalising, high.  To say it whetted the appetite for a second season would be a massive understatement.  So it’s a hugely disconcerting twist when we open with Lelouch back in school,...

19 Mar, 2013

The key trick with any series revolving around a cool new concept is whether that concept has the legs to sustain a show across the course of 13 or 26 episodes. The best ideas can be fleshed out into fully fledged plot arcs, while those that are one-note and gimmicky are quickly exposed for what they are. In this second volume, Persona 4 proves that it’s...

7 Mar, 2013

Season 5 of Dragon Ball Z ended on a very weird note. After a hopeless battle to protect their former enemies the Androids, the Z Fighters were nonetheless faced with the near limitless power of Perfect Cell. With his enemies at his mercy, Cell swiftly…decided to spare them and hold a martial arts tournament instead. Yeah. No matter how you look at...

23 Feb, 2013

Good Smile Company’s Ultimate Madoka has been one of the biggest items on collectors’ radars for a very long time now. We previewed her back in August, but after a few delays the huge, lovely and very expensive final version has arrived. Can Madoka truly live up to her ultimate tag? Let’s take a look. There’s no denying it, this is an...

19 Feb, 2013

It’s been almost 9 months since we last checked in on the idiotic denizens of Fumizuki Academy, where students do battle with computer generated avatars, any disputes are settled by full on inter-class wars and your test scores decide whether you’ll be sipping tea in the common room or scribbling your answers on a cardboard box.  If that confuses...

15 Feb, 2013

  Last weekend marked the first major toy and figure event of the new year in Japan, as Good Smile Company’s massive trade show Wonder Festival returned for a whole new round of unveilings, teases and announcements. As ever GSC themselves led the charge, but with all the other major manufacturers in tow.  While there were no stunning new licences or...

12 Feb, 2013

When we last left Dragon Ball Z, our heroes were in a tight spot, with Goku out for the count (again), and the rest of the crew thoroughly outmatched by the new threat of Androids 16, 17 and 18. You’d think it’d be easy to predict what follows – a sustained rearguard action while Goku recovers, then an even more sustained beat down between...

21 Jan, 2013

When Beez Entertainment went under last year, there were real fears that some of the titles from their back catalogue would be lost from UK release forever. Fortunately, that was never going to be the case with Code Geass, a show far too popular and influential to stay off our shelves for long. It returns in this handsome reissue from Kaze, but almost 6 years...