(02-06-2008, 08:42 PM)clonezero Wrote: Armored-Trooper-Votoms-Pailsen-Files-OVA
don't know much about it myself but because I know people here watch this here is a link
http://www.crunchyroll.com/series-7970/A...s-OVA.html
Wow I really didn't think I'd meet people who'd know about the kerberos saga let alone Votoms.
Aaaanyway, here are my shots to anime reviews:
Title: Bakemonogatari (Ghostories*)
It's actualy a pun, "Bakemono" = monster/ghost/oddity while "Monogatari" = Story
Genre: Supernatural/Novel/Romance(?)
When you hear "supernatural" you normally think something that's quite scary. You might imagine the likes of FEAR or 'White Noise' something along those lines. However that's the western take on paranormal things, it really changes quite sharply when you check it out on eastern takes on 'ghost stories' as the eastern views on paranormal existences is very very different.
This series starts off with a feel of a romance novel as the settings takes off with an adolescent boy that catches a girl falling off the stairs. Where it is described that she was as if she was weightless. However, it is soon presented that she is literally nearly weightless. And the story picks up from there, jumping from oddity to oddity as the story progresses.
The thing with this anime is that it was originally a novel like Index and Haruhi. However, Haruhi was more of a sarcastic gag on reality while Index is a serious jump into the nerd-iverse for battles. Bakemonogatari on the other hand is quite heavy on conversations. You will hear a lot of conversations pertaining to 'what ifs' and getting to the bottom of a clouded issue. That and the writer of Bakemonogatari is quite fond of making puns (as I have pointed out with the title) so if you're not quite familiar with the Japanese language you won't notice a good amount of wit that the writer had cleverly buried within the characters and the story. Because of this you might not get quite satisfied with the series.
What makes novel-based stories good though is that you almost always get depth out of stories and this series is definitely one of them. Plot twists are quite good, and if you're the type who can guess the twist of a story, worry not, because they play out the story so damn well that you don't know when they'll really uncover this or that. The pace is like an unpredictable roller-coaster, the same can more or less be said about the characters of this series. And "yay!" for those who can't really understand Japanese because you won't need to be able to as the really important puns are pointed out and the good story developments don't really need a translation geek to understand.
So, my final say on it is if you think battles are overdone and you want to try something that may be able to surprise you pick up this title. However, you may have to be prepared to listen to lines or concepts a few times over or have a person who is fairly versed in Japanese next to you if comprehension is a great factor for your satisfaction. Though if you weren't able to understand it easily then it wasn't very well made in the first place now wouldn't it?
My rating: 4/5