Top 10 Anime Fights

From Dragonball Z to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, nearly every single anime out there, at one point or another, has had some sort of battle going on in it. Deciding on my top 10 was really hard, considering any top lists that I have, I also have a habit of changing them fairly often, only exception is my top 3 anime. Now, without further adieu, the top 10 anime fights!

#10 – Majin Vegeta VS Goku (Dragonball Z)

There are so many fights in Dragonball Z, but this one really stands out for me. A rematch that was anticipated since Goku first fought against Vegeta, this fight is just a brutal battle between the two remaining Saiyans.

#9 - Chrona VS Maka and Soul 2nd round (Soul Eater)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPQwnPMF5EY

Chrona is one of my favorite characters in Soul Eater, and this fight was ridiculous. When Maka and Soul start to use the black blood and go insane, it’s great, Chrona doesn’t know what to do. The ending of it is amazing too, don’t wanna spoil it though. =)

#8 - Hiei VS Bui (Yu Yu Hakusho)

Bui fighting Hiei was one of the best fights in Yu Yu Hakusho. For a while, I couldn’t get used to the animation style for the episode because it was different, but over time I’ve loved it and how fluent it is compared to the rest. Plus, Dragon of the Darkness Flame is one of the greatest attacks of all time.

#7 - Luffy VS Rob Lucci (One Piece)

One Piece is full of some pretty cool fights, but after the build up from the entire Enies Lobby arc, and Luffy showing his new techniques, his fight with Rob Lucci is one of the best.

#6 - Yusuke VS Toguro Finals of the Dark Tournament  (Yu Yu Hakusho)

The second Yu Yu Hakusho fight on the list, and it’s such a personal fight between Toguro and Yusuke. Toguro killing the closest thing to family besides his mom that Yusuke has made it intense. At every turn there’s another transformation from the both of them, and it’s a long and brutal fight with some pretty sad moments mixed in. Definitely one of the best.

#5 – Ichigo VS Grimmjow (Last fight)

Bleach had been a little stale for a while fight wise, with everyone apparently being able to take on Espada that are supposed to be as strong, if not stronger, than a captain, but this fight made me forget all about it. The animation is top-notch, and Ichigo going all out in his hollow form is great. Then the series did more filler and made me sad….

#4 - Asuka VS The Eva Series and the JSDF (End of Evangelion)

This is one of the very, very few fights out there that makes you jump for joy at the beginning, then makes you cry for hours at the end. Finally seeing Asuka kick some major ass in Evangelion definitely makes the first half of End of Evangelion amazing, still making you go insane, but amazing nether the less. And the music? Some of the best, Sagisu Shiro is an amazing composer.

#3 - Rena VS Keiichi (Higurashi no naku Koro Ni)

I still don’t know why I love this fight so much. Maybe it’s because of the emotional level of the both of them, Keiichi fighting to save Rena from the same fate that he suffered in the first arc, or because it’s just great seeing a fight like this at the end of a horror/mystery anime. Either way, It’s a great fight which still gets me amazed to this day, although it’d be great if they re-did it with the Kai animation for the characters, but I can only dream.

#2 – Black Star VS Mifune Round 2 (Soul Eater)

It was very, very hard making this number 2. Black Star’s fighting style is one of the coolest out there, and having to fight someone much more powerful than him, and still standing his ground, is amazing. I loved how they put in the second opening theme to play during the whole fight. The movements for both of them is amazing, the music is amazing, the whole thing is amazing! I could definitely watch this one over and over again, but it’s not the best…..

#1 - Team Dai-Gurren VS The Anti-Spiral (Gurren Lagann)

Manly Battle? Check.

Epic Music? Check.

Galaxies being used as weapons? Check

Having an attack on par with the creation of the universe? Check.

Gurren Lagann, one of the manliest, bad-ass animes ever, comes in at #1 for me. Everything about this fight is so out there, it can only be number 1.

Anime Review – Umineko No Naku Koro Ni Episode III-VII – Swindles

Picking up right where the last episode left off, Beatrice brings Kanon back as a ghost for a little while in order to save Jessica. Kanon’s able to coax Jessica into going to a safer room, where Beato’s waiting for them. Beato say’s she’s done more evil than she can compensate for, but Kanon says in this moment, she’s a good witch for doing this for them. Beato leaves the room to let Kanon and Jessica “talk about love”. Romancing between a ghost and a girl sound interesting, but it’s sad because we all know it’s going to end tragically, like always. Once Beato gets out of the room she starts to put a barrier on the room, but -

- within seconds, Beato gets a Siesta Sister bow of death. Of course, once Beato decides to do something good is when she gets hurt with things, not when she’s being a raging psycho….and just on a side note, the music during this entire scene is amazing, I cannot wait til I can get my hands on the Umineko OST.

Anyway, Eva-Beatrice and the Siesta Sisters try to destroy Beato, even shooting her through her heart numerous times, and then finally after blowing her up, her heart still remained. Having Beato’s floating heart there scared off the Siesta Sisters, and as Eva-Beatrice went in to stomp Beato dead, time freezes and Battler shows up.

After Battler shows up and talks to Beato a bit, the scene changes to Battler and Eva-Beatrice in the Witches Tea House, where some crazy epic stuff happens. Battler doesn’t want to be Beato’s opponent anymore, instead he challenges Eva-Beatrice, who has no idea what’s going on and tells the Siesta Sisters to kill Battler……

….which is impossible, because Battler’s anti-magic power is over 9 – I mean, his anti-magic power is Endless 9…yahh. As Ronove explains, since his anti-magic power is endless 9, not even mythic class attacks can do anything against him, so Eva-Beatrice is basically screwed. Beato appears again with her body, acting in a really helpless way trying to help Battler figure out a way to beat Eva-Beatrice.

Things go smoothly until Eva-Beatrice pushes Battler into a corner by using the red letters, and leaves Beato with only one option – To deny the existence of witches.

Yeah, in order to beat Eva-Beatrice, Beato has to deny her own existence, along with every other witch and magical creature there….oh well, at least Battler should be ok…hopefully.

Once Beato denies the existence of witches, everyone in the room (Except Battler) gets turned into golden butterflies and disappears. Right after that, Eva is shown with Battler, and it turns out she was the culprit for this arc, since there are no more witches to interfere.

Without skipping a beat, Battler and Beato are shown. Apparently, they both made it to the golden land, being greeted by everyone – the seven sisters, Ronove, Virgilia, and the entire Ushiromiya family.

Now, all that Battler and Beato have to do to get into the golden land is to sign a document. But, as Battle reads it, it says “I acknowledge you as a witch.” Well, that’s definitely not a way to get into the golden land….but Beato and Virgilia really insist Battler to sign it, but then a girl jumps through the, hmm, I guess space? She jumps through the air into the “golden land”.The girl easily kicks the goat servants asses, and tells Battler that everything that’s going on is a trick. Beato doesn’t deny it, and says it was her strategy all along. To be all loving and happy with Battler, just to trick him in the end. Just when I was really starting to like her character too….well, Beato says that this girl is the game piece that Bernkastel put in, and the girl says she’ll expose what all that’s happened.

At the annual end of the arc witches tea party, it’s only Beatrice and Lamdadelta. Lamda asks Beatrice if she’s even trying, saying that she lets her be a witch only if she wins without fail. So, from this it seems that Lamdadelta is pulling the strings for Beatrice.

Yet another scene change occurs, seriously the end of this arc is becoming like the end of Return of the King. Anyway, next scene cuts to 12 years later, with the mystery girl, who turns out to be Battler’s little sister, Ange, talking to Eva, who’s on her deathbed it seems. It turns out they completely despise one another, and to make Ange suffer, Eva leaves her with the headship to the family and the “cursed” gold.

After refusing to tell Ange what really happened 12 years ago, she tells Ange that she should just go die….which is exactly what she goes to do…but thankfully, she’s stopped by Bernkastel.

Bernkastel tells Ange that her family is trapped in that weekend on Rokenjima island, and that her help is needed. She also tells Ange that the only one to be able to defeat Beatrice, is the last Beatrice : Ange-Beatrice. Ange agrees, with nothing to lose, she goes along with Bernkastel’s wishes, and the arc ends with her jumping off the roof top in a bad-ass fashion.

With Ange’s appearance, the 3rd arc of Umineko, the Turn of the Golden Witch, ends. Overall this arc is my favorite out of the three. Like the rest, the music and plot is great, but the animation at some parts gets a little out there, especially on the characters faces when they get into evil insane witch mode, the animation just looks horrible. Other than that, the arc was great. With one more arc to go before the first season of Umineko ends, who knows what’ll happen.

The next Arc I’m just going to review as a whole, since there’s only 2 episodes left before the end of the season, so look forward to that in two weeks, also look forward to lots of fun things in between, ’til next time!

Youtube video involving Lucky Star, Konata, Poo, and Pie.

As I browse the youtube, like I usually do, I find random things which  I instantly laugh at, and add them to my favorites. There are some that just make me watch them over and over again, this video is one of them.

Maybe one of the weekly postings on here can be a random youtube video of the week? Mayhap….

Next Umineko review will be up by the evening, now I want to go get some apple pie.

Manga Review – Future Diary (Mirai Nikki) Volume 1

I figured I’d try something different, and review a manga that’s been holding my interest for quite some time now. The first volume was released on May 12, 2009, but I had been reading it for a while before it came out in the states. The basic plot of the story is that God, who’s called Deus, is slowly dying and, to find a suitable replacement for the job, he’s chosen 12 Future Diary Holders to battle it out, with the last one alive taking over his position as God.

Yukiteru Amano

Each Diary holder has a future diary with a different use. For example, the main character, Yukiteru, has a future diary that predicts things that will happen around him. Yukiteru is the typical whiny, anti-social, main character with no friends other than Deus, who he thinks is just made up in his head until Deus reveals himself to actually be God. Following alongside Yukiteru in his quest to become God, is the creepy stalker girl, Yuno.

Yuno Gasai

Yuno is, without a doubt, one of the creepiest stalkers I’ve seen in recent times. She defines the word stalker. Seriously, go look it up in the dictionary, you might just see her eyes staring into your soul.

After finding out about the diary, meeting his psychotic stalker, and whining about being alone a bit more, Yukiteru has his first run in with a fellow Diary holder,  Takao Hiyama. Hiyama is a serial killer who’s also a teacher at Yukiterus school, and his diary is called the Killer diary, which tells him where his next victim will be. Easily dispatched by Yukiteru and Yuno, he’s just there to be cannon fodder for the main characters.

Minene Uryuu

The rest of the volume leads up to the next diary holder, Minene Uryuu, a terrorist who likes to make things go boom! Her diary is called the Escape diary, letting her dodge the law on her escapades as a terrorist. The finale is an intense showdown at Yukiterus school, which Minene is trying to blow up just to take out Yukiteru.

Overall, the first volume of Future Diary hooks you in. I don’t want to fully call it a horror manga, but more so a suspense/thriller manga, it really keeps you focused on the story. If anyone wants to check it out, the link to it on Rightstuf is down below, or you can go to whichever book store you usually go to, it’s been out for a while so should be available. (And don’t worry, Yukiteru doesn’t stay whiny for the whole time =) )

Rightstuf – Future Diary Volume 1

Higurashi game finally has a release date!

After nearly 2 months of being delayed, mangagamer.com has finally given Higurashi a release date – December 15th. I know there have been fan translations out for ages, but I never got a chance to get into them, so It’d be nice to be able to have this to play during winter break. The translation looks alright, although I only found three screen-shots so far.

The game’s price is 36.95 in Euro’s (Which is roughly $54.63). It is a little steep in price, but I’m hoping it’s going to be worth it.

If you guys want to go check out www.mangagamer.com and register, animenewsnetwork is doing a give-away raffle type thing for the game if you register on or after December 7th.

I know they didn’t dub it over, but I didn’t read anything about the sound or music for it yet. Hopefully whatever was in it is still there, I’ll keep you guys posted if I read anything. So, here’s waiting until the 15th! This will take up my gaming for a few days, looking forward to it though, except the price is a little steep….*looks in wallet and cries deeply*….

Back……..with an update!

So, after being off of the blog for much longer than I anticipated, I’m back, with 90% less final work to do, more time is going to be dedicated to the blog! Now for some quick updates -

Umineko Reviews – The last episode I reviewed was the 2nd to last episode of that arc. What I’m thinking about doing is just reviewing the last episode of that arc and then reviewing the current arc as a whole. Any suggestions on that would be great, I could either do them each or as an arc, just let me know if there’s any preference out there for anyone.

New blog schedule – I’m going to set up a kind of “schedule” for the blog so I stop posting randomly, going to have certain days for certain things and many other fun things to put onto here.

Hehe, things.

No updates for a few days.. =(

I’m going to be away for a few days, so there won’t be any updates until Sunday night at the earliest. Finals are coming up soon, which is why I’ve been really slow with everything recently. Thankfully once the semester ends I’ll have a lot more free time to write more and start up a set schedule for updating, until then, thanks for everyone who’s been reading and putting up with my slowness ^_^.

 

For now, I leave you with a picture of a Velociraptor in Twilight.

I hate Twilight with a passion, but Jurassic Park is my favorite movie of all time. So combing the two, and seeing a Velociraptor eat those sparkly vampire wanna-be’s would be an amazing film.

No offense to anyone who likes Twilight, I just hate it….unless it had Velociraptors.

Evangelion 1.0 You are [not] alone – DVD Coming out 11/17

Evangelion is easily my #1 favorite anime series out there, and the Evangelion 1.0 movie is finally coming out in the states on Tuesday on DVD. Funimation announced they had acquired the rights to the movie back on New Years eve of last year, and now, almost a year later, it’s finally coming out on DVD. Eva 1.0 is nothing short of amazing. It recaps the first 6 episodes of Evangelion and changes the story a little bit, so it doesn’t feel stale watching it.

I saw a screening of the dub at Otakon this year, and the dub is phenomenal. Shinji and Misato’s voice actors came back for the movie, but Rei had to be replaced, which was the one thing I was worried about. Thankfully though, Brina Palencia (Ai Enma in Hell Girl) did an amazing job as Rei; Allison Keith and Spike Spencer also did a phenomenal job as Misato and Shinji, as expected. Everyone else did a great job, I had no problems with the dub whatsoever. I can’t wait until Tuesday to get the DVD and spend some relaxing time watching Shinji’s horrible life unfold, until then, here’s the first 8 minutes of the movie posted by Funimation -

Anime Review – Umineko No Naku Koro Ni Episode III-VI – Promotion

Episode 17 starts off on a really sad note….seriously, seeing Beato all depressed like that is depressing, even though she is/was a psycho witch. But anyway, this episode begins briefly with the remaining family members mourning the death of Hideyoshi, Kyrie and Rudolf in the mansion. Afterward, in the witch tea party tower…thing….Battler still doesn’t acknowledge Beato as his opponent, saying she isn’t even a witch, ouch. Beato says that she’ll try to become a witch who’s able to be Battler’s opponent. Alright, stopping for a sec. Beato, the psycho witch, is depressed because Battler, whos family she’s killed over and over again, won’t acknowledge her as his opponent? That’s…interesting. Beato has a complicated mind, it’ll be cool to see how this continues on….

So first up on Beato’s agenda, help George by bringing Shannon back to life. Wow, that really is being nice. But before we find out what happens with that, Eva-Beatrice shows up in Eva’s head, for one final discussion about what’s been going on. Eva’s pissed that Eva-Beatrice lied to her and killed Hideyoshi. Eva-Beatrice said it’s her fault for picking a loud and obnoxious husband, making it clear that there is no more “we” with Eva and Eva-Beatrice. They have an argument about whose dream it was to become the head of the Ushiromiya family, with Eva saying that she also had dreams about being a wife and a mother, and Eva-Beatrice saying that those dreams were after she became an adult so they weren’t her dreams. Eva-Beatrice says she’ll never show up before Eva again, and leaves. After Eva wakes up, she goes back to her room because she’s not feeling well again, leaving Krauss and Natsuhi alone. Yah, they don’t last long.

Now back with Beato and George….Yay, Shannon’s back!

Wait….

O_O no…

Wow, dick move Eva-Beatrice….dick move.

Thankfully Beato leaves looking really pissed, hopefully to go do some epic witch battles soon. But before anything like that happens, Eva, Battler, Jessica and Nanjo find Natsuhi and Krauss body’s, which makes Eva run to find George with Battler. Eva breaks down seeing George dead, while Battler reflects to himself. This is where we find out Battler has a little sister, named Ange, who he needs to make it back alive for.

Jessica and Nanjo come storming into the room, Jessica screaming that Eva is the only one who could have killed everyone. This leads to Jessica almost being shot in the face after a quick “scuffle” with Eva. Almost being the key word here, she’s still blinded though. Kinda sucks, being almost shot in the face by your aunt and blinded right after seeing the bodies of your dead parents. Nanjo brings Jessica to the other room, and Jessica tells him to go save Battler after wrapping her face up. Yah, Nanjo doesn’t get far and gets killed by Eva-Beatrice right outside the door.

Jessica, alone and scared, cries out for anyone to save her, specifically calling out for Kanon. Back in the witch tea party room, Beatrice says she needs to use magic to make people happy, and make Battler acknowledge her as a witch. Saying goodbye to Ronove, she goes to save Jessica, thus ending the episode.

Next Episode - Swindles

Eden of the East Movie Preview

At the end of the first season of Eden of the East, they announced that the story would continue with a movie, which they finally released a short trailer for. The movie, Eden of the East – The King of Eden is coming out in Japan on November 28th. If anyone is lucky enough to be in Japan during that time, I’d definitely suggest to go see it since the anime was so good. I can’t wait til it comes out on DVD so I can get it and watch it, it’s something I’m really looking forward to along with Evangelion 2.0. The trailer also mentions another movie coming out, Eden of the East – Paradise Lost on January 9th. I wish anime movies could come out in the states simultaneously as they do in Japan…

Here’s the trailer to hold you over until they come out -