Appleseed Ex Machina

Appleseed Ex Machina

Episodes: 1 (Movie)

Aired: Oct 24, 2007

Warning: Spoilers!! Appleseed's second movie, Ex Machina, Is a direct continuation from the first movie. The duo of Deunan and Briareos are back and are still active members of E-S.W.A.T. After a mission which left Briareos injured, Deunan was assigned a new partner, a Bioroid name Tereus, who is the splitting image of Briareos when he was still a human.(Tereus was a bioroid designed from Briareos' DNA). After recovering from injury Briareos himself was assigned a new partner, half human half cyborg Aeacus.

The improved graphics is awesome

The animation is fluid

After peace was achieved in Olympus, Prime Mister Athena was looking for bigger scale peace,she held a conference with other world leaders for the discussion of the creation of a unified satellite system which will aid in issues regarding international peace. Without any sign,  Robots, citizens and even E-S.W.A.T. members (Aeacus) tried to terrorize the on going meeting. It was found out later that the individuals involve in the terrorism were all infected by a virus which affects cyborgs and half cyborgs alike.

Briareos meets Tereus  who looks like his human self

Half-man Half-Cyborg E-SWAT member Aeacus

During the demonstration of the unified satellite, Briareos, who was wandering in the city, loses control. From a some kind of a computer terminal in the streets, Briareos was able to connect and hack the unified satellite command center. (Indirectly, he actually just crashed the system since the virus was installed on the back up module which will then install itself after the system failure)

Hitomi Returns as the new Minster of Political Affairs

Still Prime Minister Athena

Briareos was detained and was put under surveillance. Connecting the Briareos and Aeacus individual cases, Briareos, with the help of Hitomi, was able to deduce that the doctor(Richard Kestner) that he and Aeacus shared was somehow involved. They were able to learn that Kestner was a former doctor of a laboratory named "Halcon" which was based on another utopian city called Poseidon. Briareos eventually escaped and hunted for the doctor.

Briareo's Innards

Duh!

The doctor admitted to his involvement in using Briareos to hack the satellite, and spilled the plans to use the satellite to expand the mind control through Connexus (Device that citizens wear, kinda like a computer you wear on your head). The Doctor also justified the mind control actions as a means of achieving peace by eliminating individuality which is the source of human conflicts. After the Doctor committed his suicide, Briareos escapes from soldiers who were able to track him, he then lost control again but was luckily saved by Tereus and Deunan with the help of a vaccine.

Zombies err...Mind controlled citizens

Infected Briareos

The three then met up with Poseidon officials, and asked for help regarding the mind control and Halcon. The three found out that Halcon was a former leading laboratory which was led by Doctor Elizabeth Xander and Doctor Richard Kestner. The Lab focused on helping war veterans to regain mobility with the help of cyborg and artificial intelligence. However it turned for the worst when the doctors became obsessed with "mind control" which led to the Laboratory's downfall. The three then with the assistance of Poseidon, sets to intrude the the ruins of the Halcon Laboratory and find out the secrets within it's walls.

Unknown creature appears!

The Unified Satellite system demonstrated that it can project cool holograms of olive trees. lol

My Review:

The plot was okay, it was again complex and well made, but not a masterpiece. While the First movie focused on the issues of the co-existence of Humans and Bioroids (Artifical Humans who can't feel anger nor hatred) this time the movie focused on the vulnerability of our cyborg friends through mind control. It was stated by the enemies in the film that mind control can erase individuality which will then eliminate, again "self-will", which is the root of greed, anger and other bad stuff. The show also focused on ethical issues with bioroid again when a new character named Tereus was introduced. Tereus is designed from the DNA of briareos which makes him the mirror image of the human Briareos. Tereus' introduction also stirs up things for the relationship of Deunan and Briareos, specially when Briareos was replaced by him as Deunan's new partner. The art is a lot better that the first film (should be because they were about 3 years apart.) The 3D graphics is extemely good, detailed and more beautiful. The whole film is a great eye candy. If you liked the first film and you like sci-fi or just plain 3D movies, im sure you'll love this sequel.

E-S.WAT

The Landmates (should be airmates) are back!

My Personal Rating: 8/10

Appleseed

Appleseed

Episodes: 1 (Movie)

Aired: Apr 17, 2004

Appleseed is a sci-fi anime based on a manga of the same name which was written by the "Ghost in the Shell" author Shirow Masamune. A global war has just ended and the world is left as a big wasteland. Deunan Knute, our main heroine, is a very skilled soldier who participated in the global war. Having no knowledge that the war was already over, she was still fighting (with fellow fighters) against androids trying to survive on ruins of what was once cities. She was rescued by E-SWAT (Extra-Special and Weapons Advanced Tactics) members along with Hitomi which is a 2nd gen Bioroid. Bioroids are like artificially created humans that were based on the DNA of Deunan's Father, Carl, effectively making them clones. She was taken to an advanced city called Olympus, Olympus is a Utopian city in the middle of ruins and wastelands.  In a hospital Deunan planning to escape, encounters Briareos, Deunan's former lover who is now turned into a cyborg. She then decides to stay and join E-SWAT to accompany Briareos. The plot focuses on the issue of creation of artificial humans or clones.

Deunan performing her acrobatic feats

Sweet bioroid Hitomi

The bioroids are human like, they possess limited emotion making them always act rationally, unlike humans who can sometimes act illogically due to emotion, making them devoid of human error and also some free will. Bioroids may be above humans but they can only live for a very limited amount of time compared to the humans because of their lack of reproductive functions. They cannot bear offspring and must periodically undergo a "life extension process".

Briareos Hecatonchires our resident terminator.

The 7 elders and the Gaia System

The City of Olympus is a very advanced one (with flying vehicles and other stuff). Half of it's population is composed of Humans while the other half is composed of Bioroids. At the middle of the city are two superstructures called Tartarus and Daedalus which provides the city its power (through solar panels installed on both structures). At the top of the structures contain D-tank, a tank containing a virus that is meant to wipe out the bioroids (Humans' built this for security). At the core of the Tartarus and Daedalus resides the biological supercomputer Gaia which monitors the whole city specially the bioroid and human interactions (maintaining the balance between the two races).

Now inside this somewhat peaceful Utopia, tensions and conflicts still exists, specially between bioroids and humans. General Uranus, the leader of the Olympus regular army, is an extremist who sees bioroids as threat to humans. The governing body including the Prime Minister Athena are all composed of bioroids. The highest authority however still belongs to the supercomputer Gaia. The Gaia is accompanied by the council of 7 elders. (Gaia's "decisions" are based within debates of the computer itself and the 7 elders) These 7 elders provide Gaia's only lacking component, emotion. The conflict between humans and bioroids hit its peak when a group of androids destroys the breeding grounds effectively destroying a lot of 3rd generation bioroids and disabling them access for life extensions as well.

Cute chibi-Deunan

Deunan doing her usual stunt as she, in mid-air, enters the "Landmate"

The story focuses on Deunan and Brioreos' efforts to save the bioroids (and Hitomi) by searching for the technological data called "Appleseed" which will restore all bioroid reproduction functions making them a new race of humans. A lot of plot twists and role reversals is in store, from Deunan's mothers' (Dr. Gilliam Knute) past to Deunan and Brioreos' relationship towards each other as human and cyborg. Everyone has their own secret schemes and a lot will take you by surprise. The plot is intelligently well made, just what you would expect from Shirow Masamune. The art is good, it is 3D animated and it its well done for its time. The action scenes are detailed and are fluid! If you liked "Ghost in the shell" you'll surely love this. A true sci-fi classic that'll make you think and be amazed of it's plot and will also please your eyes with its good and detailed 3D animation.

the former lovers

The Landmates are really awesome

the MAJOR SPOILERS!!

It is later revealed that the 7 elders are the masterminds on destroying the bioroid breeding facility, prompting Deunan to remember the whereabouts of the appleseed (her mother left it to her hands when she was a child) in order to force the activation of bioroid reproduction functions. Another revelation is that the D-tank contains a virus that doesn't kill bioroids but instead inactivates the humans' reproduction system. The elders manipulated General Uranos to destroy the breeding facility and the D-tank which will slowly kill-off the human race and will let the bioroids replace them and become the new humankind. The 7 elders came to this conclusion when Gaia predicted that humans will destroy itself and the world within 3 generations. They figured that the bioroids will be better suited to live and restore the world than the humans.

My Personal Rating: 9/10

Ao no Exorcist

Yukio, Rin and True Cross Academy's Shady Chairman Mephisto Pheles

Ao no Exorcist
"Blue Exorcist"

Episodes: 25 Episodes
Aired: Apr 17, 2011, Oct 2, 2011

Ao no Exorcist is a typical shounen anime that had great potential to be a top tier shounen, but ultimately falls to a little under average.. It started off great, and had high potential, but the plot never really went anywhere and things just didn't make sense plot wise. While the first half was okay the second half with it's fast pacing kinda ruined the series. It's like they just threw stuff after stuff there that wasn't really important and the story had no direction. It only has 25 episodes (pretty short for a shounen) but it managed to give its viewers, pointless filler episodes which leaves little time for the important details.

Young Rin, Young Yukio and their guardian Shirou.

L-R: Konekomaru Miwa, Renzou Shima, Takara Nemu(and his puppet), Ryuuji Suguro, Rin Okumura, Izumo Kamiki and Shiemi Moriyama

The setting is Assiah  which is kinda like our world (mix between fantasy and modern world), where exorcists are real and are treated like the army. The demons reside in a Gehenna (a mirror world of Assiah), the demons were able to pass from Gehenna to Assiah by possessing objects or animals (even humans) that exist on Assiah.

Satan's other offsprings, the mischievous and manipulating  Mephisto Pheles and the childish Amaimon.

Ever heard of a popular german tale about Faust (a human) having a contract with a demon named mephistopheles?

The story revolves around half-demon half-human twins (Rin Okumura and Yukio Okumura). The twins' mother is Yuri Frederick Egin a female exorcist (human) and their father is Satan himself (only Rin inherited Satan's demon powers). Both were adopted  by Shirou Fujimoto a world renowned exorcist. Fujimoto is one of the best exorcist in the world that earned him the title of "Paladin" (Strongest exorcist in the face of the planet). He has managed to shrug off Satan's possession attempts, but one day failed to do so (Kinda Rin's fault since he argued with Fujimoto) which resulted in his death.

Satan-Possessed Shirou covered with Flames

Out of Control Rin (as you can see those blue flames are flames he inherited from Satan)

The brothers, wanting to follow on their step father's footsteps and driven by the desire of exacting revenge on Satan, joined True Cross Academy which is an academy for exorcists (Kinda ironic since both siblings have demon bloods flowing in their veins). This is where their story begins. Like I said earlier, the plot has great potential to be a seriously good shounen anime, but then it sticked to the school setting and never really went far.

Shura Kirigakure and  the "Paladin" Arthur Auguste Angel aka. "Baldy" (Both are ,at present, the top exorcists)

Satan and Yuri's first meeting.

A lot of side characters were introduced (with dedicated episodes for backgrounds) and I kinda like the Idea that each of them had different exorcism skills and specialties but the plot never gave them justice, no character development for them and they never really had the screen time to build some depth on their personalities which leaves them flat and one dimensional. (again wasted potential). For a shounen anime involving demons and exorcist I was expecting more bad-ass enemies but the enemies that were presented were pretty weak and non were really memorable. The monsters and other creatures though were good looking and had good design. The art though was good and consistent.

Yukio, Rin and the adorable Kuro (Shirou's pet cat that was passed on to Rin)

One of the scarier Demons

Though the plot had minimal major events, the whole series was still a good watch for its quality art and animation, good humor and very nice action scenes (though limited). Each episode was still quite enjoyable  and won't really bore you even if most of them were fillers.

My Rating: 7/10

OP1: Core Pride - UVERworld
OP2: In My World - ROOKiEZ is PUNK'D

ED1: Take Off - 2PM

ED2: Wired Life - Meisa Kuroki

Another

Misaki Mei and Kouchi Sakakibara

Another

Episodes: 12 

Aired: Jan 10, 2012 - Mar 27, 2012

Another is not your typical horror anime. It doesn't involve scary monsters or your typical ghosts (Ghosts here don't really float and scare you). It's about a "curse" where the class 3 of Yomiyama North Junior High had to endure ever since a horrible incident involving the death of one of its student (Misaki). Legend has it that the classmates of Misaki (even after her death) treated her as if she was still alive and existing in the class. The only problem is that the already dead Misaki inexplicably showed up in their graduation photo (Yikes!). This is kinda where the mysterious curse began. This curse is a mystery to everyone, all they know is that every school year, student lives are taken through horrible freak accidents (one for each month). Over the years, the unlucky students who gets assigned to the cursed class, using clues from past students, designed "special rules" in the class in order to avoid the killings. (which did work)

The Unlucky Class of Yomiyama High

L-R: Reiko (a teacher and Kouchi's aunt), Kouchi and Kudobara-sensei.

 Our main protagonist is a 15 year old boy Sakakibara Kouchi, a transfer student from Tokyo. He is taken care of by his grandparents and his aunt Reiko Mikami (a former student of Yomiyama along with her mother). His mother died due after giving birth to him and his dad works in India. His arrival kinda complicates things for the students as it conflicts with the "rules" they have set. There he meets a mysterious girl with an eye patch, Misaki Mei, who is somehow invisible from the eyes of the other students. Not taking the advice of his fellow students to avoid whatever it is he's seeing, a negligence of the rules (though he didn't really know that rules existed), leads to a roller coaster ride of death and madness.

Sneak Peek at the Madness of Another

I think she fell face first on a patch of mud.

Now, Another,  possesses good and neat art, the characters at least for me, were a bit cute looking (just a tiny litte bit) for a horror anime, but it didn't really matter much because they showed genuine emotion fit for a horror story. The artists did a good job of rendering the creepiness, mysteriousness and the gore for the story whether through the cute but fine and detailed art, the creepy and dark backgrounds, and the sounds (that can be eerie at times). The plot is amazing, it'll keep you guessing until the end of each episode (and more times than not you'll end up wrong). It started slow and very mysterious, builds it up with answers and then adds more questions, and then when you finally realize what's going on it'll just take you by surprise. They did a great job at building it up for the climax.

The Original Class where it all began. (Rumor is that you can spot a ghost here)

26 later, the allegedly cursed class still exists.

They truly did a good job for the creating the atmosphere for a mystery horror show. Overall, it was above average, everything fits together and the only thing that really bothered me was the outrageous-ness of some of the deaths which can be pretty silly and funny. Another minor thing I didn't like (just a tiny bit) was the quick pacing near the end where everything will just blow up right in your face. It's a solid mystery, suspense, thriller that'll keep you on your toes.  

Plenty of scary looking dolls in this show ( I hate Dolls)

Specially "weird" and "creepy" looking dolls.

My Personal Rating: 9/10

OP1: Kyoumu Densen - Ali project (just like most of Ali project songs, this fits the madness of Another)

ED1: Anamnesis - Annabel  (this song will offer you some peace of mind with it's slow and relaxing melody, perfect after an episode of a horror show.)