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.)

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wa Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wa Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai

"We Still Don't Know the Flower We Saw That Day"

Episodes:11

Aired:Apr 15, 2011- Jun 24, 2011

Ano Hi Mita Hana is about a group of childhood friends who is being haunted by their cute childhood friend who is now a cute ghost. The show focuses on the now teenagers as they try reunite the old childhood group and try to come to terms with each other and their own pasts. Along the way they will realize their regrets and past mistakes as they try to fix these mistakes and move on with their lives. Eventually they all have to deal with the acceptance of someone who will never come back to life. Meiko Honma (menma) is our cute ghost who unfortunately died on an accident when she was still a child, She comes back to the physical world probably because of things she has yet to settle before she can finally rest. Our main protagonist, and the only one who can see our Menam is Jinta Yadomi. Now Jinta's issue is that he probably loved Honma back when they were still young/ He was a typical rowdy kid who always makes the crybaby Menma cry.   Unfortunately Honma died before Jinta could ever apologize nor express his true emotions. Now after a lot of years Honma appears before the now hikikomori Jinta as a ghost, how will Jinta handle this situation? The other characters Naruko Anjou, Tetsudou Hisakawa, Atsumu Matsuyuki and Chiriko Tsuyumi also has "heavy" issues of their own which stems from their past as childhood friends and the death of their beloved Honma. All of them will have to deal with these issues in order to set Menma free. The characters are the driving force of this show.

L-R: Jinta, Tetsu, Anjou, Menma, Atsumu and Chiriko (Super Peace Busters)

L-R: Satoshi(menma's lil bro), Chiriko, Atsumu, Jinta, Anjou and Tetsu.

Ano Hi Mita Hana is a real tear Jerker, in each episode they'll have something under their sleeves that'll make your eyes wet. It's an emotional roller coaster through remembering the bitter-sweet past and learning how to get over it and move on. The art is good, vividly colored and consistently top quality. Animation is fluid too. The script is something real special as it sounds perfect for each scene, nothing really sounded forced or out of place and you could really feel their emotions through their words. Besides the ghost, everything feels realistic and the show itself feels like a drama instead of an anime. This is recommended for everyone except those who don't want to cry.

Menma's Goodbye Letters

From the start you'd expect that in no way this'll have a happy ending.

My Personal Rating: 9/10

OP1: Aoi Shiori (Blue Bookmark) - Galileo Galilei

ED2: Secret Base ~ Kimi ga Kureta Mono (After 10 Years) - Ai Kayano