Those Who Hunt Elves I & II

Those Who Hunt Elves is anime about ripping off clothes from women… without even a trace of fanservice ;__;

This is a review of both seasons.

Story begins as we get to know that a group of people tried to return to Japan from (cause of a lack of better words) a parallel world. The whole prologue is split over two or three episodes, so I’m not going to spoil it. The point is that they have to check bodies of elves in search of fragments of a spell. The twist is that there are only five fragments and female elves in that world are mountains. As you’d expect, no woman wants to undress naked in front of strangers, so they had to take different approach. Well – they used the easiest possible method, ripping off their clothes.

So, our group consists of big guy that is a numbskull, refined female actress from Hollywood and, to my surprise, high school girl that is a military freak (o__O) Of course they need something to traverse this big world, so yeah, they have a freaking tank!!1 Well, with a setting like this, you just can’t have a decent, reasoned anime in the first place, so you can expect a lot of ludicrous adventures full of hilarious events – I personally laughed hard at an episode with little white bear ( I think it was in second season) .

The whole anime is really funny – characters tend to joke around even about them being in anime and such. If I had to compare this series, I’d say that it’s really similar to the original series of Slayers both in jokes and style. Well, some patterns tend to repeat themselves, like driving to the setting sun at the end of the day, but there is just few of them. Episodes are titled in the same pattern “Those, who…” and are relevant to what’s going to happen in current episode.

To sum it up, Those Who Hunt Elves is anime for people who like adventure comedies in style of Slayers, and where you don’t have to think too hard into it. If you expect some really deep, emotional stuff, then it’s not anime for you, BUT if you’re looking for anime to spend some good time with, it’s definitely anime for you.

Subbing Group: Exiled-Destiny

Episodes: 2x12

My Score: 7

Ookami Kakushi

Oh lord, where should I begin….

Ookami Kakushi is an anime about mysterious town where strange disappearances occurs every now and then. A young boy called Hiroshi moves to Jouga town with his family – dad and younger sister (go for it, lolicons). Story revolves around that boy and his three female classmates. One is a diligent type girl interested in occult, the other one is a tomboy that always clings on the boy and the third one is quiet, dangerous looking girl that causes terror in class.

Mysteries of the town are being really slowly revealed to us as more strange things happen around Hiroshi. When he meets masked girl with a GIANT SCYTHE FTW!?, he slowly takes interest in what's going on around him – though it looks more like he's being pushed into that by his friends.

I have to admit that I can’t write more about the setting of the anime without going into spoils, so let's stop at that and jump to the point now:

The beginning tries to look like some kind of romance story with a girl pestering Hiroshi and creating ecchi situations, like showing off in swimsuit and such, but there are hidden things happening in the city that takes over whole airing time later on – unfortunately we're not let to see Isuzu's lolicious body long enough (and I guess that was where that series should've end to be honest).

What really pissed me off throughout whole serial was guy's seijuu – it's a rare talent to find such annoying voice, it was like scratching a blackboard to me, seriously, so you may want to consider watching this anime on the mute.

There is one big mystery in the anime that is being revealed during eleven episodes – for me it was way too long and boring, seems like creators didn't have an idea for this serial and just went with what looked ok to them. Audience gets to know everything almost from the beginning and we're made to look how everyone hectically try to clear out the smoke or escape their fate written into the story – well, they don't even try to escape that, at least not those with dramatic fates, they just jump on the trees and wait for what is to come – which is usually a disappearance.

Anime, despite being from the “mystery” genre, is REALLY slow and not appealing for me – I mean, how long can you watch Hiroshi being chased and hear his screams…? He's like a protagonist from (cheap) harem anime – he has no looks, no personality and always runs away from something, not even being funny. There is no thrill throughout most of the series – only at the end there shows up a scheme, but it's being cleared out really quickly (though with a dramatic scene where a beautiful woman dies and friendship wins, as always~).

Looks like authors had completely no idea how they should end the season. After eleven episodes that were moderately interesting, there comes the grand finale, the only episode I found worth watching. A story completely unrelated to the rest of the season, full of laughs and win – an episode that looks like it was created only because they've bought twelve episode-long airing time and ran out of original story. Chapter is purely comedic, with little funny histories that occurred after all the mysteries were solved and peace and pink elephants and whatnots triumphed over the bad wolves, lol. We see Hiroshi and his friends sitting in the café and reminiscing some crazy adventures, like Hiroshi being dressed as a waitress and thugs or scary girl cosplaying as a big pink rabbit (don't ask me >_<). Even if you're not going to watch whole series, I advise you see the twelfth episode just for laughs　ガガガ――∑(°Д°ǁ|)――ン！！

To be honest, I fail to recognize the target audience for this series – it's nothing for comedy-lovers and I really doubt that mystery-lovers will be satisfied with Ookami Kakushi, but hey, it's only my opinion, so who knows, maybe you're one of those people that will like this series.

Sub Group: gg and Nekomimi

Episodes: 12

My Score: 6/10 for the lolis and pink bunny~

Magical Nyan Nyan Taruto

Magical Nyan Nyan Taruto or anime for neko-freaks!! Seriously.

Story begins when our heroine, Taruto moves with her master to a new home. We get to know that Taruto can use magic - though it comes out the way she wants only more or less, with emphasis on "less". Her master lives in his own world of sweets and speaks some unrelated stuff all the time, so hearing how they "talk" with each other, can make you go FTW!!?

So, the story is all about cats and their world - human world is more of a background for what happens in the anime. Taruto is a really cute cat-girl and she's clumsy, and I mean really clumsy, both in actions and way of speaking. All the cats in anime are personified - each and every of them look like nekogirl or nekoboy - the later one I haven't seen anywhere beside this anime. Though cats can speak, people can't understand them, but Taruto "talks" with her master all the time despite that fact. What makes me wonder even to this moment is why the hell Taruto is a nekololi maid in pantyhose.

Soon, Taruto meets more cats, that become her friends - especially two other nekogirls and an old ninja geezer, who insists that also can use magic.

Whole anime revolves around Taruto experiencing weird adventures, mostly related to her failing magic and silly ideas, sometimes making us laugh or cry. Only at the end creators serve us some "thrilling" adventures with bad nekos scheming to catnapp princess of mystical world called Ganash... will they succeed? What's the role of Taruto in all this!? Will we see what Taruto has under her skirt!!? This and many more in Magical Nyan Nyan Taruto!

Whole serial has rather slow pace, without any thrills, but hey - it's a nice light comedy with nekos, and loli maid at that!!

To summarize, Taruto is nothing special, don't expect being glued to the screen through those twelve episodes of moeness, but if you love cute airhead nekololis, you're just going to love this series ;)

For everyone that's going to watch it - Tora Tora Nya Nya! <33~

Sub Group: Exiled-Destiny

Episodes: 12

My Score: 6/10

B Gata H Kei (FER)

Let's start with something I just watched recently -"B Gata H Kei" (this is a review after watching only one episode) - First Episode Review.

Story seems to revolve around virgin bishoujo who's obsessed about having sex - yes, even though she's a virgin ^__^" We only get to know girl's surname - Yamada.

Girl has a plan of getting 100 sex friends during her high school time and has really incredible ideas. Even though she wants to have sex badly, she's always getting shy while trying to create situations, so it doesn't work out so well. In first episode Yamada-chan decides on her first target - it's her classmate and also a virgin (because she's embarrassed about having sex with someone experienced - she thinks that she's not "normal" down there). And so, she tries to create various occasions that look more like bullying than seducing - like calling him a virgin or shouting on him and many, many more - I don't want to spoil the fun for you. I have the feeling that topping first impression will be hard, but hey, if to judge by a preview of next episode - we're going to see her and few more hot girls in swimsuits! *kyun*

Whole episode is filled with ecchiness, but I think that it's still a healthy dose that shouldn't make anyone disgusted with excessive erotica - it watches really pleasantly and caused me to bursts with laughter many times. I expect this one to be one of the titles worth waiting for during Spring 2010 season.

Of course for final judgement we have to wait till the end of the show, but I guess it's worth to keep this anime in mind.