Since I did the smart thing and went and quit my job back in August so I can prepare for my lovely time at bootcamp, I've done nothing like that and really just sat here watching stupid anime shows.

And by stupid, I mean awesome because after seeing what sort of stuff that's played on Adult Swim (DEATH NOTE), I have new respect for the stuff I already like... if that makes sense.

Here's three, or four, or five if I can even think of that many shows I like, that you should watch religiously (AND PHYSICALLY PURCHASE) because they're superior to Bleach, DEATH NOTE, Code Geass, Fullmetal Alchemist Fullmetal Alchemist Fullmetal Alchemist, INYUASHA, WOOOOOOOOLFS RAIN, s-CRY-ed, PILOTS CANDIDATE (Oh God, how I wish everyone involved with that production would just die), PARANOIA AGENT PARANOIA AGENT ANNOYING AGENT, and Eureka Seven, which I never saw but I can tell by it's name and from the cover to one of it's comic books that I'll hate it anyways.

Okay!  Let's mosey.  If you know me, this list probably won't surprise you BUT WHO KNOWS, I do have love/hate relations with some series!

I'm kind of mentally unbalanced at the moment from PT this morning, but bare with me!

In no real order:
Bubblegum Crisis
Genre: Super action packed rock n' roll 80's action with haughty female leads
Pros: Mad Machine
Cons: Everything after "Revenge Road" (except maybe the final OVA)

A classic example of a Blade Runner ripoff while being a bit more exciting, it's a lovely series about discriminating against Boomers (humanoid robots) who go berserk and start killing everyone around them.  The AD Police fail against the Boomers, so it's up to the female ass kicking squad known as the Knight Sabers to stop any rampaging Boomers and any uhh... bad stuff that Genom, the Boomer manufacturers, tries to pull.

Really, I didn't watch this for a deep plot or anything.  It's just a nice dumb action series (a dying bread now-a-days) that doesn't take itself so seriously, and is sat to some awesome 80's rock songs.

I personally loose interest in the series after the fourth OVA, but everyone else says it gets better (as they're always against my opinion).  I kind of prefer the dark and grittiness of the first half myself, but thats not to say that the second half of the series doesn't have it's moments.  The last OVA was pretty cool none the less.  You can pick up the boxset at a Suncoast Video if you're lucky.  Cost me about 60 bucks.

AD Police
Genre: Too dark to see anything half the time show/Super holy christ violent detective story
Pros: A Boomer dangerously close to human.
Cons:  I bite my tongue to prove I'm still human. I bite my tongue to prove I'm still human. I bite my tongue to prove I'm still human.

AD Police for the most part is superior to Bubblegum Crisis, but I'll take the former because this is kind of a depressing show.  But where BGC lacks in the plot department, this more than makes up for it, has some impressive visuals, some nice Lou Bonneville music and nice Boomer action.

And did I mention it's violent?  Right in the first episode, you've got a nude lady being shot all over the place, people torn to pieces, a police man having his head crushed against a glass window (juicy) and Leon pretty much a bloody mess the whole time.

Anyways, AD Police takes place before the Knight Sabers shows up, and when Leon first joins them (albeit he's really only the star for the first OVA).  The first OVA is about Leon being chased down by a Gynoid (a Boomer designed for sex) who is disturbed in her cybernetic brain, as she's built from recycled Boomer parts and sex screws with their minds.

Episode 2 deals with the deaths of young prostitutes on a subway line, and it might be connected to a company president who has had over 70% of her body cybernized, particularly her female reproductive organs.  And then the final episode is a take on Robo-Cop, except it's not a fun satire and watching a woman attempt to make love to just a tongue has kind of scarred me.

Overall this is a pretty good show.  I'll still take BGC since I prefer something not so drastically dark, but if you can stomach some of the stuff in this, check it out none the less.

Stand Alone Complex - 2nd Gig
Genre: cyberpunk dudeeeeee
Pros: Motoko learned how to dress.
Cons: I honestly cant think of anything.

I'm jaded.  I think everything done with computers will suck instantly.  I love hand drawn and coloured art, and designs from the 80's/early to mid 90's.  The final battle in "Do You Remember Love" is hands down my favorite animated scene ever created (and that's coming from a Area 88 fan).

And lets face it, in the plot department of anything made now a days, it's either trying to be way to complex for it's own good (Seriel Experiments Lame, Paranoia Agent) or just too stupid to exist (Narutard).  There's no middle ground, where a show can be deep but not pretentious, yet simple but not braindead simple.

So of course I came to Stand Alone Complex with a grain of salt (is that how that saying goes?).  Didn't help that I think the movies, while having good action sequences, tries too hard to be much more than just a cyberpunk story and bored me to tears (Oh God, the second movie).

Boy I'm glad this turned out to be awesome.  Especially the second season, 2nd Gig.

I bought the complete boxset last week and plowed through it in a couple days, something of a record as any boxsets I get tend to take a few months to complete (if ever, sorry DBZ season 1).

Since this isn't a relatively obscure title, I don't have to get down to brasstacks (thank god), but I'll point out why I like it:  I'm a fan of the comics.  There's so many little teases with the source material that the movies ignored that it just tickles me pink.  Not to mention it kept some humor in tact, unlike the meek films.  And for a show made in this generation, I respect it's art direction as well (especially now as Motoko doesn't dress so... embarrassingly).  While I don't treat Yoko Kanno as the freaking Virigin Mary, her music is pretty suitable.

If I could pick just one reason why I love it so much, it would because of that last episode "Return to Patriotism; ENDLESS∞GIG".  Holy crap, watching the tachikoma's sacrifice themselves made me borderline teary.  Borderline, grown men don't cry.  Right?  RIGHT!?

Anyways, everyone knows what S.A.C. is, so I'll just move on now.

Evangelion
Genre: The alpha male of psuedo-intellectual animus
Pros: Holy ****!  Did that robot just do a drop kick on a helicopter!?
Cons: "THE END OF EVANGELION"

Blahblahblah, everyone knows what Eva is.  I can't explain why I like it, despite the kick in the nuts that the series does half way through, and the fact that the movie is like being forced to watch a sociopath rape and kill your family, I just do.

Area 88
Genre: Anti-war message done right, send to Hideo Kojima so he can learn.
Pros: It's perfect.
Cons: Nothing is wrong.  It is absolute.

I'm starting to fall asleep.  Time for bullets!
-Wonderful plot about what war does to peoples minds, without ever being preachy or corny.
-Great characters all around.
-Beautifully animated, so much soul put into it.
-Awesome, realistic dog fights (with deaths that make me cringe sometimes).
-The ending makes this a modern day tragedy.

Oh god I'm fading.  Okay, heres other stuff that I'd like to write about but I just can't continue.  All of the following will forever be better than anything you can name:
-Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040
-Do You Remember Love
-Blue Gender
-Trigun
-Lily C.A.T.
-Tenchi Universe
-Ninja Scroll
-Wicked City
-Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
-Biohunter
-Gundam (any except G Gundam and SEED)
-Outlaw Star
-Pet Shop of Horrors
-Dirty Pair
-Tokyo Babylon
-Phantom Quest Corp.
-3x3 Eyes
-Laughing Target
-City Hunter
-Doomed Megaopolis
-Cyber City Oedo 0808 (YES!)
-Parasite Dolls
-Armored Troopers Votoms (DOUBLE YES!)
-Baoh
-FLCL
-Antique Heart
-Spirit Warrior
-Black Magic M-66
-Crying Freeman
-Gantz
-Anything with Golgo 13.  Period.

So what do you think?  I have yet to recieve a comment about the list being incorrect, so everyone agrees with me as usual.

Music is trash, except for the following.

Come on Pilgrim
-Pixies, the four guardian angels in my version of Heaven.

Pixies. A rockband that sings about interbreading, Samson, sludge from New Jersey, Crickity Jones, seamonkies, bombing Japan, ladies in radiators, aliens and the University of Massachusetts of all things. Like all bands they had a beginning, and the EP, "Come on Pilgrim", was that beginning.

"Come on Pilgrim" is the Pixies at their rawest. It's recording quality is pretty off kilter. Black Frances sounds like he's as far away from the microphone as possible. It also features more Spanish songs than usual. And it has "Nimrods Son", which is the only song I can enjoy sung in a dumb country accent. I guess it helps that the chorus features the line "You are the son of incestuous union"

While it doesn't have any real hits on it like their later albums would, it's got such a wonderful energy to it that most bands have on their first albums. Back when they tried their damndest to get noticed, but having feelings they'd just be ignored for the idiots with emo glasses and soulpatches....great, I'm infusing my school days into this review.

But none the less the love is there in this album. "Ed is Dead", "Levitate Me" and "I've Been Tired" are the highlights on it for me. It's kind of hard to find. At the very most, look for their follow-up album, Surfer Rosa, which is pretty good as well.

Trompe le Monde
-Pixies again.

The polar opposite of Come on Pilgrim. This was the Pixies final album together. And it sounds nothing like the EP. Theres not many albums where I can just put it into my CD player and play it without skipping a song here or there, but this one is so rocking that I can just let it play forever and not get tired of it.

While it's not as creative as the Pixies first two albums, and really Surfer Rosa or Doolittle should be in this spot, I just find the songs on this album to be more catchy. "U-Mass" is a good example of this general catchiness. Same goes for "Motorway to Rosswell" and "Planet of Sound".

And plus, the climax to "The Sad Punk" is just win.

Antichrist Superstar
-Marylin Manson, priest of my religion.

Well. Despite having two Pixie albums on here, I decided to try and limit everything to just one per artist from here on out. Which is now going to hamper my thought process into explaining why I'll take one album over another, despite both being equally good.

And in this case, it's either Antichrist Superstar or Mechanical Animals. Antichrist Superstar takes the lead. Why? I dont know.

So Antichrist Superstar.  A name I've said three times so far without expalining anything about it.  Well, it's a rather well done rock album created in the mid-90's, where pretty much everything sucked by that point in time from everyone, and it's made by Marylin Manson, a silly person who acts like he's some sort of demon while wearing costumes that'd make David Bowie turn his head and cough.

And before we go on, I have to say Marylin Manson is one of the few people that can manage to balance out music and singing without taking away from either camp. Well, only when Twiggy was around, the last album was kind of bland in the music catagory. But all this praise for him is making me sound like some sort of goth, and I hope no one thinks of me as one of those freaks. Please?

But back to Antichrist. It's the album everyone will remember for having "Beautiful People" on it, and nothing else. Which is a shame, because there are songs that are even better than that on it, such "Irresponsable Hate Anthem" which is the COOLEST opening song with the COOLEST guitar riffs EVER. PERIOD. Screw you, I'm right. It also features a little known songs such as "Wormboy", "Mister Superstar", "Angel with the Scabbed Wings" and the title song which has my favorite chorus line: "Cut the head off, grows back on. I am the hydra."

While most people will ignore this wonderful product of hate because it's Marylin Manson, I recommend it to anybody who wants to rock out to something not made by limpwristed jerk offs like Greenday or "classic rock", a genre of music with no song structures or anything meaniful behind their songs. Beattles suck. Led Zepplin is the worse. Pink Floyd actually got better with time before collapsing into ego singlularity after The Wall.

Right. I'm losing track of what little train of thought I ever have. Uhh....next?

Persona 3
-Shoji Meguro, voice of the one true God.

This was tricky.  Persona 4 in a way is catchier, more fun to speed to and more rockin' than Persona 3's soundtrack.  But since I only own the soundtrack to that, and have not played the actual game the music is created for, Persona 3 wins by all the wonderful moments I associate the songs to. And man, did I want to cry when "Burn my Dread (the Last Battle)" started playing. Uhhh....

Since hearing Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne's music, I've followed Shoji Meguro to the ends of the Earth. RPG's usually are only good for the battle themes, but he managed to trandsend that stereotype and create a fully listenable soundtrack. Man I can't stress how beautiful the staff roll song is.

But this about Persona 3, not SMT3.  When I first heard it, I was taken back it's style change.  Normally I associated Shoji for hard rock guitar songs thanks to the Digital Devil Saga... not rap and pop.  But after getting used to the new change, Persona 3 rose through the ranks and has quickly become a standered in my CD players.  It was so good, despite the soundtrack Atlus (God bless them) packed in with the game, I went out of my way and bought the full album along with FES just for two extra songs ("Master of Tartarus" and "The Deep Psyche").  Okay, so I waited till I played the FES expansion till I bought that album, but still it too was wonderful. "Heartful Cry", man. "Heartful Cry".

Anyways, rap music.  Capcom, unsurprisingly, fell flat on their face with trying to mix rap music into a videogame with Street Fighter 3. But Shoji on the other hand, like proving with SMT3 that RPG music can be more outside of the battlefield, took the challange and managed to make such memorable songs such as "Mass Destruction", "Deep Breath" and my personal favorite, "Burn My Dread (the last battle)".

While the Tartarus songs do get a bit redundent, FES makes life a bit better with "Interstice of Time"

And now, time for the best album ever in human history.

Guilty Gear XX: The Midnight Carnival
-Daisuke Ishiwatari, the only true God.

Again, like Persona 3 and Persona 4, this was a tough one to choose.  Guilty Gear 2: Overture is technically better with songs like "Worthless as the Sun Above Clouds" and "Diva", but nostalgia overrides technicality any day.  Blow me.  How else can anyone think the mass produced crap by Treasure is "fun"!?

This was my soundtrack to life in junior high.  "Liquor Bar & Drunkard" was MY themesong at the time.  I can't say enough about this double disk heavy metal head-bang-a-thon from the viking Gods. It got me into music, it got me to play instruments, it kept me going through the sheer Hell that school is for those who did't find some stupid clique to fit into.  I would risk my life and walk home just so I could listen to it, rather than be distracted by a bunch of idiots on the school bus.  In otherwords, it made me the bastard that I am today.  And by the way, anyone who says Hard Rock Tracks is better is lieing and most likely is a disgusting waste of skin who enjoys Japanese pop idols.  This has live bass and drums, instead of some crappy clicks for snares and a midi bass (though I will admit, "A Solitude That asks Nothing in Return" is better on Hard Rock Tracks).

Each song is so full of personality that they perfectly matches the character they were painstakingly crafted for. Daisuke is one of the only composers I know that can make heavy metal with a melody and soul, instead of some chaotic mess you'd normally find with music that calls itself rock or metal.  "Keep Yourself Alive II"  is more of a rebellious song thanks to it's cocky bass and drums and that oh so glorious organ in the background than anything a punk band can come up with now a days.  Oh man, you said something disrespecting about Bush?  Please.  Quit sacrificing a potentially good song for your stupid ass political agenda.  Daisuke was able to get his point across for what kind of person Sol Badguy is without even having to write lyrics.

Take that, "RISE AGAINST" and "SYSTEM OF A  DOWN".

Anyways... Not only does this have all of X's character songs rearranged by a live band, but you get all of the new (at the time) songs as well plus a few By Your Side tunes like "Meet Again" and "Pride and Glory".  While it doesn't have any of the songs from SLASH or Accent Core (and man, would I love to have "Keep the Flag Flying" and "Launch Out" on disk), it's still worth it.  "The Midnight Carnival" is a song I want playing while running into a fight I'll most likely die in.  "Simple Life" is a fun tune to drive to.  "Haven't You Got Eyes in Your Head?" is the only song with a saxaphone that I like (helps that it's not a jazz song, a genre thats even worse than "classic rock").

If I wasn't poor, I'd probably buy this album for my nonexistent friends. Thats how much I love it.

Anyone who downloads this and does not purchase it (like anything else I mentioned) has more or less just sealed their fate for a eternity in Hell.

Everybodies suddenly a mod!  Who do I have to pleasure to become one myself?

I liked it when forums wern't a hassle.