9) Team Plasma-Ghetsis battle

8 ) Team Rocket-grunt (GSC)

7) Team Plasma-N Final

6) Team Galactic-grunt

5) Team Galactic-Admin

4) Team Aqua/Magma-grunt

3) Team Aqua/Magma-admin/leader

2) Team Galactic-Cyrus

1) Team Plasma-grunt

Why must the Plasma grunts suck so much when they have the best theme?! Best theme, shortest battle

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10) Gloom to Bellossom

Ok, now, Gloom to Vileplume makes sense and at least Gloom and Bellossom both look like grass types. But Gloom looks so depressed it can't even be bothered to wipe its mouth and Bellossom is all happy and cheery and wearing a lovely little skirt even.

9) Feebas to Milotic

Ok, these also both look like water Pokemon, but Feebas is just so ugly and plain, it barely even has the same color scheme as Milotic. It's supposed to evolve via beauty only prior to gen 5 (where they finally introduced a trade item for this pain in the neck), but really, can one Feebas look any better than another? I put in Feebas over Magikarp because I think Gyarados looks at least kinda fishy, Milotic looks more snakey.

8 ) Shroomish to Breloom

Also both look like grass, but just look at them! The only thing they have in common is the color scheme but they don't have anything else in common. Totally different expression, feet, and Breloom actually has the whole mushroom thing going on more. And it's human shape, that's a bit odd.

7) Carvahna to Sharpedo

Back when Gen 3 was new, I honestly though these were two distinctly unevolving Pokemon. Heck, I had to double check with bulbapedia just to make sure Carvahna really does turn into Sharpedo. But yes, it turns out the pirahna-thing turns into a shark without half a body. Except for the bottom fin being a bit similar and both having a blue top half, they have totally different: fish body types, teeth, eyes, fins, lower colors, and top fins. These look like two totally different water Pokemon to me that aren't at all related.

6) Karrablast to Escavalier

Karrablast will only evolve when traded for another specific Pokemon, Shelmet (and no, they're not even next to each other's family in the 'dex). The idea is supposed to be that Karrablast takes Shelmet's armor in the trade which is the only way that this kinda sorta makes sense. That sad, it still grows some arms and looks a lot more like Shelmet's evolution than Karrablast's. Guess it does still have that blue with yellow belly under there, but the jousting theme is really odd for it.

5) Kabuto to Kabutops

You'd think Gen 1 would have pretty much all logical evolutions (to be fair there's less gen 1 entries on this list), but then you get Kabuto and Kabutops. Sure, fellow fossil Pokemon Omanyte to Omastar makes sense, but man, Kabuto is a little shell like thing with little grabby claws and two sets of eyes and it turns into this humanoid sickle monster with a completely different shaped head and talon-like feet. I just don't see how that turns into that. On a side note, Kabutops has an awful lot of creepy fan art for it.

4) Snorunt to Glalie or Froslass

We've got this cut little thing with cute little button hands and feet that looks like its shivering in its snowhat and it turns into this giant floating head with no limbs whatsoever and now it has horns too. Riiight. Froslass isn't much better, it still doesn't resemble Snorunt in the least, legs are still gone and much like Glalie also has the mask-looking thing over its face. Sure, it has hands, but they look nothing like Snorunt's.

3) Trapinch to Vibrava

I'm not sure how I learned Trapinch evolved into Vibrava, after all it can't have been a guess, they don't have the same colors, the same eyes, legs, or really anything (well they're both ground). For some reason, Trapinch gains a second type of dragon of all things, but also gains wings and bug eyes. I'm sure they could have made something that bears some semblance to Vibrava in an unevolved form because Trapinch is just not it. Vibrava to Flygon though? That's pretty logical.

2) Remoraid to Octillery

A feeder fish turns into an Octopus....yeah, those aren't even in the same family of organisms in real life. Not a single thing about this makes sense.

1) Clamperl to Huntail or Gorebyss

This is just as perplexing as Remoraid to Octillery but two fold! Poor Clamperl has two evolutions and they're equally nonsensical! Now, I could see Huntail and Gorebyss being related, they're both eel looking things, one looks more masculine the other more feminine. But how in the world can either of them evolve from a freakin' clam? Once again we have animals that in real life aren't even in the same c-l-a-s-sification evolving into one another. And I don't see how adding a DeepSeaTooth or a DeepSeaScale can fix that.

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Aggressive Inline

If you were into extreme sports games back in the early days of the PS2, this game was where you needed to be, not Tony Hawk, not SSX, but Aggressive Inline. The levels were huge, the tricks were gravity defying yet awesome, and the levels were chock full of goals to complete, new areas to unlock, and all without a pesky timer that Tony Hawk 3 still had. Attributes on your character would also level up based on how often you used that skill and not just pouring points into a random bar. I can't think of any other extreme sports game that I had as much fun with as I did with this game. If you want to go back for a time travel and check out the best extreme sports game at a time before they became kinda stupid, go for this one.

Amplitude (PS2)

Before a little game known as Guitar Hero came out, the developers of Guitar Hero, Harmonix, had made two music games called Frequency and Amplitude. While lacking a guitar peripheral, I preferred these games to Guitar Hero enormously for having more techno music and making me feel like I was more into the music.

Astro Boy: Omega Factor

When the 2003 Astro Boy anime came out, two games were made as a tie in, this one, which was developed by Treasure, and some god-awful PS2 game made by Sonic Team (could it be any surprise that that one sucked?). Anyway, this game was a great beat-em up for GBA, and sometimes so many things were shooting at me that the gameplay slowed down. And it helped me survive. The story was also pretty decent, not using any other Astro Boy storyline and stuffing cameos out of every orifice both for the sake of entertainment and gameplay. Go check this out if you haven't already.

Killer 7

Suda 51 is known as a weird developer. I can see why, yet this game didn't scare me away from him, it made me totally embrace him and I've played a few other equally awesome games by him since (like No More Heroes on Wii and Contact on DS). This is also the first time I've really enjoyed symbolism in a game or really any media and I didn't even notice I was almost at the end of the game that everything was symbolic since I also enjoyed the odd quirky gameplay, even if it does have a pretty steep learning curve.

Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil

Now, I'm pretty sure this game has a cult following it, at the very least I am willing to make my own cult dedicated to following it. It's just, oh my god, the gameplay and music in this game are amazing, it's worth playing for that alone. It's not a particularly long nor difficult game, but it's just so incredibly charming that I can't help but recommend it to everyone! There are other games in the series too, like the first game which just got remade for the Wii, so at least play that one even if I think this game is better than the Wiimake of the first game.

Psychonauts

Man, this game is awesome! Now, it's a bit lacking in the gameplay department by being average, and if you played the PS2 version even a bit glitchy at times, but I can forgive it for being imaginative, creative, and fun, as well as have amazing dialogue and being one of the funniest games I've ever played. It bounced around publishers for a bit, but then it finally came out after a pretty long development time of around 4 years I believe. Still, this is a game you play for the humor and originality.

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http://www.youtube.com/user/Ash113Lynx

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What can I say? They still massively suck. It's like they coat the pizza in crappy seasonings, including crappy garlic powder, to try and distract you that their cheese is still tasteless and their sauce is still weak. Their crust is still crap, it's not chewy or thick enough, and it's like they threw some toppings on a piece of cardboard circle. Cheese is neither melty nor gives a nice pull and it tastes just like the seasonings thrown on top of it.

So yeah, great new recipe you've got there, Domino's, the solution seems to be "throw on spices to distract ppl" instead of making a solid pizza like all of your competitors can. F*** you and your crappy pizza Domino's.

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#3) Please Save My Earth

Sci-fi and Shojo are two genres that rarely get to breed, which is a sad thing because when they do, the result is usually epic good as demonstrated by this series. This series was so big in Japan during its run that people believed they were the main characters and they had to put a disclaimer on every chapter and manga. Why it's so relatively unheard of in the States is beyond me, but it's an epic to the max and the longest of my top 3 series at 21 volumes. The premise is that 7 teens in Japan are all having dreams about their past lives as researchers from another planet observing Earth from a moonbase. Now, at first, this all starts off as well and fun, kinda like an RPG or something, but it quickly turns sour because their past lives weren't exactly guilt free fun and the more evil of the moon past lives is out for revenge in this one for a reason that I can only call fair. A lot of the series is spent in the present, but several volumes are devoted to the past lives of two of the characters: Mokuren and Shion who both lead very different but very interesting lives and Mokuren is such a doll, she's a great character and nothing like her current life's personality. Most of the present is spent with both the current reincarnations of Mokuren and Shion, but also of some of the other characters who didn't get or really need their own back story but are much more key to the present events (which makes sense as this is about the present and how the past is affecting them). And since this is sci-fi shojo, of course it involves psychics. In the first several volumes, the author (Saki Hiwatari) has a tendency to make some in-jokes and calls herself out on a few things, but as it gets more series, these disappear too. Really, this is a great read, bit hard to find at this point, but suuuch a good series!

#2) Maison Ikkoku

This was one of my earliest manga I ever read and collected and it's still one of my favorites. It's like now that I'm in college, this becomes ever so slightly more relevant and the main's extremely poor luck and living situation has me finding more pity for him than ever. It's genre is "romantic comedy" and it certainly has both, but this is clearly Rumiko Takahashi's (also know for Inuyasha and Ranma 1/2) masterpiece as this is the only one in which she seems to know how to balance them both perfectly. And this series has a lot of gut wrenching moments, but as painful as it is, it's very much so worth reading through. But then the actual comedy in the series is all very good and original. Considering that the entire housing unit is filled with comic relief characters, it could have easily gone out of whack at the wrong times, but it never does and the housing characters are able to remain a constant source of comedy without overusing anything like she does in her later series (for example, Kyoko, the main female love interest, doesn't respond to Yusaku, the main's nudie mags by being a juvenile and shouting "PERVERT" then slapping him, which Akane does to Ranma far too often for it to be funny anymore and usually over the smallest things. Not to say Kyoko doesn't slap quite a bit, but most of the time, Yusaku had it coming if you ask me). Later on in the series, the comic reliefs can ever get series and everyone in the universe has a great tendency to call out on certain things like character traits and potential plot holes (for example, noting how spineless Yusaku is, hoe overly jealous Kyoko gets, and what on Earth Mr. Yotsuya does for a living, which we never find out but is still proposed as a question rather frequently). This is romantic comedy done right at its finest, the funny is hilarious at all times, I don't think a single joke fell flat on its face in the entire 15 volume run, it's the right length, it has a conclusive ending, and it builds depression perfectly to make the FINALLY! moments all the more worth it. I wasn't even able to read Ranma 1/2 after this.

#1) Banana Fish

Man, how to describe this? It's always difficult to describe your favorite thing sometimes, isn't it? Especially when it's so unknown in the states but so influential in Japan. Another problem being that the strange name and artwork is an instant turn off to a lot of people who want to read pretty things only, it's such a shame because the story and dialogue is so gripping I'm not looking at the art half the time anyway. What we have here is a political thriller full of drama and action. The whole story is just a beast moving in continuous motion without pause for any silly stuff, it's all serious all the time, but it gets away with it because the ever so rare interludes of just Ash and Eiji (the two mains) is spent to build the relationship between them. I don't think a single line or scene is wasted. The plot progression feels natural, like nothing suddenly comes in or leaves without being explained well and no plot point happens after the obvious plot trigger which also gives the series its name that feels like it came out of nowhere, the story telling is just flawless. The way the characters interact just make them feel so real to me, even Ash to some degree even though finding someone like him would be incredibly unlikely and beyond belief. It's not the most realistic depiction of NYC or street gangs, but it's kinda like how we let movies get away with being incredibly inaccurate and still be entertaining. And the author doesn't know her guns too well but I honestly didn't give a damn. The story starts off with an incredibly intelligent pretty who's a super shot with a gun receiving a mysterious phial and being told to "go see Banana Fish", thus spurring the plot into motion of what exactly it is. It quickly becomes apparent that it's a drug that Papa Dino, who is technically who Ash reports to, wants for whatever reason, but Ash is no lapdog about to just hand it over if he wants it that bad. Good guys and bad guys alike are intelligent and all too often we get wars between geniuses and I've not doubt that Ash would put Light Yagami (Death Note) or even Shinichi Akiyama (Liar Game) to shame in that department. What starts off as a little spat quickly escalades into something of epic proportions and the story never stops rolling. It's hard to beat out an old favorite, but Banana Fish did this for me and anything new I saw or read for a month after just couldn't compare. This is my perfect series and without a doubt my #1 of all time for both anime and manga.

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Onto more of manga favorites:

#7) Kekkaishi

I'm not into shonen as much anymore because they tend to run on forever, but Kekkaishi is special in that it's good and not half as generic as I find most shonen. sure, we've got the spunky boy and the childhood friend but not common to convention is that the childhood friend is both older than him and a lot meaner and less compassionate (which gives her a damn awesome line at one point). I also question if women simply make better shonen, just look at FMA and Hikaru no Go, these series are both done by women (only written by in the case of Hikaru no Go) and they're all among the best shonen ever made. It's a lot more slowly paced than the stuff you'd expect from shonen jump though, a lot of Shonen Sunday titles tend to be like that, but it's drawn beautifully and has a really good story, it's great stuff

#6) Phoniex: Resurrection

While it might not be the best best in the series, it's my personal favorite. It attacks a particular timeline from two different directions and places and all connects at the end to explain why a single robot alone by itself on the moon in the year 3344AD relates to a boy killed in a car accident over 300 years earlier. It's not quite his strongest of the series emotionally, but for me it's the strongest one story-wise and my favorite of the series.

#5) Liar Game

It starts with an annoying and stupidly optimistic girl (who does get a few moments of awesome later on to be fair and becomes less annoying) accidentally pulled into the Liar Game. Finding herself hopeless screwed over by her inherent kindness, she finds Shinichi Akiyama, a chess master of epic proportions to help her out of the massive mess she's got herself in or face a huge amount of debt. But the game doesn't stop there, oh no, it's still ongoing, teasing us with anxious waits for updates as the games continue on with Nao sure she can win the games over the LGT by having it all break even with the help (or strategies entirely planned by) Akiyama in which we get to see chess master against chess master with every moment enthralling to read. It's usually compared the Death Note because of copious usage of chess masters, but I think Akiyama's got them beat

#4) Cromartie High School

Probably my favorite purely comedy series of all time, anime or manga. It makes sense while not making sense, it's brilliant while being stupid and it's just a riot to read. Not only that, but it delivers any and all punch lines at the perfect moment, you can't accidentally spoil it by looking to the left because it's on the next page. You'll just have to try it because it's so damn difficult to describe!

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#11) Ode to Kirihito

Another Tezuka manga, surprise surprise! This was made more towards the end of his career and is one of his more mature titles. Dr. Kirihito Osanai is trying to prove that a mysterious disease called Monmow is caused by something non-contagious while his boss is sure that it's caused by something contagious and refuses to believe otherwise. When Osanai challenges this, he's sent to a small village to contract the disease himself so he'll be taken "out of the picture" so to say, Osanai fights to get back to Japan to reveal the truth about what he finds out about the disease to everyone. This is definitely one of my more favored Tezuka works, it's 800 pages and mixes drama and adventure kinda for adults. It's an addicting read too!

#10) Battle Royale

Well, here's a manga that certainly won't be for everyone, it's one of the most violent and depressing manga I've ever read in which a clas$$ of 42 high schoolers are picked to play on "the program", a game in which the last one left alive wins. They're all sent off with a random weapon and a bit of basic rations and basically told "good luck!" Of course, before anyone dies, we get to look at their backstory, so they actually get a good amount of character developed before they die, even some of the lesser characters will get some after they die as other students fondly remember things. It's sad and depressing, but it's my kinda of sad and depressing!

#9) What's Michael?

By the same guy who did Club 9. If you like cats, you'll find something to like in What's Michael?, a cat comic that is actually funny (unlike how I find a lot of other cat comics). Once again, Makoto Kobayashi's facial expression really make the funny scenes funnier and his portrayal of cats is so spot on it only makes it funnier. He also parodies this series in Club 9 several times as an in-joke of sorts. Shame this series is so hard to find, I've only gotten to read 5 of the 11 volumes Dark Horse released.

#8 ) Astro Boy

Noticing a theme here, are we? This series doesn't have any nostalgic value for me, I'm too young for that (I'm only 21, sheesh!), no I really do like this as a legitimately good manga. The one complaint is that it's all out of order the way Dark Horse printed it based on a reprint of the series in Japan. But, each story contains the charm of cla$$ic Tezuka with moments of light hearted comedy, moments of sorrow, and compelling messages that still hold true today cleverly weaved into his stories in a way only he can do. It just has everything a good shonen manga should and age be damned, it's still a good manga to this day, it really is a timeless cla$$ic and Astro Boy proves how genius a man Tezuka was.

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#15) Phoenix: Sun

Now, Phoenix is going to be a strange series for me to put on here because all of the stories are so different, therefore, I counted each story as potential for its own entry. The first one that you're going to see is Sun, the final chapter that Tezuka made in the Phoenix saga before he died. A lot of the ones between his 6th story and this one were kinda average, but he seemed to get his spark back with this one. It takes place mostly in the past, where a young man had his face skinned and replaced with the hide of a wolf, in a battle between the local gods of an area and the push for buddhism moving in. The other part of the story takes place in the future where mankind has been divided into the light world and the dark world. The light world has a brainwashing operation going on to make everyone believe a cult-like religion and our main in this story came from the underground dark world up to the surface. Out of all of the stories in Phoenix, this one probably involves the most religion and how the basic goal of it doesn't really seem to change much over time. There's a lot of story packed into these two volumes and the linking theme of eternal life and resurrection comes back as it does in most of the Phoenix stories, but if you ask me, this is one of the better ones. The past part is probably more interesting here and when the 2004-ish anime was made, it only included the past part of the Sun chapter (a pretty good adaptation actually).

#14) Petshop of Horrors

The series is mostly an episodic "tales of horror" story in which most people are given a pet from Count D's pet shop with Gremlin-like conditions that inevitably end up being broken because people are stupid. Some of the other stories are a bit sweeter though and kind of give you an "aww!" feeling at the end. Towards the end, around volumes 9 and 10, a plot with Count D kinda pops up that is still interesting, but for the first 8 volumes, you can pretty much just pick up a book and turn to a chapter and enjoy yourself. I've read some of the Tokyo Petshop of Horrors sequel and it's good too, but seems to have evolved from popular demand.

#13) Uzumaki

Ah, now here's a truly creepy manga! The story revolves around a basic premises at first "spirals are infecting people's minds and making everyone in the town go crazy", and the whole time you're thinking to the girl "get out of the town!", but by volume 3, it's spiraled beyond control, and the spiral traps everyone within it. The art is a very strong point here, a lot of detail was given to those spirals and it only makes it an even creepier experience. If you want something scary, this is probably my favorite of Junji Ito's works.

#12) Phoenix: Karma

Another Phoenix chapter here, this one is Karma. Karma (also known as "Hou-ou") is widely considered to be quite possibly the best chapter in the saga, and while even I must admit I lean towards that, it's not quite my favorite chapter either. When I re-read it for a second time, however, I actually liked it even more than I did the first time. The choice of the word "Karma" for the title is certainly appropriate, we start off with two mains, a 1 armed bandit who regularly murders people and a virtuous sculptor who wouldn't hurt a fly. When they first meet, the bandit injures the dominant arm of the sculptor in a fit of jealously. Circumstances don't leave it at that, the bandit gradually becomes a nice person while the sculptor gradually becomes a cruel person only out for himself. The ending is very touching too and due to the way that Phoenix is set up, we get to see the bandit many years later in the Civil War story arc for a time too. As the characters change, so do your feelings about them.

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I don't plan to replace it with a PS3 or anything (although it is worth noting my sister got one for Blu-Ray, which is good because the only game I want to play on it is God of War 3 anyway), and I just feel like there's nothing to play on the thing because I hate shooters (or anything in first person perspective because they all make me feel motion sick to no end, and this describes about 85% of the games on the 360), and I'm kinda sick of the open world games. I had considered getting Brutal Legend except I'm not a big metal fan or RTS fan (even if I am a big Tim Schaffer fan, and it doesn't matter because it came out on PS3 too!). Heck, I actually use my Wii more than my 360 and I hate the Wii, I've got even less games for that and it's half a stand in for a Gamecube (a system with much better games if you ask me), but I still seem to like it and use it more.

I haven't been too big on RPGs this generation either, oddly enough, almost all of the RPGs I've played this generation have been on handhelds or older games on PS2 or Gamecube.

I feel like I haven't had proper time to play games anyway, what with college and using my time to watch more anime or play more handheld games instead. I use my GBASP more than my 360! I've played more GBA games since 2006 than I have 360 games! I feel like I barely notice that the 360 is even there!

So, might it really be time for me to part ways with the 360? I was sure that I'd want to sell off the Wii first, but No More Heroes 2 has made me want to actually keep it (and the next Zelda title, whenever it may be). I had gotten it so I could finally get into the next generation of gaming, but quite frankly, this generation of console gaming has been mostly a disappointment to me. I'm not really strapped for cash right now, but if I'm not going to use it, why should I keep it around? But then I also don't want to sell it and regret it later (I heard a lot of people did that with PSP). So, should I sell my 360 or keep it, at least for now?

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#20) Club 9

Sadly, I've only gotten to read 3 out of 5 volumes because Dark Horse never bothered to publish the last two (much to my dismay). The artwork in this series is certainly a little strange, it's just how the guy draws, but it allow for great over exaggerations of expressions that just look great. When you get down to it, the main glue of the story is the incredibly likable main character, Haruo Hattori, a farm girl who's just moved to the big city for college. While this sounds like a rather boring lead, she quickly finds herself getting a job as a club hostess at Club 9, hence the title. It does end up being a "fish out of water" story, but it's a very good one at that because while the main character may seem a tad ditzy, she's oddly relatable to a real life human, and Haruo alone makes the story worth reading. Things had just taken a decidedly interesting turn when Dark Horse pulled the plug, sadly.

#19) Beet the Vandel Buster

Ok, here's my guilty pleasure, Beet the Vandel Buster. It's on semi-permanent hiatus as of volume 12, but first 12 volumes were still great to read. Basically, once every chapter you go "that's exactly how I think a JRPG would be in real life!". If that statement sounded interesting to you, you will find something to enjoy here. For once, the bad guys are really interesting and get quite a lot of page time, fights are alright, but the big appeal here is "it's like how a JRPG would be in real life!", and that was enough to keep me coming back for more.

#18 ) Dr. Slump

Do we have any idea wtf Toriyama was doing when he made each and every chapter of this? No, but it doesn't matter, bottom line: It's epically hilarious. It starts off as a parody of making child super robots *cough*Astro*cough* as an affectionate parody, but Toriyama lets it spiral out of control pretty quickly to "I wonder how far I can go until the readers think this is actually weird". There are tons of pointless characters who are supposed to be parodies of cameos and superheroes, except they are all incredibly lame (thankfully, everyone but the superhero realizes this, it's like someone wore their Halloween costume too long until they started believing they have super powers). Toriyama also inserts himself from time to time as a strange robotic dude and has no problem making fun of himself for his lack of ability to draw women among other things. His layout is simply amazing, he has characters use the panels like they exist in space, they'll do things like walk across the, break them, grab something else from another, etc. It's a comedy series, so it's difficult to describe all of it's humor, but there's a lot of poo, a lot of talking poo, a lot of strange characters being pointless while loving every minute of it, strange and pointless contests between characters, seeing Arale terrorize Penguin Village, watching other strange inventions of Senbei Norimaki do strange and ultimately pointless things, and there's really no plot to speak of, but for off the wall humor, it's the place to go. It also might help explain all of the random animal characters you see in Dragon Ball and DBZ, they're here too and they're a good half of the population around here.

#17) Eternal Sabbath

Eh, who knows, maybe I have a thin for child villains that I find to be awesome, but even without that, it's a good sci-fi with psychics. The author's other series is MARS, a decidedly shojo series, and I think it shows here too as apparently this is seinen, but I mistook it right away as a sci-fi shojo (particularly because every sci-fi shojo I've ever seen or read has psychics in it somewhere). It's been ages since I've read this series, but I'll be accumulating the rest of it for Xmas, I just remember "good plot, good romance" from the brief summaries I hold in my head for all good or bad series.

#16) Parasyte

Del Rey recently re-printed this, glad they did, I would've overlook the ancient, flipped, Tokyopop editions for ages because they're getting hard to find anyway. Here's a series for those of you wanting plenty of gore to go along with your nature preaching. Now, I tend to have a big thing against any anime or manga that preaches something annoying (starting with the very first line in the book no less), but the good ones will quickly abandon it in favor of an actual plot, in Parasyte's case, one that involves a heck of a lot of violence and creepy things that mutilate bodies after consuming them. Hitoshi Iwaaki's art is a love or hate it thing, but either way, he has a way of drawing parasitic humans in such a way that they look just slightly off-putting and you can just tell there's something "off' about them, but you can't quite put your finger on it, it's like a drawn version of the uncanny valley, but they don't look like animated corpses either. Never is it more obvious when he does it to the main for just one panel shot. For the most part after that thing with the opening line of the series, it's a bit more subtle in conveying its message, often through the thoughts and discussions between our two mains, Shinichi and Migi. If you want a thrilling series where you actually think the main is in serious trouble of dying (because some of his enemies are just that awesome) with a good plot and setting, give it a shot. Recommend you like violence too for this one.

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#4) Interstella 5555

I'm almost not sure if I should count this as a movie, it's like a big long AMV made specifically for Daft Punk's Discovery album. It's rather difficult to describe since it feels more like an experience than just watching a simple movie, but it's out there on youtube, so go watch it, it's pretty epic in its own strange way.

#3) Catnapped!

Alright, this one is practically a guilty pleasure to be honest, but I can't help but like it being a cat person perhaps. I showed it to a group of college friends last fall and they found it to be hilarious, but I like it both for being inadvertently funny at times and for just being a fun adventure movie to watch.

#2) Tokyo Godfathers

It's almost Christmas time! And you know what that means! It's my yearly rewatch of Tokyo Godfathers, the best Christmas movie ever made anime or not. Do yourself a favor and find out for yourself this winter. This was actually the first Satoshi Kon thing I watched and it's still my favorite of all his things. Here's a trailer for it, the movie itself is sub-only though. It's also his most, er, "normal" movie so to say, the plot might not seem like anything special in particular, and no one is going insane or having their dreams and realities mixed, but with the added characters and rich setting, it really becomes something more special. What can I say, he makes great stuff, his last movie was a bit disappointing to many of us, but we still can't wait for his next movie (due out next year I believe)

#1) Metropolis

The movie is supposed to be based on Osamu Tezuka's manga of the same title (which he based off the old 1927 movie, which he never saw, but only saw a poster for), but they're practically unrecognizable from each other. Tezuka was rather hesitant to let his manga, which he wasn't overly fond, be made into a movie and it wasn't made until 2000, 11 years after his death. While it may hardly be like the manga it's supposed to be based on, it's still a great movie that if anything, pulls many of its ideals from Astro Boy or other Tezuka works. The animation is just stunning, even today, and while it was one of my first anime movies, I liked it just as much a month ago as I did almost 7 years ago when I first saw it. I feel like I see something new every time I watch it somehow and the more Tezuka stuff I read or watch, the more slight in-jokes I get, but even before I got all the in-jokes it was a good movie in its own right. I just keep coming back to this movie somehow as my favorite.

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#8 ) Millennium Actress

Ahhh, a lovely movie in which we look back at the memories of a Japanese actress now in her old age. She was born before the war and it affected her life too and many times her real life crossed paths with the movies she was in. We come along for the ride with an interviewer and his camera man and the ending is so very bittersweet.

#7) Ringing Bell

My second entry from Sanrio, what can I say? They made some great anime movies. Ringing Bell is a rather sad movie because of the "future badass" trope as we see a loss of innocence at the price of something that may not have been entirely worth it for the main character after all is said and done.

#6) Junkers Come Here

Junichi Sato is one of my favorite directors, there's not question about it for me, and here's a movie he did rather early on. He didn't do a whole lot of movies and it's a shame because this one is so good. A lonely girl has a magical talking dog, but don't let the magical talking dog fool you into thinking that her loneliness will be solved with mere magic. It may help her along, but seeing the girl come to certain realizations is wonderful to see.

#5) Perfect Blue

Ahh, here's a delightfully twisted story. I showed this to two friends last semester and for the first 45 minutes or so, they thought it mostly normal, but I could see that they gradually began to notice something was strange with the movie. "It hasn't hit the weird part yet" I had to tell them quite a few times as the movie just got progressively twisted. It is some of the very best in the genre of psychological horror and Satoshi Kon's very first movie. For being such a wonderful psychological drama movie, it was great to see that his second movie (also on my list, Millennium Actress) didn't succumb to the pitfalls of trying to imitate his last great work as they are completely different genres, but both still great. He sure makes a lot of weird stuff, but it's all great

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Well, I know I've done in general favorites, but I've decided to do a more concentrated list on what are my top 12 favorite anime movies as of now! Part of the rules are that it cannot be related to a TV or OVA show, it has to be its own thing and it must be at least 30 minutes long. Why top 12? Because they all deserve to be listed.

#12) The Sea Prince and the Fire Child (aka The Legend of Sirius, Sirius no Densetsu)

Here's a bit of an odd movie, it's made by Sanrio of all people. Not the least bit huggy feely like Hello Kitty though, it's another form of Romeo and Juliet and just as tragic. The prince's friend is annoying though.

#11) Memories: Magnetic Rose

This might technically just be an episode in a 3 part OVA, but it's really more not. It's beautiful and haunting and it's easily the best of the three Memories segments. More good sci-fi mystery stuff!

#10) They Were 11

For as much of the plot of this sci-fi shojo is to guess at (like why there are 11 members instead of 10), the "who" is not quite as obvious still leads to a lot of mystery and tension between the characters. The 11 university entrees for the best university in the entire galaxy must survive on a ship for 60 days and maintain it. Even this isn't made as easy as it sounds and it's not just a test in avoiding cabin fever and you get the feeling that if they all met in a bar or at a summer camp, they'd all be great friends, but under suspicious circumstances, relationships will change. It does tend to show its age though, computers beep and boop and they all have super 80s shojo eyes and hair. I think the main character looks particularly stupid.

#9) Piano no Mori

To some degree, it's a Prince and the Pauper story with pianos, but the slice of life just works so well here. We see them both try to achieve their dreams of playing piano well, one who has been practising since he was very young and one who simply has extraordinary natural skill.

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Believe it or not, it's Space Ghost Coast to Coast, a joke talk show in which Space Ghost talked to real people through a TV screen. It first aired in 1994, but the importance doesn't come from just that, it comes from what spun off of SGCtC: Toonami and [adult swim].

Toonami's first host was Moltar, a side character who came from Space Ghost. Toonami started off as a programming block on weekday afternoons of action series but eventually began to air anime and became an important part of introducing many fans today to anime. Eventually, Tom took over Toonami as the host, but it started off with Moltar from Space Ghost hosting in 1997. And they aired Reboot, ooooh did they ever! Their early selection of shows was also top notch most of the time, before they were forced to move to Saturday evenings only and start showing nothing but Naruto and Pokemon. The block was finally cancelled in 2008, I can't say if it's for better or for worse though, but back when I got to watch Toonami from 2001 until they moved to Saturday nights only in 2004 or so, those memories are still sweet. Bittersweet at this point.

[adult swim] is the slightly more obvious spawn of this show too. It started a few years later than Toonami in 2001, which became my main introduction to anime. Back when I first began watching it, it aired on two nights: Saturday for action and Sunday for comedy. It's original comedy line up included Space Ghost, but Space Ghost also served as the blueprint they still use for their 11-minute original comedies to this day. One of their early shows, The Brak Show, was also a direct spin off of Space Ghost. From time to time, Space Ghost will still make cameos in other shows on [adult swim].

So, thank you, Space Ghost Coast to Coast for ushering in my love for anime and the two programming blocks you spawned.

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Conveniently enough, there's an all classical music radio station near where I live and half the time when I drive, I listen to it. But the problem is, a good piece of classical music can give me a strange sense of euphoria, certain songs more than others (I always get it to Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgky, even if it is the Maurice Ravel orchestration of it, which is part of the reason I love Princess Tutu, they play it a lot during the final episodes), but in general, it's rather distracting because I've become so enthralled with the piece and just listening to it, I often find myself going "gah! Red light, idiot!" from time to time. So, I've been watching Legend of the Galactic Heroes lately and all they ever play in the show (not counting the OP and the ED) is classical music and I was watching an episode and went "that's in my iTunes list somewhere! I just know it is!!" and immediately looked through my random folder to find it was Dvorak's Carnival Overture Op.92.

But the point is, it's just such a wonderful buzz I get, it's soexhilarating, I can't help myself! If that station wasn't awesome enough, they also have this lady with a beautiful British accent that you can't help but love.

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YESS!! We got a 15 second tease right here

For those of you who don't know what Reboot is, it was the first ever CGI TV show produced in Canada by Mainframe Ent, which also did Beasties/Tranfromers Beast Wars and Shadow Raiders. They've had their name changed to Rainmaker and have since slipped into doing those stupid Barbie movies. But Reboot has a large cult following and for good reason, it gets really freakin' awesome during the second season. The first season is kinda average, and then about halfway though second season, it just spirals into a show of pure awesome! It takes place inside a computer and everything is awesome. The first season has a bit too many computer in-jokes, some so old they made me feel old (and I'm only 20) and the episodes are all formulaic, but they kinda die down and then an actual plot hits it only to turn it into awesome. It's a must see, it's still one of the best TV shows I think I've ever seen once it got started and it's been floating around for years about the possible revival of it in the form of a movie and of course fans flood fansites of it all the time and it is still too awesome to avoid today. Toonami used to air in America and finished airing it a while after ABC had dropped them. It was pretty highly rated at the time, but has since slipped into obscurity.

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So, one of the first things I watched from Otakon was Gilgamesh, which I have since then sold because I hated it. It basically just disappointed me in any and every way except music, which I will admit was easily the best aspect of it. For the most part, I've seen this series get high approval and praise everywhere I look, but I just don't think the story bothered to support all of the interesting ideas it clearly had in mind and the ending just felt rushed and sloppy, introducing elements out of nowhere. Not saying that all endings should be predictable or anything, but they shouldn't feel this far away from the storyline either. So, I'd call it interesting ideas never fulfilled, 4/10.

Luckily, I had far more success with this series: Brigadoon. Now this series had some inconsistent ups and downs too, it started off as a very cheery upbeat series, then about halfway through, became devastatingly depressing, especially for the main character, Marin. The dub was pretty sub-par, more so when you find out who worked on it, but dub issue aside, music was excellent and the story was great too. The animation was the exact opposite of it's depressing subject matter once the series really go going and at times, the series was certainly a bit too strange for me to buy certain things, but I'd still say this deserves a watch. 7/10

I'm actually still in the process of watching this one, but I've seen the entire first half of Kaleido Star, which I checked out because it was by one of my favorite directors of all time, Junichi Sato. While I don't think it approaches the greatness of Princess Tutu (one of his other works), this is still a great show and I can't help but like it, even when I think it stays on the same subject matter for a bit too long. 8/10 so far.

Come to think of it, Giant Robowas probably the first thing I saw after Otakon from my Otakon haul. Man, so this was what TTGL would've been like before TTGL! They're both all about manliness, action, and awesome fights and robots. This is also, without a doubt, the best looking OVA I've seen, and it was made in the mid 90s. Consider that it still looks good today and then imagine how mind blowing that would've been back in the 90s. The story is good too, even if it does feel a bit rushed at the beginning and end. The set also came with a side-stories OVA containing 3 episodes that had been made during the production of the show (which took over 7 years). The first two were hilarious, the third was a resounding "meh", but the second one was the clearly highlight of the bonus episodes, the whole thing played out like a ridiculous abridged episode, we inexplicably had the good guys and bad guys having drinking contests, we had the good guy grunts consider going to the bad side for the sake of better benefits, etc, it was just one laugh after another. 9/10 for both the series and the extra episodes (although I really mean just extra ep 2 here as it's the one most worth watching, but the first extra ep does feature a giant robot getting a nosebleed).

Then come to think of it again, I finished up Souther Crossjust before Otakon. This is the series that was taken to make the second season of the Robotech saga (which I've seen as well) and if I had to pick only one to keep, the original is far superior in this case. I had heard it was the most changed of the three seasons and while the first half was practically identical barring names, the introduction of Seifreit (called Zor in Robotech version) was a major change, as was his whole backstory and I honestly liked Seifreit a lot more than Zor and simply the whole show overall more than the Robotech version. Robotech version did have better music though. 7/10

I got quite a few movies at the con too, this one, My Beautiful Girl Mari, is actually a Korean production. So, while it was never bad and certain parts of it made it seem like a really good movie, I really can't recommend this, it was kinda all over the place at times and didn't exactly make sense at certain parts. Sure, it was an interesting watch, but can't tell if I'd ever bother to see it again. 5/10

This was a good buy if you ask me, They Were 11is of the extremely rare sci-fi shojo genre, which tend to mix equal parts science fiction with typical shojo romance, but it always seems to lean towards the sci-fi part of the spectrum. It's actually one of my favotite sub-genres and other than the extremely old-school feeling of it, it was a nice watch if you ask me. I was drawn in fairly quickly, but the whole thing was interesting to see play out as the crew tried to determine who the mysterious added 11th member of the crew who were supposed to be 10 was. This lead to internal paranoia among the crew, who both had to work together and make sure the 11th member wasn't going to backstab them, whoever they were. Sure, why there was an 11th member might have been painfully obvious to the viewer, but who they were wasn't, so all is forgiven. 8/10

Tree of Palme, dear lord was this a bizarre movie, which I checked out due to being by the same guy who did Fantastic Children. So, I like the art s t y l e but you can tell by looking at this pic if you do or don't. It was a strange movie, oddly paced, seemed always either rushed or too slow, but never just right, the whole thing left a strange taste in my mouth because it could be so strange it was often difficult to follow. I haven't actually rate it yet, I'd like to see it again before I do so.

I actually saw Otaku no Videoat the con itself, and the best words to describe it are "uncomfortably hilarious". There are two parts to the 2 episode OVA that is apparently a staple at Otakon as the first and last thing shown every year, there's an animated segment of a student who's life is quickly overrun by anime and his journey through life which is intermixed with live action interview segments with grown otaku, most of whom are crazy and hilarious to listen to. The interview questions themselves are hilarious too, like "Have you ever considered dating a real girl?" as asked to the guy marriage obsessed with a fictional anime character. This is an absolute must see for fans who know they watch a bit too much anime, 8/10.

Someone else describe Karasas "expensive junk" and I'd have to agree with them. It's very nice to look at, very nice, and the first half of the series is very good, but then we suddenly get a cop-out ending of "We're doing this because humans are an evil species", which is a shame because it had all been going well up until it's just god-awful ending that I can't describe in any word other than "lazy". Two of my anime pet peeves are pro-nature or anti-human speeches, if it's shown, I'm alright with that, but you should never make your characters speak your personal agenda. If you like pretty things, you can't go wrong and the first half was pretty damn good actually. 6/10

Junkers Come Here!was exactly the hidden gem I was looking for, it's also directed by Junichi Sato, which was of course why I checked it out. Perhaps it was because I found the main character relatable, anyone with home issues can, even if they're not quite the same as Hiromi's. The moral here is a good example of show don't tell and even with a talking dog thrown in the picture, the movie still feels very much so based in reality. A lot of people are probably going to compare this to a Ghibli movie, but I wouldn't because 1) I hate Ghibli because they always break the "show don't tell rule" because Miyazaki is a massive pro-nature anti-humanity jerk and 2) this was delightful for me to watch and at not point made me go "you're coping out again, story!" like I do at some many Miyazaki movies. I highly recommend this one, 8/10

Legend of the Galactic Heroesgets the big image here! Before you ask, no I haven't finished this series yet, it's 110 episode long, but what I did finish was the second season. I must've started watching this show almost a year ago (or in the 9 month range) and don't let my watching of this series in molasses speed make you think it's not good, it very much so is and the second season is just as good as the first if not better at times and I cannot wait to watch the rest, but it can be a bit heavy to watch at the same time, which is the explanation for the molasses speed of watching it. While I will reserve my final judgement of this series in a rating format, I will say that as of now I'd give it a 9/10, it is a must watch, especially for fans of space opera. I wouldn't dare spoil anything for you, this show is in a cla$$ all its own and has tons of plot turns and twists and two very interesting viewpoints with which to experience everything. There's a reason this is one of the most requested shows to get licensed for R1.

In the meantime, The Irresponsible Captain Tyloris a great distraction from the serious mood of LoGH. I'm 9 episodes in, but it's a great comedy/space epic evolving here and it's absolutely addictive to watch. Just this far in, I can tell why it's considered one of the cla$$ic anime from the 90s.

Well, I think that's everything, sorry for the super long post!

*edit-fixed some pics that I apparently "wasn't allowed to use"

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Games: Still playing Contact DS like crazy, its soo addictive and good! I love you, Suda51!

Anime: Well, first week or so back, I went by the used DVD/Book/Music store and they had an older set of The Irresponsible Captain Tylor in very good condition (box was a bit beat, all the DVDs looked like new) for $20, so I pounced. Been watching a good bit of that, but also started on Mysterious Cities of Gold, which I found free on hulu. It's pretty awesome, has some 80s cheesiness spread all over it, but I kinda like that every once in a while. I'm also watching Reboot, what an awesomely addictive show!

Juggling club: We got a new guy who knows diabolo and I ordered one for myself! I learned to be more careful with it already, I've already gave myself a slight burn from trying to do something with the string. You can kinda see a pale line on the inside of my thumb from where I tried to slide the rope up it a bit too fast. But diabolo kid wasn't there last week, so I didn't learn anything new. I probably should've measured the diabolo we used in club, I got a 4-inch one but the one at club was at least a 5-inch one. I figured out pretty fast that 4-inch diabolos don't like to do stick tricks very easily.

School: I ended up dropping that history class, thought I'd have to shoot myself in the head if I ever went again. Sadly, I have two test on the same day back to back (at 8am and 9:30 am), something I feared may occur, but sheesh, that sucks that it did. Luckily, it only happens once this semester.

So, here's a list of pet peeves that I've noticed while I've been at school, little things that just tick me off:

-vehicles that sound like buses that are not either buses or trucks.

-the second light in the form room. first off, you can't have just it on and second, it's ungodly bright and irritating as compared to the other light in the room.

-the sound of nail files. it's quite possibly worse than nails on a chalk board to me

I'll think of more later, nap time!

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But then I was alright today and went to the first meeting of juggling club! We finally got someone in the club who can use diabolos and he taught me some stuff today, I can already do 4 basic tricks (learning diabolos is much easier than learning to juggle) and I just ordered my own diabolo online (got a green one)!

I also learned of a class where we have to watch anime, read manga, and play video games as part of the course! I can't switch into it because it's full, but I'll get into it the next semester it's offered.

I'm home for the weekend though, trying to relax and see if it calms my anxiety.

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