I do stand by my belief that the entire Stand Alone Complex saga of Ghost in the Shell is superior to the movies. The soundtracks, I have them all for SAC as well as from the movies, are great. I bought the Tin Box Solid State Society flick and it ends the Stand Alone Complex stuff excellently.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is quickly becoming a favorite. I had the name on my badge at AX but wasn't sure the description i heard about the first couple episodes interested me. An AMV(anime music video) seemed fun enough to buy it. The first DVD started out weird with the amusing but passable first episode but with the actual start of the series has quickly become one of my new favorites. A weird fantasy/high school-comedy with a hilarious lead in Haruhi and her various "friends." The second disc brings a level of philosophical elements as well as danger to a very enriching comedy. It's about Haruhi Suzumiy whose so bored with nromal people she starts looking for aliens and time travels and psychics. She creates a school club the SOS Brigade for this cause. The hapless Kyon gets dragged in and soon learns these people Haruhi threw into the group are secretly the types she's trying to meet but I have to keep mum about their real purposes.
Mai HiME set with high school teenage girls with powers called was great. My brother downloaded this and I was entranced. Fantasy/action animeHiMEs. The also control these familiars called Childs. Traditional in how it starts mixing comedy and drama into the suspense and action. It gets to a dark place after the first half with a lot of heart wrenching drama and shocking twists and turns but ties up with a happy ending. Which is even more surprising. Recently gathered the music. Listened to a little, but what I heard in the anime itself was entertianing. There's a prequel entitled Mai OTOME and apparently the mangas different then the anime.
It's been a long while since I've seen a no frills, in your face, over-the-top shoot'em up action anime. At least one that wasn't meant to be taken as some sort of deep mystery or psychological type story. Plus this one has elements of humor actually in it. Black Lagoon is what it is; bad language, Hong Kong action violence and blood, and nudity. And I appreciate it's characters being macho spouting soldier poetics or the "deep" oberservations about the chaos aroudn them all while ruthlessly trying to kill people. It's about a bunch of mercenaries of the Lagoon Company. Once hostage now member Rock along with the tough broad Revi, the communications/computer guy Benny and Dutch(one of the few Black leads I see in anime and done well). The creators do a good job of referencing Hollywood movies and icons(From Terminator to Punisher) as well as famous historic battles. It's like mini-Hollywood movies. It's been quite intense.
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