Some sort of quote relating to ending with a whimper rather than a bang would fit well here… I reviewed the final volume of the Bleach manga for Anime UK News, and it can be found HERE. Ah well… at the last first two and a half arc were great!
Anime
Dragon Ball Z Kai – The Final Chapters: Part 2 Anime UK News Review
Jeez, these Final Chapter covers don’t make for good thumbnails… Anyway, my review of the second third of the slightly condensed version of the Buu arc is now up on Anime UK News and can be viewed HERE.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Unicorn – OVAs 3 and 4 Review
Gundam Unicorn’s next two OVAs cover similar ground, to varying degrees of success, but for the most part it’s a great slice of Gundam. Also OVA 4 sees the debut of Bright Noa, making this feel like proper Universal Century Gundam! Let’s take a look!
Mobile Suit Gundam: Unicorn – OVAs I and II Review
Three years after the events of Char’s Counterattack we have the Gundam Unicorn series, which despite sounding a bit crap, is actually really good! This comes from the kind of budget and attention that’s afforded OVAs rather than a stricter TV schedule, but it’s also a credit to the rather out-there plot created in the original novels the series is based on. So let’s dive right in and continue forward along the Universal Century timeline…
Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack Review
It’s been a little while since we returned to the Universal Century, mostly thanks to a slow down in UK Blu-Ray releases. Well, the Unicorn OVAs are now on Netflix is near-HD quality so I thought I’d do that, but before I get to them I didn’t want to skip past Char’s Counterattack, the big film that ties up all the Amuro and Char loose ends left over from the first two Gundam series. So let’s have a look at it (via my old US region DVD…), and see the big finale for the Amuro-Char relationship we’ve been watching develop since the very start…
Dragon Ball Z Kai: The Final Chapters – Part 1 Review
My review of the first chunk of episodes from DBZ Kai: The Final Chapters is now up on Anime UK News HERE. Warning: it’s not very positive, fairly, I feel… obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have scored it that way… You know what I mean!
Dragon Ball Super – Part 5 Anime UK News Review
My review of the latest Dragon Ball Super physical release is now up on Anime UK News, and can be found HERE. Just how many more ways can Future Trunks’ world get screwed up? Let’s find out!
Bleach – Substitute Shinigami Arc (Episodes 1 – 14) Review
Now I’m sure some of you are rolling your eyes here, but think back to Bleach when it was in its beginning, this arc (of again, smaller stories) and the second, bigger arc (the Soul Society Arc) are frankly brilliant, it’s only during the endless Arrancar Arc where things started slowly turning south, and then… yeah. But this isn’t an overall look at Shonen Jump! series, this is debut arcs, and I honestly think Bleach did it best (of the ones I’ve seen / read). With these first fourteen episodes you get a good feel for not only our lead protagonist, but for nearly all his surrounding cast, meaning we truly feel like we know the unit when they then have to jump head first into danger in the next arc. Let’s take a closer look and round off this Top 5!
My Hero Academia – U.A. Beginnings Arc (Episodes 1 – 13) Review
This is a first for the blog as I’ve technically covered these episodes on Anime UK News when I covered the Season 1 blu-ray release, but as those are more of a quick, relatively spoiler-free, look at the show and the physical release, this will be my normal more detailed (and spoiler-filled!) look at the story. My Hero Academia is the latest hit for Shonen Jump!, but has already impressed me enough that I believe its opening stories put it above all but one (that I’ve seen), gaining it the #2 spot on this list. Why? Well, why don’t you read on to find out!
One Piece – East Blue Arc (Episodes 1 – 30) Review
One Piece is, if nothing else, epic in length. Whenever I cover the show I’ll be doing it in much bigger chunks of episodes than I normally do, though given this chunk of 30 episodes doesn’t even end what most people consider to be the opening “arc”, it’s not going to make covering the show any less of a daunting task. Anyway, One Piece grabs the bronze in this Jump! 50th Anniversary opening arc list of mine as it does a good job of introducing you to our lead, but a fantastic job of making us care about the rest of the crew. It was really hard deciding between this and the #2 spot! So let’s look at the first half of the East Blue arc, which really contains a bunch of smaller arcs that introduce us to several of the cast members going forward…
Hogan Reviews 