Not so Secret Santa: Ghost Hound

Finally we have come to the best anime I watched during my Not so Secret Santa Project! Losty recommended 2 shows when I asked "What show should I watch that I haven't already asap?" Those were Ghost Hound and Sola. Choosing between these 2 shows boiled down to which one I had access to right away. Ghost Hound won. Boy oh boy am I ever glad it did!

Ghost Hound is about 3 boys in a small town. At first they don't really have anything in common but something is pulling them together. All three have had very traumatic experiences in their childhood they discover. This link between them makes it so they can travel through the "Unseen World".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no idea how to review this show because I loved it SO much. It's from the same guys that did Lain (which I love and is in my top 15 anime of all time) so it should be no surprise that Ghost Hound found it's way into my heart too. Like Lain it is a little hard to pin point the #1 reason why I was attracted to it but if I had to guess I'd say tone. Dark and mysterious without being too down to earth. There are wonderful sounds throughout the show that fits the moments 100%. These detailed noises were one of my favourite things about the show. When it wanted something to be creepy and strange did it ever work.  The look of the show is amazing to me. When the boys were traveling through the "Unseen World" it was quite something to see animated. When they first discovered this world I was honestly quite shocked but very interested in it's existence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the characters were amazing. Right down to minor ones. But with a show like this minor characters are always very important so it should be no surprise that they were wonderfully done. Minor character wise I'd have to say I enjoyed the therapist very much. No one in this show is what they seem and all end up coming together in the end quite well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall: Holy shit it's been a while since I went into an anime expecting absolutely nothing and got AMAZING!

* Story 10/10
* Animation 10/10
* Sound 10/10
* Characters 10/10
* Overall 10/10

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve More Awesome Anime Memories

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me,
Twelve More Awesome Anime Memories,
Eleven Season 2's,
Ten Long Anime,
Nine Delicious Openings & Endings,
Eight Digiboy Top Anime,
Seven Franchise Continuations,
Six Top Tier Anime,
Five Nyanpire Kitties,
Four Marvel Anime,
Three Teachers,
Two Anime Buddy Challenges,
and an Underrated Anime

What I'm going to do here is just leave a picture. If you don't get it.... Watch the show to find out! Thanks for reading these everyone. It's been super fun. Happy Holidays and all that jazz!

One Piece

Nana

Toriko x One Piece

Toward the Terra

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Spiral Labyrinth

Ikkitousen

Last Exile: Fam

Nyanpire

Macross Frontier: Sayonara no Tsubasa

Shin Mazinger

Kore wa Zombie desu ka

Hen Zemi

Not so Secret Santa: Hajime no Ippo

Sixth in line for the Not so Secret Santa Project is the delightful Hajime no Ippo! I took up DonKangolJones's challenge to watch this anime to prove just how manly I am. I watched the 2 movies that were made too. I'm pretty manly!

Hajime no Ippo AKA Fighting Spirit's plot is simple. A boy named Ippo is the target of bulling. He hates that they pick on him but he doesn't know how to change his fate. One day the usual happened but this time he gets saved by someone. This someone just happens to be an up and coming boxer named Takamura. And thus a great friendship was born between the 2 boys and an interest in boxing emerged. Together they work hard to be the best boxers that they can be.

Ippo is a fantastic motivational anime. It takes a lot of work to do anything and this show shows you just how hard those things can be. This particular goal happens to be boxing. I think boxers are some of the most talented and dedicated athletes out there. It's fucking hard to take blows to the head over and over again while throwing a bunch of your own. Then you have to add in watching their weight so that means a very VERY strict diet. There's all kinds of different weight classes: Featherweight, Lightweight, Middleweight, Heavyweight, these are the few I can name off the top of my head not being a super fan of the sport. Ippo was in the Featherweight class where his buddy Takamura is in the Middleweight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The animation and music aren't really anything special but they do fit the theme/tone of the show. There's interesting lighting they use when the boxers are fighting each other in the ring that I noticed was used in One Pound Gospel too. It's very angelic like which to me means that they are really trying to glorify the brutal sport. I have no personal interest in boxing but I don't hate it or anything. I'm more of an MMA kind of girl. An even more brutal sport!

With the plot being only about making it big in boxing they really had to pull through with having amazing characters. And pull through they certainly did! Every character you wanted to root for. Every character was likable as long as you took the time to get to know them. And know them we certainly got to do. Most anime tell us a pretty alright story when it comes to character background but Ippo just did it so well! I didn't end up having a favourite character because I love them all so much. If I really had to choose one it would probably be Ichiro. I can't explain why I see him a tiny bit above the rest but I just do.

Overall, manly show is manly men fighting to be the best. I didn't get around to watching Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger to include in this review but be assured it'll appear eventually on here.

These following pictures are just some fun stats that show Ippo's progression during the show. Click to enlarge at your own risk!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Story 8/10
* Animation 7/10
* Sound 7/10
* Characters 9/10
* Overall 8/10

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me: Eleven Season 2′s

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me,
Eleven Season 2's,
Ten Long Anime,
Nine Delicious Openings & Endings,
Eight Digiboy Top Anime,
Seven Franchise Continuations,
Six Top Tier Anime,
Five Nyanpire Kitties,
Four Marvel Anime,
Three Teachers,
Two Anime Buddy Challenges,
and an Underrated Anime

Season 2's can either be great or not so great. Generally when season 2s are announced I make sure to watch the first one before they start airing. Amazingly all these I had already seen their season 1s for so I didn't have to go through any prep and just dived right in.

Bakuman 2

I FUCKING LOVE THIS SHOW! I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU MANGA READERS SAY!

Working 2

I was happy to get more of this show but unhappy that I had to sit through more episodes revolving around Inami... If she wasn't in this show it would be a million times better.

Mitsudomoe 2

 Oh these girls... Weird that S2 was only 8 episodes.

Squid Girl 2

More aweseome squidaliciousness~

Seikon no Qwaser 2

I don't know... It gave us more boobs... I guess that's enough...

Tono to Issho 2

More hilarious shorts from feudal Japan!

Kimi ni Todoke 2

Thanks for another season of growing up angsty done in a girly way...

The World God Only Knows 2

I hope we get more. Haqua <3

Nurarihyon no Mago 2

Did anyone else even watch this? You should cause it's fun!

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu 2

While season 1 was all hit, season 2 was mostly miss. I still enjoyed it but wish it was more like the first series.

Kaiji 2

BALLS BALLS BALLS!

Not so Secret Santa: Fantastic Children

OK sooooo the fifth anime part of my Not so Secret Santa Project turns out to be Fantastic Children. When I think about it more I probably should have switched this with Noein placement wise, but I only finished Fantastic Children today... The oh so lovely Chronolynx suggested this anime to me with high encouragement from kadian1364 as well. I appreciate both of their opinions when it comes to anime so I thought I was in for a really under rated anime treat.

Saying that Noein was complicated was silly. That anime has nothing on this one. I couldn't really tell you what this show was about properly but I'll do my best. Basically a group of special children have blue eyes and white hair. Interesting enough I'll give it with only that. I like it when hair and eye colours matter! Oh before I go on I should say it takes place in 2012 hehe. I always get a giggle out of anime that takes place NOW or soon. It's even more funny when 80s shows do it. Anyway the rest of it is basically about these children that are searching for someone named Tina... Yeah... I tried sorry if that makes like no sense...

The music for me was the best part of this show. The OP and ED were great! There was something really soothing and wonderful about all the music. It was almost calming even when shit was hitting the fan. There was also a lot of very interesting sound effects used that I enjoyed. Sadly that's about all I enjoyed. I liked the look alright but it wasn't anything special or unique. Maybe I've just watched too many anime at this point to even suggest that because compared to "normal" "standard" anime this one is quite different. Maybe I'm just pretty good at getting off the beaten path that anime looks tend to have and nothing is really unique anymore to me...

I wish I could say that I loved the characters. Unfortunately due to the issue I'll chock up to pacing, I just couldn't bring myself to care about any of them. I felt bad sure when some terrible things happened, and a lot of terrible things did happen, but I just would forget come the next episode. The pacing in the show is what really caused me not to enjoy it as much as I wanted to. I mean I enjoyed the idea behind the it all and some points were pretty cool but it just didn't have that extra thing needed that would have made it awesome. Monster is a good example of a show that had this kind of pace but still drew you into what was going on.

Overall yeah... I'll either have to watch this one again or never ever again. I don't know what it is about this show but I just couldn't get into anything the show had to offer. Kinda makes me sad since I was expecting much more wow.

* Story 7/10
* Animation 7/10
* Sound 9/10
* Characters 7/10
* Overall 7/10

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