In case you didn’t know there will be no One Piece manga Chapter this week  as Eiichirō Oda is taking a break to prepare future Chapters for our enjoyment. If you’ve been following the One Piece manga regularly, I think you will agree, Oda has definitely deserved it!

The pace has been frantic and the artwork of a consistently high standard, especially when you consider how detailed each cell of the One Piece manga has been as each cell seems crammed full of, not new weird and wonderful characters but also, some of the most important characters in the whole of the One Piece universe! If you’ve been following the manga, you’ll know what I mean.   Read the rest of this entry…

Things are beginning to heat up in Bleach. OK that’s not entirely true, things are beginning to boil up and out of the saucepan that is Karakura Town, that’s how hot it’s getting!

At the end of the previous chapter we saw Kensei step in to protect Mashiro against  Wonderweiss’ surprising strength that caught Mashiro a little off guard, leaving her severely injured. Read the rest of this entry…

We’ll here it is, the review you’ve all (OK, some of you) have been waiting for. As I envisaged a while back now, this is my review of the Mushishi (蟲師?) anime TV series by Hiroshi Nagahama which is based on a manga by the same name written and illustrated by Yuki Urushibara.

By means of a little preamble, I have to confess that this was my second attempt at watching Mushishi. I originally started watching the series about 5 months ago after a recommendation from a friend and seeing the overall high reviews the series received as a whole, I thought I would give it a go. Read the rest of this entry…

Luffy has gathered together a temporary band of odd-balls including past foes and new friends such as Baroque Works’ Mr. 3,  Buggy, Emporio Ivankov along with two former Shichibukai, Sir Crocodile and Jinbei.

The chapter starts just before we see Luffy and his band come crashing into the fray as we see them, quite fortuitously, stuck atop a massive frozen Tsunami in their stolen Marine Battleship overlooking all the goings on below. Read the rest of this entry…

One week late, here is my review for the best chapter in quite a long time – loads of great content, Sasuke got punched in the face, Madara does the funky thing Kakashi’s Mangekyo does on himself and disappears into thin air.

Good times!

So the chapter starts off with the mighty Raikage and little Uchiha picking up where they left off, after it seems Raikage kills Jugo, at least in this manga people die! Read the rest of this entry…

Let me start by saying, ‘WOW!’ what an episode. For me, this has been one of the events that I’ve been waiting for since I began watching the show some many months ago now.

The way Bleach works is that it only slowly (in some cases very slowly!) reveals secrets; and thats secrets about people, about their abilities and about their pasts. One character in particular I continue to look forward to learning more about are the more illusive Captains of the Gotei-13 of which the anime viewers and manga reader know very little. Read the rest of this entry…

Ah finally my first review! [Welcome to Gbemi who will be doing some of our manga reviews from time to time! - Matthew]

Over the past few weeks One piece has not let up with the action and gripping story, the chapter this week was not a disappointment.

So oars (formerly Oz – big as a country) had offspring – Oars Jnr! But alas his rampaging was put to a swift end by Shichibukai Dom Flamingo’s sword slash , who’s ‘puppeteer’ fruit powers had been revealed earlier. It is now safe to assume the Shichibukai are not one trick ponies.  Oars’ adventuring came to an end, with the tiniest bit of background thrown in to allow us to feel a bit sorry at his demise. Read the rest of this entry…

If you haven’t noticed, the filler is still on and we have another underwhelming episode that I will struggle to write anything positive about. Speaking to a few fans however there are mixed feelings about this filler arc. I have no doubt that it has the potential to be the best filler arc so far but it’s episodes like these that leave a lot to be desired.

This episode feels almost as if it ends where it started, we seemingly have got no further after conclusion of the episode. We are still watching the face-off between Muramasa and Ichigo (and his Hollow alter ego), while both Renji and Hisagi battle their respective Zanpakutōs. Read the rest of this entry…

Goku fights to protect the Universe and to stop the bad guys from obtaining the mythical DragonBalls.

Ah Dragonball Z. I don’t think I know of an anime that has polarized anime fans quite like this one has. If you trail the internet for a while and ask a few different types of people what they think of this show then you’ll probably find two camps: Ignorant and stupid fan boyZ/girlZ (you see what I did there?) and closed minded, overly opinionated Otaku. I’ve sat in both camps before albeit the less extreme ends of both but I’ll try and keep this review level headed. Read the rest of this entry…

Oh One Piece, you’ve run on longer than Dragon Ball Z and yet you still remain entertaining, exciting and enjoyable. How is that possible? Well, that’s not the answer I’ll attempt to answer on my lonesome but I would like to take some time to review the recent episode. The plan will be for this to be regular in time with each airing of the TV show. Please note that from here on out, there will be spoilers. I can only hope the title is a sufficient deterrent for those that are not quite this far in the One Piece saga. Read the rest of this entry…

There are very few films that I’ll watch more than once, simply because any twists or surprises would not hold the same interest and excitement as when I watched it the first time round. Despite me saying that, I always end up noticing small things that I failed to pick up the first time round.

Zatoichi (AKA The Blind Swordsman: Zatôichi), is one of the even fewer films that I can comfortably say, I’ve had the pleasure of watching more than once.  I watched it for the first time in about 2006/07, when I was just getting into Asian Cinema and absolutely loved it. Every moment of the film was exciting and suspenseful as the story unfolds and elements of various mini-story lines begin to weave and intersect resulting in a crescendo of sword fight/blood bath as the mystery and intrigue continues to unravel before you. Read the rest of this entry…

Cars, Trucks, Planes and even a blender are all robots in disguise in this Blockbusting sequel.

In 2007 Transformers was released on the world as a live action movie. It wasn’t a stop motion flick with the original Hasbro toys or a longer episode of the 1980’s animated series, this was a high def, CGI action fest, directed by the king of action fests Michael Bay. The movie was a hit and it grossed something stupid like $70,000,000 in its opening weekend. Now never one to let a cash cow graze peacefully for too long, Hollywood has now given us a sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Read the rest of this entry…

It should be noted that while Peacemaker (AKA Peace Maker) Kurogane, as with all good anime, began life as a manga, this review is only for the anime adaptation which aired between 2003 and 2004 and lasted 24 episodes.

I have to confess at the offset that I have a fondness for samurai -themed anime, particularly those series that take place during the Meji/Bakumatsu (Last Shogunate) period. So anything in the vein of Sumarai X/Rurouni Kenshin would normally get my immediate approval. This however is no Kenshin remake. Whether that is a good or a bad thing in my humble opinion, read on. Read the rest of this entry…

Ok, so it’s been about 19 episodes since by last post and I’ve neglected this blog for sometime and I have to say thanks to those people who took the time to comment/spam on the last review as it’s prompted me to return (that and the fact that this episode was, in a word, immense – but more on that later!).

Well since Bleach #200, we were in the throws of another massive show down between Nnoitra Jiruga and Kenpachi Zaraki. Since then a number of the Espada have fallen and Sōsuke Aizen, along with his cronies (Gin Ichimaru and Kaname Tōsen) have made their way to Karakura Town, albeit the fake Karakura Town. Read the rest of this entry…

Before we dive in, a little excerpt:

My Neighbor Totoro (となりのトトロ Tonari no Totoro^?), is a 1988 Japanese anime film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced byStudio Ghibli. The film follows the two young daughters of a professor and their interactions with friendly wood spirits in postwar rural Japan. The movie won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1988.

This has to be one of the most enjoyable movies I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in recent years. This movie now almost 20 years old, has received a new lease of live from the release of several Miyazaki films referred to collectively as the Studio Ghibli Collection. Read the rest of this entry…