DVD Review: Growing up with Friends, Food and Art

"Hidamari Sketch" is a warm, fuzzy slice-of-life that will get any fan interested in art and friendship.Don't let the cute intro fool you--"Hidamari Sketch" is one of the best slice-of-life series with moe characters. Although the first season is only 14 episodes long, it sucks you into the everyday life of four of the kindest girls you'll ever want to live with for the rest of your life.Unlike

DVD Review: A Complicated Bundle of Love

If anyone is struggling to find a decent romance anime, there's one show that they absolutely have to watch.Season one of "Honey and Clover" is a powerful love story that is guaranteed to keep everyone emotionally attached until the very end.It starts off as a simple slice-of-life about a group of art college friends: three guys and two girls. The guys consist of a first-year student named

DVD Review - Nana meets punk rock

The "Nana" anime charges up this coming-of-age manga with loud punk rock, and emotionally moving dialogue that everyone will fall in love with. This review covers the first box set of the series.Ai Yazawa drew the manga which the anime is based on. Like her previous series, "Nana" features plenty of mature sexual situations and dramatic dialogue about lost love. However, the anime escalates the

DVD Review - Class tensions and gender bending drama

The third season of "Maria Watches Over Us" strengthens the girls' romantic ties with warm dialogue and imagery.The newest release for the Maria series is set in Lillian Girls Academy during the summer break after season two. As viewers may remember from the previous seasons, the student council is organized under a nobility system, in which each grande seour (big sister) appoints a first-year

DVD rerelease - His or Her Circumstances

"His & Her Circumstances" eases anime watchers with touching teenager romance, even if the animation quality declines at the end.Rightstuf secretly rereleased the box set in September of last year. This series has suffered from mixed reviews throughout its run. Director Hideaki Anno, known as the director of "Neon Genesis Evangelion," helmed the production of this series. However, the series

Crunchyroll review - Courageous soldier girls fight for peace

The girls of "Soranowoto" valiantly work for the common good in a post-apocalyptic world of warfare.At first glance, there are numerous reasons why this series shouldn't work. The cute girls seem out of place in this period piece. The intense violence is shocking. The ending theme song counteracts with the serious tone of the show.And yet, "Soranowoto" succeeds on so many levels, as a cheerful