Academy City… is a place to be yourself!
— Misaka

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, also known as A Certain Scientific Railgun is a side-story of the previous series Toaru Majutsu no Index(a.k.a A Certain Magical Index), and focuses on Misaka and Shirai rather than Touma and Index. Anyone who has seen Index knows who these two are. Misaka, the Level 5 Esper with the ability to control electric and magnetic fields, and her roommate Shirai, who is the Lesbian Stalker character of the series. The initial idea is quite good: Take two of the best characters out of Toaru Majutsu no Index, and make a side-story revolving around them. Sadly, the execution isn’t nearly as good as the concept. The animation holds the same high standard as Index, so does the Voice Acting and the Sci-Fi theme. The Scenario doesn’t, however. A lot of the episodes are fillers, and the story progresses too slowly, taking a bit too many side-tracks. Like Ace Detective Conan(a.k.a Case Closed in some localities for seemingly no reason) most of these side-tracks are later reused, but the large amount of fillers makes the story a bit hard to follow. There are two new main characters, Uiharu and Saten, too. Uiharu works as Shirai’s backup/computer support at Judgement, and Saten is Uiharu’s friend who is also a fan of Misaka. While Uiharu is cute and has a lot of character, Saten only seems to cause trouble, get in trouble, stick someone else in trouble and flip Uiharu’s skirt to such an extent that Uiharu actually catches a cold because of it. I’m not sure why Uiharu still counts her as her friend, as Saten never seems to do anything back for Uiharu. The main characters of Toaru Majutsu no Index, Touma and Index, appears, but only briefly, though Touma appears briefly in the first OP theme. Touma saves Uiharu and Misaka from a Graviton explosion in one episode, is in a heavily altered version of the first scene of Index, tries to help Harumi find her car(which she forgot where she parked, and could only remember there was a traffic light nearby…) and almost gets beaten by Misaka with a chair in one scene. Index appears only once, when she almost breaks a cleaning robot that apparently stole her Donut, and appears along with Touma about one second in the final episode.

Oddly for a side-story centering about Misaka, the MISAKA clones and the Level 5 Esper Accelerator never appears. And that’s just one of the unexplained events here. Something that is good is that it gives several other characters(such as Konori in Judgement) gets more backstory, while some other characters gets more personality outside of the story(like Komoe and the Anti-Skill Duo). Misaka also has an obsession with Gekota, a Frog from a kids TV show, and has several keychains with it on, believes the Frogface Doctor is a real Gekota and wants to go to a Gekota festival in one episode. Her eyes also change to frog-eyes whenever she talks about Gekota, which looks really funny.

This could have been good, if it were better done. Sad that it isn’t.

Gallery
Click on the pictures for larger view

Then, would you accompany me to the depths of hell?
— Index

Logo

Academy City is a city that is, according to a tourist guide in an episode, about 20-30 years ahead of the rest of the world. Also, the city is in itself an experiment. 80% of the inhabitants of Academy City are students(thus the name) and about 70-90% of the inhabitants has an Esper Ability – a sort of Superpower that has been scientifically awakened from within a person, such as Misaka being able to control electric and magnetic fields(including those within her own body), Shirai who can Teleport herself and things she touches, Accelerator who can change the nature of whatever object he comes in contact with and Konori who can see through anything. The remaining 10-30%(the exact number isn’t given) is called Level 0, and has powers which is still sleeping – or undocumented superpowers which wasn’t supposed to be awakened. Kamijou Touma is one of those who has an undocumented “power” – Imagine Breaker, which allows him to negate or block any other superpower hitting his right hand. The fact that he has that ability is good, since otherwise the series would have ended two minutes into the first episode – counting the opening theme which takes a half minute.

After a prologue where Touma is almost killed by Misaka Mitoko(a.k.a “Shocker”, or as Touma calls her, “The Biri-Biri middle schooler”, or just “Biribiri” for short), Touma finds an unconcious nun hanging over the ledge of his balcony(it’s just as weird as it sounds, see picture number 2 below), who doesn’t react at all to the fact that she is hanging from a balcony on the thenth floor of a student dormitory, but instead asks Touma for something to eat. It turns out Index is actually a nun from the English Purist Church, the Necessarius faction, and that she has all the knowledge of magic in the world, in the form of 103,000 Forbidden Grimoires stuffed into her head, making her a sort of living library. Index is chased by other magicians(the opposite of Espers, they use magic, as the name suggests. While Espers represents Science, Magicians represents the occult) – or so she thinks – who are after the endless knowledge inside her head. Despite that Index initially tries to keep Touma out of the entire Science-Magic thing, Touma manages to be pulled in anyways when he finds Index lying on the ground, stabbed in the back. Touma then gets involved in a series of (sometimes pretty nonsensical, but still great) events revolving around Esper Powers and Magic.

I can’t really write much about the story, as it would spoil the entire thing. While the story isn’t the greatest one ever, sometimes it gets a bit repetitive, the amazing way in which it is performed more than makes up for it. Toaru Majutsu no Index is a visual masterpiece from start to end, the visuals being in the same class as masterpieces such as Love Hina, and D.N.Angel. The sound isn’t far after either, and while it isn’t the best soundtrack ever(that’s Neon Genesis Evangelion, or possibly Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu), it certainly is good, and really fits into the general atmosphere of the series. Returning to the animation, everything holds high class with natural movements and really awesome special effects. The only real complain about the graphics is the way Accelerator’s Wind Plasma ball looks strange, people sometimes has their eyebrows on top of their hair(it’s only visible on some people though), Innocentius is hard to really differentiate from the surrounding fire sometimes – like in the OP. Speaking of the OP, the first one, PSI-Missing, is one of the best openings I’ve ever seen(although it is still beaten by Neon Genesis Evangelion‘s “Zankoku na Tenshi no Thesis“). The second OP, Masterpiece, is about as far from a masterpiece as you could possibly get, being just a big disappointment all the way through.

This anime is pretty violent, but not particularily bloody(the sequel/side-story Toaru Kagaku no Railgun is however, even if it’s not much blood, you have been warned…), but the violence still isn’t near the class of Soul Eater or Angel Beats!. The story also seems unfinished, seemingly ending in the middle, even providing the start of a Season Two if there ever is one. Since Toaru Majutsu no Index leaves a mess of loose ends, you shouldn’t watch it if you’re expecting something that answers all the questions it raises. If that’s not a requirement, you should watch this no matter what. Touma has an annoying tendency of holding long monologues, but it’s not that annoying. Something that is more annoying is that Index’ personality changes drastically after the first episodes. At first she acts(relatively) mature and has a large impact on the plot, and her knowledge of every magic force in existence is cool, but then she becomes just an annoying nuisance who spends most of the time either whining, causing trouble, scheming something with Misaka or biting Touma. She seems forgotten until the last episode where she is the focus of one of the coolest scenes in the series where she holds her own against a 4 meters tall Clay Golem named Elliot by first using a needle from her coat to reverse engineer and sabotage it’s self-recovery ability and then reverse-engineering and jacking it’s control. That scene is also where the epic quote “I may not be able to use Magic myself, but I can create confusion in the magic!” comes from, right before she makes Elliot trip over it’s own feet.

The only plausible excuse I can come up with(except the mess of loose ends) not to watch this would be if the entire internet would die overnight. And since that’s not very likely to happen, go here and start watching on Anime Season.com!

Gallery:
Click on the images for larger view

This is an excellent example of a Dragonball Syndrome. A DB Syndrome is an Anime or Manga where the main characters gets far too powerful towards then end, and at the same time the plot starts dropping in quality. This is exactly what happened here.

Dragon Drive starts out really good, a guy named Reiji Oozora gets invited to an underground arcade where a Virtual Reality Fighting Game called Dragon Drive is played. Reiji gets a Dragon to play the game, which happens to be an one-of-a-kind dragon which is pretty much useless. Reiji starts training the dragon anyways, and it seems it has far more powers than it looks. Reiji is invited to the Special Training Room where he gets a chance to practice Dragon Driving with the DD Champions. His friends Hagiwara and Yukino comes after him and sneaks into the Special Training Room too, but then they all gets sucked into another world where Dragon Drive is real – Ri-kyuu. It then turns out Dragon Drive is just a way for an evil dude who looks like Xemnas with long hair who calls himself Rion to trick people who has talent for Dragon Drive into helping him gaining control over both the Real World and Ri-kyuu using a magic stone known as Jinryuseki.

As i said, the plot starts shallowing badly towards the end, where it also gets incredibly repetitive. The painfully bad animation, the annoying soundtrack(there is about two good songs in total) and a Character Cast who loses their personalities towards the end. Dragon Drive was good at first, but then dropped in quality quicker than Neon Genesis Evangelion did after running out of money. DD does have a good Voice Acting though, especially Toki and Rokkaku, too bad the rest of DD is so bad.

STORY: 5/10
SOUND: 1/10
GRAPHICS: 1/10
CAST: 5/10
VOICES: 8/10

Has it ever bothered you that some Background Applications doesn’t hide their Dock Icons(such as Hardware Growler and Veoh Web Player), thus takes up unnecessary space in the Dock. But, it’s actually possible to hide these!

There is two ways to do this, one that’s easy but not guaranteed to work, and another that’s sightly more complicated but also almost guaranteed to work.

METHOD ONE: The Quick Way

The Quick and easy way that’s not guaranteed is by using the application “Configure Application Dock Tile”, which can be downloaded here. To hide an application’s Dock Tile with this app, simply close the app you want to hide, then open it with CADT, check the box in the window and save. When you open the application, it won’t have any dock icon!

METHOD TWO: The Guaranteed Way

Look up the application in Finder, Right-Click on it and select “Show Package Contents”. A new window opens. Navigate to Contents and open the file “Info.plist”.

If it opens with Plist Editor(it does if you have the Developer Tools package installed), mark the top element and click “Add Child…”, select “Application is Agent(NSUIElement)” from the Drop-down list, and check the box.

If you don’t have Developer Tools, you can instead open it with a Text Editor. You should see a long list of <key>…</key> tags with different kinds of value tags. If there is a Key with the name “LSUIElement”, change the String below it to 1. If it isn’t, add this code after the other Key/Value Pairs:

    <key>LSUIElement</key>
    <string>1</string>

Start the application, and it won’t have a Dock Icon!

Pikachu, all our most hated annoying yellow mouse from Pokémon… Who doesn’t know him?
Pikachu goes from being useless junk of a Pokémon to being one of the most overpowered characters in SSB64!

Pikachu was initially the annoying yellow mouse who stole the title of Pokémon’s mascot from Clefairy. Unlike Clefairy however, Pikachu is completely useless in the Pokémon games. He is fast, but all other stats are low. His “Pika-Pikaaah!” was cute the first season of the Anime, then just became a nuisance.

Before i unlocked Captain Falcon, i always used Pikachu. Pikapain(which is what I’ll call him from now on, since that’s what James from the Pokémon Anime calls him) is fast, just like in the Pokémon games, but unlike there he’s actually powerful. He has an incredibly fast running speed and aerial movement, few dead angles, and is small and hard to hit.

Pikachu is this game’s absolute aerial god. All his aerial attacks can knock enemies away, and some of them can even paralyze enemies, allowing him to follow up with other attacks. His combo effectiveness isn’t as good as Captain Falcon though. Pikapain also has access to the cheapest trick in the game, which also happens to be one of the most powerful combos as well: Thunderspike! Throw someone up in the air, then use his Down Special to throw them even higher while charging the Smash Gauge about 20%, chain this and you’ll KO most characters in no time at all. This is especially useful on stages with a low Upper Smash Limit(the maximum height possible without getting automatically KO’d).

PIkapain has a great Recovery, the Pokémon Move “Quick Attack”, which allow him to go invincible and perform a long two-stage jump. Because he is light, he will be KO’d pretty fast if you throw him, but will also fall slowly. However, his ability to dodge quickly can make up for his lack of defense.

SCORES:
Ranged Combat: 03 – He only has one projectile, a jolt of electricity that bounces when it hits something and briefly paralyzes on impact, but it travels diagonally downwards, making it hard to aim.
Close Combat: 08 – He’s fairly strong, though lacking in the Defense Department
Ground Effectiveness: 07 – He’s awesome, but better in the air
Aerial Effectiveness: 10 – Beats even Captain Falcon, due to his better Aerial Mobility and Jumping
Combos: 05 – He’s not that good at combos…
Survival: 07 – He can jump well, but can be knocked away easily. As i said, he’s lacking in the defense department…
Coolness: 00 – He’s not one bit cool
Speed: 10 – He’s insanely fast!

Random idea: Make an article series with reviews of characters in the original Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 64(a.k.a. Smash64). Because i have nothing better to do, I’m going to follow that idea, finding no plausible excuse not to.

I’m going to start with my favorite character: Captain Falcon.

Captain Falcon comes from some random failure of a racing game called F-Zero. I’ve never heard of that game, so It’s most likely not worth playing, so Captain Falcon’s Backstory isn’t much to flash with…

Gameplay-wise, Captain Falcon is so powerful It’s almost scary. Falcon has the most powerful attack in all the Super Smash Bros games, Falcon Punch, which gives a huge Forward-directed Knockback effect as well as boosting the damage gauge by a whole 30%. Unfortunately, Falcon Punch is incredibly slow, taking a whole 32 frames to load, so unless you manage to stun a character at a high damage rate you won’t be able to hit anything with it, as it is ridiculously easy to avoid. Falcon is however able to incredibly quickly chain together combo-attacks (I’ve even been able to hold a character in a combo almost 15 seconds!), mainly by using his forward grab-smash to bounce someone up into the air, then using an A+Up attack until the damage meter goes too far to manage this way, then instead jump up into the air, use an aerial A+Up attack to kick the foe overhead backwards, then run along the ground and catch the foe with an aerial A+Forward attack, which makes Falcon jump up into the air and kick an enemy twice, knocking him/her backwards in a huge speed. This combo is hard to master, but if you do you’ll be able to juggle lighter characters like Kirby, Jigglypuff or Pikachu off-screen in a single combo, as well as knocking up the damage-meter of heavier characters like Donkey Kong or Link a huge way. If you’re lucky you could even OHKO medium-weight-fighters like Samus or Fox on certain stages. Now, here comes CF’s biggest problem: He’s a damn aerial god, but can’t jump very far. His Recovery is powerful and can work as an aerial grab(!), and even grab ledges backwards, but doesn’t reach very far. This means he’s pretty easy to KO by using spikes, but that’s pretty much his only real defensive weakness. Another weakness CF has is his lack of projectile(ranged) attacks. He can deal a huge amount of damage in close combat, but Ranged Attackers like Samus, Fox or Ness can dodge his close-combat attacks and blast him with ranged attacks, without CF being able to do anything about it, as he can’t use projectiles nor can he use a Mirror Shield like Fox or Ness to bounce back attacks. Possibly to compensate for this, Falcon can run insanely fast, and runs in his running-mode by default, so you don’t have to double-tap directions to run. Captain Falcon can be unlocked by beating Story Mode in less than 20 Minutes, and then beating him in a Deathmatch as a Challenger will add him to the Character Roster.

SCORES:
Ranged Combat: 00 – No Projectiles, worthless as a ranged fighter
Close Combat: 10 - With a strength like Link, and the defense almost like DK can make him the best Close Combat-character in the game.
Ground Effectivity: 06 – He isn’t weak on the ground, but he’s better in the air
Aerial Effectivity: 09 – The only character who could rival this score is Pikachu
Combos: 10 – Captain Falcon has some of the deadliest combos in the game, and with some training you can keep characters in combos for over 15 Seconds!
Survival: 05 - His Jumping ability is better than Link or DK, but he has a large hitbox and is moderately easy to KO
Coolness: 10 - “Falcooon…. PUUNCH!!”, “HAA!”, etc. CF has the only good voice-acting in the game, and his quotes are really cool. And he looks like a Sci-Fi Spaceman.
Speed: 05 - He’s not very fast, but he’s not very slow either

Strategy…
RPGs…
Are about to…
Get a…
Serious…
Kick in the…
ASS!
– Trailer

[review pros="Great story, incredibly deep gameplay" cons="Hard as hell" score="100"]

What I’m reviewing here isn’t actually Hour of Darkness, but rather the DS port Disgaea DS. There is also a PSP port with the lame name Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness. I couldn’t get my hands on the PlayStation 2 original.

The best description i can come up with to describe this masterpiece is: Take the Final Fantasy Tactics series, make a ten times deeper gameplay, then add an unmissable story and a really deep(but annoying) Job System, and one of the best soundtracks ever. Sadly, they didn’t stop there, but added the requirement to level grind your ass off and the Dark Assembly. Despite those nuisances, this is one of the best SRPGs you’ll ever find. For any console. Ever.

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is not an easy game, no matter how you look at it, it’s not newbie-friendly in any way. It is incredibly complex and long, and just leveling things up is an incredibly complex task. Each character has both their own level, naturally, but also they have levels to measure how skilled they are with a certain weapon, which determinates which abilities they can use and how much bonuses they get from better equipments, the special abilities have levels and even items have levels. The game requires you to experiment with practically everything and a little more, and there’s not a single tutorial in sight. You start the game with just a few classes to use, but by leveling up the base classes you can get access to new classes. These requirements are also hidden, for example if you have a character with 30 Skill Level with Guns, you’ll unlock the “EDF Soldier” tier, which is pretty much the ultimate Gun user tier, and if you have a Red Mage(which uses Fire Magic), a Green Mage(which uses Wind Magic) and a Blue Mage(which uses Ice Magic) in your team all above level 5 you’ll unlock the Star Mage(which uses non-elemental magic), and by leveling the Star Mage up to level 30 You’ll unlock the Prism Mage(which can use both Fire, Ice and Wind magic), and by getting that one to level 50 you can access the Galaxy Mage(which can use all kinds of magic). All of these classes also have different Aptitude Levels for different stats, and Weapon Mastery levels, which determinates how much bonuses in a certain stat the character will get, and how quickly they will master weapons. If this wasn’t complex enough there’s the Reincarnation system, which lets you revert a character to Level 1 in another(or the same) class, while keeping their weapon masteries and some of their abilities, as well as a bonus for every level they had before they reincarnated. This opens for scarily much complex combinations and almost endless customisations. This game also lets you lift and throw allies and enemies, allowing you to cover a much wider area than you normally would, or throw away enemies to buy time. Another unique feature is the Team Combo system. If you attack someone while an ally is standing next to you, you have a certain chance of getting a special combo attack where all allies affected are included to deal massive damage in a single turn. If the Team Combo KOs someone all affected units will also get EXP. It should also be mentioned that the level cap in this game is 9999, for Unit Level, Weapon Mastery and Skill Level. Geo Panels is also an unique feature, which allows you to change special effects on certain colored panels by dropping a Geo Panel Source on them. These effects also stack, so it’s possible to stack effects to create for example invincibility and full healing on all green tiles, while all red tiles will instantly kill anyone standing on them, and all blue tiles will create clones.

The story of the game is incredibly good, and has some of the both funniest dialog, most memorable cast, and most emotional scenes ever found in a game. One of the messages the story is that no one is truly evil, just as no one is entirely good, fittingly symbolised by Angels and Demons.

The story follows the Demon Prince Laharl, who took a “nap” for two years and is trying to take back the title of Overlord of the Netherworld(essentially meaning the ruler of hell), accompanied by his not-so-loyal Vassal Etna who is secretly trying to take the title of Overlord for herself. He is then joined by the Angel Trainee Flonne who came to the Netherworld to assassinate King Krichevskoy on the orders from the High Seraph Lamington(the ruler of the angels), not knowing he died two years prior.
There is also Captain Gordon, Defender of Earth(who is a parody on pretty much every spaceman-superhero in existence), his partner Jennifer and her robot Thursday.
And the most badass character in the entire game: Kurtis, who lost 70% of his body, along with his wife and daughter in a terrorist bombing, and became a cyborg, and started calling himself “the true Defender of Earth”. He dies heroically to save Jennifer’s life, and is then reborn as a Prinny to redeem for his sins.
The most memorable non-playable character in the game is without doubt Vyers, who is also known as “Sassy Demon”, “Dark Adonis” and “Mid-Boss”. The last name is given to him by Laharl, and he hates when everyone keeps calling him Mid-Boss. Mid-Boss is the most comical character in the game, and is heavily hinted to be the reincarnation of King Krichevskoy. He has some of the most memorable lines in the game(Vyers: “But do not foolishly think that i am an ordinary Mid-boss!” Etna: “Hey! you just admitted that you are a Mid-Boss!”), and a great voice-acting(“Well of course! Haaaahahahahahaaaa! Haaaaahahahahahaaa!”). Every time he loses he also either leave the scene wrapped in bandages, or comes up with some lame excuse for not using his full strength(such as stomach cramps, which he obviously doesn’t have).

The story takes over a hundred hours to complete, and when you have, you’ve most likely barely scratched the surface of the game. After that is the unlockable areas, the superbosses and optional characters, and the Item World. The Item World is a special “area” where you jump into an item, say a Sword, then battle your way through a series of Mystery Dungeon-style randomly generated floors filled with enemies. There’s also special “friendly” enemies that you must land the killing blow on yourself to really crack up the stats of the item, and the whole place is crowded with random Geo Panels.

The graphics in this game are beautiful, and they’re not even in 3D! For the conversations, think the Conversation System of Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, and use the hysterical sprites from Custom Robo Arena. All conversation sprites are nicely drawn in Anime-style, and while they are not animated they change between lines of dialog to create a very living and interactive look to it. The In-Battle Graphics are all in 2D/Pseudo-3D, and here the sprites are actually animated. The biggest charm in this is however the ridiculously over-the-top Specia Abilities, which is also voice-acted. For example, you can throw a group of enemies into the sun, cut the dimensions, split in four and blast enemies with a gun several times(from all the clones!), kick an enemy into the air and slash the enemy several times while the enemy is hanging in the air and then finish by kicking the enemy back into the ground. There is barely a single Special Attack that isn’t extremely over-the-top. All of this accompanied by quotes such as “Here i come!!”(Laharl), “Oops, pardon me”(Flonne), “Time for fun!”(Etna), “Prepare yourself… GORDON FINISH!”(Gordon), “Coup de grace”(Jennifer), “You’re too weak!”(Kurtis), “Here goes…”(Cleric), and so on. It is especially fun to see Flonne viciously shooting someone repeatedly in the head, saying “Oops, pardon me”.
The soundtrack is really great, and fits perfectly into the scenery, and includes both sad, aggressive, space-ish and fun themes. I actually have most of the songs in my DS’s MP3 Player Application right now.

TRAILERS:

• DS Trailer

[review pros="Beautiful story" cons="Kurtis heroic death is toned down, Kurtis rebirth is removed completely, Gordon seems like a moron and isn't one bit cool unlike in the game" score="99"]

Makai Senki Disgaea is an Animé loosely based on the story of the game Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, and its remakes Disgaea: Afternoon of darkness and Disgaea DS.
Hour of Darkness had one of the absolutely best storylines possible, and i can’t say the Anime is much worse, though Hour of Darkness had sightly better story.

The story follows the Demon Prince Laharl who is trying to take back his kingdom after he took a nap for two years, his manipulative friend Etna who is also the commander of the Prinny Squad(a Prinny is a sort of penguin-like animal), and the Angel Trainee Flonne who came to the Netherworld to assassinate the king – two years after he died from choking on a dark steamed bun. I can’t actually write much of the plot, but it has one of the most beautiful storylines i’ve ever seen.

There are a lot of differences between Hour of Darkness and Makai Senki, and the thing i think is most sad that they changed is that Kurtis’ Death when saving Jennifer is less heroic than in the game(yes, it is possible to make that scene more heroic) and Kurtis’ Rebirth as a Prinny in Celestia, and that Captain Gordon seems like a moron in Makai Senki while he is among the coolest characters in the game(and he joins the party too, along with Jennifer and Thursday). The ending of Makai Senki is a sort of combination between the “good” and the “bad” ending of Hour of Darkness, and is even sadder than the game’s.

The message Makai Senki(just like Hour of Darkness) is delivering is that there is no absolute good or evil, just like everyone has their good and bad sides. And it actually delivers it just as well as Hour of Darkness did. Watch this, it’s far too good to miss. You can find it on the web, but it’s not sold anywhere anymore.

NOTE: The most notable mistranslation is that “Demon” has been written as “Devil” in the subtitles. Just know that it’s supposed to be Demon.

Anyone who has played Kingdom Hearts 2 or Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days should know about Organization XIII, and the weird names everyone there has. If you have played Days, you should also recall that Saïx calls Axel “Lea” in a cutscene in Castle Oblivion there. And what do you get if you take “Lea”, add an “X” and scramble the letters? Well, if you scramble them in the right order you get Axel. Another example: Take “Sora”, the name of the main character of the rest of the Kingdom Hearts series, add an “X” and scramble it, you can get “Roxas”, and Roxas has been confirmed to be the Nobody of Sora in Kingdom Hearts 2. Ever wanted to know the name of your own Nobody? Check Rum&Monkey’s Nobody Name Generator. It also gets an extra point for having Axel’s classic quote “Got it memorized?” on the submit-button ;D

PLEASE NOTE: I did not make this. Voice your complaints to the makers, not me, and stop raging in the comments! Any further comments complaining about getting weird names will be rejected immediately!

Now I’m doing something new: A Review of six Animes in the same post. Why? Because of the way it is put together.
The Anime version of Love Hina consists of both a base-series entitled simply Love Hina, which covers a variation of the plot of books 1-9, plus the Unaired Episode 25 that covers Tsuruko’s Return in Book 13, then there is Love Hina X-Mas Special: Silent Eve which covers the christmas arc in an earlier book, and there is also Love Hina Spring Special: I Wish Your Dream which loosely covers the Parakelese(that’s an island) arc that was in Book 8. After that, mostly due to the lack of an ending, they attempted to skip right through the ending of the manga version by doing a three-part OVA entitled Love Hina Again which covers the part before and after Kanako briefly took over Hinata House in Book 11-12, but they skipped the mini-guerrilla-war over whether Hinata House should be a hotel or a dorm, Shinobu being stressed and accidentally cooking the laundry and washing the food(“Wash Curry”), and about everything else that happened during Keitaro’s absence, and instead jumped right on to the part after he comes home. I’ll come right back to that, before i get too engaged with writing stuff about the half-crappy spin-off-style way of not wanting to make a real ending that is Love Hina Again.

Many people complains about the story being classic, but so is Super Mario and people love it anyways. This Anime is classified as “Romantic Comedy“, something that’s not really doing it justice. It’s actually more of romantic COMEDY ,or even romantic slapstick. The series also doesn’t cover only the Romance and Comedy categories, but also Slapstick, Drama, Shonen, Adventure, and also partially Science Fiction as well(although that is more in the manga, where the whole 12th book is about 45% Sci-Fi-Parody).

Now to get on with the Classic (shut up) story:
Keitaro Urashima is a “ronin“, meaning a student who didn’t pass the exam for an university(it also means Unemployed Samurai, but that’s not the point), who is trying for Tokyo University, which is among the hardest universities to get into, due to a promise he made with a girl when he was 5 years old. The problem is, he can’t remember who that girl was, but still he hopes he would recognize her when he sees her. After failing the exams twice, his parents throw him out, and he goes to live with his grandmother on a hotel she owns outside of town. When he gets there, he doesn’t find anyone there and decide to take a bath in the hot springs outside. There he finds out that a girl(Naru Narusegawa, who is also studying for Tokyo U) is already bathing there, but she doesn’t wear her glasses and mistakes him for her friend Kitsune. Kitsune comes in and Naru sees Keitaro is not Kitsune and both Naru and Kitsune chases after him trying to kill him. Keitaro escapes from them, but runs into Kaolla Su and steps on one of her robot tanks, which gets her mad at him and she shoots him out of the house with the remaining tanks. Naru and Kitsune then catches up with him, but he is saved by Haruka, who tells him he just inherited the Hotel, which is now a girls-only-dormitory and he is the new manager/landlord there. Since he is now stuck in a Manager position there and has nowhere else to live he stays there and tries to both study for a third retake of the exam, and also manage his duties as a manager(which is more or less everything and some more). The story focuses mainly on his attempts to get into Tokyo U and fulfill his promise with the girl from 15 Years ago, but also his development as a character and his relationship to Naru.

That is the base story, but the really good parts is the countless side-tracks the story takes(such as Giant Mecha-Tama, Moé, and Parakelese) and also the collection of more or less crazy characters.
Speaking of Characters, i could actually list them here:

Keitaro Urashima: The seemingly immortal ronin who is also the main character, and also the only character beside Haruka who is mostly sane. Keitaro is suspected to be more or less immortal, as he is shown being hit by lots of hard punches from Naru, Motoko’s Sword attacks, Kaolla’s Sci-Fi-Weapons and also falling hundreds of meters straight down. In the Manga, Naru even says “Don’t worry, you’re immortal, remember?” when Keitaro attempts to jump onto a moving airplane.
Naru Narusegawa: The top-ranking student from the same preparatory school as Keitaro, who also lives at Hinata House. Commonly keeps sight of Keitaro, but also commonly mistakes things he does, calling him a pervert and using her “special attack” Naru-Punch on his face, sending him flying away.
Mitsune “Kitsune” Konno: Naru’s best friend who also has a certain passion for solving(or just simply interfering with) others problems and generally stick her nose in everything, and manipulate others for her own enjoyment, but also for drinking large amounts of Sake. Is also always trying to make the best for Naru, even spending a whole day trying to keep Naru from meeting Seta in order to keep Naru from being thrown between Keitaro and Seta. Despite her appearance as a careless girl who doesn’t care about others, she has a very good ability to see consequences of things, and also several times keeping others from disasters. Kitsune and Naru has been classmates and also best friends since elementary school.
Kaolla Su: An Exchange-student who is initially believed to be from India(in the Manga she is revealed to be the princess of the Kingdom of Molmol, but since that happened where Love Hina Again ruined the story, that isn’t in the Anime). Constantly eats bananas and also commonly kicks Keitaro in the face. Loves inventing crazy stuff such as a gigantic Turtle-robot, a Jetpack-button for Shinobu’s backpack, a metallic horse for annoying boring school-teachers or a turtle(actually “Kame”, meaning both Turtle and Jar in Japanese)-radar. Constantly hyperactive and almost always climbing around on someone or something.
Shinobu Maehara: An extremely shy girl who also has a crush on Keitaro, and is also very susceptible to stress. Very easily misinterprets situations, and runs off screaming “Nooooo!” every time something happens to her, or when she believes something is about to happen. Shinobu is very self-going, being a fantastic cook and also handling Hinata House’s laundry, despite being only 12 years old at the start of the story.
Motoko Aoyama: The younger of the two daughters of a Kendo-master who lives in the mountains of Kyoto. She has a terrible fear of Turtles due to her sister Tsuruko’s ability to turn into a form resembling a demon-turtle, and several times attempts to kill Keitaro and Naru’s turtle Tamago(also known as Tama). She initially hates all men due to that her sister married a man and then left her when she was about 5 years old.
Noriyasu Seta: An archaeologist who is also Naru’s old teacher who she had a crush on in grade-school. Left Japan for a dig in America, but came back to teach archaeology in Tokyo U after he was finished years later. Seta is an incredibly bad driver, and is shown crashing his van into several things, and his van is also shown in the manga that it has the ability to drive underwater.

The story is heavily altered from the manga, several story-arcs(such as Molmol, Mutsumi’s amnesia, the Mini-guerrilla-war between Kanako and the others over whether Hinata House should be a Hotel or a Dorm, etc.) was cut completely from the Anime, while some other plots has been lengthened and some special events only for he Anime has also been added. The Anime included the character Kentaro, whose name everyone(including himself) confuses with Keitaro’s, and he also attempts to charm Naru away from Hinata House, and almost even succeeding. Naru’s younger sister Mei and Kaolla’s older sister Amalla and also her brother Lamba appears as well, as opposed to only mentioned in the Manga. The base story remains, but it’s still recommended to read the manga as well.

If you actually see the Anime, SEE IT IN JAPANESE WITH SUBTITLES! The Japanese sound and voice acting is so perfect it can’t be missed, and the English voice acting is among the worst ones I’ve ever seen. Especially Kitsune who has a Southern US dialect instead of her normal Osaka accent she had in the Japanese version, and sounds like a hyperactive whimp. And they mispronounce several peoples’ names, such as Keitaro’s that is pronounced Kei-taroh in Japanese, but in the English version they pronounce it as Kee-tauro instead which sound completely out of place.

The Anime is also incredibly beautifully made, having a great soundtrack, as well as one of the best animations I’ve seen in any movie. The Anime-version toned down a lot of the “too-much”-feeling that was over the Manga, but it also toned down several of the good bits and Mutsumi’s obsession with Watermelons and Kotatsu Tables. The Anime is definitely the best Anime I’ve seen in a long time, but it’s still not as good as the manga. That could be because the manga is a masterpiece, and not much could possibly be better(it’s a little slow in the start, and sometimes has a strong feeling of too-much-ness but that’s really the only complaints i could possibly give about the manga, except for the fact that it has and end, I WANT TO READ MORE!!), but if they hadn’t altered the storyline so much and just animated the manga, it would have been even better. See the Anime, and then read the manga, or the other way around. That’s the only way of enjoying this incredible series to the max.

You can stop reading here, but if you want to hear my review of the LH Again OVA, read on…

Now i can return to speaking of LH Again, the crappy “ending” of the series. Although it’s not the official story, i strongly suspect that Ken Akamatsu was forced into writing this by Kanako-fans who was disappointed by Keitaro’s younger half-sister Kanako’s lack of appearance in the main series. The Main series(including Special Episodes) ends just before the Molmol arc in Manga Book 12(of 14), something that caused Keitaro’s master-of-disguises of a half-sister Kanako to not appear in the series, as she first appeared in Book 13. Love Hina Again begins with a disappointment. First it skips two of my favorite arcs, Naru, Keitaro and Mutsumi’s vacation to Mutsumi’s home-island where Mutsumi falls and hits her head, causing her an amnesia and she believes she is five years old again and Naru and Keitaro’s attempts to make her regain her memories, and also the arc where Seta takes Keitaro to a dig in the Kingdom of Molmol(Kaolla’s homeland), when a Fax from Granny Hina arrives which says that when she comes home in two days Keitaro must have a wife at his side who will also inherit half of the lands around Hinata House, causing all of the girls to run after Keitaro(except Naru and Haruka). Instead they skip right onto the part where Keitaro travels to America with Seta, but skips the delay and the good-bye-presents. Then the movie skips right past the long while where Kanako takes over Hinata House and to where Keitaro comes home, then play a small part of the arc while Keitaro was gone as Naru’s flashback. Then they continue the catastrophe by taking the idea of the Magic Annex, then almost completely re-writing the whole story. The story is acceptable up to that point, but then they do the lamest attempt of an ending I’ve ever seen. They take the part where Seta picks up Keitaro to go to Molmol, but now he picks up Naru as well and flies to Tokyo U(it’s not shown, but Keitaro and Naru both say they want to go there), something that was just a bad attempt to cover an embarrassing mistranslation in the Manga: Tokyo U is commonly referred to as “Todai”, which is the word used in the Japanese version. In the English release of the manga, they just used the full version Tokyo U without realizing the point in Ken Akamatsu using the term Todai until the Parakelese arc where people started saying Todai: Todai is also the name of the capital city of Molmol. In the Manga, Seta flies Keitaro to Molmol in his airplane, landing outside the city of Todai. In the Japanese version of the Anime, Naru and Keitaro actually say “Todai” when Seta asks them where to go, being a reference to the Manga-city and the Molmol arc, and also that they fly there in Seta’s airplane just like in the Manga(but there it’s only Keitaro). In the English Anime, they instead say “Tokyo U” so that makes no sense at all, being just a cheap way of covering up for a mistranslation, and there they also lost the Manga-reference. If you see LH Again, read book 12-14 after that to see how the series actually ends.

LINKS:

• The whole series with Japanese sound and English subtitles: http://youtube.com/kuLero760
• The Love Hina Wiki on Wikia(my userpage there): http://lovehina.wikia.com/