Anime Review

Natsu and the gang attempt to stop a magical staff being used for destruction.

The prequel: a phrase that often causes more eye-rolling than excitement, followed by the sentence “that’s great and all, but does that story really need to be told?” Well, Gundam The Origin is a six-part OVA series set before, and leading straight into, the original Mobile Suit Gundam series. These first four focus on the backstory of one of the lead characters: Char Aznable, but does this need to be told, and more importantly, is it any good?

Naruto Shippuden’s 32nd release is almost entirely filler, despite what the front cover wants you to think. The “New Chunin Exams arc”, as it’s often called, concludes at Episode 413, giving a whole two canon episodes! Is this filler arc worth sticking with, or are you going to buy the set for two episodes' worth of content? Let’s find out if either are going to be true…

While still being within the period of ‘good’ Pokémon films, this set is worth every Pokémon fan having in their collections. Both new and old fans alike should find something to enjoy among the stories on offer. It’s just a shame that they’re all so similar overall.

After a promising setup with the first entry, Initial D Legend 2 Racer squanders the potential by being exceedingly average.

A high school descendant of a line of demon-fighting warriors ends up living with a succubus and a future demon lord in The Testament of Sister New Devil.

Digimon Tri Chapter 4: Loss has its moments, but ultimately undermines the consequences of its predecessor.

Masaaki Yuasa barfs rainbows straight into our eyes.

After a sadly long eight months wait, the second half of the 2016 hit ERASED finally makes it to disc here in the UK. After such a promising first half, does the series get the big pay-off it deserves? Read on to find out! (Although you’ve probably already watched the end on Crunchyroll or Netflix in the past 8 months due to understandably running out of patience, but hey-ho…)

Fate/Apocrypha overall is a fun romp of fantastical action, memorable side characters and inconsistent but mostly good animation, that any new or old Fate fans should find enjoyable.

Kiss Him, Not Me! is a true delight for shojo fans. While there might be some questionable content in terms of its realism, the series is undeniably great fun and not as shallow as the first episode or two would suggest. Shojo, especially good shojo, is so frequently not brought to home video in the UK that this is a rare treat all fans of the genre should give a go.

GATE is a hard show to talk about without getting into nationalistic propaganda debates and general right- wing unpleasantness, but ignoring this argument for the time being, the show has some merit, not least its premise of a modern army fighting a bunch of races and animals from a typical fantasy land. Is there more good than bad, though?

Class 3-E are about to graduate, but can they kill their teacher and save the world before that?

Just when you thought Manga was done releasing two Dragon Ball Z short-length films, they… well, they release two TV specials which are roughly the same length as the 13 films released previously. While there are differences between the films and TV Specials (and not all of them good), story-wise it’s hard to find two better examples of the Dragon Ball franchise taking itself uncharacteristically more seriously. Is that a good thing, though…?

Kino’s Journey is a thought-provoking look at 'what ifs?' and the inner workings of the human mind. With a fantastical and mystical approach added in for some truly odd stories, it’s a series that is perfect for those into symbolism and strong metaphors.

A nigh-perfect adaptation from the source material, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure finally gets its chance to shine in anime form with its utterly unique take on the shounen genre