Year: 2007

Status: Complete

Subbed by: Shinsen Subs

Zombie-Loan Official Site (Japanese)

Rating: Alright

Kita Michiru is a timid girl who has the gift of the “Eyes of a Shinigami”. Michiru has the ability to see the lifespan of a person which is marked by rings on their necks. However, she hates her gift after watching her parents death and subdued her abilities by wearing glasses. All this changes when Michiru accidentally sees the rings of two boys Akatsuki Chika and Tachibana Shito. Much to her surprise, these boys should already be dead – but they’re not! It turns out that Chika and Shito actually work for the mysterious Zombie-Loan and their job is to kill all the evil and illegitimate zombies to pay back the debt they owe. After learning of Michiru’s powers, the boys ask her to lend them her gift in their job to hunt down zombies. Michiru is reluctant but finds herself getting involved in it anyways! What will life have in store for the trio?

Zombie-Loan is my first “zombie” anime. Its nice to have a change of theme once in a while! Zombie-Loan has good animation and a decent plot going for it. The action is good but not smashing. Now whats really good here is the humour – the constant bickering between Chika and Shito, Michiru’s ability to get into trouble no matter what and a very scary Shinigami thrown into the whole mix. The story isn’t really outstanding to say the and neither is there anything terrible special about the characters themselves.In short, this is a supernatural anime mixed with the humour of unlikely partners having to work together for money! I’d say that this is a decent watch with an ok story and humour to keep the anime interesting.

More supernatural goodness:

Bleach

Get Backers

D.Gray-man

Kekkaishi

Year: 2006

Status: Complete, Licensed by Viz Media

Death Note Official Site (U.S)

Rating: Awesome

Review: Yagami Light is smart and intelligent – but bored with his high school life. One day, he happened to chance upon a notebook which bore the instructions that if a human’s name was written in the notebook, they would die. Light tries out the notebook to find that it is real and that he is now connected with the world of Shinigami (Death Gods). With the power to take lives, Light decides to use the Death Note to create a new world according to his own ideas of justice and thus systematically begins killing all criminals – including those on death row. The police are baffled by this killer (now nicknamed “Kira”) with the mysterious power to kill from afar and the case finally reaches the master detective “L”. L is a mysterious detective whom noone has ever seen but who has helped the police solve many of their ‘unsolvable’ cases. Will L succeed in capturing Kira or will Kira succeed in revealing L’s identity and kill him?

Death Note is an intense psychological drama which will keep you hooked on the series till the end. Strongly resembling the strategy and mind games one employs in hard core games like chess, death note involves the battling intelligence and deductive skills by both L and Kira. Deadly serious and sometimes scary, Death Note will keep you guessing and is a must-watch for all those anime fans out there !

Recommendations:

Monster

Year: 2004

Status: Ongoing

Subbed by: Dattebayo Fansubs, LLC

Bleach Official Site (Japan)

Bleach Official Site (U.S)

Rating: Great

Review: Kurosaki Ichigo is an ordinary high school teenager living a normal life. However, due to his exceptional spiritual energy, Ichigo has the power to see ghosts and other creatures of the paranormal world. Vengeful spirits known as “Hollows” attacked Ichigo for his spiritual energy one night and nearly killed him had it not been for the Shinigami (death god) present – Kuchiki Rukia. Unable to defend all the Hollows herself, Rukia lent Ichigo half of her death god powers so he could fight them off. However, it turns out that Rukia gave Ichigo all her powers and is unable to get them back! With Ichigo now carrying out Death god duties and Rukia having seriously violated laws of the Shinigami realm, what will be their fate? Will Ichigo continue being a Shinigami and will Rukia be able to return to the Shinigami world?

Bleach is an extremely interesting anime with lots of progressive plotlines. Although it is about Shinigami and the supernatural, Bleach has its fair share of martial arts/fighting skills in it. Moreover, as the anime progresses, the storyline gets deeper and more complex. Bleach is filled with an action style strongly reminiscent of anime from the Meiji revolution (such as Kenshin, Peacemaker Kurogane etc). All in all, a definite must-watch series!!

Like Bleach? You might also like:

Naruto: This often goes hand-in-hand with Bleach as being the other most-addictive anime. Naruto offers the same intense martial arts style fights and battles as Bleach does coupled with a long and complicated storyline.

Full Metal Alchemist: Follows the story of two brothers who violated the laws of alchemy once and are on a quest to gain back what was once lost. Although the action here differs from martial arts, Full Metal Alchemist offers the same intense battles as Bleach does.

Kekkaishi:

D.Gray-Man: