[Review] Naruto

Naruto (ナルト) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. It tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, an adolescent ninja who constantly searches for recognition and dreams to become the Hokage, the ninja in his village who is acknowledged as the leader and the strongest of all. The series is based on a one-shot manga by Kishimoto that was published in the August 1997 issue of Akamaru Jump.

By Strawhat

[Review] Fairy Tail

Fairy Tail (Japanese: フェアリーテイル Hepburn: Fearī Teiru) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiro Mashima. It has been published in Weekly Shōnen Magazine since August 2, 2006, and has been published by Kodansha in 48 tankōbon volumes; the individual chapters are being published in tankōbon volumes by Kodansha, with the first released on December 15, 2006, and the 48th volume released on March 17, 2015. Fairy Tail follows the adventures of Lucy Heartfilia, a teenage wizard (魔導士 madōshi), who joins the titular wizards' guild and teams up with fellow guild member Natsu Dragneel as he searches for the dragon Igneel.

By Strawhat

[Review] Fushigi Yuugi

Hi guys, are you getting tired watching shoujo anime this lately? Do you think their story line is way a bit too predictation with boring concept? Today i will introduce you one of my favourite anime which is Fushigi Yuugi.

Story's plot

The series describes the various trials of Miaka Yuuki and Yui Hongo, two Middle-school students. While at the library one day, Miaka and Yui encounter a strange book known as The Universe of the Four Gods. Reading this book transports them into the novel's universe in ancient China. Yui is transported back to the real world almost immediately, but Miaka finds herself the Priestess of Suzaku. Miaka is destined to gather the seven Celestial Warriors of the god Suzaku in order to summon Suzaku and obtain three wishes. She falls in love with the Celestial Warrior Tamahome, who eventually reciprocates and Miaka's desire to use a wish to enter the high school of her choice begins to shift towards finding a way to be with Tamahome. Yui is also drawn into the book when she tries to help Miaka to come back to the real world; becoming the Priestess of Seiryuu, working against Miaka out of jealousy over Tamahome and revenge for the humiliation and pain she had suffered when she first came to into the book's world.

                                            Characters

Miaka Yuuki: the main character of Fushigi Yuugi, and the Priestess of Suzaku. Along with her friend Yui Hongo, she is one of the last priestesses to go inside the book.

Tamahome: the first Suzaku warrior Miaka meets and has the character "Ogre" on his forehead. He appears to be obsessed with money, but only wants to use it to support his family. Tamahome is a very single-minded individual for the most part. At first his drive is his family - they are all encompassing to his attitude to life and everything he does is for their benefit, even to the point of making himself appear something of a penny pincher to a confused Miaka and company to begin with. Despite his altruistic reasons for needing money, Tamahome is also very proud and he doesn't ever divulge why he needs the money or even tells Miaka and the others about his family at all.

Yui Hongo: Miaka's friend, who become the Prietess of Seryuu. Unlike Miaka, she have been suffered bad experience when she entered into the book that explain why her personality change later on

There are lots of more characters as well but there is the 3 main characters that build a triangle relationship in the story.

Have to tell when I first watched this on TV (year 2000 maybe) I really hated Yui. She tried to steal Tamakins from Miaka and she believed the lies of Nakago instead believing her best-friend's sincerity of saving her. But when I re-watched it (year 2008, anime+OVAs) I finally realized the pain she'd gone through, and I kinda understand how she felt during those times Miaka wasn't there to rescue her. And since i understand Yui-chan, i just love her so much, luckily, in the end, through all the pain and sorrow that she have been suffered, she was ended up happily as she and Miaka start their friendship once again.

                                               By Lyn

[Review] Anohana

Do you still remember your childhood's friends? Do you still keep in touch with each other? 

The story is about friends who were together all time in their childhood. They even had a secret base. And they called each other by nicknames. However, the heroine, Menma accidentally died. Time goes by, everyone fight for his/her own dream and never keep touch with each other. One day, Menma revived, but among the five friends, only Jintan could see her. She said she has a wish that must be done with the friends together...

Yadomi Jinta(やどみ じんた), he was a leader of his 5 childhood's friends, and his the only one who can see Menma.

Honma Meiko (ほんま めいこ)，nick name is Menma (めんま). she died accidentally in her childhood. after 10 years, she shows up and bring her 5 friends together.

Anjyou Naruko (あんじょう なるこ), nickname is anaru (あなる),  Jinta's classmate. she admired Menma's long straight hair.

Matsuyuki Atsumu (まつゆき あつむ), nickname is yukiatsu(ゆきあつ). he is good at study. But as Jinta was better than him when they were young, he traded Jinta as his competitor.

Tsurumi Chiriko (つるみ ちりこ),nickname is Tsuruko(つるこ). she is yukiatsu's classmate,and she is good at study as well. 

Hisakawa Tetsudou (ひさかわ てつどう), nickname is bobo (ぽっぽ) he is the youngest one of 6 friends. after give up high-school study, he became a world traveler.  










                           
<~secret base~after ten years.>

now, maybe it is time to contact with your old friends...

by kako

[Review] Nabari no Ou

Note: It isn't said in the genres, but it is really shounen-ai! XD

1. Background information

Genres: Action, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Supernatural

Type: TV series

Number of episode: 26

Airing year: 2008

Website: Nabari No Ou Wiki

Summary: Nabari is a hidden world of ninja existing along with the modern world in Japan. People of Nabari living in modern world as normal citizens, they may be teachers, doctors, businessmen, or even politicians. Rokujo Miharu is a normal highschool boy, growing up in modern world. One day, he realises that inside him there is a forbidden art call Shinrabanshou - unlimited knowledge - with huge power that can do everything including making a person immortal, However, this art is dangerous and can kill its owner if he does not have enough ability to use it. Therefor, Tobari and Kouichi, Miharu's teacher and friend, also affiliated ninja from Nabari, try to protect Miharu from Kairoushou, a group of people who try to find the way to use the power of Shinrabanshou for their ideal. Miharu himself at first did not care about this as if it is not related to him, but after he met Yoite, he has changed his mind...

2. Characters

(I will leave my beloved to the end <3)

Tobari Durandal Kumohira

Miharu's teacher, ninja of Banten village, possess Engetsurin - Banten's secret art scroll - which Kairoushou is looking for to research the use of Shinrabanshou. He knows Miharu's childhood very well as well as what will happen if Shinrabanshou is activated. So he always objects using that dangerous art and try to destroy it. His ideal is to make Miharu become king of Nabari without using Shinrabanshou.

Aizawa Kouichi

Miharu's friend and ninja from Nabari. He is immortal as a result of Shinrabanshou. Suffering the pain of the inability to die, he also want to destroy Shinrabanshou. But when Miharu shows his attempt to use it for Yoite's sake, Kouichi does not think he can stop his friend anymore.

Shimizu Raimei

Miharu's friend, come from a destroyed samurai family in Fuuma village of Nabari. She has a samurai pride and is on the way looking for Raikou, his brother and also the one kill all her family when she was a child, to revenge. She also knows about Shinrabanshou and support Tobari and Kouichi to stop Kairoushou.

Fuuma Kotarou

Leader of Fuuma village. He seems to know many things and acts as an experienced "old man" with great support for Banten. Tobari's group find him reliable, but sometime he looks like he is covering something. After all, he is quite dangerous since no one can understand what he thinks. Ah, also, he has some weird hobbies that make me think maybe he is not mentally normal. :))

Hattori Tojuro

Leader of Kairoushou. In modern world, he is a politician. Having been living in the war period, his purpose to use Shinrabanshou is to create a world where everybody is the same, no feeling or thinking, easy to control, so that there will be no war anymore.

Ichiki

Hattori's assistant. She used to be a nurse serving in the army during the war, got blind as a war injury and was saved by Hattori back then. She has the same ideal with Hattori about the world and has caused many troubles to Banten as well as Miharu and Yoite.

Kazuhiko Yukimi

Serve for Kairoushou, is responsible for taking care of Yoite. In modern world, he is a novel writer. Despite of being a ninja, he is good at using guns rather than other traditional weapons. There were many times he was ordered to bring Yoite back when he escape with Miharu, Yukimi always tried to not hurt him and got worried when his condition was bad.

3. Happy ending, but not for us

a) Yoite and Miharu

Rokujo Miharu

A normal highschool boy. He always wears an emotionless face as if he does not care anything around him. But actually, he is quite mischievous. When he wants something, he will pretend to be cute or vulnerable to persuade others, and mostly, no one can refuse him. His most popular victim is Tobari. Being the Shinrabanshou owner does not move him at all, but just an eye contact with Yoite, he soon makes up his mind. He said that, Yoite has the same eyes with him, and he wants to do anything to save that person.

Yoite

Serving Kairoushou, Kira user. Yoite is not his real name, that's the name Hattori gave him when he was brought to Kairoushou. He always says that he want to disappear, so Hattori told him to obtain Kira. Kira, like Shinrabanshou, is a forbidden art which destroys the user body slowly from inside. But Kira seems to kill the user rather than make them 'disappear'. Yoite turns to Miharu, asks him to use Shinrabanshou to erase his existence on this world, in exchange, he will protect Miharu since Kira is a really strong art which can kill people from distance.

Yoite do not have memories about his past before Hattori took him to Kairoushou. What he is obsessed is the image of a woman trying to use a knife to kill him and said that he was not needed, no one needs him, or he is an unwanted child. With that obsession, he starts to have the same thought and think that it would be better if he did not exist.

One abandons the world.

One is abandoned by the world.

I can't stop myself from thinking that, they were meant to each other.

But...

In the end, he still was erased....

Nothing left to remember...

Only memories in mind...

"I will never forget you, Yoite."

- said Miharu -

b) Raikou and Gau

Shimizu Raikou

Raimei's brother, serving Kairoushou. Shimizu clan has a rule, that is 'not concern to modern life issues using Nabari arts' to keep the balance between the two worlds. When Raikou was in secondary school, one of his classmate was in trouble but he couldn't help her due to the family rule, that led to her death the day after that. Raikou's uncle objected this rule and ask Raikou's mother to give the leader position to him. After being refused, he killed Raikou's parents. Raikou then killed his uncle and the reactionaries who were almost the clan except Raimei. After letting Raimei think that he was responsible for the whole family death so that Raimei could still think her family are good people, he joined Kairoushou. Here, he accidentally killed a normal man from real world to save Gau.

Meguro Gau

A normal highschool boy saved by Raikou three years ago. After that, Gau has seen Raikou as his idol and accompanied him in the job of Wakachi, a group with the mission of punishing Nabari's citizens harming people from real world. Since he couldn't fight, his main job was paper work like collecting data and writing reports. He is the one who know about the truth of Raikou's past and reveal it to Raimei.

To stop the sibling fight of Raikou and Raimei, Gau got injured and lost his consciousness, fell into dangerous condition. He then was saved by Yoite with the Kira technique. From that time, Raikou felt that he owed Yoite and decided to betray Kairoushou to help Yoite and Miharu. In the fight with Hattori, Raikou was killed and the earthquake after that buried his body.

Once again, nothing left to remember...

4. Conclusion

This is a sad story even when it has a happy ending.

First, there is no real negative character. Everyone has their own reasons for their actions. Kairoushou is not wrong. Hattori and Ichiki has suffered too much from the war, and that makes them loose their belief to an emotional world. An emotionless world may be a world without happiness, without love, but at the same time, it is also a world without sorrow and tears.

In any battle, there are always people who sacrifice. Raikou's death is so sad, but it is understandable. But, how about Yoite? Right when people thought that they two could be together forever, he suddenly disappeared! This is unacceptable! Ah~ I was crying so much when he died~ I even cried more when I listened to the ending song and read the lyrics. It was like... 'keep smiling, keep holding hands, keep walking side by side, despite the fact that there is no tomorrow for us'.

I won't talk too much. Now listen with me, watch with me and cry with me~

Lyrics (English translation)

I lost sight of myself in the pouring rain 

Failing to be recognized, I'll resign myself to futility

Let's stretch these hands out and not look back

I want to be near you 

My wish is to be near you 

As it is, just like this, I can keep living like this 

Surely if I hold that hand I'll be able to fly anywhere, right? 

If it's with you, even far away, just like this

Writer: Gin

Reference sources:

• Nabari No Ou Wiki
• Nabari No Ou | Vietsub
• Anime Lyrics dot Com
• Some images were found through Google