This review of The Skullman by CJ Hitchcock was originally made for the Bonus Round. We've decided to give a lot of our reviews a first run on the website before distributing it to all of our listeners in our podcast feed. The Bonus Round will serve as a base for both original conversation and discussion as well as a compilation of our best site reviews. With that said, The Skullman series was licensed by Sentai Filmworks and distributed by Section 23 Films. It's a Bones production directed by Takeshi Mori of Vandread and Otaku No Video fame. If you would like to become an audio producer for anime3000.com, feel free to contact us.

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Space Battleship Yamato: The Movie is an excellent sci-fi epic adventure that follows the great space cruiser, Yamato, as it engages on a long journey.

As soon as the movie started playing, I was reminded of Star Wars (1977). I originally got into anime because I was looking for good sci-fi and Space Battleship Yamato: The Movie delivered on all points.  It has engaging action with likable characters and plenty of gadgets, rockets, and spacecraft dogfights to please most sci-fi fans out there.  This movie is worth checking out before the live action Space Battleship comes out in Japan later this year.

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Bamboo Blade
Girls, girls, girls! Short, tall, psychotic, and even… well, that pretty much sums up all of the characters in this show. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking Bamboo Blade is just another series filled with doe-eyed high school girls that fall into cliché character types. In the heart of this show is an effort to bring something new to the table. Well, to be more precise, there is an attempt at some originality.

 
 

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Blassreiter
Blassreiter is a 24 episode co-production between animation studio, Gonzo and visual novel company, Nitro+. It's directed by Ichiro Itano, a man well known for his wicked action choreography (CIRCUS!) and wickedly terrible directorial abilities. Anime directed by Ichiro Itano tend to rely much more on violence (such as his work on Gantz) and absurd situations (Battle Royal High School) as opposed to coherent storytelling and logic. Blassreiter is no exception.

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Fullmetal Alchemist Premium OVA Collection
Spending the whole night partying is fun. Hanging out with friends and making new acquaintances with music, laughs, and stories is anyone’s definition of a good time. But in the midst of that there’s always that one drunk who no one knows. He starts spewing stories about his friends, none of which anyone knows, and then tries to get buddy-buddy with ladies well out of his league. In a way, Fullmetal Alchemist Premium OVA Collection is kind of like that guy. Of course there are several differences; the first being that the DVD won’t vomit its night of debauchery on your carpet, nor will it hit on any ladies.
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Tokyo Majin The Complete Series
When watching an anime, people only want to watch the best or the worst. There are so many shows, old and new, that no one truly has the time to stop and watch them all. Because of this, fans skip over the mediocre for something that is actually worth their time. With that in mind, Tokyo Majin is one of those shows you should’ve skipped over, as the show is dreadfully middle-of-the-road. In the words of Mr. Miyagi:

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Jinki: Extend
Jinki: Extend is like a model sitting on an otaku’s shelf with junk parts as superfluous details to its exterior. The junk parts aren’t needed, but they were added in hopes of creating something fresh and gloss over its failures. However, it’s not just the junk parts that bog it down. It just so happens that the frame of the anime is also made out of low-grade plastic.

The story itself follows Aoba Tsuzaki, a female model builder whose life changes when her grandmother passes away. When she is subsequently taken in by her estranged mother, her dreams come alive as she sees Morbito-2, a man-made Jinki (read: mecha). Aoba is immediately attracted to the giant robot, but her excitement to pilot it is quickly subsided She wasn’t brought to the base to be re-united with her mother. Aoba has a power within her that utilizes Morbito-2’s latent abilities, which everyone wants to exploit for their own purposes.
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Sands of Destruction Review
Not too long ago, I had reviewed Sands of Destruction on the Nintendo DS. Though a fun RPG, the ho-hum gameplay kept it from being great. The anime adaptation of Sands of Destruction keeps many of the good things of the game, but it also brings a few problems of its own.

The story roughly follows the same premise featured in the video game. Kyrie Illunis, Morte Asherah and Taupy are involved with the World Destruction Committee; a group, aptly enough, bent on destroying the world. There are a few key changes here, the biggest being the use of an item called The Destruct Code. This round black ball that Morte comes across is described as being the key to bringing Armageddon and Kyrie is somehow able to activate it.

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