Miwa Satoshi

To add my two cents.

I've seen plenty of movies in my (relatively short) time on this planet, and I have to admit that very little truly impresses me anymore.

Then something comes along that reinstills the wonder of film into my heart like nothing else before it.

This first installment of the Lord of the Rings saga is so good, that no word or combination thereof can adequately describe just how good this is.

Trust me, if I could give this movie a fifteen out of ten, I would.

Fantasy fans rejoice, for JRR Tolkien's classic has been given the treatment it deserves.

Go watch this film.

I just about completely gave up on this anime after the first segment, which was a near carbon-copy of Tanin no Kankei, done badly. Chizuru, as the archetypal big-breasted anime Lolita, was heavily overdone, and the teacher was absolutely unrealistic (and hardly sympathetic). The "trick" ending came as no surprise, either.

The second half of the show, though, almost makes this show viable, with some hilarious scenes as Chizuru tries to come to terms with her own "Strange Love". However, Hen is hardly a groundbreaking title, and may only really be a good rental if you're bored and have nothing better to do.

Genocyber is one of the most repulsive, ultraviolent examples of anime I've had the misfortune of watching. With unsympathetic characters, low-budget animation, and an eerie fascination with blood and gore, Genocyber loses any moral message it tries to express in a bloodbath of proportions matched only by fellow Ohata Koichi titles such as MD Geist.

Many people think that titles like this are what makes anime worth viewing. I thoroughly disagree with that opinion. Genocyber has precious little coherent plot to go with the scenes of carnage it presents, and gratuitously adds sequences (for example) of children being little blown apart by helicopter gunships in slow motion.

Sure, it's not real, but should we be encouraging this kind of stuff by buying or renting this sort of sludge?

Granted, violence is a fact of life, and a fact of entertainment, but I can't possibly with any sense of conscience support or endorse this much glorification of violence for entertainment's sake. Especially in a title as pointless and overwhelmingly bad as Genocyber.