Inuyasha

OK, before I begin, I would like to say two things. First, you may want to watch the dubbed version of this for reasons that will become apparent if you try the sub. Second, do not watch InuYasha if you are prone to heart failure, badpunitis, wormholes, or are annoyed by Old English/Japanese.Thank You.

Genre: Adventure, supernatural, fantasy

Summary (belongs to rawranime.com this time): The story begins in Feudal Japan, when InuYasha, a half-demon (han'yō), steals the Jewel of Four Souls from a village. The Jewel of Four Souls is an item that can increase one's powers enormously and can also turn InuYasha full demon. InuYasha does not get far before Kikyo, the young miko of the village, shoots him with a sacred arrow that indefinitely seals him onto Goshinboku, a sacred tree in the nearby forest. After being mortally wounded, Kikyo tells her younger sister, Kaede, to burn the jewel with her body to prevent it from falling into the hands of evil. In modern Tokyo, a junior high school girl named Kagome Higurashi is on her way to school. She stops in the well house of her family's Shinto shrine to retrieve her cat, Buyo, when a centipede demon emerges from the well and pulls her into the Sengoku period of Japan.

The Good and The Bad: InuYasha was over all a pretty decent anime. The good news is that it actually supports the plot and sticks to it without too many side trips (ZOMG IT HAS A PLOT). Unfortunately, the characters are so freakishly annoying in both languages that they make me want to shoot something and if I hear the old lady say "ye" again, I'm giving up (I was only able to make it to episode 97 out of 167 and skipped the movie completely).

My Rating: 5.6/10

xxxHolic

Quick note before I begin on this one. No, xxxHolic is not porn or porn related. I say this because every time I recommend this anime, people always ask if it's porn and I'm sick of it. Thank you for taking the time to read this.



Genre: Supernatural, Comedy

Summary: Kimihiro Watanuki, a teenager cursed with the ability to see evil spirits (and also tends to attract them), one day meets a mysterious woman named Yuuko. She claims to have the means to end his torment (specifically, she grants wishes), but she never works for free, and she wouldn't help him until he works for her enough to pay for her services. Therefore, he starts to work in her shop and discovers that in it, nothing is quite what it seems.

The Good and the Bad: This anime doesn't have very many flaws in my opinion. However, I must find something. Therefore, I would like to point out that I don't like indestructible characters (most characters in this anime are). This, as some people might point out, may be an unfair judgment seeing as
a) It's a comedy, so nobody who anyone has a connection to dies and
b) It is rather hard for an anime to carry on with its main characters dead.
Now then, for the good parts (in top 3 list form, these are my favorite things about the anime in no particular order).
1) I love the attention to detail, especially in Yuuko's shop (I like Yuuko's shop in general)
2) It's funny (and doesn't keep recycling the same jokes)
3) When a (named) character appears, they usually stay and have some sort of back story which is not revealed in a flashback (I hate flashbacks).

My rating: 8.5/10

Word of the Week

Sorry I haven't been writing for awhile (I was working on something else), but here is the new word of the week, vampire.
Romaji: kyuuketsuki
Kanji: 吸血鬼
Hiragana:きゅうけつき

I have also decided to include some more words, which happen to share hiragana spellings.
Romaji: Kami
Kanji: ネ申
Hiragana: かみ
English: god

Romaji: Kami
Kanji: 紙
Hiragana: かみ
English: paper

Romaji: Kami
Kanji:加味
Hiragana: かみ
English: seasoning

Romaji: Kami
Kanji:上
Hiragana: かみ
English: 1: upper reaches (of a river); upper stream;
2: top; upper part; upper half (of the body);
3: long ago;
4: beginning; first;
5: (Honorific or respectful language) person of high rank (e.g. the emperor);
6: government; imperial court;
7: imperial capital (i.e. Kyoto); capital region (i.e. Kansai); region (or direction of) the imperial palace;
8: head (of a table);
9: (Honorific or respectful language) wife; mistress (of a restaurant

Romaji: Kami
Kanji: 髪
Hiragana: かみ
English: hair