Anime Blacklist: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

Anime Blacklist is the dishonourable blackboard, where animes that try to pass off as decent get the slap on the wrist. These are the ones I never managed to sit all the way through. -.-

And to open the ceremony, we have...

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni aka The Moment the Cicadas Cry

All I can say is... wtf?!

As I try to recall this anime, I am cringing with every memory. Yes, it is a bloodbath but no, I am not wincing because of the fantastic gore or mental torture that the series supposedly portrays. There is simply no quailty-control here: not for the characters, not for the stories, not for the drawing.

This debuted in 2006 but I wouldn't have known from its lousy artwork.

It is a mess that I simply gave up trying to decipher halfway through.

Fans will probably drag me through the mud for not being intelligent enough to appreciate the 'genius' of it.

Rmour has it that the real story will be unveiled by the end of the series, but I tried and couldn't make it till the end. But do let me share what I know:

A young boy moves into a new village, where he meets and befriends four girls. Then the violence begins.

Some people die, a few go missing, others get tortured, the rest become bewildered. And in the next story arc, the cycle repeats, only with a different kind of murder or a diiferent murderer. There are six story arcs that apparently have no relation to one another except the characters and the setting are the same.

Surprise, surprise, the ones committing these atrocities are none other than the four innocent-looking girls. Why? There is no good reason why! That is the most stupid thing about this anime.

Before long, the story writers have dropped all pretences and let viewers know straight out who the villain of that story arc will be. Oh look, innocent girl with yellow/black/brown hair is standing in the junkyard, a look of madness in her sweet eyes! I wonder, could she be the murderer this time round? But then, the other girls are just as loony, maybe this is a deception!

Reviewers who rave about this series - and gave me high hopes - all seem to agree that each story arc is a mystery for the viewer to ponder and decipher the reason behind the madness. As though each arc is a puzzle piece that leads to the final picture. Seriously, none of the arcs on its own ever made sense, except for two of the arcs that completed each other. Even then, it was like, suddenly one of the girls has an identical twin that messes with everybody's head. Like, duh, one of the lazy ways to wrap up the story - introduce a new secret character.

If you ever manage to finish this and understand what this madness is about, pray do tell.

Anime Review: Ga-rei Zero

Genre: Action, Drama, Supernatural, Thriller
Episodes: 12
Aired: 2008
Producers: AIC Spirits, Asread, FUNimation Entertainment

A prequel to Segawa Hajime's manga Ga-rei, Ga-rei Zero surprises with a torrent of drama superseding its thrills and spills.

What initially started out as a ho-hum ride with an anti-paranormal special forces government agency called the Supernatural Disaster Prevention Office (SDPO) quickly rolled into an exciting, emotional rollercoaster affair.

To tell the truth, the first three-quarters of the opening episode nearly bored me to tears. Graphics were great, no doubt, and there certainly was some demon-hunting action. But the setting of the story simply rambled on too long without getting anywhere.

The real action, if you must know (and even if you don't, I'm gonna tell you anyway) only began in the last 5 minutes. Just when you thought: "Oh, there's the assembly of the main cast - the cool male protagonist, the tough female counterpart, the nerd, the muscle man, etc", someone comes and kill them all off. Every single one of them.

"Huh? Wtf just happened?" I screamed, shaking my monitor furiously. Halfway through the show I had already dismissed this series as a bore and closed the window of the next episode that I had been loading. "Noooooo!"

An agonising wait for the next episodes to stream.

The actual story is about two sisters - Yomi Isayama and Kagura Tsuchimiya. Yomi is the mystery killer we see at the final seconds of the first episode, brandishing her bloodied sword.

And here she is, endorsing Pocky with her sister and looking cute as a button, one of the million times they do so in the short 12-epsiode series. Not sure if it is blatant product placement but you'd be surprised how crucial this chocolate stick is to the development of their bond.

So how did Yomi end up on the wrong side of the tracks? That brings us to the flashback of their story.

Kagura, the younger of the two, is the youngest descendant of a powerful family of exorcists, whose heirloom is a deadly white dragon theirs to command. 

When her mother dies in battle, Mr Tsuchimiya inherits the white dragon and the duty that comes along with it, and sends Kagura to live with another family of exorcists. There, she continues to grow as an exorcist with new-found sister Yomi.

Yomi is an adopted daughter of the Isayamas and is bestowed a special sword by her father, which grants her a magical lion-looking beast. She works with the SDPO and is betrothed to a guy also working at the SDPO. They bicker constantly, much to the amusement of their colleagues, but are really undercover sweethearts.

Just when everything looks rosy, Yomi begins to run into trouble. It starts with the Isayama inheritance, challenged by her uncle and seemingly more capable cousin, and everything tumbles downhill from here. This is the turning point that results in the tragic ending awaiting our two lovable leads.

"Will you kill someone you love because of love?" This question repeats endlessly and is the ultimate decision that Kagura has to make in the final episode.  

Following their story, you will feel the same happiness, pain and despair that they go through. The powerful story-telling, coupled with the fabulously understated swordplay scenes, make this series an absolute must-watch!

Rating: 9.5/10