Recommended Anime:

Well my "For All you Anime & Manga Fans" post was all about trying to get people to start watching Anime and reading Manga. However i noticed that most people find it really hard to concentrate when reading manga and it takes time to get into it. So in the meantime have a look at some of these series...
The reviews are a bit longish but cover all the basis...




Well First up is Darker than Black. Well where do I start with this one, it has been one hell of an adventure (literally). Darker than Black takes place in a near future world where two gates appeared, Heaven's Gate and Hell's Gate. The mysterious appearance of these gates brought with them the Contractors. Contractors are people who have entered into a contract with an unknown force and gained a unique power in return.

The animation and art style of Darker than Black are superb. Each character is completely unique and unlike some other shows with several similar looking characters, Darker than Black does an excellent job of giving each character an unique style and a winning personality. The fights of Darker than Black are done very well and are very fluid.

The soundtrack for Darker than Black is up there with my favourites of all time. An excellent mix of various genres of music. At one point it will be a jazz track, then later it will be an orchestra piece or a rock track. Overall the music is really well done and accurately depicts the scene.



Secondly, we have Black Lagoon. One of the darkest animes I've seen in my life, Black Lagoon portrays quite brilliantly the gritty and obscene lives of mercenaries for hire and the underworld of crime. Casting an academic and otherwise completely innocent person as the protagonist just makes this anime even more explicit and realistic than any other.

The story follows a team of mercenaries known as Lagoon Company, who smuggle goods in and around the seas of Southeast Asia. Their base of operations is located in... the fictional city of Roanapur in Thailand, and they transport goods in the PT boat Black Lagoon. Lagoon Company does business with various clients, but has a particularly friendly relationship with the Russian crime syndicate Hotel Moscow. The team takes on a variety of missions - which may involve violent firefights, hand-to-hand combat, and nautical battles - in various Southeast Asian locations and when not doing much, the members of the Lagoon Company spend much of their down time at The Yellow Flag, a bar in Roanapur.

The characters in this anime stay in the mind long after the anime is over. The story follows the plot-line of Rock, a Japanese salaryman kidnapped in the early episodes by the crew of Black Lagoon which provided the various main characters of Revy, Dutch, and Benny. Rock of course is the gentlest of the crew as he gradually assimilates after the various bloody mercenary jobs he undertakes. Using reasoned arguments and persuasion, he's the counterpoint to the jaded and oftentimes brutal teammates.

In the last point, specifically to Revy a hardened Chinese lady mercenary whose looks hide a merciless and cold exterior. She likes to systematically take apart the enemy and relishes gunfights. However, later she develops feelings for Rock.

The main point of this anime lies in the fact that the world is cruel, and dark. Throughout the series, Black Lagoon crew takes pay for various dangerous and very gruesome jobs, often paid for by Balalaika, the cynical lady boss of the elite Russian Mafia whose members consisted of basically "Russian SWAT".

The episodes are usually gritty and dark with plenty of disturbing themes and pulse pounding action. In this aspect, the gunfights are simply spectacular and perhaps the best in anime. It is definitely something worth seeing.



Last but not least , we have Fate stay night. This is a great show that with loads of suspense, drama, and action. From start to finish it proved to be a fantastic anime. The plot was sophisticated but not extremely complicated. It started off with a pretty basic idea; seven masters and servants fighting to obtain the holy grail, but the further into it I got the more the story started to twist and the plot got more complicated. The conclusion was very clever as every twist began to line up and the final battle ended with a bang.

Everything is well drawn and there are some real kick-ass fighting scenes. There wasn't much off the usual things you see like chibi or their heads get gigantic when they're yelling at someone. Fight scenes are great. The only problem was there were one or two occasions when some drawings didn't match the anime but aside from that it pretty good.

One thing I can say about this anime is that I never got bored watching it. I was kind of disappointed with the small amount a comedy(there are several times I found myself laughing) but it was made up for with tons of drama stuffed into the anime.

It wasn't an absolutely perfect anime but it was exceptionally great with a very interesting plot. This anime is, of course, one of my favourites and if you haven't watched it yet you don't know what your missing.