Megalo Box

 Megalo Box was created as a commemoration for the 50th Anniversary of Ashito No Joe. One of the most influential Manga in Japan. The show came out in 2018 with 13 episodes. A second season called Nomad is coming out in 2021.

Meglomania; a tournament for the best Megalo Boxers. These Boxers are equipped with robotic frames around their shoulders and arms. These enhancements allow them to fight harder and faster. In this world the Champion wins prestige and money. But from the underground scene comes a Junkyard Dog. 

Due to debt and the pursuit of Glory, Nanbu and Joe attempt to enter the tournament. But without money they can't afford any good gear, so Joe goes to the fight gearless.  "Gearless Joe" takes the professional scene by storm. From his underground and illegal fights he learned how to take a hit better than any of the other fighters. And he doesn't stay down. 

Just like Ashito No Joe this story is about perseverance and determination. But the futuristic setting and incredible animation brings this incredible story back. I am not Japanese and do not fully understand their culture. All I know about the influential Average Joe is what I read. But I believe this show does proper homage to the original. 

I enjoyed it greatly and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys anime and manga. I give it a 9 out of 11. The animation is well done and the boxing matches are impressive.

Kyoukai no Kanata/Beyond the Boundary

Beyond the Boundary came out in 2013 with 12 episodes and a movie.

This is one of the most beautiful anime I have ever watched. I was gripping my chest in awe at some of the beauty, and especially the story line. When it came to the first movie I was just so in love with it. The whole dynamic of memory and what we are without them. Can we actually achieve a sense of happiness if we know some of them are gone. Looming in the background unable to reach them. Knowing there is something hidden away but you just cant reach it. Knowing someone means something to you, but you can't remember why or what has happened between the two of you. It hits home deeply for me. I know the pain of lost memories.

The story follows Akihito Kanbara and Mirai Kuriyama. Kanbara is an immortal half-human half-Youmu. Youmu are a type of spirit creature that feeds off humans. Because of his half-monster side to him, he is constantly monitored and controlled by spirit warriors. Kuriyama is a new spirit warrior in town with the intention to kill Kanbara. But because Kanbara is immortal she is unable to complete her mission. Despite repeatedly being stabbed by Kuryima's blood sword, Kanbara attempts to befriend the bespeckled beauty. Oh and he has a fetish for glasses...

The true beauty of the show comes after The Hollow Shadow shows up. It is a Youmu that is Beyond the Boundary; a creature so old and powerful they created disease, famine, and war. Kuriyama has a personal vendetta with the being and sets out to destroy it alone. She always feels alone. Her family was killed off due to their cursed blood. She feels like she is a monster incapable of being human and having a normal life. Its then that she sees Kanbara for what he really is. She witnesses his Youmu-side; a true monster more powerful that she ever imagined. Its only after he is calmed down that he looks at her and says "Do I look normal to you?" 

Later in the story another Beyond the Boundary shows up. It consumes Kuriyama leaving Kanbara to find a way to save her. Only through love are they able to stop the Youmu and return to the world. 

The movie "I Will Be Here" continues the story only for us to find that Kuriyama has lost all her memory of the last few months. Completely forgetting Kanbara and her other friends. Kanbara tries to stay away to protect her from the painful memories from coming back. But the bond between them is not so easily broken. In the end, he will be there for her.

Beyond the Boundary absolutely falls within my top 5 anime of all time. It is a unique love story involving amazing fight scenes, depression, amnesia, and odd fetishes. Not every episode is great, but the overall story is incredible. This is an anime I think all anime lovers should watch. And a show to be watched by anyone who feels isolated or depressed. I gladly give Beyond the Boundary an 11 out of 11. 

Future Diary

This is a story I think I will have difficulty fully describing. But we have 26 episodes with the option of English Dub. The show came out in 2011-2012. In Japanese the show is Mirai Nikki.

It all starts out with a friendless boy named Yuki. He created some imaginary friends, except they turned out to not be so imaginary. Deus Ex Machina("God in the Machine") who is the God of Time and Space. Deus bestows him with a Future Diary which as the name implies, tells him his future. At first he just uses it to his advantage with normal kid stuff like getting the answers to tests. But it turns out there are others with Future Diaries.

Deus had set up a Game with 12 people all with their own types of Future Diaries. They must fight to the death. The reward for winning is replacing Deus as God. So the fight begins.

Yuki is joined by Yuno, a girl who is obsessively in love with Yuki. He goes between being creeped out and enjoying her company over the course of the show. But she is important for his survival in this game of death.

Eventually Yuki makes some other friends after narrowly surviving some intense scenarios. Even after his school is bombed and a whole bunch of dogs try to eat him. But Yuno doesn't like him having friends outside of her.

Without trying to give anything away, things get super crazy and fucked up around episode 20. The show goes into a whole new way by adding some elements that change everything. Of course there were hints from the beginning about it, but trust me when I say that you are not prepared for the stuff that goes down.

This was a surprising and thrilling show with a lot of psychological moments. It earns a score of 10 out of 11.

The Wire

Many believe this to be one of the best HBO series to ever exist. And it is not hard to see why. The series came out between 2002 and 2008 with a total of 5 seasons and 60 episodes. Each episode is about 55 minutes long with some of the season finales being 90 minutes or so.

The show follows a few different groups throughout the seasons. But mostly the Cops following the Drug Trade, and the Drug Traffickers. Characters will come and go, with some dying at some points. But as you watch all 5 seasons you will see everything linking together and connecting. We get to see the web of interconnecting cogs in the city of Baltimore, Maryland.

The first season is all about setting up a Wire(an electronic monitoring of phone usages) on Barksdale's gang of drug peddlers. We get to see the inner workings of the police department as well as what goes on in a gang. We get to see the politics of a drug dealing hierarchy. It's not just the kids on the street selling the drugs. Throughout the series we never abandon the characters we meet in this first season. Even when they aren't being directly investigated we still see them in their lives.

Season two deals in the smuggling that occurs on the Baltimore docks. We meet a large variety of new characters. We see some of the issues that come to the working folk of America. Technology and cutbacks taking these good hardworking folk and forcing them out.

Season three gets back into directly hunting down and catching the gangs again. But mostly it gets into the idea of what just might occur if Drugs were to be legalized.

Season four may be the most interesting of them all. This looks into the school systems. It reveals the problems and corruption that the US school systems have. Specifically going into the problems of teaching students only test questions. We don't teach our children to learn anymore. It shows us something that helps to explain why America is so low on the world scales in Education. They of course point this toward just intercity black children. But it hints at so much more.
This season also goes into the politics of the city. A man working toward becoming Mayor and the corruptions and dark dealing that occur in a public race like that.

Season five gets back into taking down the drug dealers. But because of political issues and funding problems the police are unable to fully do their jobs. So a horrible plot ends up being created. This season wraps up everything that occurred in all the previous seasons as well as some new issues that come about here.

This really is an incredible show. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants a cop show with some of the most intricate and fascinating story arcs. You will find that over time you will grow to hate then love then hate some characters. One of the things I like most about the series is the Theme Song. It's the same song but performed by different artists for each season.

The show easily earns it's 11 out of 11.

Shimoneta

Japan has banned all sexual content, including the speaking of dirty words. This comedy will tell you all about that, more specifically the fight against this. 12 episodes that came out in 2015.

Everyone has been fitted with monitor devices that records all lewd words and actions. There is a special police force called the Peace Makers(PM) that are alerted to any of these, and they will punish any criminals. But what does this mean for society? Japan is now has the highest Morals in the world, but students don't know where babies come from. No one is even allowed to masturbate on their own because that is a lewd action that would be monitored by the devices.

Well luckily there is Blue Snow and her terrorist organization SOX. She fights the tyranny of these laws to that people will be free to say dirty jokes and view whatever content they desire. She blackmails Tanukichi Okuma into joining Sox, and with him by her side they reek all kinds of trouble. They pass out lewd images, hack computers to present vaguely sexual content, and try to help students understand that there is nothing wrong with some dirty jokes.

Student council president Anna works to stop SOX's efforts, while at the same time giving herself over to her newfound sexual obsession with Tanukichi Okuma. It all started with one accidental kiss, and her love juices just wouldn't stop flowing.

The show is clever with it's comical censorship of the lewd words, images, and actions of the show itself. You can't help but laugh as it works to make as many sexual jokes, innuendo, and puns as possible. Another interesting little thing is that the end credits change slightly with each episodes. It adds new characters to the dancing scenes as they are introduced. It's really all good fun.

I liked the show a lot. It was well done, and the sexual jokes were hilarious to a dirty mind such as mine. The show earns a 9.5 out of 11.

Gate: Jieitai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri

If only there was some sort of portal, or a window, wardrobe, police box, or oh I don't know, maybe a Gate to another world. With 24 episodes that came out between 2015 and 2016 this show made incredible strides from it's original novels.

A Gate opens in Japan that leads to a world of magic, animal people, elves, and more. But from the moment the Gate opened, we were attacked. Good thing we had Itami, an off duty otaku who managed to be right in the middle of things. He saved hundreds of people until the armed forces could arrive. This earned him his promotion. The promotion came with more responsibility and more work, the kind of stuff he never wanted. After all, if he only works to pay for his hobby.

Itami ends up leading a unit into this new land and ends up saving more people in the process. In doing so he gets his 3 companions: An Elf named Tuka, A Mage named Lelei, and a Goth Lolita Demi-God named Rory Mercury. With his unit of soldiers and his 3 companions they go out into this world helping people and end up in the middle of political turmoil. 

You see when the Japanese armed forces came through the Gate to make sure we wouldn't be attacked again, the king sent his and all his allies armies in for the attack. They were utterly destroyed. They had horses, swords, spears, armor, dragons, and more. But that didn't stand a chance again guns, tanks, helicopters, and mortars. In a matter of hours thousands died. And throughout the series this same thing kept occurring. The King or his mad son kept trying to send armies to destroy and control, but they were constantly just knocked down. Even the Great Fire Dragon that all feared in the land was hurt when fighting these soldiers.

I really liked this show. I was laughing my head off more than once. The fights were incredible. And Rory Mercury's want laugh as she slaughtered her opponents was fantastic. This show was so great it earns itself an 11 out of 11.

Danganronpa

Do you know who did it? Well you better figure it out or you'll die too. This video game was adapted to this interesting anime in 2013. It had a total of 13 episodes each being the usual anime length.

Ever played the board game Clue? It's kinda like that, except if everyone doesn't point out the correct killer you all die.

15 students have been selected to live inside a sealed school building with no way out. Then a weird black and white robot bear shows up saying he is the principal. He sets up some basic rules: only the girls bathrooms lock, no boys allowed in the girls changing room, don't damage the principal, murder a fellow classmate and get away with it to graduate. You know, basic.

The episodes tend to go like this. Someone dies, everyone investigates and grows suspicious. Next episode is the class trial, everyone discusses and analyses their findings to identify the killer among them. And as stated before there are stakes involved. If everyone correctly identifies the killer, then the killer is punished with death. But if everyone fails to identify the correct killer, then the murderer "graduates" and is allowed to leave the school for the outside world. And everyone but the killer is then punished with death.

I must say the show is kinda fun with all the psychological drama and intrigue that goes on. But the best thing about the show is that if you pay close enough attention(and I mean really close attention) you could solve each murder. Things are revealed in the trial that you couldn't have known, but in the investigation episode before the trial there is always that KEY clue that would lead you the audience to the correct answer. 

The show was really fun to watch. Trying to figure out who would be capable of murder, and which characters were most likely to be killers in later episodes. Plus plot twists. I also found it interesting that the show doesn't use gore in the traditional sense. All blood is colored pink instead of the red. This made it so instead of paying attention to the gore, you paid more attention to the clues and the characters involved. I give Danganronpa a 10 out of 11. A great watch.