Ara ara, I just finished Paradise Kiss in one go. It was a pleasant watch… Now, for a review.

Yukari, a normal high-school girl with somewhat of an ego, has lost her way of life.  Someone shouts to her while she’s walking, only to be stopped by one tall long woman, still being followed by the rough-looking boy. The tough-looking boy is Arashi and the tall woman is Isabella. Yukari got scouted for her looks and that’s why she gets dragged to their hide-out. She meets the other members of the group there, Miwako and George. They are fashion designers and work under the label of Paradise Kiss. George takes a liking to Yukari and eventually they start going out. In the mean time, there’s the triangle between Arashi, Miwako and Yukari’s friend from school and childhood friend of Arashi and Miwako. George finishes the big contest at the end of the year as a runner-up, yet Yukari doesn’t feel satisfied. In the end, everyone takes their own path and Yukari is no longer lost.

Hm, what to say. It’s a fine drama and there’s also plenty of extravagant clothing in there, especially George… The character development is nice. Yukari starts off somewhat like a bitch and gradually softens as she starts as a model. Everything of that transformation gets undone when another woman is at the door, though. All the other characters get their time too, but unlike other stories, their stories don’t feel like a filler. Not a single person is really unneccessary.  Well, at least for their futures. The ending was really bittersweet, but expected. The animation killed me somewhat in one of the last episodes: it seemed to stagger and that was very annoying to look at. Except for that, everything was okay. The animation is especially more realistic, so there are a lot of real backgrounds. That isn’t weird if you know one of the other works of the author, like Nana. I do wonder one thing: why were there those surrealistic creatures in there… Perhaps for comic relief.  One bad thing: Yukari’s seiyu. You really could hear  that she wasn’t used to the job, as it almost sounded RO-BO-TIKU-DE-SU. Well,  it seems like ParaKiss isn’t a huge succes because of the seiyu, because most of them don’t have more than 5 jobs on their anime cv. Hrm. Well, that doesn’t make the anime suffer. It was a fine watch, because life never is perfect and that’s captured well with this anime (and manga).

Two kills with one stone.  Yap, here are two short reviews. First up: Chrno Crusade.

Chrno Crusade

The first half is more of a introduction of the characters and showing the setting, starting off with Rosette and Chrono ofcourse, but also about Rosette’s brother Joshua.  Four years later, Rosette’s with the Magdalene Order in Brooklyn and is exorcising evil beings with the help of her assistant Chrono, who is strangely enough a devil. It’s the year 1928.  Rosette is searching for Joshua, who she lost out of sight as he was captured by a devil. No, it’s not Chrono. Anyhow, she made a contract with Chrono, who lost his horns and so has to depend on Rosette for his life energy. This contract makes her time tick away, so she’ll probably die young. Well, enough about it. The first half is mainly about seperate cases that need to be exorcised and meeting up with Azmaria and Satella and Rosette’s bond with Chrono. That bond eventually gets tested, as another devil shows up:  Aion. He seems to be the real master braind and it’s pretty soon made clear that he still has Joshua confined in a house, but he did do something to him… He put horns on Joshua, so he turned somewhat insane and can’t make a difference between dreams and reality and keeps on asking for his sister.  To keep it short: Aion turns Rosette evil, Chrono saves her, the two escape, America is in turmoil and eventually time makes prophecies come true. Chrono and Rosette get their sad, yet happy ending. I won’t tell what it is… You’ll have to find out yourself.

Well well, this is older than the anime below. Anyhow, the animation was okay, nothing really spectacular. Same goes for the story:  contracts are kind of well-known these days, think of Pandora Hearts. Speaking of which, Joshua really looks like an older version of Oz… I do have to say that there was some repetitive animation at small points.  Okay, onwards. The characters are very likeable and especially Rosette: she isn’t the type to give in easily and she can handle a lot of damage, while she can’t take it when someone’s attacking her mentally, which would be Aion. Especially the character development between Chrono and Rosette is really adorable.  Luckily not all the devils are standard evil: there are some who think otherwise than Aion. He’s really one bastard, but surely a cool bastard. The music was okay, sometimes the weapons didn’t really resound very well, as it seemed more like they were fighting with their knives and spoons. The ending is bittersweet and somewhat of a warning towards the humanity. The best thing about this is definitely the emotional factor: it weighs high and that’s not seen easily in (shounen) anime.  As for other anime like this… There isn’t an anime that comes close to this. The only thing that comes close with it is Baccano with the history and the action and the setting, but it isn’t as emotional as Chrno Crusade. Yes, Chrno Crusade is certainly an anime that everyone should watch.

Next up: Sukisyo.

Sukisyo

Ack, the first half was pretty hard to watch. It was kind of borish and filler-ish. Yes, especially fillers and that in a show with only thirteen episodes. Come on… Anyhow, guy lost his memories up till an certain point and meets up with two of his childhood friends again, after he’s  going back to school since he was in the hospital. Sora lost his memories from when he was little, so he is kind of surprised that he’s Sunao’s roommate, who wanted to go to the same school as Sora. So, while they’re at school, their friend Matsuri organizes a lot of random stuff like chases and playing delivery boy.  Well, they also have a cruel and somewhat sadistic teacher, but who’s actually somewhat of a caretaker with Nanami of Sora and Sunao and helps them and the boys help those two, etcetera. So, what’s the problem with Sora and Sunao? They have split personalities who just seem to like each other to a far extend and that’s what makes them confused: they can’t help it and they both know about it. In the end both Sora’s and Sunao’s memories are back and it seems like they were experiments… Even leading to some psychotic things like stabbing someone with a dagger. Well, the son of the enemy was already kind of shown in the first episode and left alone for a few episodes.  In the end everything ends well, everyone ending up with the person who they like. Yuy.

It’s kind of hard to rate this series. The first half is a total crap because of the fillers, while the real thing actually starts to move in the second half. The animation is nothing really spectacular and somewhat average, while the music is even worse and almost cliché. The characters were okay and somewhat standard, with Ran/Sunao being the tsundere. Some of the good things… Definitely that the two aren’t going on like ‘BUT WE’RE GUYS!’ and that it finally gets some depth. At a certain point even moving pretty quick, but that’s the only action, too bad. Episode 13, the OVA, was more of a fanservice episode, but at least a lot of the shota showed up and everything ended fine. Well, it didn’t crank up the score of this show. At the psychological part it’s somewhat like Loveless, so if you liked this, you might try out Loveless, which is ofcourse also shounen-ai.