Bleach/Naruto/One Piece

Even tho aren't my favourite animes, due to their immense popularity, I decided to make a short review/comparison between the three mainstream shounen animes: Bleach, Naruto, Onepiece.







Bleach







Bleach follows the story of Kurosaki Ichigo, a 15 years old boy, with the ability to see ghosts, who lost his mother when he was little. One day he meets a shinigami girl named Rukia, who saves him from an hollow (evil spirit) attacking his family, injuring herself in the process. Harmed and unable to finish the fight, Rukia transfers her shinigami powers to Ichigo who manages to kill the hollow. The story of the anime starts great, soon Ichigo will have to save Rukia from other shinigamies who want to execute her for giving a mortal, Ichigo, her powers. Ichigo will have to fight his way to save his friend in the shinigami world, fighting against strong opponents and involving himself in the plots and mysteries of this new reality he stepped in. Too bad, after that the story turns to be quite weird. Main villain's motives are somewhat strange and inconsistent, the viewer doesn't understand why somebody, vastly more powerfull then any other character, needs to do so much planning and scheming when he can just kill everybody. The overall feeling, after the first part ends, is one of a story made without too much thinking just to keep viewers in this show. The great fights, astonishing art and superb soundtrack almost makes u forget how dull and flawed the plot of the anime is.

Score: 7/10
Art: 9/10
Sounds: 9/10
Story: 5/10




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Naruto: Shippuuden






The story continues the adventures of Naruto, a ninja of the hidden leaf village, in his struggle to save his friend Sasuke and stop the evil organization, Akatsuki. Naruto, being one of the jinchuuriki (people in which a demon was sealed in) is the target of Akatsuki, a society determined to capture all Bijuu (demons) in the world in order to achieve a mysterious plan. Meanwhile Sasuke, who left the hidden leaf village, is now training with Orochimaru, one of the main enemies of the series, in order to be able to kill his brother, Itachi. Twists and new great enemies await Naruto and his friends as well as new allies, all with more mature content and darker themes then original Naruto. Even tho art and animations aren't as good as the ones in Bleach, Naruto's story is well made, fights are cool and most of the characters are deep and alive, sounds are also great while personally i don't find the voice acting the best. Antagonists motives are somewhat consistent and their plans aren't that vague and not in line with rest of the story like in Bleach. If you are looking for a fighting/action anime to watch i would definitely recommend Naruto and Naruto: Shippuuden. Only flaw of the show are the many boring fillers that can be skipped without missing anything of the main story.

Score: 8/10
Art: 7/10
Sounds: 8/10
Story: 8/10




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One Piece









Before dying the pirate king Gold D. Roger hides the greatest treasure in the world, the One Piece, and challenges all the pirates to find it if they can. Of all pirates looking for the One Piece, Monkey D. Luffy is the most peculiar, with only his spirit of adventure he will recruit a crew of friends and fight hideous enemies to reach his goal. The story of this extravagant group of pirates traveling a sea full of dangers and wonders, all in some kind of a jokish way that will sometimes go into drama, is quite entertaining and good if you need some time with your brain disconnected. Even tho this isn't one of my favourite animes, surely is funny to watch due to its weird characters and peculiar story, stretched, sometimes too much, by fillers and useless episodes.Art is grotesque and bizarre but it goes well with the mood of the anime, soundtrack is fine as well as voice acting. If you are looking for some very long anime with alot of humor and weird characters, One Piece is a good choice, if you want something of a more serious then Naruto and Bleach are probably better.

Score: 7/10

Art: 6/10

Sounds: 7/10

Story: 7/10




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Even tho One Piece is fun to watch and entertaining, the mood of the anime bored me after hundreds of episodes and I stopped watching it recently, also because of the so many useless episodes throughout the show. Bleach's lack of story also got me quite bored, but I still follow it mostly to commend the tremendous effort to keep viewers with just art and sounds. Only anime i still follow with interest is Naruto: Shippuuden, even tho the infinite quest of the main characters to redeem Sasuke no matter what got bit tedious.

Welcome to the N.H.K.

Welcome to the N.H.K.

Welcome to the N.H.K. is the story about a young man, Satou Tatsuhiro, who, affected by paranoia, decides to isolate himself in his apartment and live as an hikikomori, a person, often young, who doesn't study nor looks for a job, instead secludes himself from society. One day Satou meets a girl, Misaki, who claims to be able to save him from his hikikomori's life, and that's how the adventure begins. Helped by Misaki and his friend Yamazaki, Satou will slowly get out of his shell and aim toward a normal life with alot of funny and dramatic moments along the way. The desperation of being considered worthless by the society and looked down by everyone will accompany Satou in his journey as well as the paranoia of being the target of a large conspiracy made by the N.H.K. (Nihon Hikikomori Kyoukai / Japan Hikikomori Society) to keep him an hikikomori. Satou as well and his friends are all a bit strange, everyone with problems and everyone trying to go on in their lives. Everybody will see a bit of themself in some character in the story and identify with its miseries while reaching out for a little bit of happiness.

Art is simple and effective in describing Satou's fantasies and paranoia. Sounds and voice acting are also great and make the story very involving. Welcome to the N.H.K. shows how everyone have hard times in this life. Modern society tends to take away happiness and especially in countries like Japan, where the competition and the expectations are oppressive, there are more and more hikikomories every day to a point of becoming a national problem. Watching this anime i have asked myself how did our society became like this? Is it really this how we are supposed to go on in this world? Is the dream of being rich and successful really the only one?

Score 10/10

Art 7/10

Sounds 9/10

Characters 10/10

    

Anime List

http://myanimelist.net/animelist/Ai-NHK

Here is a list of the animes I watched, its still incomplete  but I will finish it soon. Hope it will help :D

Death Note

Before reviewing new series I would like to talk about some animes that had some impact in my life and some masterpieces.

Let's start then... \o/

Death Note

One of the most popular animes out there and rightly so...a battle of two intellect filled with mystery and drama that will keep you hooked from the beginning to the end. I started to watch animes few years ago in a very bad period of my life and Death Note was the first anime I experienced. Back then I harbored various misconceptions about animes, so I was very sceptical about this one too, but I gave it a try and I ended up watching it almost no stop. After it I started other animes and that's how my addiction began.

The story of Death Note is quite unique. Yagami Light is an high school boy who excels in everything he does, perfect student and handsome looking but already tired of the corrupted and misguided society we live in. Going on in his life performing his duties as student, Light feels that in this world there is a lack of justice. One day a notebook falls from the sky giving him the power to kill everyone he wants just by imagining the  face of the person he wants to eliminate and  writing it's name on the notebook. Guided by a desire to bring justice, and ending up in a delusional fantasy of ruling an ordinated world as a god, Yagami Light starts to kill criminals and people who oppose him with the death note and attracting the attentions of one of the most peculiar detectives in the world, L.

This anime shows a battle of two minds, Light trying to create an utopia, where people are safe from crime and rewarded for their efforts, and L trying to expose Light's true identity and arrest him. Even tho there is very little action, the anime is intense and never goes into the obvious, characters are deep and you will get into their heads and discover their ways of thinking. Moral choices drive the plot, viewers will start to wonder what they would have done in the protagonists' shoes and how would they use the death note. Would u try, like Light, to create a perfect world? Is it right to kill a murderer? Does anybody have the right to judge others? How do you catch somebody who has the power to kill with a simple notebook?

The art, animation and music are very good and make the experience epic, even Light writing with a pen will seem interesting, add some of the best voice actors and u get a great anime you cant miss. On the negative side some characters are made to be dumb, Misa being only prominent female character feels dull and stupid and i would have prefered, for her, a more active(mentally) role in the story. Also second part of the anime is not as good as first part, even tho hooking, the show could have been interrupted half way and would have still been one of the best animes.

So, in short, if you are looking for a good anime to start with or if you want to introduce animes to some friend or loved one, then Death Note is a solid choice.  Filled with mind games and moral choices, this battle of intellects is surely gonna hook most people into it.

Score : 9/10
Art: 8/10
Sounds: 8/10
Characters: 9/10

Ai's N.H.K

Hello, I decided to start this blog to talk about animes, wich is one of my greatest passions. I'm going to make soon a list of the animes i watched and make a review of the ones i liked the most. If you are new to animes, hopefully my reviews will help you pick interesting ones and have some good time.