The mild return of Anime Roundup

Not a lot of anime has trickled past me of late. I think ".hack//Roots" is taking a week off -- which does not remotely hold the same sort of suspense for me as that "MADLAX" 2-week cliffhanger almost exactly 2 years ago. No sign of "Spider Riders" raws for a while, either. And I still can't bring myself to continue with the North American version. *sigh*

There was another episode of "Mushishi", which continues it's fabulous storytelling and atmospherics. There's only a couple of more episodes left until it's over. Well, actually, it's been over in Japan for quite a while, but the fansub group still has a way to go.

Disc 2 of "Blue Submarine #6" arrived, with episodes 3 & 4. The animation seemed a little more natural this time, and those half-naked mutant sea-women (aka: fan-bait) were still entertaining. A bit ponderous, but blessedly short. One more disc to go, I believe...

A new world starts in "Tsubasa Chronicle", and it's mostly a lot of sitting around on a bus. No, really. It promises to start out as a "Mad Max" kind of road-war arc, and maybe there's a chance that it will get a better taste of that now that the "bad guys" have shown up. But damn, all that sitting around! There really has been a budget crunch in this show, hasn't there? Or is the manga this lifeless too? Oh, I dunno.

Finally, the last episode of "Noein" got released, and I just finished that up. Happy ending, go figure. Much of the same as far as the spasticness of the animation and art quality, though sustaining a certain psychedelic psychosis to it's crescendo. A largely entertaining, rough-around-the-edges experiment that tries to be a little deeper than it can actually manage.