GATE

Gate is a relatively new anime, at least to me. I came across this one last week while I was babysitting and looking for something new and exciting to watch. The description given didn't give me any real hope as to how good it was going to be, but I was pleasantly surprised.

For starters, the main character is an adult, with a regular job. Why is this special? Because in the story, a gate to another world opens up in Japan. And instead of a teenager being selected to enter the gate and battle whatever lies beyond, we have a trained soldier and his army unit doing the fighting. As someone who's 1 year and 3 months away from turning 30, I am actually getting a bit tired of all the teenage and pre-teen anime heroes and heroines. I want a story that appeals to me and shows grown-up characters responding to situations in grown-up ways.

Next, our hero, Itami, is so cool. No, he's not the typical anime hottie that's physically impossible for any human man to match. He's very much your average looking man. He works to support his otaku hobby and shows no shame about it. That's what makes him cool. He says, "this is who I am. If you don't like it, so what?"

As is the standard with all the anime heroes that we come to love, Itami is intelligent, but doesn't flaunt it. He's strong and sensitive and has good instincts. He is a decent person who does his best to to do the right thing at all times, because if he was a jerk, I doubt we'd have much cause to want to root for him at all.

Since there are only 12 episodes of GATE available, it is hard to say how great the series will really turn out to be, but I think it is off to a great start.

Of course, no post about an anime would be complete without my rating system.
Artwork: 5 stars (The color quality of the images and the sophistication of the drawings is top notch)
Acting: 5 stars (Well selected and talented voice actors really help make this anime what it is)
Script: 4 stars (There are always a few cliches that pop up and lines that get repeated a bit too often)
Story: 4 stars (Not too much originiality about a fantasy world being linked to ours, but the personal spin that GATE puts on it gives it just enough to avoid being another 3 star time waster and something that could be really worth while)

Back to Business

Hello Readers and Anime Watchers.

I know it has been a few months since the last post. I do my best to keep this active, but there are so many books and shows to watch, that it gets hard to keep up with the blog. However, I have been on an anime watching binge lately and there will be a few weeks worth of new posts for those of you who love to see their stories come to life on the screen.

Unfortunately, I have fallen behind on the books side of things. I will do my best to try and keep the posts equally divided among books and television, but I'm only human.

Hopefully, there will be something here that you learn about that you'll want to check out or discuss. Until then...Happy Reading!