Sailor Moon –
Watched the first three seasons so far. I should check out the manga when I get the chance since I’m especially curious how the series stacks up to it. I can’t believe the comic’s narrative is structured so much around monsters of the week, but hey, that’s part of the series charm, really.

First season is pretty awesome in its own campy early-90s way, but the last two episodes feature some unbelievably shitty pacing and writing. Second season was an improvement for the most part, featuring Ikuhara’s directing throughout the later three cours. I was a little underwhelmed by the result, but it was a solid effort nonetheless. Third season has been pretty kickass, though. First episode of S has been the best directed single episode of Sailor Moon so far, and in fact one of the best directed single eps of any series I’ve seen in awhile.

Also watched the Sailor Moon R film. It was pretty good, but I’m glad Ikuhara cranked up the drugs for Utena.

Nanoha A’s – I marathoned most of this show one Saturday. I liked it a lot more than the first series, actually. I think the more melodramatic writing was handled better than the tiresome, awkward parts of the first series’ last episode, and the production values seemed a bit better as well.

Kino’s Journey –
I first watched this series a couple years ago and loved it, but only this past month did I get around to watching the related OVAs.

Life Goes On – a prequel to the series, it details her life after leaving her hometown but prior embarking on her journeys. Probably the weakest of the group, it focuses on portraying a character in a transition phase toward the character that the audience already knows as Kino. It does an alright job of it, too, while leaving the nature of her mentor to remain something of a mystery.

Tower Country – stands among the best individual episodes of the series, maintaining all the mystery and Twilight Zone-like ambiguity. Like much of the series, it’s hard not to feel the tension in the location she rides into, which is one of the best aspects to the whole material.

Land of Sickness ~ For You – my body wasn’t ready for near-naked Kino. That was by far the highlight of the piece. The rest was pretty cool, and this OVA has the best production values of the batch.

Misc. films/OVAs of note:

Tailenders – animation explosion of badassery and ludicrousness. Something about giant moving cities and a race to the ends of a terraformed post-apocalpytic Earth, but plot doesn’t matter much. Whole reason I watched it is because my excitement and anticipation for Redline is becoming impossible to quell. This was mentioned somewhere (along with Trava, which I’ve already seen) as being something along similar lines, and I guess I can see why. Shitcrazy doped up racers with mechanical alien bodies cruising around while everything explodes sums up the film. The ending is pretty kickass.

Eureka Seven: Pocket Full of Rainbows – holy shit this was fucking terrible. The series was bad, but jezus, this was above and beyond “bad”. I can’t believe Bones actually produced this piece of shit. Character development? Narrative tension? Romance? No. I give the film kudos for demolishing all of the things that E7 did poorly, but getting rid of them altogether doesn't make a good film. In fact, it makes a film in which one nonsensical scene is proceeded by another equally incomprehensible and ludicrous scene, casting all sense of narrative development to the winds while trying to maintain an air of climactic urgency that lacks all context, featuring characters who act in ways the viewer can't understand, and filled with dialogue that might as well have been written by a thirteen year old. This is one magnificent clusterfuck of a movie that managed to take the already disappointing Eureka Seven and grind it up into an abysmal sack ridiculous garbage.

RahXephon: Pluralitas Concentio – as film-versions of series go, it was a lot better than the astoundingly horrible E7 film, but that’s not saying much. It wasn’t as good as the series, and I have to wonder why it was even made.

Genius Party – I doubt I have to say much about this since it’s already so well-known. It shouldn’t have taken me so long to get to it but… ehhhh. Shit was cash, to say the least. Yuasa's segment was one of my favorites, as was Kawamori's (I wish I had a magic crystal like that). There's a substantial amount that could be said about each short film, actually, but I don't have the effort to get into that right now.

The Cockpit – Was primarily interested in Kawajiri’s segment (the first part), which actually turned out to be the best part. The other two were somewhat mediocre in execution, though they had good—if lolMatusmoto—stories to them. But the first segment did an excellent job capturing that ridiculously melodramatic, vaguely badass noir atmosphere that tends to define Matsumoto’s flair for tragedy. Plus, shit man, dat Focke-Wulf interceptor is awesome all on its own.

La Maison en Petits Cubes and The Apple Incident – two short films by Kunio Kato. The former’s reputation speaks for itself, and for good reason. The animation and artwork alone are worth it for a watch. The story’s somewhat cliché, but whatever. The later though, man what the fuck. The Apple Incident was a trip.

Gundam F-91 – Tomino-Dark. Things were a bit rushed, but the plot was actually better paced than Char’s Counterattack (even though I think CCA is a better movie all around).

I was also pleased to see I'd been right about the part-time girl at the TV repair shop. I knew there was something up with her.