Oh what's this another anime review?  Yup it's been a while but lets see if I can remember how to do this.  Of course this review is about Dragon Crisis! an anime series that I hadn't originally planned on watching.  Thanks to MoNAC though I got hooked.  We started watching it at MoNAC and I enjoyed it so while MoNAC was on a sort of break for a while I finished it up on my own.

The basic premise is a teenage boy's easy going high school life is drastically changed one day when his older female cousin stops by his school and yanks him out of class to do a little job.  It turns out that Ryuji isn't just any ordinary teenage boy.  Ryuji is a level 10 breaker and is able to use "Lost Precious" items.  His cousin Eriko (my favorite character, by far) knows that and grabs him to help her steal a case containing a "Lost Precious" from another underground group called FANG.

They succeed in acquireing the case and discover inside the case a young blonde haired little girl with a secret.  She knows Ryuji and falls madly in love with him at first site.  She also loves ice cream, oh and she's a red dragon.  Ryuji calls her Rose because of the red jeweled design on her left hand.  From that point Ryuji's and Eriko's job is to protect Rose from others like FANG who wants her so that they're leader Onyx the Black Dragon who wants Rose to be his wife so he can become more powerful.  Ryuji fight's back using a powerful "lost precious" left to him by his parents (who are off hunting other 'lost precious"s).

Ryuji succeeds in rescuing Rose and injuring Onyx badly enough that he takes off for most of the rest of the series.  From there the story pretty much goes episodic as the group does some more "Lost Precious" hunting and running into interesting other people along the way.  Some help and some hinder the progression of Ryuji and Rose's budding relationship.  Infact Ryuji suddenly finds himself in a bit of a Harem situation with his classmate, Rose and a couple other characters along the way.  Ryuji's and Rose's past is explained and their relationship grows more powerful until Onyx and another Dragon Bride that he has acquired unravel it all making Ryuji and Rose believe that they are hurting each other and split them up.

Ryuji is consoled by his friends and is told the truth.  That makes him more determined than ever to win Rose back and rescue her from Onyx clutches once again.  Thankfully everything works out for them and Ryuji and Rose are reunited and Onyx is kicked in the ass once again.  And it ends there.

Honestly I though it ended way to soon.  Sort like an oh crap we need to wrap this up in an episode so blah blah blah there's a quick ending.  It's not by far the most epic of epic stories but you know it wasn't horrible.  Cute in a lot of ways.  Fun in others.  The action isn't bad either.  I definitely think it was worth watching and a good time waster.  It definitely could have been made better with a longer time frame or a better story structured to the episode limit. 

Made for a good sleeper hit of the season.  MoNAC even got permission to watch it at the club from Crunchyroll and that's were I finished watching it.  You can still even watch it there if you would like to check it out.

You can check out the trailer for the series here

Or as I simply call it -- Occult Academy.  Finished this some time ago and I'm finally able to get around to blogging about it.  I have to admit that watching this there was a lot to like and hate and it definitely tossed the viewers not one but two solid curve balls in the story.  If you're watching it and don't want to find out how the story ends don't read the rest of this post because I'm not holding anything back.  It's all in here.

You can still watch the entire series on Crunchyroll at the moment for free.  If you've been thinking about watching I'd suggest doing so.  I'd highly suggest this if you like a little sci-fi and horror mixed into a school slice of life story about the end of the world and the people set on preventing that.  Occult Academy (wiki) does suffer a bit from the lead in episode with a plot followed by several not really important episodic episodes followed at the end with a handful of episodes that actually solve the original plot.  Really by episode 10 you're thinking to yourself...uh don't they have to get cracking on their real problem and not chasing after some little girl's ghost. 

Thankfully for me the characters and their interactions make up for this and the hinting at something else that keeps you going.  During the entire run of the episodes you're pretty much left in the same boat as the characters, you don't get to see everything else and get to be in on the joke so to speak.  So while you can see little things here and there you are pretty much left out of the loop until the main characters find something out.  This is a big turning point at the end when the world and plot start to unravel before you and you start to understand everything at that point. Once that happened for me I understood where the anime was going and why it played out like it did.  If you watch it all the way through there is the big pay off but if you don't you'll probably come away thinking that this was a terrible anime series.

So yeah the story.  The series takes place at the Occult Academy.  A school set up to study the world of the occult in Japan.  The school was started by a nutty professor who dies at the beginning of the series which brings his daughter Maya back to the school.  She becomes the new principal of the school in 1999.  In 2012 the world has become a waste land invaded by aliens.  Humans have developed a way to travel back in time to keep the events of 1999 from happening so they can save the world.  They send a young man, Bunmei, back in time to find the Nostradamus Key and save the world.  Maya is a occult hating woman who doesn't take shit from anyone while Bunmei is a scaredy-cat who wishes he wasn't the one chosen to find the key.  Together they make up a very unlikely team as they look for the key to destroy it.

A lot happens and low and behold Bunmei falls in love with a Porsche driving waitress who oh noes turns out to actually be a black mage and the main villain (although not the key) of the show and the reason for a lot of the side stories.  Oddly enough another woman is also in love with Bunmei.  She is the vice-principal of the school who seems like a mean person until holy what she is actually turns out to be one of the good guys and is a white mage.  That's one of the big turning points in the story.  Everyone is fighting and they do destroy the black mage in the end but LOL she's not the key so they still have to find the key.

While all this is going on the original Bunmei is out there running around and hey there's that whole time paradox thing about the same matter can't occupy the same space issue.  Turns out that the elder Bunmei is actually the key as sure enough the alien invasion starts off just as it's supposed to.  Then we get the second major turning points.  Bunmei a pretty hapless and wimpy dude actually grows a pair and destroys the invading alien forces and well gets himself killed in the end destroying the key (he's the key LOL) and saving the world.  Leaving Maya a bit sad because some where in there she actually grew fond of the dude and instead meets up with, surprise again, the very much not dead father and also ends up taking care of the young Bunmei.

I really wanted to see the older Maya as in the end they fast forward back to 2012 and look at how the world has changed since they were able to prevent the alien invasion.  If you haven't had enough of the series yet, you're in luck as there will be 4 short mini episodes included on the DVD/BD releases and if I remember right an OAD also later in the year that will be released with a manga vol.

You can check out a trailer for Occult Academy here --

 Another one of the recently finished anime series from this summer's anime season was a fun little scifi harem show with Cat people space aliens high school friends with interesting powers and a boy who's so dense and oblivious to the girls' interests that it just boggles the mind how he gets the harem.  Toss in an oddball rich girl that's the head of an even odder religious cult for added comedy and presto you get one of the good anime series of the 2010 Summer Anime Season.  Oh yeah don't forget the fanservice, not a bunch but enough.

Asobi ni Iku yo: Bombshells from the Sky is how it was titled when it was simulcast on Crunchyroll (hurry and watch it there before it's gone) and hopefully it'll be released on DVD as well.  I'm just going to refer to it as Asobi though for now.  Asobi is the tail of the Catian people who have recently arrived on Earth and are interested in becoming friends with the humans.  The mothership that arrives sends down Eris a lovely young Catian female as an emissary and Scout.  She meets the young boy Kio at a family get together and they become fast friends.  Although not everyone is happy about an unknown alien person running around free on Okinawa.  There are several groups out to nab Eris for their own reasons.  The CIA want to study her, the group "Beautiful Contact Japan Sect" want to study her and the Religious cult "Underside of Kitten Paw" want to worship her as their almighty goddess.

Kio's friend Manami who is a part of the CIA recruitment program successfully kidnaps Eris only to end up helping Kio rescue Eris from the CIA.  Also along to help them is Aoi another one of Kio's school friends who is secretly working for a secretive Japanese gov't agency.  Aoi secretly likes Kio (so does Manami actually) and has a special ability to teleport objects to herself from 50m away.  Mostly that's weapons though.  Kio with the help of everyone is able to rescue Eris and take her home where his house is made into a Catian Embassy where both Manami and Aoi also stay as Embassy guards and to help and also train Kio so that he's able to protect Eris and the others.

The biggest problem faced by Eris and the gang is the Dogisian commander who is also on Earth trading in advanced materials and weapons.  Something that the Dogisian's are not allowed to do.  The leader of the Dogisians' and her Dog assist-a-roid Muttley set out to ruin the Catian's plan to befriend the Humans and to do this they send a lot of trouble to Eris and the others.

Lots of stuff happens Kio is dense as all hell during the entire season and doesn't know the girls are fighting over him even though as soon as Eris finds out what is going on she simply says, "that's OK we can all love Kio together."  Lucky bastard.  In any case Kio is able to man up in the end and save everyone blah blah blah I don't want to give everything away.  I definitely think you should watch this series as I give it two enthusiastic thumbs up.  Can't wait for the DVD's to arrive.  Hopefully they'll have all the good stuff that comes with the Japanese release DVD's.  Also cool is that there has been an OVA announced for Asobi ni Iku yo! as well.  So we can look forward to that next year. 

You can check out the trailer for Asobi:


Want to see what's all included with the Japanese BD release well check out this video.