By Cody Bye

For me, xxxHolic walks a fine line. At its root, this series is a motley collection of morality tales framed by slapstick humor and J-horror. It’s something of a unique twist on the average anime (which isn’t particularly surprising coming from CLAMP), but, in the end, comes together with just enough cohesion to push it into a likable state. At the start of the series, viewers are quickly intr...

By Cody Bye

As a purveyor of shonen and seinen-style anime, it’s obvious when you stumble upon a series that is top notch. While these series are made for boys and young men, the mark of an exceptional shonen anime rests in the studios’ ability to draw an emotional reaction out of their viewers. Whether that’s a “That kicks ass!” or a “I can’t believe they killed her…sniffle.” isn’t the focus, it’s the in...

By Joseph Luster

Conan Edogawa is up to his comically oversized ears in crime once more as the night skies light up with the presence of a new rival, the Kaito Kid. This white-clad thief—looking like Tuxedo Mask with a garish monocle—makes authorities look foolish as he zips in and out of high security areas with the finest of treasures in hand, and he now has his eyes set on a priceless Russian faberge egg. N...

By Joseph Luster

Before you get too excited, this is not a top 10, 5, or even 3 list. I enjoy skimming those as much as the next, but if I haven't been cataloging every single thing I touched over the course of a year, it may as well become "Top Whatever of the Second Half or Last Third of 200X." I can't help but reflect, though, and I prefer to kick off the first month or so of each new year by focusing on th...

By Daryl Surat

As a somewhat lapsed PC gamer, I personally have never been fond of the gameplay in Halo and especially not the multiplayer culture it popularized both online and off, which is why I'm so let down every time a new FPS gets made which decides they need to copy Halo 's mechanics. How come they never copy the GOOD aspects of Halo , namely the presence of a single-player cooperative mode? But rega...

By Edward Gamlin

Mai Mai Miracle (or, to literally translate the Japanese title, Mai Mai Shinko and the Millennium-old Magic ) could have been a Studio Ghibli film.  Like Isao Takahata’s I Can Hear the Sea and Only Yesterday , Mai is a nostalgic film with a slightly magical twist and a depth of character and personality to make it excellent not just for the nine-year-olds watching children their own age i...