DVD Review - I ain't afraid of no ghost

Eat your heart out, Bill Murray. There's a new group of ghostbusters in town.

The first part of the "Ghost Hunt" anime series will grab your attention with intriguing scientific investigations of curses, ghosts and supernatural phenomena.

The story begins when the main character, Mai Taniyama, finds a teenage boy investigating the building next to her high school for ghosts and powerful psychic beings.

The boy, Kazuya Shibuya, heads the Shibuya Psychic Research Center. His assistants include an electrical equipment specialist, a Buddhist monk, a Shinto priestess, an Australian Catholic exorcist and a spirit medium on a popular television show. Each character has a special power to suppress the power of demons and spirits.

Shibuya determines the occult phenomena taking place using carefully deduction and keen technology. His crew uses everything at their disposal, from thermal temperature readers to hidden cameras and microphones.

This series most likely won't scare the bejeezus out of  you in the beginning. However, as the Shibuya Psychic Research Center discovers more ghastly figures to purify or exorcise, the series turns into a frightening, fascinating X-Files-style mystery. Mai even discovers her own psychic powers as she investigate with her new friends.

The series hits an emotional peak with the third case, "The After School Hexer." Their biggest enemy curses the students and teachers around a high school with voodoo doll-style hexes known as hitogata. When the doll with the victim's name is destroyed, the person suffers fatally. Mai and Shibuya run into some precarious near-death situations, even falling into a sewer.

"Ghost Hunt" makes for a great alternative to the boring American prime time whodunits. The anime features some unexpected comedy episodes, including a gut-busting romantic episode in the park. An airheaded ghost possesses the spirit medium's body and starts cuddling next to the nonchalant Shibuya.

The series isn't perfect. The opening and ending credit sequences are disappointing, with cheap orchestral music and lame computer-generated images.

The characters are undeveloped and somewhat goofy. We don't completely understand why all these spiritual people are working for Shibuya in the first place. People will also wonder how the Lord's prayer and "holy water" would actually weaken the powers of ghosts. Fortunately, the anime is more based on religious and ghoulish mythology, so we expect to see some fantasy stories in the show.

"Ghost Hunt" is a surprisingly enjoyable show. Although Shibuya acts like a cold fish for the entire series, Mai and Shibuya make a lovely team. I'm looking forward to watching more mystery stories in this anime.

Image courtesy of rightstuf.com

DVD Review: Killing people while eating potato chips

I've held back on reviewing "Deathnote" for about a year, because all the characters look so stereotypically emo. L looks especially goth and emo, and I really hate the entire goth community for being so emotionally pissed off.

Now then, where was I? Oh yes, the review.

Anyhow, "Deathnote" is an excellent shonen anime, with a gripping plot about a boy who can kill people by writing their name in a notebook. This review covers volumes 1-3.

This boy, Light Yagami, was a goody two-shoes law student, until a shinigami spirit drops a "Deathnote" book. If anyone writes a person's name in the book, the person with that name will die of a heart attack.

Light thinks this is a joke at first, but he soon discovers the ruthless power of the book. He starts killing prisoners left and right, hell bent on removing all the evil people from the Earth to create an ideal world. Light pronounces himself to the world as a god, simply known as Kira.

Fortunately, the Tokyo police have implemented every effort they could to defeat Kira. They hire L, the most famous detective in the world, who has never lost a case. L is so elusive that hardly anyone knows his real name. Thus, Light and L engage in a battle of wits, each hoping to outsmart the other to reveal his true identity.

This is one of the more violent anime series. Just from what I've seen in the first three volumes. Numerous people die of heart attacks or gunshots in the series. Although there isn't anything that resembles the grotesque gore in "Fullmetal Alchemist," this series features so much killing that one has to wonder whether Light has even a shred of humanity in him.

Thankfully, the series isn't completely composed of gloom and doom. Light has an especially humorous photo-opportunity moments, in which he epicly pronounces in the middle of one of his killing sprees that he's going to take a potato chip and eat it. And for some reason, Light's shinigami friend Ryuk, who gave him the Death Note, spends most of his time eating up apples. L and Light even engage in a tennis match, in which each characters is plotting their next move while they are playing their game.

While the series gets really overdramatic and over-the-top, "Death Note" is intriguing for the deep mind games which the heroes and villains play against each other. For example, L spends plenty of time predicting how Light will react, so that he can calculate the odds that Light really is the mysterious Kira. L even uses Light's deducing skills to his advantage, so that he can brainstorm what to do next.

And even if the characters yakkity-yak a little too long while standing still, they are very smart at predicting each other's next move.

Although "Death Note" is an overdramatic action anime, the characters still manage to pull off brilliant voice acting. Shonen anime fans may want to pick up "Death Note" just to see how cerebral the series gets.

Images courtesy of randomc.animeblogger.net