This is a high quality soulless anime. The animation is beautiful, the music is good, the production quality is all there... it's just not that entertaining. It's a mystical world just comes across as trying to hard with too many elements in it that make it clear they filled a bucket with successful anime clichés and instead of pulling a few out they decided to use all of them. The English dubbing is another waste, you can see these nerds sitting in a sound booth reading the script every time you have to hear the dialogue. The pace is slow and the philosophy obvious. The biggest weak point is the character designs; the monsters are weak and uninteresting. It's still watchable and is a solid generic anime, but it's a poor mans Neon Genesis Evangelion mixed with a slightly less unique Lost Exile. Looks like a nice try. (.76)

- J Paige

If you like Osamu Tezuka's style than you'll love this; if you don't than you won't. The tale of a murderous/rapist jerk who hates love and doesn't know how to express his feelings condemned to relive the loss of love throughout the ages. There's some weirdo cultural differences with female roles that you have to take with a grain of salt but conceptually the story is interesting. It's the typical Tezuka style of simple straightforward drawings and simple straightforward writing to tell a highly complex and emotional story. In a world of comic books where it's all fluff and flash and no substance, manga like this still stands out even decades later. (.88)

- J Paige

Korean outlaw action in early 20th century Manchuria. This has the violence and action you need with a Pirates of the Caribbean kind of humor to it. The directing is insane throughout this; every scene is beautifully done and at the same time filled with action. CGI is rampant but blends so well it's a perfect enhancement whenever it's used. Shoot out scenes are involved, lengthy, inventive, and fun. This is a huge production with quality throughout and puts to shame the majority of Hollywood action movies out there. Spaghetti Western influences reign but the movie is so rollicking and fast paced there's a loss of the epicness it could have if it just slowed down a tad and was 10 percent less cartoonish. The fact that movies like this aren't huge summer blockbusters in the USA is testament to how lame most movie goers here are. (.97)

- J Paige

The shortest version is just watch the Read or Die OVA, it is a .99 and is an all around great anime. The problem is that the quality of animation and writing in the OVA will sucker you into the rest of the titles and then it loses some steam. The stories in everything revolve around a small group of sisters with telekinetic abilities over paper hunting down lost written works that can be used for evil if in the wrong hands. The manga is solid but doesn't stand out from the pack particularly. The TV series loses it's focus, isn't quite as beautiful, and just feels a bit more like a generic anime. Not bad at all, just nothing exemplary. The OVA is great however and with one of the best anime fight scenes ever it makes up for any blandness in the rest of the franchise. The OVA of Read or Die is near perfect; if it is really your cup of tea and you want to delve in than lower your expectations just ever so slightly and they'll be plenty in the manga and series to keep you entertained. (.88)

- J Paige

Assassins, special abilities, some spy action, some intrigue, and a big sci fi mystery all rolled together. There's a sense of quality throughout this series that keeps each episode going strong. It's not the fastest paced anime out there but what battle scenes pop up are realistic. The story focuses on a main protagonist that is mysterious enough that you don't have any attachment towards him for many episodes but that mystery adds a thriller aspect to the whole series that is always lingering in the background. The super abilities also have real world restrictions that keeps a sense of mortality to the characters. This leans a bit towards the serious side but has shadows of anime clichés popping in once in awhile which breaks the mood. It's all around entertaining but the lighthearted moments aren't enough to be worthwhile, had they gone all out stone cold bad ass for the series they could've had a much bigger impact. Great animation quality, great soundtrack, and after a few episodes the vibe of the series becomes easier to recognize and the world of Darker than Black becomes easier to appreciate. (.93)

-J Paige