Favorite Anime

Dennou Coil

A beautifully animated story of exploration and mystery in an internet-connected augmented-reality world. Eleven years after the introduction of internet-connected, augmented reality eyeglasses and visors, Yuko "Yasako" Okonogi moves with her family to Daikoku City, the technological center of the emerging half-virtual world. She joins her grandmother's "investigation agency" comprised of children equipped with virtual tools and powerful metatags. She quickly crosses paths with Yuko "Isako" Amasawa, an expert hacker of the virtual environment, as Isako relentlessly seeks to "unlock" the mystery of a computer virus that emerges from an inaccessible corrupted space.

Dennou Coil was released in 2007, and directed by Mitsuo Iso, an episode director for RahXephon and scriptwriter for Evangelion, as well as a key animator for several Studio Ghibli movies. The soundtrack was composed by Tsuneyoshi Saito, the composer for the Fafner mecha anime series. The story is set in 2026, but the animation and character designs more resemble the 1980s-1990s in feel. It's one of the best examples that come to mind when imagining what a Studio Ghibli-produced anime series would be like. The first half of the show beautifully captures the feeling of children exploring an unfamiliar world, while the second half of the show is more straightforward, focusing on solving the mysteries hinted at in the first half.

Dennou Coil is probably my favorite anime series of all time - with great animation, music, and story. I've tried to get more people to watch it over the years since it's so good, but also fairly obscure. The best anime no one's ever heard of!

Blue Comet SPT Layzner

A very dark and intense mecha anime from 1985. Set in an alternate 1995, in which the Cold War never ended and the US and Soviet Union expanded their arms race into space. A group of students and their teacher visit the UN base on Mars, and are immediately caught in the crossfire between groups of mysterious battling robots. The pilot of one of the robots, Eiji Asuka, is a half-human alien from the planet Grados, and has arrived to give humans a warning: the Earth is in danger. With the help of the students, Eiji fights his way from Mars to Earth to deliver his message and help the humans defend against the Gradosian invasion.

This series is unique in that it focuses on the bleak outcomes of war. Everything that could go wrong for the Earth does go wrong. Eiji loses against the invading aliens and goes into hiding, and the Earth's culture is suppressed in the ensuing takeover. The overall outlook is so depressing until the students show up as freedom fighters and Eiji reappears, bringing hope to the humans. The show's animation is very well done, especially in the mecha fight scenes, and the jazzy soundtrack is great. The last few episodes are very rushed due to the show's early cancellation, but an OVA was made that shows the real ending as it was meant to be seen.

Twin Spica

The story of a girl who dreams of becoming an astronaut. Based on a manga by Kou Yaginuma, Twin Spica focuses on Asumi Kamogawa, a high school girl who applies to go to a special school for training astronauts, years after a rocket crashed into her town. With the guidance of Lion-san, the ghost of an astronaut who died in the crash, and with the support of her friends, Asumi learns and thrives and gets closer to achieving her dream. The anime only covers a small part of the manga's story, but handles many emotional scenes well, especially ones that show the survivors of the rocket crash and how their lives were affected by it over the years, and how Asumi deals with the belief that not everyone can go to space. The art style is very cute (maybe a bit too cute for some of the heavy themes the show handles) while the music is somewhat forgettable. The show was released in 2003 and currently doesn't have a North American release. I saw the first few episodes English-dubbed on Animax in the Philippines in 2006, then hunted down fansubs of the show not long after that. The manga is completely translated and released in English, and I highly recommend it!