Feb. - May 2002

It's been awhile since the last top picks - a credit to the real world during the beginning half of this year. As a result, there are a number of titles that have been watched over the past number of months; some of which will not have been seen since the beginning parts of February. Hopefully memory holds overall this time. In any case, on to the picks for this period.

Top Video

Fruits Basket

With occasional periods of lighter more comedic episodes, this series focusses a lot on the characters and their stories. And while I'm not fond of certain aspects of the voice acting at certain points in the series, the direction, story and music is enough to overcome these points. This is very much a character story and a story of personal growth and acceptance. This series has been picked up by Funimation for North American distribution.

Best Music

Initial D

While this series does not have a particularly strong start for the first couple of episodes, there is a good mix of character story, fun and energetic battle music (although all the songs do have the same tempo), and strong racing scenes. While not for everyone, people who like cars, car watching and/or enjoy driving will find this a fun series. (The anime and manga for this series is being released by TokyoPop).

Titles viewed:

• Argent Soma Vol 1-13
• Berserk ep 1
• Cyber Formula GPX 0 Round 1
• Figure 17 Vol 1
• Fruits Basket Vol 1-9
• Initial D Stage 1-3
• Jungle wa Itsumo Hare Nochi Guu Vol 7
• Master Keaton Vol 8
• Meitantei Conan Part 7-8, 8-1
• Meitantei Conan Movie 2 14 Banme no Target
• Meitantei Conan Movie 4 Hitomi no Naka no Ansatsusha
• Meitantei Conan Movie 5 Tengoku he no Countdown
• Mugen no Ryvius Vol 2-4
• Noir Vol 6-11
• Perfect Blue
• Read or Die 1-3
• Rurouni Kenshin Seisouhen Vol 1-2
• Scryed Vol 1-6
• Seikai no Monshou Vol 1
• Taihou Shichauzo Season 2 Vol 4
• Violinist of Hamelyn I-1-3, II 1-3