Shiki can see things others can’t. He has acute Death Perception. He can see the lines that bind things together, and seeing these lines, he can cut them. Fortunately, a helpful person gave him a pair a glasses that block him from seeing the lines, which saved his sanity during his childhood, or did it?

Now a high school student, Shiki discovers that his ability to see and cut these binding lines makes him a VAMPIRE SLAYER. He discovered this one day by cutting a vampire to pieces in the park; she disappeared, and he forgot about it. Until the next day, when the vampire showed up and said he had to make amends for killing her.

Turns out there are two types of vampires, the True Ancestors, (the good guys) and the Dead Apostles (the Bad Guys). Most TA don’t like to drink blood, they get their sustenance elsewhere. The DA are humans who have drunk the blood of a TA (evidently some TA get off on it). Arcueid, the Vampire that Shiki killed, is a TA type and is on a mission to exterminate the DA. She want to enlist Shiki to help, since if he can kill her, he should be able to slaughter those bad DA.

Meanwhile, Shiki runs across one of his high school classmates wearing long bladed fingers. She watches from a distance as he fights a DA. What is she up to? Does she blackout and not remember the evening events, like Shiki?

Meanwhile, Shiki is spending a lot of time with the vampire princess, causing problems at home in an already convoluted home situation. Shiki’s younger sister is the head of the household; their parents are dead; Shiki had been living with relatives since he first started seeing the lines that bind; now he has moved back in with his sister and the twin maids that wait upon him hand and foot.

This is all from the first disk, the first four episodes. I have no idea where they are going with this. Shiki appears to be another one of those completely oblivious high school students who whines a lot while being convinced he must use his powers for good.

There are some questions: What is the Lunar Legend? Who gave Shiki the glasses? Why does Shiki put up with his sister’s 7 PM curfew? Why doesn’t the rest of the world know about vampires, especially since they are so active in this world? Does anybody really care what is going to happen next?

Tsukihime – The Lunar Legend – a 6 out of ten?

Bob is a gambler. (From the comments, a flambeur is an addicted gambler) He’s an aging hood who has survived the war and he has a generous side that looks after the youngsters joining the gangs. Bob doesn’t like pimps. Bob has many friends, both underworld and cops, because Bob is basically a nice guy. Life happens; Bob gambles and wins some and loses some. Eventually he loses most of it. Then he hears about a casino safe that is ripe for the looting. (Bob did time for a bank robbery in his youth.) He organizes a posse to rob the casino. Unfortunately, a pimp that Bob leaned on tries to snitch. In the End, did Bob really lose? Or did he win?

This is a French film, released in 1955. Isabelle Corey, as the young waif, alone, makes this film worth seeing. Interesting that her career only lasted 6 years. From the commentary, I gathered that this film took two years to make. The director/writer/producer, Jean-Pierre Melville, would call the actors to come in to shoot for a day or two whenever there was money to buy film.

This is a slow-paced film, allowing the viewer to get the feel for the Parisian settings and the people. The action isn’t all that important, it just happens.

The cinematography is very good, Melville plays with the black and whites and grays very suggestively. Each of the characters shows a human side and you can’t pigeon-hole them as “good” or “bad”, they’re people.

I will give this a 7 out of ten. Might have been more if there had been more action.

The Zatoichi series is the story of a wandering, blind, masseuse in the late Shogunate era of feudal Japan. This blind masseuse is also a gambler and a deadly swordsman. He keeps his sword sheathed in his cane. There are 26 movies in the series and I have been following them in numerical order, even though this is not necessary. What happens in one episode doesn’t really impact other episodes. Sometimes they make references to characters from another episode but that doesn’t affect the story.

Basically, Zatoichi gets abused because he is a blind man; gamblers often try to take advantage of him in dice games, but Z turns the tables on them. Some Yakuza get upset with Z and try to kill him. He kills them. The Yakusa are also beating up on helpless innocents, one of whom usually befriends Z, and Z destroys the entire gang and the corrupt bureaucracy that works with them.

I’m up to number episode 15, and I’m surprised that any criminals in Japan survived this era . Oh yes, some young woman usually takes to Z and wants to join him on his travels. He gently lets her down by sending her to the gate at one end of town to meet him, while he leaves town from the other end. For he must wander, forever alone, forever listening for the furtive footsteps of his enemies.

In each town, there is usually a top-notch samurai who has fallen down on their luck and needs to work as an enforcer for the Yakusa. Each samurai has a slight flaw that makes their defeat by Z inevitable. There isn’t a whole lot of swordplay in each movie, usually three or four big melees where Z is surrounded and outnumbered 20-1 and they all die (except Z)

I think they’re fun. Very much like the American Westerns. I give them a 7 out of ten just for being fun. (As far a being good movies, they would probably rate a 5 out of ten with an occasional gem thrown in, like Zatoichi meets Yojimbo.)

Human Crossing is a human interest anthology series. The first disk opened up with a boxer, which immediately turned me off since I don’t care for the boxing/fighting animes. But, the boxing wasn’t a major feature of the story so I relented. It turns out that the boxer is estranged from his mother and someone comes along, says something, and the boxer realizes that he and his mother should reconcile. Another story involved a new lawyer who is trying to work on the streets rather than the prestigious law firm his prospective father-in-law wants him to work in (Idealism under attack). Another story is about a young women compelled to take care of her father after he had ignored the family when she was growing up. The fourth story was about a young father that is always working to provide for his family, thereby never having time for his family. Universal stories that cross cultural boundaries.

The protagonist in each story crosses paths with someone that causes the protagonist to realize that there is a problem and that they should resolve it. (Hence, Human Crossing)

Average production values; not a lot going on in each story; of interest in only that it shows that people everywhere have the same problems.

I will give “Human Crossing” a 5 out of ten.

I see that the translated title at AnimeNfo is either “Human Scramble” or “Human Crossing Point”

GetBackers is about a retrieval service. Ginji and Ban (GB, GetBack, get it?) have a 100% success rate retrieving lost or stolen objects. The show starts with them retrieving the toy cat of a school girl. The toy cat was taken by a crooked cop who thought she had seen him dealing with the Yakuza, which she hadn’t, but them’s the breaks. So G&B find the toy cat and in the process wipe out the yakuza gang and the bad cop. Turns out that G&B have special powers. Ginji is the human equivalent of an electric eel and Ban can give anyone hallucinations just by making eye contact.

So, the first client we see, Mizuki, goes to work in the Pizza shop where G&B hang out and the ground work is laid. G&B are very good at what they do, but they never seem to end up with any money. They worked for Mizuki for a slice of pizza. Paul, the owner of the Pizza shop has an extensive spy network that gathers information for the boys and Hevn is a negotiator who arranges jobs for G&B.

Ginji is a the soft-hearted, trusting type, while Ban is more the cynical, suspicious type. The back stories for these guys seem to add complications to their current lives. Production values are a bit lame. They are using a cartoonish animation technique that I find distracting. It is usually used when expressing disbelief or puzzlement. While the individual stories are pretty hackneyed, I am interested in what the overall story arc is covering.

I will give GetBackers a 6 out of ten.