Well Christmas is over, and like the Apathatic person I am over the
holiday's, I really did nothing too productive. Well nothing beyond
thinking up some really wacked out crossover ideas that I'll never do...
Nope, no way in hell..(Or at least wait untill the 1st of April). But one
thing I did do was watch a lot of anime, none of it Ranma. And guess what,
most of it was enjoyable (a small panic falls over most of the list, what
Non-Ranma Anime that is enjoyable...). So as a public service, I'm listing
off some of the good non-mainstream anime I saw over the holiday's (not
including Gundam and KOR, which aee mainstream to the majority of fandom,
hell Gundam's a bigger franchise than Ranma is..)

1) Nadia of the Mysterious Blues Seas (The Secret of Blue Water..)

Great Gainax fun, as they take the formula they used for Gunbuster and use
it in this TV series. It's a lite comedy, it's a drama, and it's an action
movie with a Red October feeling (the sub scenes are excellent..;). Of
course it has more than a passing homage to Jules Verne, but there is the
Gainax touch (including a Gloval like Captain and sub that reminds me of a
cross between the Yamato and the SDF1) in the mecha designs and characters
you can get behind. Go for the Fansub though, Streamline murders the first
8 epsiodes with there dub...

Rating 4/5 stars

2) Graduation, epsiodes 1-3

A weird combination of cute anime and real life drama in this story, where
5 main female characters are approching there graduation. The first two
epsiodes deal with this in a very realistic fashion, and reminded me of
when I was leaving High School 2 years ago. Characters seem a little
stereotyped at first (with an obvious Ayukawa Madoka rip off), but the
become well rounded in the end. The 3rd epsiode is a Mecha/Sentai/Magical
Girl parody that is fun to watch, but isn't as good as parts 1-2...

Rating 1-2 4/5, epsiode 3 3.5/5 

3)Nurse Angel Ririka SOS 

A magical clone, except Ririka can actually fight at first. Typical swipe
of BSSM, but it's still fun. The Opening theme is very catchy though, and
the show should be fun for Magical Girl/Shoujo fan's...

4)Hime-chan's-no Ribbion

This show actually goes back to orginal Magical Girl format, where the
main character is given a macgical item and uses it in real live
situations, not to fight the monster of the week (more like Creamy Mami
then BSSM). Me and a friend of mine who has both series have varying
opinions on the show, he likes Nurse Angel more, I like this more. This
has a some nice drama, lot's of comedy, and situations that make yyou
question the effectifiness of such a magical item. The ribbion itself
allows the main character to transform into anybody else in the world, but
if she doesn't change back in an hour she's stuck that way for
ever...Needless to say it leads to some fun situations...I like it alot..

Rating 4/5, my friend would give 3/5

That and I'm about to start into Miracle girls soon, and I've just
finished off DNA^2 and close to brushing off Patlabor. Oh, and I've found
the first NHL reference in an Anime, it's Akai Hyate with an (evil)
Edmonton Oilers Logo in it...

(You can now return to your normal Ranma insanity...)

Ja ne!!

Richard Beaubien
----------------
Mizuno Ami-chan forever!!!

Fanfic homepage http://iczer1.usacomputers.net/~beaubird