meta: From The Manga

This caustic satire of the meat-market beauty industry works as both a manga and a live-action production, although it is more concise and less distractingly glamorous on paper than it is on a screen

Looking back over this legendary and now-concluded OVA series, it's striking to realize how it all amounted to a great deal less than it might have seemed

Rare these days is the series with an all-female cast where character, story, and drama are the goals, not titillation or eye candy

This jet-black comedy about a social misfit is either one you laugh with -- or a test of an audience's limits of tolerance for truly mean-spirited humor

An overwhelming experience, and a finely crafted one, but also harrowing and unpleasant from beginning to end -- even if that's supposed to be the idea

The first anime to be distributed exclusively on Netflix is dazzling and enjoyable enough to feel new, but plays it safe enough to go mainstream

We've not only been promised the moon with the new 'Sailor Moon'; there's a good chance we'll actually get it

A show this dismal is best seen as a symptom of anime's growing insularity

How is it that a live-action 'Black Lagoon' -- itself a loving homage to John Woo and Jerry Bruckheimer alike -- hasn't yet been put on the slate?

A show this allegedly outlandish on the outside shouldn't try to play it so safe under the skin

The third of the 'Berserk' films brings us to the long-awaited end of the beginning, and reminds us the TV series still did some things totally right

After twenty-five years, this seminal anime comedy is still both funny and a reminder of how shows like this are harder to make than it might seem

A massive budget wouldn't be needed to realize this most emotionally-powered of dark fantasies -- just proper attention to its story and characters

This poor man's 'Black Lagoon' embodies many of the problems inherent in a show about antiheroes and gray areas

One of 2013's best shows, which manages to both shoot itself in the foot and not be limited by that