Ok, I may not be the biggest of anime fans, but I have seen my fair share. I found myself watching all the seasons of Initial D since I have been here and just finished up the last season about 30 minutes ago. There are a couple of things I do want to rant about...

* Why does every anime seem to touch base on someone's "aura"?
* Why is it every anime seems to touch on the phrase, "I have never seen a (insert any choice of word for power) like that before?"
* Why does it seem that every series anime has to recap the last episode and then also give you a preview of the next episode?

Well the aura thing may be due to the types of anime I have watched but at one point, regardless of venue, story line, or characters, you just got to believe there is more in control than just an aura.

DBZ, Naruto, Initial D, Vampire Hunter D and all other animes always talk about never seeing a power like that before? Seriously? Lets get real...some how the world is filled with super heroes and villains that have amazing super powers and you have never once seen anything so impressive? If that is the case...why keep fighting or going against it? You are just setting yourself up for failure.

And what is up with the recaps? Holy crap its only a 30 minute show. Lets go ahead and drop it to 24 minutes due to commercials, now lets add in about 3 minutes for previews and 3 min for recaps...well now you have an 18 min anime...is my attention span really being taxed here? This is a practice that really needs to go away.

Now on to Initial D...as much as I liked it, I hated it even more. I am a "gear head" and loved the cars and the racing and all that, but in this anime, it seems like cars are the only thing important. Honor is based on your car, love is based on your car, your enemies are based on your cars...blah blah blah. The one thing that really got to me is every time there was a character that got newly employed and easily discarded it was all based on some strange love angle due to a persons car or how much they loved cars. I don't know about you, but to me that would be one hell of a boring world. An idea of a perfect date would be a drive in the car. Best place to sleep...your car. You are judged solely on the basis of your car. Sorry but this was just a horrible anime and if I was not in Asscaninstan, I doubt I would have taken the time to see it. In fact, Heath let me borrow the dvd set and I never watched it. Anyway...end of my rant. Have a good day everyone.

Ok, I finally had a chance to see it and yes, I know its been out forever! I have to admit, going in to the movie I really didn't expect much even with all the hype. But I have to say, I was completely blown away with it. The overall dark theme was mind boggling and Heath Ledger...wow...what can you saw about him as The Joker. I never expected Jack Nicholson to be out done, but I think he really did get outshined this time.

This might have been the first time that I was ever really bothered by the character of Batman. Yes I even enjoyed Val Kilmer as Batman more than Christian Bale in this movie. It is slowly becoming more and more evident that Christian Bale can only play Christian Bale. I was not wild about his voice when he was in the role of Batman, it sounded as if he had a sore throat and was just trying to work through it. But even with that being said, Batman has still come out on top as my favorite movie of the year so far. This is one that I may even buy on BluRay when I get home.

I give this movie a: 9.0