Zatoichi

Zatoichi is a classic in Japan. Starting as a minor character in a book he was soon brought a live in 1962. After that Zatoichi had a total of 26 films and a T.V. series with 100 episodes! This particular Zatoichi film is a remake from 2003.
Zatoichi is a blind old man who makes his living from giving massages and gambling. His pronounced sense of hearing helps him win all the gambles by being able to hear whether the dice landed even or odd. But underneath his old guy cover, Zatoichi is an amazingly skilled swords men. Using his uncanny sense of smell and hearing he defeats the oppressive Yakuza gangs.
The plot of this Zatoichi is made up of three main components. The first: On his journey, Zatoichi stumbles upon a village run by an abusive Yakuza gang. As Zatoichi takes up residence with an lonely lady he soon decides to demolish the gang and set the village free. The second part of the story resolves around a skilled Samurai whoses wife is very ill and needs money to cure her. Despite his wives hatred of killing, he takes up work as a body guard for the Yakuza. But whose the more skilled swordsman: Zatoichi or the Samurai?

Full Metal Panic!

My friend reccomened this to me aaaaaages ago but I only just picked it up. As the name suggests, it's a Shonen mecha. The very opening scene is a couple of soldiers in 'arms slaves' (Robot suits) blasting tanks apart to save a pretty girl. Is their anything more Mecha than that?
But it seems to then lose it's mecha title for the next 4 or 5 episodes. Sousuke, one of the Mithrils top soldiers, is set an important misson: secretly guard Kaname Chidori, the seemingly ordinary High School girl. To do this, Sagara Sousuke must transfer to Chidori's High School, while his comrades - Kurz Webber and Melissa Mao - follow her around in slightly more invisible methods. But the problem is, Sousuke has never attended High School. How was he supposed to know that carrying guns around school is against the rules? As such he becomes known as the military geek.
However, when Mithril defeat the enemy base does Kaname need her body guard any more? But Sousuke still has a school trip to attend and it's a good thing he does as well becasue as it turns out the enemy ended up hi-jacking the plane to kidnap Kaname. The Mecha returns, tanks everywhere, Slave arms fighting face-to-face and explosions EVERYWHERE! Sousuke has been ordered to protect the hostages over Kaname, but what about all those memories of Kaname? It's a heartwarming tale of over-coming challenges for your friends/lovers/mission objective.

Buso Renkin

This anime is quite curious. It starts with a really interesting opening scene which made me immediately look forward to the episode (it's not often that the main character dies within the first 5 minutes of an anime), and the whole episode was just very well planned out. They inserted plenty of humour and just the right amount of cheesy-ness to complement well drawn scenes of monsters and fighting.
It's based around the concept of Alchemy and Homunculus (insert full metal alchemist reference her), in this particular plot Homunculus are the result of attempts at artificial life resulting in a man-eating beast and Alchemy is a special power used to fight of the Homunculus.
When Kazuki tries to save the seemingly defenceless girl, Tokiko, from one of theses deadly Homunculus he very quickly ends up dead. But, Tokiko decides to revive her saviour by giving him the power of alchemy.

Akira

The six giant Akira books my dad left for me in my room did originally appear rather intimidating, but I got through them in just a few days so I am now writing a review of it just as my dad requested! But I must warn you, it''s NOT getting the six pie that my dad said it should!

The start is rather uninteresting. Biker gangs and gang rivalry don't really entertain me, I found myself skim reading the boring parts where they're just taking drugs and racing about. But then the crippled children come along and things get really weird. It was all a bit misty, things just happened because they did. Nothing was really explained! Even after six giant books, I didn't really gt why any of it happened!! But maybe that's just me.... Maybe I'm just slow.
For one thing, why did Kaneda get so heavily involved with Kei and all the other strange things? It just didn't make sense to me!
But the action scenes with the bikes and the guns and the lasers were pretty impressive!!
Who cares if the plot made no sense to me and I kept forgetting the characters names? Half of them died in impressive looking fight scenes or some psychic brain crushing! I never really grew attached to any of the characters because I was expecting them to die as soon as I turned the page! Not that that's necessarily a bad thing!
I was impressed with the art! Not for cute eyes and delicate clothing though. In fact, not for the people at all. The people all looked rather average to me with their short black hair and casual clothing! But it was their back grounds and panels that I liked!