My brain is doing its weekly explosion and so it is with relief pleasure that I turn to our Guest correspondent, Winterbraid, for another fun-filled review of a Polish anime release. Once again, everyone please welcome Winterbraid!

The company which released Haibane Renmei also did Ray the Animation recently. I picked it up on impulse as a gift for a Black Jack fan – at that time I didn’t even know that the manga had been previously reviewed on Okazu, but also rated 5 in Yuri! Well, I can’t speak of the manga, but… Although the anime Ray now officially uses the full name and image of Black Jack, everyone`s favourite rogue surgeon gets a cameo only in the beginning and towards the end of the series; Akaribon totally fails as a Pinoko substitute; plus, once again we are reminded of the ancient truth that sekuhara=love.

The plot is in fact a lot of massively overused cliches blended together into an only occasionally edible meal. The bad guy is the spitting image of Ano Hito from Excel Saga (no, seriously), and the (loser) boy gets the girl in the end – which we all knew was going to happen anyway…; I only hoped he’d make an heroic sacrifice, and in fact he was close to that at one point; his survival was probably the second “Graaah!” moment in my history of anime watching. (The first was when Kazumi decided to go after Jun in ep. 22 of Devilman Lady.)
^-^;

Ratings:

I give the Story a rating of 4 points; +2 for the action, +2 for Ray`s cases (which were only good because they were made similar to Black Jack`s cases), +1 for the fact that it has an ending and -1 because the ending sucks.

Director Sawa gets 2 points for Characters.

Art gets a 7 because characters look their age, could be more if it wasn`t for the abuse of nurse fetish, dramatic stills and other visual cliches.

Music: doesn’t ring a bell.

Service: 8 points (+5 for the romance, +5 for nurses, -2 for the art).

As far as Yuri is concerned, I’d issue a generous rating of 0 points (+1 if you count economical bedsharing as Yuri, +1 if you think that Ray is a badass dyke; I think she’s just a spoiled tsundere brat).

Localization: OK, I guess.

I’m too lazy to calculate the overall score, but I guess it’s around 3. So the overall rating is: better grab some Black Jack books, then some action anime with actual Yuri in it, and then any tsundere romance if you`re into that. ^-^

(What is economical bedsharing? It’s “there is only one bed and we`re both girls anyway so it’s all right” bedsharing.)

Erica here: LOL! I haven’t seen the anime, although I’ve read all the manga and all I can say is – that seems pretty spot on to me. Winterbraid, you made me snort with laughter twice. Write more reviews.