It wasn't so long ago that anime was only considered a weird, violent and pornographic alternative to normal TV viewing, but since it has become more common place with children and adults, the wonderful eccentricities and downright zaniness of the format is now well known. Anime still has a reputation as an overly gruesome and perverted medium and, whilst this is often ludicrously exaggerated, sometimes, this view is disturbingly correct.
A few anime guide sites I've found often lump anime into 'appropriate', 'needs parental guidance' or 'burn and wash hands afterwards' and more often than not these divisions are far too black and white to give an accurate understanding.
One Western family, for instance, might find a male character pretending to be a girl more outrageous than blood soaked violence and another family may believe the exact opposite.
There is also a considerably large gap between what's considered appropriate to Western and Japanese children, with what's considered ok for Lucy to be enough to put Lucy in therapy. I will give a bit of background information on these cultural habits when they appear.
Some anime could not, by any argument, be considered child friendly, which I will point out.
Ultimately this blog is meant to be a quick synopsis and reference guide for those becoming interested in anime or the parents of anime viewers. Take from it what you like.
At the bottom of this blog you will also find a quick keyword list of common phrases that describe or pop up in anime from time to time. This can be invaluable when having to say yes or no to your ten year old daughter asking for a futunari guro anime with a harmless looking cover. Believe me you'll thank me later. Oh buy it yourself.
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Anime List
AD Police (Series)
Dystopian drama
In a cyberpunk future, a special branch of police are assigned to deal with rogue Boomers (biological androids), which often malfunction when their rigid programming begins to conflict with their overlooked humanity.
Gore: 8/10 Plenty. Blood is common, as is strong physical violence and gun fights
Sex: 6/10 Lots of references and sexual degradation. One character has sudden impulses to kill or masturbate, and, surprisingly, seems to prefer going for the former.
Swearing: Heavy in dubbed version
Akira (Movie)
Dystopian drama
A crumbling, futuristic Tokyo is over run by biker gangs and violence, but a government operation plans to make matters worse by using this turbulent time to create a, somewhat unreliable, telepathic super soldier.
Violence: 10/10 Frequent, gory, dismemberment, exploding bodies.
Sex: 5/10 Some nudity, suggested rape.
Worst scene: The gargantuan, bloating mutation at the end.
Swearing: Heavy
Ah! My Goddess (Series)
Fantasy romance
An incredibly clumsy and good natured young man becomes so unlucky, that the fabric of time itself feels it has to step in and balance things out by sending Belindi, a Goddess, to offer him one wish. Stupidly he doesn't take it seriously and he wishes for her to stay by him forever, a wish that is immediately granted and all manner of calamity ensues, beginning with the small fact that women aren't allowd in the protagonists flat.
Gore: 1/10 Occassioanl slapstick.
Sex: 1/10 Romance
Amon : Apocalypse of Devilman part (Movie)
Horror drama
Huamn's have become aware of the existence of demons who disguise themselves in human form and a series of horrific witch hunts has began with indiscriminate killing and violence before the demons themselves even show up.
Gore: 10/10 An incredibly violent piece. Decapitation with head paraded on a stick, a young child being pinned head first against a stair by an arrow, mutilation.
Sex: 4/10 Non especially but their are allusions to sexual violence and mild nudity
Noteable scenes: The breasts of bee humanoid demons are very nutricous to Devilman.
Apocolypse Zero (Series)
In a world wrecked from modern warfare a young, stoic martial artist and owner of a powerful bio-tech fighting suit joins a school that continues to run despite society and the city in ruins. He plans to protect the students from the wanderign mutant beasts of the apocolyptic wasteland, most of whom were manufactured by his powerful older brother who has a deep hatred for all human life.
The anime is ludicrously but wonderfully stupid.
Gore: 10/10 Disgustingly over the top gratuitous gore, very frequent. A girl's inards are squeezed through her mouth by a giant woman in bondage gear in the very first episode.
Sex: 7/10 Nothing especially graphic, but there is some upper female nudity, and most of the mutants have sexualised attacks such as queening someone to death, and penis's oftenused as weapons.
Notable moment: 'Double Big Tit Bomb Attack' was fairly amusing. The sheer OTT of it all was enough to keep me watching, but the reviews I've read of this short series makes me feel like I'm the only person to have actually watched it all the way through.
Language: Moderate
Azumanga Daioh
Comedy
Chiyo-Chan, a 10 year old child prodigy, joins a high school and is the sanest of the teachers and her fellow students in this slice of life comedy. Sweet as hell.
Gore: 1/10 Occassional slapstick
Sex: 5/10 Yuri school girl crush. And Kimura-sensei. A bespectacled, slightly hunched teach with a constantly hanging lower jaw, who, when first asked why I wanted to be a teach screeches 'Because I like high school girls!' He openly parades his fetish and constantly attempts to get the girls to wear gym wear. Suprisingly he has a beautiful wife and despite being a massive perv does not act on it.
Swearing: None in dubbed, mild in subtitled.
Bastard! (Series)
Action fantasy
This subtely named anime is about a powerful warrior soceror, trapped in the body of young laundry boy, who can only be freed by a kiss from the older woman he likes. After said, kiss the long, haired magical anti-hero appears who may or may not save the day depending on his mood.
Gore: 8/10 Flying spurts of blood, sword fights, magic fights.
Sex: 6/10 Nothing explicit but plenty of stragecically placed shadows.
Swearing: Moderate
Battle Programmer Shirase (Series)
Comedy
A lone geek is hired by different companies and government agencies to save them from cyber sabotage with an understanding of programming and TCP/IP that would make a real programmer's head explode in sheer agitated horror.
Gore: 0/10 None
Sex: 7/10 Eh... Shirase fancies his niece and she has the same feelings. His niece is 12 years old. She looks about 9. They constantly find themselves in accidental, purely innocent positions, reeking of sexual innuendo, just in time to be seen by random men, who decide to pretend ignorance rather than have Shirase arrested, just to fulfill their own programming needs.
Notable scene: The world's scariest transvestite appears at one moment.
Swearing: None
Berserk (Series)
Medieval fantasy
A lone warrior, Guts, a powerful but kind hearted and slightly dim man is enlisted into a band of mercenaries by their enigmatic leader Griffith. The stories shows Guts attachement to the group and a dramatic and tragic fall into madness.
Gore: 7/10 As much as you'd expect givent eh story line, sword wounds, grand battles and torture.
Sex: 5/10 Soft core scenes, full nakedness with shadows in just the right places, rape and a few mentions of pedophilia.
Black Jack: The Movie
Drama
A highly skilled but unlicensed surgeon is called into help with an odd disease that creates flawed super humans.
Gore: 7/10 Some very graphic medical scenes
Sex: 0/10
Best line: "She wined him and dined him and convinced him to take part in a series of intricate medical investigations of his brain"
Swearing: Mild
Bleach (Series)
Supernatural Comedy Drama
A young man, with ESP, finds himself with the power of a death God after his home is attacked by giant undead spectres.
This is similar to Naruto in its popularity.
Gore: 5/10 Frequent but fairly mild, some blood.
Sex: 5/10 in the original Japanese, 2/10 in the Dubbed. The Japanese has explicit references to lesbianism, voyeurism and incest. The "worst" scene in the dubbed is a magical cat who transforms back into its human form but forgets its clothes and has the protagonist screaming in horror for her to get some clothes on, nudity unseen.
Over all Bleach is the slightly more mature version of Naruto, not because of violence or sexuality but purely for storyline and the intended demographic of slightly older children.
Swearing: Moderate in subbed, none in dubbed
Blood: The Last Vampire (Movie)
Horror
Vampires terrorise an American army base in Japan, a school girl vampire killer is called in to fix the problem
Gore: 9/10 Slit wrists, mutilated corpses and blood sucking
Sex: 0/10 None.
Swearing: Mild
Bible Black (Series)
Hentai
A school delves into sexual rituals in order to invoke the powers of the occult. Or the biggest catalog of fan service I've ever seen.
Gore: 5/10 Plenty of bondage and sexual violence
Sex: 10/10 Futunari, lesbianism, S&M, occult rape, enemas you name it its got it.
Swearing: Heavy
Notable bits: They should have fired who ever did the colouring on this damn thing.
Candy Boy (Series)
Comedy romance (incest)
Two sisters go to college. They fancy each other. They try to figure out how to tell each other this, all the while trying to ignore an obsessive younger class mate who fancies the younger sister.
Gore: 1/10 No gore, occasional slapstick violence of bopping each other on the head.
Sex: 4/10 No actual nudity, any reference to sex is usually childlike, with one sister joyfully asking the other if she could have her breasts as a birthday present rather than her own.
Swearing: None
Notable bits: This is another one of those gaps in Japanese and Western culture. In a western context we'd probably have the sisters killing themselves or each other reminding you, in case you'd forgotten, that incest = bad, but this is actually a rather sweet little romance and comedy of errors.
Card Captor Sakura (Series)
Supernatural, comedy, children series
A 10 year old school girl accidentally lets loose the spirits of a pack of tarot cards and spends the entire series fighting to get them back.
Gore: 0/10 None
Sex: 4/10 A slightly odd one this. In the Japanese version, Sakura's female school friend, who makes her all manners of lavish outfits to wear, clearly has a crush on her and openly videotapes Sakura going about her day to day life. In the English version the girl crush is removed but the 10 year old school girls are given late teen voice actors, which seems infinitely more creepy.
Swearing: None in subbed or dubbed
Cowboy Beebop (Series)
Action drama
Futuristic space bounty hunter with a wonderful sound track. Gun fights, drugs, and martial arts galore.
Gore: 7/10 Frequent
Sex: 4/10 Allusion mostly.
Swearing: Mild
Cromartie High School (Series)
Comedy
A surreal comedy series about a normal student who joins a school of delinquents. Fellow students include an ape, a robot and a silent character who looks like Freddy Mercury. The plot is non existent.
Violence: 2/10 Sheer slapstick
Sex: 2/10 Some off colour jokes and one allusion to rape which is quickly ended by a student on a sentient motorbike with the power of flight.
Swearing: Moderate
Death Note (Series)
Supernatural detective drama
Third only to Bleach and Naruto in popularity
A hyper intelligent and bored student finds a notebook that will kill a person if you write their name in it. After a massive, and unexplainable, killing spree of criminals who escaped justice, a hyper intelligent detective is called in, in a truly epic battle of wits.
Gore: 3/10 Mostly suggestive, the last episode is excessively gory however
Sexuality: 3/10 Mostly suggestive. Rape and sexual violence is mentioned.
Swearing: Mild
Dokuro-Chan (Series)
Comedy
A young high school student lives with an incredibly violent angel with a metal spiked bat, Dokuro-chan, who, thankfully, has the gift of resurrection. Her mission is to stop him from angering God in the future when he creates an anti-aging device that prevents women growing beyond the age of twelve.
Gore: 8/10 Whilst slapstick the violence is gratuitous almost to the point of disturbing, with the main character regularly disemboweled, decapitated and strangled to death before being brought back to life by an apologetic Dokuro-chan.
Sex: 5/10 No actual nudity, but plenty of suggestion, mentions of pedophilia and lots of fan service.
Swearing: Mild
Doomed Megalopolis (Series)
Supernatural drama/horror
A black magician wishes to resurrect the Guardian of Tokyo in order destroy the city.
Gore: 8/10 Plenty, dramatic and fantastic, and very bloody fight sequences.
Sex 7/10 Female nudity, rape and incest (all at the same time).
NOT SUGGESTED FOR CHILDREN, though oddly this is the first anime I saw when I was 11. God bless you Channel 4.
Swearing: Mild
Doujin Work (Series)
Comedy
A young woman decides to make her fortune by making doujin art (a type of manga), forgetting the small fact she knows nothing about the business and can barely draw.
Gore:1/10 None aside from slapstick and nose bleeds
Sex: 6/10 No actual nudity but plenty of references as the protagonist and her friends mostly deal in romantic manga. Some scenes of clothed bondage and yaoi appear. Also, notably there is one character called Justice, seemingly in his mid twenties, with an 8 year old girlfriend. He does not have a sexual relationship with her but he is clearly biding his time.
Swearing: Mild
Ebi-chu Cleans the House (Series)
A lazy and unhappy office worker, with a womanising boyfriend, has her home looked after and her life constantly sabotaged by Ebi-chu, her five inch tall, talking hamster.
Gore: 7/10 Ebi-chu is constantly beaten for her impropriate comments by her master and her boyfriend, and whilst this is pretty slapstick, the bruises, blood and sheer amount of violence borders on the disturbing.
Sex: 7/10 Includes: masturbation, dildo's, hard-ons, soft core sex, exposed genitals, underwear theives, screaming manko (pussy) often and loudly, beastiality, sex games and premature ejaculation. Great fun.
Swearing: Heavy
Favourite scene: Whilst Ebi-chu's master is strolling along a crowded beach in a bikini, being admired by all the men around her, Ebi-chu loudly warns her 'MASTER! Your pubes are sticking out!"
NOT RECCOMENDED FOR CHILDREN
Eiken (Series)
Comedy
A clumsy boy finds himself forced into an all girl's club after accidentally groping one of its members.
Gore: 1/10 None unless you consider flying crotch attacks violent
Sex: 9/10 There is no actual nudity per say, but the story itself is pure fan service, with gratuitous underwear shots and most scenes centring purely on the ludicrously over sized breasts of the female characters.
NOT SUGGESTED FOR CHILDREN. Or anyone who wants a storyline
Swearing: Mild
Elfen Lied (Series)
Sci-fi drama
A girl with horns breaks out of a high security laboratory, killing all who stand before her, only to fall off a cliff and be washed ashore into the care of two kind locals.
Violence: 10/10 Almost unbelievably violent, dismemberment, eye gouging and exploding bodies are common throughout all episodes.
Sex: 8/10 Plenty of frontal nudity, pedophilia and suggested rape.
Notable scene: When Lucy does when asked to come back to the research centre.
Swearing: Heavy
Ergo Proxy (Series)
Dystopian drama
Set in a cold and bleak future, a woman in a consumerist 'utopia' delves too deep in to a government conspiracy and finds herself amongst monsters.
Gore: 8/10 Heavy, lots of fight scenes, gun battles and murder
Sex: 1/10 Barely none, some sexual frustration but no actual nudity unless you count neo-classical statues.
Swearing: Mild
Evangelion Series and Films (Series)
Sci-fi mech drama
A world restored after the apocalypse is constantly attacked by giant beings known as angels, only organic super mechs can stop them, and only 15 year old children can pilot them.
The series almost appears as a children's programme in its first episode but dramatically darkens as the series progresses.
Gore 9/10 Constant. Violence is at first against mechs only, but graphic violence against humans increases as the series goes on.
Nudity 3/10 In series. 9/10 nakedness in the film. Allusions to masturbation, incest, pedophilia and rumpy pumpy in both.
Swearing: Heavy/moderate
Excel Saga (Series)
Comedy
An ADHD psycho girl and a immortal woman, who dies and resurrects constantly, try to take over the city for the ACROSS organisation; an immigrant worker is stuck between life and death and forced to be the consort of a time and space anomaly; a dog desperately fights against her fate of becoming her master's emergency food ration and a suited man in an afro weaves in out of the story for no obvious reason then to cause as many explosions as he can. I still have no idea what the storyline is. The final episode was created for the specific purpose of trying to get itself banned and it did quite well.
Gore: 8/10 Plenty slapstick, dismemberment and heavy duty weaponry is common
Sex: 8/10 Plenty and eccentric, one characters is an unashamed pedophile. Some nudity in the final episode.
Swearing:Heavy
NOT SUGGESTED FOR KIDS
Fake (Film)
Romantic comedy
Two detectives, Ryo and Dee, go for a holiday to the English countryside, which is unexpectedly plagued by viscous murders, all of which inconveniently gets in the way of Dee's plans to get in Ryo's pants.
Sex: 4/10 Yaoi. No real nudity and Dee's attempts to seduce Ryo all fail. There is one mention of a sexual murder however, but this is not explicitly shown either.
Gore:3/10 None, some suggestion and and a vague description of the above sexual murderer.
Notable scene: The "crash through window motorbike surprise attack"
Swearing: Mild
Fist of the North Star (Series)
Apocolyptic martial arts drama
The world has been ruined by man kinds hubris (again) and violent gangs hunt the sparse clusters of humanity left behind. A martial artists travels the land looking for his lost lover, beatign gangs as he goes using a clan technique that makes peoples bodies explode by hittign pressure points.
Gore: 8/10 An incredibly violent anime with said exploding of guts and heads to be quite frequent.
Sex: 4/10 Mostly some suggestions to rape, but nothing hardcore (Whilst since I've seen this though)
Notable bits: The dubbed voice acting on this is hilariously awful.
Full Metal Alchemist (Series)
Fantasy comedy drama
Two orphan's, one with metal limbs, the other a soul tied to a suit of armour, travel the world learning alchemy in the hope of restoring their bodies.
If your kids watched Naruto, One Piece and Bleach, then this is the next step up. FMA plays itself as a cutesy anime close to the aforementioned series, but it is surprisingly dark and disturbing in places.
Gore: 4/10 Infrequent and never quite graphic but often disturbing. The first scene sums this up quite nicely, with a short and unclear glimpse of a hideous, upside half dead thing with a shuddering jaw as the result of an experiment gone wrong.
Sex: 1/10 Very occasional suggestion.
Notable scene: The after math of character being blown to pieces shows a stain on a wall of what appears to be a brain complete with stem above the explosive mess.
Swearing: Mild
Gantz
Sci-fi action drama
A cowardly high school student reluctantly helps his primary school friend when a drunk falls on some rail tracks, then promptly gets hit by a train for his trouble. Both young men suddenly find themselves in a small flat with other deceased individuals, as well as a giant black ball which offers them extraterrestrial assassination jobs in return for money and the return of their lives.
Gore: 8/10 Plenty, decapitated heads and attempted rape occur in the first episode. The 'I shoot you and two seconds later the area suddenly explodes' gun appears later. Bullying, child abuse and graphic beatings are common place.
Sex: 7/10 Attempted rape and a completely naked, unfeasibly breasted girl appears in the first episode. The protagonists embarrassing hard-ons turn up throughout.
Swearing: Heavy
Notable moments: 'I give you my spring onion'
Genocyber (Series)
Sci-fi drama
Two sisters combine to become a fearsome cyber weapon, but wish to escape the oppressive laboratory where they were created.
Gore: 10/10 Possibly the most damned violent thing I've seen. Dismemberment, decapitation, graphic destruction of bodies through gun fire, graphic ripping apart and rearranging of body parts into some truly terrifying bio war suits.
Sex: 1/10 Barely any (yet). I have not watched all episodes but to be honest.
Swearing: Heavy
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN
Notable scene: The female borg's transformation in episode 1
Ghost in the Shell (Film)
Sci-fi drama
A 99% prosthetic cyborg special service agent, Motoko, becomes fascinated with a cyber hacker.
Gore: 10/10 A body explodes in the first five minutes.
Sex: 7/10 Full frontal nudity is shown, but the body is that of a cyborg, so though the character has breasts she has no genitalia. Sex is somewhat absent from the film and nudity is presented with the a sexless detachment, like you'd expect for naked statues in a gallery.
Swearing: Moderate
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (Movie)
Sci-fi drama
A jaded cyber detective investigates the odd behavior of some malfunctioning sex androids
Gore: 6/10 Slightly more suggestive than its predecessor, the violence in this movie is committed mostly against robots.
Sex: 4/10 Again more the suggestive, nudity is kept to androids this time but there is also allusions to pedophilia.
Swearing: Moderate
Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex 1 & 2 (Series)
Sci-fi drama
Motoko, a cyborg, and her heavily prosthetic special service team fight cyber-terrorism. Prequel to the orginal Ghost in the Shell and Inncoence
Gore: 7/10 Frequent violence.
Sex: 2/10 Rare, no real nudity. Mostly sexual references.
Swearing: Moderate
Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society (Movie)
Sci-fi drama
Motoko and her team investigate disappearing children. Prequel to the films.
Gore: 2/10 Mostly suggestive
Sex: 1/10 None
Swearing: Moderate
Golden Boy (Series)
Comedy
A clumsy and fairly horny young man, with an oversized IQ, goes out into the world with only his trusty bike to gain new jobs and learn new things. He fancies every woman he meets.
Gore: 1/10 Occasional fights but nothing gory.
Sex: 7/10 Mostly illusion and suggestion, flies being undone, a digitized crotch when swimming trunks come lose and nipples visible through clothing. One woman also seems to be masturbating on her motorcycle.
Swearing: Moderate
Grave of the Fireflies (Movie)
War film/tear jerker
Story of two orphans surviving life during world war two in Japan after their mother is killed in an air raid.
As an anti-war film this is particularly powerful, and the story is pretty heart breaking. May upset small children and adults.
Gore: 6/10 Graphic scene of a woman in bandages, badly burned, with maggots on her skin. Images of corpses.
Sex: 0/10 None
Swearing: Mild
Happy Lesson (Series)
Romantic comedy
An orphaned high school student is reluctantly adopted by five of his female teachers, each of which sport typical romantic anime personalities. A tomboy, a creepy science geek who experiments on people agianst their will, a temple maiden, a semi-loli and the girl next door. All of which he trys his best to keep a secret from the inquisitive classroom rep who secretly fancies him.
Violence: 1/10 the usual occassional slapstick as often occurs in this kind of anime
Sex: 4/10 Lots of innuendo between him and his teacher/mothers, nothing explicit.
Swearing: Mild
Hellsing (Series)
Vampire drama
An English Protestant organization takes on a young police officer after she is transformed into a vampire by their resident, snappily dressed and powerful blood sucker Alucard (Who isn't Dracula. Honest)
Gore: 8/10 Very violent. Gun fights, stabbing copious bleeding
Sex:5/10 No nudity, but plenty of sexy lingerie.
Notable scene: A woman's head falling off is NOT a pleasant sight
Swearing: Moderate
Judge (Movie)
Fantasy drama/horror
A karmic judge dishes punishments to characters who've done unspeakable deeds. His executions are hindered by the sudden arrival of a cosmic defense lawyer.
Gore: 7/10 Very violent, often to the point of pure spectacle
Sex: 5/10 Some suggested and some soft core
Notable scene: Japanese ghosts are often filled with crabs it seems.
Swearing: Heavy
Kakurenbo (Movie)
Horror
Title means "Hide and Seek". A group of children wearing fox masks venture into an abandoned part of town to play a forbidden game.
Gore: 1/10 Non especially, but some scenes may scare small children, and a scene of a child being used as a battery may seem a little disturbing to some.
Sex: 0/10 None
Swearing: None
Legend of the Overfiend (Series)
Hentai drama
An ancient prophesy promises to bring together the world of beasts, men and demons when the overfiend, a powerful being, is born. One of the more famous examples of 'tentacle porn'
Gore: 8/10 Beatings, exploding bodies, vaporizing people, sexual violence.
Sex: 10/10 Rape, masturbation, cunnilingus and tentacle porn is all common in this.
Swearing: Heavy
Notable scene: The semen of the overfiend's dad either impregnates you or causes your body to explode. Considered quite a misogynist piece of work. And I'm inclined to agree.
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN
Loveless (Series)
Romantic fantasy drama
An underage boy, Ritsuka, who lives in a universe where having cat ears denote that you're still a virgin (I don't get it either), is suddenly contacted by a very earless young man who claims to be his dead brother's lover and magical fighting partner and now wants to partner with him to fight enemies. He also has sweets and puppies in his van.
Gore: 6/10 Found in the magical battles and physical abuse of Ritsuka by his mother.
Sex: None explicit but plenty of references to sex and some to rape. There's also the cat ear thing. And the yaoi pedophilia bit.
Notable bits: This whole series is very, very wrong on so many levels.
Swearing: Moderate
Howl's Moving Castle (Movie)
Fantasy
Witches and Wizards fantasy set in a Victorian like age
Gore: 1/10
Sex: 2/10 you see the barest glimpse of bare backside at one comedic point
Swearing: None
Kiki's Delivery Service (Movie)
Fantasy
A cutesy witch's coming of age tale.
Gore: 0/10
Sex: 0/10
Swearing: None
Kite (Movie)
Action drama
A young girl turns into an assassin for her policeman lover
Gore: 10/10 Shed loads, very action packed, very violent
Sex: 10/10 Hardcore sex, suggestive incest and pedophilia.
NOT RECOMMEND FOR CHILDREN
Swearing: Heavy
Mezzo Forte (Movie)
Action drama
A spiritual successor to Kite, with similar themes of assassins and sexual violence but “slightly” more light hearted.
Gore: 10/10 Constant
Sex: 10/10 Hardcore, rape, full frontal nudity male and female.
Swearing: Heavy
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN
Mezzo DSA (Series)
Action comedy drama
A series sequel to the events of Mezzo Forte. The Dangerous Services Agency specialises in the jobs most mercenaries aren't stupid enough to take. An android specialist, an ex-cop with connections, an under age martial arts expert and a shy 12 year old make up the cast.
Sex: 5/10 Mostly references, none of the hardcore nudity of the film of similar name.
Violence: 7/10 Frequent.
Swearing: Moderate
Midori (Film)
A distrubing film about an orphan, Midori, forced to join a circus full of perverts and abusive freaks. A glimmer of hope appears for her in the form of a mysterious dwarf magician.
Gore: 7/10 Frequent and often unsettling, bodies are twisted into grotesque shapes in one scene, sexual violence is common, a woman is eaten from the crotch upwards by rats.
Sex: 7/10 Lots of nudity, including of a very young looking Midori, rape and sexual orgies appear.
Swearing: Moderate
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN
Mnemosyne (Series)
Fantasy drama
Two immortals run a detective agency, living their eternals days in constant fear of 'Angels', their deformed and violent male counterparts.
Gore: 10/10 A woman is gunned down in the first ten minutes of the first episode. Extreme torture and mutilation.
Sex: 9/10 No hardcore, but plenty of nudity, softcore and sexual violence.
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN
Swearing: Moderate
Monster (Series)
Thriller
A surgeon tries to correct his mistake when he realises a boy he agreed to save has grown into a monster.
Gore: 8/10 Lots.
Sex: 5/10 More suggestive.
Swearing: Moderate
Mushi-shi (Series)
Fantasy
A mysterious white haired man travels Japan helping people with infestations of mushi, mysterious creatures beyond plant or animal, that are often mistaken for miracles or ghosts by villagers.
Gore: 2/10 No violence but some supernatural attacks might frighten children, such as an entire village of people suddenly turning into crumbling moss or strange sludge crawling from a girl's empty eye sockets.
Sex: 0/10 None
Swearing: None
My Neighbor Totoro (Movie)
Fantasy
A father and his two daughters move into an old farm house infested with dust bunnies and soon discover their neighbor is a giant tree spirit. An innocent and cutesy tale. Recommended for children and adults.
Gore: 0/10
Sex: 0/10
Swearing: None
Natsume Yuujinchou (Series) Second series has 'Zoku' on the front.
Supernatural fantasy
The grandson of a woman who collected the names of yokai, and has more than a passing resemblence to her, inherits the Book of Friends that contains them. A huge fox disguised as a fat house cat serves as his guardian and confidant as he frees trapped spirits whilst exorcising others.
Gore: 3/10 Some, bruising and violently throwing characters around appears occasionally, but nothing gory. Small children (and adults) may find some of the ghosts scary.
Sex: 1/10 None, some examples of gender bending.
Swearing: Mild
Naruto (Series)
Ninja comedy drama
Most of you will have heard (been bombarded) with this little nugget, which is why I'm going to say a bit more about it.
A clan of Ninja's sell their services to neighboring countries.
Gore: 6/10
Some scenes are abundant with gore but most have these have been toned down in the American release. An instance early on in the series involves a man, with both upper limbs broken and skewed with several spears, killing a large group of thugs with only a knife between his teeth. Another includes a different man having both his arms broken and then publicly executed after daring to go up against the local town thugs, the scene itself cuts away from the actual violence but the man's purple arms and facial bruises are visible. Deespite this the anime is directed towards the younger market in Japan and these acts of violence have a moral purpose, never are thee for spectacle alone. Other moments of violence throughout the series follow this pattern.
Sex: 4/10 Naruto's first episode features the main character, Naruto oddly enough, performing a ninja trick of transformation by shape shifting himself into a naked woman with strategically placed clouds to give his teacher a heart attack and promptly gets detention for it, a trick he uses occasionally throughout the series for comic effect. Another scene involves him angrily glaring at a school rival, Sasuke. Another classmate accidentally knocks Naruto forward, with Naruto and said rival locking lips for a second, leading to all the girls in the class threatening to kill Naruto for stealing Sasuke's first kiss. This scene was edited in the American version with the actual kiss removed but the smooching sound remaining. The scene is somewhat over censored in my opinion, Naruto, does not especially promote or mock homosexuality, and the scene is merely a bumbling comedy of errors moment made more important by over cautious editing.
Swearing: Moderate in subbed. None in dubbed.
Negima (Series)
Comedy fantasy
A ten year old wizard is given the task of teaching a group of teenagers in an all girl school. The suspected hilarity ensues.
Gore: 3/10 Bops on the head, bullying and slapstick violence.
Sex: 5/10 Perhaps a little bit too much for younger children. Some fan service, exploding boobs, and, whilst there's no direct nudity, one girl accidentally gets her knickers blown off whilst wearing a short skirt just in time for a teacher to get a huge eye full.
Swearing: Moderate in subbed. None in dubbed.
Nekojiru or Cat Soup (Movie)
Surreal fantasy
After nearly drowning in a bath tub, a humanoid cat visits the underworld and finds the reaper taking his sister away. Only able to grab half her soul before being resuscitated, the rest of the film is spent trying to find the missing half.
The films imagery is disturbing and surreal.
Gore: 5/10 Not terribly gory, a man's arms and legs are snipped off but it's done in Tom and Jerry style. A sketchy animation sequence also shows people being executed by close range firing squad.
Sex 2/10 None really, though a maniac in Micky Mouse ears and spiked thong, brandishing a giant pair of scissors may raise some eyebrows.
Swearing: None
Ninja Scroll: The Movie
Ninja and supernatural drama
A Ninja clan and a lone mercenary war with a group of sorcerers to prevent a demon from coming to power.
Gore: 9/10 Over the top and frequent, decapitation, slicing people apart, someone is almost head butted to death.
Sex: 9/10 Plenty. Sexual assault, soft care sex scenes and nudity are rife.
Swearing: Moderate in subbed
One Piece (Series)
Pirate comedy drama
After a pirate announces where he buried the entirety of his treasure just before his execution, half the population and one particular boy with a stretch Armstrong body, jump on boats and go out in search of it.
Gore: 3/10 Mostly playful, frequent, mild
Sex: 1/10 None
Swearing: Moderate in subbed, mild in dubbed
Paprika (Movie)
Sci-fi fantasy
A new machine allows psychiatrists to go into their patients dreams to help aid therapy, but problems start when the device is stolen and dreams infect reality.
Gore: 2/10 Some, rarely bloody, the sight of a large man falling twenty foot to the ground with a mechanical device clearly growing under his flesh may disturb some.
Sex: 8/10 Plenty of nudity, not necessarily of a sexual nature, hints to homosexuality and transvestism.
Swearing: Moderate
Paranoia Agent (Series)
Psychological drama
A young toy designer feels the pressure of expectations after her last design was a massive hit, feeling isolated and alone she is suddenly attacked by a roller skating boy with a baseball bat. More people are attacked in a similar fashion.
Gore: 3/10 Aside from the actual bat whomping, not much, though plenty of blood goes with it.
Sex: 3/10 Story line includes prostitution and incestuous lust.
Swearing: Moderate
Perfect Blue (Movie)
Psychological thiller
A Japanese idol decides to break away from her cutesy band to become an actress, but her sudden career change and a stalker slowly take its toll on her mind, in this well animated and excellently timed psycho thriller.
Gore: 6/10 Infrequent but brutal stabbings, bludgening and head wounds appear.
Sex: 7/10 Full nudity, an attempted rape and a fake rape scene for film, with the latter being the most disturbgin oddly.
Swearing: Moderate
Notable scene: Mima's Room.
Pet Shop of Horrors (Series)
Horror drama
The mysterious Count D sells rare, exquisite and dangerous pets but always makes his customers sign unusual and strict contracts which remove his responsibility when the customers almost always break the rules, all much to the annoyance of a local Police detective.
Gore: 6/10 A man is eaten a live in the first episode, decapitated heads and corpses appear often.
Sex: 3/10 None really, some heavy romance, but nothing graphic
Swearing: Mild
Pokemon (Series)
Fantasy
A young boy sets out to capture magical creatures to do battle (you don't seriously need more info on this one do you?)
Gore: 0/10 None (sadly, unless you consider Pokemon a glorified cockerel fight)
Sex: 0/10 None
Swearing: None
Pom Poko (Movie)
Fantasy
Shape shifting Japanese raccoons (Tanuki) fight to save their forest from urban development. Gore: 3/10 Occasional, slapstick whomping, Children maybe upset by a man driving his van over a ditch, and a giant bearded head being smashed in two by a van.
Sex: 2/10 (or 10/10 depending on your opinion)
Important info:
Tanuki are a type of Japanese raccoon dog and, according to mythology, have the ability to shape shift. Their most distinguishing feature however is their gigantic testicles, which they can stretch to massive proportions or even use as weapons. The movie incorporates this aspect of the mythology quite matter of factly and although all the male characters sport small little spheres under their cuddly bellies, there is no great attention pulled to them. So much so you can watch much of the film without noticing them until one character expands them to gigantic size to block a wind shield. The dubbed version calls them 'Raccoon pouches' and it down plays it quite well. Most children wouldn't notice, young girls probably less so than boys, and I think, providing you get the dubbed version or you don't mind the more perspective of your children laughing hysterically at the idea of giant scrotums, the movie is hardly traumatizing and the moral story line is a must for children.
Notable scene: The Operation Spectre scene offers a wonderful catalog of the bizarre and eclectic Japanese Yokai (demons and ghouls)
Swearing: None
Porco Rosso (Film)
Mercenary fantasy
A womanising, cyncical sea plane pilot lives his life with the face of a pig and living as a lawless mercenary, often clashing with local law enforemcent and pirates. His life begins to change however with the introduction of a young female mechanic who agrees to fix is damaged plane.
Gore: 4/10 Very little, save one slapsitck bruise fest at the end, when two men dual each other
Sex: 0/10 None
Swearing: Mild
Princess Mononoke (Movie)
Fantasy
Fantasy in which ancient nature Gods fight to stop the invading deforestation of their home from industrialist mankind
Gore: 6/10 Decapitation, limb mutilation and a gun shot through the torso.
Sex: 3/10 None exactly save the mention that most of the female iron workers have been bought from brothels.
Swearing: Mild
Notable scene: Arrows apparently have the power to amputate limbs
Puni Puni Poemy (Series)
Surreal action comedy
An aspiring voice actress living with a team of watch women finds a magical fish that allows her to become a superhero.
Gore: 8/10 Crucifixion, beatings and sexual torture. All slapstick however
Sex: 7/10 No actual nudity, but lots of suggestion, heavy emphasis on female breasts, lesbianism and gangsters who use their irregularly lengthened testicles as chain balls
Swearing: Moderate
NOT SUGGESTED FOR KIDS
Read or Die (Movie)
The aptly named Yomiko Readman is a passionate bibliophile. With dowdy clothes, glasses, clumsyness and the abilty to shape paper into whatever weapon or transportation she wishes, she is given the equally imagnitive code name of 'The Paper'. She, along with a possible yuri love interest Miss Deep (with unfeasible breasts) and a card board cut out tough guy, Drake, are on a mission from the secret service to gain a special book, with the weirdest comic book villains poppping up to try and thwart them.
Gore: 6/10 Enough blood and impaling to avert your child's eyes.
Sex: 3/10 Non especially, there are lesbian undertones between Miss Deep and The Paper which could easily be missed. No imagination is required for Miss Deep's outfit either.
Swearing: Mild
Requiem from the Darkness (Series)
Ghost stories/horror
A children's poet with writers block is inspired to write ghost stories after meeting three demonic, karmic investigators.
Gore: 9/10 The very first scene of the first episode involves someone being bludgeoned to death with a large rock, the first scene of the second involves decapitation and accidental infanticide. Serial killers, cannibalism and pyromania.
Sex: 7/10 Mostly suggestive but include rape, necrophilia, incest.
Swearing: Mild
NOT SUGGESTED FOR KIDS
Rizelmine (Series)
Romantic comedy
A fifteen year old boy with an older woman complex finds himself suddenly and forcefully married via a shady government agency to a cyborg with a 12 year old body and mind.
Gore: 1/10 Only slapstick violence, unless you consider copious nose bleeds to be violent.
Sex: 7/10 Characters include a 17 year old girl with a shotacon fetish who turns into an exhibitionist when she takes her glasses off and a 15 year old with a lolicon obsession and a huge bear panties collection.
Swearing: Mild
Rosario + Vampire (Series)
Fantasy, horror, romantic comedy
A student with bad graves accidentally enrolls in a school exclusively for demons and spirits and instantly falls for the school's vampire.
Gore: 5/10 Nothing especially violent but lots of bullying, some blood shed, throwing characters around.
Sex: 6/10 Loooots of fan service here. Yuri, a succubus, boob groping and the protagonist vampire is viewed nigh on exclusively from behind with a skirt sewn to constantly show her knickers.
Swearing: Mild
Serial Experiments Lain (Series)
Cyberpunk drama
A shy loner finds herself becoming more and more obsessed with the internet and the connection it provides but the deeper she goes the more the world around her literally begins to crumble.
Gore: 5/10 A girl commits suicide in the first episode. A woman is found in a pool of blood. A man shoots himself in the head.
Sex: 2/10 None. Suggestion of yuri and a girl getting dressed post coitus, but no nudity, and both scenes could almost be overlooked.
Swearing: Mild
My favourite anime.
Soul Eater (Series)
Action fantasy
A school for death Gods allows its paired student teams of reapers and living weapons to graduate school only once they have killed enough demons
Gore: 5/10 Frequent and fairly mild at first, but the violence builds as the series progresses, with one character constantly being pierced by the black blood in their veins, and it only gets worse from there.
Sex: 5/10 Very suggestive. In the first episode an overweight demon wearing a spiky thong attacks a woman and later the protagonist finds himself catapulted through a window head first between the giant breasts of a witch in her bath tub.
Swearing: Mild
Notable scene: I was actually creeped out by a scene where a man pulls his skin back on.
Spirited Away (Movie)
Supernatural fantasy
A young brat takes a detour with her parents on the way to their new home, but ends up trapped in the world of spirits and forced to take a cleaning job at the underworld's bath house.
Gore: 2/10 None to speak of, save a dragon bleeding rather profusely after having his mouth cut
Sex: 0/10 None
Swearing: None
Sumomomo Momomo (Series)
Romantic ninja comedy
This unpronounceable anime is about a powerful heir to a ninja clan, Momoko, who has to marry the heir of an ally clan in order to have strong children. Unfortunately said ally heir, Koshi, is a weak high school student with a love of law and no interest in either her or martial arts. She falls in love with him at first sight.
Gore: 7/10 Slapstick violence mostly but very frequent.
Sex: 5/10 Momoko is constantly trying to get Koshi into bed. No hardcore sex and no nudity but sexual innuendo is rife. There is also a masked character who runs round in an S&M outfit defeating wrong doers, which constantly comes undone to reveal more and more flesh but never quite enough to push this up another age rating
Swearing: Mild
Tekkon Kinkreet (Movie)
Gangster fantasy
Homeless boys in a slum city have the odd ability to fly which they often use to escape the local Yakuza
Gore: 7/10 Quite violent, guns fights, beating yougn children
Sex: 5/10 Some nudity with a stripper but scenes are brief
Swearing: Moderate
Welcome to the NHK (Series)
Psychological comedy drama
Hikikomori are urban hermits (unemployed, not in education shut ins). The shows protagonist Sato is one such sad excuse for a human being, convinced his state in life is caused by a secret organisation known as the NHK, a conspiracy that Sato's 'talking' furniture regularly agrees with. After a chance and humiliating meeting with Misaki and an old high school friend, Yamazaki, Sato begins his torturous climb from his wallowing pit of self pity.
Gore: 1/10 Some slapstick or cartoon-ish (such as dragon being ripped apart in an on line game)
Sex: 5/10 Regular illusions to pornography and masturbation are made, with some semi-nude women appearing, usually on magazine covers.
Swearing: Moderate
Wicked City (Film)
A demon hunter and a demon is asked to guard an important diplomat, that hopes to bring a longer period of peace between humans and demons.
Gore: 7/10 Gun violence, exploding bodies
Sex: 7/10 Softcore, rape, prostitutes, a vagina with teeth
Swearing: Heavy
Dystopian drama
In a cyberpunk future, a special branch of police are assigned to deal with rogue Boomers (biological androids), which often malfunction when their rigid programming begins to conflict with their overlooked humanity.
Gore: 8/10 Plenty. Blood is common, as is strong physical violence and gun fights
Sex: 6/10 Lots of references and sexual degradation. One character has sudden impulses to kill or masturbate, and, surprisingly, seems to prefer going for the former.
Swearing: Heavy in dubbed version
Akira (Movie)
Dystopian drama
A crumbling, futuristic Tokyo is over run by biker gangs and violence, but a government operation plans to make matters worse by using this turbulent time to create a, somewhat unreliable, telepathic super soldier.
Violence: 10/10 Frequent, gory, dismemberment, exploding bodies.
Sex: 5/10 Some nudity, suggested rape.
Worst scene: The gargantuan, bloating mutation at the end.
Swearing: Heavy
Ah! My Goddess (Series)
Fantasy romance
An incredibly clumsy and good natured young man becomes so unlucky, that the fabric of time itself feels it has to step in and balance things out by sending Belindi, a Goddess, to offer him one wish. Stupidly he doesn't take it seriously and he wishes for her to stay by him forever, a wish that is immediately granted and all manner of calamity ensues, beginning with the small fact that women aren't allowd in the protagonists flat.
Gore: 1/10 Occassioanl slapstick.
Sex: 1/10 Romance
Amon : Apocalypse of Devilman part (Movie)
Horror drama
Huamn's have become aware of the existence of demons who disguise themselves in human form and a series of horrific witch hunts has began with indiscriminate killing and violence before the demons themselves even show up.
Gore: 10/10 An incredibly violent piece. Decapitation with head paraded on a stick, a young child being pinned head first against a stair by an arrow, mutilation.
Sex: 4/10 Non especially but their are allusions to sexual violence and mild nudity
Noteable scenes: The breasts of bee humanoid demons are very nutricous to Devilman.
Apocolypse Zero (Series)
In a world wrecked from modern warfare a young, stoic martial artist and owner of a powerful bio-tech fighting suit joins a school that continues to run despite society and the city in ruins. He plans to protect the students from the wanderign mutant beasts of the apocolyptic wasteland, most of whom were manufactured by his powerful older brother who has a deep hatred for all human life.
The anime is ludicrously but wonderfully stupid.
Gore: 10/10 Disgustingly over the top gratuitous gore, very frequent. A girl's inards are squeezed through her mouth by a giant woman in bondage gear in the very first episode.
Sex: 7/10 Nothing especially graphic, but there is some upper female nudity, and most of the mutants have sexualised attacks such as queening someone to death, and penis's oftenused as weapons.
Notable moment: 'Double Big Tit Bomb Attack' was fairly amusing. The sheer OTT of it all was enough to keep me watching, but the reviews I've read of this short series makes me feel like I'm the only person to have actually watched it all the way through.
Language: Moderate
Azumanga Daioh
Comedy
Chiyo-Chan, a 10 year old child prodigy, joins a high school and is the sanest of the teachers and her fellow students in this slice of life comedy. Sweet as hell.
Gore: 1/10 Occassional slapstick
Sex: 5/10 Yuri school girl crush. And Kimura-sensei. A bespectacled, slightly hunched teach with a constantly hanging lower jaw, who, when first asked why I wanted to be a teach screeches 'Because I like high school girls!' He openly parades his fetish and constantly attempts to get the girls to wear gym wear. Suprisingly he has a beautiful wife and despite being a massive perv does not act on it.
Swearing: None in dubbed, mild in subtitled.
Bastard! (Series)
Action fantasy
This subtely named anime is about a powerful warrior soceror, trapped in the body of young laundry boy, who can only be freed by a kiss from the older woman he likes. After said, kiss the long, haired magical anti-hero appears who may or may not save the day depending on his mood.
Gore: 8/10 Flying spurts of blood, sword fights, magic fights.
Sex: 6/10 Nothing explicit but plenty of stragecically placed shadows.
Swearing: Moderate
Battle Programmer Shirase (Series)
Comedy
A lone geek is hired by different companies and government agencies to save them from cyber sabotage with an understanding of programming and TCP/IP that would make a real programmer's head explode in sheer agitated horror.
Gore: 0/10 None
Sex: 7/10 Eh... Shirase fancies his niece and she has the same feelings. His niece is 12 years old. She looks about 9. They constantly find themselves in accidental, purely innocent positions, reeking of sexual innuendo, just in time to be seen by random men, who decide to pretend ignorance rather than have Shirase arrested, just to fulfill their own programming needs.
Notable scene: The world's scariest transvestite appears at one moment.
Swearing: None
Berserk (Series)
Medieval fantasy
A lone warrior, Guts, a powerful but kind hearted and slightly dim man is enlisted into a band of mercenaries by their enigmatic leader Griffith. The stories shows Guts attachement to the group and a dramatic and tragic fall into madness.
Gore: 7/10 As much as you'd expect givent eh story line, sword wounds, grand battles and torture.
Sex: 5/10 Soft core scenes, full nakedness with shadows in just the right places, rape and a few mentions of pedophilia.
Black Jack: The Movie
Drama
A highly skilled but unlicensed surgeon is called into help with an odd disease that creates flawed super humans.
Gore: 7/10 Some very graphic medical scenes
Sex: 0/10
Best line: "She wined him and dined him and convinced him to take part in a series of intricate medical investigations of his brain"
Swearing: Mild
Bleach (Series)
Supernatural Comedy Drama
A young man, with ESP, finds himself with the power of a death God after his home is attacked by giant undead spectres.
This is similar to Naruto in its popularity.
Gore: 5/10 Frequent but fairly mild, some blood.
Sex: 5/10 in the original Japanese, 2/10 in the Dubbed. The Japanese has explicit references to lesbianism, voyeurism and incest. The "worst" scene in the dubbed is a magical cat who transforms back into its human form but forgets its clothes and has the protagonist screaming in horror for her to get some clothes on, nudity unseen.
Over all Bleach is the slightly more mature version of Naruto, not because of violence or sexuality but purely for storyline and the intended demographic of slightly older children.
Swearing: Moderate in subbed, none in dubbed
Blood: The Last Vampire (Movie)
Horror
Vampires terrorise an American army base in Japan, a school girl vampire killer is called in to fix the problem
Gore: 9/10 Slit wrists, mutilated corpses and blood sucking
Sex: 0/10 None.
Swearing: Mild
Bible Black (Series)
Hentai
A school delves into sexual rituals in order to invoke the powers of the occult. Or the biggest catalog of fan service I've ever seen.
Gore: 5/10 Plenty of bondage and sexual violence
Sex: 10/10 Futunari, lesbianism, S&M, occult rape, enemas you name it its got it.
Swearing: Heavy
Notable bits: They should have fired who ever did the colouring on this damn thing.
Candy Boy (Series)
Comedy romance (incest)
Two sisters go to college. They fancy each other. They try to figure out how to tell each other this, all the while trying to ignore an obsessive younger class mate who fancies the younger sister.
Gore: 1/10 No gore, occasional slapstick violence of bopping each other on the head.
Sex: 4/10 No actual nudity, any reference to sex is usually childlike, with one sister joyfully asking the other if she could have her breasts as a birthday present rather than her own.
Swearing: None
Notable bits: This is another one of those gaps in Japanese and Western culture. In a western context we'd probably have the sisters killing themselves or each other reminding you, in case you'd forgotten, that incest = bad, but this is actually a rather sweet little romance and comedy of errors.
Card Captor Sakura (Series)
Supernatural, comedy, children series
A 10 year old school girl accidentally lets loose the spirits of a pack of tarot cards and spends the entire series fighting to get them back.
Gore: 0/10 None
Sex: 4/10 A slightly odd one this. In the Japanese version, Sakura's female school friend, who makes her all manners of lavish outfits to wear, clearly has a crush on her and openly videotapes Sakura going about her day to day life. In the English version the girl crush is removed but the 10 year old school girls are given late teen voice actors, which seems infinitely more creepy.
Swearing: None in subbed or dubbed
Cowboy Beebop (Series)
Action drama
Futuristic space bounty hunter with a wonderful sound track. Gun fights, drugs, and martial arts galore.
Gore: 7/10 Frequent
Sex: 4/10 Allusion mostly.
Swearing: Mild
Cromartie High School (Series)
Comedy
A surreal comedy series about a normal student who joins a school of delinquents. Fellow students include an ape, a robot and a silent character who looks like Freddy Mercury. The plot is non existent.
Violence: 2/10 Sheer slapstick
Sex: 2/10 Some off colour jokes and one allusion to rape which is quickly ended by a student on a sentient motorbike with the power of flight.
Swearing: Moderate
Death Note (Series)
Supernatural detective drama
Third only to Bleach and Naruto in popularity
A hyper intelligent and bored student finds a notebook that will kill a person if you write their name in it. After a massive, and unexplainable, killing spree of criminals who escaped justice, a hyper intelligent detective is called in, in a truly epic battle of wits.
Gore: 3/10 Mostly suggestive, the last episode is excessively gory however
Sexuality: 3/10 Mostly suggestive. Rape and sexual violence is mentioned.
Swearing: Mild
Dokuro-Chan (Series)
Comedy
A young high school student lives with an incredibly violent angel with a metal spiked bat, Dokuro-chan, who, thankfully, has the gift of resurrection. Her mission is to stop him from angering God in the future when he creates an anti-aging device that prevents women growing beyond the age of twelve.
Gore: 8/10 Whilst slapstick the violence is gratuitous almost to the point of disturbing, with the main character regularly disemboweled, decapitated and strangled to death before being brought back to life by an apologetic Dokuro-chan.
Sex: 5/10 No actual nudity, but plenty of suggestion, mentions of pedophilia and lots of fan service.
Swearing: Mild
Doomed Megalopolis (Series)
Supernatural drama/horror
A black magician wishes to resurrect the Guardian of Tokyo in order destroy the city.
Gore: 8/10 Plenty, dramatic and fantastic, and very bloody fight sequences.
Sex 7/10 Female nudity, rape and incest (all at the same time).
NOT SUGGESTED FOR CHILDREN, though oddly this is the first anime I saw when I was 11. God bless you Channel 4.
Swearing: Mild
Doujin Work (Series)
Comedy
A young woman decides to make her fortune by making doujin art (a type of manga), forgetting the small fact she knows nothing about the business and can barely draw.
Gore:1/10 None aside from slapstick and nose bleeds
Sex: 6/10 No actual nudity but plenty of references as the protagonist and her friends mostly deal in romantic manga. Some scenes of clothed bondage and yaoi appear. Also, notably there is one character called Justice, seemingly in his mid twenties, with an 8 year old girlfriend. He does not have a sexual relationship with her but he is clearly biding his time.
Swearing: Mild
Ebi-chu Cleans the House (Series)
A lazy and unhappy office worker, with a womanising boyfriend, has her home looked after and her life constantly sabotaged by Ebi-chu, her five inch tall, talking hamster.
Gore: 7/10 Ebi-chu is constantly beaten for her impropriate comments by her master and her boyfriend, and whilst this is pretty slapstick, the bruises, blood and sheer amount of violence borders on the disturbing.
Sex: 7/10 Includes: masturbation, dildo's, hard-ons, soft core sex, exposed genitals, underwear theives, screaming manko (pussy) often and loudly, beastiality, sex games and premature ejaculation. Great fun.
Swearing: Heavy
Favourite scene: Whilst Ebi-chu's master is strolling along a crowded beach in a bikini, being admired by all the men around her, Ebi-chu loudly warns her 'MASTER! Your pubes are sticking out!"
NOT RECCOMENDED FOR CHILDREN
Eiken (Series)
Comedy
A clumsy boy finds himself forced into an all girl's club after accidentally groping one of its members.
Gore: 1/10 None unless you consider flying crotch attacks violent
Sex: 9/10 There is no actual nudity per say, but the story itself is pure fan service, with gratuitous underwear shots and most scenes centring purely on the ludicrously over sized breasts of the female characters.
NOT SUGGESTED FOR CHILDREN. Or anyone who wants a storyline
Swearing: Mild
Elfen Lied (Series)
Sci-fi drama
A girl with horns breaks out of a high security laboratory, killing all who stand before her, only to fall off a cliff and be washed ashore into the care of two kind locals.
Violence: 10/10 Almost unbelievably violent, dismemberment, eye gouging and exploding bodies are common throughout all episodes.
Sex: 8/10 Plenty of frontal nudity, pedophilia and suggested rape.
Notable scene: When Lucy does when asked to come back to the research centre.
Swearing: Heavy
Ergo Proxy (Series)
Dystopian drama
Set in a cold and bleak future, a woman in a consumerist 'utopia' delves too deep in to a government conspiracy and finds herself amongst monsters.
Gore: 8/10 Heavy, lots of fight scenes, gun battles and murder
Sex: 1/10 Barely none, some sexual frustration but no actual nudity unless you count neo-classical statues.
Swearing: Mild
Evangelion Series and Films (Series)
Sci-fi mech drama
A world restored after the apocalypse is constantly attacked by giant beings known as angels, only organic super mechs can stop them, and only 15 year old children can pilot them.
The series almost appears as a children's programme in its first episode but dramatically darkens as the series progresses.
Gore 9/10 Constant. Violence is at first against mechs only, but graphic violence against humans increases as the series goes on.
Nudity 3/10 In series. 9/10 nakedness in the film. Allusions to masturbation, incest, pedophilia and rumpy pumpy in both.
Swearing: Heavy/moderate
Excel Saga (Series)
Comedy
An ADHD psycho girl and a immortal woman, who dies and resurrects constantly, try to take over the city for the ACROSS organisation; an immigrant worker is stuck between life and death and forced to be the consort of a time and space anomaly; a dog desperately fights against her fate of becoming her master's emergency food ration and a suited man in an afro weaves in out of the story for no obvious reason then to cause as many explosions as he can. I still have no idea what the storyline is. The final episode was created for the specific purpose of trying to get itself banned and it did quite well.
Gore: 8/10 Plenty slapstick, dismemberment and heavy duty weaponry is common
Sex: 8/10 Plenty and eccentric, one characters is an unashamed pedophile. Some nudity in the final episode.
Swearing:Heavy
NOT SUGGESTED FOR KIDS
Fake (Film)
Romantic comedy
Two detectives, Ryo and Dee, go for a holiday to the English countryside, which is unexpectedly plagued by viscous murders, all of which inconveniently gets in the way of Dee's plans to get in Ryo's pants.
Sex: 4/10 Yaoi. No real nudity and Dee's attempts to seduce Ryo all fail. There is one mention of a sexual murder however, but this is not explicitly shown either.
Gore:3/10 None, some suggestion and and a vague description of the above sexual murderer.
Notable scene: The "crash through window motorbike surprise attack"
Swearing: Mild
Fist of the North Star (Series)
Apocolyptic martial arts drama
The world has been ruined by man kinds hubris (again) and violent gangs hunt the sparse clusters of humanity left behind. A martial artists travels the land looking for his lost lover, beatign gangs as he goes using a clan technique that makes peoples bodies explode by hittign pressure points.
Gore: 8/10 An incredibly violent anime with said exploding of guts and heads to be quite frequent.
Sex: 4/10 Mostly some suggestions to rape, but nothing hardcore (Whilst since I've seen this though)
Notable bits: The dubbed voice acting on this is hilariously awful.
Full Metal Alchemist (Series)
Fantasy comedy drama
Two orphan's, one with metal limbs, the other a soul tied to a suit of armour, travel the world learning alchemy in the hope of restoring their bodies.
If your kids watched Naruto, One Piece and Bleach, then this is the next step up. FMA plays itself as a cutesy anime close to the aforementioned series, but it is surprisingly dark and disturbing in places.
Gore: 4/10 Infrequent and never quite graphic but often disturbing. The first scene sums this up quite nicely, with a short and unclear glimpse of a hideous, upside half dead thing with a shuddering jaw as the result of an experiment gone wrong.
Sex: 1/10 Very occasional suggestion.
Notable scene: The after math of character being blown to pieces shows a stain on a wall of what appears to be a brain complete with stem above the explosive mess.
Swearing: Mild
Gantz
Sci-fi action drama
A cowardly high school student reluctantly helps his primary school friend when a drunk falls on some rail tracks, then promptly gets hit by a train for his trouble. Both young men suddenly find themselves in a small flat with other deceased individuals, as well as a giant black ball which offers them extraterrestrial assassination jobs in return for money and the return of their lives.
Gore: 8/10 Plenty, decapitated heads and attempted rape occur in the first episode. The 'I shoot you and two seconds later the area suddenly explodes' gun appears later. Bullying, child abuse and graphic beatings are common place.
Sex: 7/10 Attempted rape and a completely naked, unfeasibly breasted girl appears in the first episode. The protagonists embarrassing hard-ons turn up throughout.
Swearing: Heavy
Notable moments: 'I give you my spring onion'
Genocyber (Series)
Sci-fi drama
Two sisters combine to become a fearsome cyber weapon, but wish to escape the oppressive laboratory where they were created.
Gore: 10/10 Possibly the most damned violent thing I've seen. Dismemberment, decapitation, graphic destruction of bodies through gun fire, graphic ripping apart and rearranging of body parts into some truly terrifying bio war suits.
Sex: 1/10 Barely any (yet). I have not watched all episodes but to be honest.
Swearing: Heavy
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN
Notable scene: The female borg's transformation in episode 1
Ghost in the Shell (Film)
Sci-fi drama
A 99% prosthetic cyborg special service agent, Motoko, becomes fascinated with a cyber hacker.
Gore: 10/10 A body explodes in the first five minutes.
Sex: 7/10 Full frontal nudity is shown, but the body is that of a cyborg, so though the character has breasts she has no genitalia. Sex is somewhat absent from the film and nudity is presented with the a sexless detachment, like you'd expect for naked statues in a gallery.
Swearing: Moderate
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (Movie)
Sci-fi drama
A jaded cyber detective investigates the odd behavior of some malfunctioning sex androids
Gore: 6/10 Slightly more suggestive than its predecessor, the violence in this movie is committed mostly against robots.
Sex: 4/10 Again more the suggestive, nudity is kept to androids this time but there is also allusions to pedophilia.
Swearing: Moderate
Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex 1 & 2 (Series)
Sci-fi drama
Motoko, a cyborg, and her heavily prosthetic special service team fight cyber-terrorism. Prequel to the orginal Ghost in the Shell and Inncoence
Gore: 7/10 Frequent violence.
Sex: 2/10 Rare, no real nudity. Mostly sexual references.
Swearing: Moderate
Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society (Movie)
Sci-fi drama
Motoko and her team investigate disappearing children. Prequel to the films.
Gore: 2/10 Mostly suggestive
Sex: 1/10 None
Swearing: Moderate
Golden Boy (Series)
Comedy
A clumsy and fairly horny young man, with an oversized IQ, goes out into the world with only his trusty bike to gain new jobs and learn new things. He fancies every woman he meets.
Gore: 1/10 Occasional fights but nothing gory.
Sex: 7/10 Mostly illusion and suggestion, flies being undone, a digitized crotch when swimming trunks come lose and nipples visible through clothing. One woman also seems to be masturbating on her motorcycle.
Swearing: Moderate
Grave of the Fireflies (Movie)
War film/tear jerker
Story of two orphans surviving life during world war two in Japan after their mother is killed in an air raid.
As an anti-war film this is particularly powerful, and the story is pretty heart breaking. May upset small children and adults.
Gore: 6/10 Graphic scene of a woman in bandages, badly burned, with maggots on her skin. Images of corpses.
Sex: 0/10 None
Swearing: Mild
Happy Lesson (Series)
Romantic comedy
An orphaned high school student is reluctantly adopted by five of his female teachers, each of which sport typical romantic anime personalities. A tomboy, a creepy science geek who experiments on people agianst their will, a temple maiden, a semi-loli and the girl next door. All of which he trys his best to keep a secret from the inquisitive classroom rep who secretly fancies him.
Violence: 1/10 the usual occassional slapstick as often occurs in this kind of anime
Sex: 4/10 Lots of innuendo between him and his teacher/mothers, nothing explicit.
Swearing: Mild
Hellsing (Series)
Vampire drama
An English Protestant organization takes on a young police officer after she is transformed into a vampire by their resident, snappily dressed and powerful blood sucker Alucard (Who isn't Dracula. Honest)
Gore: 8/10 Very violent. Gun fights, stabbing copious bleeding
Sex:5/10 No nudity, but plenty of sexy lingerie.
Notable scene: A woman's head falling off is NOT a pleasant sight
Swearing: Moderate
Judge (Movie)
Fantasy drama/horror
A karmic judge dishes punishments to characters who've done unspeakable deeds. His executions are hindered by the sudden arrival of a cosmic defense lawyer.
Gore: 7/10 Very violent, often to the point of pure spectacle
Sex: 5/10 Some suggested and some soft core
Notable scene: Japanese ghosts are often filled with crabs it seems.
Swearing: Heavy
Kakurenbo (Movie)
Horror
Title means "Hide and Seek". A group of children wearing fox masks venture into an abandoned part of town to play a forbidden game.
Gore: 1/10 Non especially, but some scenes may scare small children, and a scene of a child being used as a battery may seem a little disturbing to some.
Sex: 0/10 None
Swearing: None
Legend of the Overfiend (Series)
Hentai drama
An ancient prophesy promises to bring together the world of beasts, men and demons when the overfiend, a powerful being, is born. One of the more famous examples of 'tentacle porn'
Gore: 8/10 Beatings, exploding bodies, vaporizing people, sexual violence.
Sex: 10/10 Rape, masturbation, cunnilingus and tentacle porn is all common in this.
Swearing: Heavy
Notable scene: The semen of the overfiend's dad either impregnates you or causes your body to explode. Considered quite a misogynist piece of work. And I'm inclined to agree.
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN
Loveless (Series)
Romantic fantasy drama
An underage boy, Ritsuka, who lives in a universe where having cat ears denote that you're still a virgin (I don't get it either), is suddenly contacted by a very earless young man who claims to be his dead brother's lover and magical fighting partner and now wants to partner with him to fight enemies. He also has sweets and puppies in his van.
Gore: 6/10 Found in the magical battles and physical abuse of Ritsuka by his mother.
Sex: None explicit but plenty of references to sex and some to rape. There's also the cat ear thing. And the yaoi pedophilia bit.
Notable bits: This whole series is very, very wrong on so many levels.
Swearing: Moderate
Howl's Moving Castle (Movie)
Fantasy
Witches and Wizards fantasy set in a Victorian like age
Gore: 1/10
Sex: 2/10 you see the barest glimpse of bare backside at one comedic point
Swearing: None
Kiki's Delivery Service (Movie)
Fantasy
A cutesy witch's coming of age tale.
Gore: 0/10
Sex: 0/10
Swearing: None
Kite (Movie)
Action drama
A young girl turns into an assassin for her policeman lover
Gore: 10/10 Shed loads, very action packed, very violent
Sex: 10/10 Hardcore sex, suggestive incest and pedophilia.
NOT RECOMMEND FOR CHILDREN
Swearing: Heavy
Mezzo Forte (Movie)
Action drama
A spiritual successor to Kite, with similar themes of assassins and sexual violence but “slightly” more light hearted.
Gore: 10/10 Constant
Sex: 10/10 Hardcore, rape, full frontal nudity male and female.
Swearing: Heavy
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN
Mezzo DSA (Series)
Action comedy drama
A series sequel to the events of Mezzo Forte. The Dangerous Services Agency specialises in the jobs most mercenaries aren't stupid enough to take. An android specialist, an ex-cop with connections, an under age martial arts expert and a shy 12 year old make up the cast.
Sex: 5/10 Mostly references, none of the hardcore nudity of the film of similar name.
Violence: 7/10 Frequent.
Swearing: Moderate
Midori (Film)
A distrubing film about an orphan, Midori, forced to join a circus full of perverts and abusive freaks. A glimmer of hope appears for her in the form of a mysterious dwarf magician.
Gore: 7/10 Frequent and often unsettling, bodies are twisted into grotesque shapes in one scene, sexual violence is common, a woman is eaten from the crotch upwards by rats.
Sex: 7/10 Lots of nudity, including of a very young looking Midori, rape and sexual orgies appear.
Swearing: Moderate
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN
Mnemosyne (Series)
Fantasy drama
Two immortals run a detective agency, living their eternals days in constant fear of 'Angels', their deformed and violent male counterparts.
Gore: 10/10 A woman is gunned down in the first ten minutes of the first episode. Extreme torture and mutilation.
Sex: 9/10 No hardcore, but plenty of nudity, softcore and sexual violence.
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN
Swearing: Moderate
Monster (Series)
Thriller
A surgeon tries to correct his mistake when he realises a boy he agreed to save has grown into a monster.
Gore: 8/10 Lots.
Sex: 5/10 More suggestive.
Swearing: Moderate
Mushi-shi (Series)
Fantasy
A mysterious white haired man travels Japan helping people with infestations of mushi, mysterious creatures beyond plant or animal, that are often mistaken for miracles or ghosts by villagers.
Gore: 2/10 No violence but some supernatural attacks might frighten children, such as an entire village of people suddenly turning into crumbling moss or strange sludge crawling from a girl's empty eye sockets.
Sex: 0/10 None
Swearing: None
My Neighbor Totoro (Movie)
Fantasy
A father and his two daughters move into an old farm house infested with dust bunnies and soon discover their neighbor is a giant tree spirit. An innocent and cutesy tale. Recommended for children and adults.
Gore: 0/10
Sex: 0/10
Swearing: None
Natsume Yuujinchou (Series) Second series has 'Zoku' on the front.
Supernatural fantasy
The grandson of a woman who collected the names of yokai, and has more than a passing resemblence to her, inherits the Book of Friends that contains them. A huge fox disguised as a fat house cat serves as his guardian and confidant as he frees trapped spirits whilst exorcising others.
Gore: 3/10 Some, bruising and violently throwing characters around appears occasionally, but nothing gory. Small children (and adults) may find some of the ghosts scary.
Sex: 1/10 None, some examples of gender bending.
Swearing: Mild
Naruto (Series)
Ninja comedy drama
Most of you will have heard (been bombarded) with this little nugget, which is why I'm going to say a bit more about it.
A clan of Ninja's sell their services to neighboring countries.
Gore: 6/10
Some scenes are abundant with gore but most have these have been toned down in the American release. An instance early on in the series involves a man, with both upper limbs broken and skewed with several spears, killing a large group of thugs with only a knife between his teeth. Another includes a different man having both his arms broken and then publicly executed after daring to go up against the local town thugs, the scene itself cuts away from the actual violence but the man's purple arms and facial bruises are visible. Deespite this the anime is directed towards the younger market in Japan and these acts of violence have a moral purpose, never are thee for spectacle alone. Other moments of violence throughout the series follow this pattern.
Sex: 4/10 Naruto's first episode features the main character, Naruto oddly enough, performing a ninja trick of transformation by shape shifting himself into a naked woman with strategically placed clouds to give his teacher a heart attack and promptly gets detention for it, a trick he uses occasionally throughout the series for comic effect. Another scene involves him angrily glaring at a school rival, Sasuke. Another classmate accidentally knocks Naruto forward, with Naruto and said rival locking lips for a second, leading to all the girls in the class threatening to kill Naruto for stealing Sasuke's first kiss. This scene was edited in the American version with the actual kiss removed but the smooching sound remaining. The scene is somewhat over censored in my opinion, Naruto, does not especially promote or mock homosexuality, and the scene is merely a bumbling comedy of errors moment made more important by over cautious editing.
Swearing: Moderate in subbed. None in dubbed.
Negima (Series)
Comedy fantasy
A ten year old wizard is given the task of teaching a group of teenagers in an all girl school. The suspected hilarity ensues.
Gore: 3/10 Bops on the head, bullying and slapstick violence.
Sex: 5/10 Perhaps a little bit too much for younger children. Some fan service, exploding boobs, and, whilst there's no direct nudity, one girl accidentally gets her knickers blown off whilst wearing a short skirt just in time for a teacher to get a huge eye full.
Swearing: Moderate in subbed. None in dubbed.
Nekojiru or Cat Soup (Movie)
Surreal fantasy
After nearly drowning in a bath tub, a humanoid cat visits the underworld and finds the reaper taking his sister away. Only able to grab half her soul before being resuscitated, the rest of the film is spent trying to find the missing half.
The films imagery is disturbing and surreal.
Gore: 5/10 Not terribly gory, a man's arms and legs are snipped off but it's done in Tom and Jerry style. A sketchy animation sequence also shows people being executed by close range firing squad.
Sex 2/10 None really, though a maniac in Micky Mouse ears and spiked thong, brandishing a giant pair of scissors may raise some eyebrows.
Swearing: None
Ninja Scroll: The Movie
Ninja and supernatural drama
A Ninja clan and a lone mercenary war with a group of sorcerers to prevent a demon from coming to power.
Gore: 9/10 Over the top and frequent, decapitation, slicing people apart, someone is almost head butted to death.
Sex: 9/10 Plenty. Sexual assault, soft care sex scenes and nudity are rife.
Swearing: Moderate in subbed
One Piece (Series)
Pirate comedy drama
After a pirate announces where he buried the entirety of his treasure just before his execution, half the population and one particular boy with a stretch Armstrong body, jump on boats and go out in search of it.
Gore: 3/10 Mostly playful, frequent, mild
Sex: 1/10 None
Swearing: Moderate in subbed, mild in dubbed
Paprika (Movie)
Sci-fi fantasy
A new machine allows psychiatrists to go into their patients dreams to help aid therapy, but problems start when the device is stolen and dreams infect reality.
Gore: 2/10 Some, rarely bloody, the sight of a large man falling twenty foot to the ground with a mechanical device clearly growing under his flesh may disturb some.
Sex: 8/10 Plenty of nudity, not necessarily of a sexual nature, hints to homosexuality and transvestism.
Swearing: Moderate
Paranoia Agent (Series)
Psychological drama
A young toy designer feels the pressure of expectations after her last design was a massive hit, feeling isolated and alone she is suddenly attacked by a roller skating boy with a baseball bat. More people are attacked in a similar fashion.
Gore: 3/10 Aside from the actual bat whomping, not much, though plenty of blood goes with it.
Sex: 3/10 Story line includes prostitution and incestuous lust.
Swearing: Moderate
Perfect Blue (Movie)
Psychological thiller
A Japanese idol decides to break away from her cutesy band to become an actress, but her sudden career change and a stalker slowly take its toll on her mind, in this well animated and excellently timed psycho thriller.
Gore: 6/10 Infrequent but brutal stabbings, bludgening and head wounds appear.
Sex: 7/10 Full nudity, an attempted rape and a fake rape scene for film, with the latter being the most disturbgin oddly.
Swearing: Moderate
Notable scene: Mima's Room.
Pet Shop of Horrors (Series)
Horror drama
The mysterious Count D sells rare, exquisite and dangerous pets but always makes his customers sign unusual and strict contracts which remove his responsibility when the customers almost always break the rules, all much to the annoyance of a local Police detective.
Gore: 6/10 A man is eaten a live in the first episode, decapitated heads and corpses appear often.
Sex: 3/10 None really, some heavy romance, but nothing graphic
Swearing: Mild
Pokemon (Series)
Fantasy
A young boy sets out to capture magical creatures to do battle (you don't seriously need more info on this one do you?)
Gore: 0/10 None (sadly, unless you consider Pokemon a glorified cockerel fight)
Sex: 0/10 None
Swearing: None
Pom Poko (Movie)
Fantasy
Shape shifting Japanese raccoons (Tanuki) fight to save their forest from urban development. Gore: 3/10 Occasional, slapstick whomping, Children maybe upset by a man driving his van over a ditch, and a giant bearded head being smashed in two by a van.
Sex: 2/10 (or 10/10 depending on your opinion)
Important info:
Tanuki are a type of Japanese raccoon dog and, according to mythology, have the ability to shape shift. Their most distinguishing feature however is their gigantic testicles, which they can stretch to massive proportions or even use as weapons. The movie incorporates this aspect of the mythology quite matter of factly and although all the male characters sport small little spheres under their cuddly bellies, there is no great attention pulled to them. So much so you can watch much of the film without noticing them until one character expands them to gigantic size to block a wind shield. The dubbed version calls them 'Raccoon pouches' and it down plays it quite well. Most children wouldn't notice, young girls probably less so than boys, and I think, providing you get the dubbed version or you don't mind the more perspective of your children laughing hysterically at the idea of giant scrotums, the movie is hardly traumatizing and the moral story line is a must for children.
Notable scene: The Operation Spectre scene offers a wonderful catalog of the bizarre and eclectic Japanese Yokai (demons and ghouls)
Swearing: None
Porco Rosso (Film)
Mercenary fantasy
A womanising, cyncical sea plane pilot lives his life with the face of a pig and living as a lawless mercenary, often clashing with local law enforemcent and pirates. His life begins to change however with the introduction of a young female mechanic who agrees to fix is damaged plane.
Gore: 4/10 Very little, save one slapsitck bruise fest at the end, when two men dual each other
Sex: 0/10 None
Swearing: Mild
Princess Mononoke (Movie)
Fantasy
Fantasy in which ancient nature Gods fight to stop the invading deforestation of their home from industrialist mankind
Gore: 6/10 Decapitation, limb mutilation and a gun shot through the torso.
Sex: 3/10 None exactly save the mention that most of the female iron workers have been bought from brothels.
Swearing: Mild
Notable scene: Arrows apparently have the power to amputate limbs
Puni Puni Poemy (Series)
Surreal action comedy
An aspiring voice actress living with a team of watch women finds a magical fish that allows her to become a superhero.
Gore: 8/10 Crucifixion, beatings and sexual torture. All slapstick however
Sex: 7/10 No actual nudity, but lots of suggestion, heavy emphasis on female breasts, lesbianism and gangsters who use their irregularly lengthened testicles as chain balls
Swearing: Moderate
NOT SUGGESTED FOR KIDS
Read or Die (Movie)
The aptly named Yomiko Readman is a passionate bibliophile. With dowdy clothes, glasses, clumsyness and the abilty to shape paper into whatever weapon or transportation she wishes, she is given the equally imagnitive code name of 'The Paper'. She, along with a possible yuri love interest Miss Deep (with unfeasible breasts) and a card board cut out tough guy, Drake, are on a mission from the secret service to gain a special book, with the weirdest comic book villains poppping up to try and thwart them.
Gore: 6/10 Enough blood and impaling to avert your child's eyes.
Sex: 3/10 Non especially, there are lesbian undertones between Miss Deep and The Paper which could easily be missed. No imagination is required for Miss Deep's outfit either.
Swearing: Mild
Requiem from the Darkness (Series)
Ghost stories/horror
A children's poet with writers block is inspired to write ghost stories after meeting three demonic, karmic investigators.
Gore: 9/10 The very first scene of the first episode involves someone being bludgeoned to death with a large rock, the first scene of the second involves decapitation and accidental infanticide. Serial killers, cannibalism and pyromania.
Sex: 7/10 Mostly suggestive but include rape, necrophilia, incest.
Swearing: Mild
NOT SUGGESTED FOR KIDS
Rizelmine (Series)
Romantic comedy
A fifteen year old boy with an older woman complex finds himself suddenly and forcefully married via a shady government agency to a cyborg with a 12 year old body and mind.
Gore: 1/10 Only slapstick violence, unless you consider copious nose bleeds to be violent.
Sex: 7/10 Characters include a 17 year old girl with a shotacon fetish who turns into an exhibitionist when she takes her glasses off and a 15 year old with a lolicon obsession and a huge bear panties collection.
Swearing: Mild
Rosario + Vampire (Series)
Fantasy, horror, romantic comedy
A student with bad graves accidentally enrolls in a school exclusively for demons and spirits and instantly falls for the school's vampire.
Gore: 5/10 Nothing especially violent but lots of bullying, some blood shed, throwing characters around.
Sex: 6/10 Loooots of fan service here. Yuri, a succubus, boob groping and the protagonist vampire is viewed nigh on exclusively from behind with a skirt sewn to constantly show her knickers.
Swearing: Mild
Serial Experiments Lain (Series)
Cyberpunk drama
A shy loner finds herself becoming more and more obsessed with the internet and the connection it provides but the deeper she goes the more the world around her literally begins to crumble.
Gore: 5/10 A girl commits suicide in the first episode. A woman is found in a pool of blood. A man shoots himself in the head.
Sex: 2/10 None. Suggestion of yuri and a girl getting dressed post coitus, but no nudity, and both scenes could almost be overlooked.
Swearing: Mild
My favourite anime.
Soul Eater (Series)
Action fantasy
A school for death Gods allows its paired student teams of reapers and living weapons to graduate school only once they have killed enough demons
Gore: 5/10 Frequent and fairly mild at first, but the violence builds as the series progresses, with one character constantly being pierced by the black blood in their veins, and it only gets worse from there.
Sex: 5/10 Very suggestive. In the first episode an overweight demon wearing a spiky thong attacks a woman and later the protagonist finds himself catapulted through a window head first between the giant breasts of a witch in her bath tub.
Swearing: Mild
Notable scene: I was actually creeped out by a scene where a man pulls his skin back on.
Spirited Away (Movie)
Supernatural fantasy
A young brat takes a detour with her parents on the way to their new home, but ends up trapped in the world of spirits and forced to take a cleaning job at the underworld's bath house.
Gore: 2/10 None to speak of, save a dragon bleeding rather profusely after having his mouth cut
Sex: 0/10 None
Swearing: None
Sumomomo Momomo (Series)
Romantic ninja comedy
This unpronounceable anime is about a powerful heir to a ninja clan, Momoko, who has to marry the heir of an ally clan in order to have strong children. Unfortunately said ally heir, Koshi, is a weak high school student with a love of law and no interest in either her or martial arts. She falls in love with him at first sight.
Gore: 7/10 Slapstick violence mostly but very frequent.
Sex: 5/10 Momoko is constantly trying to get Koshi into bed. No hardcore sex and no nudity but sexual innuendo is rife. There is also a masked character who runs round in an S&M outfit defeating wrong doers, which constantly comes undone to reveal more and more flesh but never quite enough to push this up another age rating
Swearing: Mild
Tekkon Kinkreet (Movie)
Gangster fantasy
Homeless boys in a slum city have the odd ability to fly which they often use to escape the local Yakuza
Gore: 7/10 Quite violent, guns fights, beating yougn children
Sex: 5/10 Some nudity with a stripper but scenes are brief
Swearing: Moderate
Welcome to the NHK (Series)
Psychological comedy drama
Hikikomori are urban hermits (unemployed, not in education shut ins). The shows protagonist Sato is one such sad excuse for a human being, convinced his state in life is caused by a secret organisation known as the NHK, a conspiracy that Sato's 'talking' furniture regularly agrees with. After a chance and humiliating meeting with Misaki and an old high school friend, Yamazaki, Sato begins his torturous climb from his wallowing pit of self pity.
Gore: 1/10 Some slapstick or cartoon-ish (such as dragon being ripped apart in an on line game)
Sex: 5/10 Regular illusions to pornography and masturbation are made, with some semi-nude women appearing, usually on magazine covers.
Swearing: Moderate
Wicked City (Film)
A demon hunter and a demon is asked to guard an important diplomat, that hopes to bring a longer period of peace between humans and demons.
Gore: 7/10 Gun violence, exploding bodies
Sex: 7/10 Softcore, rape, prostitutes, a vagina with teeth
Swearing: Heavy
Monday, 4 May 2009
Words to watch out for
This section explores words you may hear in or used to describe a particular anime:
Aho
Impolite way of saying complete idiot
Baka
Regular way of saying complete idiot. Beat your anime watching child round the head if they call you this or the former entry.
Bishojo
Beautiful young girls.
Example:
Love Hina, Negima, Loveless, Candy Boy
Bishonen
Pretty boys. They appear most often in the yaoi category
Examples:
Loveless, Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou
Chibi
Means small, but often used to denote cute loli-esque characters.
Examples:
Rizelmine, Happy Lesson
Ecchi
A little similar to overtly sexual hentai though generally more softcore, from what I've come to understand.
Added info from Blog commenter Niamh,
"Ecchi, as I understand it, was derived from the pronunciation of the letter "H" (being the first letter of the word 'Hentai"). It is often used as a synonym for Hentai, but indeed the material is of a softer nature, i.e. more naughty than sexual. Think of Barbara Windsor of the Carry on films from a western perspective ;)"
Carry on Tentacles.
Futunari: Anime girls who have that little bit extra. Transgendered to be more precise. Mostly found in hentai.
Examples:
Bible Black, Mnemosyne is the only one I can think of that comes close to this in mainstream.
Hentai or H: (Don't pretend you don't know this). Used in the West as a catch all phrase for anime with a high sexual content. Also used to describe a perverted person. Not mainstream.
Example:
Bible Black
Henshin:
Transformation. Characters turn into superheroes. Think superman and Clark Kent. This word doesn't mean anything especially bad but anime that includes this often has slightly ecchi leanings. Dirty Pair, Puni Puni Poemy and Kekko Kamen all have these transformation scenes which generally involves the character dropping all their clothes, before suddenly being robed in some scantily clad superhero outfit (or never putting their clothes back on in the case of Kekko Kamen) and even growing larger breasts and curves. Sailor Moon (dubbed version) and Card Captor Sakura are a bit more innocent when it comes to this transformation scene.
Kawaii
Means 'cute'. Does not necessarily mean anything perverted, and can be used to describe adults as well as children, toys as well as people.
Guro or ero-guro: Meaning the 'erotic grotesque', these animes are not especially common but feature the most extreme images. Sexual torture, scat and dismemberment are quite common. This is mostly found in hentai and manga rather than mainstream anime but it does creep in occasionally.
Example:
Legend of the Overfiend and Mnemosyne includes some guro elements.
Loli/lolicon: Under-aged characters and those who desire them respectively. Pedophilia is often shown with a humorous bent in anime in a way that is deemed unacceptable in the west. Laws regarding Loli hentai are currently being reconsidered in Japan, with the possibility of banning them. I am not entirely sure of its legal status in Western countries.
Example:
Rizelmine, Doujin Work and Dokuro-chan (All non hentai)
Manga
Japanese comics. Where almost all anime is born.
Moe
Whilst basically meaning 'cute', Moe (according to Wikipedia) means 'budding', so can be used to denote cute school girls, but it does not necessarily refer just to younger characters. Considered a slightly more otaku term.
Examples:
Card Captor Sakura, Negima
Nekomimi
Cat girl. Basically girls (or boys) who have cat ears on their heads. Can sometimes have a tail, whiskers and paws but not necessarily. Odd fetish in Japan
Examples:
Loveless, Soul Eater
Nose bleeds
Not a keyword exactly but worth a mention. A nose bleed in anime is a comedy device which denotes sexual desire and frustration. So, say a boy accidentally walks in on a girl changing and he's likely to have a sudden trickle of blood from his nose. I really have no where this phenomenon came from.
Otaku
Obsessive anime and manga fan. Considered very derogatory in Japan, taken to be some kind of status symbol in the West. Think of a comic book geek who sleeps with a cardboard cutout of catwoman and you're barely half way there.
Seinen
Anime directed at adult males: 18-30
Examples:
Monster, Genocyber, Welcome to the NHK
Shonen:
Boy. Also used to describe anime for the young male demographic. Naruto and Bleach were originally serialized as Manga in Shonen Jump, a popular boys magazine.
Examples:
Naruto, Bleach, One Piece
Shota/Shotacon:
Male loli's basically and the older women/men who love them respectively.
Example:
Loveless, Rizelmine, Negima
Shoujo:
Girl. Used also to denote anime aimed at girls (or creepy Western men)
Examples:
Card Captor Sakura, Loveless, Negima
Yaoi:
Boy on boy. Oddly enough, this genre is mostly for Japanese straight girls.
Example:
Fake, Loveless
Yuri:
Girl on girl. More often then not this is used for slapstick reasons in anime, with the high school crush being the most common situation that yuri appears.
Example:
Candy Boy, Bleach, Azumanga Diaoh
Aho
Impolite way of saying complete idiot
Baka
Regular way of saying complete idiot. Beat your anime watching child round the head if they call you this or the former entry.
Bishojo
Beautiful young girls.
Example:
Love Hina, Negima, Loveless, Candy Boy
Bishonen
Pretty boys. They appear most often in the yaoi category
Examples:
Loveless, Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou
Chibi
Means small, but often used to denote cute loli-esque characters.
Examples:
Rizelmine, Happy Lesson
Ecchi
A little similar to overtly sexual hentai though generally more softcore, from what I've come to understand.
Added info from Blog commenter Niamh,
"Ecchi, as I understand it, was derived from the pronunciation of the letter "H" (being the first letter of the word 'Hentai"). It is often used as a synonym for Hentai, but indeed the material is of a softer nature, i.e. more naughty than sexual. Think of Barbara Windsor of the Carry on films from a western perspective ;)"
Carry on Tentacles.
Futunari: Anime girls who have that little bit extra. Transgendered to be more precise. Mostly found in hentai.
Examples:
Bible Black, Mnemosyne is the only one I can think of that comes close to this in mainstream.
Hentai or H: (Don't pretend you don't know this). Used in the West as a catch all phrase for anime with a high sexual content. Also used to describe a perverted person. Not mainstream.
Example:
Bible Black
Henshin:
Transformation. Characters turn into superheroes. Think superman and Clark Kent. This word doesn't mean anything especially bad but anime that includes this often has slightly ecchi leanings. Dirty Pair, Puni Puni Poemy and Kekko Kamen all have these transformation scenes which generally involves the character dropping all their clothes, before suddenly being robed in some scantily clad superhero outfit (or never putting their clothes back on in the case of Kekko Kamen) and even growing larger breasts and curves. Sailor Moon (dubbed version) and Card Captor Sakura are a bit more innocent when it comes to this transformation scene.
Kawaii
Means 'cute'. Does not necessarily mean anything perverted, and can be used to describe adults as well as children, toys as well as people.
Guro or ero-guro: Meaning the 'erotic grotesque', these animes are not especially common but feature the most extreme images. Sexual torture, scat and dismemberment are quite common. This is mostly found in hentai and manga rather than mainstream anime but it does creep in occasionally.
Example:
Legend of the Overfiend and Mnemosyne includes some guro elements.
Loli/lolicon: Under-aged characters and those who desire them respectively. Pedophilia is often shown with a humorous bent in anime in a way that is deemed unacceptable in the west. Laws regarding Loli hentai are currently being reconsidered in Japan, with the possibility of banning them. I am not entirely sure of its legal status in Western countries.
Example:
Rizelmine, Doujin Work and Dokuro-chan (All non hentai)
Manga
Japanese comics. Where almost all anime is born.
Moe
Whilst basically meaning 'cute', Moe (according to Wikipedia) means 'budding', so can be used to denote cute school girls, but it does not necessarily refer just to younger characters. Considered a slightly more otaku term.
Examples:
Card Captor Sakura, Negima
Nekomimi
Cat girl. Basically girls (or boys) who have cat ears on their heads. Can sometimes have a tail, whiskers and paws but not necessarily. Odd fetish in Japan
Examples:
Loveless, Soul Eater
Nose bleeds
Not a keyword exactly but worth a mention. A nose bleed in anime is a comedy device which denotes sexual desire and frustration. So, say a boy accidentally walks in on a girl changing and he's likely to have a sudden trickle of blood from his nose. I really have no where this phenomenon came from.
Otaku
Obsessive anime and manga fan. Considered very derogatory in Japan, taken to be some kind of status symbol in the West. Think of a comic book geek who sleeps with a cardboard cutout of catwoman and you're barely half way there.
Seinen
Anime directed at adult males: 18-30
Examples:
Monster, Genocyber, Welcome to the NHK
Shonen:
Boy. Also used to describe anime for the young male demographic. Naruto and Bleach were originally serialized as Manga in Shonen Jump, a popular boys magazine.
Examples:
Naruto, Bleach, One Piece
Shota/Shotacon:
Male loli's basically and the older women/men who love them respectively.
Example:
Loveless, Rizelmine, Negima
Shoujo:
Girl. Used also to denote anime aimed at girls (or creepy Western men)
Examples:
Card Captor Sakura, Loveless, Negima
Yaoi:
Boy on boy. Oddly enough, this genre is mostly for Japanese straight girls.
Example:
Fake, Loveless
Yuri:
Girl on girl. More often then not this is used for slapstick reasons in anime, with the high school crush being the most common situation that yuri appears.
Example:
Candy Boy, Bleach, Azumanga Diaoh
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