Ooh it's the first time I'm writing a blog in about two years. Break out the champagne!

Anyway, instead of sports I'm going to talk about anime for once. So has anyone caught the new Full Metal Alchemist? I've sat through 3 episodes so far, and right now I have mixed feelings. Supposedly this new anime is to be based on the manga, but we're not going to see how so until around the Laboratory 5 part I guess. So far though it's been pretty much a summary of the last show, but it's going hell of a lot faster and with a lot more jokes. What gets to me though is that I can't really tell if they're just rushing it, or that the manga really was like this to begin with. It seems that this new show has a much lighter tone in comparison to the first season, and personally I really enjoyed the more emotional atmosphere the first show brought. I've only read a few chapters from the manga so I don't know if it's supposed to get more serious or not, but right now I have to say the original anime trumps what I've seen. I'm hoping it gets better, and I think it will, but right now I'm just a little disappointed. Anyway, I just felt like putting my opinion out there and wanted to see if anyone else had a differing opinion.

Another anime that I'm watching this season is Dragonball Kai. Basically it's the same as DBZ, but it's in HD, the colors have been brightened, the soundtrack has been redone as well as the dubbing, and to top it, it's cutting out all the filler. So basically it's DBZ stripped down from 291 episodes to about 100. So if you're one of those people who hated the "5 minute" battle on Namek, or just plain hated how there was so much talking in DBZ, I highly recommend this series. Even if you're a huge fan like myself, I still would recommend watching it, since the lack of filler reallymakes itquite enjoyable to watch. Yeah, it would be nice to see a completely new Dragonball show, or even DBZ redrawn completely, but from what I've seen I think it's great enough as it is. After watching Dragonball Evolution, it may do all of us some good to rewatch DBZ.

Other than these two, I'm watching Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger which I HIGHLY reccomend, especially if you saw the first show. Bascially it's about a boxer named Ippo and his quest in order to learn what true strength is. The fighting in this show is amazing to say the least, and the jokes do not come any funnier. You may get turned off because it's based on a sport, but believe me this is easily one of the greatest anime around. Every episode is highly entertaining, and the story is absoluley huge. You think One Piece is long? Hajime no Ippo has over 800 chapters and has been going on since the 80's.