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Claymore volume six and Darker than Black volume six finishes off two spectacular series, Paradise Kiss is all kinds of fun, Bleach season three is a thing of complete and utter beauty, Romeo x Juliet forgot it was based off the play, Gungrave can’t keep my interest and Death Note volume two is, in a word, niiiiiice.

Claymore is a show about monsters called yoma and the lovely women that hunt them down and kill them. Yoma are big nasties that can hide in human form, but when they cut loose, not only are they ugly and demonic, they like the taste of human innards. Also, they bleed purple. Claymores are women who have yoma implanted in them to make them a human\yoma hybrid, a warrior engineered to annihilate the yoma threat. Clare is a Claymore, and through the first six volumes of this anime we follow her as she meets a young lad named Raki, learns about the organization behind the Claymores, some truths about the nature of yoma, and discovers the presence of an enemy greater than any yoma imaginable; the Awakened Beings. She also makes a few friends among the claymores, and by the time volume six rolls around, she and her cohorts are in a town called Pieta fighting a horde of Awakened Beings while Clare tries to fine her greatest enemy, the monster that killed her mentor, an Awakened One called Priscilla.

In volume six, everything comes together as the people who made the anime try to close it off in a way that not only is satisfying, but loyal to a manga that keeps going past this point. Though the last two episodes sidestep manga continuity, I think it does a good job of staying loyal to the source material while brining us to a nice, rounded close. As always, Claymore gives us good action with a stellar color palate; the show displays beautiful art on with a silvery sheen, both a little bleak and a lot of beautiful. Volume six really blew me away - especially the last two episodes, which were utterly stellar. Volume six also comes with a mighty fine booklet of art, as well as a little fantastic cluster of bonus features, like commentary. Claymore is a fantastically developed show; excellent action, plot, and character development against fascinatingly beautiful art make it a must watch. I’m sad it’s over.

Also hitting the finish line is Darker than Black in volume six, and though it’s bitter to see this star fall, the fact that a second Darker than Black series is in the works makes it more bittersweet.

The lines are drawn. Everyone has taken a side. Amber and Evening Primrose are on their way to assault the gate, and the syndicate has revealed its true intention - to wipe out contractors for good. What’s Hei to do? Purse the truth about Heaven’s Gate, and what happened to his sister - what he always does. And though it becomes very clear that staying with the syndicate is suicide, going against it isn’t without dangers as well. But Hei and Yin do what they must; they go in the gate, and come face to face with their natures. Even police gal Misaki Kirihara can’t stop hearing November 11’s parting wisdom, and finds the human part of contractors need saving as she, also, comes face-to-face with a very familiar face of the syndicate.

Once the show ends, there is a bonus episode tailor made for fans, in which Hei faces mission difficulties in the form of a fanfic author. The core characters are gathered together once more, and we get to giggle at the antics, swoon a little over Hei’s very attractive collar bones and have a whole lot of fun. Darker than Black was, at its end, a very dark, action-packed show with a puzzle of a plotline that leaves the audience wholly satisfied.

What do you get when you combine fashion, cross dressers, love, and one utterly outlandish dress? Paradise Kiss, of course! The story of a girl with no direction and a designer without a model turns into a shojo tale that will make you laugh, sigh, and dance. Yukari spends her days stressing over test scores and her unrequited love for Tokumori, a classmate. Then she literally runs into a young yakuza-styled punk designer named Arashi in the street, and impressed by her looks, Arashi invites her to model for the line he’s designing with classmates at the student showcase. Originally, Yukari is appalled and wants nothing to do with him, but through a series of little accidents with the sneaky, manipulative hand of the head designer, George, Yukari is pulled in. Is it the friendship that she begins with little pink-haired, Lolita-esque Miwako that convinces her, or her attraction to rich, playboy George that does it? Though the latter is more likely the culprit, Yuakri, or Caroline (as she is called by Miwako), does get involved with the clothing line, Paradise Kiss, and the five main characters (five, you ask? Isabella is the above mentioned cross dresser, a gentle and sweet boy who enjoys being a girl, and another member of the Paradise Kiss team) go through a twelve episode arc that changes all of their lives for the better.

The music for Paradise Kiss is almost as spectacular as the art. “Life in Gorgeous”, the opening theme, is guaranteed to make you want to boogie, and the closing theme, Franz Ferdinand’s “Do You Want To” has the same effect, but it’s the animation of the main characters boogying that really sets it apart. The art for the show is mostly done in blues, which works perfectly. There are a lot of pastels, as well, and yet the show manages to look edgy and not like a televised Easter egg. I loved Paradise Kiss; it was one of those shows that I casually sat down to watch an episode or two and ended up marathoning the entire show.

The Viridian collection is very pretty, with all kinds of excellent bonus features. In the end, though, it’s the show’s shojo storyline, lovable characters and fantastic art that makes this a fantastic set.

And now for something a little less awesome; Gungrave is falls into the category of kinds of anime that typically don’t work well: the video game turned anime. The story of Beyond the Grave (yeah, that’s his name. Stupid, isn’t it?), who is actually Brandon Heat, on a mission to destroy the crime syndicate Millenium after being betrayed by his best friend, Harry MacDowell. Beyond the Grave is a big, ugly sumbitch, and while the show goes through his quest for revenge, we also get flashbacks of his past with Harry and Harry’s betrayal, eventually murdering Brandon, making way for him to be reborn, along with a nasty vendetta.

I watched this show in utter boredom. I know plenty of people who loved the game, and so I had hope for it, but Gungrave really did nothing for me. If you’re a fan of the series, I imagine this box set would be fantastic; it’s very large and pretty, but ultimately, I just couldn’t bring myself to care about the contents.

Bleach. If you’re anything like me, the word damn near gives you chills every time its uttered. Bleach is one of the titles that defines anime right now; it is the apex of shonen anime and manga, a blockbuster series with a manga jumping point that routinely makes it into the top selling manga lists. If you go to a convention, you will see miles of cosplayers strutting around with oversized swords, and the amount of posters, t-shits, plushies, statues, soundtracks or any other merch cranked out for Bleach is staggering. Why? Easy. It’s got enough action to sate any shonen fan, a host of unique characters, a hero that demands your loyalty and love and a storyline that just won’t quit. Fans of Bleach are an obsessive horde, and I am one of them.

Why? The answer can be found in season three, which, oh, look! Just came out on DVD. Season one expertly set up the characters and world, season two set up a massive story arc that was utterly compelling. Season three is the second half of that arc, the tale of Ichigo and crew in the Soul Society with one mission: rescue Rukia from execution. Now that they’re inside the Soul Society and have proved their mettle against the first wave of Soul Reapers, the captains step out and take arms against Ichigo’s band of misfits: Chad, the strong, silent type; Orihime, the sweet gal who also happens to be a knockout and Uryu, the studious type who also happens to be the last in a line of warriors called Quincies.

But it isn’t just these characters that make for a rabid fan base; in the Soul Society, there are many massively powerful warriors who demand attention - Renji, the ginger hothead who wields Zabimaru, Captain Hitsugaya, the little one with ice powers, Kenny, the big brute with the eye patch and Captain Aizen, the soft-spoken one who - oh yeah - was stabbed and pinned to a wall like a trophy.

So the underlying mystery, then, is who killed Captain Aizen? It’s a secret that defines the rest of the series, and the answer will gut the Soul Society, and bring a new world of villains and hollows to the series.

But that isn’t until much later.

Season three was a glorious time for Bleach, when the show matched the anime almost shot for shot, before the days of filler arcs and random mod souls who thrust themselves into places where they shouldn’t be. Not that I don’t like the Bount arc - I do. But where Adult Swim is currently airing episodes, trying to make the mad dash to the Hueco Mundo storyline, the filler episodes are almost painful. Season three, however, doesn’t truck with such nonsense; it’s pure, unadulterated, hard-core action, Bleach as it was meant to be.

They were daunted by their forbidden love, and with house Capulet planning the avenge their downfall and house Montague determined to wipe out the last of the Capulets, they ran away, hoping to make a life of their own. Now, in Romeo X Juliet volume two, these star crossed lovers will go back to Neo Verona to finish what they started and change the world into a place where their love is allowed.

The first half of Romeo X Juliet seemed to revolve thematically around playing with the story, turning everything on its head and seeing what happened. Much like Ganketsuo, it was loyal to the source material in its own fashion, and in that, excellent. In volume two, almost all likeness to Shakespeare’s play goes out the window. Romeo is banished to a mine, while Juliet flees to -you guessed it - Mantua. While they are apart, they both do a good deal of soul searching - Juliet looks towards her own people, while Romeo finds solace in helping the banished men working the mine. But these things must eventually come to an end, and Juliet returns to Neo Verona not as the daughter of Capulet, but as the Red Whirlwind. The Capulets being their siege, and though I won’t tell you how the story ends, I will say this: it is both very like the play, and utterly different. Is that good? I enjoyed it to no end, despite the fact that it strayed too far from the play.

This is an anime that plays on imagery and symbolism for every little thing; the color scheme, the reds and blues, all have meaning, and what’s more, the roses and irises are strategically used. The art is very pretty, and the fantasy elements tossed in make for a very intriguing look, one that I never tired of watching.

Whether you root for Light or L, one thing is certain: Death Note was a revolution in storytelling, a chess match of narratives and motives, an epic that has yet to meet its match. In the second box set we get episodes 21 through to the end, as well as a bonus disc of new extras.

If you bought the individual discs, this set begins at disc six, during the end of the Yotsuba group arc. If you weren’t one of those people who went out and bought every disc individually (me), then this set it utterly worthwhile, as it saves money on the individual discs and has the bonus disc. But that bonus disc, with Japanese voice actor info, original Japanese interstitials, interviews with the animation director and character designer and an extended art gallery make it a tempting purchase for those of us who already own the set. Also, if you’re anything like me, you’re constantly trying to find new space on your DVD shelves - this set will help, and though it seems like a lame excuse to buy a box set, it’s really appealing when you’re looking at buying yet another set of shelves.

Also? It’s very, very pretty.

But then again, aren’t they all?

(Follow Amanda Rush on Twitter @BrokenAmanda to see all her fun anime related rants!)