I've been watching a few different animes over the past few days. For one, I've been rewatching Vision of Escaflowne (currently finished episode 17) while I was working at home. On Mushishi, I'm up to episode 20 and loving it. I've enjoyed Ghost Hunt so far up to episode 11. And I've watched and mostly enjoyed the Animatrix, despite not being a fan of the Matrix universe itself.

I consider Vision of Escaflowne to be one of the greatest classic fantasy animes. Coming out in the same year as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Escaflowne became one of my all time favorite series in a quick hurry with its "just-one-more-episode" style cliffhanger endings and a great execution of several cliched elements; as this Anime News Network review of the VHS box set says:

Vision of Escaflowne is kind of a cross between Never Ending Story, Super Dimension Century Orguss 02, and Record of Loduss[sic] War.

There isn't anything specific about this series that I love. There's Hitomi's anxieties and uncertainties that never quite fall into angst. There's Van's rush to vengeance after his homeland was destroyed, followed by his struggle after he just ruthlessly killed several enemies that have been dogging him. There's Allen's womanizing and his issues with his father. You also have the perfectly insane and over-the-top Dilandau. And there also is the contemplative and tragic villain, Folken. You also have the myth of Atlantis, fortune telling, mecha, knights, nuclear bombs, and fate mixed into a well done epic storyline. Geez, it's hard to pick...

Mushishi has pretty much earned the title of Best Anime of 2006 for me, though I really haven't seen many animes from that year. Its patient and zen-like atmosphere fits perfectly with my tastes, with a touch of horror here and there to mix things up a bit. The show does require you to be contemplative for maximum effect, which may not suit some potential viewers. Though the series is based in an alternate old-Japan style world (with the protagonist, Ginko, being a bit different with some modern looking clothing) and it seems to have a strong environmentalist vibe with the Mushi, I found it to quite subtle and awesome in how it actually talks about human nature and their relationships with each other and their environments. I seem to spot some of the metaphors, strangely enough, though, like when watching Serial Experiments Lain, I seem to forget what they are soon after watching each episode...

Ghost Hunt has been quite enjoyable up to the 11th episode. It is not in the same league as the anime adaptation Fuyumi Ono's other work The Twelve Kingdoms, but from what of the manga that I've read, the anime of Ghost Hunt is not as intense as the manga, which, from what I hear, is quite watered down compared to Ono's original novel. It would be nice if the novels were translated and officially released in the U.S. like her other series. She was known as a horror fiction writer to begin with; horror is essentially about normal people being placed into exceptional situations. If she was a good horror fiction writer, that would explain why I found the fantasy series Twelve Kingdoms to be so great!

To lead off into a different animation, I'm truthfully not a fan of the Matrix movies. I watched the first one and thought it was a fun watch, but there's a fundamental problem I have with the Matrix universe. This was the idea that humans became an "infinite" energy source for the machines in a world that was blocked off from the sun; this is something that completely lacked any kind of plausibility to me and made it difficult to take the movies with any amount of seriousness.

But my attention was peaked by the Animatrix DVD because four of the shorts were made by Studio 4