Shut up. I was young and foolish.

So, as you could probably guess, that resolution went out the window a while ago. Now that I've finished it and gotten around to reviewing it, I've had to think and ruminate about it. It's not my favorite series (that still belongs to Escaflowne) but it comes damn close.

One of it's little conciets is that it refers to itself as "the work which will become a new genre in and of itself." That's not entirely true, but it is pretty close. It switches from tragedy to adventure to gang flick to tragedy to mystery to cowboy action and back to tragedy faster than, uh, something that changes really fast (all I could think of was "faster than Madonna changing images" or "faster than something on drugs," but I really don't want to go there; I have to work on my metaphors). It changes so fast that all the changes tend to blend together, creating some sort of strange blend, like a strobe light flickering so fast it ends up being one color.

Alright, so that's an exageration. Like I said, shut up.

There is one constant though, one underlying theme that runs through every episode: "Life sucks, people die."

No, really, I'm not kidding about that part. When you have a bunch of people running around with guns and, more importantly, using them frequently, there's going to be a lot of collatoral damage. There's some sort of tragic scene in most of the serious episodes, and it's usually a death. I don't want to spoil anything, but the last episode ends with Spike going on a bloody one-man raid while the ending theme, Real Folk Blues, is blaring in the background. Somehow, it's all incredibly cool.

Anyway, um, onto the characters. The crew is made up of four people: Spike Spiegel, Jet Black (ha ha.), Faye Valentine, and Radical Edward, or Ed for short. Spike's the main character. He's a super martial artist who likes handguns and grenades. He also has a thing for some woman named Julia. Jet is Spike's partner, and he owns the big ship they all travel in. He also functions as pilot, and is pretty much the only one who's come to terms with his tragic past (they all have one, of course, except maybe Ed). Faye is the big-breasted female lead, who actually manages to not have a romantic relationship with anyone. She spends most of the show just trying to remember her tragic past. Then there's Ed. She's-

Yes, SHE. It's a her. Don't ask why her name is Edward.

Anyway, she's a hacker kid who doesn't operate on the same mental level as everyone else. You might think she's only there for the occasional computer problem and comic relief, and you'd be right. I guess they figured they needed at least one person who didn't constantly brood on her past (although Ed's is sort of tragic. Her father abandoned her to go look at craters. He doesn't even remember if she's a boy or girl. But he can kick Spike's ass, and he uses eggs as weapons, so he's cool).

Well, does all that sound insane? Well, it is. But it's good insane. There are a bunch of episodes that you'll either really like or think are not that great, but there are also a bunch of episodes that are undeniably cool (Ballad of Fallen Angels, Mushroom Samba, and Cowboy Funk). There are some incredibly cool chase scenes too, with four or five groups/people chasing each other. The music is damn good too.

SCORE: 9.5
This doesn't get a ten because of the few episodes I really didn't think were up to par. The rest are verily awsome though.