Character designs are solid and very cute in Best Student Council, but often girls look the same, but only with different color hair. It's easy to confuse the characters.

Character designs are solid and very cute. One small nitpick about design is that girls who are in the same grade often appear to be the same girl just with different color hair. Normally I wouldn't care if the generality of character design was just in the background characters but I found myself sometimes getting confused with who was who. Then again I suppose a lot of kids the same age tend to look alike since they often wear the same kind of clothes and hairstyles to fit in. There is a definite difference in character design between the older and younger students. This is a nice touch of detail because Miyagami Academy has students from eighth through the 12th grades and it helps to sort out the complicated cast. Fans of RPG's should appreciate all the detail that was put into making each of the characters personalities unique.

The plot line of Rino losing her mother and having to be so reliant on others has the danger of becoming heavy and depressing, but Rino's upbeat personality and her attitude toward others helps to counter any negativity. Rino also seems to have some amazing luck on her side, which is never a bad thing. Some aspects of the plot are downright touching. Such as how at one point Rino fainted and the student council president, Kanade, is caring for her by resting Rinos' head on her lap while unconscious. The first person she sees when she opens her eye is Kanade and Rino mutters how pretty Kanade is and how she looks like her mother. After that Kanade takes special care of Rino and really tries to help her fit in. The show is a lot of fun to watch and should have something to offer for most everyone.

There is a little sexual humor like in the "Payapaya" episode where certain actions are implied but it is nothing that wouldn't make it onto the Cartoon Network. Special features include clean open and ending animation and a character art gallery. The character gallery has the added feature of each character in an alternative outfit, which I always think is a nice touch. Japanese sound track is good with well time subtitles. The English dub sounds a little awkward at times with voices sounding strained when trying to keep up with some of the rapid intensity changes. In the end Best Student Council lets fans take a fun little ride with Rino and her Pucchan as she makes new friends at her amazing new school.

All Air Gear images based on the manga Air Gear by Oh! Great originally serialized in the Weekly SHONEN MAGAZINE published by Kodansha Ltd. © Oh! Great/KODANSHA • Marvelous Entertainment • Avex Entertainment • Toei Animation Released in North America by A.D. Vision, Inc.

As a film student one of the first things a person learns is that it is important to view as much material as possible. And that includes watching not only the best stuff but also the worst stuff as well. After all, how is someone supposed to know what makes a good film if they have never seen a bad film? So when this title landed on my desk the before mentioned lesson popped into my brain. When I saw the cover I immediately thought of Poochie character from The Simpsons and how this title could be an opportunity for me to continually expand my horizons. My first thought was that here is an anime that was created to feebly tap into the extreme sports counter culture that so many crappy children's drink ads try too. But as I fired this one up I realized that I am an idiot. I approached this title not based on its own merit, but rather I saw it through my own cynical and (I hate to admit it) sometimes elitist eyes. Without having any prior knowledge about this anime I let my assumptions guide my opinion. But in the end I was grateful that I got the opportunity to see Air Gear because it rocks.

The first big indicator that Air Gear isn't going to be the average run of mill title is the opening sequence. The opening shot is a dynamic upward view of Tokyo Tower and as the camera pushes in toward the top of the tower the opening music "Chain" by Back-on begins with a pleasant acoustic guitar. That's for the first five seconds, and then the viewer is blind sided by this ferocious electric guitar riff. I was so taken back that I actually restarted the episode to make sure that I wasn't getting any audio signal bleed across the audio inputs of my home theater receiver. Once I was sure that the audio was in fact the opening theme I restarted the disk. To my surprise the opening theme really rocks. It is not often I will hear the first 25 seconds of an opening theme and think "man I hope I can get this sound track." From here on, the tone for this anime was set, and my initial snobby negative opinion of this title was now completely blown and I was ready for more.