So far, we’ve seen anime direct download sites dedicated towards distributing EvalPower and C1Anime (both are anime fansub groups) releases. But it seems that those fansubbers are not alone, with Lunar Anime having their own distro site too. It’s more restrictive than the rest, but I guess that’s to be expected given the high demand for Lunar fansubs.

1) Lunar Archive

• Speed: Quite Fast
• Content: Episodes from Lunar-fansubbed anime series, both old (e.g. Aishiteruze Baby, Suzuka, Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi, etc.) and new (e.g. Ouran High School Host Club, REC, etc.)
• Update Frequency: Quite Frequent
• Note: Free registration required (email confirmation required). Only 5 downloads per day.

Please note that clicking an episode for download immediately counts as one of your five daily downloads. So, make sure you use a download accelerator to prevent having to waste your quota to redownload episodes.

P.S.: From now on, I’ll note whether email confirmation is required for complete registration. So, please understand that just because I’ve only started adding this for Lunar Archive does not mean that the rest of the DDL sites I’ve featured do not need email confirmation. Thanks.

Unlike the recently reviewed Da Capo Second Season, I had barely any expectations for Black Cat. While the premise initially seemed pretty interesting, especially after Train Heartnet’s first real friend – Saya –  dies, the plot seemed to be moving towards the standard action-based anime series. A super-powered protagonist, super-powered enemies, and of course, a battle royale at the very end.

But given the relatively large amount of spare time at my disposal, I finished the series, only to find that I had to revise my opinion of the series mid-way into the series. Well, I can’t say that Black Cat was very good (just me I think, since a few other anime bloggers have made it a must watch), but it was much better than I expected. It had an involving plot that continued to introduce new surprises throughout the series (something like Kiddy Grade IMO). The various characters were interesting, music was pretty good, and animation quality was pretty high.

The ending still ended up being rather predictable, with a standard battle royale between the good (sweeper alliance) and the bad (nano-tech-empowered Taoists), but I guess you can’t expect a dramatic about-turn for a predominantly happy series like this. But… I really, really wanted to see Saya reintroduced into the series, somewhere around the end perhaps. Guess she was only meant to push Train towards the side of “good” (that is, if you consider Chronos to be bad).

So, overall, I’d recommend Black Cat as a should watch, but I’d stay away from the R1s.

P.S.: Just like my DCSS review, I’ll attach the screenies later.

Quite a few series I’ve been following ended recently (well… not so recently, maybe about a few weeks back), so I thought I’d post a few thoughts I had about them. I’ll start with Da Capo Second Season because I’ve only found uhmm… 3 or 4 reviews of it so far.

Anyway, Da Capo Second Season somewhat continues where the first season left off, where Nemu has disappeared to nursing school - leaving Junichi open to advances from the rest of the girls in the series. Here, most fans (at least if you read the comments flying around on various anime blogs, e.g. Random Curiosity) actually expected the other Season 1 characters to come into the limelight, especially Kotori, when Nemu left the scene, but a completely new character was focused on instead: Aisia.

As a witch-in-training, Aisia is the only reason there’s a plot in Da Capo SS (not that the first season had much though), as she ends up not only resurrecting the mystical cherry blossom tree, but also dominating almost every part of DCSS. Of course, Nemu was eventually reintoduced to the competition for Junichi’s heart. Not that the competition was very stiff of course, with Nemu very clearly regaining top spot after some misunderstandings with her adopted brother in the middle of this sequel. But besides Junichi and Nemu, no other character was developed as much as Aisia, if at all. A source of irritance for long standing fans of Da Capo definitely, but I found Aisia’s presence to be a nice divergence from the oh-so-obvious Junichi & Nemu ending.

Unlike many DC fans though, I was actually perfectly fine with the Junichi-Nemu ending, probably because I’ve alwas preferred Nemu over the rest of the girls. When Aisia’s reawakening of the tree caused the rift between Junichi and Nemu, I had really, really evil thoughts aimed at cute little Aisia (not unlike another anime blogger).

So, overall, I’d say Da Capo Second Season successfully brings a conclusion to the basic Da Capo plot, with Junichi eventually marrying Nemu in the last episode. But given DCSS’ simplicity or perhaps, lack of plot (IMHO, more plot than the first season though), I can only recommend it to those who have watched the first season of Da Capo, have spare time to “waste”, and are willing to tolerate the Aisia-focus of the series. There are definitely some good episodes within this 26-episode series, but if you’ve watched DCSS, I’m sure you’d agree that 13-episodes would have sufficed.

Another anime direct downloads site for recent fansubs. The episodes available for download are zipped though - possibly in order to prevent automatic streaming on certain browsers.

It shouldn’t be much of a problem though, so check it out:

1) AnimeDDL.com

• Speed: Fast
• Content: Recent episodes from some ongoing anime series (e.g. Karin, KIBA, REC, Wind, Kashimashi, Zoids Genesis, LAP, etc.)
• Update Frequency: Quite Frequent
• Note: Almost hassle-free anime direct downloads site, i.e. no registration or forum posting required. However, all episodes are compressed into .zip format, i.e. you’ll have to unzip the episodes using software like WinZip.

A comment by illuvthisstuff reminded me that it was about time I actually posted about this. Nyao.be - the well-updated and fast anime direct downloads site I featured earlier - is dead, somewhat. Actually, it’s only that particular domain that’s dead.

So, you can still use Teamskn.net to connect to the site. Everything is still ok, but it does mean that the site has lost an excellent mirror.

Thanks to a tip from Tear, we have Animeblues.com’s (a.k.a. RorikonJyanai Networks) new location: LMTC-Anime.com. So, I suggest avoiding Animeblues.com since the domain name is now being used by/for a pr0n site.

1) LMTC-Anime.com (a.k.a RorikonJyanai Networks)

• Speed: Very Fast
• Content: Around 30 full anime series, e.g. Rizelmine, Tide-Line Blue, Lime Iro Senkitan, Ebichu, Futakoi.
• Update Frequency: Unknown (probably according to op or forum consensus)
• Note: Almost hassle-free anime direct downloads site, i.e. no registration or forum posting required, but there are strict rules in place (e.g. 10 kb/s minimum speed). Make sure you familiarize yourself with the rules, or your IP could get banned. The site also uses a queue system, but the queues are usually not full.

Unlike its previous incarnation at Animeblues.com, LMTC-Anime doesn’t serve recent episodes from ongoing anime series. Hopefully, that will return.

A couple of weeks back, when I featured Shana.ownz.at (Shakugan no Shana DDL site), I noted that there was another anime direct downloads site that used a similar theme and PHP downloads management script. After digging through my bookmarks, I finally found it.

1) Ep.0wnz.at

• Speed: Fast
• Content: Anime series (e.g. Erementar Gerad, Hantsuki, Kagihime) and manga (e.g. Shakugan no Shana, Rise R to the Second Power) fansubbed by #EvalPower
• Update Frequency: Unknown
• Video Format: .avi (HQ)
• Note: Hassle-free direct downloads site, i.e. no registration required.

P.S. Running out of proper anime direct downloads sites to feature. I might actually have to write some semi-real posts on anime. You guys should really run far, far away.

AnimeFairGround.com is a spin-off site from AnimeGround - a paid anime direct downloads site. In the past, AnimeGround used to offer one free anime series for download every week, but it was discontinued a few months back. Now, they’ve returned with the free series per weekmonth, but it’s now located at a separate site: AnimeFairGround.com.

1) AnimeFairGround.com

• Speed: Fast Very Fast (needs confirmation)
• Content: One full anime series per week month (e.g. this week month it’s One Piece)
• Update Frequency: One Series Per Week Month
• Video Format: .avi (HQ)
• Note: Hassle-free direct downloads site, i.e. no registration required.

This week’s series is One Piece. Yes, the 200+ episodes, plus multiple movies currently available. If you haven’t watched One Piece, this is probably a good time to start.

Edit: My mistake. Each series is up for a month, not a week. Thanks, trinz!