Rating: 
Summary: WATCH [it]
Review: ok, first of all i have not yet seen the dub so this is mainly on a sub review. well, wat else is there to say besides, THIS OAV ROX! omg, this will have you glued to the screen and craving for more. Ok, now for the story. Yomiko Readman is a bookworm who has a secret identity where she is part of an organisation of people with special abilities who deal with crimes that have to do with books, kinda like bookabuse. Well you'd prolly think that it sounds pretty stupid but its not. You find out that Yomiko can control paper and meets another agent named Miss Deep and its just rally cool, sorta like XMEN meets the avengers. There is so much to say but i think tat you should just visit cupped-expressions.net and then click on Yomiko's Library for a full review.
Rating: 
Summary: Right when you thought it was safe to read...
Review: OK, this anime is a tad silly. But it is also filled with tons of action, humor and good artwork. After watching R.O.D. TV (disc one), I had to go see what OAV started it. The plot is super-James Bond, the characters are detailed and with such voice actors as Amanda Winn-Lee (from Plastic Little, Ghost In The Shell TV series, and Burn-Up), Tricia Dickson (from Hellsing, Spirit Of Wonder, and Haibane-Renmei) and Crispin Freeman (do I HAVE to list his work?).
If you are a fan of R.O.D. TV, of James bond movies, or just enjoy a good "End-Of-The-World" storyline, this is the DVD for you. There is a link to R.O.D. TV's main character at the very start of the first episode of the OVA. You just have to look hard enough!
Rating:
Summary: Just Buy It
Review: Okay...this is really good. This was based on the manga of the same name, and it was the highest budget OVA, ever. A correction though, to several people's reviews, including the critic guy. Yomiko was not, recruited at the beginning. She was always an agent. It's really not that hard to pick up on. Come on, folks.
Anyway, beautiful animation, a very sexy soundtrack, and a nice, self-contained story without any plot holes.
Rating:
Summary: Cheer "The Paper," the most ingenious anime heroine in years
Review: R.O.D. (READ OR DIE) is quite an imaginative and delightful three-episode Japanese OAV (Original Animated Video) series that deftly mixes sci-fi, adventure, comedy, history and a love of rare books. Made in 2000, it's set against a marvelously detailed background of urban settings like Tokyo, Washington DC, and New York, along with the massive Victorian-style (but secretly high-tech) British Library headquarters, as well as a diverse fleet of retro-style aircraft and seacraft. Overall, it offers the kind of fresh, unpredictable and literate entertainment that caters to the restless tastes of the more discriminating anime fans in America.
The heroine is a 20-something woman named Yomiko Readman, a shy, self-effacing bookworm who is a teacher and obsessive collector of rare books. She traipses about in a long skirt and overcoat, lugging a large briefcase behind her on a wheeled cart everywhere she goes, even when chasing super-villains. She's also a secret agent known as "The Paper" who has the extraordinary power of turning any kind of paper product into a lethal weapon or protective barrier. One of the special thrills of this series is the way this talent is used so often to ingenious effect in the course of the three episodes. When the Library of Congress is attacked and robbed by a famous Japanese inventor cloned back to life, Yomiko is assigned by the British Library to retrieve the stolen books. The enemy is soon revealed to be much wider in scope and encompasses a host of other historical figures brought back to life, including a certain famed composer. World domination is not their aim but something much more sinister.The plot is rather complex, but never wavers off track as the action moves from Tokyo to D.C. to New York (including a harrowing scene at a pre-9/11 World Trade Center) in the first episode alone, venturing to India in the second, and to a massive techno-fortress which rises out of the central Pacific Ocean in the third. The writing is consistently clever, the heroine relentlessly charming and the characters and multiple historical references always intriguing. There's also an elaborate title sequence that's the best seen in any anime since "Cowboy Bebop," along with a jazzy early-'70s style-TV theme that gives it some added color. The release of all three episodes on one DVD is a welcome signal of the possible resurgence of the OAV format, which allows for limited-run series of various lengths like this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Fast-paced, vapid fun!
Review: R.O.D.: Read or Die is an OVA (original video animation, a straight-to-DVD) anime series. A related anime series is currently showing on Japanese TV. The three episode OVA is available on DVD in the U.S., with the first volume of the TV series coming out in the end of June on these shores. This review is of the OVA. The story follows Yomiko Readman, a bookworm with amazing powers over paper (?!) who is hired by the British Library Special Engineering Force to recover lost manuscripts. Sound boring? Well it isn't. She's joined by two other "agents" fighting cloned historical figures, and the show is a combination of James Bond and Fantastic Four, and manages to be action packed without taking itself too seriously.
Rating:
Summary: Retro future post modern super hero spy action anime! -Huh??
Review: Read Or Die came out a couple years ago in Japan and made a small splash by being a well budgeted OVA series of 3 half hours. You get all three here in this one DVD. While it is well drawn and has a lot of nice touches it isn't the pinnacle of the OVA format, but is really bizarre, cute, fun and action-packed with mild gore. The story revolves around Yuriko Readmad (a young Japanese book enthusiast/school teacher) who oddly enough has the super-powered ability to manipulate any paper into a sheild or weapon. She is abruptly recruited into a top priority assignment for a strange British covert organization/army balancing the powers of evil in the world. Along the way, Readman becomes the lead agent who commands Ms. Deep, a sexy phaser who can slip through walls and people, and a kind of super navy seal named Anderson. Her mentor/boss, Mr. Joker, sits in a far off command center sipping tea, speaking with a british accent and researching the data while commanding this bizarre operation. The villains are a load of famous, dead people who have been revived and cloned to bring about the destruction of mankind via....music. Yes, evil Beethoven wrote the most amazing piece of music, his last that lay incomplete, which when heard will cause everyone to commit suicide. Strange? yes. Absolutely bizarre. The chase goes across the White House, NYC, Tokyo, and into the Pacific on a titanic ocean base of bad clones and their musical mechinations. They've done it again. The Japanimators have created a totally insane set of stories revolving around the most ludicrous situations. When examined closely, it is perhaps the silliest idea yet, but it holds up because the entire OVA is on that level. It is a kind of send up to old 60's spy films (Bond, Flint, man From UNCLE, etc) handled in a pretty serious way most times. The lead character of Yuriko Readman is so sweet, charming and wonderful to watch. Like the better anime, the characters have a depth and charm that is very enticing, and shows their skill with writing character moments that beat the pants off of most Hollywood films made for exponentially more money. Perhaps the silliest item in this series is the repetitive appearance of a pants wetting American President who seems to be the only person in this world afraid of the terrors presented. Miss Deep is one of the sexiest heroins in anime. Beutifully drawn, less then perfect film language causes mild confusion at times, but fun and lively and not quite like anything else out there. The opening title sequences are jazzy, fun, and emotive. Read Or Die has mild gore, minor gun play... Probably best for an over 12 crowd.
Rating:
Summary: High quality, lots of fun
Review: Read or Die is a breath of fresh air amid the anime releases in the United States: it manages to combine high quality on the technical side with interesting, likeable characters and an interesting story. First off, this is obviously a high-budget production: these three episodes (which is the complete Read or Die direct-to-video series) sport character designs which are attractive, animation which is top-notch, and great sound and music. Moreover, Manga, the studio releasing Read or Die in the US did a wonderful authoring job on the DVD, in contrast to some of their releases (e.g., Macross II). On the technical side, Read or Die simply screams quality. Fortunately, that quality is matched by the quirky, likeable characters and the quirkier plot. The heroine, Yomiko Readman, is a book-obsessed woman with the power to manipulate paper (which is far more interesting than it may sound). She is also a secret agent for the British Library. When cloned historical figures try to steal her newest book purchase and destroy the world, she is assigned to stop them. Yomiko is the most interesting heroine of the last several years of anime releases: she is a woman, not a girl; she is not overly sexualized; she is capable and strong without pride or arrogance. The only real flaw in Read or Die is that, because it's only 3 episodes long, the weird little plot is somewhat opaque. Moreover, many of the historical figures will not be familiar to a US audience, but this is a quibble, really. The show is not about the villains or their purposes, it is about Yomiko and hers.
Rating:
Summary: Paper Cuts and the Most Fatastic Super Heroine EVER.
Review: Such a fantastic little movie. Read or Die is a fantastic superhero adventure, mixing elements of spy movies with comic book superhero powers. Extremely clever as it is campy, this tour de force takes us to a world where literature matters a little too much and the most useful of weapons are sheets of paper.
Our heroine is Miss Yomiko Readman, a mousey young substitute teacher and book ethusiast. After purchasing a rare book, Yomiko suddenly finds herself at odds against terrorists who are stealing prized books from around the world. The storyline seems to have evolved from some B-class spy movie, where villians take on the form of deranged historic figures. Yomiko proves to be quite an adversary, using elaborate fighting techniques by controlling scraps of paper. In one scene, she transforms book pages into a hanglider/airplane for an aerial strike while in another scene, dollar bills are transformed into a sword. The visuals are just as intriguing as they are hilarious.
Armed with a rolling cart full of blank notebook pages, Yomiko joins other super heros as part of "Operation Manuscript Retrieval", fighting of a color cast of villians like an insect-riding entomologist, a mob-boss monk and evil Beethoven. The entire play of history, literature and classic comic book/anime action is brilliant and well put together. In typical sci-fi/adventure style, the movie climaxes with the world on the edge of destruction, leaving the heroine with the most unlikely powers to stop it. With such a great mix of action and humor, its obvious that the production team had just as much fun making the film as I did watching it.
I would recommend Read or Die to any Anime fan and history buff. While there were some scenes that seemed unnecessarily gorey, the movie is action packed and has enough wit to last a lifetime. Although, one does tend to get inspired and immediately finish reading that Faulkner book right after the credits roll.
Rating:
Summary: Crazy, Weird, a breath of fresh air
Review: The plot was pretty twisted but I liked it anyway. Yomiko Readman, a.k.a. "The Paper" is a special agent who is working for the British Library, helping them to put an end to a gang of villaneous clones of made-up famous people from history bent on destroying humanity and stealing its rarest books. Yomiko is nuts about books and reading and her superpower is that she can manipulate paper into just about anything she wants it to be. She can cause it to become as hard as metal or she can bunch it all together to form objects ect. She even carries a briefcase around thats full of paper(unsuspected ammo). She teams up with another couple of special agents, including the lovely Ms. Deep whose superpower is that she can pass through solid objects. Together they take on the evil clones. So yes, the story may seem weird but it works and thats whats important. It was a highly enjoyable superspy romp around the world with superheroes taking out supervillians with some of the craziest diabolicol schemes ever devised. The music in the series was awesome! Music in an anime is very important to me, it has the ability to draw one into the story and the mood of the show. ROD's music does just that. Its got a kinda upbeat spy/thriller thing going. Animation was amazing! Extremely detailed characters and environments, beautiful colors, backdrops and clean lines. The characters were all great, either very suave, sophisticated, mysterious, or dangerous. Parental Guidence: There is no nudity, only Ms. Deep cleavage. Language if I remember correctly was mild. Violence is moderate. For the most part it wasn't very graphic, the worst scenes that come to mind are a bad guy getting shot in the side of the head with some sharp object. This was shown from the front so it wasn't graphic. Then there was a suicide scene that showed people cutting themselves and blood running all over. Both instances happened very quickly though. Also Ms. Deep sometimes kills by "phasing" through people. I'd recommend for 13+ My only gripe with the show was that it was only 3 episodes long! If you watch the show not knowing what its about, you may become a bit confused as I was as you are thrown straight into the meat of the story without even knowing that the characters are supposed to have superpowers. I started out watching the show thinking Yomiko was just an ordinary book-lovin citizen and was pretty darned confused when she turned around and started fighting with paper and then I couldn't at first figure out her connection to the British Library or that she was an agent all along. But if you read this review, you'll have a better understanding of the show before it shoots you right into the plot. I say all this cus I almost quit watching when all these things started happening - just glad I didn't :) On a happy note, I read in Newtype that theyre coming out with a new ROD tv series in Japan and they may be keeping Yomiko in it! I look forward to it
Rating:
Summary: Read or Die is a great 3 episode Anime
Review: This is one of the best Anime miniseries I've ever seen. It is like a Japanese X-Men, the characters all with awesome powers. It has an interesting storyline and is set in the US, which will appeal to many American viewers who will understand where everything is taking place. Anyone who likes Anime with guns, twists, fun, and a great storyline should get this and enjoy it.
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