Anime and Manga Sampler

How about a brief run-through of anime and manga that caught my fancy?

• Special A. Yes, it's shôjô, but it's excellent shôjô—and it reveals an interesting fact. Kei's total inability to be defeated (the man can even dodge slapstick) is only made tolerable, by the fact he's a complete bastard about it ("Oh, bad luck, 'Number Two.'"). If he was nice, he'd be even more insufferable than Superman.
• Kimi ni Todoke. Okay, more shôjô—sue me. The manga was the most touching thing ever (though I live in perpetual fear of it going off the rails), and the casting for Sawako's voice actress in the anime is perfect. The stuff she says, when she's actually just nervous, but it comes off incredibly spooky? Sodding art.
• Soul Eater. Death the Kidd rocks. Okay, his anime voice is weird, but his dad's voice is even weirder. Maka is amazing—her voice is perfect, she actually sounds 15—and how about the "temptation" scenes, in Soul's head? "Find a rule that you can break." Uh, how did the flat-out Corpse Poison Way get into a manga?
• King of Bandit Jing: In Seventh Heaven. I spoke too soon, when I said Kamen no Maid Guy was the weirdest Japanese thing. Just in Jing Seventh Heaven's first episode: that guy getting bit in half by the unicorn-rat, and he's made of plaster—not as a plot point, just because—and all the confetti comes out. Or the dodo-pulled train, when the dodo (which can talk, and has an inexplicable horse-tail) is spurred on by the disembodied heads of Cerberus, conducted by some guy (as in, with a baton). Or the warden being a vampire—again, not as a plot point, just because. Or that little chain-smoking cherub with a machine gun. Or the creepy robots speaking faux-existential-yet-romantic Goth poetry—in English!—in Stephen Hawking voices. The limited animation really heightens the resemblance to a fever dream.
• Dogs (Stray Dogs Howling in the Dark/Hardcore Twins/Bullets and Carnage). It's kinda Trigun-with-good-art meets Heat Guy J—and you can tell the chracters are European!
• Tegami Bachi. Mostly just because Niche is adorable (I like feral children), although the look of the whole thing rocks out loud.
• Hayate the Combat Butler, and Sayonara Zetsubô Sensei. South Park, Family Guy: this is how you do "transgressive" comedy, monkeys. The words "Dude, that's not right" will cross your mind about three times a chapter/episode.
  
• Nurarihyon no Mago. What's better than a yôkai story? A yôkai yakuza story, that's what. This better get picked up stateside—and ideally get its own anime—or I'll sodding rampage.
• Flags. The art combines the later CLAMP (think Tsubasa or the art in Code GEASS) with Bleach, and the story seems pretty cool so far. It takes a lot to make me like a tournament manga.
• Rozen Maiden. Suigintô and Hinaichigo. The episode of the anime, "Stairs"—someone has been left home with siblings, man.
• Gungrave. See the last episode of the anime, and make it the foundation of your life.