A few anime recommendations

I have been watching a little bit more anime recently, because a friend of mine recommended a few series. So this is what I was watching.

Over Drive
I've always liked sports series so I was happy to find this one. This time it's all about cycling. A young student joins a bicycle club at school and turns out to be a very talented rider although he says that he never rode a bike before. The club joins a race in Japan which drags on for almost 10 episodes. That's basically it. It's all about enthusiasm for something and following a dream. The usual anime story line. Because this series is about cycling I thought there might be some hints for performance enhancing drugs but that has been left out completly. Instead the Tour de France is the hot topic here and it's still the pure and marvellous event it used to be.
The character development is hindered by the very short time the series has (it's only 26 episodes) so I have the feeling that there's something missing somewhere. But it's fun to watch when you have nothing else to do. (5/10)

Dennou Coil
This is a strange one. It's about kids in a city where pets go missing. And it's not usual pets, it's cyber pets you can only seee when you wear special glasses. They seem to be hunted by a lifeform called "illegals" who come as some form of computer virus. There's lots of technical things all around and everything's "meta"-this and "meta"-that.
I've only seen two episodes so far but this seems to have the right mixture between funny parts, exciting story lines and mysterious cyberspace stuff. It's no Meccha series, it's more like private eye kids looking into a case which is of no interest to adults. But I might be wrong and the story will take a u-turn in the next episodes. You'll never know. Still I like this very much. The animation is great and the character design is a little different from what you normally get to see. (6/10)

Bamboo Blade
I was always interested in the sport of kendo so when this series came out I gladly took the opportunity to watch it. The main character is a broke teacher who runs the kendo club at his school and who has a bet with his senpai that his girls team will beat his senpai's girls team. At first there are only two girls in the team, one of those is absent all the time. But with time they are able to gather all the members they need.
This is nothing special either but it also has these nice funny moments and super deformed character design at times which I really like. The kendo scenes are not the centre of attention in most of the episodes so the anme takes a little bit more time for character development which I like as well. The previews at the end of each episode are hilarious. This is a series I like. (6,5/10)

Touch
This seems to be a classic and I only started to watch it because I really like the drama version of "H2". I don't know if "Touch" was done before "H2" or if it was the other way around. Anyway, the story seems to be very similar. When in "H2" there were three childhood friends from different families here we have two families and their kids are friends since they were born. There's is one girl and two twin boys, one of them is a slacker, the other one an outstanding athlete and student. Sounds familiar? Well, it does to me. So the talented guy plays on the baseball team at high school and that's what caught my attention. I've only seen the first two episodes here as well, but because it looks rather oldfashioned (the anime is from 1985) it has this nostalgic feeling to it. All in all it's over 100 episodes so there should be a lot of time for character development. I'm looking forward to watch this. (7/10)

Shigurui
A samurai anime which looks very mature and suited for older people rather than children or kids. It starts out with a duel between to crippled fighters, one being blind and the other one having lost an arm or a leg. From there on the story goes back a few years and tells what happened between those two men.
The whole set up is very dark, there aren't really any bright colours in this series. The violence is very explicit and very well drawn. Now, I always like to watch historic anime or drama series because I take an interest in how historic events or eras are portrayed in popular culture. This seems to be very accurate from what I can see but my knowledge of Japanese history is limited as well, so I might be wrong. This is definetely not like "Rurouni Kenshin" or "Samurai Champloo", it's way darker and gloomier. And much more gory, that's true. (6/10)

Byousoku 5 Centimeter
Another great movie by Shinkai Mikoto who also made stuff like "Hoshi no Koe" or "Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho". this time the story is about two kids who were friends in scholl but who were seperated when they had to go to high school. One day the boy travels to the countryside to meet the girl. When they meet he tells her he has to move further away from her. The next episode deals with what the boy is doing in his new home and the last episode shows what happened to both of them after they finished school.
What Shinkai always manages to do is to create a wonderful atmosphere with the pictures we draws. Although there might be a landscape covered in snow or just a scenery of a village at night it's always very colourful and because of that powerful. His stories are also very wonderful. Although they are everyday stories and nothing really happens (you are always waiting for a climax to appear) they leave you with a very calm and satisfied feeling. This one really is a must see. (8,5/10)

I will look into Blue Drop, Ghost Hound, Sketchbook - full color's, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Genshiken 2 when I find the time time to do so.