This will be a regular feature where I highlight a few shows that are currently airing, along with recent feature films and OAVs.  I guess I should lay out my biases so you know where I'm coming from as a reviewer.  Simply put, I gravitate towards anything that displays above-average production values or exhibits a compelling artistic vision.  In an industry where several tens of series debut every three months, productions that aren't half-hearted and cheaply produced are exceptions to the rule.  You won't see me caring about:
    1. Naruto, Bleach, One Piece and other long-running genre works.
    2. Gundam Seed and other toy franchises.
    3. Run-of-the-mill "me too!" service-laden moé anime.  I like moé but the majority of it is uninteresting.
    Of course there are always exceptions, and I have my own personal taste biases in terms style, but that's more or less me in a nutshell.

Kurenai

    I'm 8 (out of 12) episodes into the show.  It's about a bodyguard in training assigned to protect a 7 year old girl who escaped a mysterious and powerful plutocratic family.  Having lived in isolation, it's up to the bodyguard to show her the world outside the family's secluded estate.
    You might start to get some impression of this series if I say it's from the director of Rozen Maiden and the animation studio behind Kamichu, featuring the highly distinctive character designs of the Red Garden dude.  In practice however this series is all over the place, and in a fun way.  It's sometimes a Maison Ikkoku-esque sitcom following a bunch of goofs entertaining themselves in a run-down apartment.  It sometimes delves into unusually sophisticated character drama (to mixed but mostly positive effect).  It has moments of suspense and action as the bodyguard confronts yakuza and investigates the secretive Kuhouin family.  Kurenai's light loli/moé candy shell is often punctuated by flashbacks and insights into the characters' dark backgrounds.
    Like Rozen Maiden, there's a lot of comedy to be had when the girl's noble upbringing and the bodyguard's mundane lifestyle collide, along with his oddball neighbors.  Also like in Rozen Maiden, expect to see a lot of elaborate character drawings in every episode.  Unlike RM however, Kurenai is not always struggling for animation, and the storytelling can get pretty dense.  I sometimes find myself rewinding to either get a grip on a scene that flew over my head, or to rewatch a totally wild cut of animation.
    So far, Kurenai is fun times.  It's yet to be seen if there's a creamy center beneath its eccentric surface. (ok, I'm sorry for that last metaphor)

Kaiba

    "What are memories?  Souls?  Spirits?  This is a world where memories can be turned into data and stored.  Even if the body dies, its memories live on and can be transferred into another body.  Bad memories can be erased, and good ones downloaded.  In a world like this, our protagonist, Kaiba, is traveling in another body with no memories of his own."
    Kaiba is the latest trip from Masaaki Yuasa, known for Cat Soup, Noiseman, Kemonozume, Mind Game, and his own style of whacked out key animation.  The setting is about as far-out as it gets, like Transformers: The Movie far-out.  The first episode plays like an oldschool arcade game come to life, while the second feels like a Terry Gilliam episode of The 5th Element.  Sometimes Kaiba gets a little too heavy with its domestic drama, episodically introducing side characters with predictably tragic stories.  This is just a taste issue though, and only being 5 episodes into the show, it's not clear what kind of groove Kaiba will fall into.
    Production-wise, the show is deeply fascinating, from its retro design to its animation.  It even features an episode entirely drawn by one animator (#4), just like in Yuasa's last show, Kemonozume.  Kaiba feels a bit tighter than Kemonozume and it exhibits some of the same magic...
    Kuma's reaction to Kaiba was "what the fuck, this show is a movie!"  That was also my reaction to Kemonozume.  Yuasa doesn't take much from the typical visual language of anime, and instead prefers to spin his own language with highly cinematic camera angles, unusually dynamic motion, and the imaginative inner workings of his cartoon worlds.  Kaiba is one of those series that aspire to be more than a television anime.  Whether or not it will succeed has yet to be seen, but so far it's cool.

Kara no Kyoukai (film series, 1 of 7)

    Here's comes another Type-Moon-to-anime production, but unlike the tremendously mundane Tsukihime anime and tremendously mundane Fate/Stay Night anime, this one is animated by UFOTable (Manabi Straight, Tales of Symphonia OAV) and pumped full of cash money.  The production is beautiful, almost to the degree of a Makoto Shinkai anime, and is at least worth checking out just for that.  Stylistically it even brings to mind some of Mamoru Oshii's classic films like Patlabor 2 and Ghost in the Shell, and it even features an enigmatic, strong female lead with an aritificial body.
    Otherwise, Kara no Kyoukai is a ghost story type deal.  It conveys similar themes as those found in Tsukihime (the game), in particular the darkness and insanity that bubbles just beneath the surface of the mundane, urban world.  My only gripes about this movie are it drags on for a little too long and gets a bit preachy towards the end.  Horror stories like these need to be approached with a bit of subtlety and left with a lot of ambiguity.  The "fear of the unknown" is a a very fragile thing.  People always forget to handle it with care.  The director likely had trouble stretching this story to a certain running time and did what he shouldn't have done-- over-elaborated the literal side of the story.  Instead he should've created scenes to enhance the mood and the ambiguity.
    Aside from that, Kara no Kyoukai quite cool, and I'm looking forward to the next installment (of many).  Apparently each one is being helmed by a different director, so hopefully that will translate into a variety of styles.

xxxHolic Kei
    Here's a CLAMP-based anime from the director of Hare Nochi Guu and other whacked-out comedy pieces like Dokuro-chan and Dai Mahou Touge.  However xxxHolic is a horror series, where the world is ruled by an invisible karma-like system of balance and fate.  Every action you take has a subtle but powerful meaning and, sometimes, a price to be paid.  It follows a young boy who has the power to see and attract spirits and other supernatural entities as he attempts to navigate the frightfully complex inner workings of reality.  In an interview, the director describes his thoughts on being approached with the xxxHolic project.
    "I had spent most of my time in the comic anime world, so I was a little nervous. But since there were some comical elements within the overall horror tone, I decided to join the party. Personally, I think "laughs" and "scariness" have very much in common. They do not appeal to reason, but they overwhelm our minds directly. I can't explain it well, but I always felt that they had the same feel."
    The anime series started with the intensely beautiful xxxHolic 1hr film, A Midsummer Night's Dream.  It was followed by a painful 26 episode TV series-- painful because, despite its great premise, characters and visual design, it was plagued by a rushed production, resulting in both haphazard animation and underdeveloped storytelling.  It had rare moments of brilliance, but the realities of production prevented it from shining.
    xxxHolic Kei is the 2nd series.  With a significantly improved production and far more developed storytelling, we can actually see some of its vision come to life.  It's not high budget by any stretch, but it's good enough to realize some of its potential and be an interesting series.  Watch the flick, skip the first season, and start on xxxHolic Kei if you're a fan of supernatural anime.  I'm only 6 eps in, so don't blame me if dives off a cliff next week, but so far the quality has been reasonably even.

Code Geass
    is the latest thing from Sunrise, the studio known for Gundam, Gundam, and more Gundam (ok, to be fair, Inuyasha).  It's basically Death Note and Gundam put together.  We observe a charismatically maniacal protagonist as he attempts to take over the world with his supernatural power to control people called the death note geass.  Through this power, he does battle with other wielders of the death note geass by engineering convoluted and fragile scenarios of manipulation.  Also, there are plasticky robots that fight with swords and roller skates, all sponsored by Pizza Hut.
    This is not the kind of thing I usually watch.  It's a blatantly derivative genre work with an overarching story that never seems to go anywhere.  However, it features above-average production values and CLAMP's character designs, and has reasonably exciting cliffhangers.  Kuma got me hooked on this and now I'm hopelessly locked in.  I'm 8 episodes into the second series, 26 eps each.

Mukou Hadan: Sword of the Stranger (film)
    is an original feature film from the animation studio Bones, founded by ex-Cowboy Bebop animators.  They've practically become the premiere studio for animated fights, and Mukou Hadan is a showcase for that if nothing else.  It's ultimately insubstantial but fun.  The jaw-dropping eye-popping battles aside, the movie has a few nice moments of characterization, such as the wandering swordsman revealing how he has to dye his hair black in order to survive in Japan.  Despite those rare moments of insight, it otherwise feels underdeveloped, with too much screen time devoted to the bad guys elaborating their who-cares plot for immortality.  It unfortunately reduces Mukou Hadan to a movie with great fights, rather than a great movie.  See it anyway though, it is fun regardless.

Rebuild of Evangelion: You Are Not Alone (film series, 1 of 4)
    If you are an Evangelion fan and you don't know what this is, I'm sure you are already scrambling to the torrentmobile.  I doubt anything I say will sway you one way or the other.  It could've been better, but it's good enough.  If you want further reading, this guy has a good review.  The last bit of the film hints that it may eventually branch out into a new direction rather than continue to consolidate the TV series story.
    If you don't know what Evangelion is, I don't even know where to begin.  It evolutionized - arguably revolutionized - the anime landscape in several ways, and it's a pretty intense trip too especially as it spirals into insanity towards the end.  Watch the TV series.