His and Her Circumstances, Act 1.0 Original Soundtrack | Full-length versions of both the opening ("An Angel's Promise") and closing ("Into a Dream") are featured, plus jazzy background music. When I watched the series, the music was just another cool part of the overall experience. To my surprise, the entire CD and all of its compositions are truly enjoyable and work well, in and of themselves, as a standalone album. Fun stuff and some great musicianship.

The Long Road by Nickelback | I'm finally cracking into this Christmas stocking gift. "Someday" is a solid track and "Figured You Out" is grittier than fans of their radio-friendly songs might expect.

JPop CD by Various | In celebration of the announcement that Gundam SEED will be showing on Cartoon Network this spring, I've been playing T.M. Revolution's "INVOKE" and Nami Tamaki's "Believe" -- the show's opening and closing themes -- incessantly.

Full Metal Panic!, Mission 06 | I love this series, the characters and the performances. It will be interesting to see how they can tie up the "dramatic" elements of the story on the last disc. (And ADV better have the rights to Season 2 so we can be treated to a reunion of the English-language director and cast.)

Alice 19th, Vol. 1 by Yû Watase | This is an interesting premise, and the story so far has a dark undercurrent that leads me to believe this ride is going to be closer to Ceres than to Fushigi Yûgi.

Fruits Basket, Vol. 1 by Natsuki Takaya | The anime hews pretty closely to the manga, but the manga moves at a pleasantly quick pace, so far.

Happy Mania, Vol. 6 by Moyoco Anno | It's trashy, addictive and shrink-wrapped for a reason. Not everyone's cup of tea, but if you dig it, you really dig it.