Which After Effects effect was used here?

[Battler-Ushiromiya]

Was trying to figure out some of the effects used in MADs, and 2 in particular have escaped me for some time now as to what they could be.
The slashing at 0:59 - 1:00 and 1:24 - 1:26 in the first video and the bright line effect used in 1:04 and a few more times later on in the 2nd video. Anyone have any idea of how to pull off something close to that in After Effects?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpliUOxC ... re=related
http://youtu.be/UWUJE_lj3TI?t=1m4s

[Brad]

Basically what you're talking about is 2.5D animation. It's where you have 2D layers (still images, video, shapes, etc.) moving around in 3D space, and probably some kind of 3D camera movement. I cover how to set this up in one of my video tutorials (it's not quite as detailed or complex as what's going on in the MAD, but what they did required quite a bit of time, effort and experience)

http://amv101.com/askbrad/?p=20