FINALLY, AFTER TEN THOUSAND YEARS, I'M FREE TO POST THE LAST OF THE WINTER REVIEWS


Holy shit this season sucked so bad it took us five weeks after to finally get to finish our reviews. Spring better not suck this bad I swear holy hell.


Dropped Shows

Ajin
David O'Neil

Now, it's been quite a while since I watched the first episode of Ajin. And suffice it to say, I suppose my memory of it is a bit fuzzy. Heck, I had hardly remembered that I had watched it. But I am a professional above all else, so I will do my best to recount how I felt about the show. You see, in Ajin, a male student named Ken Kaneki finds himself thrown into a desperate situation when he discovers he's gained mysterious, demonic powers, a "ghoul" as they're called, which makes him an enemy of the state, and feared by the common people. As the show goes on, he encounters government agents who wish to take advantage of his Ghoul powers, other Ghouls who he ends up clashing with, and slowly but surely he begins to lose sight of what it was that made him human in the first place. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what happened. And then the talking hand named Migi showed up, and there was an explanation of how the Parasytes are actually-....no, I believe I'm starting to get my stories jumbled. It's as if the episodes I watched of Ajin failed to leave any impression on me whatsoever. It's as if, it was so unmemorable, so lacking of any identity of its own, it has simply become a blur. Blending and merging into memories of the many shows it aspired to be like, yet lacked any new ideas of its own to separate itself from, or even engaging execution for that matter. Or maybe it was because the CG was bad. Yeah, I'll just blame the CG. Two Episodes: 4/10

BBK/BRNK
Danni Kristen

This was not by any means a bad show. At its worst, it was mediocre. At its best, it was pretty good. Ultimately, I decided to drop it for two reasons. The first was its lack of consistency. Good episodes were often followed by pretty mediocre ones. Great scenes of awesome action were often followed or interrupted by lengthy scenes of boring backstory and exposition. It never was able to maintain a steady pace of quality. This goes double for its animation done completely in CG. While action scenes were animated well and looked downright awesome, its calmer scenes were very clunky and robotic. It just wasn't nice to look at in those moments. They clashed with the backgrounds considerably, too. The backgrounds were all beautifully drawn and the visual high-point of the series. The CG could never really compare to it. Regardless of these faults, I was still able to really enjoy the show's good aspects. The decision to drop it really came down to my second reason: time. I haven't been blessed with a wealth of free time this semester, so I've been extra picky about the full shows I watched. Eventually, I started falling behind on it, I realized I just had no desire to catch up. My time was valuable, and BBK/BRNK just wasn't worth it. Seven Episodes: 5/10

Dagashi Kashi
David O'Neil

Dagashi Kashi is a very honest show. At least from the few episodes I watched, it was very upfront about what it was trying to accomplish, who its audience was, and how it was planning on going about its specific objective. It is a show about a bunch of goofball characters setting up dumb, often sexual gags about candy. That's about it. I do almost wonder if the series would've been better off as a short series, but for what it was I did enjoy my time with it. Sure, I ended up dropping it, but mostly because it was so honest, straightforward, and consistent in its episodic attempts to make humor out of the unlikely combination of Willy Wonka and South Park that I found myself having absolutely nothing to critique beyond my initial reaction. The show isn't for everyone, it's not especially witty, and the pace can be slow at times. But for what its worth, its dumb sense of humor resonated with my, but at the same time I'm very east to please when it comes to immature humor. Studio Feel's visuals certainly helped as well. While it wasn't a great looking show, it built a decent atmosphere, had neat character designs, and constantly incorporated the show's visuals into the gags. Let me put it this way. Watch the first episode of Dagashi Kashi. It's one of those shows you'll almost immediately know whether or not you'll like or loathe. It makes a strong first impression, for better or for worse. Five Episodes: 7/10

Dimension W
Jonathan Kaharl

Probably the biggest disappointment of the season. After two very strong starting episodes, all promise is pissed away by our main character failing to develop beyond angry man-guy-man who hates technology because it killed his girlfriend (yes, really) and Miria becomes nothing more than wank fuel for torture fetishists. Plus she keeps getting hit. By the main character. The whole series gets very ugly in a meaningless way, and it's just downright unpleasant to watch, despite the great art direction. Plus, there is a ridiculous amount of rape threats and fridging of women in back stories. It's like Watanabe directed a series based on bad 90s comics. Seven Episodes: 3/10




Divine Gate
Stephanie Getchell

Divine Gate was a series I honestly hoped would be decent. The premise was interesting and the fact that Pierrot was behind it gave me some hope. However, there was a mix of issues going on with the series that, by the time I got half way, just felt like it wasn't worth it anymore. The larger of the glaring issues I had with the series was that it was trying too hard to be this dark and edgy series, giving us a boring story and the wrong exposition when we really needed something different. There's also the characters involved which range from stereotypical hot head to complete emo kid who has to learn about emotions. Just sitting here and writing this now... Oh dear god... I had a flashback to Naruto... I compared Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura to Akane, Aoto, and Midori... Yeah, this series has very little originality to it. The one and only reason I would ever decide to go back and watch the show is for the dub, and not for any specific voice actor either. More for the director Clifford Chapin, who is still fairly new to ADR directing and I would love to see more of his work and get accustomed to his directing style. Otherwise, that's it.

Six Episodes: 4/10

Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiidesukara
David O'Neil

Anime has always had an uncomfortable relationship with younger girl characters. It's eerily widespread, that even in most mainstream anime it's considered both incredibly marketable and not even all that denounced for shows to sexualize, and overall put a big focus on fanservice towards underage girls. Though usually shows at least have the decency to not be entirely upfront about their intentions to sell through putting little girls in skimpy outfits. The entire premise of Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiidesukara on the other hand, is "a middle aged girl becomes a magical girl, but her outfit is a skimpy swimsuit". That's it. That's the whole joke. I mean, there's also that her magical girl sidekick is a total creep, which makes the whole thing feel even more skeevy, but the main premise is terrible enough on its own. In another world I could see this being some kind of satire, but the joke doesn't seem to have anything to actually say about mahou shojo or the uncomfortable nature of the premise at all, and it seems way to on board with reveling in the fanservice anyway. The best thing I can say about it is that its a very pretty show, with nice character designs, colors, and animation. But that doesn't do much to save a show that's entirely centered around something so unfunny and sketchy as all hell. Two Episodes: 2/10

Nurse Witch Kogumi R
Stephanie Getchell

I honestly cannot remember a thing about this series. All I do remember is that it was one that was really silly and dumb that I felt like my brain may or may not implode. While there were one or two things about the first episode that got a chuckle out of me, the rest was just bland and full of troupes that I didn't think it was worth going through an entire season for. I may go back if I'm looking to torment myself or if someone really wants me to review the damn thing, but I'm really all set with this one. One Episode: 2/10





Pandora in the Crimson Shell: Ghost Urn
Jonathan Kaharl

This is absolute trash, but very self-aware trash made by two authors just letting themselves be complete trash. There's a respectable, trashy charm to that, and a lot of the gags are pretty great, especially when they involve Clarion becoming a detail void blob of not giving a shit. Unfortunately, the production value is practically non-existent, and a lot of gags repeat and wear out their welcome pretty quickly. If you enjoyed the first episode on some level, you'll probably enjoy the show overall (I only stopped because of scheduling issues). Six Episodes: 4/10





Rainbow Days
Jonathan Kaharl

Bad shojo will never leave, will it. Rainbow Days is a poor romantic comedy that could easily be good, but it relies on tired tropes and archetypes and sticks far too closely to them. When it looks like it's doing something interesting, like a character into BDSM, it quickly makes them a one note joke the very next episode. All the guys are possessive dicks except for one, and the pairings lack a proper spark to them besides the first. The jokes are all very safe, been done, and become repetitive, and I just decided I did not have any desire to see this one through. What a waste of everyone's time. Just go watch Nozaki-kun. Six Episodes: 4/10




Full Shows

Active Raid
Jonathan Kaharl

The return of the director of Code Geass on original anime material. Active Raid became something I had a lot of hope for once I realized Taniguchi was directing it, and that enthusiasm slowly eroded away. It's not that Active Raid is bad, on the contrary. It's very entertaining. But I also kept constantly forgetting about it more than any other show this season. The thing here is that we certainly have the ingredients for a good show, with a lot of interesting ideas, fun characters, and well done action, but there's a lack of a spark to it all.

Our cast of characters have a really fun family dynamic, especially Asami as the awkward daughter (she randomly says things in English and that's so great). Minor characters get a good deal of definition and even back story, my personal favorite being the quiet hacker nerd being one of the greatest gamblers in the world and showing off in a Chinese dress and butterfly mask when she feels like it. The villains are properly developed, mixed between truly despicable and tragic, and the social commentary is well handled and meaningful. Each episode also has a fun pace to it, keeping things moving speedy with a ton of great exchanges between characters. All the elements are here for a good series, especially how it chooses to tackle the growth of the internet, the societal age gap, and the role of police in the modern world from a uniquely Japanese perspective. Its a conservative show I can actually respect on some level. But all of this never comes together as it should.

The series makes clever use of an episodic format to make a larger puzzle that pieces together, but those episodes work better alone than together. There's tone whiplash thrown around, sometimes working and sometimes not. Keeping audience away from the truth also leaves one of the villains significantly unrefined. All the pieces for their motivation is there, but they're not developed long enough to really give impact to the tragedy of their situation. The commentary of the series starts to water down towards the end, while our large cast aren't given proper personal stakes. Only Asami's guilt really works here. For most of the cast, being officers on this squad is a job, but development through the entire show suggests they'd be more tight knit then portrayed. We get a good idea of what they're like as people, yes, but barely any of it relates to the main villain. The series has a love for super robot show writing and cliches, and uses a lot of them, especially trying to cram in these characters into all sorts of situations. However, they're too defined to one genre to really let that work as well as it could.

I hope the second season fixes some of these problems, because Active Raid has the elements for something fantastic. As it is, the series is a fun time while there and then instantly forgettable. I'd still recommend a good few episodes, but as for the whole series, only if you're really into old school anime homage.

First-Cour Score: 6/10

AOKANA: Four Rhythm Across the Blue
David O'Neil

I have a long standing distaste for sports anime. I think it's less the formula itself, and moreso the very presence of sports, which all tend to be boring as all hell. That's also why I'm typically perfectly fine with sports anime as long as they revolve around a sport that isn't actually real. For instance, Aokana: Four Rhythm Across the Blue, which creates a near-future sport known as "Flying Circus" in which competitors use technologically advanced "Grav-Shoes" to race, battle, outwit, and outmaneuver their opponents while flying through the sky.

The sport itself is probably the aspect of the show I enjoyed the most, and there was clearly a lot of thought put into the mechanics of it all, along with assuring it never gets boring. It's a sort of tug-a-war between racing and fighting, and the different play styles (one that focuses on fighting, one that focuses on speed, and one in-between) creates a cool rock-paper-scissors factor which makes each match a little bit different in how they play off each other. Some matches end up being dog fights, while others end up being high speed chases. Things get even more interesting towards the end, when they come up with a science-babble explanation to essentially have the boots go super saiyan, and it turns into something out of Macross or Dragonball Z. With all that aside though, the drama outside of matches does follow pretty strictly to the sports anime formula, to the point it does start to drag on after a while. There are a few above-average character arcs that shine through the cracks, but as a whole it mostly comes down to pretty mundane instances of characters being defeated, or losing sight of why they're playing, and then moping around for an episode before some inspirational speech drags them back. It never digs deep enough into the characters to really make me care, so as it went on I just ended up becoming less and less interested in the drama, and more and more impatient waiting for the next match to eventually come up.

It does help that the show has a good sense of humor. It has its fair share of cutesy faces, and early on even some instances of fun character acting animation. I wouldn't say Aokana became ugly as it went on, but it certainly got a lot rougher around the edges. A few episodes in particular felt as if Gonzo was on the brink of giving in, but it always managed to stay just visually competent enough to keep the show together. In addition, from beginning to end the show did a surprisingly good job mixing CG and 2D animation during the Flying Circus matches. Aokana isn't all that special in terms of its story and characters, but it's still a fun sports anime with a unique twist, boasting an imaginary competition that's as inventive as it is entertaining. If you're in the mood for something with the core of a sports anime, but just can't stand actual sports (like me) Aokana is worth a look.

Final Score: 6/10

ERASED
Jonathan Kaharl

I'm sure I'm going to get some hate for this hot take.

Oh no, I do not hate the most hype show of the season. I don't even think it's bad, quite the contrary. Erased is still one of the better shows of the Winter. But the incredible experience so many people were expecting didn't really come to past. The issue here is that this show wanted to be two different shows slapped together, and one was worlds better than the other. Where Erased (mostly) worked was when it focused on human drama. The best scenes were constantly related to Satoru reflecting on the people he met and connecting with them, trying desperately to fight the inevitable and save the lives of people doomed in his miserable timeline. Those scenes where he is once again a kid attempting to befriend and help the victim of abuse and eventual first murder target are absolutely fantastic.

There's an unexpected beauty to the humanity Satoru expresses, caring deeply for his family, friends, and the people he wants to save. The connections he makes, even in the much weaker present time story, are strong and really help develop him and everyone around him. Erased manages to be an uplifting tale in many respects, helped by the fantastic direction creating so many awe inspiring shots, with the "Christmas tree" being the highlight. As a human drama, Erased manages to be amazing.

And then the plot shows up and we have to deal with the other part of the series, the thriller drama.

This is where the problems start to rise. The premise of the series is that Satoru, a kidnapping victim who's become emotionally stunted, has the power to travel back in time to help people in danger, and this strange power eventually allows him to do his life over and save the people murdered and framed back in the case he was involved in. It's fine at first, making a great hook and allowing for the wonderful past sequences. But then we're snapped back to the present, where the cast Satoru interacts with are far, far less developed and interesting. His highschool girl sidekick has a sad back story based around people thinking her father stole a chocolate bar that lead to his life crumbling around him (I'm dead serious), his former manager is basically a cartoon, and everyone else is just there to be a plot device.

When we eventually find out who the killer is, the reveal is well handled ...but then we learn more about why the killer does what they do. It is disappointing. Without spoiling everything, they're effectively a generic serial killer with muddled motives. Combining time travel and thriller beats makes it near impossible for the show to give out character details on the killer until the second to last episode, so what could have worked is too rushed to leave much of an impact. The ending is also a bit too nice, especially the completely unnecessary final scene. It wraps everything up far too neatly, which doesn't really work for a series that was at its best when it was relatable and human.

Erased is a beautiful, entertaining show. But it felt me feeling a bit hollow. I'd definitely recommend it to most anyone, just keep expectations in check. You're getting a solid thriller with some fantastic drama bits mixed in, not the other way around. It's cheesy and a bit hamfisted at points, but I'm glad I finished it.

Final Score: 7/10

Girls Beyond the Wasteland
David O'Neil

Sticking with Girls Beyond the Wasteland rather than dropping it was likely a mistake. Ever since the beginning I had known the show wasn't especially "good", it operated on a pretty by-the-numbers harem set up, wasn't visually appealing, and had characters who were defined entirely by their stereotypical harem archetypes. Yet, early on I got some kind of bizarre enjoyment out of the show's dumb-fun attitude. It seemed at least somewhat self aware of what it was, and made use of this self awareness without constantly calling attention to its own tropes like most self aware anime these days seem to think is clever. I thought maybe over time it'd be able to keep things fresh, or at the least keep me entertained. I was unfortunately wrong.

It really just comes down to the novelty eventually wearing off. Once I got used to the cast, and the few fun running jokes the series had under its belt, the show got more and more difficult to stay awake during, and the flaws became more and more clear. I couldn't help but notice more how lifeless the visuals were, with characters barely moving or making use of animation for comedy or drama. Or how bland all the characters were, as they become less and less fun over the course of the show, mostly just lightly pushing along plot events, or putting on a maid outfit because you gotta sell them Blu-Rays. Or how all the show's attempts at drama later on fall flat, from a brief love triangle scenario, to a twist involving one of the characters having hidden the truth about something. They present promising conflicts that could have been more effective elsewhere, but here lack the tact or emotional investment to actually take any effect. The twist towards the end especially is resolved in a pretty haphazard fashion, that it didn't feel like the show had earned whatsoever.

And then the show just sort of ends. It does have something of a climax, though its not all that exciting when the only thing hinging on it is some ridiculous bet they made with another group of dating-sim creators that never made much sense in the first place. It never follows up on any of its romantic subplots, and wraps up on a pretty typical, playing-it-safe "and then they went on to make more games" ending that wouldn't have been all that satisfying even if I did care about the characters. I thought perhaps I'd be able to recommend Girls Beyond the Wasteland as some sort of guilty pleasure, but the fun wears off quick and all that's left behind is a bare bones harem romcom that's competent, but lacks any heart, impact, or identity.

Final Score: 4/10

Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash
David O'Neil

Everyone knows "you should never judge a book by its cover", but in anime sometimes it can become easy to shrug things off from their outside appearances. When every anime season brings with it a new batch of shows about generic protagonists being transported into a video game-like fantasy world, one begins to expect it to fit a certain template. With that in mind, Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash served as a reminder that any kind of premise can overcome its preconceptions and create something great.

The show's primary strength is its characters, and how said characters serve as the sole focal point of the show's content. There's not much of a plot, mostly focusing on the main cast's daily lives and ongoing struggle to survive in the strange world they've found themselves in. It uses this structure for building and developing these characters and their relationships through their actions and interactions. These little moments of character building set up some great emotional moments, and certain scenes hit hard thanks to how this show humanizes the characters and invested me in their conflicts. From the low key, almost slice-of-life sections, to the brutal, tense action scenes, just about every part of Grimgar worked better because it put the characters first. It is too bad then, that as the show went on certain flaws became more apparent. For instance, the show quickly gains a bad habit of abusing the use of insert songs (aka Jpop/rock songs thrown in so you buy the CDs). At one point the show has three episodes straight using insert songs in major scenes. While the songs aren't bad, they often clash severely with the tone of the situations. Loud, jarring rock and pop songs just don't fit the fantasy setting, and are often even used during pivotal dramatic moment when an ordinary track from the soundtrack would have likely been far more effective.

Another unfortunate issue came in terms of the visuals. Now, typically Grimgar is damn near incredible visually. Its backgrounds are lush and detailed, its animation is weight-y and heavy on movement (especially early on), it makes excellent use of color and lighting. Unfortunately, towards the end it started wavering in its production values. The amount of character movement started to lower, faces went off model more often, and overall it simply began looking less polished. None of it was especially terrible, I'd seen shows function just fine with more glaring issues, but the show certainly took a hit from it. The most significant blight on the show visually though came with the finale. In the climax- the absolute climax of the entire show of all places- the animation was just flat out unfinished. As in, no in-betweens, not colored, just low frames-per-second key frames laid out over the background. It's clear something must have gone very wrong in the show's production for something that glaring to come to pass. But still, in the end I think I'd still likely recommend Grimgar to people. Despite its flaws, the core of the show was still thoroughly engaging. I loved watching the characters talk, and change, and laugh, and cry, because it did such a good job showing who they were, why they acted the way they did, and what it was they wanted, and then used that foundation to create some powerful scenes. While it stumbled in a few places, Grimgar managed to pull me into its world wonderfully, and I fully enjoyed my time there from beginning to end.

Final Score: 8/10

Haruchika - Haruto & Chika
Stephanie Getchell

Prior to the long break between the last installment of winter seasonal reports and this final report, I had dropped Divine Gate because it was a series that just tried way too hard and lost my interest. But I also dropped Divine Gate over Haruchika, specifically, because I felt that I would be perfectly fine in watching the latter over the former in an attempt to save some of my sanity... Not sure how good of a choice I ended up making, all things considered, because let me tell you, did the rest of Haruchika just kept going downhill and did not even try to improve. And and I such high hopes for the series to go back to the consistency that it had at the beginning of the season too.

The main issue I ended up having with Haruchika was the story. While episodic in nature, you would think that there's suppose to be some kind of main plot, right? There's supposed to be. The main story of the series is supposed to be the brass band working hard towards their goal of reaching the regional competition, because that's what you normally get with musical anime series such as Sound!, etc. Instead, Haruchika would rather go for a more character driven story and fail miserably than stick to stereotypes. We don't even see the brass band perform until the very last episode after they magical made it through two preliminary rounds. And, even then, the majority of that final performance during the final episode was blocked out in order to show the series credits half way through the episode. I'll admit, I thought the series was over once the credits kicked in, and got really mad at the series for pulling a stunt like this. It's ok, though, cause we did get another ten minutes of bad story wrap up where not only were some story elements left up in the air, but the final scene of the series ended so abruptly that it made my head spin. Either the writers for this series are brand new and working on a more training wheels series, or the writers just gave up part way through and decided to say f**k it! It really bothers me to no end when someone just decides to give up and just be completely lazy with their work after they had a decent amount of potential in the beginning.

Speaking of, some of the characters are what make the series a bit more tolerable; particularity the secondary characters that join the brass band after Haruta and Chika help solve their problems for them. Gotou, Narushima, Serizawa, and Maren's introductory episodes were among some of the more interesting stories you could come up with for characters with Narushima and Serizawa being the much emotional and complex of the entire series. As for our two title characters, there's honestly very little to say about them. Haruta is an intelligent guy, however he not only flips between possible genius to homeless bum but the possible romance he supposedly had going on went no where and was almost never brought up except in order to make it into a running gag with Chika. Chika, herself, has no change. The personality she tried to portray in the first episode gets destroyed very quickly and is never brought up again. Same with her crush that she fights Haruta over on a daily basis. The most Chika really gets is her desire to push herself so she can become a bigger part of the brass band club than what she started out as. Again, a rather cliche story line to go with, but never truly gets developed.

HaruChika ended up going from rather fun and emotional to ending at rather poor and rushed. Again, it could be the writers throwing their hands up into the air a long time ago, though it could also have something to do with the original source material the series is based off of. You can never truly tell with these kinds of things. The focus was not where it should have been, and that should have been the growth and development of the brass band club as they work towards their goals. While I can commend the series for trying something a little different and straying away from the norm, the end result was a rather piss poor job. This is by far one of the weakest series I've seen from P.A. Works, as they've been known to do a bit of a wash, rinse, and repeat situation with some of their properties. I ma y have made a mistake in keeping this series to keep rather than Divine Gate. Hell, it's possible to say I made a mistake in keeping both these series over Nurse Witch! ...............Yeah, no, I stand by that decision. Either way, it's not flat out terrible, but it did lose it's way and ended up crashing and burning so it's up to you if you do decide to give it a try.

Final Score: 4/10

KONOSUBA - God's blessing on this wonderful world!
Joe Straatmann

Those sneaky devils at Deen, forcing me to watch a "guy finds himself in an RPG-inspired world" show without knowing I was getting into one. This is normally a subgenre I do my best to avoid, mainly because it's so devoid of imagination and seeks to stroke the egos of its target audience. Oh, did I mention it's a light novel adaptation, too? Thankfully, the comedy Konosuba does not give its lead Kazuma an easy path to being a "legendary hero" or even sees him as a respectable person most of the time. Rather than being automatically declared wonderful, he dies thinking he was doing a noble act when he was really being a complete doofus. The goddess Aqua gives him the choice to live on in a world that strangely mimics a role-playing game complete with character sheets and stat upgrades. He agrees on the condition that he gets to drag Aqua with him. Living the life of a level one adventurer, they sleep in frozen horse dung, have trouble even slaying the most basic of slimes, and can only recruit the most ill-fitting party in Megumin, a mage who can cast some of the most destructive magic in the world once a day before collapsing, and Darkness, a masochist knight who couldn't hit the Great Wall of China. This is more like it.

Comedy is always a delicate chemistry of elements. Konosuba has the right bunch of lovable losers who find some bit of success, but never enough. Kazuma means well, and when he finds he has the ability to steal panties, it's an accident... the FIRST time. Megumin has a certain sweetness mixed with an incredible hard-on for power (A staff being a perfectly serviceable replacement for a penis). They can be a force to be reckoned with against the Devil King's generals just as much as they're capable of destroying the starter village they're stuck in by accident. They're nice company, even if they do tend to mash on certain traits. Oh, Darkness' love of crushing pain and verbal lacerations being directed at her does get mashed on plenty.

The plots are usually quests to get loot, raise levels, and generally get them to a better place than they were before. It's nothing too involved, but it doesn't have to be. Neither are the visuals, which echo the fantasy gaming look without being too on-the-nose with its reference. I will say they use transitions with the show's logo and the voice actors shouting the title a little too often, like it's a short based on a comic strip. Studio Deen also seems to have borrowed breasts physics from the Dead or Alive series as the signature animation of this project is the supporting female cast's bouncing boobies seemingly whenever they move.

Nevertheless, Konosuba is enjoyable otaku trash that neither worships its Mary Sue lead nor puts his head on a satirical spike. I'm glad it got picked up for a second season, as it's consistently fun and full of pleasure; guilty, innocent, and otherwise. It's smart enough to not have dirty thoughts on its mind all the time, but if succubi happened to have opened a shop in town, it'd be rude not to pay a visit....

Final Score: 7/10

Luck & Logic
Joe Straatmann

If there is a blessing and a curse to the breaks before the final seasonal reviews, it's that there is not a mandatory bi-weekly viewing of Luck and Logic. On the flip side, I had to struggle to catch up before writing this, and I assure you, it was a struggle. Strangely enough, Doga Kobo's effort to turn a card game into an anime isn't terrible on the surface. War in alternate universe Tetra-Heaven (Just go with it) has poured into Earth, and pairs of humans and gods make pacts with each other to combine into one entity briefly to take them down called Trancing. Enough stuff for a standard series that's just to the left.of normal to be intriguing. They even got the Kouichi Chigita, the director of Last Exile, on the project. All the pieces are there except for one of the most vital: A soul.

Even when we get to the main character, he's not all cliche. Instead of some young upstart who is special because the show says he is, Yoshichika is a veteran Logicalist who did a reckless thing in the line of duty which caused his Logic card, the source of his powers, to go missing (Logic is the ultimate building block of life and manipulating it can give you special abilities and blah blah blah). It just so happens the goddess Athena found Yoshichika's Logic card at Plot Convenience Beach and he agrees to getting back in the business of fighting alternate dimension gods known as Foreigners with the one wrinkle that Athena is his partner. Rather than a harem, this show is more like Kiddy Grade in that the Logicalists work in dyads. Again, this is all not bad per se, but the execution is rotten, making every moment have a sort of toxic mediocrity.

The lackadaisical tone is hard to portray without watching an episode or two, but I'll do my best. Despite the main character having a little bit different of a backstory, he IS every guy anime lead, and his sister stating the cliches he's doing along with his dad being an insatiable womanizer are only weak feints at distracting the audience from this. The monsters of the week have some interesting designs and I'm sure all have cool mythology, but you wouldn't know it in Luck and Logic where they often don't even speak or get any kind of backstory. There's one that tosses balls of minions or the undead or something, but it washes across the viewer as nothing that's supposed to impress or engage. There's a Logicalist named Olga Breakchild who is powerful and arrogant, yet doesn't have a god to call his own even as he talks crap to everyone else. Guess who eventually becomes the villain? And I wonder if he's going to team up with Lucifer, a powerful former angel kicked out of Tetra-Heaven who even has a similar character design. Every element feels like the people in charge shrugged, said, "Eh, whatever...." and waved it through.  Let's put it this way: There's a scene where something escapes prison by feigning illness. We're at that level of imagination.

I wouldn't say nobody cared as that's a rude insinuation many critics make, but it didn't seem a high priority to make Luck and Logic the best project they could crank out. In one episode about the mentor of one of the team turning out to be a crazed experimenter using the other dimensional beings as his playthings, nothing is played right. The build-up isn't really there, the reveal is rushed, and even bizarre action beats like a truck being driven on an icy, round tower pipe don't scan. On another end of the series, the romance between Yoshichika and Athena is flat. Having a loving relationship between the two is a given from the beginning since Trance partners must recite oaths that sound like marriage. Curiously, they lack even an ounce of chemist, having the conflict within them such simple fiction snaffus as neglecting to say he loves or appreciates her, causing her to wander off. The supporting cast get their own mini-stories and have exactly a one-episode arc per person to which all of their issues are sorted out before their conversation goes back to being background noise. If it feels like I'm weaving in and out of points with no sense of importance, well, that's pretty much what the series does.

A shame, too. The music is surprisingly excellent, properly conveying the grandness of the battles and the plight within the Logicalists. The visuals have issues with trying to use bright green with ill-fitting neutrals as its main color scheme, yet have plenty of work put into the designs as well as functional animation. Whatever forgettable stories exist within Luck and Logic's 12-episode run, the final third has at least a decent amount of thought put into it. Olga's circumstances are predictable, but it is a convincing transformation through manipulation and Olga's own hubris. I wish the story continued with the villain being one of those heroes in their own mind whose plans are merely not normal, punished to his breaking point for the crime of being different. The series' averageness stops this in favor of a much more standard villain actions with all of the nice things he did being cold, calculated manipulations. It could've been so much more. Like everything else here, I suppose.

Final Score: 4/10

Myraid Colors: Phantom World
Danni Kristen

Leave it to KyoAni to adapt a shitty harem light novel and make me enjoy it. I went into this show expecting to want to drop it after a few episodes, but watching it every Wednesday easily became one of the highlights of my week. I'm also never recommending it to anyone. That's not to say I think it's bad, but it's just so purely anime.

Final Score: 7/10

Norn9: Norn + Nonet
Stephanie Getchell

As you may well known by now, I'm not much of a gaming person. Yes you can call me a casual if you want, I don't care. Gaming has never really been my thing. So whenever I go into a series that is an adaptation of a video game, nine times out of ten, I'm going in completely blind to it's original material. This happened with Danganronpa, it happened with Divine Gate this season, and it very much happened here with Norn9. The seems fairly easily to understand on the surface: a group of young adults with supernatural abilities try to keep the world from falling apart due to conflict. While doing so, they bond with each other, with some relationships becoming stronger than others. It's too bad they spent more time with those developing relationships that actually trying for a decent story.

As mentioned in a previous report, Norn9 is slightly unique in the otome game world because it's three female protagonists that you have to form three relationships for throughout the course of the game. Going into the anime series, you really only get to pick one guy for each girl to fall for. Now, Koharu and Nanami's respective relationships with Kakeru and Akito ended up on the right path, but it's Mikoto's relationship with Natsuhiko that causes a lot of glaring writing issues. I'm not sure if this was a thing in the game as well, however, when you give the impression that this relationship is going to be what is focused on in the series then you need to focus on it rather than just slightly toss it in during the final third. For Mikoto, it honestly would have made much more sense if they explored her relationship with Sakuya instead as that pairing gets even more screen time than the former. Not only would it make sense, but it wouldn't have made things a more sloppy then they ended up being as Mikoto seems to pick Natsuhiko just because his view on the world around him inspires her to. No hint of a romantic relationship occurs during the series; making the opening theme extremely misleading. But, then again, it's not like any of the relationships are well developed. Mikoto's is just the least developed out of the main three romances.

This essentially leads into the writing for the series. It's not all that good. What it wanted to be was a supernatural/action series with gifted young ones working together to save to world. Instead it opted to go with the more romance option. It's saddening too, because there are parts of the world that was created for this series that really did catch my attention; particularly the World itself. Parts of the mechanics of this world as well as the ship, Norn, seemed rather different compared to others series that use similar ideas and technology. Aion was among those as she is a machine, but also a rather intricate cog in this thing the series tries to make the bigger picture. The series does have a good amount going for it, but gets weighed down heavily by these lackluster romances that it tries to cook up; with the overall writing of the series just diving deeper and deeper into the pits of a dark ocean. If given the chance, it would have made a pretty decent Action/SciFi series. Just give the show better writing and give it less romance to screw around with and we'd have ourselves a winner!

While Norn9 ended up being the most tolerable of the series I was assigned this season, it was in no way the best. While it did try and be a little bit more innovative when it comes to the otome game adaptations, the writing didn't try to go above and beyond in order to try and keep the series from being too generic. It's still filled with the typical troupes and cliches we tend to see when series similar to this one tend to be made. The only difference is that it tries to be a romance series as well without really developing the relationships fully. There's quite a bit going on, however it's just never given the chance to really explore or develop the world and the characters that inhabit them. Again, it's not the worst series I've seen this season, but it is among the best of the series I was initially assigned at the start of the winter season. It's not one I'd want to go to right away, but it would an okay series to marathon just to revisit it much later down the line.

Final Score: 5/10

Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation
Joe Straatmann

A huge plot twist separates the first half of this video game adaptation from the second, and it probably would've been for the best if it was the main concept from the get go. Few series have been abandoned so quickly after the first entry here where the main thrust of the story was literally the main character being taught how to play Phantasy Star Online 2.  The rest of the first half is similarly an ad for the game (The school is even called Seiga Academy. Get it?) with bare-bones high school slice-of-life shenanigans doing little to make the infomercial compelling. Yet, if one can hang in there, it eventually becomes the science fiction adventure they promised in the first place with positive production values. That at the very least takes it off the fast track to the worst anime titles of the year list.

In the beginning, we have an exceptionally standard school tale about Itsuki, the average anime protagonist who even says he's absolutely average like the writers being self-aware of what they're doing means it gets a pass. He's immediately recruited to the student council by president Rina to play Phantasy Star Online 2 and type up sociological reports. For real, that is what part of my Crunchy Roll money is going towards. Rina's big plan is to give this data to the school administrators to keep them from banning PSO 2 due to lowered grades. Oh, it gets even more fascinating with the planning of the school festival, and Rina's insistence that they have an after-party despite everyone being against the idea. Now don't all of you hold in your excitement at once.

From here on out, we're diving into SPOILER territory for the one person who cares. Video games are real. The war with the Darkers isn't only a part of the hottest online sensation on the Seiga campus, but a small window into an intergalactic brawl with a real ARKS organization trying to stop them. I'm not sure how this works, whether it's all a simulation or not, as the writing only does the bare minimum of covering up the cracks. The Darkers find their way to the school's side of the galaxy transporting through the game and try to kidnap students to see if they can be the vessel for their ultimate being, Dark Farce... er, Falz (Sorry, old school Phantasy Star fan here). Due to Itsuki being so good at the game, his powers transfer into the real world, giving him a real-life MMORPG makeover needed to become an instant elite ARKS warrior.

It's self-insert pandering to the extreme, but I'm not lying when I say I kind of dig this part of it. It's exceptionally cheesy and square with a kind of goofy charm in its idiocy that doesn't work when it's attempting to persuade you PSO 2 is the bridge between all that troubles humanity in ways pyramid scheme dupes would roll their eyes at. For a self-insert character, Itsuki is an affable dolt who can't tell that when Rina grills him about what he does when he runs off with ARKS fighter/"foreign exchange student" Aika, she's really asking whether they're having relations. He's also the kind of moron who, despite being directly warned Dark Falz is trying to trick him and wandering into an obvious fake world, he waits until the illusion of Rina clearly gets red eyes before shaking her hand and getting trapped. His stupidity is kind of hilarious since he's supposed to the person the audience relates to.

Being fair, PSO 2 does get a few character beats intentionally right. Of the bad series I've had to watch this season, this at least has a metaphor that works. Rina became socially isolated after one incident where she played hide and go seek and nobody sought to find her even after the game was long over. The series actually loops back and follows up on this. Granted, in a predictable and bland fashion, but it's there. Plus, in an odd way, it likes its characters. You can kind of tell when people are going through the motions and just making something to get enough money to get what they REALLY want done. There's not really that feeling here. Everything's simple and stereotypical, but the voice actors play through it like pros and everyone on the production does what they can to make you care even with the obvious boat anchor that half the series is a sales pitch.

Animation here is a weird addition by subtraction. The scenes with above-average animation and plenty of activity are doled out in 50-calorie bites, being enough to know they're tasty, yet not nearly enough to satisfy the anime hunger. At one point, this tries to be Macross with an ARKS warrior who's also a pop idol pumping up the troops for the final battle. I imagine this doesn't even have a fifth of Macross Frontier's budget, so the scene ends after about a minute. The music has similar points of briefly chiming it with its optimistic waves where it feels like Itsuki should be bobbing his head around happily while walking across campus. The score never realized 90's anime eventually ended, but it fits with the somewhat innocuous tone and steps up to half-an-orchestra whenever the flow leads into battles, online or not.

I laughed at its wide-eyed dumbness, which is a better reaction than I had with most of the other series this year. I wanted to talk about how silly it gets when the student festival plot is given far more attention and reverence than the threat to devour the universe in a time when I didn't want to talk about any of the other garbage I got this season. It's bad, but it's occasionally a fun kind of bad. How blatant of an advertisement tool it is keeps me from any kind of recommendation, but a few years down the road, I could see people making a few wisecracks the way Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode Radar Secret Service made fun of how amazing people thought radar was going to be. This series only stops short of saying Phantasy Star Online 2 can cure medical illness, after all. It's the most obviously bad series of the season, but that doesn't make it the worst.

Final Score: 5/10

Prince of Stride: Alternative
Danni Kristen

I was honestly dreading reviewing this show a little. It by no means looked terrible, and Madhouse has a good reputation when it comes to shows they produce, but I was still not looking forward to this one at all. It has fanservice material written all over it, and not the kind I like. I always get pretty salty whenever bishie guys taking off their shirts and being ambiguously gay is labeled as fanservice for girls. I'm a lesbian. I'll take the big boobs and dumb skimpy outfits any day. Regardless, I got the generic bishie sports show to review, and it was...watchable.

There really isn't anything in particular that makes Prince of Stride stand out above all the other sports shows out there. All the typical archetypes are here, as are all the typical plot trappings of a sports show. The only thing that really seemed to be missing was a wealth of fanservice. There were very few moments of stripping among the boys. The camera never lingered on their bodies, and even if it had there wouldn't have been much to show. They weren't drawn near as muscled as the character models in the likes of Free! are. It felt like a show built for people that just really love sports shows and the ambiguously gay boys in all of them. It never sold itself well on production values, either. While it had a nice, consistent style, they never really did much with the animation. It just doesn't compare well against Madhouse's better offerings, especially following the season of sakuga porn they gave us with One Punch Man. There was only one scene where the animated lighting really impressed me. Two characters stood on a sidewalk at night as cars drove by. As each car drove by, the lights and shadows on their faces shifted. It added depth and weight to the scene. It drew me into the emotions being expressed by the characters. Then at the very end of the scene instead of animating a character walking, they simply dragged his model a little. It felt cheap and immediately undermined the impressive sequence from before. Though most of the show is suitable animation, that one scene sticks out in my mind due to how quickly it went from impressive to disappointing.

I also noticed frequent instances of bad technique in Prince of Stride that went unmentioned. I suppose that's kind of a nitpick that comes from having participated in a fitness club for awhile, but it still bothered me. Every time these talented and experienced runners doubled over for breath after a sprint I wanted to yell at them to stand up straight. At one point, one character collapses on the ground after a sprint. Another runner tells him, while doubled over, that he can't catch his breath that way. That one really got on my nerves. You're not supposed to bend over to catch your breath either. You want to stand up straight and put your hands on your head. It opens up your lungs more and makes it easier to breathe. They also all caught their breath through their mouths, but that can lead to cramps. You need to take deep breaths through your nose when you're out of breath. Call that nitpicking if you want. For the most part, I enjoyed Prince of Stride. It was watchable, and kind of cute. I loved a lot of the character designs, especially of opposing schools. If I hadn't been assigned this show to review, though, I definitely wouldn't have watched it. Let me know when we get a sports show about cute girls instead of cute boys.

Final Score: 6/10

Schwarzes Marken
Joe Straatmann

There is a very fine line between decent melodrama and bad soap opera. The key is the people involved have to feel like they're in a human-driven drama and not parts of an emotional manipulation machine executing a program. Schwarzes Marken sure has plenty of characters with tragic backstories trying to survive alternate 1983 East Germany in the midst of an alien invasion, but it's played more like they're Sims and their god wants them to suffer. I just watched the first episode of Final Fantasy XV Brotherhood, and the fact that Noct takes the lettuce off his cheeseburger is by itself a greater character detail than we ever get here. Their issues don't have any impact as they as they're the only defining factors of the cast, lacking any sense of empathy except in emotional blackmail (Of course a woman who is prostituted and brainwashed by the secret police on an extremely loaded promise garners sympathy, but that shouldn't be one of three traits to the whole person). This is a manga adaptation and a fairly loyal one from what I understand, so it's perhaps a bit unfair to put this all on the anime. The people who make anime still have to pick good material, though.

Much artistic license is given to this era of intense government surveillance behind the iron curtain. Obviously, the hordes of aliens that resemble testicles with faces aren't historically accurate, nor are the jets from the era that are now mechs with plane wings on the side (Would've made Top Gun a very different movie, that's for sure). This is simply background to a story that exists to repeat how much East Germany's government sucks over and over. Main character Theodor is a member of the 666th Schwarzes Marken squadron, East Germany's best MiG pilots who has survived having most of his family killed trying to escape to the west and being tortured profusely before being forced into military service. Other squadron members include Irisdina, a woman who was had to kill her brother to live, her reputation permanently blemished with the nickname "dog of the Stasi" as a result. The newest member Katia was brought in from the West and seeks to figure out the history of her father, an Eastern German hero who has since had his name redacted from the history books. I would love to talk about these people's interests or their defining characteristics, but these ARE their defining characteristics other than they can still secretly stand up against the Stasi. It's not nothing, but it certainly comes off as manipulative.

The aliens are the key to understanding just how underdeveloped the whole concept is. Where do they come from? Out there. Why do they want to destroy humanity and take over the Earth? Nobody knows. What are their numbers and where are their strongholds? It changes depending on what the plot requires them to do. They are the main conflict and aren't really that important until the story decides they are. The final episode has the BETA (The name for the aliens) overrunning the fort in front of Berlin, and then cuts away for about 20 minutes before it ever gets back to the "pressing" matter at hand. Yeah, there's this huge internal struggle for the fate of the Eastern Germany government, underlining a tired trope of how much more cruel mankind is to itself than a threat that seems to only exist to annihilate humanity. It's still weird they how much the aliens don't matter. The BETA are of course a deadly threat at the beginning because they have to be established as the ultimate villains. Afterwards, if the operation to take out the aliens' horrific laser array goes well, they fall almost as easily as opposing Dynasty Warriors armies. I actually like the detail about lasers being so oppressively powerful. It's a very eighties idea lasers were going to become these unholy and unstoppable weapons until Reagan's Star Wars program became one of the most infamous government blunders in history, and it's a neat inclusion. If only we got anything but the vaguest look as this laser array, or a look at battles in general besides mechs occasionally cruising in and slashing stuff. There's a scene where tens of thousands of BETA are napalmed and it looks like a blank strip of land being roasted for no reason.

At a turning point, Irisdina has the line,"You see bonds between siblings and family as mere tools." I would argue this is how Schwarzes Marken views its cast. I was almost hopeful when Theodor is on a secret mission in Berlin with fellow soldier Gretel where they have a night on the town in the middle of it and they exchange some mutual affection surprising even to themselves. It was unexpected and human rather than the trumped-up Greek tragedy making up the rest of the plot. Little did I know this was all part of the plan. You see, Gretel is a small supporting character whose two traits is she has glasses and totally believes in the socialist state. With no murder, torture, or suffering on her resume, she has to have something to make the viewer care when she's put through the bloody paces. The last third of the anime is almost all people dying as tediously as possible. I mean, how else was it  supposed to turn out aside from the one ray of hope? There are attempts at playing with gray areas when factions of the Stasi splinter off and the 666th has to ally with one of them to survive, but these are characters with crimson hair or glowing red eyes. Gee, I wonder if a guy named Axmann will turn out to be redeemable later....

The elements for a real cracker of a series are instead made as drab as Eastern Bloc architecture thanks to an overwhelming need to promote suffering above all else amidst a hopeful message of human will. Just like parents smoking weed in a sitcom will produce dull results, so does endlessly tormenting your characters in a drama. The mech fights are serviceable and the music fills in some gaps in emotion (Especially when they break out some oboe solos. Oboe player should be the main character here, let's face it),  Alas, what it manages to accomplish is dashed by being too paper thin while ratcheting up the melodrama past excessive levels to compensate. An interesting concept not done any favors by going for easy tears.

Final Score: 4/10

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinju
Danni Kristen

Every now and then a show comes along that just immediately deserves to become a classic. Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju is one of those shows. From beginning to end this show demonstrated a wealth of masterful talent behind it. The best part is that it isn't even over yet. Season two is on its way later this year. It's first half was a beautiful, tragic tale about two brothers and their dedication to a dying art. Virtually the entire season was one long backstory setting up for next season's story about the one surviving brother passing on the rakugo torch to the next generation of performers. It might sound odd and unnecessary to dedicate an entire season to backstory, but it was well worth it. It was a beautiful story that deserved every moment dedicated to telling it. More than anything I'm surprised that the show didn't conclude at the end of this season. The backstory could really have just been the whole story and I would have been satisfied. Nevertheless, I'm thrilled that there's more left in this story to tell. This show has me hooked.

I've been reviewing shows for Infinite Rainy Day for a full year now. I put a lot of thought and care into the screenshots I choose for my posts. I try my best to choose the one single frame that can best demonstrate what the show is and what it is selling. Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju has been the hardest show to choose screenshots for. Each and every episode is simply loaded with single frames that carry tons of depth and weight to them. This was a beautifully composed show that told so much story without even saying a thing. The animation is this show was rather limited, but it was bursting with expressiveness in its imagery. The thoughts and emotions of characters were easily readable without veering anywhere towards exaggerated. Lighting shifted to match the tone set by the conversation. Camera angles and perspectives helped visually represent each character's inner conflicts and feelings. The scenery sold every scene and at times even provided morbid symbolism. All of it was supported by a beautiful soundtrack reflective of the time this period piece was set in. Top it off with a fantastic vocal performance from the whole cast and Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju is one of the most impressive shows of the past few years.

If you don't know what rakugo is, or if you do but aren't sure it's your kind of thing, I still highly recommend this show. I went into it knowing nothing about what rakugo was. The show never really bothers to outright explain the craft to newcomers, and I'm glad it never did. I found its rules and traditions simple to pick up on, and I appreciated the trust placed in the viewer on the show's part. Rakugo is a dying art in Japan, especially among younger audiences, so the typical anime demographic likely knows nothing about or has no interest in rakugo. Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju treated the art form it pays tribute to with dignity and respect. This kind of dedication helped create a newfound appreciation for rakugo inside of me. Even if you're unfamiliar with the art form, the story around it is easy to recognize and relate to. At its core, Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju is a story about art and why we suffer for it. It's about the joy and fulfillment in creation and appreciation. It's also about the artists we look up to and how they drive us to become better artists ourselves. This is a beautiful show, and it deserves your full attention.

Final Score: 10/10

Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle
Jonathan Kaharl

To the surprise of literally no one, this is a bad show. Like, really bad. And like all light novel shows, the most frustrating part is that I can see a really good story trapped between all the expository dialog, self-insertion masturbation, overly complicated political bullcrap, and idiotic understanding of character definition. This time around, the good ideas crawling in the muck are mainly two characters, and elements of a few others. In the hands of someone who doesn't fall into bad fantasy writing traps, I could actually see this series being good. But, you know, everyone starts somewhere, and for some insane reason, people who start in light novels become bizarrely popular and get anime based on poor works, so I got to be that one guy in the workshop.

The premise of this stupid light novel show is that the wussy prince of a dead empire joins an all girls knight academy by complete accident and is actually super badass because he has a powerful robot suit that destroyed his old country's entire army because otaku have to feel like they're super special. As usual, a harem forms of five girls, and some poorly explained or downright boring political stuff happens. We also get all the usual tropes, including the gay girl who's not actually gay, use of sexual assault threats for the sake of drama, making the lead heroine a pathetic joke, girls forcing the effeminate guy to crossdress, cartoonishly evil minor villain built up to be a big deal but is actually the most nonthreatening character in the whole series, and so forth. This is an explosion of bad cliches, but there's some good ideas mixed in there.

Making the main character Lux physically the weakest character isn't common for this genre, and it could have been an interesting twist on his otherwise tired archetype. Lisha ends up being an obnoxious tsundere with a shocking lack of understanding to sexuality, but her back story has a good parallel to Lux that could have resulted in something more interesting with a writer who relies on tired tropes less. Yoruka, the last girl in the harem, also has good ideas in her back story, like being trained from birth to be a killer and her bizarre honor code, and Celistia could have been a great team leader if the show would stop trying to masturbate the viewers egos every five seconds. The basis for good characters are all here. The problem is that the writer believes contradictions are what make a character (Lisha acts mighty but is an emotionally confused girl, Celistia's idiotic "I'M NOT ACTUALLY A MAN HATER I LOVE MEN" thing, ect), and the cast almost never grow beyond the contradictions. Lux may be the worst example, as his entire thing is that he's still traditionally masculine in battle because he can easily overpower his foes and always saves the girls, who usually end up being useless or side characters in their own stories. It's a gross misstep, especially for his usual characterization.

The story is also a complete mess. The series is divided into multiple arcs that each focus on a different girl, all adding together into a greater whole with a conspiracy plot involving Lux's old kingdom trying to stage a rebellion and Lux trying to make the new kingdom work from the inside. That actual plot, however, leads nowhere interesting, constantly teasing of a much more interesting story involving human experimentation that never comes to pass. The presence of the ancient ruins and monsters in them add nothing to the story outside a single arc, just creating the means for monster of the arc stories. All the villains are one note and boring from the world go, and not a single one ever feels like a threat. Production does not help, with lame CG battles where cluttered messes of mech suits smash against other mech suits and poorly textured monsters. I like the character designs in general, but no one design sticks out besides that of Phi. Backgrounds are dull and lifeless, and music fails to really stand out in any way. It's all such forgettable muck.

There are only two characters in this show that actually work and have any sort of depth. The first is Krulcifer (yes, that is really her name), a princess from another country trying to earn her freedom as she struggles with her past. Unlike the rest of the cast, she's something born from the ruins, and she actually grows a solid relationship with Lux, being able to know exactly what will help the team most in dire situations and able to converse with Lux on a higher level than anyone else. When it seems like the show is going to make her another Lisha, she just becomes more socially dominating. She's not a complex character, but she ends up remaining likable and keeps her agency.

Then there's Phi, Lux's childhood friend and the character who should have been the lead. Phi is part of a noble family from the old kingdom and an old friend of Lux, and we get to see how that relationship formed and why she's so attached to him, and it actually makes sense. She's likable very quickly because she's too busy yawning or eating to care about the bad jokes during the show's lighter moments, and she gets a lot of great deadpan lines. But her story ends up being the only one that truly works, the product of human experimentation that stunted her emotional growth and reducing her to a minion for the villains. She was supposed to kill Lux, but she kept resisting the power the villains had over her because she genuinely cared so much for him, and she's the only one who truly seems to understand Lux instead of simply be infatuated with him. Phi's entire situation is far more interesting than any other character, and her personality is very refreshing in a cast filled with blushing teenagers who mainly wonder if Lux likes them or not. She's also the most openly heroic and selfless, willing to sacrifice herself for the sake of others without a moment's notice.

But despite Phi's surprisingly well handled character, the show can't be saved from the sheer magnitude of failures and flaws everywhere else. At its best, the show is mildly entertaining. At its worst, it's offensive, sexist, and downright xenophobic. It plays everything too safe and lacks an identity for itself that isn't build on poor handling of good ideas, while also using every tired otaku garbage cliche in the book. As far as bad light novel shows go, this is no Magical Warfare, but it's pretty damn bad. If it wasn't for Dimension W being so aggressively gross, Bahamut would have been on my shit list a long time ago.

Final Score: 3/10

Shorts

Ojisan and Marshmallow
Stephanie Getchell

I've gone back an forth with Ojisan since the very beginning, and it's hard to tell how I feel about it now at the end. Yes, the premise is really simple to understand and follow and, yes, there are some entertaining moments written in. The main problem that I've had up through to now is that it just can be rather dull. The story and characters are amusing in and of itself, however this little series just isn't the kind that can truly capture my attention. It's fairly similar to Rainy Cocoa in that regard. The simplicity makes it good, but the fact that it's also a short doesn't do much in the way of the story telling. But what Ojisan at least does a little better than Rainy Cocoa is that it's characters are more enjoyable since we don't have a lot in the way of development; giving more room to have fun with the scenarios the series gives them. While simple and easy to get through, Ojisan is one that I wouldn't be thrilled to go back to rather quickly. It was a fun little series, to say the least, but I'm just glad I can go back to Kagewani next season!

Final Score: 6/10

Ooya-san wa Shishunki!
David O'Neil

It's difficult to argue Ooya-san wa Shinsuki wasted my time. Even by anime shorts standards the episodes flew by, they're briskly paced, never get boring, and chocked full of jokes and energy. It's also well animated, with tons of lively character action animation, nice character designs, and bright colors making the show visually appealing. And at times it is quite fun, with some genuinely funny jokes and entertaining situations here and there that made the show feel at least somewhat worth watching. It's too bad the show comes with the baggage of having some uncomfortable, shadey intentions. After all, I have trouble fully recommending a show about a middle-school girl that manages to have an episode about her going to a bath house, her going to buy bras, and her going to try on cute-sy outfits all in a pretty short span of time. As far as this sort of fanservice goes, Ooya-san wa Shinsuki is fairly tame and never goes any farther than playing up her cuteness and some distasteful bust size jokes (thank god they didn't follow up on the implications of romance between her and the adult male protagonist like I was worried) but for many people even this sort of low key subtext will come off as a bit too questionable. But for those who can overlook that, and enjoy it as cute moe fluff, it's a decently put together time waster, that's even polite enough to not waste all that much of your time.

Final Score: 5/10

Please tell me! Galko-chan
Jonathan Kaharl

I've written about this one in far more detail on my main blog, but the gist is that Galko-chan is very human, and that is where it gets its strength. It's a lewd comedy, yes, but with gags and jokes based around common puberty thoughts, and it isn't a product of the usual otaku trash. Really, the entire series is filled with relatable characters of all body types and backgrounds, and they're all almost instantly endearing. Galko herself is probably the strongest character in how she acts the way she does to express herself, and she certainly doesn't embody her surface stereotype. That's not just joke fuel either, it's the source of a bit of character drama in places, and it really works.

I'm so glad a show like this exists for girls hitting puberty, and I'm so glad it exists for the rest of us to enjoy. I've never really seen a series like Galko-chan anywhere, and we need more stuff like it right now.

Final Score: 9/10

Sekkou Boys
Joe Straatmann

My first impression would end up being my final impression of Sekkou Boys. It's a show about how goofy it would be if classical statues were pop stars, and... that's about it. The first episode was endlessly setting up the lead character Miki as an art school graduate forced to turn into a idol manager with an obvious payoff. What improved as it went along was the detail they put into the concept. The statues have to be hooked into baby seats or put on a roller when they're transported. The personalities are of the people they were based on, fictional or otherwise, so we have the god of war Mars, St. George, Hermes, and a younger Medici placed in the modern world. Eventually, it starts to poke fun at the music world with such instances as a scandal when one of "The Rockies" gets caught at another pop star's apartment as she shows him her insect collection. Then... it sort of peters out.

Maybe the problem is the last third had to have an overarching story to finish everything. This is the sort of show where the more grounded to a standard plot line and reality it is, the less interesting and funny it can be. I liked it better when the Rockies randomly had drinks and the show didn't have to underline the ridiculousness by giving them meta remarks late in the game. The final episodes start with the idea that the group got hipster famous by everyone loving their music ironically, eventually leading to a forced divide between Miki and the boys, and finally a kidnapping. Sekkou Boys doesn't so much reach a conclusion as wander into it. But if you need a light comedy with a slightly out-there premise, it's likable enough even as it leans on that premise too much.

Final Score: 6/10

Sushi Police
Danni Kristen

This season's collection of shorts included a few based on concepts that sounded stupidly fun on paper, but completely flopped in execution. Sushi Police is one of those shorts. The idea to revolve a show around a team of Japanese salarymen who travel the world punishing those who make inauthentic sushi was so stupid it should've been funny. I thought it would be funny.  It wasn't funny. It was just hard to watch. After spending all season trying to figure out just what made me hate the show so much, I think I finally know. The main characters suck. Nothing in the show made me like them. They were never kind, lovable or sympathetic. All they did was travel the world wrecking people's lives over sushi. I just felt bad for the people they attacked. Even when they started fighting for the Free Sushi movement it was only because their boss had tried to kill them. None of the jokes or funny absurdity of the situations landed because I just hated everyone on screen. Also, that animation was ugly as hell. Don't watch Sushi Police.

Final Score: 2/10

Second Opinions

BBK/BRNK

David: Usually I tend to aversive towards fully CG anime that mimics 2D animation because it's very difficult to get right. I've seen plenty of shows only copy more 2D-minded art-styles in the most shallow sense, making it come off as an awkward, hollow imitation of something else. That's why I was so impressed by BBK/BRNK, which manages to use techniques from smears, to effects animation, to morphing of characters, with proficiency I've never seen in TV anime. While it on occasion relies a bit too much on still characters, when they move it looks excellent, integrating Gainax/Trigger-esque sensibilities into their own CG style in a way that blends remarkably well. In addition, it has some absolutely gorgeous backgrounds, which are a treat to look at even on their own. And even beyond the visuals, the show is just a lot of fun. It does suffer from relentlessly quick pacing, jumping from action scene to action scene, barely ever taking a breath for character or world building. Luckily though, the action is incredibly entertaining, and it even manages to work in some legitimately strong character moments in from time to time. First Cour Score: 7/10

Dimension W

Stephanie: Dimension W was the series that was extremely hyped this season. It was to be the big action/SciFi series that would even boast an american licensing company to help produce an anime series seeing as how, for some reason, people still tend to confuse a licensing company with being the actual animation studio; but I digress. For what it's worth, the series started out rather well and lived up to that hype. The problem, however, is that it caved in on itself as it went along. By the fourth episode on, the series began to rush and jump over certain plot points that could have made the story much more interesting. I'm not sure if it's a problem with the amount of manga chapters that was adapted or the fact that the studio was only able to make 12 episodes, but, by the end of the series, I felt rather disappointed in Dimension W. When series are overly hyped, liked this one was, I either try and keep thinking objectively or just steer clear from the series period. Sadly, I fell for the hype on this one and got a rather saddening result. As for the broadcast dub that is currently airing on Toonami (I've only gotten to see four episodes as of writing this because no cable plus three week streaming delay equals thanks FUNimation), I've heard better work from much of the voice talent involved; Christopher Sabat especially. All in all, it's not a terrible show, just rather average; and one I wished didn't decide to rush itself in the end. Final Score: 5/10

ERASED

Danni: This show started off extremely promising, but just kind of limped across the finish line. Not only did the quality of the production fluctuate throughout the series, but also the direction the story took. On one hand there was a touching story about isolation and abuse with Hinazuki at the center and on the other there was a cheesy and predictable thriller about catching a serial killer. It's not a bad show by a wide margin, but it's disappointing that what could have been a memorable favorite became bogged down by genre trappings. Final Score: 7/10

Joe: This takes me back to Frequency, a movie you might not remember. It was a reasonable hit in the early 2000s, starring Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel as a father and son who talk across time via an old radio and attempt to repair events that led to a broken, empty household. The father and son bonding worked extremely well, but the critics had trouble with the climax involving a serial killer that was too Hollywood and had too many of those time travel movie plot holes. Even the director realized the ending didn't make sense and tried to fix it, but was stopped by suits when positive reactions went through the roof with test audiences. This brings us to Erased, an occasionally wonderful anime about a failed manga artist whose consciousness travels back to his boyhood in 1988 to solve a series of murders that leads up to him being framed for the death of his mother. As a person who is around the age of the protagonist, this hit me in all the right spots as far as dealing with the disappointments in life and wanting to fix key events that led to the now (I was supposed to be a best-selling novelist by now, but adult ADHD affecting my communication abilities stole years of potential before I got it under control). The characterization is rich and realistic, truly feeling like life in 1988 right down to random conversations about Dragon Quest/Warrior. Of course, then the serial killer shows up, and it's a very Hollywood villain following the rules of the economy of characters (The one who did it is the one that wanders around the story with seemingly the least to do with it that's not the red herring). This was too unnatural and ruined the perfect little harmony of arthouse and crowd pleaser for some. It didn't really for me. It was always wish fulfillment as extremely well written and trimmed with visual metaphor as it is, and killer or not, Erased does go back to what makes it so touching. It's that payoff that matters. I'll see all of you twenty-something anime fans in ten years and we can watch it again and see how you feel about it. I get the feeling the majority will be much more positive towards it. Final Score: 8/10

Stephanie: From the beginning, Erased was one of the strongest series from the winter season. I enjoyed the story, characters, and some of the darker content we encounter such as the abuse that Hinazuki goes through as well as a variety of other things. What keeps this series from being the best of the season is, aside from Shouwa Genroku existing, is the slight inconsistency the series does have with parts of it's story. Also, having a rather predictable villain doesn't help too much either, but what they did in order to portray his motives was intriguing; albeit really odd. As a mystery series, there is plenty of story to keep me going for long periods of time; while adding the time leaping element makes it something rather unique. To be fair, Steins;Gate does do something similar so this isn't the first time mystery and time travel have mixed together, but Erased just does enough to give it's own spin. It's certainly one of the best of the season even with some of the slight pacing problems. But, once again, it may also be my love of mystery talking as well. Final Score: 8/10

Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash

Stephanie: To be completely honest, I had no interest in Grimgar at the beginning of the winter season. The words Fire Emblem were the major factor that played into that reason, because I'm not much of a video gamer person and have never played Fire Emblem. After hearing good things about the first episode, I gave it a spin. I'm honestly glad I did! This series is not only visually stunning (for the most part), it has a very intense and emotional story that manages to drag you in, kicking and screaming. And I say kicking and screaming due to certain events that occur early on. What seems to appear as an MMORPG type of series similar to Sword Art Online and Log Horizon turns into something different entirely; sticking with the more fantastical elements and just adding a touch of game mechanics we would normally see. The only big problem I have with the series would be that it did lose the initial premise rather quickly and is never address much or explained in detail as to how these teenagers ended up in the world of Grimgar. While Haruhiro's monologue during the end credits of the final episode do elevate some of those concerns, it also can feel like it was half assed, using the excuse of "oh we just kinda forgot about the whole why we're here thing" as a bit of a cop out. But this does leave the possibility of another season, depending on how well this one was received. I'd be more than willing to watch a second season if it was made! Final Score: 9/10

Myraid Colors: Phantom World

Jonathan: This was my favorite thing to watch this season. Yeah, I know. KyoAni's high production standards and the fantastic art direction played a huge part in that, as did all the fun characters and creative episode premises. It's all stuff we've seen from other episodic series, but the whole phantom concept allows all the ideas presented to go farther in really entertaining ways (like everyone becoming cat people and making cat puns). I hope we get another season with anime original content, because the novels get laughably stupid from here. Few shows made me smile as much as this one this season. Final Score: 7/10

Ojisan and Marshmallow

Danni: The joke in this show is that Paul Blart likes marshmallows and the girl desperately wants him to taste her marshmallows. It was never really funny. The only real reason I came back to it every week is because Paul Blart's voice actor starts showing up at the end and he looks like Guy Fieri. Final Score: 3/10

Please tell me! Galko-chan

Danni: This one is definitely a personal favorite of mine, now. It's really nothing more than a series of friendly conversations about sex and the body, but it's got so much heart behind it. The conversations are easy to relate to. Everyone has questions about things like these as a teenager. Why do I have large areolas? Is having ass hair normal? What do boobs feel like? Adolescence is a very sexually curious and frustrating part of a person's life, and there aren't many resources out there that help with it. Please Tell Me! Galko-chan is a cute show full of lovable characters asking the things we all asked at some point, and I adore it. Final Score: 9/10

Prince of Stride: Alternative

Stephanie: This just in, I have become sports anime trash! It's funny how much my opinion can change with just a few different shows. In Stride's case, while it did stick with a wide amount of sports anime troupes, it didn't have to overdo itself or take it too far. Let's face it, there are some extremes in sports anime, with Free! being one of the more recent ones in memory that did go a little too far at times. Stride falls a bit more in line with how I feel about Haikyuu; it's a good show and does a pretty decent job at giving a ton of characters the right amount of screen time in order to compete against or sometimes encourage our main team. While I do feel that Haikyuu has more of an ensemble cast to it, Stride does have three leads we end up focusing on in Riku, Takeru, and Nana. There are some pieces in the story that could use a bit more development, and I very much wished that Ayumu was given much more to do aside from being the nerd with a heart of gold. However, for what the series is, Prince of Stride is a ton of fun! It's the kind of series I can sit back, relax, and enjoy what comes out of it even if we've seen the same plot points a million times. Believe me, I'm going to be going back to this series really soon. I've still gotta finish the broadcast dub, after all! Final Score: 7/10

Sekkou Boys

Danni: I wonder how long it was after someone's idea about an idol show starring statues got greenlit that the creators realized they actually had to make a full series about it. It's one of those concepts that's hilarious and awesome when first thought up but falls apart once it has to be expanded. After the initial hilarity of the revelation these statues were going to be idols, the show didn't really know what to do next. From there it just kind of became a regular idol show. Then it had to somehow end, so they just threw a bunch of shit at the wall in hopes something would stick. In the end, nothing did. Final Score: 4/10

Jonathan: One of the stupidest premises I've ever seen and I love it. The brilliance here is that the simple absurdity of statues being idols gives away to a mess of entertainment industry gags and humor, which are only enhanced by that constant absurd element at play. The characters also have a lot of life and bounce off each other well, despite most of then never being animated. Please remember Sekkou Boys. Final Score: 7/10

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinju

Jonathan: Why aren't you watching this!? While I'll have to finish later because of scheduling problems, everything I've seen has been absolutely fantastic. It's a character drama that perfectly captures what it means to be an artist, encapsulating a dying art and why it was so beloved. It also paints a beautiful tragedy of a story between two rivals in the medium, with an incredible script and fantastic direction. Every performance sucks you in, and the entire voice cast is just incredible. I cannot say enough good things. Six Episodes: 10/10

Stephanie: Like Erased, Rakugo was one of the strongest series of the season and remained one of the strongest till the end of the first season. While the story of Kikuhiko and Sukeroku seemed to drag on longer than it really needed to, it did create such a strong relationship and story that will more than likely play a big role in the next season since Kikuhiko's apprentice, Yotaro, is becoming more and more like his friend every day; with the final scene in the cemetery being the largest moment. And, while some people may find the five minute rakugo stories drawn out and a waste of episode time, I was captivated by each and every one! Not just because I have an arts degree with theatre in mind, but because of the stories themselves and how they were performed by these storytellers just had me hang on their every word. Since this first cour had Kikuhiko's past as the main story line, and now that we finished that arc, it will be a little tough to figure out what will happen from here and into the second season that is set to come out, hopefully, in the near future. Regardless, Rakugo was the strongest series of the season on all fronts and is one that has an early lead for the best series of 2016. Final Score: 9/10

Staff Picks

She and Her Cat -Everything Flows-
Danni Kristen

Just a few years ago, I'd come to terms with the idea that I was never going to get another season of Durarara, yet here I am now reviewing the final arc of the final season. It was a long way coming, and there were some bumps along the way. Long time readers will likely recall I wasn't exactly enthusiastic about Durarara x2 Shou, the first cour in this three part sequel. Luckily, as it went on the series got into the swing of things both in terms of its narrative and production. The show's final arc, Durarara x2 Ketsu, certainly had some rough spots, but as a whole it was a consistently entertaining and wholly satisfying conclusion to the saga that for so long felt incomplete.

As always with Durarara, Ketsu's greatest strength was the characters. Not many new players are thrown into the mix this time around, instead focusing on bringing all the most significant ones to the pinnacle of their character arcs. I wouldn't call this the strongest Durarara has ever been in how it handles character exploration, partially just because it had so many characters at this point, and so much to focus on over such a brief period of time, that certain characters were spread thin. But the characters who got the most screen time, Celty, Shinra, Izaya, and Mikado especially, got a ton of great moments and some wonderful development for them as characters. And really, it was just a blast to see the huge cast and their interlocking stories finally culminate in one place. After all, even the characters who get less depth to them this time around are still a ton of fun to watch. The show's sense of humor and crazy tone are in full force here, and it makes sure the climax is crazy, exciting, and fun as hell. It ties up most of the plot threads, and unanswered questions nicely, and left me feeling like the series was finally complete.

That isn't to say the season didn't have its share of issues. While its far beyond the disaster that was x2 Shou, this arc does have a few visual hiccups, and less than great looking episodes. Another issue people may have, is that on more than a few occasions I've heard complaints that Durarara is "just too complicated", which is a reasonable sentiment. And in this arc, things get more jumbled, unclear, and convoluted than ever. On a normal basis characters would show up who I couldn't even remember who they were working for and why. Multiple times throughout the season characters straight up say "WOW THIS IS GETTING WAY TOO COMPLICATED", as if the writers themselves knew just how much of a mess they'd written themselves into. Now, I've always personally been fine with this part of Durarara. I just block out all the alliances, and yakuza subplots, and overlapping threads, instead focusing on the characters, their interactions, and their development throughout the story. As someone who puts individual characters above the overall narrative, that's fine for me, but for those who actually want to understand what's happening in the grand scheme of things, this last arc is the worst yet in that aspect. But still, if you can get past that, and simply enjoy watching the arcs of all these likable, interesting characters finally come to a satisfying conclusion, Durarara x2 Ketsu is absolutely worth watching.

Final Score: 7/10

KONOSUBA - God's blessing on this wonderful world!
Jonathan Kaharl

Deen just completely owned this season. I can't believe I just wrote that either. But it's true; Rakugo is seriously one of the best constructed anime I have seen in my entire life, but it's not quite the one that really stuck out to me. No, that would be Konosuba, or as I like to call it, It's Always Sunny in MMO World. This one caught me completely off guard. I was expecting nothing from the promo art or description, just another generic light novel show about a game world. The first few minutes of episode one dashed that instantly, by presenting us with two genuinely detestable people as our main characters, one a pathetic otaku cumstain, and the other a stuck-up goddess that likes to laugh at people at their lowest. Things only continued this direction as I saw the other two leads, a perverted crusader that puts sexual torture fantasy over the mission and tiny chuunibyou mage that can only cast a single massive explosion once a day (and it gets her off to boot). See, Konosuba is a comedy about four of the most worthless people who have ever existed, themselves the cause of their great miseries and misfortunes, and they end up stuck together as low level grunts in a fantasy world and trying to make it day by day as karma keeps stepping in to keep them humble.

I love comedies about garbage people, and Konosuba serves up some A-class garbage people. It's all the funnier because everyone around them is a walking light novel cliche, so seeing these miserable, terrible losers interact with these types is instantly a treat. Hate that obnoxious super perfect lead guy who constantly has things go his way and a growing harem? Why not watch him show up obsessed with a goddess who doesn't even remember him, and then watch him get knocked out by a living sperm rag of a human being with his own super sword, and THEN come back groveling to find out his sword was pawned off? It's a thing of beauty. But it doesn't beat an average day in the life with these sad sacks, from tossing their caged goddess party member Aqua into a monster croc infested pond to act as magical chlorine, to the otaku Kazuma and chuunibyou Megumin having arguments about who watches out for ghosts while the other is trying to pee in private. And Darkness. Oh my god, Darkness. I relate to this masochist loon far too much.

The series has absolutely perfect comedic timing, not to mention a great score to work with. It bounces around scenes at just the right moments to keep the comedic energy flowing, stopping on fantastic expressions. There's some old Higurashi staff here, and they take the expression game to master class. On top of that, the loopy, barely contained animation style trades model clarity for a sense of life otherwise lacking, and it fits the series to an absolute tee. Everything about this show really sells the parody and satire angle, especially the pacing between each and every joke and the work of the voice cast. Sora Amamiya, voice of Miia from Monster Musume, stands out most as Aqua, perfectly capturing every single shade of her constantly high volume personality, especially in any instance where Aqua just casts away all pride.

Yet what I liked most about this series (besides Megumin in general) was that while our characters were absolutely vile ...they weren't like that to each other. They have their fights (especially Kazuma and Aqua), but as the series goes along, the four create a genuine dynamic and have a sense of respect for each other, and even some understanding. That's where the series starts to move forward. These four ARE instrumental in the bigger story with the demon king, because all their bizarre flaws and talents, which seem completely useless to a normal fantasy story, end up being far more capable than anyone would ever expect. Only because the four work together that they're able to actually grow or change at all. Megumin's friendship with Kazuma pushes her to do more for the team and plan out the use of her spell better. Aqua only ever manages to really prove useful when Kazuma points out how her abilities can save everyone in a dire moment. Kazuma's understanding of games and unorthodox sampling class gives him weak but a varied set of skills that can compliment his friends. Even Darkness finds self-confidence she lacked and is able to focus more than she used to because she's fighting with people she feels a connection with. They're all walking human disasters, but together, those flaws start to smash up against each other and occasionally create a trait no one else possesses.

The series is filled with little moments of the four just enjoying a moment of satisfaction, and that's where the series has its heart. They found a way to have their cake and eat it too. They're a real team, and they grow as they interact with each other, and they're more relatable because they're so littered with flaws. There's something embarrassing about each and every one of them to relate to, and that becomes instrumental in making the show more than just another shitty people laughabout. Konosuba is, bizarrely, a great fantasy story. it just has a sense of humor about itself.

Final Score: 9/10

Snow White with the Red Hair S2
Stephanie Getchell

It's actually been a rather long time since I've seen a solid romance anime. Not only that, but one that wasn't set in a high school. Before the summer 2015 season began, I noticed that animation studio Bones was planning on releasing a fairy tale romance series called Snow White with the Red Hair. While I was a little bit skeptical, at first, seeing as how the studio is more well known for it's action series and not it's romances, it didn't take me long to realize that this series was going to be something rather special. Not unique, but special. Every second I watched made me feel so happy, and after the summer was over and Snow White ended, I was a little saddened... because I was stuck waiting several months to finally get my hands on the second season. So, here we are! The winter season is over, which means I have a Staff Pick to make from the crop of winter shows. While I really would have loved to have made Rakugo my pick for the season, if you've read these reports long enough, I tend to go with sequels or other series that people may not have been talking about during the report. Bet you can't guess what I went with this time.

Snow White's second season picks up right where the first left off. After making their feelings known to each other, Shirayuki is ordered, by Zen's older brother Izana, to go back to her home country; after an invitation from Prince Raj is sent to Clarines. However, there's a looming danger over Shirayuki's head, as the former noble, Mihaya, suddenly returns to tell her and Zen that someone is trying to track Shirayuki down and kidnap her. As Shirayuki and Obi travel back on Izana's orders and Raj's invitation, Zen, Mitsuhide, and Kiki try to find the mysterious young boy known only as Kazuki; before he manages to find Shirayuki first.

GOD EATER (Ep.10-13)
Joe Straatmann

Call it finishing an assignment. Call it only having enough time to watch a third of a series for my staff pick. Whatever the case, ufotable's trip through the production hell that plagued this particular title is at its end with the final four episodes of  God Eater released two seasons late. Disappointingly, I probably could've written a prediction review way back when and it might've been spot-on. It's more of the same, albeit they've toned down the extremely overwrought Zack Snyder slow/fast/slow-fast-motion effects from early on.. There are qualities that make it rise to above-average levels, but there's also a little stupidity, a little hypocrisy, and a little stilted execution now and then.

Take when we start this new wave of episodes. It's a flashback to Lenka's childhood as he's discovered in the dirt by a family rejected from the protective walls of Fenrir. Now, Lenka through this whole series has been a loner who doesn't play by the rules, so obviously, you know where this is going. His family exists in a small settlement outside the protected zone as they didn't have the genetics useful to Fenrir, and they struggle to eek by. Eventually, they have to "decide between two" with whom should live between the family. Despite the father's absolute hatred for Fenrir throwing out people who don't pass their genetics test, the family goes through the same thought process and eventually makes the exact same decision Fenrir would've. At least they find a wonderful closing song and a touching final moment between life and death.

Most of the finale surrounds Operation Meteorite, an attempt to wring control of the Earth from the Aragami by drawing them to a handful of locations and blasting the hell out of them so they can get their cores necessary for completing mankind's last hope, Aegis. This is an average action climax and it delays the tantalizing cliffhanger details from before the break. To ufotable's credit, it does look pretty damn good. However, this is dramatically peanuts compared to Alisa being brainwashed into trying to assassinate squad leader Lindow for his infiltration of Aegis and finding its dark secret. When anybody asks Lindow what this secret is, he brushes it off with obvious lies and then everyone gets a minor distraction that would in no way stop the person from saying, "No, really, what the hell is going on with humanity's most important facility?" Seriously, get on with it! Even the assassination plot seems to get more convoluted and diluted as all of the Aragami are set up to destroy Lindow anyway, so the overwrought brainwashing is simply insurance.

The payoff is based on the extremely doubtful proposition that God Eater will get a sequel. Oh, they complete enough to get to some sort of finality, but the ultimate fate of mankind, the Aragami, and the planet is left hanging on, "Will man become God, or will God become man?" Aegis' dirty little secret turns out to not be a letdown, at least, but you'll never get to see what comes of all of this. Given the massive production delays, I'm guessing ufotable has had enough of this property for one lifetime and it hasn't really gained enough traction among anime fandom to risk a second migraine. Maybe if they hadn't wasted an episode-and-a-half on the "final boss" that's often framed way too close to the action to see what's going on, they could've gotten the closure they required, but as it is, God Eater just misses on about everything except the Go Shiina music.

Final Score: 6/10

Fire Emblem Awakening was ultimately about parental fears of failing your children and the world you were handing off to them, and Fates is adding to that dialogue by being about children and their relationship to their parents. The central conflict of the game is asking the main character, Corrin, to choose how they define their family, be it their blood related siblings or the people who raised them. This is responsible for Fates's biggest problem writing-wise, in that the entire world revolves around the self insert main character who, despite being given a Sophie’s choice, is just not that interesting to follow or ever questioned for being extremely naïve.

If Corrin decides to choose their blood related family, you enter Fire Emblem Birthright. Birthright adds on to Awakeningby basically just being Awakening. As a game, it's clearly targeted at the people who did not really connect to the series before Awakening came out, as it is specifically trying to be alienating to people familiar with that game with its Eastern themed setting and classes. However, weirdness with the classes and weapons can only go so far, as, despite being better balanced than Awakening, it is a clear case of diminishing returns. Part of it is feeling like the first route of a visual novel and not a complete game, despite having a complete game's worth of content, while another part is the kids. While they are still better-written on average than their parents, they are  barely connected to the story. Awakening ultimately revolved around the child units by the end. Mostly it's just crossing familiar territory. Birthright is what a lot of people accuse Nintendo sequels of being.

Birthright's actual story is surprisingly straightforward, as you begin the game with a goal to go murder the people who raised you and end when you do exactly that. Not a lot happens as you assemble your army, and the story only really begins when you enter Nohr's castle at the very end of the game. The Hoshidan siblings do not have nearly as many psychological issues as there Nohrian counterpart, due to being raised by a loving stepmom. All of their issues on the Birthright path are more standard young adult issues, from Hinoka's regret about never making amends with her stepmom, to Takumi dealing with feeling overshadowed by his older siblings. The Nohrian siblings on the Birthright path have to deal with their entire family falling apart, without the emotional support people need to cope with it. They, therefore, place the blame on Corrin, leading to the fights against them being the best part of the game. Birthright is also helped by Corrin just acting as a bland Fire Emblem Lord on this path.

Unlike Conquest, where Corrin chooses to return to their clearly evil step dad to protect his adopted family, Garon is the authority figure in the Norhian siblings' lives, and it's important to understand that he is both the only authority figure they have ever known and still their father. In the Norhian siblings supports, it is revealed that they all had different mothers and never had support or love from their parental figures, so they don’t know what that is actually like. This, combined with them being in positions of royalty with a lot of hereditary burdens on their shoulders, makes it so all of their actions in both routes are completely justifiable. At the end of the game, they realize that they had their emotional support between themselves all along, and they use it to gather the courage to stand against their father, who is revealed to be a literal monster. Even after seeing the horrible truth they are still hesitant to take up arms against him, as they thought that if they did everything he asked he would act nice again. In the end, it’s Xander who is the first to accept the truth and convinces the other Norhian siblings to do the same. Essentially, this game just tackled the subject of child abuse (albeit in a very Shonen Jump manner). The problems come from Corrin, were there is no real rhyme or reason to anything he does as the game tries to present them as morally conflicted anti hero. Their supposed goals of protecting their adopted siblings just really aren’t defined in what they do over the course of the game. Add in a few extremely dumb plot points, and cheap attempts at drama, and you have a story that reads as pretty dumb.

But you know what? I think I actually like it more now in retrospect. It's basically a Jump manga trying to tackle something serious, with all the good and bad that that entails. (As an aside, the Conquest characters are better on average than their Hoshidan counterparts, with a specific mention to the returning Awakening children. While the reason the game explains for them being there is fairly contrived, they show growth from where we left them at the end of Awakening and it was nice to see them grow up and become parents of their own.)

Gameplay-wise Conquest is a sadistic monster, even on normal difficulty. A lot of Fire Emblem's old baggage that was addressed by making the games easier is back, as characters can be screwed out of usability by bad level ups, and one mis-click can cost you forty five minutes of time. You don’t need to be a strategy master to see it to the end, but know that the developers lived up to their promise of going it old school. This gives Conquest an additional problem of not really giving you the time to breathe for  the new social features. Its no nonsense approach leaves you little time for romancing your army or building supports.

Graphically, Fire Emblem Fates is absolutely gorgeous and in the running for best looking game on the 3DS. The backgrounds  are full of detail and show great use of lighting and color on Intelligent Systems part. Yusuke Kozaki returns as art designer and continues to bring his distinctive style to all of the characters. Facial expressions on the portraits are expressive and the heavy armor design is much better than it was in Awakening. I am less sold with how the characters are modeled by the in-game engine as something about their character builder just does not jive with Kozakis style. Even so battle animations are flashy and impacts have the appropriate amount of weight to them. Add to that a high level of polish and small details and you have a game that's pleasing to look at while also feeling alive. Musically, the game leans a little to much on big generic orchestral sounds which nearly ruin a few key moments. However, there are still plenty stand out tracks and excellent use of musical cues and motifs.

Fatesis definitely the excessive, over-bloated follow-up to usually come after unexpected success, but even so the games manage to be good despite everything working against them. I question Conquest's value to someone who actually grew up in that kind of household, but I am happy that a video game at least tried something like it. They can be dumb and melodramatic in the JRPG kind of way, but I am happy with Fire Emblem's new direction of moving away from fantasy politics to fantasy family relationships, which is much more interesting to me personally.

You thought it would be Jonathan writing the introduction for this post, but it was me, Danni!



Damnit, Danni! I can't leave you alone for five minutes without making a Jojo joke! Geez....

Anyway, as Danni said, she and I will be heading up seasonal reports this time around! Going into a bit more details regarding the season, regular seasonal staff (minus Jonathan) are going to be starting out with five anime series; with Joe starting with four because easing his constant, and self imposed, torment is always nice. Meanwhile, Megan R. as well as our off site guest writers will be covering two series for the entire season. Regular staff are allowed two drops, one that can be used staring this first installment and the second can be used once the halfway mark is reached. By the third report, if a drop has not been used, then you basically lose it and have to stick with your shows till the end. Guest writers have no drops. All writers, minus Jonathan, will be covering one short for the entire season and are not able to drop it at any time. As previously mentioned, Jonathan will be the sole watcher of Big Order and will also be giving second opinions on other shows. Needless to say, he can't drop that show. I'm pretty sure we all need something strong to get through this season.... It's ok, though! I got this!


I will see myself out, now........ Let's get this crazy season underway!

If you've ever messed around on a smart phone, chances are that you've seen some types of games pop up constantly. Perhaps the most common of these genres is the match three puzzle game, a product of Bejeweled's massive popularity in early phone gaming. Most everyone has tried slapping a franchise name on one of these basic puzzle games, then mix in a lot of cheap tactics to force the players to pay real money for items to make later stages beatable. Sailor Moon Drops is no exception to that standard, though that doesn't stop it from being enjoyable for free users. Mainly, it's the presentation that lets it stick out.



Made in conjunction with Toei's Crystal series, Drops is a match three puzzle game where you go through a series of stages and switch the positions of jewels on pre-designed boards to create matches and score points. Matching more than three creates new jewels that, when matched, can wipe out entire lines or the area around them. The type of powered jewels you get depends on the position and shape of the matching line, and you can even get jewels that change random gems on the board into a particular kind, or just pop several at once and possibly start a huge combo for bonus points. All pretty basic stuff.

Also like other match three games, Drops has different goals on different boards. They range from popping all of a certain type of gems, breaking barriers on the board, to even fighting monsters by matching certain gems to damage them. Each of these different goals radically changes the difficulty of the game, though it's not clear at first. The game's early stages do a good job at easing you into the mechanics, the various systems and power-ups, different goals, and useful strategies. It's very inviting ...until around the mid 20 stages, at which point the game decides it's time to get serious. The game doesn't just have a leap in difficulty, it has a bloody explosion of it.

It's a free to play title, so there's a good deal of asking you to buy booster items to make things easier, or get gems that allow for extra tries and act as the main currency of the game. It's thankfully not super obnoxious, mainly keeping this to two screens, one when you start a stage and one where you lose. It does ask you to try buying a booster and giving it a shot in early stages when you get stuck, but it doesn't keep doing this constantly. It does it so little I just forgot there was even purchasable things in the game. That is a MASSIVE positive for a game of this sort.

A lot of the game is based on how lucky you are, like all drop down puzzle games. However, outside stages that have certain sections you must absolutely match to proceed, there's freedom is how you want to create combos and matches, and pulling off big chains can be really satisfying. You can thank the excellent presentation for this. The entire game has a really nice soundtrack that really matches Sailor Moon, lots of energy and a mystical, whimsical feel. The coloring of the gems and stages make great use of dark blues and purples and colors that contrast with them, and the menus have a pleasing light yellow. My favorite part is easily the chibi characters on display, as they react in really cute ways to the actions on the board.

There are also a lot of nice touches in the design. Sending out friend requests can pay off with occasional sent hearts, which you need to retry stages after failing (and you will fail, a lot), and it creates a leader board that lets you see your progress every once in awhile whenever you surpass another player in ranking or high score on a stage. It's a nice touch, as are the Luna bonuses. If you have reached a single star in score and finished the stage goal, Luna will appear and start changing and popping gems in a big flashy spectacle. It's basically the cream on the cake of victory, and it never gets old.

The game just knows how to make you feel good and isn't too pushy about buying its booster items or gems. As a free to play puzzle game, it's definitely one of the better ones, and even when you lose, it doesn't feel quite as bad as you'd think. It's a visual delight, has a lot to find and collect, and I'm expecting more events in the future. The first Ami event was a lot of fun, even if I failed to finish it properly because I started late. If you want a good match three game on your phone to remember the good old days of Bejwewled before Electronic Arts ruined everything, Sailor Moon Drops is definitely one of the best ways to go. Just know the mid 20 stages will be a bit of a wall you need to climb.

Things get a bit different this episode as Jonathan suggests we read two alternate continuity comics based on Kill la Kill and Gurren Lagann. And yes, one came from a porn site (but it's totally not porn!). Walt, Megan, Tama are also the only ones who have seen Gurren Lagann and Walt needs to fix that. Oh, and bitching about Tokyopop. Never gets old.

Listen to the episode by clicking the title card below.

With the change in seasons comes yet another Kickstarter campaign from Digital Manga Publishing.  This time it's for classic 80s seinen romance Kimagure Orange Road, the fourteenth campaign in what marks the company's fifth year of using Kickstarter.  You'd think that this would be a campaign that both manga fans and older fans nostalgic for the manga's animated adaptation would be excited for, yet the collective reaction is pretty much the same as it has been for any DMP campaign from the last couple of years.  If anything, though, they are frustrated, disappointed, and exasperated with what they perceive as DMP exploiting Kickstarter to keep itself on life support.  I understand (and share) many of these feelings, but I can't get mad at DMP any more for using Kickstarter to fund manga.  No, my issue is that DMP is so focused on rolling out these campaigns that they are overlooking data that is far more valuable to their future than any dollar amount they might collect.  Even a quick examination of their campaigns would let them pick up useful information about whom their audience is, what kind of books and materials they want, and how to better manage and distribute their campaigns.



First and foremost, let's look at the books they want to fund.  Looking over the history of their Kickstarters, it's pretty clear what kind of books DMP's audience want, and that is not 'more Osamu Tezuka books' for the most part but instead 'plenty of sweet, sweet smut.'  That's not to say that there is no audience for the Tezuka books at all.  After all, Vertical did a great job at putting out excellent editions of some of Tezuka's more notable works and helping them reach a larger audience.  For DMP, though, it's an audience that's not grown much over the years.  Most of the Tezuka-focused campaigns struggle to get 500 people on board.  The major exception to this was the Unico campaign, and that's in part because Unico is a property that is known and loved by a wider audience in general.  Meanwhile, hundreds more have clamored for their BL-focused campaigns and over 1000 people were happy to offer up money for over half a dozen hentai manga. You don't have to be a statistician to look at this and determine that the larger and more profitable audience doesn't lie with their prestige project, but instead with the smut that company has long been known for.  On the other hand, we're talking about the company that's so ignorant (willingly or otherwise) of this information that they consider reprints of popular series too risky to tackle on their own, works like that highly successful Unico collection or the bestselling BL series Finder. They should have a perfectly good idea of the size of the audience for these books between the campaign of the former and the sales of the latter, yet not even these are safe enough bets for them.  DMP's audience knows what it wants, but DMP itself simply can't or won't listen to them.

Honestly, I'm surprised that so many of their campaigns have been successful considering what a mess they tend to be.  They started off strong, but it seems that since the Tezuka World fiasco DMP's campaign tiers have turned into a nonsensical grab-bag of merchandise and it's become increasingly less and less related to the properties they are trying to fund.  I suspect that DMP has been using these campaigns as a clearinghouse for Akadot, their proprietary storefront where countless bits and bobs of anime merchandise, piles of older discount BL works, and their occasional new releases go to collect dust.  It can sometimes take some serious digging just to figure out what tier will let you get the book(s) you want with a minimum of nonsense.  Most of the time, those needless piles of merchandise seem to be there simply to justify some of the more expensive tiers.  The weird thing is that DMP has been able to improve on this at times.  The tiers on their BL are for the most part well-focused, offering mostly a handful of imprint-branded items and passes for YaoiCon.  Something else that the BL and hentai campaigns figured out was that the most desirable add-on they can offer is MORE BOOKS.  A big part of the reason that the most recent BL campaign and the hentai one were so successful was because they offered to add on a number of related books for those who had already pledged.  People snatched them up left and right, and those additional books helped make these two DMP's most successful campaigns to date.  Yet with the current Kimagure campaign, they're back to a lot of random things like repro cels from Naruto and Bleach along with more obvious choices like Kimagure figurines and artbooks.  When it comes to their campaign tiers and the rewards they offer, it seems to be always taking one step forward and two steps back.  The chaos in their campaigns doesn't end there, though.



These are not impossible problems to solve.  All it would take is a bit of communication, a bit of analysis, and a consistent staff who could use their past experiences to hone future campaigns.  The problem is that level of communication is not present, or at the very least not present on a regular basis.  I'm far from the first person to point out how much DMP's staff have struggled to sell their Kickstarters to larger audiences.  They seem to struggle to find a balance between keeping up communication with the donors and with a wider audience through social media.  It's a problem that only gets more aggravated in more recent campaigns thanks to those oh-so-profitable add-ons.  When only one or two people are in charge of communication, it's easy to get swamped when you have to sort out hundreds of requests for additional goods.  That's not to say that you can't manage a Kickstarter properly with a small crew.  After all, Ann Yamamoto of Pied Piper Inc. has managed to run two very successful anime Kickstarter campaigns more or less on her own.  If she can do it, then certainly an established publisher like DMP can do the same.  If they can't, then it suggests that something is lacking.  It might be a lack of interest or priorities from the higher-ups, a lack of good management available, a lack of funds to pay for the kind of experience they need, or some other combination of these and other factors, but eventually those lacking qualities will catch up to them and threaten far more than just their Kickstarters.

DMP is a company that has always traded in wild, even risky ideas, right from their very conception.  Their use of Kickstarter to fund manga is one of the few risks that has paid off.  While there have been failures, they've mostly been able to move on past them, but therein lies the problem.  DMP is a company that could stand to learn from their past when it comes to Kickstarter and to use that information to better focus the campaigns and the company as a whole on the audience and works that will serve them best.  In doing so, they might even be able to start winning back some of those frustrated former customers and maybe even make a profit without the use of crowdfunding.  If they don't, then they will remain a publisher clinging to the brink of oblivion until it is too late for anyone or anything to save them.

Walt, Megan, and David join together to discuss another Shonen Jump manga ...from the writer of Durarara!?!? Is it closer to a bizarre auteur work like Medaka Box, or a cliched disaster like Hungry Joker? I am still not over that, shut up.

Listen to the episode below!

I swear I didn't intend to write another piece on Digital Manga Publishing so soon, but I didn't expect them to do something so mindbendingly, jaw-droppingly stupid in such a short amount of time that I felt compelled to address it.

So recently DMP announced not only a new ecchi-themed imprint, but a Kickstarter campaign to go with it.  What's the goal of this campaign?  To localize and publish the entire run of Kodomo no Jikan - A Child's Time by Kaworu Watashiya.  To say that their choice is controversial is like saying that water is kind of wet.  The moment the announcement went live, there was a lot of hue and cry from those who were against the campaign and those in favor of it.  The crazy thing is that this is not unprecedented.  This is not the first time someone has tried to publish this book in North America, and even then it was a disaster.  So what on earth happened before, and why would DMP try it again now?




 Kodomo no Jikan is the story of one Daisuke Aoki, who is starting his first proper teaching job as a homeroom teacher for a class of third-graders.  Amongst his students is Rin Nakonoe.  She instantly latches on Daisuke, but her crush goes far beyond declaring that she will marry the teacher.  No, she takes every opportunity she gets to flash her panties, attempt to entrap him, and otherwise go out of her way to make him uncomfortable with sexually charged comments.  Worse still, this is meant to be humorous.  We're meant to smile and shake our heads at Rin and her little friends acting like saucy little scamps...at least until things get serious.  Those who continued reading the series through scans learned that Rin has a tragic backstory, complete with a dead mother and an uncle/guardian who is grooming Rin to be her replacement.  At this point, Daisuke declares his intentions to save Rin and ends up falling for her, and the series ends with the two getting married and consummating their relationship.

I feel like I don't need to point out why such a story might be seen as troublesome.  Trying to make a sexually-charged romantic comedy out of a little girl trying to turn her teacher into a pedophile is something that would be viewed as repellent and exploitative by people on both sides of the Pacific.  The manga might have not have spurred any protests in serialization, but its later animated counterpart was not only heavily censored during it original run, but some Japanese TV stations went so far as to pull it from its late-night slot. That was still in the future, though.  Unaware of what was to come, the then-fledgling manga publisher Seven Seas Entertainment was proud to announce this license alongside works like Kashimashi and Ballad of a Shinigami at Anime Expo 2006, with the first volume to come out that December.  It would be released under the title "Nymphet," a suggestion which came straight from Watashiya herself.  At least, that was the plan.



The release date came and went without a single volume to show for it and no comment from the publisher.  It didn't really come up again until May of 2007.  That was when Zac Bertschy of Anime News Network addressed the release during his tenure on the Hey, Answerman! column.  In retrospect, his comments are fairly mild.  He disapproves of it, of course, but he presumes that like most sketchy manga releases, the public would turn a blind eye to it and it would fade into obscurity.  Neither he nor those who yelled at him in the comments expected Seven Seas to turn around and announce that Nymphet was first going on hiatus, then cancelled shortly thereafter.  Seven Seas founder and CEO Jason DeAngelis initially defended the series as being a harmless, outrageous comedy, something along the lines of Funimation's edit of Crayon Shin-Chan.  His stance on the matter was "if it's good enough for the Japanese, then it's good enough for us." A week or so later he revealed that the release was cancelled partly because he was made aware of more objectionable material in later volumes and partly because their vendors refused to stock the title.  While some localized copies of Volume 1 were known to be produced (mostly for the sake of the vendors), those quickly disappeared into the ether.  The last word on the subject was from the mangaka herself on her own blog.  In it, she decries people objecting to the content but shrugs it off with "It's unfortunate, but what can I do?" That's where it all ended...at least, until today.

So what on earth possessed DMP to return to this title?  What could have possibly changed to make them think Kodomo no Jikan would be better received by manga readers now?  Maybe it was because they thought the concept of lolicon wasn't quite as taboo as it was it was back then.  While the subject still ignites fierce arguments in comment sections and forums, lolis slowly but surely became just another tick box on the Otaku Fetish checklist.  Their inclusion in anime and manga was no more controversial than tsunderes or *shudder* imoutos.  Even Seven Seas was willing to give another loli-centric series a chance when they licensed Dance In the Vampire Bund, which in turn became a big hit for them.  Perhaps DMP thought that if these other anime and manga publishers could get away with it, then so could they.  Another possibility is that maybe DMP thought that by going through crowdfunding, they wouldn't have to worry about offending the middlemen.  It's not like they worry much about maintaining a large stock of books any more for Amazon, RightStuf, Barnes & Noble, etc.  These days, DMP Kickstarter campaigns seem to cover only enough books to meet demand with maybe a few dozen left over for their own storefront.  Perhaps they presume that if they are the only vendor for the book, then no one can object to it without paying for it first, which benefits DMP regardless of their opinion.

These are all strong possibilities, but those points are not the ones that bother me the most.  What truly bothers me is how DMP is selling this series to the public on its own campaign page.  I'm scared that the real reason they think that this campaign will work is that they think their audience is dumb enough to accept marketing spin as the truth.  They are trying their hardest to spin this series as something innocuous and I believe this approach is both dishonest and naïve.  Their statements make clear that they are fully aware of the previous controversy with this license.  They are also perfectly aware that this series has a reputation for being pure pedobait.  Their plot summary dances around the controversial subject matter with a lot of vague statements and the suggestion that maybe a little girl could be actively trying to seduce her teacher.  They try to dismiss their critics as close-minded cynics who are jumping to to all the wrong conclusions, despite offering body pillows with suggestive imagery for their higher tier rewards.  It's not child porn!, they cry.  No one actually has sex with a child! All the suggestive stuff is there for plot purposes!  It's not porn, it's merely M-rated seinen, and thus no different from manga like Nana or Evangelion!  It's written by a woman, it can't be that bad!  There are no laws banning such materials in the US!  You just have to approach it with an open mind!  In many ways, DMP's arguments aren't all that different from the one Jason DeAngelis tried to use back in 2007, and it's no more convincing now than it was then.  They can't plead ignorance about the content and they can't pretend that its reputation doesn't precede it.  They also can't pretend the internet isn't more aware and wary of such content than it was in 2007.  The details of the plot and pictures of the merchandise are just a short Google search away and the rise of social media guarantees that any and all criticism will be out there for anyone to see.  DMP had better wish on every star it can find that this campaign doesn't start getting press beyond the anime- and manga-centric parts of the internet.  If so, they will find they will take a lot more than an open mind to justify this license to the world at large, especially to nations that define child pornography far more strictly than our own.

I don't know what DMP hopes to achieve from this.  Is it all one big publicity stunt, with the hope that the bad press will be enough keep their company and the imprint on everyone's lips?  Do they really think there are enough lolicons with cash to spare to make this a success?   Wait...don't answer that one.  I'm still distressed that there are enough of them to spend over $50,000 on this before the campaign is one day old.  One thing is for certain: I am well and truly done with DMP.  I've participated in some of their past Kickstarters, but this is a license choice that taints not only this particular campaign, but the company as a whole for me.  Their repellent reactions towards criticism on the Project H Twitter feed only reinforces that decision. For the sake of their future, DMP had better hope that Kodomo no Jikan is a manga series that's worth destroying what little credibility their company had left to offer.

Confession time: I didn’t grow up with the Toonami block.

It’s not like I wasn’t aware it existed, however. Whenever I went with my brothers and parents to visit my grandparents in Florida during Winter Break, I’d watch the block whenever I had an opportunity. Nevertheless, living in Canada during the year meant that Toonami wasn’t available to me. It was a treat for 14 days a year, and that was it. What I grew up on instead was Fox Kids and, later, The Fox Box, the latter courtesy of 4Kids Entertainment.



It seems strange that I’d even get it at all. Fox Network was an American channel, and most American channels, save CNN and several reality/comedy blocks, weren’t on Canadian cable. It was additionally surprising since Canadian TV kept circumventing legal issues by creating their own versions of American channels: Nickelodeon became YTV, Cartoon Network became Teletoon, The Disney Channel became The Family Channel, to name a few. But Fox Kids/The Fox Box was that one exception, and it was cartoon euphoria for my pre-adolescent self.

It all goes back to the late-90’s, when my real memories of childhood were still developing. Those were the years of the N64, Toy Story, the slow decline in Disney’s popularity and, of course, the beginnings of the anime boom. Of course, not wanting to miss an opportunity, Fox Kids took up the task of showing off the newest anime shows and marketing them like it was no one’s business. The end result wasn’t only some memorable, albeit heavily-edited, anime shows, but also some memorable anime commercials:


As you can tell from these clips, the big hit was Digimon. I won’t touch on that in too much detail, since I already have a retrospective series, but that show was huge. I was never anti-social, but being a nerdy kid with Asperger’s Syndrome made it nigh-impossible to make friends with anyone. It was, therefore, a big deal when I was able to discuss Digimon in the schoolyard during recess…in-between constantly being teased and shoved to the ground for being different. This was also the only way I was able to watch anime, since the internet was in its infancy and YouTube wasn’t even a twinkle in its creators’ eyes. It often meant missing episodes whenever I had to go with my parents to services on Saturday mornings, which I always dreaded, but it was better than nothing.

Looking back, it’s easy to see the goofiness of the ordeal anyway. 20th Century Fox was capitalizing on something it didn’t understand, and while it did its best anyway, the commercials were weird. They were hyped like action serials from the 20’s and 30’s, littered with inconsistencies and the kids they got for the tie-in promos couldn’t act. I often wonder in hindsight if they were given an hour to prepare because, “they’re for kids, so who cares?”, not realizing that we actually did care. But that’s for another day…

Around 2011/2012, Fox Kids became The Fox Box. I didn’t know at the time, but Fox Kids had been bought by Disney and 4Kids Entertainment had taken over licensing and distribution of the block’s programming. Gone were the hip and cool Digimon, Power Rangers and Medabots, the latter touted as “an older kid’s Pokémon”, and in were shows like Shaman King, Yu-Gi-Oh! and the weird adaptations of the F-Zero and Kirby franchises. We also got Ultimate Muscle for wrestling fans, which I watched occasionally despite not really hooking me.

It’s really easy now to make fun of 4Kids for turning anime into a joke in the West, but back then I didn’t know better. I was young and naïve, and here were foreign cartoons I’d never heard of before. It didn’t matter if they were hack-edited and ridiculous, it was still euphoric. Besides, I don’t think many kids watching these shows knew better anyway. Also, my childhood was pretty crappy, so these shows were a stress-release.

In 2003/2004, The Fox Box was rebranded to 4Kids TV to make it “more appealing”. This, in my opinion, was a sign that the block was selling out, but I stuck with it anyway even though I was entering teenage-hood. Also, I had nothing better to do on Saturday afternoons anyway. My brothers had both moved on to sports and other topics, but I was stuck in that niche that 4Kids TV was filling perfectly. It didn’t matter that their shows were getting weirder and weirder, or that their openings were getting dumber and dumber, they were more favourable than having to deal with the stresses of real life, so I grinned and bared it.

No, the real disinterest came in the form of real life eventually kicking in. In August of 2004, I came back from my month at overnight camp to the news that we were moving within the year, a fact helped by by my old house selling ridiculously fast. The pros, in my parents’ eyes, greatly outweighed the cons, including how my dad saved time commuting to and from work daily, so there was no way around it. It ruined the rest of my Summer, but it also had unforeseen consequences to my enjoyment of 4Kids TV and anime.

See, my older brother had started moving more to the right religiously, and to accommodate him my parents made changes. Most of them I didn’t mind, like how the cupboards were now separated for meat and dairy, but the protest came when it was announced that Saturday morning TV viewing would be phased out because of our Sabbath. I was given a few months to acclimate, and initially I was hesitant to give it up because life sucked, but I soon realized that Saturday morning television was no longer doing anything for me anyway. I was already a teenager at that point, starting high school and thinking about girls, and the anime on Saturday mornings was well-below my age level, so I lost interest.

I look back on my experience with Fox’s anime block with both fondness and confusion. On one hand, it was responsible for shaping a good chunk of my Otakudom, and I have great memories that go along with that. Not to mention, I probably wouldn’t have gone on to eventually watch Cowboy Bebop, Wolf’s Rain and Fullmetal Alchemist or be open to Studio Ghibli’s library without it. To-date, I still remember a lot of the old themes songs for said shows, including the opening for One Piece! that I can recite verbatim with a straight face. My memories of the block, be it the ads or the shows, remain firmly cemented in my childhood, and for that I’m grateful.

On the other hand, time has made for a dissonance of sorts. Some of the shows are downright unwatchable due to the edits and changes, a fact made more apparent by the internet having them uncut and in their original language. And, of course, 4Kids Entertainment no longer exists, so their legacy of butchered anime dubs are a bad nightmare in the minds of most anime fans now. Therefore, the experience, much like the 90’s/early-2000’s themselves, is more historically arousing than timeless.

But that’s how my childhood was: mixed. I still feel the results today, particularly in how my constant overexposure to TV led to getting glasses in high school, but that’s not necessarily bad. It was important to me then, and I thank it for helping shape my formative years. And like I said, it eventually led to my exposure to Studio Ghibli, which means that I now have something to corrupt my niece with once she’s old enough to read! If only that day would come soon…

Zach, Steph, and seasonal guest writer Megan get together to talk Summer Wars. You may remember when we covered the Digimon Movie, which was a prototype for this movie. Zach said "Cum on me" in that episode. I just wanted to remind you all. Anyways, is Summer Wars the same verse or a new [musical concept for comparison]? Let's find out...

Click the title card to listen to the episode below.

The auteur is a surprisingly rare individual in the anime industry-whilst some shorts, such as Daicon have been produced by small groups of individuals, a short produced by a single individual is a rarity-Makoto Shinkai’s She and Her Cat is one of them, a short assembled on a single computer, with Shinkai directing, drawing and voicing one of the characters (aside from one character, and the music, Shinkai created every part of the short). However, even more ambitious than She and Her Cat, is This Boy Can Fight Aliens by the equally auteurish Soubi Yamamoto; supported by Shinkai’s own Comix Wave Films, it’s an altogether more ambitious and boy’s love tinged OVA, with one boy, suffering from amnesia, the single person standing against never-ending waves of aliens, as he battles for his planet and his own meaning in a tight knit, personally driven work. It may be idiosyncratic in execution and style, but it’s an interesting, if unusual piece.

The short begins, with, essentially, what little backstory the amnesiac Kakashi (the titular Boy of the title), has. He’s found by Arakawa, works for the tiny government agency Arakawa and Shiro work for, fights aliens, and…that’s about it. After fighting, as he has done for the four months after he was found, the alien of the day (it’s briefly explained that he’s the only one who can fight them after they mysteriously appeared one day), he takes a rest with Arakawa under a tree, and wakes up late for dinner. Stern task-master Shiro complains, they eat and we generally get a sense of the interrelationship of these characters-Shiro is the well-meaning stern task-master, Arakawa is kind and caring, and Kakashi snarks whilst trying to work out what his role in the world is. Up on the house’s roof, he begins to wonder whether he’s actually alone, coming to the conclusion that “his voice will never reach anyone”-he seems, via his message, to regard the world as “not nice to me”. Waking up, the trio go through their morning routine, and, despite Awakawa’s bad cooking, Kakashi refuses to tell him so. Kakashi kids himself, hollowly that his cellphone will receive loads of messages, that he is not alone, whilst in his head he seems to realise that he is trapped, alone, memory deprived and friendless, and that, in fact, his existence is the very reason the aliens attack. Shiro himself seems to realise that if Kakashi were not to exist, the world might not end.

Slowly going off his food, Kakashi finally hands Shiro his phone, and again, we get a sense that, below his exterior of someone who believes he has friends, Kakashi is increasingly stuck in a loop of existence, his existence perpetuated by his ability to fight aliens, before Kakashi finally walks in on Shiro, overhears that his parents are dead, and that, with no messages on his phone he is painfully, deeply, alone. Kakashi running off, Arakawa turns on Shiro for letting him run off, and for suggesting that the world “might be protected if Kakashi became a victim”, whilst Kakashi’s thoughts turn inward, wishing the world where he is alone and in emotional pain to end, then realizes that he needs help from Awakawa. His dark thoughts physically tint the screen monochrome, as he seems to give up and lose. Awakawa appears, and Kakashi finally pours out his heart to the other boy, Awakawa finally telling him that he is not alone, and produces the cellphone, the colour bleeding back into the screen, as Kakashi finally receives a text. The dark inner thoughts too become coloured, the one text becomes hundreds, represented by their senders, before a video from his friends finally arrives, and Kakashi realises that he is not alone, that he has friends, that Awakawa loves him. He takes to the sky, defeats the aliens, and the credits roll over tearful reunions. Ah…aliens? Bringing peace? Maybe the world isn’t such a bad place.

In short, (and this is short, at under 30 minutes), This Boy Can Fight Aliens is about isolation, and someone trying to make someone feel wanted. In the simplest way, it’s a story about connections, whether romantic or friendship, and at the core of this work, it’s essentially Arakawa trying to show, through his care for Kakashi that he loves him, and wants him to be happy. It’s also, at least from my reading, about depression-Kakashi is trapped in a routine, trapped within the confines of the garden, and, in a sense, trapped in his own thoughts; it is Awakawa’s love for Kakashi that breaks through this depression, defines him in a way other than simply fighting aliens, simply carrying out the  same day to day motions, gives him something to hope for. One could easily substitute the aliens with other people, or inner thoughts; Yamamoto almost hints at this, with suggestions that, were Kakashi to lose, it would be him who would be personally affected, or if Kakashi were no longer to exist, then the aliens would not attack; Clearly, the idea that he’s tired of fighting the aliens/depression seems to run throughout the work, and that it is only Awakawa (and by extension his friends) that bring him round from a self-destructive path.  It’s, for a directorial debut, a well-rounded character piece, particularly between Kakashi and Awakawa, but also between Kakashi and Shiro and and Shiro and Awakawa-this small, tight-knit and almost intimate trio’s interactions are the basis for almost the entire plot, and through them, Kakashi, (both hoping/realizing he has friends and realizing he is alone and slowly hurting himself) is buffeted by their respective personalities, representing the two forces that vie for control of his mind.

But is it boy’s love? Kinda. Whilst certainly much of the marketing of this series, both in Japan and in the west daubs this Boy’s Love, and Yamamoto has subsequently gone on to do a lot of more overly BL series under the “This Boy/Kono Dan” banner, this is BL in the broadest of brushstrokes. The characters clearly are friends, there’s an overt suggestion, right at the end that they may be more than friends, mostly from one line of Kakashi’s asking Arakawa to stay close to him and their physical closeness, and that’s pretty much it. It may use the character design, tone, colour pallet and effects of a lighter BL visual novel or doujinshi, but it’s BL by a whisker. That said, subtext sells, and boy there’s tonnes of it; they share a bed, Awakawa clearly does care for Kakashi, even if it is only as a friend, there somewhat of an almost-kiss right at the end, and I’ve seen entire BL anthologies based on less canon character interaction. They’re a cute couple, this series is a nice toe-dip in the BL ocean, and I could think of far worse works to introduce the genre to people with-it’s certainly a nice precursor to Yamamoto’s other work.

Yamamoto’s art style is perhaps the most obvious idiosyncrasy; slightly sketchy, with more than a touch of CLAMP about the general facial and body-design, with long, gangly limbs and sharp, shoujoish chins, it clearly owes a debt to the general shoujo/doijinshi style (heck, this entire short could equally have ended up as a short comic or visual novel, and Yamamoto, as with Shinkai seems to have a background in the visual novel tradition). The colouration of the characters is bright and polychromatic, starting with Kakashi’s hair, but occasionally, due to the digital colouring of the series, occasionally seems a little flat- Shiro, particularly suffers from this, as his largely dark clothing lacks depth and definition in some darker shots. Hair and clothing are both clearly defined-it’s extremely easy, even in very long or action-heavy shots to tell each character apart, and some of the best “idling” animation is upon characters’ hair.  Perhaps the most unusual part of her character design  is eyes-Kakashi’s eyes are dark tight squiggles, particularly notable in closeups, whilst Shiro’s eyes are, whilst similar, narrowed in a more adult style; in comparison Arakawa’s are very detailed and shoujouesque, poly-chromatic and complimenting the surrounding colour pallet. The aliens themselves are a well-designed motley crew, with interesting and varied design, appearing largely as  threatening black silhouettes, with their craft, seen only a few times, are your typical, if well executed B-Movie flying saucer. Equally, Kakashi’s school friends, largely seen as line art, with a few briefly animated sections, are similarly well designed, despite their brief appearance.

In general, the animation and visuals for the work are similarly impressive, and here the computer-based production of this work lends it a vivid and striking appearance-many of the backgrounds use a similar technique to Gankutsuo-Count of Monte Cristo, with static, occasionally photographic images, or sections of text-Kakashi’s own room seems to use photographs, drawings, sections of text, whilst the kitchen/living room’s stark whiteness, with spreadsheets, bar charts and reports across the walls, contrasts heavily with vivid, often dark skies-equally, the tone and colour of the room changes with the mood of the series, whilst the clutter of signs and the city, suggests the distance of humanity in the work. Whilst the interiors of the series are monochromatic, and stark, the yard (a huge expanse of greenery) is vivid, colourful, with dark, swirling skies, seemingly using actual footage of cloud scapes, becoming increasingly vivid and stormy over the short. I'm one section, towards the end of the short, colour bursts from monochrome, a stormy sky to blue, to echo the sudden shift in Kakashi’s emotions, and even the aspect ratio shifts suddenly. Yamamoto’s landscapes clearly act to reflect and compliment the emotions of its three characters.

Her animation is equally impressive for a solo project; whilst limited in some sections, it serves the story well, with the fight scenes between Kakashi and the titular aliens given particular focus; some scenes are somewhat sketchy, although this again serves her story impressively; when things need to happen they happen vividly. Basic character animation is well produced, and for a short, there are no animation issues that I spotted-the limited animation on some sections of their evening meal would have been nice to see fully animated, but it’s a minor gripe, rather than a huge issue

Perhaps, however, Yamamoto’s best work in this entire short is that of what I’m loosely going to call Kakashi’s inner thoughts-dominated by computer imagery, Gainax-esque text on mono-colour backgrounds (which often remains unvoiced), and shadowy, dark static, reflecting the turmoil in his heart-whilst it clearly shows the influence of Studio SHAFT upon her work, it’s well executed, particularly for a short with this level of production values. In particular, the shadowy, box wearing staticy figure that appears, as Kakashi also does, within a mobile phone screen in these inner thoughts, suggests a fear of being alone, of somehow trapped, and unable to communicate, his inner fears turned into an inner dialogue with this shadowy other self-an apt depiction of depression in the digital age. Equally, the usage of screens, of messages and emails, echoes the wish for Kakashi to be contacted, to have some connection to the world outside the garden. It’s a perfect, and very modern way to show how Kakashi is cut off and alone, until the short’s pathos-heavy ending, where the screen is almost drenched in text messages and figures, spilling out as Kakashi realizes he is not alone.

Dub/Sub wise, This Boy is also remarkably solid; unusually for a short with no theatrical release and a limited Japanese print, it’s been dubbed; both English and Japanese voice tracks are solid, (heck, this is a short with a cast of three for most of its 28 minute run time), and the translation from Japanese to English is a good one, (serious kudos to Sentai for actually picking this up at all) with most lines either word-for-word, or very close to their Japanese. If I had to pick one over the other, it’s probably the Japanese; either way, both voice casts are remarkably impressive for an indie short. Kimura Ryouhei (mostly famous for voicing a number of pretty boy supporting cast characters)’s Kakashi is well voiced, moving from jocular to self-loathing, and delivering his lines in the final scene with a little more pathos than Blake Shepard (also mostly employed to voice supporting character pretty boys)-that said, Shepard is more than passable and only his final scenes are better in Japanese than English.

Shiro (voiced by Daisuke Hirakawa in Japanese, David Matranga in English) is suitably stern yet caring in both tracks, and honestly both play their role very well, whilst Arikawa (Greg Ayres in English, Toshiyuki Toyanaga in Japanese) is arguably the best voiced character of the trio; Ayres in particular adds emotion to the final scene, a sense of desperation in his voice, whilst Toyanaga sounds more upset-there’s subtle differences but both actors are clearly pouring a lot into their performances. The soundtrack is…ok. There’s a nice version of Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No 1 (also used in Disappearace of Haruhi Suzumiya and a few other anime to great effect), the ending song by Akiko Shikata is decent, otherwise there’s little incidental music that I could discern other than some nice incidental piano pieces. Otherwise you get typical Japanese summer cicadas, and that’s about it. Decent sound-design overall, and from a nigh amateur, really damned good.

Overall…This Boy Can Fight Aliens is a nice curio; largely self-produced works of this magnitude, even with the backing of a reasonably large studio such as Comix Wave, are unusual, and self-produced BL works even rarer outside of a doujinshi/VN sphere-it’s an ambitious piece, all kudos to Soubi Yamamoto and it mostly pays off. Yamamoto has a unique style, her characters are identifiable and likable, the pathos of the ending is worth the watch, and despite being a BL work by the skin of its teeth, it’s nonetheless a well-plotted if short work. Whilst not an essential watch, there are worse ways to spend half an hour.

Walt, Danni, and Will gather up this week to talk about a yuri manga. I wasn't there because I was playing videogames about serial killers and bullets that shoot smaller bullets out of guns. Witty introduction ending sentence.

Listen to the episode by clicking the title card below.

Copyright law is touchy, isn’t it?


So Aniplex of America, aka the North American distributors of Aniplex-licensed anime, made a shocking and controversial decision recently. Essentially, the Fullmetal Alchemist IP, which includes both anime shows and any movies/OVA tie-ins, is to be permanently discontinued in North America this year. So far this has only effected Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, but Fullmetal Alchemist is also slated to be pulled come July 31st. This is part of a series of license expirations along the AoA board, many of which have angered fans immensely. And since this is becoming increasingly worrisome as the date of expiration draws nearer, I figured I might as well talk about it.


Let’s back up so I can give you some history on American copyright law. Despite gaining its roots in England in the 15th Century with the introduction of the printing press, American copyright law didn’t gain its footing until 1790, roughly 14 years after independence and 3 years after the initial draft of the American constitution. Since then, it’s been revised and updated several times to reflect the state of intellectual property law, most-recently as far back as January 1st of 1978. There are plenty of subsets and legislations that go into applying for a copyright license, but the one most-relevant involves how long the copyright claim lasts. According to the American copyright document, the criteria is as follows:

“In General. — Copyright in a work created on or after January 1, 1978, subsists from its creation and, except as provided by the following subsections, endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and 70 years after the author's death.

Joint Works. — In the case of a joint work prepared by two or more authors who did not work for hire, the copyright endures for a term consisting of the life of the last surviving author and 70 years after such last surviving author's death.”

In other words, if I wanted to copyright a tune I’d made, under the current rules I’d have 70 years past my death to hold the patent. Should I, God forbid, pass away tomorrow, my estate, i.e. my family, would hold the claim I’d created from the day of my death until the exact same day in 2086. Additionally, should I have composed that tune with a fellow Infinite Rainy Day writer, the copyright would expire 70 years to the day of that person’s death. Sounds simple, right? Well, that’s not factoring in a renewed patent from my successor of an additional 67 years, whether or not I end up getting married and my spouse acquires custody of my tune after I die, or if I’d bought the rights to my tune from another licenser and modified it for my own needs. In short, it’s complicated.

To use an example, assuming we adjust it to the update of January 1st, 1978, Disney’s copyright on Mickey Mouse will expire permanently in the next 20 years. This is because Walt Disney, the creator of Mickey Mouse, will have been dead for 70 years in 2036, meaning that his estate, The Walt Disney Company, will forfeit the rights to the character forever. Once this happens, Mickey Mouse will be public domain, and anyone who wants to use the character will no longer have to pay Disney directly. But I’m sure Disney’s already thought of that.

One other point of note about copyright is that the holder can do with the property, in this case the Fullmetal Alchemist franchise, as they so please. This includes deciding not to sell it anymore, as is the case with Aniplex of America, and force the licenser to acquiesce, this being FUNimation Entertainment. It’s a frustrating situation for us long-time fans of both shows, but since we don’t have the final say…well, c’est la vie! It’s unfortunate, but as of July 31st of this year, the date of the yank, we won’t be able to find or purchase anything Fullmetal Alchemist-related online or in stores. In other words, cherish it while you can.

The question then becomes, “What now?” It’s tough, but, save region importing, I can make several suggestions.

First and foremost, there’s piracy and illegal streaming. This is a bit of a slippery-slope, especially since piracy hurts the anime industry by robbing it of sales, but it’s an option. Considering that the internet doesn’t play by the rules anyway, it’s also a pretty easy solution. There are dozens of illegal streaming sites, all of them with Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood already available, so if you’re that desperate and don’t care about breaking laws, that’s there.

Second, hope and pray that AoA makes the property public domain. I’ve heard they already did that with Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and if that’s true, then who’s to say it won’t happen with Fullmetal Alchemist? Besides, public domain means that you can watch these shows without repercussions, which is nice. I don’t know if it’ll happen, but, unlike piracy, you’re not breaking any laws.

Third, assuming you’re sadistic, pray that AoA goes bankrupt and sells their license. This one’s dependant on whether or not they do go under, which, in turn, is reliant on other factors. Regardless, it’d allow the property to become readily available. It’d also, I suppose, cause a lot of employees to lose their jobs. It’s tricky, in other words.

Fourth, boycott or send a petition to Aniplex of America. The former might do more damage than good, but in both cases it’d send a clear message about the treatment of the Fullmetal Alchemist property. It also opens up a lot of doors as to how this’d be done, some of which might overlap with the first three suggestions by default. Either way, it’d make your voice heard, which is always good.

Fifth, buy the remaining stock while you can. Even though Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is no longer being circulated, I’m sure there are still copies floating around sites like Amazon. Fullmetal Alchemist, on the other hand, is more readily available, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Regardless, purchasing the shows means that you own them and can watch them whenever you want, so you win either way. It’s not like they’re ridiculously expensive, so…

Sixth, catch up on the shows before it’s too late. Ever wanted to watch them, but didn’t get around to it? Well, now’s your chance! I know it’s rushing, but given that your window of opportunity is really small, it might not be such a bad idea. Besides, there are still places to watch both shows legally at the moment. I know, for a fact, that Netflix is one of them.

And seventh, do nothing. This is the least-proactive suggestion, especially since it’s equivalent to giving up altogether, but it’s a suggestion. Besides, chances are most of us who are upset have already seen both shows, perhaps even more than once. I know that, personally, I’ve seen Fullmetal Alchemist 4 times, soon to be 5 once I get my hands on the Blu-Ray release. In other words, while this is a defeatist suggestion, it’s still a suggestion, and one that’s viable for those who don’t care to try anything else. Conversely, you can always wait for the license to expire naturally anyway.

But above all else, remember that, even with these suggestions, it’s not the end of the world that this property is going obsolete. Does it suck? Absolutely. Is it completely and utterly shameful on Aniplex of America’s part? Again, absolutely. But there are far worse issues out there than this one.

That having been said, Aniplex of America are still jerks.

It took a while for The Boy and the Beast to come to Canada. Initially slated for theatres via GKids in March, the license fell through and the premiere went into limbo. It was then picked up by Mongrel Media, only to be pushed to late-May and screened in subtitles only, select theatres and at select times. It didn’t end up mattering either, as DVD releases would be following in less than a week. By the time I ended up watching the film in dub form, I was both irritated and praying it’d be worth the frustration. Fortunately, The Boy and the Beast is easily one of the highlights of the year thus far.




The Boy and the Beast tells the story of Ren, a boy who’s lost contact with his father and is in the process of being adopted by his late-mother’s family. Frustrated over not having any say, Ren runs away and wanders the streets of Shibuya, eventually stumbling onto the mysterious world of anthropomorphic beasts by accident. The world’s citizens idolize their warriors, the two most-prominent being the kind and disciplined Iōzen and the short-tempered and scatter-focused Kumatetsu. Kumatetsu needs to prove his worth as a future lord, so he takes on Ren as his apprentice and nicknames him Kyūta. However, the two soon realize how much they have in-common, leading to an unlikely bond that, while shaky, proves mutually beneficial.

Let’s start with the most-obvious point: the movie looks gorgeous. Its colours are vibrant, and its attention to detail is beyond belief, especially considering the obvious limitations of an animated release in Japan. But the key component that sets it apart from any old anime film is its character fluidity. I’m of the belief that director Mamoru Hosoda, whose previous works include The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars and The Wolf Children, has a bad case of ADHD, as his characters are expressive even while idle, and it works in his favour. No two characters react to the same scenario alike, making them easily discernible. This is especially the case with children, whom he animates so well that they often steal the show.

Speaking of, the characters, like all of Hosoda’s works, are rich with personality. Ren is expertly realized as both his bratty, 9 year-old self and, later, his more focused and disciplined 17 year-old self, while Kumatetsu makes the clichéd, grumpy loner archetype feel fresh and exciting. The two share excellent chemistry as disgruntled misfits who try, fail, try again and eventually connect as master and pupil. The other characters don’t have too much depth outside of one or two basic character traits, but they don’t need to. The only blight comes in the form of Kaede, a character introduced halfway who feels like a tacked-on romantic interest for Ren. But even then she’s likeable.

Sound-wise, The Boy and the Beast is quite good. While the score isn’t as exciting as, say, Summer Wars, it doesn’t have to be to fit the overlying story. The sound effects and sound design, on the other hand, are incredibly fitting, feeling gritty and earthy without overshadowing everything. And the voice acting, particularly in the dub, is spot-on, with John Swasey’s Kumatetsu stealing the show. Then again, to say the voice acting is good in the dub, especially considering FUNimation’s track-record, isn’t saying much.

The Boy and the Beast is a story of parenting and responsibility. Where as The Wolf Children was an ode to motherhood, particularly Hosoda’s own mother, this film feels like an ode to fatherhood, particularly the father-figure that Hosoda, allegedly, never had growing up. This, sadly, makes it feel like a slight-downgrade, especially with its rather boring portrayal of manhood, but that’s not to say it doesn’t tackle interesting and important concepts in its examination of masculinity. Most-notably, it deconstructs fatherhood, as well as whether or not lying to your children is really harmful in the long-run. The emotional moments, therefore, are still strong, even if they don’t hit the same high-points as Hosoda’s previous three films.

Perhaps an unintended message, yet one that’s still important, is that of perseverance. Nothing worthwhile comes easy, and giving up because something’s too hard isn’t the answer. This is most-prevalent both in how Ren learns to fight and how Kumatetsu learns how to teach, leading to some tenderness amidst the laughs. It’s especially moving given my struggles growing up with a disability. Considering how I was a late-bloomer in pretty much every field, that theme really sticks. Also, as someone who practices Tai Chi, seeing Ren struggle with training, only to master it with time and patience, is ever-so relatable.

Unfortunately, the movie has two prevalent flaws, both tying into the second-half of the film. For one, the pacing’s a little inconsistent. Like The Wolf Children, the movie goes through a montage halfway to signal a time-skip. It’s effective in showing the growth in Ren and Kumatetsu’s relationship, but then it goes back to Shibuya for a bit and the pacing slows. It never completely halts, but the time spent there isn’t as exciting as in the beast world. Then again, that’s a by-product of the beast world being so wonderfully fleshed-out.

And secondly, the movie loses its way somewhat in the third-act. Without spoiling anything, the momentum is never killed, and the events that transpire are frequently hinted at, but it ends up feeling like a different movie. An exciting movie, but a different movie. Fortunately, the part that matters, the characters, is strong enough to get through the slight detour, so it’s not a complete loss. It also still functions thematically.

I’m not entirely sure where I’d place The Boy and the Beast on the Hosoda scale of quality. I don’t like it as much as I did The Wolf Children, due to the premise and execution not being as strong. At the same time, even with its hiccups, it’s fathoms more original and unique than Summer Wars, which I already loved. The question is if it’s better than The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, to which I’d need a few more viewings to fully answer. For now, I can safely say that it’s a great movie, and that you should definitely go see it. It’s a shame that Infinite Rainy Day’s ratings system doesn’t go by decimals, as this’d be a half-grade higher if it did, but I’ll go with the next best option.

From the gold rush of the early 2000s until the rise of legal streaming anime as a viable distribution hub, it was difficult to disseminate what was a hit or merely popular in anime. Sounds like the two shouldn't be separate from each other, but there's what you needed to watch when it came out and what you needed to have when it was released on DVD a year or so later if the series wasn't so lucky to hit Toonami or Adult Swim. That disconnect probably drove some business insiders insane and companies to deep financial troubles. Geneon Entertainment was perhaps the most famous supernova in these matters, imploding into a black hole and taking a sizable chunk of the American anime market with it. The semi-last of their licensed properties, Higurashi, was a prime candidate of this dichotomy. One of the series of 2006, you could hardly take a leisurely stroll around the Internet without some kind of animated gif or video clip with the sharer shouting about how you HAVE to see this supremely screwed up thing. When the initial effort was one of the last licensed properties that went through Geneon, it had the precarious position of spawning a sequel series released at the same time that would not be pursued by an organization that, for all intents and purposes, ceased to exist. FUNimation bought the rights and distributed the finished product with Geneon's name on it, but it sold poorly and FUNimation saw enough to let the license lapse without much thought to its follow-up Kai or the OVAs.

Nearly ten years later, all of Higurashi was snapped up by Sentai Filmworks, which is oddly a new iteration of yet another anime company that met its doom during the anime crash. After all this wait, are the people who fought off the urge to watch fan translations of Kai rewarded for their patience, or was it best left unlicensed? It's the former, mainly. The issue here is a full second series dedicated to the potential denouement, so it feels disconnected without the entire picture. Let's explain it like this: Suppose the movie Groundhog's Day ended before Bill Murray could leave February 2nd and they made a sequel that was all about him figuring everything out. Even if it was made with the same crew and the same skill, there would be a certain emptiness to the experience without the sides connected to each other more directly.



For the uninitiated, When They Cry is a show based on a visual novel (They brand it a sound novel to emphasize the work put into the atmosphere, but the same general idea) bent around June of 1983 in rural community Hinamizawa, a seemingly quiet place holding dark secrets that bubble to the surface during its annual Cotton Drifting Festival. Transfer student Keiichi is at first a model addition to the village, participating in extremely cute, over-the-top antics with his fellow schoolmates at the Japanese equivalent to a K-12 school, including twins Mion and Shion, naive Rena, and much younger Satoko and Rika. When the village's festival comes around, a dark shadow overtakes the community. Whether it be investigations into mysterious disappearances that occur annually, outsiders snooping into the "old ways," or attempting to purge the nastier citizens, tensions begin to boil and the situation escalates with one or more of the kids turning insane, brutal murder and torture following, and everyone winding up dead. The next episode hits the reset button and the process repeats in this seemingly cursed purgatory called Hinamizawa.

Despite some-self awareness of the situation at the end of the first series, not much has changed. Yet it seems everything has changed. The shift from the original to the sequel is best described as switching from madness to desperation. The opening of the first Higurashi flaunted the combination of adorable character designs with savage, gut-stripping violence. The opening of Kai has a different tone. The remnants of the violence are there, but the imagery and editing treat it as mournful regret rather than active, wide-eyed participation. After a prologue that gathers a few "outsiders" to a reunion in the long-abandoned Hinamizawa from the world at the end of the first season, Kai floats back to the meat and potatoes of the franchise in another time loop. In this iteration, however, the point-of-view shifts to mostly Rika, the sweet grade schooler who occasionally gives surprisingly grave warnings to many of the citizens and visitors, and always wound up murdered in front the village shrine. Rika is secretly the most disturbed of all the villagers, being a singular person who recalls every single repeating Cotton Drifting festival "world" that has spawned for a time span of over one hundred years. Her only companion in her suffering is the child-like demon Hanyu, a spirit who is only visible to Rika until a certain point.

If the first season left matters open-ended, Kai is almost too eager to give a peek behind the curtain. At one point, Rika is floating in-between the different worlds and explaining exactly what the rules are. It's unusually forward for an anime like this to just tell what's going on. Since the new focus is how psychologically drained Rika is and teetering on the brink of surrendering to an eternity of suffering, the over-the-top gruesome violence is dialed down for more earthbound and mental damage. I'm not going to lie, one of the key factors to the first season is how entertaining it was when the town turned to madness, and with this more tempered approach, some of the zip is gone. The pacing takes a bit of the blame as well. The number of arcs in Kai are cut in half after the prologue compared to the initial effort, ballooning the episode count of each arc. If the first season seemed to be a bit of a slow burn, then sections of the second will move like a glacier.

No more is this apparent than in the Mass Slaughter arc. Spanning twice the episodes of the average arc length episodes, every major aspect of the plotline is given extensive attention. At one point, there is a revisiting of Satoko being forced back into the household of an abusive uncle that led to murder and downward spirals in season one. Determined to take the right path, Rika and Keiichi try to get Satoko back without resorting to violence. This spans three episodes, throwing vast amounts of time to every step of the way. I know this is taking a jab at child social services which have frustratingly long waits due to walls of bureaucracy (Someone either making the visual novel or the anime must've had a seriously horrible time with Japan's child services as they spend as much of the series as the antagonists as almost anyone else), but the momentum has already halted due to the introductory episodes rehashing Rika's feelings most of the initial arc spent its time on. Not that there aren't worthy and resonant moments here as they deal with the complicated psychology of a child going through guilt and abuse at the same time in admirable fashion. The more patient approach simply throws off the urgency in a story that should have a constant ticking clock over it, and the series doesn't gain back its forward momentum until six episodes into the arc.

Even when the final arc Festival Orchestration rolls around, it begins with a hefty chunk of flashing back to what led up to the endless cycle. Hinamizawa is described as a maze, but it plays more like a giant puzzle. Once a key piece is found, there's a rush to fill out that particular side as much as possible before moving onto another section, regardless of flow. Needless to say, this is a marathon, not a sprint. If you're not a fan of a show dangling the reward of a conclusion on a string and then pulling it away a few times before finally coming to a conclusion, this might get annoying.

All of the technical values are on par with the previous season since it mainly kept the same staff. Studios Deen's work is fine, albeit occasionally inconsistent. If a character constantly shifting from somewhat normal body proportions to being a bobble head whose face is 40% crazy eyes drove you nuts, there isn't much here to change your mind. Also, the animation can get mighty stiff when they're not breaking out the A-team for the more disturbing sequences. Tuning in for less than 20 seconds on the open is enough to show Hanyu's horns staying perfectly still as a loop of her hair in the wind ruffles about, oblivious ignoring the things growing out of her head. What Higurashi lacks in resources and pure skill is made up for in purpose, as there's generally rhyme and reason given to the various physiological permutations of the designs depending on mood, and the plainness of the surroundings rarely detracts from the drama. When the multiple styles of the series show up in the same scene, it can create some awkward clashes, especially with the Blu-ray where the different line work on the separate character designs is crystal clear.

Kenji Kawai's (Eden of the East, Ghost in the Shell) music is probably the sneakiest of his career. It does well to support the scene and all but a couple cues hide his trademark bittersweet strings. What strikes me about the music is how I can rarely tell when it starts. A scene will play out, and the middle of it, I suddenly realized there was something under the rest of the sound to accompany it. As a person who gets a little miffed when a tune is blatantly cranked up to manipulate the audience, it's a good thing.

The main difference between the two seasons has to be how it wields its disturbing and extremely over-the-top violence. The lavish horror shows that sold the initial effort are re-purposed to underlining the sheer awfulness of what the characters have been through. Moments of extreme fingernail yanking and ghastly dismemberment are mostly relegated to flashbacks. The violence is more earthbound, as when a key character is shown in an orphanage being dragged by her hair before receiving a beating that respectfully edits around the most cringe-inducing parts to keep the impact without feeling exploitative. The cruelty is no longer cartoonish, but far more uncomfortable. No longer the guilty pleasure to recommend to its friends with its outrageous sequences when sanity has broken down, Kai still manages to turn the trick of being an anime with a reputation for extremely gruesome scenes and the awareness to use it responsibly (Unlike, say, Elfen Lied). There is solid reasoning for why it's there, and everything has its right time and place. I did find a couple moments when a group of academics morph into a mob of Snidely Whiplashes forced, though.

The DVDs and Blu-rays are barely worth bringing up as they're the usual batch of Sentai Filmworks releases for works that aren't particularly popular. There's a menu, there's a sub-only translation with a few typos (Including when the translators lose count of what episode they're on), and that's all you get. I wasn't expecting much more, but it's weird when the official releases sometimes feel like bootlegs these days. I remember when people complained an extra disc of special features wasn't nearly enough to warrant a purchase.

You'll notice I haven't talked much about the plot directly, mainly due to the spoiler-heavy nature of the sequel. Even the first episode, which is mainly red herrings to stir up the imagination, has its fair share of truths to it. What you need to know is the reveals are satisfying if completely over-elaborate to the point where the finale sometimes feels anti-climactic due to taking so much time. Regardless, it does have the same appeal as a heist movie when the final stage is revealed and the little details pay off. If you came in wanting the same series that mixed cutesy with insanely elaborate bloodletting, the sequel might disappoint a little bit. If you're in it for the characters, the bizarre twists and turns, and how everything sorts itself out, Kai is definitely a quality follow-up even with a couple speed bumps.

The year is 1996. Squaresoft, creators of the beloved Final Fantasy series, have announced they’re jumping ship and moving from Nintendo to Sony due to the limitations of the former’s newest console. As a farewell gift, they give the Super Nintendo one of its final RPG games, taking Nintendo’s beloved mascot, Mario, and making him the focus. Despite not being a colossal hit, due in part to the release of the Nintendo 64, Super Mario RPGsells over 2 million copies and gains a cult-following. The game’s followers rally around the idea of a true sequel to this day, roughly 20 years after.

But I’m not discussing that, I simply needed context for today’s review: Paper Mario, released in 2001 for the Nintendo 64. It’s interesting how, despite being intended as the spiritual-successor to Super Mario RPG, the game spawned its own franchise that, to-date, includes sequels for the Gamecube, Wii, 3DS and Wii U. Like Super Mario RPG before it, it too wasn’t a colossal hit, cracking under 1.5 million copies worldwide, yet has also gone on to garner a strong fanbase. I never got to play it when it first came out, due to not owning a Nintendo 64, but the availability on the Wii’s Virtual Console in 2007 meant that it was a must-buy for my 17 year-old self. Even now, roughly 9 years later, I’m amazed at how well it holds up, such that I, honestly, think it’s better than I remember.



The game begins with Mario, and his brother, Luigi, being invited to Princess Peach’s castle for a party. No sooner do they arrive when Bowser, ever the thorn in Mario’s side, crashes through the window of the castle’s balcony and challenges Mario to a fight. At first, the outcome looks to, as usual, be in Mario’s favour, until Bowser reveals a magical wand, called the Star Rod, that grants its user any wish. He wishes to become invincible, crushes Mario and kicks him out the window to his doom. Except that Mario doesn’t die, being saved by seven stars that are captured and held prisoner throughout the Mushroom Kingdom by Bowser’s trusted goons. It’s up to Mario to find these stars, rescue them, return to Peach’s castle and defeat Bowser once again.

In case you haven’t noticed, the story isn’t all that impressive. It’s not the worst ever, it gets the job done, but save for setting up basic groundwork, it’s almost non-existent. Everything you need to know can be summed up in a single paragraph, while the rest is ancillary. It’s a shame considering how much potential there is with a name like Mario, but I guess no one cares to try.

Fortunately, it doesn’t matter. The Mario franchise has always been about its gameplay, and Paper Mario doesn’t disappoint. It begins during Bowser fight #1 by introducing its battle mechanics, and it moves to a full tutorial once you get to the game’s Prologue. By the time you arrive at the main over-world hub, aka Toad Town, you have a pretty good grasp of how to fight, maneuver around the world and even access your menu screen to check your Items, Badges, (which you can equip at will depending on your Badge Points) party members, Flower Power (which act as your special power points) and Health, the latter two of which you can replenish via sleeping in specially marked huts. It’s a pretty straight-forward package, unlike many other role-playing games.

Actually, let’s touch on that: one of the key concerns I have with most role-playing games (or RPGs) is their needless complexity. They’re always trying to be all-encompassing, thereby becoming needlessly complicated. This is especially the case for turn-based RPGs, which I like in theory, since they allow me to think before attacking, but usually struggle to get through because of said complexity. Add in that most classic RPGs are excruciatingly difficult, and I’m left with frustration. That’s not what I want from a video game.

Fortunately, Paper Mario thrives in simplicity. It’s not a cakewalk, no video game ever is for me, but it’s simple enough that I know everything about combat, traversing the over-world, solving in-game puzzles and even when to save the game. No resorting to manuals, no using strategy guides, no asking for help, none of those second or third-party walkthroughs are necessary. And I love it. It makes playing the game feel enjoyable and rewarding, placing it alongside the Pokémon franchise as one of the few RPGs that don’t give me a headache trying to figure them out.

The game also has unique features that make it stand out. One of these is its paper aesthetic. The game looks like it was made from cardboard, and the game takes full advantage of that with its objectives and story points. It also has allowed for the game to age quite well. With all due respect to the Nintendo 64, it, like most consoles of its generation, was an innovator in the transition to the third-dimension, which had its pros and cons. On one hand, the ambitions of seeing people’s favourite franchises be brought to life in 3D made these games unique and exciting. On the other hand, with ambition comes setbacks, especially when something that might’ve been cool and exciting doesn’t age as well 10-20 years down the line. Paper Mario is one of those innovative and ambitious games, being a first in a sub-franchise, but by keeping the aesthetic and gameplay simple and stylized it ends up standing the test of time better than some of the console’s other outings.

But what makes Paper Mario great is its light-hearted and goofy in-jokes and quirks. The game, for one, is littered with jabs at Mario’s short attention-span, as evidenced by his inability to listen to long stories. And, for another, many of the character interactions, including the enemies Mario and company face, are colourful and witty, allowing the player to laugh at Mario’s misery or mock his opponents for suffering. Factor in the constant references to older games, whether it be in-game jingles or classic enemies, and you’re guaranteed a good time.

With all of that said, does the game have nothing wrong? Not quite.

For one, there’s a health and special power level cap. The former is 55 points, the latter 45. This’d be easy to overlook if level grinding weren’t easy, but it is. I get that the developers didn’t want Paper Mario to be too easy, but…yeah, why 55 and 45 respectively? Those are such odd numbers, a feat made more bizarre by it being really easy to max both out.

While we're at it, you can’t level grind in worlds you’ve already beaten. Or, if you’re somehow able to, you’re punished by it being harder. This extends to enemies in worlds you’ve already beaten, some of whom reappear later on. Did the developers think that, like the level and special power caps, it’d be too easy? Because not gaining experience from enemies that you encountered eons ago is really annoying!

On a different note, it’s impossible to access the title screen in-game. Believe me, I’ve tried. The only exceptions are after major boss fights, which take an awfully long time to get to. This means often having to shut the game off cold, thus risking messing up the cartridge. It’s good that I played the Virtual Console port, because that’s a pretty big oversight on the developers’ part.

Speaking of which, you can’t pause the segments involving Princess Peach. For that matter, you can’t save in them either. This is annoying for anyone with a life who forgets to quit before her segments come up. In the game’s defence, they’re not all that long, so I can forgive this design flaw somewhat. Regardless, it’s irksome.
Finally, you can’t skip the end credits. You also can’t save after you’ve beaten Bowser. This is probably the biggest design flaw of them all, both because it’s a pretty big oversight, and because it’s annoying to be unable to skip the end credits. Yes, I get that the developers wanted the final boss to be available whenever. But no, making it mandatory isn’t the right answer. And while I get that it's a cartridge game, hence end credit skips might be-actually, no, the Pokémon games managed this no problem! It’s not an excuse.

Fortunately, none of these are enough to break an otherwise fantastic RPG. Fans can argue as to whether or not this is a true successor to Super Mario RPG, or even if this game’s sequel is superior, but for my buck you can’t go wrong. Paper Mario is a unique and original idea utilized to its absolute fullest, being fun, witty, innovative and accessible enough to novices while intricate enough for veterans of the genre. It has its issues, obviously, but the good is too good to ignore. I can’t recommend it enough.

A while back, I purchased VIZ Media’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind for a Rainy Day Reading. It took a while, I even went downtown to see if it was at the only Indigo branch that stocked it, but I was so excited when it arrived at my doorstep that fateful afternoon. For one, it was huge! Two, the artwork was gorgeous, no doubt a testament to Hayao Miyazaki’s artistic talents. And three, it was the inspiration for one of my favourite animated films, so clearly it was gonna be great! All I had to do now was read it.


Which is exactly what I did. For the next month, every Friday night and Saturday afternoon I read anywhere from 50-100 pages. It was an exciting story, and that it went into further detail about that world only added to the intrigue. When I finally finished the first-half and saw that it ended on a cliffhanger, I figured it’d only take me a few more days to start the second-half. Unfortunately, those few days turned into two months, and even then I’ve yet to exceed the first 50 pages of the second-half.

See, I’m not a Manga fanatic. It’s not that I don’t enjoy what the medium has to offer, especially since I’m a visual learner, but I’ve never gotten into it seriously. I’m more than happy to pick up a Manga and read it for Rainy Day Reading, but when it comes to casual reading? No connection. At best, like any graphic novel, I enjoy what I read and check it off of my imaginary checklist.

I think the reason for this stems from an unconscious bias against the format, but the best way to grasp it is to compare it to books and films.


Let’s start with books. Up until about 3 or so years ago, these were my literary bread and butter. That’s not to say that I read them religiously, but they were always there. I’d read many of the modern greats-JRR Tolkien, JK Rowling, CS Lewis, Dan Brown, Eoin Colfer-and knew what to expect. Books, essentially, were about textual information, all laid out like pieces of a puzzle to assemble on my own. And I was able to do it quite well. I didn’t always get the pieces right-I thought that Severus Snape was a woman for the longest time-but it was something I could visualize in my mind.

On the other hand, there are films. Despite not being a serious movie-goer until 6 years ago, films have been a big part of my life growing up. I always knew of them, frequently saw them and rarely had a hard time interpreting them. Even when I was somewhat cold on them, like Inception, I could still get a sense of what to expect intellectually and emotionally. This is because films piece together everything for you, leaving the end result a picture that’s left up for analysis. Where as books forced me to do everything myself, films did all the work beforehand and made me the interpreter.

What links the two mediums together, in my mind, is that they have a clear expectation of their audience. Books require the reader to be the detective, while films require the viewer to interpret what’s already there. One involves active participation, the other passive. But both are straight-forward, with little room for error or misstep.

I’ve never gotten that level of engagement with Manga (or, to a larger extent, graphic novels.) Sure, I appreciate that, unlike books, they’re lighter content-wise and allow for easier consumption. I also appreciate that, unlike films, they’re not time-crunched and have more room to explore concepts and ideas. Due to my learning style, I respect both advantages. But the stumbling block comes via the medium encompassing two distinct styles: the visuals of film, yet the constructs of a book. I’m often left wondering how much information is laid out, versus how much I have to put in.

Allow me to use an example:


The above is a panel from Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist. On this page, the narrating text implies that State Alchemists are taking innocent lives in the name of their jobs. All of the panels surrounding it illustrate this through the faces of the alchemists and the aftermath of dead bodies and upset children. It’s meant to be shocking, and someone who’s an expert on Manga could probably explain to you why it’s so effective. But for me…I’m at a loss.

Why? Because I have more questions about this page that can’t be answered. Questions like, “Why is the page so messy?” or, “Why are these images the ones that Arakawa chose?” and that’s not including my inability to grasp shading, character design, the length of time I’m supposed to focus on each panel or even how much I’m supposed to be emotionally invested in what I’m looking at. There’s so much that’s not being given even amidst what is, leaving me confused and disappointed. Factor in that the next page isn’t fluidly linked, and I’m left wondering how much I’m missing with each respective page.

If it sounds like I’m giving you a lot to digest, it’s because this is what I go through with every new Manga: how much do I invest? How little do I invest? Am I missing the brilliance? Am I overthinking the brilliance? The questions keep on piling, such that even if I’m enjoying what I’m reading, am I really?

I feel bad even writing this, as there are so many great Manga that are worth my time, but I can’t lie. I’ve been an Otaku for almost 6 years, yet Manga interpretation remains my biggest failing. It’s part of why I struggled with one of my university courses despite liking it, why I rarely talk about Manga and, perhaps, why finishing Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind has been so ridiculously difficult, a fact made worse by me promising myself that I’d eventually review it for Infinite Rainy Day. In other words, what else should I do?

Okay, so you all deserve an update.

Danni ended up being very busy with school and family matters, while Stephanie was dealing with work and project overload. I couldn't really step back in either, because I too was busy with real life stuff that was thrown at me at a very bad time, along with general burn out and anxiety issues. I'm better now, but Stephanie has resigned due to her conflicting commitments, and Danni has stepped down from a seasonal position due to demand of her classes. Thankfully, Andrew and Megan (the other one, who will be referred to as "Queenira") have joined on as seasonal reviewers, so we don't have staff shortage. I'll be coming back on this season, and I also have Tama assisting this time with a full load.

And if you're wondering what our general Spring thoughts were: Meh. You didn't miss much.

With that out of the way, let's get this back on track. We will be changing scheduling a tad, so we have a first post, a mid season post, and a wrap-up post. Everyone will have two drops, but can only use them once we hit the halfway point of a series. We have thirty shows total, not counting six shorts we're also looking at, and some exciting releases in Mob Psycho (from the creator of One Punch Man), Love Live Sunshine, and Rewrite (because someone really likes Key Works). Hopefully, this season is better than last. Time to dive in!


Full Shows

91 Days
Thom "Tama" Langley

Ah, the Prohibition, a time of hooch, gangsters and dangerous liaisons. Previously, however, anime based on this interesting period of modern American history have been somewhat thin on the ground, represented only by the time hopping, big ensemble mile-a-minute Baccano! 91 Days, thus, treads relatively uncovered land, and with style. Telling the story of the revenge of one Avilio Bruno, it's a slick, perfectly balanced series with flair, blood and razor sharp action. A fugitive after the death of his family, Avilio Bruno is not whom he seems; hiding out in a dingy backwater of the world, in a dirty, listless existence, he one day receives a letter containing a photograph of his slain younger brother, Luce; flashing back seven years, we meet Angelo, the true name of Avilio, Luce and his childhood friend, the bookish Colteo. Unfortunately, power struggles in the Mafia family his father is a part of leave the don dead, and after refusing to hand over the finances to the traitorous family, Angelo's family is shot dead-this sequence is beautifully executed in particular, showing his point of view and his reactions to the violence rather than showing it, cutting to black with a volley of gunshots. Escaping to the nearby town, Angelo appears in front of Colteo's house and is taken in by his friend, but soon realizes that by remaining there, he puts his friend in danger.

Returning to the present, and newly invigorated by the change for revenge, Avilio sets out to enact bloody revenge upon the Vanetti family. Meanwhile, Colteo, now a bootlegger, is being shaken down by thugs working for a rival mafia family, the Orcos, Avilio arriving to get rid of them and suggest a business plan-sell his illegal liquor to the mafia. To do this, they head to the Island, seemingly a neutral space between the various warring mafia factions; however, whilst their alcohol eventually meets with the grudging approval of the speakeasy owner (due mostly to two strangers, who fail to sell their own liquor), it seems someone has been stealing from the Orcos, who promptly send in the violent new recruit, Fango; though Avilio manages to defeat him with the aid of Colteo, the gun-crazy Fango trashes the place, and, together with the two strangers, make their escape, only for Avilio to discover that one of the two men is none other than Nero Vanetti, the man on whom he swore revenge!

By far and away, 91 Days is the best show of the season so far: it's a slick, intelligent, twisting tale, worthy of the best pulps; the action is well choreographed, and often visceral, the interplay between characters snappy and well-written, the setting used to its full-in places, it uses the setting in better ways than Baccano, and without the bloated cast to distract from this tale of revenge, it's a lean, and often beautifully mean series, and nothing this season looks quite as pretty as it does.

Strong Recommendation

Alderamin on the Sky
David O'Neil

It's not very often these days I actually go into a show completely blind. With the amount of time I spend browsing anime news sites, watching previews, and overall figuring out things about upcoming anime through word of mouth or personal interest, I typically have a pretty good idea of what nearly every show coming out in a given season is at least about, adapted from, and who its target audience is. Yet, sometimes there are shows like Alderamin on the Sky that manage to slip entirely under my radar one way or another. I didn't even know this show existed until it was assigned to me, and going in all I had was the poster to give me any sort of idea what it was about. So was it a hidden gem, or is no one talking about this show for good reason?

It's clear from the get go Alderamin on the Sky has a lot of politics going on in the background, but as someone who's bad at politics, I didn't actually get all that much of it. The core story though basically seems to focus on a group of teens joining an army in a fantasy world at the brink of war, as things begin to get more complicated along the way. The details involving the world and finer details of the war are all too quick and vaguely defined to really get a hold of, but the focus here seems to be more on the characters. And the characters were a pleasant surprise, all displaying fairly distinct and entertaining personalities, and playing off each other quite well. The weakest link is likely the protagonist, who's clearly supposed to be something of a likable asshole, but for the most part just comes off as a straight up asshole. The show is fairly slow paced and low key, much more than I would of thought for a fantasy military show such as this. While things certainly escalate as the episode goes on, there's a much bigger focus on self contained character interactions rather than action, or the typical LN info dumps. It has a lot of quieter moments where the characters just talk, and the often beautiful backgrounds simply speak for themselves.

Despite the character's best efforts though, they aren't quite interesting enough on their own to carry the show yet. Although I appreciated its slower pace, towards the latter half it began to meander quite a bit, leaving me anxious for it to move onto the next plot point. This is a pretty common side effect of first episodes, but it really did lack any sort of hook that'd make me genuinely excited to come back, instead ending on a pretty obnoxious cliffhanger. But still, for a show I knew nothing about going in, Alderamin on the Sky left me somewhat curious as to where things would head next, and whether they would build on its strengths in order to be more than just a competent distraction. So I guess that's worth something.

Weak Recommendation

Amanchu!
Thom "Tama" Langley

Amanchu is one of the best shows this season, telling the story of odd couple scuba-diver Hikari and transfer student Futuba and the rest of the diving club; it's a sweet, gentle series with beautiful atmosphere and a whole lotta heart. Starting with an evocative shot of the sea (which is perhaps the best opening shot of any series I've covered for any season, we're then introduced to the somewhat eccentric Hikari, and her grandmother, Kino, who runs a diving shack on the beachfront; Hikari goes for a swim, and it's here that we're introduced to Futuba, who arrives on a bike, wanting to see the sea at her new home, but seems distracted by her phone. Kino comments on this, suggesting that young people are more interested in the world in their hand rather than the world around them. Looking up, Futaba is awed by a huge breaker crashing in from the sea. Returning to land with a group of equally awed divers, Hikari looks up to see Futuba cyling away. Attending her new school for the first time, Futuba bumps into Hikari, who manages to become a perch for the school's rather oddly proportioned cat, and then promptly finds she is in the eccentric girl's class, guided there by here with diving metaphors, finding herself in a richly decorated room by her equally eccentric teacher; odd introductions done, Hikari and Futuba get to know each other better, with the yuri-subtext already laid on pretty thick.

This series starts solid and remains solid; the faltering relationship between the odd couple of Futuba and Hikari is extremely well played-by the end of the episode, there's already a sense that they've hit it off well-moreover, this series looks amazing-the brief parts of underwater swimming are very well animated, and I'm sure when the duo and the rest of the swimclub venture into deeper water, the series will rise to the occasion, whilst Hikari and Futuba are both expressive, interesting characters. Bring on episode two.

Strong Recommendation

Ange Vierge
Joe Straatmann

Somehow, this makes an episode that is mostly girls naked in a bathhouse as compelling as watching paint dry on a not particularly sexy bath soap ad. I don't have much to work with since only the first episode is available, and yet, I pretty much know what to expect from this card game adaptation. This is my second one after the dreadful Luck and Logic, and their rules seem to be to screw up a particularly interesting premise by seeping all life out of it. The series starts in media res on a battle between super powered girls where they stuff as many of their names and technobabble into the dialogue. If it were the trying to jam in exposition that would be needed for later, I would still not like it, but I would understand. No, there are four layers of exposition presented, the coup de gras being most of the cast sitting around a giant bathhouse completely nude and discussing every facet of their job as slowly as possibly while white flares cover the nudity and most of the screen that might as well have text reading, "Buy the Blu-ray release!" I don't even think I can judge the animation properly because I can't see it. The need for so much explaining and to do it with botched titillation shows Silver Link has very little faith or confidence in this product.

The link between Earth and four other worlds is weakening, making them visible to the blue planet and making the inhabitants of all of them able to travel between them. They follow one theme apiece such as science, religion, magic, and so on. The main reason for this seems to be just so they can have angels, androids, and witches fighting together. The visibility of the planets means their world crystals are weakening, and if they're destroyed, all of them will combine into Earth, destroying all life. Trying to facilitate this are the Uroburos, and maybe I lapsed in attention during the tenth conversation that is nothing but the cast explaining things they already know to each other, but it's unclear how they do that or why they want to. They look like the trim from the Persona 4 school uniforms were molded into phallic-like objects and made to fly.  To defend the planets, females with abilities from all worlds called Progress girls are scrambled to shoot them down with special abilities and the help of a drivers who use the same powers to enhance the skills of their teammates from afar.  The taste of the action in the series curtain riser is the bland taste of almost every other all-female super hero anime.

All of this isn't what you'll remember, though. What you'll remember is that after the distractingly chatty battle, a voice over, and a news report, they still have to slowly go through every aspect of Progress girl life, and they do that with conversations in a massive bath tower where the various teams all talk and talk and talk while they wander about completely naked. Since this has to meet with broadcast standards, a massive amount of steam not even seen in the movie Steamboy and lens flares to make J.J. Abrams say enough are utilized.  It keeps going and going and going until time stops. I haven't even brought up the characters. They're the allotted ensemble with a major character from each world with the lead Saya from Earth. She at least gets a good flashback to show when she developed the ability to control light and thought she was so special until her Progress girl rating was stemmed at a average ranking. But who cares? We need reiterations of how the Progress ranking system works and to asswith that, let's have the (spins the wheel) ...androids show their titties! Just sit this one out. Even if all you have to do is get the mail you know is all bills, it's still time better spent than this.

No Recommendation

Battery
David O'Neil

As some long time readers (or just anyone who follows me on Twitter) likely knows, I have a long standing bone to pick with sports anime. It's not so much a distaste born out of actual sensible reasoning, but more so out of personal preference and me being kind of a stubborn dick. I hate sports, I think sports are boring, and therefore I typically refuse to watch any and all sports anime (except Ping Pong, that show is fantastic). Alas, this season I've been assigned Battery, an anime series centered around baseball. The worst of all sports. So, does this show manage to overcome the relentlessly uninteresting game the characters are forced to partake in? (hopefully no avid sports fans read this review, I'm sorry, please don't yell at me)

Believe it or not, at least so far I find it difficult to even refer to Battery as a baseball show. The episode only includes one real instance of baseball related activity, and even that came down to a simple game of catch. So for now, it's mostly a character driven story, about characters who happen to be passionate about the sport of baseball. And with the weight of the show purely on the characters, it's....pretty alright. It's a very slow, low key experience thus far. Characters have mostly mundane conversations, talking about upcoming games, why they play baseball, or how their teams have done in the past, although the dialogue does have some decent underlying character building. It's nothing great so far, but there's clearly more to these characters than what they give away at first glance. The protagonist especially, although stoic on the surface, has small glimpses of some severe insecurities and subtext involving how he feels about pursuing baseball as a passion. The parallels between him and his grandfather were especially interesting, and while the climax of the episode was hardly thrilling, watching the two lead guys pitching progressively faster to each other, challenging each other to improve, was well done.

From a production perspective the show is in the same basic territory of the story and characters, good, but not great. The backgrounds are detailed, the characters stay on model, the music and sound design are solid, but nothing quite stands out as exceptional. It does have both an absolutely gorgeous Opening and Ending, but the rest of the show's visuals are expectedly less impressive. And so, overall Battery is off to a middle of the road start. It drags on a bit, and not a whole lot actually happens, but there is clearly more to these characters than they give off, which implies some potential for interesting growth as the show goes on. At the least I can say it's a more entertaining watch than actual baseball.

Solid Recommendation

B-Project
Andrew Lepselter

Well this was a thing.

I should probably mention first and foremost, this is not my type of show, nor am I its intended audience, so let's come at this show from a complete outsider's perspective.

There's lots of pretty boys with technicolor hair. They're all pretty, cute, handsome or dangerous looking. They all do stuff together, they're music industry, and they're pretty, and they model, and wait did I forget they're pretty?

It's really pretty and the guys are cute, and that's....like all I get. Music isn't my taste, idol stuff seems surprisingly dull. Perhaps that's my own personal bias interfering, but honestly I just never did get the whole idol obsession in general. Lots of it seems to be mostly talking about business stuff. Each guy seems to be distinct in hair color and personality, ranging from brooding, handsome, cutesy, and standoffish. The girl is self-insert and about as vanilla as they come and she's the manager of this idol group.

If you like pretty boys, idols, and the occasional BL innuendo here and there, and everywhere, then this is bound to bring joy to some. But honestly, even then it seems rather boring to me in general. It's played straight (ironic word choice I know) and it feels very serious and all that. Not many expressive faces or reaction shots, or hell, not even enough BL teasing to make it outrageous or even memorable. It's kinda just "there" to me.

Though they did model with cats though. That was pretty cool.

No Recommendation, Weak Recommendation (if you really like pretty idol boys)

Cheer Boys!!
Jonathan Kaharl

I'm reviewing Love Love this season, and I'll have a lot to say about it later. I say this now because I fear I may repeat myself a bit here. Cheer Boys is basically Love Live with gay guys instead of gay girls, even down to the major themes and desires of the main cast. It's a sitcom like comedy filled with wacky characters bouncing off each other with an overarching theme of doing what you want to do and affecting others through positivity and performance, and there's a lot of emotional baggage mixed in there for ultimately unnecessary but still adequately handled drama. I like it, but it's definitely an inferior copy.

Cheer Boys' main pair are Haruki and Kazuma. Haruki is a member of a judo focused family, but an injury leaves him unable to compete as he once did, and he's grown a complex over it. Kazuma, on the other hand, chooses to quit in order to follow his real passion. His parents were once members of a cheer squad, and he wants to do the same feats and inspire people they way they did. Haruki ends up joining after watching an exhibition, amazed by the energy, and the two quickly start finding members. Wataru is the best one so far. He appears like he's going to be the serious guy who will cause problems in forming the club, but it becomes very apparent that he's a doof unable to lie, blessed with the social skills of an awkward teenage girl trying too hard to fit in, yet never showing a sign of embarrassment. I love him.

The show definitely has the heart, and like Love Live, a talented voice cast. But this is a Brain's Base show, and they didn't bring their Kawai Complex A-game, more an Endride type team (okay, not THAT bad, but still). The show's production issues shine through a lot, from clearly recycled animation to drab coloring and simplistic models and designs in nearly every scene. The show is simply not visually impressive. Despite that, it's a good bit of fun, and it puts a big dumb smile on my face. It also aims at a different demographic than Love Live, and I give credit to trying to include slightly different characters here and there. The fat guy character ends up being pretty likable, and his weight isn't a butt of a joke outside the initial introduction. If you like cute guys and feel good comedies, you'll enjoy this.

Solid Recommendation

DAYS
Megan "Queenira" Z

Sports are an odd animal. In one moment they can create some crazy rift between people who have never met and yet at the same time draw people who have never met closer than ever. In victory or defeat sports share an odd space of being very close to nerds and yet completely alien. So how does this relate to MAPPA production of the soccer anime Days?

In many ways the leads of Days, the shy and frail Tsukushi Tsukamoto and good-looking and athletic Jin Kazama seem like they would never cross paths. However each ones love of futsal draws them in. And honestly were staring to get the start of the biggest trend of the last few years. Sports anime are rather popular and with the rise of series like Haikyu it’s clear to see that sports anime that can walk a fine line between demonstrating the game and making a likeable cast of both the home and away teams.

And so far Days does a damn good job out of that. Tsukamoto is cheerfully endearing and rather sweet and makes a nice contrast to the usual set of gung-ho hot heads you can see leading other sports anime. This gets wonderfully contrasted with Kazama’s personality. Kazama may be a genius and laid back but even in the short time he knows Tsukamoto he shows a genuine care for his condition.

Contrasting the work hard against the hardly working is great for Days because it doesn’t put them at a butting heads conflict for once. They have an odd harmony with one another.
Kazama’s not truly slacking however. One of my favorite things about the series is how Kazama acts like a translator, and by extension guilt trip tour guide, for Tsukamoto. This is more in episode two where for the first half Tsukamoto takes on all the first years running. It shows how damn earnest Tsukamoto is and that even others who don’t know him can see his promise.

However Days biggest strength is that for once our main team isn’t some group of newbies or some underdog. This time the team, Seiseki, is the top dog. However it also plays along with Tsukamoto’s character.  While Kazuma, and Seiseki’s captain Mizuki, can see Tsukamoto’s potential and heart others do not and they meet him with pity or find weakness in Seiseki’s methods.  Of course by episode two’s end those opponents are made to eat their words.

Yet what draws me in the most to Day is MAPPA’s amazing animation. This show is impeccable.  In many ways the moments of close ups on faces, especially Kazama’s, are breathtaking. The skies are just like painting. The music shines as well but compared to Haikyu’s dynamic score it hasn’t gripped me yet. But other than small flaws Days proves to have a strong start.

Strong Recommendation

First Love Monster
Megan "Queenira" Z

You know what. I may have some sketchy taste in things. Some of my friends may have nicknamed “The Filthy Fujoshi.” But nothing prepared me for this. I have seen dragon dicks, I have seen impossible boob physics. I’ve seen a god damn salt powered angel demon but what the ever loving fuck did I get into with First Love Monster! This Studio Deen show is walking the fines line between really creepy and really funny.

It centers around Kaho Nikaido, a rich girl whose been spoiled rotten to the point not a soul has ever yelled at her. So tired of this life she’s gone and moved herself to Tokyo to live in a high school dorm.

However when she tries to help and her kokishi rolls away girl almost gets herself run over unless a very handsome young saves her. When he does and she calls herself worthless he claims it’s not good for her. However when she confesses her love he rightly does what any normal ass person would do…REJECT HER!

But sadly Kaho is suddenly in love and when her savior reveals that he lives together he says its okay they date if she accepts him. Thus Kaho begins to date Kanade Takashi. Oh did I mention Kanade is a fifth grader? Yeah. Yeeeeah.

First Love Monster is either going to make you laugh or make you wanna hurl. The animation is sub par at best and the jokes can fall flat. But above all this show is generally just uncomfortable. Even though I enjoy myself some bishonen there’s a fine line between what’s acceptable. And I don’t know if this because for once it seems like the shoes on the other foot. As an anime fan were all use to some questionably drawn elementary and middle school girls but this series isn’t even trying to hide it.

What I feel is worse is that First Love Monster doesn’t know if it’s a comedy or romance show. One second it can be so serious, such as the scene between Taga and Kaho about her past and just before were talking about some trash lords catboy fetish. Then there’s parts where these “elementary school” kids are running around talking about playing pocket pool.

Oh let’s just throw that in too show. This show is oddly fixated about fifth graders and their junk. Hell this show has a dick fixation. And I don’t care how aged up looking or Mariana trench deep voiced they are! It is just plain creepy. I don’t know where First Love Monster is going but by the end I think I may want off of Kaho’s first love’s crazy ride and I’ll  admit I was actually kinda interested in this. Some of my friends said it would be funny. This is why I have trust issues.

Also seriously fuck you catboy fetish guy.

Weak Recommendation

Handa-kun
Andrew Lepselter

Barakamon was one of my absolute favorite shows of 2014, showing a level of heart, charm, and inspiration that I don't really see in a lot of different shows. I had always heard about the spin-off series Handa-kun, and I never had much desire or interest to pick it up only ever knowing that it was about him in High School. When I heard it was getting an anime I was curious, but cautiously optimistic about how it would turn out.

It's....definitely not the same show.

Both in the metaphorical and literal sense. Literally, it's a completely different studio, director, and animation crew, and among everything else, they even have a different actor playing Handa. As for how it feels, it's much more like 4-koma comic goofy gag humor, misinterpretations and cartoonish antics. Granted, these aren't bad things, and the show itself actually has some pretty amusing humor, and I do still like Handa, but it's definitely a different show. I can't say it's going to change the minds and hearts, nor that it ruins the original show.

It's a prequel separate from Barakamon, and it's a different series in terms of its tone and intention. This is more comedy, while Barakamon was Slice of Life. This isn't bad by any means, humor's still pretty good but I don't understand why some characters look standard while others have weird head proportions. Perhaps the comedy will grab me later on, but at the moment I feel a little bit disappointed from first hand impressions.

Still if you haven't seen it already, GO WATCH BARAKAMON.

Solid Recommendation

Hitorinoshita – The Outcast
Thom "Tama" Langley

Hitorinoshita is...a surprisingly watchable show. This is surprising in of itself, given that a) it's based on a web manwa, and b) its premise of "boy with powers fights the undead" is not exactly the most original concept out there. Nevertheless, there's a certain bloody, b-movie, somewhat creaky, shlock-heavy aplomb to this series that makes it oddly endearing, at least for its first episode. It's zombie time! In China. And some miscreant is digging up the local graveyard in search of something-or someone; one Zhang Xilin. And what luck! A girl who appears to be his granddaughter appears on the scene, looking for her grandfather's body. Not far behind, the slacker Zhang Chulan, the real grandson of Zhang Xilin arrives, and seems somewhat shocked he not only has a sister, but that someone has been digging up his grandfather, who seems to have been rather important once upon a time. 

Determined to catch the perpetrator, Chulan goes to the graveyard at night, and finds that his supposed sister, Baobao is digging up the grave of his (now vanished) grandfather, and isn't his sister at all! Midway through burying Chulan for "being in the way", Baobao is accosted by the undead of the graveyard and springs into rather knifey action, before wandering off, and meeting up with her minder for a shadowy organisation, who reprimands her for leaving Chulan to fend off the living dead. He needn't have worried as Chulan (entirely offscreen) zap-chars the zombie horde, and heads back to university. Meanwhile, a brother and sister duo prepare to take receipt of the body of Zhang Xilan, whilst Baobao transfers into Chulan's college, appearing before the hapless young man.
So far, so b-movie. Hitorinoshita is an enjoyably naff action-heavy, intelligence-light series that for once doesn't resort to shamless tits and ass shots to pull in the punters-Baobao is by far the best thing about this show, with an interesting mystery underpinning the proceedings. If you like the undead more on the Hammer Horror or Lucio Fulci side, this show has you covered-bloody enjoyable, if a little cheap and cheerful.

Weak Recommendation

Hybrid X Heart Magias Academy Ataraxia
Jonathan Kaharl

This is already a contender for one of the worst shows I have ever seen. That is not a sentence I type lightly. Keep in mind this season has yet another pedophile show, and it's still not as bad as this. Hybrid X Heart is everything wrong with light novel writers, the ecchi genre, and otaku culture at large in one disgusting, ugly package. It is an abject failure on every conceivable level. It doesn't offend me as much as other terrible shows I've seen, but it may be worse. As some say, bad is the absence of good, and so by definition, this is BAD. I can't even get bad anime laughs out of this. Hybrid X Heart is ...horrid. It is vile. It is a stain on an entire medium.

Hybrid X Heart is so bad that it makes the large majority of the famously awful ecchi shows look passable in comparison.

We're talking that bad. This is IKKI TOUSEN SEASON ONE BAD.

But what is this festering pile of worm infested feces about, anyways? Well, it's about the usual anime Average Everyday Normal Guy with an incredible special power that makes him the center of the universe, and that power is recharging battle armor used by women to fight giant monsters via sexual assault. His battle armor is called "Eros." Are you getting the joke yet? Also like all light novel protagonists, our lead is a spineless virgin who constantly has wacky sex shenanigans happen to him because all the other girls want his man meat because he's A Nice Guy™, the twist here being they initially want more power but eventually it will be all about worshiping the penis beccause the target audience habe egos with the durability of egg shells.

The main trio included a white haired ace who is also a pathetic virgin but tries to dominate the MC anyways, the blonde girl with huge tits who is indeed from America who is most likely not a virgin, and the violent tsundere with the stupid hair who I also completely sympathize with because she just wants all the attempted fucking to stop. Shame the show begins showing that she will indeed be felt up later in the story. Also, I forgot to point out that the entire premise is based around giant monsters corralling humanity into a small space and that they're attempting to break free and regain their lost world. It's not necessarily an AoT rip, though, because it also rips out elements of Muv-Luv and Dia-Guard (weirdly). Nothing about this show is original in any respect. The stuff I can't pick out any direct influence has just been passed around so much that it feels like a universal constant for every bad light novel anime in existence. But it also throws in such fun things like the main character's big sister insulting his sexual technique as a child and ordering him to molest an unconscious girl without any explanation. It's a pioneer in terrible.

The source material is bad enough, but then there's the production. IMS is a generally poor studio overall, but even for them, this is sad. Models look cheap and unfinished, battle armor has weird coloring issues, the CG lacks any significant detail to make it at least look pleasing to the eye, the animation proper is bare bones, the music is simply blah, and the "sexy" scenes. Dear god. They clearly have some hentai animators on staff, and they are just terrible. A lot of terrible calling cards are around, mainly the always """"arousing"""" saliva that drools out of the girls' mouths, but along with the usual censoring, we also get a bizarre border that I think is supposed to """"""enhance""'""" the atmosphere. It doesn't. It's amazing they somehow even fucked up tit grabbin'. Also, this kid has the sexual instincts of a piece of buttered toast. Rubbing a thigh does not equal instant near orgasm. Christ.

But worst of all ...IT'S SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BORING. I had the same issue with Ikki Tousen. Despite the horrible things happening, most every episode is just a lot of dead air that's supposed to be filled with character """"""""development"""""""" and """"""""""""comedy""""""""""""", but are only filled with nothing. If it's not annoying or disgusting, it's about as interesting as paint drying on a statue made of hardened paste of a white person of no particular importance. That is to say, only interesting in the sense that I have to wonder how you make something like this boring. Hybrid X Heart is a show you should never watch. It is baffling awful, and not even in an interesting way.

Its Time To Stop

Love Live! Sunshine!!
Jonathan Kaharl

Boy oh boy, if there wasn't talk around this one. In case you've been living under a rock, Love Live is one of the biggest phenomenons in the anime world in a good while. High ratings, tons of merchandise, and a wildly large fanbase of queer women. It's one of those rare shows that managed to appeal to a wide rainbow of demographics like no other. It did it through simple story concepts and characters shined up so well that it was hard to call the series anything else than enjoyable. Sunshine's existence was a big deal because connection to the original cast was paramount to the success of the original show. Without them, is it still Love Live?

Yes, absolutely. In fact, it might actually be better.

Sunshine casts away the original show's need for drama, forgoing a major crisis that requires the need of idols, which felt like the most pointless element of the first series. Instead, it does something clever and has new girl Chika (basically Honkers 2.0) seeing a u's event and becoming inspired to try being a school idol. The series presents a lot of familiar story beats, like the student council president standing in the way of Chika's club and trying to form a full unit, but there are twists mixed in, as with what it appears each character archetype will be. For example, Dia, the student council president and supposed serious girl, is actually the Nico level trash girl of the cast. She is so obsessed with u's that she practically views them as deities, and her antagonism is mainly because of her devotion and obsession. Yo, who appears to be the Kotori of the cast, ends up being framed as more dependable and outgoing. Riko, the awkward Umi, comes off as far more normal and composed, making her freakout moments all the more hilarious because of how much she tries to hide them and keep a straight face. In episode three, she gets so freaked out by a dog that she slams her hands and feet between railing and a wall to hang in the air away from it. She's great.

The other future idols are similar as well. I thought Yohane would be the big Nico-like standout, and she makes one hell of a first impression, but then enters Mari, a faux-ditz and rich girl who speaks in random English and loves to troll people. With just a few seconds, she stands out as the series best so far. It's joke! Every single character stands out far more with just a few seconds of screen-time than the majority of the original cast did, really showing the staff's experience with characterization. So much is said with just faces and body movements, leading to a lot of great punchlines drenched in classic comedy. This is clean comedy done right.

Okay, Mari does feel up Dia once, but you get what I mean. On that note, the show is way, way more overtly gay than the last series, making me wonder if the staff is embracing their strong lesbian fanbase. It seems to be helping character interactions too, there's so much going on with every different pair interacting, particularly how Ruby acts so completely differently around Chika compared to Maru. The show just has a greater sense of comedic timing than before, and makes good use of the families when they show up,especially Chika's sisters.

Most importantly, the show's much more focused on the message and ideas. It's mainly about the same stuff as the first, except it cuts out the unnecessary and distracting elements. The focus is almost entirely on these girls just doing something because they feel inspired to, and seeing how that spirit spreads like wildfire to others. The idols of Love Live are just like superheroes, in that they inspire others to be better and help others, and Sunshine benefits further by building on the success of the old cast by having them inspire the new. Sunshine has the trappings of something amazing, and I hope it realizes that potential.

Strong Recommendation

Mob Psycho 100
David O'Neil

Every once and a while, an anime goes beyond the niche group of obsessive weirdos (like me) and actually gains some relevance in western nerd culture as a whole. One of these shows was the recent hit action/comedy series One Punch Man. The mix of tongue in cheek satire, crazy action, and some surprisingly effective underlying themes made it a widely talked about series. Now a new show has surfaced from the creator of One Punch Man, an artist who goes by the pseudonym ONE. If that wasn't enough, the show is also being directed by Yuzuru Tachikawa, the director of the critically acclaimed Death Parade, and is being animated by Bones, the studio behind shows like Fullmetal Alchemist, Soul Eater, and Blood Blockade Battlefront. With all that talent on board and a huge success like One Punch Man to follow up, there was certainly a lot of pressure on Mob Psycho 100 to impress.

At first glance the premise of Mob Psycho 100 does feel vaguely similar to One Punch Man's. The protagonist is a stoic, somewhat lazy, ordinary looking guy who holds within him seemingly unlimited power, destroying monsters that appear far larger and more freakish than him through his unseen potential. This especially shows in this first episode as they focus entirely on setting things up, but to be fair it does seem to be going in a different direction in terms of the meaning of his powers. While One Punch Man was about the mundanity of overwhelming power, and how the world reacts power and heroes, Mob Psycho 100 appears to be aiming for more of a coming of age story. Rather than yearning for excitement like Saitama, Mob seems to be yearning for something more akin to freedom. He feels restricted in his current life, and admires people with friends, who are able to live more normal lives, which could likely be related to the constantly building meter until Mob's powers burst. Right now it's mostly subtext as the show sets the stage, but it is nice to see it aiming for a different purpose than One Punch Man even if the basic idea seems similar at first.

The highlight of the first episode, though, was by far the animation. Although One Punch Man certainly garnered praise for it's dynamic animation sequences, Mob Psycho 100 goes in a totally different direction while simultaneously stepping it up a notch. The animation is loose, ridiculously cartoonish, and oozing with personality. Whether its just slapstick dialogue or an action scene, there's movement everywhere and the variety of animation style and techniques displayed is unlike anything that's aired in a long while. If it can actually keep up this consistent visual energy, and utilize it to elevate the comedy, action, and story as they did here, the show should have no trouble holding my attention from here on out. So while things are still early, Mob Psycho 100 is displaying immense promise both as an animation showcase, a bonkers comedy, and a story about growing up.

Strong Recommendation

momokuri
Thom "Tama" Langley

If I had to sum up Momokuri in two words, it would have to be "adorably awkward". Not the anime itself, it's a perfectly sweet shoujo series-no, I'm talking about its fumbling, shy, blushing and stammering couple. Previously adapted as an original net animation last year, it's nice to see a series this endearingly sweet make the jump to a fully-fledged series (albeit one where each episode lasts just fifteen minutes). Our hero is Shinya "Momo" Momotsuki, a boy described as "cute" by girls, (and more than a few boys), who suddenly finds himself the subject of the affections of older student Yuki Kurihari-confessing to him at the beginning of the first episode, Momo and Kuri promptly walk home, both reflecting on how they managed to get to this point in the first place; as I said before, it's remarkable how awkward these two are, both unsure on what exactly to do in this situation, whilst Kuri adds to her many many many (seriously, this girl is almost impressively besotted with this boy, and regularly takes pictures of him,) pictures of the cute boy, whilst Momo seems just happy to have this attention, inexperienced and innocent as he is.

And pretty much this sets the tone for the series' first four episodes; Momo attempts to use her near encyclopedic knowledge of Kuri, as well as practically losing her mind over how cute the younger boy ish, whilst Kuri attempts to act mature to immpress his older girlfriend. The shorter nature of these episodes leads to the concentration on a few well-chosen vignettes, from going to a cafe after seeing a movie, with Momo attempting to act mature whilst Kuri predicts his tastes, to Kuri's birthday where everyone (even the boys) seem to faun over him, whilst Momo bemoans that she spoilt the ENTIRE CAKE she baked him as she knows his parents are too busy. All-in-all, you cannot fault this series-it gets the awkwardness of a first relationship down almost perfectly, from not knowing what you can or cannot do around your partner to perhaps investing too much time and worry into a present. In particular, however, this show does so without making thing either cringe-inducing or overly sickly-it's a perfectly balanced and very cute show.

Strong Recommendation

The Morose Mononokean
Thom "Tama" Langley

Ah, yokai. Once upon a time, you used to be scary, the scourge of anime protagonists everywhere, or worthy helpers and friends of characters shunned for being able to see things others could not. Nowaways, of course, they're little more than a common or garden pest. Or so "The Morose Mononokean" would have you believe. Feeling like a slightly awkward halfway house between Natsume's Book of Friends,( upon which it doesn't so much as lean, more shoves to the ground, steals its wallet, and then kicks for good measure) and Studio Wit's "too Japanese to really appeal to the mass market" Hozuki's coolheadedness, it's a middling sort of show that wears its influences a little too much upon its sleeve.

Hanae Ashiya can see yokai. Particularly the large, rather fuzzy, straight out of Yokai Watch sort of one that he found in a carrier bag by the side of the road, which has affixed itself to the top of his head. Unfortunately, this yokai is growing, Hanae is getting iller, and he's missing out on school. Who ya gonna call? Uh, apparently this exorcist on a leaflet he finds, one Haruitsuki Abeno, who turns out to be the genuine article, and agrees to exorcise the yokai. Unfortunately, to do this, he has to play with the creature, (which by this point is truly enormous, if still very cute), since the creature only wanted his attention in the first place. Five hours later, the creature is now back to its orginal size, and, albeit unwillingly, having grown attached to it, Hanae agrees to exorcise it. For a price, of course. Now $1 million in debt, Hanae is forced to work for Abeno, and finds, to his shock, that he is in the same class as the exorcist.

So far, so eh. Mononokean is a nice show to look at, and in places almost feels like it's about to do something interesting with its concept-there's a suggestion that many yokai are simply pets that have passed on wanting their owner's attention-but too often it feels like a watered-down, urbanized Natsume's Book of Friends with weaker characters, (both human and yokai) and less emotion.

No Recommendation

NEW GAME!
Joe Straatmann

Those expecting this to become the Shirobako of gaming may be disappointed if early episodes are any indication. This is more of a nice comedy about likable characters that just happens to take place within the gaming industry. With all the yuri shipping options, I don't think most will mind. This is a pleasant experience with some solid chemistry between the cast driven by that feeling when a game touches your soul and it hasn't mutated into some weird defense mechanism later on in life.

Aoba is a high school graduate gets a new job in the art department at Eaglejump, the game company who made her favorite RPG series. She even gets to work with the character designer that inspired her to get into game art, and her idol turns out to be... a workaholic who sleeps at the office in a ratty t-shirt and panties, but otherwise, okay. Likewise, her fellow employees embrace their newbie, with employees Hajime and Yun happy to finally have a junior with the socially awkward Hifume providing extensive help... via computer chat even as she's three feet away. Even the director of their project is a chill woman whose cat wanders about freely. So far, the conflicts are minimal where Aoba not knowing anything about how to do her job is heavily played down. Seriously, the hardest thing she's had to do so far is figure out how to order alcohol at her welcoming party.

As I said, this show is more about the positive atmosphere than the gaming industry. The almost all-female cast seem to be constantly in the realm of a geekout high that gives them the drive to do the arduous work required to create these games. It's a bit infectious. They are genuinely nice people with charming personalities, and it's hard not to have a good time with them. However, should they choose to have a climax that involves visiting a facsimile of Hideo Kojima to help solve the problem, that would be awesome.

I understand the idealized tone doesn't nearly cover the true grind of the job. I've seen plenty of stuff that knows the edge of working at such jobs and I've been employed by a corporation in the nerd business. I realize this is probably not how 99% of the game studio work would go. That doesn't mean we can't have something that strives for an ideal. Plus, this has a cohesive tone and a purpose that serves it far better than the usual cute girls doing cute things. They have a project to work on and the characters' goals (At least the main ones) are tangible. Studio Doga Kobo is usually not so consistent in their work, but all of the bases here are solid. Just don't be surprised if gaming industry fan service is more minimal here than it would seem.

Solid Recommendation

orange
Jonathan Kaharl

Oh hey, a Hiroshi Hamasaki anime! Hamasaki is definitely an interesting director to me, as he has a thematic style not many directors have ever quite matched. He's headed Steins;Gate, Shiguri, and Texhnolyze, among a few others, and gives every show he directs a real flair in how shots are angled and colors used. He can drench a series in atmosphere with the right staff, and he certainly brings his best to orange, a simply stunning series to watch. Based off a shojo manga, orange is about a high school girl named Naho getting letters from her future self, who expresses her past regrets and tries to get her past self to correct her mistakes. However, the story quickly unfolds in a serious direction as it becomes clear that her first love and good friend Kakeru will die if she does not change the flow of events.

Hamasaki's visual flair and absolutely gorgeous composition is the big reason to watch, no question. The show is just filled with rich frames, and the lighting is superb. It perfectly creates a feeling of haze and nostalgia, giving the world and otherworldly, yet very familiar feel. That fits the shows themes of memory and human connection perfectly, making a world that's run on slightly more abstract rules (there are weird symbols from time to time, especially during the episode one montage) but grounded firmly in reality. The score by Hiroaki Tsutsumi is also masterful, which is no surprise after their work on Valkyrie Drive (bad show, yes, but that score). The production is just top notch.

The story is a slightly more mixed affair. Plot wise, the series is already headed into very familiar territory. Sad things happen to nice people, time travel shenanigans, preventing tragedy, ect. That said, the themes at play are strong. As a twenty-something guy, I can really relate to a story about regretting your past actions, and I can understand the past girl's reactions and her inclination towards making mistakes. When you're a teenager, you end up doing stupid stuff for one reason or another, and you end up regretting it deeply as an adult. The first episode's baseball scene is great because it really captures familiar fears of failure I used to suffer from (and still do, to some extent) and the type of thinking necessary to step forward despite. There are a lot of great moments and thoughts along those lines, but the supernatural elements seem to be leading to an all too familiar direction. Hopefully the show steadies its aim.

Solid Recommendation

Qualidea Code
David O'Neil

Tell me if this sounds familiar. So in the future, humanity attacked by an unknown, inhuman, enemy force probably from space or something, pushed to the brink of extinction. In a last ditch effort for survival, humans band together, using super powered weapons in order to counteract that constantly encroaching faceless force. Oh, and most of the soldiers are students. Who go to a magic school. Because of course they do.

Yes, if there's one thing Qualidea Code certainly doesn't have going for it, its originality. Even beyond the basic premise, the show makes barely any attempts to differentiate itself from the already generic competition. The uniforms, environments, and powers are all by the numbers, ugly, or outright sterile in their design. Sure, most anime is designed to make money and sell products, but this show reaches a whole new level in terms of feeling specifically designed to look like other popular things, to the point of having no identity of its own. If I were shown a screencap of it out of context, I'd probably name about fifteen other generic light novel adaptations about bland protagonists going to magic schools with their attractive sisters before eventually giving up. I mean for gods sake, the evil unknown force they have to fight is straight up called the "Unknown." But still, with strong execution, even the most overdone stories can be engaging. Unfortunately, this is not the case here either. The first episode was not only a drag to watch, but also very awkwardly structured in general. We're brought into important meetings between characters, only to cut away without anything being accomplished, characters who should know the situation at hand spout obligatory exposition left and right, and despite all that exposition its still difficult to surmise what's actually happening half the time with all the different characters, lore details, and factions being introduced without any thought given to their context.

The closest thing the show has to a strength is its characters. Although the main character is an insufferable ass (seemingly on purpose, so we'll see how that goes) the rest of the extended cast is surprisingly fun. They're fairly basic anime archetypes, but the show does do well at differentiating them all, quickly establishing the sorts of relationships they have with each other, and setting up plenty of  moments that actually made me laugh from time to time. The characters are certainly a diamond in the rough, but its too bad that so far the rough parts are really really rough. From sloppy animation, to a bland visual style, to a by-the-numbers premise, to haphazard pacing and execution, Qualidea Code has a lot its going to need to improve on if it ever hopes to be more than another forgotten drop in the magic school anime bucket.

No Recommendation

Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars
Andrew Lepselter

The first thing that is uttered in this show is “What is going on here?”

That seems like an appropriate summary for my review already.

Regalia is a show that jumps into its premise and concept. A city is blown up during robot battles, then we cut to present day with characters sitting around, eating breakfast and doing the slice of life thing. I understand that some people find fault with massive exposition dumps, and sure just unloading information on some people is kind of a problem, but I feel like there should at least be some sort of easing one into the world and universe you wish to set up instead of just winging it and telling us later on.

Regalia has two sides to it, and by all means they're very different sides in general. One is the character and actual aesthetic design of the show. The girls and characters have this very odd looking sense of moe design to them that just seems rather generic and off, not really sure who the designer was or whether or not these were seen as particularly attractive to someone is unknown to me, but it feels rather jarring. I could easily grow to liking it or being okay with it later on if I like these characters and the show more in due time, but right now it's just bugging me personally in its art.

Now what makes this even MORE shocking and surprising is the art and animation in terms of these mecha designs, in this show referred to as Regalia, which seem to be inhuman transforming people with the power to summon them. Now, in many mecha anime of late, I am so very used to seeing the mecha action and animation being done completely in 3DCG designs and animation. The only real exception to the rule is more Sunrise / Gundam shows. But for some odd, shocking reason, the mech designs and animations here are not only hand drawn, but the designs are appealing and the robot animation and style is actually pretty god damn spectacular. I'm so used to failures of mech action like Comet Lucifer, but this was actually really well done in its mech action and effects. It seems os jarring to me that the character designs are so off and weird, while the actual mecha is REALLY WELL DONE. This alone is worth checking out the show just to see some legitimately decent mecha action. That, or if you're into your surface level yuri undertones. Nothing groundbreaking on either field, but it's a pretty confusing, and surprising gumbo of things put into the same soup.

Weak Recommendation, Solid Recommendation Mech fans

ReLIFE
Joe Straatmann

A few of the anime lately have been about jumping on a second chance. In Erased, a man tries to solve a series of murders in the past by having his conscience jump back to his childhood. Then we have this season's orange where a teenager receives a letter from her future self to fix what went wrong during her high school years. This is more of an inverse version of Big-the movie where a boy becomes Tom Hanks-but the idea of getting a second chance at life is still there. Of the trio, this is the worst, but mostly because it's in good company. Erased was my favorite show of that season and orange is shaping up to by my favorite here. Despite being too broad at times, ReLIFE is wise about the ways high schoolers and an adult within their midst think and how they react to each other, for better or worse.

The story cuts to the chase. Struggling adult Arata is having the toughest time of his life when he can't get a job and his parents suddenly cut off his allowance. Just his luck an overly smiley man appears in his path after a night of drinking, offering him a job and lodging for a year with future employment considerations and all he has to do is take one pill. Alcohol impedes his judgment to take a pill from a creepily happy man in the middle of the night, but luckily for Arate, he only wakes up realizing his body has transformed into himself at age 17. Within five minutes of screen time, he's at his new job acting as a high school student as part of a NEET re-adjustment program. Unfortunately, adulthood has made him less prepared for high school with his knowledge of math formulas evaporated, his social abilities awkward since he's ten years older than his classmates, and his pencil box has since been replaced by with a pack of cigarettes. What's worse is that smily company representative is now his handler, taking the pill himself and acting as a fellow classmate. The humor when Arata's introduced should've been a sly build-up of his shortcomings is instead overwrought by starting with huge over-reactions and nowhere else to go from there. Much smarter is the scene later when he talks with his teacher, and it works on two levels where he's respecting her for being two years younger and holding her own at a demanding profession while she thinks he's buttering her up for preferable treatment. This give-and-take between loud comedy and pangs of intelligent interactions is what seems to be business of the day.

This anime has a Netflix-style, binge-ready release with all 12 episodes available right out of the chute. For the sake of having material for the whole season, I've only watched the first four. What I've noticed is that it's not Michiko Yokote's (Shirobako) sharpest work, yet it understands how high schoolers work and how the path of self-improvement is seen from within the person and to the ones around them. Arata doesn't have much wisdom or particular understanding in the right path, but even if all he knows is what he did wrong, that's still having experience in something. His classmate Rena is an ultra-competitive athletic type who is having a life crisis when she her class rep status is lost to Hishiro, an incredibly shy girl Arata doea heavy work just to make smile. Hishiro's new smile is imperfect, making Rena think she's mocked by her usurper, sending her into a downward spiral. It starts as irksome forced conflict, but it's held together by the knowledge of how weird emotions can blow up and that despite us spending all day with these people in high school, we don't know even some of the most basic things about them.

Oh, there are plenty of standard scenes, such as when Arata has to go to to P.E. and oh ho, he's not in as good of shape as he used to be. Yet there are so many nice touches. My favorite is the closing themes, which are a revolving gate of hits from over a decade ago that Arata listens to on a mini-disc in the animation. It hits just the right spot to hear the T.M. Revolution that spawned this proto meme video from the turn of the millennium. ReLIFE's opening acts haven't quite soared yet, but it's still at a reasonable height to check out. I only wish they get to developing potential best girl An, who is a fellow slacker with Arata, for better or worse.

Solid Recommendation

Rewrite
Joe Straatmann

Obvious joke first: Rewrite needed a few of its namesake. At least, the first effort which doubles the length of an average anime episode at 47 minutes that only does about half what a normal anime does. An adaptation of a visual novel by Key, it reminds us that VN anime were the hipster light novel adaptations that have been around for far longer. The introduction is a shapeless matter, showing lead Kotarou walking through a destroyed city when he's killed by a woman with ribbons. He then wakes and finds himself in a normal high school with stilted, clumsy dialogue right down to the childhood friend who has to introduce herself as the childhood friend. Then he finds a ghost in his bed that bites him with full slobber visible, reminding us we need to make a time machine to go back and stop the makers of Mysterious Girlfriend X. Then he finds he's incurred the wrath of a rival who challenged him to the fight and he doesn't show. Then he rescues the most cliched redhead of all anime out of a tree, but DON'T YOU DARE LOOK AT HER PANTIES, KOTAROU! Then stuff happens and stuff happens and eventually, Kotarou drops out of a crack in a dimensional realm in front of a statue of Col. Sanders. Oh yeah, and somewhere in there is a fairy that represents trash (I forgot to mention the city he lives in is extremely environmentally conscious, which will no doubt be a plot point that crashes into the series sideways later).

This is a befuddling charade of sequences which never has any rails to the point where even when it has passable scenes, they're quizzical. Korarou eventually has a branching romance path... er, scene out of nowhere with redhead Chihaya he's only met the other day and the series breaks out some lovely 3D CG and romantic mood music. Before, he was searching for the president of the occult club to protect himself from the ghost that keeps getting in his bed, and after, he's immediately back at the search with no emotional shift that anything happened. It might as well be its own short-subject feature. At least the occult club's light switches which also have options for screaming and ominous moaning are good for a one-off gag. When it tries to be intriguing, it comes off as amateurish. When it tries to be conventional, it's... conventional.

The second episode makes it clear that this is totally going to be a lackluster harem affair as most of the women in Kotarou's life line up to join the occult club he's suddenly in charge of. The one good member of the harem is Akane, the president of the occult club who plays first-person shooters instead of researching Kotarou's problems or handing out paper clips as a protective amulet. The rest are the usual Frankenstein's monster of harem traits mixed and matched. The writing also does that annoying trend that's going around which assumes that if one of the characters says they're doing a cliched scene, it fixes all the problems with having a cliched scene in the show. Not how that works.

Really, the only thing that seems to have any worth is seeing how insane the plot's going to get. Key is known for doing extreme turns to wring out emotion from their audience, so now we wait to see what gut punch they're going for. Charlotte set a high bar in a completely crazed final episode where you could watch the first episode and the last back-to-back and have your brain melt trying to figure out how in the world it got from point A to point Z. It also helped that Charlotte was actually good before then. With far too much good stuff to potentially watch this season, this fire at the VN factory can be easily left to burn regardless of what awaits.

No Recommendation

Scar-red Rider XechS
Jonathan Kaharl

I want to like this one but ...yeah. It's hard to ignore how sloppy this is in just about every respect. Which is weird, because this is an adaptation of a visual novel from 2010. You'd think they'd have time to think this through. Part of the problem may be the source, though. This is basically a super sentai romp, but filled with nonsense words at every turn. The monsters are called "Nightfly O'Note," for example. The first episode is pretty awful, failing to really explain what the hell is going on or who anyone is, outside the most broad strokes. It's not till episode two where we get our lead proper that the exposition is properly delivered. The show also makes a poor first impression via the sad production, as Satellite doesn't do much to add a flair or anything. I like the character designs just fine, but damn if they don't look drab in motion.

As a result, the first two episodes don't really leave an impact for me. I can see a good story here. There's an interesting hook, with the heroine wishing for death in the first episode before being presented as normal the next, and the idea of ordering around prospective friends to their possible deaths is a good way to inspire drama. The problem is that so little, even by episode two, is made clear, and emotional impact with the setting and cast is hard to form. It also feels like too much is shown early on, like the people in charge seemingly doing something possibly wrong behind the scenes.

I'm still trying to understand the details and find something to latch onto emotionally here. All I know for sure so far is that this isn't a must watch.

Weak Recommendation

SERVAMP
Megan "Queenira" Z

Maihru Shota hasn’t always had it easy. Adopted by his uncle after his mother was hit by a car he lives by the motto that simple is best. So to keep up with this he adopted a little black cat named Kuro. However after hearing about a vampire rumor from his friends he heads home. Instead of finding his new pet cat he finds a boy lounging around watching Tv. The boy reveals himself to be a vampire but rather than being out for blood he just wants to lounge around. However he warns Maihru not to say his name.

Of course this is a shonen series so Maihru has to open his yap. Thus Kuro and Maihru are bound. Okay well bound for 24 hours unless Kuro has some of Maihru’s blood. So when shit hits the fan and Maihru’s friends get attacked by a vampire magician Kuro becomes Maihru’s servamp, or servant vampire. Now bound together as Eve and Servamp they must stop Tsubaki the “eighth servamp”.  All Tsubaki wants is war, a war that will cause the Servamps to come together and finally face what their teacher wants.

Welcome to my guilty pleasure. Servamp is not the greatest show on earth. At points the animation from Brains Base can go from absolutely stellar to utter shit. But god damn if this show isn’t a ton of fun. This is probably what Seraph of the End and Bungou Stray Dogs will be for me this season. I can admit this show is a bit all over place tone wise. One second we can have Maihru reliving his grief and Alice confronting his painful lot in life as an Eve. In the next scene we can have Snow Lilly stripping and Maihru and Kuro’s working guy and lazy bones routine.

However let’s talk about the real star of this show. Tsubaki. Captain Melancholy here is our villain and god damn is he the fucking best. You know when I heard Tatsuhia Suzuki was in this I didn’t expect him to be captain ham. You know that’s why we usually cast Mamoru Miyano or Hiroshi Kaymiya. Needless to say he had me hook line and sinker. Granted I really enjoy most of the characters so far.

Alice is our snobby rich guys, Snow Lilly is captain stripper and Kuro is an absolutely adorable in cat form and human form. However Maihru is far more hit and miss with me. He can be really interesting but at the same time he seems way to vanilla for what this show wants to be. Is he a broken bird or is he just earnest? I honestly wish the show would pick already.

So far Servamp’s worst attribute is the opening and ending. They feel totally disjointed from the show. While I do love me some Oldcodex this may be my least favorite song of theirs and the ending theme feels like it’s trying to ride really hard of the success of Blood Blockade Battlefront’s “Sugar Song to Bitter Step”

Honestly if you’re looking to shut your brain off and have some silly, supernatural fun Servamp is right up your alley. If you’re also a huge seiyuu person this is also you’re show too.

Solid Recommendation

sweetness & lightning
Megan "Queenira" Z

You know when I was told by someone I really needed to watch Sweetness and Lightning I was going to wait a few weeks then marathon the show. They told me it was like the baby of Usagi Drop and Food Wars. However than couldn’t be farther from the truth.

On its own Sweetness and Lightning is its own animal.  I find myself having a hard time describing the feeling I have watching the series. Personally I feel an odd connection to the series. Though not raised by a single parent, but adopted, food has always been a thing to my folks and I. My mother passing on meals for me to learn to cook is something she looks forward to as I enter making it around the sun for almost 25 years. This year it was how to cook a corn beef. But enough about me.

The series revolves around Kohei Inuzuka, a single dad who only lost his wife six months ago, and his attempts to raise his daughter Tsumugi. Kohei sucks at cooking so he always makes prepared meals. However when he goes with his little girl to view the cherry blossoms he runs into a crying girl. As they speak about food it puts the thought into Tsumugi’s head. When your daughter asks for a home cooked meal like mom use to make you take that kid to find it. At the restaurant he calls he meets Kotori Iida.

Kotroi’s doesn’t have it easy either as her mother is all over and never home. When the pair meet and have some pot rice the gears of fate are set in motion.  Kohei wants to learn to cook to make Tsumugi happy and Kotori wants to have a family over.

The show manages to have this balance of cheer and humor with just a tinge of sadness. It is clear that while Tsumugi may have moved on that part of Kohei has not. Even better is that Kohei’s lack of cooking skills doesn’t come from a place of sexism but rather a lack of emotional understanding. To him he can’t understand that cooking a meal is a form of self-presentation. Yet he’s clearly willing to put his lack of understanding aside for his daughter’s happiness, even if it means putting himself in an awkward position.

For Kotori these meals mean having some sort of family. Unlike Tsumugi and Kohei food seems to drive a small wedge between Kotori and her mother. Yet at the same time it seems like the saving grace between the pair I enjoy that each episode feels like coming home and watching your own family cook as you’re off in the back taking care of homework or watching a show.

And much of the praise for the show can be given to how Tsumugi is written. She doesn’t seem too mature for her age or seem gross. She has these moments of acting a lot like my own four year old niece Aubrey when she draws and how she’s fixated on her magical girl show. I also enjoy how this anime even makes her scribble drawings look real.

My biggest hopes on the show are more of a not creepy development between Kohei and Kotori as well as meeting more people to join into the meals. Get your sweet tooth ready!

Strong Recommendation

Taboo-Tattoo
Andrew Lepselter



Tales of Zestiria the X
Joe Straatmann

This was the series I was most apprehensive about. I've played about half of the Tales games and I find one of the least interesting aspect to be the story. All the tweaks to the trademarked battle system as well as the character interactions beyond the plot carried them far more than the usual draw of an epic yarn. Especially concerning is the game's storyline was considered "meh" even by those who greatly enjoy the Tales game stories.Surprisingly enough, Zestiria the X has some amazing moments. Perhaps it's more accurate to say the series has an opening episode with exceptional moments. The prologue has enough fantastic visuals, action, and emotional impact to give a recommendation for right now. Don't be surprised if it goes downhill quickly, though. This is why you read the review instead of looking straight at the recommendation and moving on.

I must confess I have not played the game this is based on as I am currently trying to get through Tales of Xillia and Tales of Graces f because BANDAI NAMCO DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THAT I DON'T HAVE THE RESOURCES FOR 1-2 OF THESE TIME SINKS A YEAR, MUCH LESS THEIR HALF-ASSED SEQUELS! From what I can understand, the prologue is a bit of a departure in focusing on a supporting character, warrior princess Alisha. She is working to find the cause behind destructive tornadoes, disease, and strange black clouds that form above cities and just stay there. The story does have its missteps, like overuse of mythology. Alisha wants to keep a tradition alive where people try to draw a sword protected by the Lady of the Lake in order to find the next Shepard who last existed in the days of Seraphim as recorded in Asgardian ruins. You can just hear the darts hit the mythological board during those story conferences. That said, it's a tightly written episode that wastes no scenes, establishing the character, conflict, and the mission, moving through to a knockout of an climax. It definitely helps that this series is beautiful.

You might remember ufotable did the ill-fated adaptation of God Eater. While it was a mess on most every level, it still had outstanding visuals when it wasn't trying too hard with Tony Scott editing class, and they continue that tradition here. Apparently, the Tales 20th anniversary project is flush with cash as every detail is painstakingly put into the background, sequences are full of digital crane shots, and luscious wide shots give it an unforgettable look. I know the best trick for a craftsman is to make 3D CG blend seamlessly with everything else, but the amount of effort put into every side of the presentation makes me forgive them. The climactic sequence of a tornado in the desert as Alisha lands smack dab in the middle of the darkness that threatens the land is kind of breathtaking, especially the final shots that envelope her into the pure size of what she's dealing with.

The second episode is a more earthbound affair, and it's a busy one in its first five minutes. Alisha finds some ruins, has no time for despair as she's followed by the silly mascot of the title, is attacked by a giant mass of bugs, and falls through some water that is levitating on the ceiling of the ruins. It slows down when we're introduced to the main characters Sorey and Mikleo, the much more typical teenage protagonists of these things. They are ordered to stay away from some ruins, so by RPG law, they do, causing a huge disruption in the process. Eventually, Motoi Sakuraba's music which combines ethereal music with synth choir kicks in, reminding us of how many damn game she's scored that have the exact same music (Vakyrie Profile, Star Ocean, Baten Kaitos, etc. etc. etc.) This is far more what I was expecting. Like I said, this series has the potential to go downhill quickly. Even this was pleasant enough, though.

Solid Recommendation

This Art Club Has A Problem!
David O'Neil

The thing is, I actually read a good amount of the This Art Club Has a Problem manga before this anime was even announced, and was quite the fan of it too. In fact, you may remember me praising it highly in one of our Rainy Day Reading podcasts a while back, as everyone in the podcast seemingly lost interest when I clarified it was cheesy slice of life fluff- okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. Sort of. The point is, being a fan of the manga, it really just came down to whether it was properly adapted, and luckily, it has been VERY properly adapted.

The show is at its core, a slice of life comedy. It is about a school club, and the daily shenanigans of that school club, and that's pretty much it. There is a subplot surrounding the main character, Usami, having an unrequited crush on the main guy, Uchimaki, but there's about as much actual romantic progress in it as Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun (as in next to none). The first episode primarily focuses on Usami and Uchimaki, along with the sort of relationship they have. Uchimaki bolsters surprising artistic talent, but utilizes it exclusively for drawing cute anime girls, referring to them his "wives" (though translated to waifu here, which is a pretty fair localization) as Usami constantly scolds him for such irreverent behavior, even though she secretly has feelings for him. The focus of the show so far is primarily on the humor, and it succeeds at that just as well as the manga did. The jokes are good, the visual comedy is spot on, and there's plenty of entertaining cartoony reactions and faces to go around. The humor may not be for everyone, it does lean towards the ecchi side things at times, but at least in my view the characters are likable enough and the delivery is strong enough that I can overlook the occasional upskirt joke.

Although the comedy is the focus here, that doesn't mean the show is devoid of an emotional aspect. In fact, the dramatic side of things is where the anime has really elevated the source material. The show is from the team behind the second season of My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, including the director and animation director, and similar to that show when they emotional pay off comes around, an enormous amount of detail is put into the lighting, framing, and animation, to make it hit as hard as it possibly can. Again, the focus here is the comedy so it's hardly anything tear-jerking, but the sweet moments are made even sweeter thanks to the top notch execution of the talented animators and excellent direction. So if you can overlook a bit of ecchi here and there, This Art Club Has a Problem looks to be a great adaptation of the manga, bringing the crazy sense of humor and endearing characters to life with flying colors.

Strong Recommendation

Time Travel Girl
Andrew Lepselter

Anime is quite the oddity sometimes isn't it?

I must say, I've seen a lot of the same old same old genres come out of anime for a while now, as well as all the recurring trends and "in" things that seem to be replicated in many shows. Hell, by all means Time Travel isn't a new thing at all for anime (hell it's became one of the newer trends with stuf like Re:ZERO, Erased, etc.) but I don't think I've seen a real educational anime in quite a long, long time. You know, if ever.

Or at least....I think that's what they're trying to go for?

Sequence of events for this show is odd. We start from flashbacks to scientist dad, to showing importance of her dad being a scientist, then the main character reveals she's living with a pastry chef for a mother, then her friend is really invested in giving this guy she likes a birthday cake so she asks her friend for help. Then they walk home, walk into him doing sports stuff. Then he suddenly gets hit with a baseball and gets SMACKED IN THE CHEST SO HARD HE GOES INTO CARDIAC ARREST! Then her friend's brother comes along, gives him CPR, then her friend who really likes the kid goes all tsun-tsun and just smashes the head of the kid, who JUST WENT INTO CARDIAC ARREST MIND YOU, because oh noes he thinks I like him how embarrasing! Then they go to the brother's science bedroom, and the amulet on Mari (main girl's named Mari btw) and she teleports to 1600, gives a lady a heart attack from her time travelling, and repliactes teaching CPR before meeting with William Goether.

Honestly, I kind of had to write all of this down because this really was a strange spectacle to behold. Perhaps this is a show about learning and teaching the values and importance of scientific acheivements and stuff, but it's also trying to be it's own weird anime thing too. It's got some funny and expressive faces, and I found myself actually amused by the 1600's European woman getting embarrased by a Japanese girl's "risque school uniform."

The show looks odd aesthetically, and I honest to god cannot say where or what they are going to do with the premise like this, but...this one is just so odd and, well, perplexing in that I can't actually read what it's trying to do or what it wants to accomplish that I think that in itself is enthralling me to keep watching more.

Also as a side, I appreciate how they actually acknowledge the whole language barrier thing as they just suddenly understand and hear their own native tongues coming out of the other people. Nice little work around to that inconsistency I was going to point out. So good job show.

Solid Recommendation

Tsukiuta: The Animation
Megan "Queenira" Z

Have you ever watched a show and felt yourself right there in that moment? And when you’re in that moment you feel yourself slowly looking into the depths of the abyss as if some creeping sense of self-aware dread is slowly creeping over you and no matter how much you want to distance yourself from it you slowly are getting pulled into it? Welcome to me watching Tsukiuta The Animation the story of two rival idol groups Six Gravity and Procellarum and their daily lives.

Openly, thanks to a decent amount of friends, I’ve become addicted to learning seiyuu names and listening to them sing and dance. I will attribute the biggest rise to this to Kuroko no Basket of all things and when I saw Ono Kensho was in this I let out a squeal that probably set off every dog in a five mile radius. This show was already set up for my own personal enjoyment.

And god did I want to succeed but there was so much missing. Sure all the cute boys got introduced but not a single one had a truly appealing look. It also doesn’t help Studio Perrot isn’t showing off its best animation. Hell this show at its best looks like Tokyo Ghoul Root A at its worst. I have to question the creators of this series and their choice of animation studios here. Also our good friends CGI song time is back. Granted it’s at least better than the first go of Love Lives. I get this has music from the Vocaloid team but even the songs in the first two episodes truly didn’t appeal to me.

I also find it hard to even see a plot or even some driving force other than look at the pretty boys dance. So far it seems like each episode are one off stories centered around each of the twelve guys but that lends itself to certain flaws. If these guys are generic or unappealing you’ll lose the audience’s interest. So far the first two boys chosen, Kakeru and Iku, seem okay. Kakeru wasn’t given half as much personality as the one off character of the episode which highlights the largest flaw of the series.

With Iku at least there seems like some sort of personality though. I enjoyed the fact his episode was about his struggles between being at a track meet and his idol time. It also doesn’t help I’, slightly biased here because Iku is voiced by my favorite Seiyuu.

However Tsukiuta doesn’t stand out at all. Compared to the other idol show this season in Love Live Sunshine you can see the clear disconnect. Where Love Live shines in giving the girls vibrant personalities and designs Tsukiuta feels bland and disjointed. Overall it’s harmless if not a bit disappointing.

Weak Recommendation

Shorts

Banayan
Andrew Lepselter


The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.
Joe Straatmann

Saiki K... psychic... I get. Thankfully, the jokes in these shorts are a little better than that. but the opening pair of episodes left me with a more sour taste than even the title pun can provide. Most reviews are subjective, but some more than others. You see, title character Kusuo has parents that argue to point of almost going for the throat, breaking windows and literally cooking mis-matched shoes for their spouse to eat. They secretly love each other, but they also feel the end to horrifically lash out.  As a person whose parents went through a nasty, bitter divorce, this is not funny, especially when Kusuo acts out with large-scale violence. But you know, dear reader, I've probably laughed at something you find deeply offensive, so let's just leave this as "duly noted" and move on.

The series is about Kusuo who was born with weird pink hair and enough mental abilities to make Professor X cower in fear. These abilities actually ruined his life because he finds no satisfaction to success and if he uses his powers too much, he ruins the lives of others, such as when he had an incredible streak of rock-paper-scissors wins that caused a kindergarten teacher to quit. But this isn't REALLY about the ironic misery of a teen. This is secretly about a character who is self-aware he's the main character in an anime and trying to navigate through the various cliched cast of various manga and anime. He even tells the audience to read the manga when there's something the four-minute short doesn't have time for. We have the dumb punk, the main character of a shoujo manga about sweet romantic, romantic love, the main character of a shoujo manga that exists to stuff the ego of the reader with the prettiest self-insert character. The best one is the character who thinks he's the hero of a shounen manga imbued with amazing powers and the only one to destroy the secret organization that rules the world. He's actually an idiot, but his idiocy is imbued with intense transitions and even his own theme music at times. The rest are hit-and-miss, half of them going for the easy, predictable target. What bogs it down is the need for you to KNOW it's smart, constantly throwing in self-aware dialogue that calls attention to how clever they are, when really, they're explaining the joke, making it unfunny. Still, it's serviceable if you need four-minutes that will make you lightly chuckle at least a couple times.

Weak Recommendation

The Highschool Life of a Fudanshi
Thom "Tama" Langley

-Shuffles pages- Right. Uh. Yes. I suppose it's only right that as Infinite Rainy Day's BL reviewer, and moreover, a fudanshi (rotten boy) myself, I should review this...(thanks!) Ah! The fudanshi! That rarest of breeds! Yes, it's difficult to be a male yaoi fan, and, as the hero of this short first episode soon discovers, even more difficult to be a straight male yaoi fan. Ahem. Being a short-length episode (excluding ED, this episode is just three minutes long) the jokes, mostly at the expense of our hero, Sakamoto, come thick and fast. First, that familiar situation-having to buy BL manga-obviously Sakamoto hasn't heard of Amazon, as he traverses first the difficulty of going into the BL section (many larger Japanese book-stores place BL manga in its own section as normal bookshops may dedicate a section to LGBT fiction), and then the difficulty and awkwardness of buying BL manga, especially from a male cashier, especially if said cashier makes assumptions based on your purchases.

Discussing this with his friend, Sakamoto explains his reason for enjoying BL manga as "admiring another's happiness", much as many fujoshi enjoy BL for the same reason, before bemoaning the stereotyping of fudanshi as homosexual; he then notes, through his friend becoming annoyed through him using an experience of his own, a difficulty with BL fans, twisting uncomfortable events such as being groped on public transport, into the basis for stories-whilst I may be reading too much into this, there's almost a sense of the series critiquing BL fans (much as 'shippers are in the Western world) who write works based upon real people for their own pleasure. The episode concludes with another merry side-swipe at stereotyping people based upon their tastes, with Sakamoto assumed to be a girl by many of his friends on SNS (a twitter-style sorta thing) due to his love of BL and traditionally feminine things, like cake. He thus endevours to make more fudanshi friends!

The Highschool Life of a Fudanshi is a refreshingly smart, funny show, cocking a snook both at the BL fandom's rather rigid and feminine coded spaces, and somewhat concerning behaviour, as well as the equally rigid ideals of Japanese masculinity; the one downside to this show is its length and obviously small budget, with relatively little happening outside of small, often limited animation vignettes. That said, it's a good little, if slightly niche-interest, show.

Weak Recommendation

Mahou Shoujo? Naria Girls
Jonathan Kaharl

This is baffling. They basically made Who's Life Is It Anyway animated, and it does not work in the slightest. The actresses are trying, bless their hearts, but this concept was doomed the moment the animation style was chosen. There seems to be a similar program used here like you'd see on RWBY, and it's just as hideous and robotic in movement. Limbs crop through body parts and solid objects at random, and it becomes clear very quickly no one actually gave a shit about animating this. So it's an audio thing first and foremost, fine, but the improv just isn't that funny. It runs out of gas pretty quickly, and the girls can't seem to form a good joke most of the time. This is just embarrassing, and I really hope it doesn't hurt the careers of the actresses involved.

No Recommendation

Ozmafia!!
Megan "Queenira" Z

Apparently this is a series based off a game. If I hadn’t looked this up on Anichart I would have honestly had no idea. On top of that this is a game based of the Wizard of Oz. None of that is even apparent in the series. It follows Crimson, a hapless transfer student to a school. So far his teachers Caramia and Kyrie are the only ones who I can tell from the story. Caramia is the cowardly lion and Kyrie is the Scarecrow.

However this series has little of anything to do with the Wizard. Instead it’s about the helpless crimson. So far he’s gotten lost and failed a test. Seriously this isn’t even a series intended for new fans it seems but rather those who play the Ozmafia game. The style reminds me sadly of Diabolk Loves who doesn’t bode well for it. Overall if you play Ozmafia this will be for you. For the rest of us you’d be far better to just go watch another episode of a show you care about.

No Recommendation

Show by Rock!! Short!!
David O'Neil

A while back, you may recall me covering a show for this site called Show By Rock. An adaptation of the rhythm game of the same name, it was kind of a mixed bag of a show. On the one hand it had some fun characters and entertaining over the top humor, but on the other hand the plot was beyond trite and it really dragged on whenever the humor wasn't at its strongest. Now the show has made something of a brief return before its eventual second season, in the form of Show By Rock Short. And while there certainly isn't a ton to go off of from a single three minute long episode, I still feel as if I can make a pretty solid judgement call in terms of whether or not people should watch this show, through a single question. That question is: Are you a big fan of Show By Rock's characters? If the answer to this is no, there is no rational reason you should ever watch this. If its yes, sure, why the heck not. It's three minutes of the show's characters being random goofballs, and that's it. It's a pretty slapdash effort in all honesty, even reusing animation from the original series here and there. It clearly only exists to fill the void until the show comes back proper, but if you are one of those people eagerly awaiting just that, this'll tide you over I suppose. But if you haven't seen the original show, or didn't enjoy the original show, there is nothing at all for you here.

Weak Recommendation

Second Opinions

91 Days

Joe: The second episode strengthened my confidence in this series. The first one had fantastic opening drama and the credits held a great atmosphere, but something bugged me, whether it was the weird secret speakeasy that's in a huge church in the middle of an island, or the generic mob violence to close it out, maybe they were biting off more than they could chew. Nah. The second episode is full of mob media conventions (Don speaking to people in a dark room during a family wedding, secretly being friends with the mob you want to destroy, etc.), but the high-impact violence and drama are served with huge amounts of confidence and precision. That's not to mention they know how to weave a mean cliffhanger. If you want a pure drama that's for adults (and not because boobies), watch the hell out of this. I don't know when you're going to get the next opportunity. Strong Recommendation

Jonathan: Fantastic! Very well handled crime drama that throws a monkey wrench into affairs by the second episode, has great direction and animation, and the cast have very effective reactions with each other that say a ton about who they are and what they've been through. One of the most promsing shows of the season, easily. Strong Recommendation

Amanchu!

Joe: One of my long-awaited shows, an adaptation from the mangaka of Aria with many of the people who did the wonderful anime version on board. It takes a bit to get used to the green-haired girl in this ouvre's color scheme being the extremely outgoing extrovert, but Hikari is absolutely charming as one of those girls who is a gigantic ball of eccentricity that rams straight into conformity-hammering high school. I'm happy the general population is admiring the more comedic face changes and weird cat design from Aria, even if the cats are no longer from terraformed Mars. We'll see how the world of diving compares with life as a gondola guide on another planet. It might be the one shortcoming this has. Solid Recommendation

Jonathan: This is really gay and really cute, thumbs up. Strong Recommendation

Ange Vierge

Jonathan: Boring garbage. Amazing how dull a show made up mostly of nude bathing scenes is. The worst part is the multiverse angle is wasted by very personality devoid character designs and the bad art style. It's just the most generic anime thing I have ever seen. No Recommendation

Bananya

Joe: It's friggen bananas that are actually cats animated as adorably as possible with cute worldplay. If that sounds like some of the best 3-minutes you can have, it is. If you think this something meant to induce vomiting, it is. You know who which one you are. Act accordingly. Strong Recommendation if this is your bag, baby, No Recommendation if it is not

Jonathan: Yes. Watch This

Days

Joe: This sports anime is good enough, with a surprising amount of encouragement in a series about a kid with no experience in soccer trying to join the high school soccer team. The amount of pain he has to go through is really concerning though. Some anime insist determination, even in the face of constant, body-destroying injury, is the best policy. The poor main character here has already bled through his shoe and smashed his head into a goalpost to show he's good enough, and he isn't even that far in. It's good, but I'm dropping it because I simply don't have time for it. Solid Recommendation

Hitorinoshita – The Outcast

Jonathan: A genuine trash show. Trash premise, trash production, trash morals, trash everything. Which is why I'm still watching. It's that right sort of bad I needed. It also has a knife wielding girl that humiliates the fuckboy lead and makes him her slave after stripping him naked, so that's good. Very Weak Recommendation

Mob Psycho 100

Jonathan: Really promising dark comedy. The animation is incredible, and the abstract bits are just a delight to watch. Strong Recommendation

The Morose Mononokean

Jonathan: I watched the first episode and instantly forgot most of it. No Recommendation

orange

Joe: Hiroshi Hamasaki is pretty amazing. I wouldn't expect the director of Steins;Gate to be able to make a straight shoujo manga adaptation so authentic and quietly beautiful. The art design is gorgeous without feeling artificial and the story about a girl receiving a letter from herself ten years in the future effortlessly captures the insecurities of being a teenager to where even when you get a step-by-step guide to fixing the future, your're still not quite sure of yourself. I would be looking way far ahead if I were her, though. I kind of love this one. Strong Recommendation

Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars

Jonathan: It's really gay and has giant robots. If this does not appeal to you, you won't like it. If it does, you will. Solid/Weak Recommendation

SERVAMP

Jonathan: It's like Blue Exorcist but not as good. But also much more gay. Eh, mixed bag. Weak Recommendation

sweetness & lightning

Jonathan: Watch this if you are a human being. Strong Recommendation

Taboo-Tattoo

Jonathan: Somehow very well produced and an embarrassment to the art of animation at the same time. That's certainly an accomplishment. The edgy dark powers story does not inspire confidence either. Probably going to end up being garbage, but for weirdly interesting reasons. No Recommendation

Tama:"Nice concept, shame about the execution" sums this show up pretty well. Taboo Tattoo is another of those "Bland but likeable hero gets powers, is recruited by shadowy organisation somehow mostly staffed by older-than-they-look girls who wear less clothing than they need to (who are mildly obsessed with the protagonist) and is somehow the chosen one/magic maguffin wielder/greatest-thing-since-bread-came-sliced" sort of series. How bad it is is pretty much revealled inside its first two minutes when, pretty much out of nowhere, our hero is giften a magic transfer tattoo that gives him supernatural powers for rescuing a guy from a bunch of thugs. Yup. Our entire show premise, the very reason our hero gets caught up in this, is pretty much glossed over and merrily shunted past before the OP even rolls. From here...well, let's play a drinking game. Our hero, so bland that he has perhaps the dullest design of any protagonist this season, an orphan who knows nothing but martial arts, who is literally named "Justice" (no, really), [takes swig] is promptly stalked and beaten [takes swig] up by Izzy, a badass sorta looking girl who under her badass longcoat is wearing less clothing than Lara Croft [takes swig]. From here, we get your typical first episode World Events infodump, America is revealled to be the bad guy, and the tattoos are created there. From here, Izzy is revealled to be working for the Tattoo Retrieval wing of the US army [takes swig], an American Mafia member rocks up spoiling for a fight, and Justice's triggerless tattoo is revealled to be some whispered ultimate Macguffin. [Takes swig, collapses on floor.] I don't often dislike series this much from a first episode, but Taboo Tattoo is so painfully, generically by the numbers that I really don't need to watch a second episode. Avoid. Now where can I find a new liver... No Recommendation

Time Travel Girl

Jonathan: Bishonen Benjamin Franklin. Nuff said. Weak Recommendation

Every now and then I traverse the internet to curb my boredom. After all, even with a busy schedule and a steady job, I have way too free time on my hands. Perusing for content keeps me occupied, but it also leads to interesting videos and articles that are worth a response or elaboration. Case in point:


There’s a lot to talk about, but I’ll use this instead as a jumping point for another question that’s been on my mind for year: is the late-Satoshi Kon a better artist than Hayao Miyazaki?


I know where I stand on this personally: no. His work is interesting, no doubt, but it’s never resonated with me in the same way. Kon was a surrealist, a blender of the conscious with the subconscious, and it shows in his work. However, the core of his films, for the most part, are hollow, relying too heavily on surrealism instead of actual engagement. The end result is usually interesting, yet not terribly investing.

But that’s me. I know that the fervour for Kon is prevalent in the anime community, such that people frequently insist that he was “the greatest” and that other directors will “never achieve his status”. It’s only gotten stronger since his passing, and it’s even been brought up a few times in conversations. Therefore, projecting my personal bias on the man’s body of work is bound to go on deaf ears. If you want my full thoughts in a nutshell, here’s an attached snippet from an old and rough rant that never ended up being finished:

“For the longest time ever, I thought there was something wrong with me for not appreciating his work, something that I was missing for not attaching to his work. Considering how his films are so frequently described as “layered eye candy” by fans, you’d think that I’d be able to attach to that; after all, I love art. I love looking at abstract art in museums, as it leads itself open to plenty of interpretation. But I have my limits, and like how a Jackson Pollock work strikes me as nothing more than meaningless splotches on a white board, so to do I find imagery for the sake of imagery tiresome and meaningless. It’s the primary reason, after all, why Lewis Carroll never spoke to me as an author.

But then, after many years of revisions and thought, it hit me: there was nothing wrong with me as a person for not loving Satoshi Kon’s work.”

I still (mostly) hold this to be true.

Anyway, to fully-understand why I don’t think it’s fair to call one superior to the other, we first have to look at what makes them both similar and unique. For one, both explore aspects of the human condition. Both use protagonists as inserts for ideas they want to express about the world. Both are particularly fond of women, and use them frequently to subtly comment on male-centric worlds. And both make excellent uses of animation fluidity and style to create a unique imprint.

That’s where the similarities begin and end. The rest is completely different: where as Satoshi Kon is interested in how the human condition connects psychologically to the rest of the world, Hayao Miyazaki is interested in how the human condition connects emotionally to the rest of the world. Where as Kon is about the here and now, Miyazaki is interested in the past and future. Where as Kon focuses on adults, Miyazaki is big on youth. Even their art-styles and approaches to film are different, with the former fitting surrealism into a three-act narrative and the latter using minimalist dialogue amidst an atmospheric backdrop.

And this is probably why the claims bother me. It’s like saying that a rump roast is better than a fruit salad. One isn’t automatically superior to the other, they serve completely different purposes. Kon and Miyazaki couldn’t be any more distinct, so why compare such drastically different directors in attempt to prove that one is “better”? You’d have a better time comparing Hayao Miyazaki and Mamoru Hosoda, something which, by the way, is also disingenuous.

On that note, it irks me when people demand that the void for Satoshi Kon be filled. Miyazaki, they argue, has plenty of talents catering to his niche, so why not the master of surrealism? To that, I have two responses. Superficially, there’s Darren Aronofsky and his Hollywood thrillers, many of which resemble and are somewhat inspired by Kon’s work. It’s not quite the same, but he’s definitely an outpost.

Realistically, however, I don’t think his void should be filled. Kon was a man in his own league, directing at a time where his style could’ve actually worked. He won over fans because he did what no one else had done before him. Visceral isn’t so unfamiliar these days, so filling that void is unnecessary.

Besides, Kon and Miyazaki have influenced anime in their own ways. Miyazaki helped the medium become more mainstream, while Kon helped make it feel more adult. And both have made excellent bodies of work respectively, so while others might disagree, it’s not even worth the comparison and use of bodies of work to justify superiority claims…

…And especially with Perfect Blue. That film kinda sucks.

For as much as I attempt non-condescension in my contributions to Infinite Rainy Day, sometimes I have no choice. The anime fandom simply has a lot of arrogance that needs addressing. Therefore, today I’d like to tackle some complaints I have about my fellow Otaku and their “holier than thou” attitude. Hold on tight, this’ll be a dense one.



1. On animation fluidity-there’s this common sentiment amongst many fans that anime flows better than Western animation. The claim is that the West is lazy with its animation, while the East are the purveyors of the only “true” kind. It pops up everywhere, such that it’s impossible to get a word edgewise. However, I’m gonna do it anyway, as it’s kinda misleading.

See, one of anime’s most well-known secrets is how cheap the industry is. Anime is usually put out with the expectation of weekly airings, so a lot of corners are cut for time. A lot of shows, and even some films, aren’t given the full attention they require. For the most part, the in-anime “camera” will show off talking heads from a cool and unique angle, leaving the actual fluidity for the action. This is true for almost all anime.

The weird part is that a lot of professional animators acknowledge this. From what I’ve gathered, many Western schools of animation aren’t big on anime style, largely because: a. It’s cheap. b. It’s lazy. c. It’s easy to replicate. And d. It lacks detail. In fact, there’s even a series of YouTube videos by TheJosephShow that try to explain why anime lacks movement compared to Western animation by constantly mentioning “fluidity”.

That’s the key here: “fluidity”. Animation's, by definition, about movement, something the West knows how to do better due to better allocations of budgets. The West may consider animation a “kid’s medium”, hence why it largely uses it for children’s stories, but even something like Spongebob Squarepants has more flow than a high-end anime series. It doesn’t matter if it “looks like crap”, it’s true. And the sooner fans acknowledge that, the happier off they’ll be.

Does this mean that all anime is bad? Of course not! Animation is a medium of storytelling, so good writing can compensate for shoddy animation. Remember how the Digimon franchise always looked like garbage? Remember how the character models and action scenes lacked any fluidity or personality? Remember how I wrote about how much I loved it anyway? Like I said, good writing can help overcome shoddy animation.

Actually, why is it so pressing that anime be “more fluid” than Western animation? Is it because of an inferiority complex? Does claiming it make fans feel better about what they’re watching? Is it really such a big deal that anime is cheaper? I’m curious.

2. On the nuances of lip-flaps-this is one that I’ve covered before, but it bears repeating anyway. Far too often there’s an assumption that anime lip-flaps are so much better rendered than those of Western animation because, well, it’s anime. The level of detail is crisper, the words are prettier, it’s incomparable! Anime lip-flaps, they argue, are proof that Japanese is far superior to English in every way possible. And if you have a problem with that, you’re wrong.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but no. I don’t like English as a language, even though it’s my Lingua Franca, but that doesn’t mean that anime lip-flaps are superior. Because they aren’t, and for one reason: they mostly move up and down. They occasionally stretch sideways for emphasis or singing, but it’s an oversight to claim otherwise. In fact, you’d have to be blind to not see that.

In contrast, Western animation has the characters move their mouths to match their speech patterns. This is especially prevalent the more a studio goes out of its way to highlight the nuances and subtleties of lisps, stutters or other speech disorders. And while I’m aware that the grunt work tends to go to China or South Korea if you’re not a company like Pixar or DreamWorks, because it’s cheaper, those subtleties and nuances don’t automatically disappear. It also ties in with the higher budgets, as the funds make for better lip-flap choices.

The increased attention to detail also helps with immersion. I’m fine with anime’s mouth movements, I can suspend my disbelief quite a bit, but remember that a human’s mouth, irrespective of language, moves in a variety of subtle ways. If you don’t believe me, try speaking in front of a mirror and paying close attention to your lips. Capturing that in animation is important.

While we’re on that note, I hate it when people get mad over loose translations. If we go with what I said, the lip-flaps of anime characters are so generic that I can time them and add nonsense without much difference. Considering there’s a YouTube account out there that does that with Hollywood blockbusters anyway, and they’re live-action, it’s not impossible. It’d be highly-disrespectful, but it’s not impossible. It’s something to remember when you make this claim.

3. On the budgets of anime shows and films-the kicker here is the claim that anime has more money poured into it because animation is taken more seriously in Japan. This isn’t true. Anime may look more detailed than Western animation, but that’s because the style is more detailed by default. When compared to the budget of a cheaply-made cartoon like Spongebob Squarepants or The Fairly Odd Parents, the amount of resources put into the budget of an anime series is close to nothing.

Movies are no different. Sure, they have higher budgets than shows, but that doesn’t mean they don’t pale to Western animated films. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was, allegedly, made on the same budget as a single, standard episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Princess Mononoke rounds out to an estimate of $24 million USD. The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, on the other hand, barely cracks $50 million USD, and that’s considered the most-expensive anime film ever made! Disney and Pixar films, even with the corners they cut, usually are anywhere from 8 to 10 times that amount!

Honestly, what’s keeping the industry alive, next to high demand, is passion. Anime is an industry run by talented animators who are passionate. They get paid next to nothing to create high-quality results regularly, and if you look closely at the individual frames of animation, you’ll see the budget restraints by way of backgrounds, lack of character fluidity and a ton of errors. This is commonplace, yet the passion seeps through anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, anime wins out in character details…when they’re the focus. I have immense respect for what Japanese animators churn out, and I wish many Western animation studios cared even a fraction of that amount. But the head animator behind One-Punch Man put it best when he said that animators join “passion and obsession” to make anime work. Essentially, it’s all about commitment to the craft. Even if your budget is dirt-poor, you can make something memorable if you care. After all, Hollywood first-timers have done great stuff with next to no budget, so why not anime? Ponder that.

4. On dub voice acting-I’ll keep this one as brief as possible, considering that I’ve covered this before on several occasions: anime dubs are a valid form of watching anime. I don’t care if it’s “inauthentic”. I don’t care if it “changes lines”. I don’t even care if the “voices are different”. Dubs aren’t the devil, they’re an alternative for people who don’t speak Japanese.

I’m not sure why this argument persists. Is it because people have a hard-on for Japanese audio? Because rest assured, it’s not so simple. As someone I Follow on Twitter once said, the original voices might not always be as great as people think. They might be reading from a cookbook and no one would notice, hence why it’s so important to know the actual language fluently. Then again, most complainers don’t.

Alternatively, it could be because of the lip-flaps. To that, I refer to point #2. Anime lip-flaps aren’t normally that nuanced, even though there are exceptions (see Akira), and it shows. This is because anime lip-flaps are usually drawn before the audio is recorded, unlike the rest of the world, so the genericness of said flaps can allow for anything if timed correctly. It’s not so one-sided.

Look, I have the utmost respect for seiyuu and the effort they put into their roles. Voice acting is often a thankless job, and a lot of these individuals are trained professionally. I also recognize that there are anime shows and films where the voice acting is far superior in Japanese. But that doesn’t negate the effort put into dubs. It’s case-by-case, and there are dub tracks that surpass their counterparts.

5. On anime being a medium of maturity and risks-this is the easiest to understand the rationale for, as it’s somewhat true: anime is more daring. It goes to bigger extremes and doesn’t hold back as frequently with its storytelling. A show like Cowboy Bebop would never air on mainstream TV over here, as it’s too sophisticated for Western censors. Conversely, Princess Mononoke or Akira would be relegated to arthouse theatres, if at all. There’s no other way of putting it, anime is more mature and adult than Western animation…to an extent.

Unfortunately, this comes with two downsides. One, anime willing to go to such places means it sometimes goes places it shouldn’t. It’s not commonplace, the Japanese do have standards, but anime has gotten away with questionable degrees of violence, rape and bloodshed. Instances of tentacle rape (which is classified as its own sub-genre) and graphic murder exist in the world of anime, and it can be a little sickening. I think my favourite example of this is when blood spurts like crazy from a simple gash-wound. It can be argued as "artistic license", but it’s really uncomfortable and almost impossible to take seriously.

And two, there’s the issue of lack of subtlety. Anime in general isn’t known for subtlety anyway, what with all of its weird ideas and over-expository dialogue, but there are plenty of moments where it takes risks for “artistic reasons” that aren’t needed. You needn’t blow someone to shreds to warrant an R-rating, there are other ways of achieving that. It can often take me out of the experience, thus ruining the intended effect. I know it’s a tough balance, but given that Japanese artists aren’t dumb I’m sure they can figure it out.

All the more why Western animation deserves some credit. Sure, you have shows and films that shove in inappropriate content for the sake of it, or because they don’t respect children, but then there are Disney and Pixar films that teach hard lessons in mature and respectful ways. They don’t condescend, and while they tend to go for family audiences, because God forbid an animated movie be mainstream and not for children, that desire to grab everyone makes them age quite well. Even on the show front, you have entertainment these days that either has jokes for adults (see Steven Universe) or is for adults (see South Park). This isn’t including something like Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is in a league of its own.

I love anime and its desires to take risks. I don’t see a lot of material akin to Fullmetal Alchemist or Wolf’s Rain here, and I’m grateful it even exists. But sometimes kid-friendly is good too. I’d argue that it’s better than adult-only sometimes, especially considering what I’ve already mentioned. Essentially, claiming that “darker is better” isn’t always true. I only wish Otakudom understood that a little more.

So there you have it: my 5 points about the anime fandom that I can’t stand. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below, but for now…I’m out!