apoc9

Anime adaptation of Korean web comics series, which has been no. 1 “manga” on the site for a while. What makes the series popular are fighting scenes at least as far as the anime is concerned. If you ask me for impression, I have to say the atmosphere in the series is indeed more “Korean” including not only the names of all characters, but overall vibe the settings have. It has to have large corporations, dedicated employees, attractive female coworkers and protagonist from poor family, who needs money. It reminds me Korean TV drama, but combined with typical manga/anime shounen. It... See full review

Mr. Sasaki is single middle-aged salaryman with rather mundane life. He would like to buy a pet, but he doesn’t have much money to buy a dog or a cat. However, while he is visiting a pet shop, he hears a voice of little bird (java sparrow) with a star on its chest. He finds the bird very adorable and buys it. While Sasaki is talking to the little fellow, after he brings it home, the bird starts to talk back! An adventure begins for Sasaki and Pii-chan little bird, who is sage reincarnated from another world. This is somewhat unique isekai experience, while the series does have many common isekai... See full review

Despite initial premise an incredibly generic series. Why I did I even watch this? Maybe I just was in mood to see colours flickering on the screen before my eyes? I remember only this much. The maid and dog were funny and brought some levity to generic series. The main girl very stereotypical. Main protagonist OP character. Hero, who got betrayed, killed and became skeleton daemon lord, put himself into hibernation or what and reincarnated as young boy shy around older females who try to tease him. He wants to rule the world again, but mostly runs around saving people and his harem. Let’s not forget... See full review

If you can survive the initial head spinning inducing drone camera POV, then you have adaptation of sweet first love, young romcom with simple premise. Usually, most romances are set in high-school or later on. It’s nice to see young boy experiencing his first love. The story is from the boy’s perspective at least where the inner monologues are concerned. The character’s quirks, facial expressions and the girl’s increasing, but yet somewhat unconscious romantical affection towards the boy. The plot with forgetting glasses all the time is over the top, but this is beside the... See full review

She was raised as a sacrifice to be devoured by beast king to fulfil peace pact with beast kingdom. However, the sacrifice is not scared by king’s appearance nor her fate. From simple premise with a twist on beauty and beast this series expands into full-fledged fantasy romance drama with decent number of interesting characters. It has slow, but solid romance storyline. It has friendship, drama and occasionally bit of comical relief. I must not forget it has even some action scenes, especially in the second half. It touches on various themes mainly related to racial hatred and prejudice – beasts... See full review

Story with crazy premise of vending machine enthusiast reincarnating into fantasy world as a vending machine. It might be reward for his attempt to save one from destruction at the beginning. Unlike sword reincarnation this series sticks quite strictly to the concept. Main character can’t talk, but he can communicate. He has few prerecorded messages such as “Welcome”, “Thank you, come again”, etc. Prerecorded lines one would expect from a vending machine. Luckily some characters in the story recognize his intelligence and manage to communicate in yes/no question answer format... See full review

Slice of adventurer’s life isekai series, where everything is dropped in dungeons including the main protagonist himself. It’s rather silly concept. MC has highest magic find possible. He gets more and better-quality loot. If you played any ARPG you know the drill. This allows him to become really overpowered. The core of the story is MC farming items and exploring ways to farm new items. Occasionally there is some sort of strong monster, which needs to be defeated. That’s pretty much the gist of it. I should mention he is sensitive on overworking and struggles of employees based on his... See full review

Main character is hardworking salaryman, who is reincarnated after he is randomly killed. He chooses to be healer not knowing what hardships are ahead of him, but thanks to his earnest nature he steadily walks path of becoming stronger and increasingly popular among adventurers [1] and common people. Quite straightforward isekai levelling story combined with comedy. The story is quite enjoyable despite seeming rather bland given the story’s focus is mostly on MC’s training. The first six episodes is nothing but training and interactions in those settings. The second half sees at least some real... See full review

“Okashi na” has multiple meanings. Impression I had from this would be summed up in “okashi na”, but meaning “strange, bizarre” instead of intended meaning “sweets” implying the series will revolve about making sweets. This series starts in stereotypical manner of isekai reincarnation of master in craft, but then instead of exploring the craft as anyone would expect it goes into somewhat long intro arc with no cooking until the end of the episode three. Even more strange is the fact that this more typical mini arc was the best part of the series [1]. Story... See full review

This series adapts numerous tropes starting with magical school, tournament, arranged marriage, fatal illness and many more. Even characters weren’t spared of being mishmash of various tropes. However, the high point was main protagonist, who had some rather atypical quirks for this type of series. His attitude towards others in particular towards women was kind of funny. Also, his obsession with strength and body training. He is OP war veteran with tragic backstory and harem of girls. Each girl becomes involved as pivot in short arc over several episodes at least as far as I remember. I watched the... See full review

While the first impression is typical generic slow life of capable main character getting kicked out from current position series, it has some surprising elements. I would sum the story as solid salaryman escapism at least in the beginning. The series start in typical manner for the trope. MC Dariel is banished from daemon army after years of service, where he is belittered by his superiors. Fortunately, he encounters Marika, young woman from near human village, where Dariel finds new place to live peacefully after he saves Marika from a monster. He also finds out he was human all along. At this point the... See full review

This anime series in a nutshell is 2017’s action RPG game NieR Automata’s story adaptation. If you played the game like me, you will recognize characters and events from the game. In the game the strongest element was atmosphere made of outlandish settings, great visuals, excellent soundtrack and voice acting. The game in itself is quite enjoyable as well. Anime does very good job to be as much faithful to the source material as possible. Even including voice actors from the game. While it isn’t necessary to know the game to watch the series, it does help to draw upon those... See full review

"Giant worms" made me remember scene from Stargate, where Jack O’Neill tries to explain how wormhole works. In this case the worms are magical creatures causing earth quake in Japan. The movie puts main character high-school girl on fantastical adventure to save cursed prince charming and prevent giant earthquake worms from entering our realm through magical door thus the name of the movie “Suzume’s door closing”. The first thing I’ve noticed and appreciate about the movie in a cinema is gorgeous animation. It looks really good. Especially the quick passage of time... See full review

As expected, this is very popular. The story is basically showbusiness drama. The focus is on hardships and relationships in entertainment industry through eyes of characters. It does have mystery and fantastical elements, but those are rather secondary if not unnecessary. In particular initial twist [1] plays no true significance for the story and could be omitted. The story would work without it perfectly fine. Murder mystery, which is strong motivation for Aqua, who is one of the main characters if not the main character, is not so significant as well. It resurfaces occasionally, but there are many... See full review

Mappa brings us adaptation of action manga series. I’m not usually fond of series set in feudal Japan – series about samurai, shinobi, etc. In this case I really like settings, atmosphere and audio-visual aspects of this series. However, if you are looking for serious historical action drama, this is not it. The initial premise did pique my interest. The story follows Gabimaru, who is sentenced to death, but all attempts to execute him fail. Interesting, right? However, when he is sent to obtain elixir of immortality with other criminals, things fall apart as far as the initial setup is... See full review

“Is this isekai good?”, is way more complicated question. It can be enjoyable, because tropes and cliché do work after all. However, it’s dialled up to eleven and then tripled. Think most cliché power fantasy about how good and nice, but ugly, fat, bullied, poor and in all aspects most miserable guy become instantly the best looking, the most capable and the coolest guy ever. Everyone is mesmerized by him. It gets to absurd levels, that in almost every scene in public space people stop dead in their tracks to watch and admire whatever this amazing young man is doing... See full review

When I watched trailer for the series it vaguely reminded me of Yakusoku Neverlad. You know suspicious enclosed school/orphanage. I almost couldn’t be more wrong. The strongest point is the settings. The story unravels in obviously postapocalyptic settings. Interestingly enough even the characters themselves do not know what led to such downfall, but it isn’t like everything went Mad Max route. There are still places, where people live relatively normal life. The difference is there is much less people around. Society also has no longer ability to reproduce its’ previous high... See full review

After the series started I binged the manga. I’ve even written review on it. I won’t repeat myself here, but I will focus on the differences and for more detailed review please check my manga review on AP here. I have to say anime adaptation is inferior. I think the main reason it accents comical moments and makes some scenes unnecessarily more absurd. It doesn’t pull me that in, because the comedy comes as more forced and it overshadows other aspects of the story. The overall tone also makes main... See full review

I expected to like this series, but it exceeded my expectations and it became quickly one of my seasonal favourites. It follows high school boy Ichikawa, who masks his sense of not fitting in by this interior and exterior façade of being interested in grim stuff and internally having malicious thoughts. In reality he is quite considerate. I like he isn’t entirely commonly used type of male protagonist. On his opposite stands Yamada. She is tall, pretty and popular. She would be the all-perfect trope, but the series shows quickly it isn’t the case. She has her own idiosyncrasies such... See full review

The best part about Kimetsu no yaiba is action and engaging story with very good pacing, which keeps me wanting to go and watch the next episode. Action segments are well animated. I’m not fan of samurai and other Japanese history flavoured series, but this series is enjoyable nonetheless. If any issues, there are occasional plot holes and conveniences such as how the slayers know about the main daemon, if they never encountered him. How could main character randomly encounter him at one mission, but then the main daemon is shelved for the rest of the season. Why are there ghost disciples training MC?... See full review

Comparing this series to Spy x Family would be a mistake, because it aims for more serious story, but has some silly comical moments as well. I’m very happy it has no BL. The main characters Kazuki and Rei are just friends and partners in crime. They are actually hitmen for mafia. They live relatively simple life without much trouble except being haunted by their individual tragic backstories, which are explored throughout the series. I’m usually not very enthusiastic about drama, but this is good and makes sense except the point where it doesn’t. It’s very plot convenient, but... See full review

“I cherish peace with all my heart. I don't care how many men, women, and children I need to kill to get it.” Quote by Peacemaker came to my mind, when I finished watching the last episode of this series. It combines different things in what would be otherwise generic fantasy isekai, which give it unique and novel feel to it. The first interesting thing was idea to have protagonist introduce eastern exorcist magic system into usual fantasy with elemental magic. It does include summoning of various youkais to fight for him. The second is how ruthless main protagonist can be in order to achieve... See full review

Tomo Aizawa is in high school, but she is still pretty much tomboy girl she was as a kid. She is romantically interested in her childhood friend Jun, but her attempts to move relationship in that direction fail. She believes it’s because he doesn’t see her as a girl at all. I didn’t expect to like this show, because I don’t like the trope of tomboy. Tomo’s problem could be fixed relatively easily with the help of her friends [1]. Could it lead to relationship with Jun? Maybe and maybe not. The problem is in Jun as well. He is contradicting himself when it comes to his approach... See full review

Amayakasu is keyword for the series. The main male character is getting pampered by beautiful girl. She cleans. She makes him meals and bit later on lets him rest on her lap, while creasing his hairs. He pampers back in a different way. It’s the most prominent part of the series. If you like the atmosphere of that kind, you are almost sure to like the series. My more cynical part of me is telling me it’s more like watching guy beat around the bush for six of twelve episodes with girl that is at that point constantly sending verbal and nonverbal signals she is in love with him, but the guy... See full review

Food centric isekai series. It’s very straightforward and somewhat enjoyable, but man the main protagonist is annoying cry-baby. He gets magical protection from Fel making him practically invulnerable, but he is shit scared to do anything and the whinnying. The only time he doesn’t usually complain is when he is making food or doing nothing. His companions are way more interesting as characters. The series is pretty much slice-of-isekai-life adventure with preparing and eating various meals. The side story of goddess [1] taking from MC food offerings is fun. Audio-visually the series is nice... See full review

The first four episodes setup settings and present some unexpected twist, but after that the story slides into mediocre magic school trope. Each episode being more boring than other until the final fight, which stirs bit of excitement back. It’s ever-present combination of school-life and some fighting without any obvious higher objective or important events. The story doesn’t go pretty much anywhere. The motivation of rebel group is never explored nor any backstory is provided. Even if it were shown in future continuation, why have filler before that? Utterly wasted potential. The fact main... See full review

Quite interesting and enjoyable isekai about young woman, who accidentally attains ability to travel between our world and different world. Instead becoming adventurer, she makes plan to get rich by selling products from Japan to local people for gold coins. She estimates based on gold amount and value it would take around 80 000 gold coins to get enough money to live comfortable life in our world. What makes the series fun and interesting is personality and approach of the heroine. She prepares to the point she even gets gun and pays mercenaries to teach her self-defence. She makes even fake... See full review

My first impression was this is going to be series of random sketches in isekai settings, but it turned out to be bit more than series of dick and other jokes. Through short chapters the series introduce characters. The characters’ path cross and as they interact with each other including main protagonist and his party a larger overarching story is drawn. The series does this very well. Some characters have over the top design such as wizard with giant staff, which he uses to beat up his enemies. Main cast of characters is interesting as well. We have Morok old and very powerful wizard, who has... See full review

Otomegame villain lady trope has been done to death in manga and it couldn’t possibly surprise anyone at this point, or could it? This series proves it can. It combines isekai otomegame in very unique way. It follows two highschoolers Endo and Kobayashi, who are close friends in a broadcasting club, but could be more, because Endo likes the girl [1]. Kobayashi very enthusiastically loves otomegame “Magical ni koishite“. Her favourite character is villain lady Liselotte, who would be considered very nice girl, if she wasn’t complete tsundere. Kobayashi convinces Endo to play the game... See full review

A slow life series. Very simple fun slice-of-life, where main protagonist obtains OP farmer skills and creates farm in a middle of deadly forest inhabited by powerful monsters. It’s very laid-back series. He builds sort of harem as many females of various species join him [1], but there is only one chosen girl [2] and the show isn’t harem per se. The best girl is Zabuton. Do not expect romance moments, if any there are few moments and more attune with day-to-day life. Building and farming element is more for enjoyment, because he doesn’t even sow. Plants, trees of all sort and kind sprout... See full review