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This anime was hard to watch. Not because of the tear-jerking sentimentality, which was layered on thick from the very beginning. The biggest struggle was getting my eyes to adjust to the caustic visuals. The colors are so bright and so aggressively pastel, the artwork so puposefully, artistically rough that it was distracting. No sooner would I get used to looking at it than the short two and half minute episode would shift to credits. The story centers around the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes that killed more than four dozen people, displaced tens of thousands more, and barely registered in an indifferent... See full review

This may be the worst anime I have ever bothered to finish. By the time I realized that it was never going to be more than it was, I had already invested too much time in it to back out. The basic problem, noted by basically all of the other reviewers, is that Bokura ga Ita is a passable 12 episode melodrama streched like taffy to an unrealistic 26 episodes. In the end, not enough happens to characters you don't care about enough to sustain interest for that long of a run time. The basics of the plots are good, if familiar, enough. Unlike romance between high schoolers is further complicated by a... See full review

This anime acheives something rare in that it is measurably less than the sum of its parts. You have wonderful art and animation coupled with an engaging premise, catchy songs, and a strong sense of movement and development for the story and characters. Through almost its enitre run, it avoids the worst pitfalls of the genre, which typically features an empty cast of characters to which nothing happens for no reason. Had this anime ended halfway through the final episode when the viewer was presented with a red herring resolution to the central drama, it would have merited a much higher rating. As it is, it... See full review

This anime is designed for salarymen who want to come home after an exhausting shift to watch shorts about what their day could have been like if every woman they met had giant breasts.  Sure, it would be boring to watch a bunch of people in an office writing reports, but what if one of the coworkers had giant breasts that accidentally hit a keyboard button? And we all hate going to the gym, but maybe it would be okay if a busty beauty did sit ups, reverse sit ups, and butterfly exercises! Sure, riding the train is bland, but can you imagine if instead of just going to the "women only" car... See full review

This offering is a big improvement over the first of a trio of Project Itoh adaptations to be released. Unlike Empire of Corpses (during which I fell asleep on three separate occasions), this movie only made me kind of drowsy. It has all the characteristic philosophcal musing against a dystopian sci-fi backdrop that you would expect given the source material, but the conflicts and character motives driving the plot here are much easier to wrap your head around. The biggest hurdle is the animation.  The jerky, CG style art and animation are a constant distraction, which make it hard to focus on the... See full review

I didn't think anything could be worse than the Nozoki Ana anime adaptation. It turns out, I was right. This spin-off story succeeds precisely to the extent that it never tries to take seriously its source material.  The characters are deliberately shallow, the story is transported into the familiar (cliched) world of clumsy, sexually naive high school students, and the blackmail/exhibition that are the central feature of the manga are glimpsed at the start of each episode but then basically disappear. That's not to say this is a good anime. It's not.  But it is digestible at only three episodes... See full review

This is an endearing if fundamentally flawed show which allows its premise to overpower its content. The human tension between the girl who can't distinguish the game from reality and the boy she loves who needs the two to be rigdly separate is a really fun idea that (at times) this show plays with in genuinely fulfilling ways. The problem comes, as in the story arc of the season finale, when that human drama (dosed heavily with comedy) gets lost in the premise of  world in which hot high school girls play online games with the same vigor as socially inept high school boys. I can understand why a... See full review

I'm not sure if this show was trying deliberately to be an extended metaphor on the 19th century westerniation of Japan, but it succeeded at it marvelously well regardless. In fact, that's what kept me watching (what earned it the more than mediocre rating). For a show about otaku culture that lacks eroticism, situational comedy, gratuitious action, or cheesy repeat changes and special moves, it survives only on its ambition to be a show about otakus without limiting its appeal to otakus. The setting in a magical land of fairies and elves is almost accidental, as most of the basic storyline would have been... See full review

This is one of the few OVA that I actually enjoyed more than the anime itself, probably because the most annoying character (the comically overlarge and profusely sweaty Underground Student Council Vice President wasn't in it). It's a nice punctuation to the show, seeing the boys adjust to life outside the prison. There's a nice balance between the rom-com romantic tying up of loose ends that gives us a sense of closure and the haplessness that probably endeared the main characters to you to begin with. If you liked the main show enough to finish it, I firmly recommend this as well.

I won't romanticize it; I watched this for the ecchi goodness.  Burnt out after a stretch of serious/emotional anime, I needed something sugary for a change of pace.  You can't write much about this show without spoiling it, so I will just say that the ecchi kept me going for the first few episodes but I would have finished this anime without it.  An intruiging premise and a good story line are peppered with attractive, if two-dimensional, characters and tons of tongue in cheek humor.  So good, and all the more so because I wasn't expecting it.

For fans of Tamako Market, there could not be a better follow up.  It has all the carefree slice-of-life entertainment that you loved from Tamako Market coupled with a forward-driving plot that doesn't leave you feeling like you just wasted eighty minutes of your life.  (I do love a comic show where something actually happens; where the end really does bring some kind of resolution.) Very well written and conceived with a perfect balance of comedy, romance, and even a little drama (uncharacteristic of Tamako Market).  It left me feeling very warm in my soul.  One of those rare extras... See full review

I have never seen an anime so unrepentantly sexual and yet so gratuitously censored.  I'm pretty sure in one scene they blurred out a kiss deemed too sensual viewers.  What's the point?  Half this show is obscured by light blurs, steam, yellow censored bands, and stupid cardboard cutouts of the characters.  In its present state, this show didn't need to be made, and until it finds it way to DVD or the web uncensored, it certainly doesn't need to be watched.

I enjoyed the first season, even if it didn't (couldn't really) live up to the hype.  The second season upholds the amazing artistic vision and the high production values of the first, making it a pleasure to look at.  Missing, however, is the same level of plot coherence and character development.  The second season seems rushed and disjointed.  Very little is explained in the first two thirds, leading up to an ending of Shakespearan melodrama which is deeply unsatisifying. Even knowing this, I probably still would have watched it though.

This anime had such tremendous promise in the first few minutes.  It was never going to be a masterpiece, but it had the potential to be immensely entertaining.  Of the countless directions I thought it might go after the protaganist's death at the very beginning, I never thought it would devolve into the kind of worthless mess it ended up being.  The most outstanding feature of the show is that everyone is cast as either an S or an M, with most being masochists.  This is not the campy sort of fetishism that can be amusing in a side character, but the in-your-face, two-dimensional... See full review

Anyone who has ever suffered from or known someone who has suffered from social anxiety disorder will struggle to watch this show.  So perfectly have they caputred the pathos that the presentation of the main characters struggles as comic have sparked controversy.  However you may feel about that, WataMote is both genuinely funny and deeply heartbreaking.  The kind of show everyone should watch, even if it isn't exactly appropriate to call it "enjoyable." Beyond the subject matter, the show is very well done.  The animation style, particularly when it lapses into Tomoko's... See full review

I enjoyed A Certain Scientific Railgun, so I muddled through the much less entertaining A Certain Magical Index just so I could pick up the necessary context.  It turned out it was worth it just to get in on the inside jokes in these shorts.  They were hilarious.  There's no story or anything like that.  It's just a bunch of rapid fire gags, but they are the best shorts I've watched thus far.  Unfortunately, you need to watch Index to get them. It's probably worth it

This show goes from tragic to campy to syrupy in what are essentially three emotional acts, and it does each of them fairly well.  The mixture, however, is a little more jarring than I could really take.  The first few episodes, and episode one in particular, made me feel like crying at every turn.  The characters were so raw and the storyline so convincing.  Then, when the initial tension is resolved, it drops into several episodes of club hijinks and PG perversion.  Then, when it looks like it will take a turn for the dark again, it ends up trying to tie up story arc after story... See full review

I loved this manga so much, which is why I was so excited about an anime version of it.  I cannot even express how disappointing this was.  It's all titilation without any of the humanity or character depth that makes Nozoki Ana such a great read.  They played cheap porn music throughout the poorly drawn, poorly constructed animation, emphasizing how little they cared about the story here when they could show naked girls instead.  Such a waste; such a disappointment.

Episodes 1-4 The first four episodes are pretty standard fare: a bevy of cookie cutter hotties in various states of undress beating each other up in pursuit of a vague prize.  The animation looks dated, the soundtrack is forgetable, and the writers seem unconcerned with whether or not you feeling anything for the characters.  Still, as mind-numbing media goes, it isn't a terrible way to waste a couple hours. Episode 5 The finale is a beast all it's own.  The attempt to infuse the previous episodes with meaning through series of twists and monologic self-reflections fails miserably. ... See full review