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In this world, there exist all kinds of anime. There are good ones, bad ones, as well as REALLY bad ones. And then… there are some that transcend the idea of good and bad, so much so that one cannot simply express their opinion of it by means of such trivial things like “numbers” or even “words”.

This is one of them.

Only 5 episodes long in length, the story is supposedly simple, for something of its kind anyways . Our protagonist, Aya Iseshima, one day finds herself participating in the tournament Martial Heart, and is determined to win the tournament so that she can have her wish fulfilled. The first four episodes are pretty dull, and kinda just mediocre overall. Boob and panty shots are in no short supply, everyone apparently like to wear clothes that explode on impact, and so on. Pretty silly and generic even, but whatever. It is what it is. If that were the case, I would have just given it a 3 or something and move on with my life. Of course, if it were all that simple, I wouldn’t be writing this as though I just got home after a war, writing about my experiences from the battlefield as the horrors of what humanity is capable of doing to their own kind unfold in front of my very eyes.

This brings us to the final episode. In 20 minutes, it goes from a generic ecchi fighting OVA to something much greater than that, one that would make End of Evangelion look like nothing. Try as you may, you will simply never be prepared for what is in store. M. Night Shylaman ain’t got shit on the true masterpiece that the men behind its production have created here. It is one that leaves you speechless by the credits. One where you may actually have an out of body experience, as the reality you once knew crumbles apart. When it is all over, it will forever be seared in your conscience for as long as you are able to retain memory, no matter how much you want this to happen or not. There are no words. Only tears. Whether it is from grief or laughter is your choice. It doesn’t matter, nothing matters anyways.

All that said, watch it in the dub. Yes, we can party it up like it’s the mid 90s all over again and have 40 page long wars over subs vs. dubs, but there is simply no contest here. Funimation already generally makes some pretty solid dubs when not working on something like this, but the bar set by the original audio is fairly low to the point that you could replace the entire cast with alpaca noises and it’d still probably better.

And so there you have it. Anime of the year, all years.

Forever.