JustInCaseD

Very mixed feelings on this one. But to sum it up, it felt like an incomplete product: a hollow skeleton of better anime rather than being one itself. The Positives:
In all honesty I can comfortably say that the first 12 episodes were pretty decent. While it was kinda cringey and lacking at times (every harem inevitably is) it had some genuinely good episodes that stood out and made you think that this anime was gonna build up to something special and worthwhile. There was genuinely creative artistic and directional choices used as well, which were both tasteful and compelling to keep me interested. The... See full review

Very upsetting that I must do this, but it needs to be done. Engage Kiss was: a major disappointment. Probably the biggest letdown of the summer season. When rumors started circulating about a new A-1 original anime back in January, then confirmed in March by the announcement of a collaboration between Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend author Fumiaki Maruto and Date a Live illustrator Tsunako – to say I was excited would be an understatement. There was talent and potential here to make an amazing anime from this, especially a romance given the 2 mentioned above's... See full review

I wasn't expecting this to be good ngl, far from it. When I first heard of the "lesbian/golf/mafia anime" I immediately thought we were gonna be in for a dumpster fire. A turn your brain off and watch the carnage type of show. But it genuninely surpised me, and I am pleased to be wrong for once. It somehow took a concept that could've easily been a mindless, fanservicey trainwreck and instead wrote a genuinely well written story - Complete with dynamic characters, development, genuinely good animation, and solid setup for the part 2. It didn't just spend 3 episodes and dive right... See full review

I know some folks will immediately jump to the conclusion from looking at my overall grade for this that I'm just another of the mindless crowd that took one look at Shikimori and just dumped as "mid" then moved on, or gave it the unreasonable expectations of trying to have it fill the shoes and itch that My Dress-Up Darling left at end of the Winter season. But that isn't the case. I wanted this anime to be good, I stuck through all 12 episodes on weekly basis hoping for Shikimori to be just that. Didn't have to be out of the park good either; just a wholesome, enjoyable and interesting... See full review

A lot of pressure was on Geek Toys this season to make up for the mistake J.C Staff made that was Date a Live Season 3. And for the most part: they did a mostly passable job. There won't be direct spoilers in this, just enough details to explain what they did good and bad here. So if you're on the fence about giving this season the time after season 3 left a bad taste in your mouth - you can read this without worry for ruining your watch experience and make a decision whether you want to dedicate time watching this from there. Story: We pick up right after the speedrun that covered the 12th light novel in... See full review

Belle was a weird roller coaster, both in terms of quality and enjoyment. It started off strong, between the exposition of a girl struggling to cope with her mother's death to discovering U, the online platform and becomes a celebrity rapidly through the power of her singing ability, best friend's marketing + managing skills, and anonymity giving her confidence to remake herself. It was on track to be a very interesting story... until the "beast" shows up. Once the beast arrives the story becomes a very clearly mapped Beauty and the Beast parody that follows the events of that story nearly... See full review

This season wasn't bad, but it wasn't as captivating as the original. Where as last season had a clear direction, plot, and goals for the MC and other characters - this season felt like I was watching a bunch of filler OVAs, or converted to being a slice of life comedy. They weren't bad, but the plot and appeal of Catarina avoiding her "doom flags" was the central component of the show. Only the kidnapping portion near the beginning of the season and the last arc towards the end felt like it was pushing the story forward. I give them credit for trying to be creative and mix up the show's tempo... See full review

Clockwork Planet was suprising. I went into this one thinking it was gonna be another one of those school-based psuedo harem animes after the first few episodes, but after the first few episodes they moved away from that and it become so much more interesting. It had to potential to be something genuninely good. What really gave the story it's points was it's approach similar to that of the hit DC Comics film, The Dark Knight. Having the main cast become criminal vigilantes, taking the blame for the villains and currupt government, just to ensure that chaos doesn't ensue was a pretty unique and... See full review

A true standout in the harem category. Even years later, Date a Live has earned a very special place in my heart. While it encapsulates every traditional aspect of the harem anime genre, which you would think would leave it as a run of the mill seasonal harem you'd likely forget, it really stands out for a number of reasons.  The show's gimmick acts like a dating sim game. You have a protagonist who has to answer choices through a series of prompts - but instead of him picking it's a crew of folks led by his sister help him pick. Sometime they're right, but fairly often they also go wrong - and it's... See full review

Remember Pokemon Generations, the mini series that came out back in 2016? This is pretty much the sequel, driven to recreate it's massive success and popularity. Both series paint Pokemon in a different, much more detailed style of animation from that of the main series anime to bring some of the biggest events of the games across the generations (1 each) every episode. Although they functionally are the same for the most part, there is a notable difference between the two: Generations from a few years back focused more on the lore behind certain characters and events that aren't covered in the game... See full review

I see a lot of folks have brought this up, and I guess I'll echo it because I full-heartedly agree with this notion: Kanon was a good stepping stone for Kyoto towards perfecting the Visual Novel forumula that eventually led to the masterpiece that is Clannad and After Story. Unfortunately for Kanon though, it means the anime formula wasn't perfected yet when it came out and was plagued by a lot of the issues that VN adapters struggled with for years until they finally nailed it with Clannad. There are several kinks in Kanon that really hold it back. To quickly disect it's core issues that I'll elaborate on... See full review

Grading season 3 of DAL is kinda difficult: it was both a step forwards and backwards for the series.  Let's address the season by dissecting each of the core, gradable attributes and look into went well and what went wrong - to understand why many have called season 3: the worst season of the series.  The plot was by far at its best this season. Whereas the previous 2 seasons we had 1-2 episodes of mostly pure fanservice and some info dumping before diving into the plot, season 3 starts thing off right from the 2nd half of episode 1. They gave the folks seeking their dose... See full review

It advertises itself as a mystery, but its more of a slice of life than anything else ngl.  The show looked like it had promise for the first 2 episodes. But after that it really stepped off the gas and just went on a lazy river cruise the rest of the way. This anime is supposed to be a mystery anime, and good mysteries really depend on their characters being multi-leveled and having some depth to them so we can be supirsed or have some sort of plot twist coming that keeps us interested. But there was none of that here, and the character development in this show wasn't anywhere to be... See full review

After seeing all the reviews and bashing about the anime, I decided I would give it try and see how far I could make it before being either disinterested in what was happening or just hate it. I've suffered through School Days, Master of Ragnarok, and other garbage - so I figured I'd try my luck here. And suprisingly... neither happened. In fact I suprisingly kinda enjoyed this, to some extent.  Nobody out there will tell you that Smartphone has an interesting premise, unique plot, well developed characters (because it doesn't) and the lack of the smartphone being used as part of the story (other than... See full review

The first 38 minutes of this 120 minute production is purely a recap of season 1 - and even as a recap episode it still wouldn't be considered good, because after effectively recapping and explaining the first 2/3's of the season, they completely skim over the last third and climax because they probably realized that if they did that there would be no time for the actual New material to be added.  And speaking of new material, once you finally get through (or skip) the 38 minutes of recap, you get a very rushed production of what could've been a very good movie with solid buildup, drama, and... See full review

Absolute Duo is an absolute mess. The primary problem with this show is the development. Now harems aren't known for their stories or character development, but at least their warped logic makes sense because at least it's written well enough to explain how the story works. But this? This is so poorly written that it's laughable bad and become even worse the more you think about it. The plot is basically a prototype of Chivalry of a Failed Knight/Asterisk War. Every student can wield a weapon called a "Blazer" thats a part of their soul and use it to fight each other. The students pair... See full review

I'm admittedly harsh towards movie adaptations that try to condense either an entire anime/game storyline within an hour and half - and Bayonetta: Bloody Fate isn't good enough to be an exception. There wasn't anything rather interesting about it that fans of the games wouldn't have already seen or known. If this was more of an alternative time, or an expansion of parts that we didn't see in the games - then this would've been much better. There were some differences here (Bayo's first set of guns from Rodin breaking, learning Jeanne moonlights as a high school when she's not killing angels, etc) but... See full review

I'm not sure why a fair number of people have really hyped up this show as much as I've been hearing lately. It got me to watch it, and I did stick through the whole thing, but I'm left very underwhelmed by what I've seen. Because starting from the 2nd episode onward I couldn't help but keep thinking that... this is just Nisekoi re-skinned. Switch around Chitoge and Onodera's starting positions - keeping their personalities - and swap gangs with actors guilds; you get Osamake. The only things unique and interesting about this anime is the self-awareness, but unlike how it's advertised they hardly... See full review

Remake Our Life is to Pet Girl of Sakurasou what Golden Time is to Toradora: a very similar story with a cast of characters with strikingly identical qualities to their comparisons - but in an older, mature setting. High school is replaced with college as the setting and a lot of the cliche unrealistic rom-com elements that filled Pet Girl and Toradora are replaced with more realistic circumstances that the older members of the audience very much relate to in Remake and Golden Time.  Remake really did feel like a revamp of Pet Girl of Sakurasou, which is a great compliment given Sakurasou's cult... See full review

For a show that was being hyped up by many to be like the 2nd coming of Christ for the mystery anime genre - it was a huge let down. Supposedly the light novels it's based on are amazing and are extremely popular in Japan (and apparently even Re:Zero references them as part of Subaru's taste in light novels), but this seemingly didn't translate well into anime format. I will grant it that if you alternatively watched it as strictly an action anime with a espionage myserty element it could be possibly be subjectively enjoyable and at least watchable. But as a full... See full review

I haven't seen this level of dumpster fire in awhile. Even among the harem category, which has the lowest standards of all anime out there - it's bad. And not enjoyably bad where you can get a laugh out of it, but cringely bad. The unique gimmick here is that the MC gets powers to basically spawn whatever items of arbilities he wants out of thin air and give them to either himself or someone else. It's like turning on creative mode in Minecraft on a survival server - the MC basically can never lose cus he just give himself ridiculous abilties and plot armor through every situation. Oh, and his... See full review

I'm noticing a recurring pattern with SAO as a series. Just like last season, the first 14 episodes were actually good for the most part. But then we get the next 10 episodes and it just... doesn't hold up or want to keep me interested. We now see where SAO truly struggles with - inconsistency. SAO II just couldn't find footing after the first arc ended to really maintain the pace the series had been going it since it started. There was no more imminent danger, ominous aura, or mortal peril after that point that's helped drive the series up to the point. The last 10 episodes were divided into 2... See full review

I think that this anime could appeal to anyone who happens to like the overly cliched archetype of Romeo/Juliet-esc love stories. And if that's your cup of tea - then you'll likely enjoy this as much as the others in the genre. But for anyone else who's already had their fair share of the trope and needs something more to make it worth watching; it doesn't accomplish that and doesn't notably stand out from others in the category.  It's cliche and predictable as it gets; distopian society with 2 sides (magical vs modern) and a pair of star crossed lovers on different sides caught in... See full review

If you have no interest in seeing or wanting to commit to watching the Clannad anime series, you may enjoy this vanilla movie for what it is - however it will never stand up to the quality of the anime on any level.  None of the characters bar Nagisa you felt any attatchment to because they skim over and don't focus on any of the main cast except her, Tomoya and Sunohara. They butchered the personality and plot direction of several of the other main cast because... Rushed condension or laziness? Like seriously, movie Akio, Senae, Kyuo and Kotomi aren't anything like their anime counterparts. It just... See full review

Were the writers on drugs when they made this OVA? That may sound like hyperbole, but it's the genunine reponse I had when I watched this. Haganai is a great series, but this may be one of the worst OVA's off all time. It contributed nothing to the actual series and was not only pointless, but just... gross. Thank God it's never referenced at any point of the main series anime before or after this, so it's 100% skipable. I don't usually put out full spoilers in a review, but for this I'll make the exception to potentially save someone: unless you like wasting 10 minutes to watch a literal fever dream... See full review

No spoilers here, just thoughts for y'all to skim through if you are curious about watching this:  This anime sure as heck isn't winning any awards for being unique or good, but it was enjoyable casually. The plot was fairly predictable for the most part but I liked the dark, twisted direction the anime gradually went in. The character dynamics in particular were the most interesting aspect of this anime and it kept me interested all the way through. If I had to describe the vibes I got from this show: I personally say it's pretty much a PG version of Darling in the Franxx. Darling in the... See full review

This spin-off has no bearing on the main story in slightest, it's just an excuse to see the girls naked for fanservice pandering. 

They basically tried to make this anime into Yu-Gi-Oh but with Shogi, over dramatified events and stakes, and Lolis... 80% of this show is either shogi gameplay or loli scenes/jokes - That's unironically this anime summed up.  Tho I will say it's not unwatchably bad, the variety in characters and their strong personalities that mishmash suprisingly well when they interact with each other is definitely this show's biggest strength/saving grace. Then of course, there's the famous stream scene (which is probably how most people know about this anime) which genuinely made me laugh my a$$ off - an... See full review

Mixed feelings on this. Lets get the elephant out of the room right away. The concept is: incredibly stupid. Giant flying robot Dragon-Mech Knights in medival times, where chariots and horses are still being used as common modes of transportation is an extremely bizarre and out of place decision that makes less sense the more you think about it. Now to be fair this isn't a unique problem we haven't seen before (looking at you, Akame Ga Kill) so I guess its not a complete killer by itself. But it's a definite flaw and hole in the world building of this anime that you... See full review

This is kinda like an anime version of Family Guy: very funny characters that excel at making actual jokes and 1-liners often times outta left field that'll make you audibly laugh. While there really isn't really a meaningful plot, there's plenty of sentimental moments and heartstrings pulled between Kobayashi, Tohru and Kanna that somewhat compensate for that well enough and encourage you continue watching the show. It's art style and animation is extremely eye pleasing and probably my favorite aspect about the anime. It's soundtrack while kinda shallow and definitely isn't the level of music... See full review