2/12

this anime: you are just watching harem cliches but isn't it so funny that we are pointing them out? like, you still only get cliches instead of a good show but now we are pointing them out. isn't that so funny? isn't it? we are also screaming a lot. that is the same as writing actual jokes. very funny, am I right

ep 2 update: still bad and still ugly because still made by netflix, they are even failing at imitating Cromartie Highschool

dropped twice

4/12

first episode (or first two episodes, can't remember) was alright, mainly because the premise & worldbuilding had potential but then it fizzles out because the characters are lacklustre, feels like every interaction is from another mediocre anime I've seen before. good gay anime when? also the clothes are ugly, the colour scheme is embarassing, I can't get over those 2 badly matching belts in the same outfit

1/

why must Netflix take everything I love and ruin it? behold this unholy matrimony of generic Netflix art style, rubbish pacing and writing from someone who couldn't tell that Terrible Writing Advice is parody. best bits are the live action at the end

autumn 2021

it does that thing I hate where the characters awkwardly exposition what you already saw happen. this is for people who are old enough to understand that sex is being had, don't worry, they understand everything else they see. 'your power is...' don'tell me! you already SHOWED me! I don't trust these writers

spring 2021

3/12

I saw the CLAMP name and I clicked. this is aimed at children and quite competent for what it is 

1/

when a piece of media is aimed at women but doesn't like them very much. a woman who likes sex and makeup is worthy of contempt, apparently. and not spirited enough to knee him in the dick when he messes with her face, apparently. yeah, miss me with that shit

3/12

the dialogue is wank

1/12

well, well, well, if it isn't every anime ever in shinier packaging. as soon as he was 'yo, I'm from Canada, where's the snow' in a skateboarding anime, I deflated

1/

someone watched those region-promoting informative short-form anime and thought 'let's make one like that but with full-lengh episodes', entirely lacking a vision of their own. they thought going thru a cutesy checklist would be enough - 1. speech affectations like 'fumu fumu', 2. food porn, 3. cute girl gaybaiting. this moe stuff is supposed to be the icing on the cake, but here there is no cake, you're just gorging yourself on icing, which is sickening.

there's barely any/lots of reused animation - I don't mind minimally animated styles, I mean I watched all 7 series of Yami Shibai ffs but here it looks like everything is moving thru treacle. I hate it when anime kill time by having characters repeat what you just saw happen for yourself but here it's brazenly taken to new heights. why did you make this a full length episode, why? 

the humour is cringe and the dialogue puts me to sleep. also that interludey tune that never stops - kill me. at least that Rice Boys anime was batshit - the boys ride a giant face in series 2. 

finally, positives - I did learn some new things about maiko and Aomori

3/12

the characters are obnoxious and I have to sit thru the scenes where they interact with each other in order to get to the cool fights and world building. surely there must be less cliched ways of presenting the pissing contest of their criminal abilities. motorcycle best character

6/12

it's good but it's boring to watch. it's not boring in itself - so far they have 2, TWO! episodes about working conditions - I loved those, anime doesn't do realism very often. I want to know what happens next but the experience of watching it is boring. I think that's a problem of how the source material was adapted to the medium of animation rather than a problem with the source material itself. the world it creates is rich and interesting 

- rival gangs vying for influence in a real world place you can visit, 

- episodes start with a curious incident and homeboy uses his connections to figure it out, coming into contact with all sorts of characters; it feels like they really inhabit the place,

- a gang leader uses the pshysical prowess he gained from ballet to give him an edge in fights,

- store-owner mom adopts an adult daughter, that's such an interesting dynamic it could be an anime unto itself,

but we don't have time to explore any of that meaningfully because each 20min episode is confined to the beats of conflict stars/ escalates/ is resolved. grrrrr this is so frustrating because this is the adult stuff I want but IWGP is meh

15/24

this anime is at its best when it gets serious about the horror elements and at its worst when it halts the plot so it can box-tick all the shounen tropes. I'm in awe of the modern animation and the rendition of the character designs to animation (what is the term for that?). it seems like Shounen Jump adaptations are the ones that get to luxuriate in adequate budgets but in the service of what - Aoi Toudou popping a vein when asking what woman stereotype you like? fuck off

1/

I feel kind of sad for dropping this because MAPPA's my favourite studio and Taisou Samurai so nearly made it, there is good effort on its part but I know from experience that I'm not going to enjoy this. the animation was decent - well-integrated CG and movement during the gymnastics sequences, the ED is fun but behind all the visual pizzazz are cliches I... I'm tired: 

the grown man + little girl dynamic for the 100th time, here in the 'wholesome' dad+daugher subcategory - the squeaky child seems to only be a plot prop

a giant talking parrot is fine but here it has witty come-backs, demonstrating human-level intelligence - what does this add to the anime? give the grandma all the sarky lines

the agents are running in heels on roof tiles. why did you make it like that? please stop

and - like a fucking spectre from the ignorant past - that LGBT+ character design. the character doesn't even appear in the 1st ep. but I glimpsed the design in the ED and I know that this cliche is going to grind my gears. I know that if the character turns out to be giving advice from behind the bar counter and grabbing arses like it's going out of season, I'mma punch my screen

I am so happy that there is recognition that adults watch anime too and that there's a desire to represent this demographic, knowing that bringing up children is part of many of their lives. Secondly, I get that anime is not constrained by physcial world limitations like live action and you can suspend disbelief when you see rainbow hair and not everything has to be 'realistic' and so on. I see that Taisou Samurai tried to balance an introspection and personal growth narrative with goofiness and anime hijinks. they failed. Barakamon and Poco's Udon World did the same thing and succeeded

summer 2020

2/

it's alright for what it is - a mild horror for little children - but of no interest to me

5/12

this had the potential to be the kind of nail-biting, trashy fun Highschool of the Dead was. instead, it is fascinating, utterly mesmerising, how awful this is in every single aspect: characters, dialogue, direction (oh yes, please cut away to a history lesson every Japanese child already knows in their sleep and even I, not Japanese, am sick of just from having seen it so often in anime), CGI, adapting the concept art to animation (sorry, I don't know the term), animation and especially action animation, which is just coloured-in storyboards with too many speed lines. gaaaaaaah. 

can you guess who the baddie is as soon as they appear on screen from the character design? I bet my 'NR 1 Anime Fan' award on it, which I have

2/

only of possible interest to little children getting ready for school. it's hideous. since the dawn of animation in the 1910s, across all decades, there have been countless better anime about all manner of youkai stuff

spring 2020

7/12

I loved this in the beginning because, when isekaied, the otaku MC prepares to 3D-mind-chess herself out of trouble while eating potato chips under the table but ends up winning everyone over IMMEDIATELY by being kind and self-reliant. that's a lovely message. but the rest of the series is her going around patting everyone on the head, telling them what a good job they did. and them going around competing amongst themselves for earth mother's attention. I got bored of the non-event mild positivity and filler

4/11

coming to the rescue of a child/dog/cat and ouji-sama eats a commoner meal for the 1st time. ok, it's time to move on to anime that have not run out of ideas and resorted to cliches

winter 2020

2/12

all this had to do was have fun dialogue and be cute. it failed on both counts

autumn 2019

ep 1 was interestingly directed, entertaining trashiness (it had a bit of a Flip Flappers vibe to it). ep 2 was a lot more middle-of-the-road and settled into a typical LN adaptation whose every beat I've seen somewhere else before and done better too. there was a low-stakes fight in this ep, so they saved up on animation by opening with a unambitious fanservice scene. the epidose also ends with an as-yet-unseen villain cackling. because any staff with an original idea had left the office by this point 

a police officer without basic defence skills? no, NO, fuck YOU

summer 2019

I've taken personal offence with this.

I love the central idea in the original and 00s remake - the characters believe that by doing good deeds they will be accepted by people as human, to belong being their deepest desire. it's tragicomical how they wander around unaware that their wacky appearance signals that they're different. by showing the humams' reaction to them - fright, repulsion, suspition - the 2 anime gently encourage children to judge people by their actions, not appearance, and - I extrapolate - not to perceive other communities as undesirable. how lovely!

my favourite creatures are Bella - those hideous feet, I love them!, and Bello - a brave boy who just wants to be friends! so thanks to this incarnation for ruining these characters for me. Bella is now a goodlooking, popular schoolgirl (wow, we really need more of these in anime) and Bello is a cool, jaded schoolboy who aces arcade games with his demon powers (wow, we really need more of these in anime). and they both think humanity is shit now, so that's really comforting, thanks. what's their motivation then? fuck knows.

you know which franchise was revamped to an unrecognisable degree without ruining it? - Gatchaman

this had potential, especially if they had gone all-out on the world exploration. OK fine, the world-building was adequate but the characters were shit. grumpy, jaded cop secretly with a heart of gold. NO. gay character whose every line is a bad gay joke reinforcing to the audience he's just SO gay. NO NO. aggressively screaming, comic-relief chief of police NO NO NO. the medical examiner is just about serviceable as a side character and that's a small mercy. and now, on to the poor loli. let's park here for a bit, while I explain how I see the difference btwn good and bad sexual fan service:

1. is sex/desire/nudity part of the plot?

2. are the characters themselves thirsty for this kind of attention, therefore justifying this kind of posing and framing?

3. is this posing and framing a character's point of view?

Tirana doesn't participate in her own sexualisation, in fact, she's a prude who gets flustered by porn. she is put in a little dress that is then ripped for the viewing pleasure of the audience alone. nobody in-world regards her in this way. admittedly, Cop Craft is very low on the fan service radar but this shit doesn't fly in a show I want to take seriously and it breaks immersion

3/12

I struggle to do it justice with a description, it has to be experienced. Is this for children or adults? I'm baffled

remember the 2nd series of Terra Formars? this sucks in the same way: they waste time on shitty jokes instead of using it to build on the dark part of the fantasy. you can tell straight away who the baddie is because his character design is such a give-away. his maniacal evil laugh was the push needed to convince me this is shit enough to drop. which is such a shame because I love transformations and good monster designs and battles. good dark fantasy when?

spring 2019

the ED is the best part

9/12

a moderately engaging series, doesn't offend anyone, it's nice to have in the background when doing chores - this is the best praise I can give it. why is the series proper not stylised in the same way as the OP? a bit of pizzazz would help it along because there are infinite anime about youkai-busting teams

5/13

the craftsmanship and detail in this anime are amazeballs; I love alternative animation techniques. however, the outlook on life this anime communicates ruins my viewing experience completely. Kaoru is a miserable git and it's implied that this is because she's a single older woman. she feels sorry for herself, is jealous and judgemental of Sayu, is an arsehole to her pets, yet does nothing to change her condition. Sayu, the antagonist, is lazy and it's implied that she gets away with it because she's beautiful (imagine if the writer were to meet an ugly lazy person, their mind would explode). maybe they were going for flawed, nuanced characters but they failed. anime with well-written shit people: Ebichu, Girlish Number, Nana, Monster (Eva is a mega arsehole and one of my favourite characters of all time)

4/11

I love the animation but the characters blow. I feel like we're just going through a checklist of Ikuhara calling cards at this point: gay stuff - check, wtf is going on - check, stylised urban art - check, wtf does this symbolism mean - check, repetitive sequences - check, Drama! alert - check, stairs, towers and self-supporting metal structures - check.

mind you, 'butt stuff is gross, it's not funny' is not good criticism. my advice to these people is never check out straight porn or you'll be in for a shock 

5/13

garbage. the premise had potential but it never lifts off. the main characters are basically all-powerful, never in any danger, and in ep.5 actual harassers, so that's fun to watch. the show looks ugly and the jokes don't even try. I refuse to believe the writers tried and the best they came up with is the loli character and the small boobs jokes. they are not that stupid, they think the audience is that stupid

winter 2019

damn, I forgot how much of a slog watching fate/stay night was the first time around. Shirou's plot armour is that all the girls fancy him and won't kill him despite the many chances to do so. wow, the suspense is killing me, who does he favour in this version. Sakura, the personality void. 

yes, the films look good and move well during fights but not even wild horses can make me sit through the inane interactions involving Sakura, Shinji or Illya yet again

7/12

imagine the colour scheme of Humanity Has Declined combined with the minimal but inventive animation of Trigger's Ninja Slayer the Animation - awesome sauce, right?! the visuals alone carry it a long way and are, sadly, the only interesting thing about it. the humour and characters suck. but don't you dare skip the ED, the lyrics are different each time

4/12

it works as a comedy but not as a romance because I don't like what the premise implies, that a romantic relationship is an adversarial one where you have to make your partner submit as if you are both dogs or smth, that showing emotion is a weakness, that you have to play games to get what you want. people who think like this exist and they really embarass themselves online. don't give them an anime. but Love is War is funny and well-made haha switch your brain off whatever. anyway, because it's episodic I don't feel compelled to experience it in its entirety 

1/12

the sci-fi world is intriguing enough but the characters are too insufferable. I often moan about shitty costumes for action heroines but the MC in this one has a really neat design: a good-looking outfit that allows free movement

2/12

this would've been the perfect candidate for short-form episodes. I love the exaggerated movements but once the novelty wears off it's up to the humour to carry it and the humour is meh-ish. they would've gotten away with it if the eps were shorter

autumn 2018

1/12

when I heard 'dark fantasy' I thought 'Berserk, Claymore, Made in Abyss...' and got quite excited. sadly, this is unapologetically mediocre and the dialogue is painfully boring

2/12

this is like a soap: person A is sulking because person B is looking at them funny, person B is sulking because person A didn't guess what they wanted without them saying it. fascinating stuff