krofire

A-1 Pictures’ 2021/22 follow-up to their dark’n’dramatic sci fi show delivers more of the same in a slightly lighter vein. The story retains its’ Hunger-Games-cum-MaK feel set in a Europe some 100 plus years in the future yet with a political structure closer to that of 1914. The surviving members of the Spearhead team, Shin, Raiden, Theoto, Kurena and Anju, went out for the "special reconnaissance mission" that is designed to wipe them out. In a twist of tone for the show, they survive the final showdown and wake up in a Federacy hospital. The nation emerged from a... See full review

A-1 Pictures’ 2021 science fiction melo/action-drama is gritty and hard hitting. Something about it continuously reminded us of a cross between “The Hunger Games” and Maschinen Krieger. If you like your anime teenagers dropping dead in violent-style from the opening titles then this is the show for you. (For those of us outside of North America the term “eighty-six” is a slang expression used as a verb to describe something disposed of as unwanted, or as a noun it refers to a deadbeat character.) In the context of this anime story the “eighty-six” are an ethnic... See full review

Studio Tatsunoko Production’s 2021 fantasy/sci-fi/dieselpunk mash-up is a pretty slick and violent production worthy of your time. The place is Japan and the year is 1931 yet this is an alternative science fiction timeline. It’s a world of supernatural beings, science fiction power sources and political intrigue. It details the life of Sawa Yukimura, a skilled assassin and part of an elite unit with the duty of destroying enemies of the shogun. The trouble is that the shogun is a bloody tyrant in the last days before his inevitable downfall. Sawa’s team of super-assassins must choose which... See full review

Studio Satelight’s 2019 fantasy adventure may well have one of the stupidest anime names ever. It is the resulting bastard child of “Azure Lane” meeting “Strike Witches”. The Earth has been invaded by the “Xi” – a kind of crystalline alien life form. Despite their advanced technology the Xi seem happy waging a conventional war against mankind. They are winning. The only thing between us and oblivion are the “Anima” – a technology captured from the Xi. Of course, this is anime so the Anima are cute’n’sexy teenage girls. They fly a... See full review

Production I.G.’s 2013 sci fi action show sure squeezes a lot into its 22 episodes. Just when you think you might have nailed down what it is it suddenly switches genre. Few shows can carry this off. “Robotics;Notes” manages it, just. It is one of the few shows derived from a visual novel video game to actually work as an anime. The writers clearly tried hard to make this a standalone piece in its own right. You need know nothing of its origins to enjoy it nor do the creators rely upon gamer-fans to become its core audience. Initially it looks like your typical goofy after-school-club... See full review

Studio Trigger’s mecha-bot-vs-kaiju-fest was only made in 2018 yet it looks like something from 1988. Quite why there remains such a massive cultural following for something so dated and cringeworthy is unfathomable. This is the first time I have watched a show like this. It will be the last. It was truly awful. It just looked like one long advert for kids’ cheap plastic toys. I managed to wade my way through this nonsense by viewing it as a half-decent slice of sci fi. In that it almost is. Welcome to the fictional Japanese city of Tsutsujidai where nothing is quite as it seems. Monsters run... See full review

A-1 Pictures 2023 post-apocalyptic sci-fi battle-action drama is slick and sophisticated yet borrows heavily from the genre. It is set in a far future where the Earth has been invaded by alien robots. The human survivors have mostly fled the planet to fight a proxy war with androids and few scattered resistance cells. The story focusses on two of those (now iconic-looking) androids “2B” and “9S” sent down to the planet to liaise with one of these human resistance units fighting on Earth. Something mysterious is going on. Some of the robots of the invading alien force have given up... See full review

A-1 Pictures 2011 action fantasy paints an original dystopian/utopian vision of the far future that’s as clever as it is a little flat. Clain is a teenage boy living in a world where the internet has become the Fractale – a technology of nanotechnology and human implants where the real world and online world merge into one reality. Humans no longer need their real bodies and can enjoy the world through avatars known as “doppels”. However, the system is slowing decaying and needs a reboot. Enter young Phryne – a priestess from the religion that Fractale has become. The two are... See full review

Mappa’s 2020 surreal fantasy promises far more than it delivers. It is like some bizarre mash-up combination of “FLCL” and “Takt Op Destiny” (also Mappa in 2021) with Gundam-style mechas thrown in for good measure. And, no, that isn’t meant to be a compliment. There is no point explaining the plot as I never understood what-on-earth was going on most of the time. It is set in some kind of post-apocalyptic future fantasy world where human civilisation has been torn apart by the sudden appearance of shadowy monsters – the “Earless”. The only defence (as... See full review

Doga Kobo’s 2023 fantasy drama made quite  big splash when the first episode premiered at cinemas in Japan as a feature-length movie. HiDive milked it for all it was worth and it generated quite a lot of chatter across the web. Is it any good though? Certainly, that first episode packs in more story telling than is normal even within an entire season of episodes. So much happens that you wonder what on earth there is left to tell. It ends up just being a set-up for the main story which is easily as good as the kick-off movie even if the pace shifts down a gear a little. Its main theme is one of... See full review

Some eight years after season one of “Last Exile” landed such a smash hit for Gonzo they revisited the same universe in this, its 2011/12 follow-up. It is very visibly the same space opera universe with its vanships and vast aerial battle fleets and it even boasts several key characters from season one. Yet fans will note that the storyline is disjointed in seemingly being completely unrelated to anything that happened in season one. What is missing here is the manga “Last Exile: Travelers from the Hourglass” that tells the story of what happened in-between the two seasons. The key... See full review

Gonzo’s 2003 classic “steampunk” sci fi saga is ripe for a remake as its sweeping visuals are hard to discern in streaming. Twenty years later in 2023 it sits on the Crunchyroll back catalogue in standard definition in a highly compression file leaving the original’s majesty all blurred. Even so, the beauty of this fantastical vision is still there in a tale set on some far away planet that mankind has colonised in the distant future. The only problem is that the planet is split in two by a permanent storm band known as the “Grand Stream” that is nearly lethal to anyone... See full review

Liden Films’ 2023 High School romance is pretty adorable featuring two main characters each struggling with a sleep disorder. Ganta Nakami is a boy with few friends and he can’t sleep at night. Seeking a quiet place at school to get his head down he stumbles upon the abandoned school observatory. However, that is already occupied by fellow insomniac Isaki Magari. Isaki is very much his opposite – popular, friendly, outgoing, good at everything and with a wide circle of friends. They swap stories before finding it remarkably easy to get some much-needed kip in each other’s company... See full review

Studio Signposts’ 2023 school-slice-of-life comedy was one of the little gems from the year. Its title may not have promised much but we absolutely loved it. It contains a pretty unique school boy called Taiyou Takada whose utterly bizarre interpretation of life has a profound effect upon his fellow students. One such is the gloomy girl Akane Nishimura whose dark demeanour led to the other kids nicknaming her the “Grim Reaper”. They meant it cruelly but that isn’t how Takada sees it (or how he sees her). For him, Nishimura is the coolest kid in his class and despite her... See full review

Asahi Production’s 2023 sci-fi-tinged adult romance is set in the world of manga artists. Struggling artist Ichiro Kuga is bringing-up his siblings alone after their father’s death. To help him in his work he recruits the mysterious Shiori Goshiki who describes herself as a fan. Despite the fact that she only read her first manga a year before she is a natural illustrator and the two become fast friends. She is apparently a “princess” from a small obscure Japanese island with a strange legend about a falling star. As we can quickly guess she is not entirely human and when she... See full review

Typhoon Graphics’ 2023 romantic-fantasy/historical-drama is an isekai that hails from South Korea. The title used for the anime comes from the English translation of the novel with the original having the slightly shorter title “Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion”. It is not unlike Silverlink’s 2021 show “My Next Life as a Villainess” where the heroine wakes up in the next life to find she has become a character in a novel she is familiar with. However, she knows that character (Raeliana McMillan) is murdered by her gold-digging husband so she devises a plot to... See full review

Madhouse’s 2023 romcom drama gets off to a slow start but soon kicks into its entertaining gear. Akito Yamada is a bright 18-year-old High School student yet a bit of a late bloomer. He doesn’t really get on with people and displays a social dysfunction you would associate with autism. His saving grace is his goods looks. The girls all love him and completely disregard his lack of charm. He has gained no small fame as a pro-gamer. Then there is Akane Kinoshita who meets the boy on the online game “Forest of Savior”. She only used to hang out there because her boyfriend liked the... See full review

The Tezuka Production 2023 ecchi café comedy is workmanlike yet it really grows on you after a slow start. The setup is an inevitable excuse for another harem show although that element is quite late to develop. Young Hayato Kasukabe is a University student who has just inherited his Grandmother’s Seaside Café. He had been cared for by his Grandmother after the death of his parents yet in his teenage years he had not got on well with her. He had left for High School some three years before and not looked back. He wants nothing to do with his inheritance other than to turn it into a car... See full review

Seven Arcs’ 2023 romcom picks right up from where 2020’s season one finishes. Nasa Yuzaki is somewhat of a genius and has also married very young to the mysterious Tsukasa Yuzaki, a girl he met one night when she saved his life. Smitten with her he confesses but she will only agree to date him if they are married. So, they get married. The story is mostly just focussed upon their relationship which is often awkward and naïve. Both behave in characteristically cute ways and most of the story really just teases apart the elements of their relationship. Season two kicks off with them... See full review

Studio C2C’s 2023 fantasy slice-of-life has its main gag written into the show’s title. Elda is the name of a real-life Elf who has lived for hundreds of years at the Takamimi Shrine. Her needs are taken care of by 16-year-old Koito Koganei. Elda is painfully shy and avoids most human contact preferring to play with modern technologies to amuse herself. She plays computer games, watches anime, reads manga, eats a lot of junk food, you know - the usual stuff. In one fun scene she is seen wielding an airbrush to paint a robot-model kit for which Koito chides her for as the smell of the paint... See full review

Synergy SP’s 2023 sci-fi comedy features a reasonably-cool central idea that could be right out of the mind of comic genius Douglas Adams. You can just imagine Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect coming across a race of homicidal aliens hell bent on destroying the human race just because ET have no cute fluffy pets in their universe. Coming to Earth and experiencing a Cat Café would be pretty mind-blowing for these aliens. So mind-blowing in fact that they would fear that cute fluffy animals are mankind’s secret defensive weapon. Enter said alien Liza Luna representing the empire of the Azatos... See full review

P.A.Works’ 2023 High School romcom was a standout show for the summer season displaying great writing and well-crafted characters. Mitsumi Iwakura starts High School in Tokyo a long way from her native home in Hashikko. She is bright and ambitious but her first day at school doesn’t start well when she gets lost of the Tokyo train network. Good fortune shines on her when fellow first year Sousuke Shima takes her under his wing and gets her to school on time. The two become fast friends but in many ways they are polar opposites. She is the stern and sincere student prone to occasional bouts of... See full review

Doga Kobo’s 2018 teen-rom-com strangely got re-launched by HIDive in Summer 2023 as if it was a new show. We guess it had been on hiatus for a while. We caught up with it upon its latter reappearance. The “Tada” of the story is a High School boy who loves photography and is a member of his schools Photography Club. The club boasts a colourful and eccentric bunch of characters but is lacking girls. One day he bumps into a pretty blond girl from Europe, Teresa Wagner. She is hopelessly lost and somewhat ditsy. Taking pity upon her he takes her to his grandfather’s café after she... See full review

Pine Jam’s 2023 school romcom features and unusual male protagonist (Junta Shiraishi) who possesses the near-supernatural ability to be invisible to other people. This social invisibility is meant to be more metaphorical than real yet this show depicts it to humorous effect as being a genuine affliction the poor boy suffers. He sits in the back of the class at school and nobody – not even the teacher – seem to realise he is there. Everybody except super-cute yet mischievous classmate Nagisa Kubo. She seems fascinated by the boy and gently teases him to get his attention. Initially she... See full review

Shin-Ei Animation’s 2023 school life romance features an (initially) quite dark Chunibyo-style character Ichikawa Kyotaro, who dreams of slicing up his fellow students with a knife. He doesn’t quite fit in at school and has come to despise the behaviour of the popular kids. He thinks he is different and messed up so he hides inside his homicidal fantasies. In truth he is just a lonely boy awaiting someone to trigger his true-self to show through. That trigger is popular and pretty class-mate Anna Yamada. Ichikawa wiles away his lunch hour hiding in the library but there again so does Anna. She... See full review

The Studio Lings/Passione 2023 café-work-life drama is also billed as a comedy yet there is not much to laugh at. The show is not all that easy to watch. Despite it featuring cute girls dressed in ye olde style school uniforms the plot-making is awkward to follow. It is set in a themed café where a loyal clientele get to dine in the surroundings of a mock pre-war German Girl’s Finishing School. In these fantasy surroundings the waitresses play to the audience with intimate girl-on-girl quasi-romantic relationships. Into this slightly weird setup wanders new girl and principal protagonist... See full review

Studio Nut’s 2020 post-apocalyptic sci fi extravaganza is certainly far better than its packaging suggests. Those of you who only bothered to stick it out through episode one or just gave a cursory glance at the blurb may well be missing out. Sure, it has the superficial feel of so many similar looking anime such as “Darling in the Franxx” or “Cagaster of an Insect Cage” but this one is worth sticking with. In episode two the story foregoes any opportunity to slowly build up the mystery of the world of Deca-Dence by going for the full reveal. It may be a bit of a spoiler but... See full review

Seven Arcs’ 2016 slice-of-life comedy has such a generic plot that you would think it would be terribly samey. Yet it mostly defies the odds in becoming a finely executed little show noteworthy for being high enjoyable. Each of the twelve episodes is only two minutes long yet it manages to pack in quite a lot of story. We love the fact that the English translation of this title is "The Landlord is in Puberty". Quite why middle-schooler Chie Satonaka is the landlady of this apartment block is never explained. We join her story at the point a new tenant Maeda moves in. He is mystified and... See full review

Seven Arcs’ 2020 historical drama looks like it was written about contemporary Japan and then dropped into 16th Century Italy. It is ill-fitting and lacks any kind of serious authenticity. It is possible to create truly classic anime as period drama as Kyoto Animation proved in 2018 with sublime “Violet Evergarden”. How does “Arte” fall so short? It is adapted from the manga series by Kei Ohkubo that ran from 2014. Arte Spalletti is a teenager from a noble family that has fallen on hard times. In a deeply patriarchal society, the only choice given to her is to marry a wealthy... See full review

Studio NAZ/Magia Doraglier’s 2018/2019 harem romcom is set in that peculiar world where idiotic teenagers write bestselling light novels. The one saving grace for this nonsense is that it is built around a surprisingly good core idea – it depicts siblings where the boy Yuu Nagami wants to be an author but is unsuccessful. His sister (Suzuka Nagami), on the other hand, is a genius and writes a bestselling novel much to her brother’s shock and envy. She is concerned that their father wouldn’t like her writing so they agree that Yuu will pretend that he wrote the book. So far so good... See full review