krofire

Studio Gokumi’s 2016 spin-off OVA to their woeful (if unaccountably successful) ‘Kinrio Mosaic’ franchise. We were heavily critical of “KINMOZA!” for its unfortunate dumbing-down of the two English school-girls in season one of the show. They could neither speak English nor behave like native Brits. They were caricatures of what a Japanese person thought a British girl would be if he or she had never, ever, met one. Their characters evolved into a sort of one-size-fits-all generic foreigner. We assumed that the studio just knows that all the domestic Japanese anime audience... See full review

Studio Gokumi’s 2013 run-of-the-mill tale of High School girls is meant to be made interesting by the inclusion of two British school girls who transfer to Japan. The show kicks off with little Japanese girl Shinobu Oomiya staying in Britain for a week where she meets her host’s daughter Alice Cartelet. Alice falls in love with the idea of going to Japan and after learning the language treks to the far east to start a new life in High School with Shinobu. She is quickly followed by her half-Japanese friend Karen Kujo. It sounds great on paper and the audience expects to be entertained by all the... See full review

Studio Feel’s 2009 coming-of-age/slice-of-life comedy has very little going for it. The story idea seems to have been scribbled on the back of an envelope. It exists in a universe where six young women between the ages of eight and twenty earn wage and lodgings delivering newspapers. Where in the world can you earn a living delivering newspapers? Principal character, thirteen-year-old Kana Nakamachi, believes she has been left homeless after her last living relative dies. She gets work and lodgings at the newspaper delivery office of the Fuhshin Gazette. The boss is an elementary school girl with the... See full review

Project No 9’s adorable 2021 office comedy comprises thirteen or fifteen shorts (depending upon how you count them) at just a few minutes each. In 2023 HiDive had them bundled as one continuous show. It is a show based upon such a simple idea that it really just writes itself. Based upon the comedy manga by Odeko Fujii it features the uber-kawaii little Najimu Mujina as the sweetie-pie CEO of (what appears to be) a toy company. The catch is that she appears to be about six years of age! Unlike so many other office-based comedy animes this one actually dares to go as far as roasting traditional... See full review

Studio Brain’s Base’s 2014/2015 "Sister's Log: Moyako's Never-ending Monologue" is a bit of a gem - all the more so for the fact there were only ever three episode made. Sure, is it a one-trick pony. Its singular gag might have got a bit tiresome by episode four. Maybe it was wise to end it when they did. Too many other animes have not followed suit! Still there is an argument to say that the basic premise of this could have been written up in so many ways. It did have legs: all kinds of novel scenarios could have been introduced to the concept. The full title of this is quite accurate... See full review

Satelight’s 2015 spinoff from “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” is essentially a work of fan fiction as it was not written by Nagaru Tanigawa. All your favourite characters are here from the classic 2006/2009 show and the same voice artists reprised their roles. However, character design and animation style is artistically different. If you were a big fan of the original “Haruhi Suzumiya” franchise then this might be fun but it is a pale imitation of the original. Set in an alternate universe mostly culled from “The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya” the characters... See full review

Hoods Entertainment’s 2018 (season one, with season two following in 2019) romantic drama blends a little of Cloverworks’ 2021 title “Horimiya” and A-1 Pictures’ “Your lie in April” (2014/2015). Somehow it is as not as good, or iconic, as either but it is, nether-the-less, an extremely effective and entertaining show in its own right. We watched both seasons back-to-back so this review covers both as the two should be seen in their entirety to get the best of out of them. It starts as an otaku fantasy and ends as an otaku fairy tale – and these aren’t... See full review

Hoods Entertainment’s 2018 (season one, with season two following in 2019) romantic drama blends a little of Cloverworks’ 2021 title “Horimiya” and A-1 Pictures’ “Your lie in April” (2014/2015). Somehow it is as not as good, or iconic, as either but it is, nether-the-less, an extremely effective and entertaining show in its own right. We watched both seasons back-to-back so this review covers both as the two should be seen in their entirety to get the best of out of them. It starts as an otaku fantasy and ends as an otaku fairy tale – and these aren’t... See full review

Studio Gokumi’s 2012 erotic High School harem show is better than most crude ecchi shows and is based upon an interesting central premise. Despite everything it has going for it, it cannot hold the audience’s attention for too long before it becomes tiresome. Central character Shogo Mikadono is the heir to his family’s large business but his mother insists that he finds a good wife first from his newly-deceased Father’s former High School. He is immediately contacted by a mysterious girl claiming to be his half-sister (they share the same father). Her existence has been kept a secret... See full review

Studio Feel’s 2014 High School time-travel drama-romance really adds such little to the genre that one wonders how it ever got committed to the small screen. When you see a show this bad you can only conclude that it was based upon a visual novel. And yes, it was. Originally developed for Windows the branching plot lines are hinted at during the anime with various dead-ends that do not get explored. Thankfully the anime does not have the principal character having sex with the girls as the gameplay does. The show makes little effort to build tension or mystery. The character Kaori Sasaki dies in the... See full review

Studio Asread’s eye-watering ecchi-feast sinks to new lows in managing to obscure a half-decent story in layers of unnecessary female nudity & lewdness. The Goddess’ Dormitory of the title is the notorious shared lodgings for five over-sexed female university students. They only lack one thing – a caretaker. So, for reasons we never understand, one of them (Mineru Wachi), picks up a homeless 12-year-old boy Koshi Nagumo for the purpose. Koshi has been down on his luck since his home burnt down and his father ran away – so he could do with a break. However, sharing a dorm with a... See full review

J.C.Staff’s 2010 school club romcom was brought to you by the team that gave us both “Toradora!” and “A Certain Scientific Railgun” in roughly the same time period. Indeed, the entire cast of both shows make a very brief cameo appearance in episode 8. If J.C.Staff were hoping for a hat-trick of classic shows in one year they were to be disappointed. Whilst the other two went on to get themselves a cult following (that still haunts the industry to this day) their third effort is now largely unknown. Maybe they tried just too hard to base this show on the concept of yet another... See full review

OLM Studio’s 2023 follow up to the 2021 first season (Telecom Animation Film) is a genuine case of a show that actually gets better with age. If anything, season two is better than season one. It doesn’t drop the ball at all. If season one was just scene-dressing this this is the real deal. The story proceeds to fill in the details of the lives of Hayase Nagatoro and Naoto Hachiouji. We learn more about their circle of friends, their hobbies and activities. They go skiing together and attend the same martial arts club. Naoto stops using glasses in favour of contact lenses. He mans-up a great... See full review

J.C.Staff’s 2013 harem-drama-fantasy-comedy revolves around magical stone cats that re able to grant wishes to the story’s various human protagonists. However, as you would expect, the wishes normally go terribly wrong putting our protagonists into situations they have to wiggle out of. Sadly, the show is high forgettable. It should be a lot funnier than it manages to be. The quality of the writing just isn’t there. It is hum-drum. Various plot elements come and go without making a lot of sense. We recall being baffled at various points as to what was going on. Then we stopped caring. Its... See full review

Quad Studio’s 2023 ultra-ecchi fantasy tale relates to a boy who gets turned into a dog. Now you would think that could lead to all kinds of interesting drama. No, not this show, the whole purpose of Pochita’s existence (the dog’s name) is to look up girl’s skirts. Whilst he endeavours to find the reason why he has been turned into a dog most of his adventures involve him being somehow used for various forms of teen-female masturbation. Some of this is pretty gross to the point of being darn-right disturbing. There are plenty of teenage girls here all of whom turn red in the face and... See full review

Studio Bind’s 2023 cutesy fantasy slice-of-life has a really peculiar and original premise: the central character Mahiro Oyama is a young man we guess to be about twenty-years of age. His trouble is that he is a reclusive NEET and doesn’t go out. His sister, Mihari, (a couple of years his junior) despairs at him because she is quite different. She’s a genius who has skipped through High School to go to University where she is now some kind of medical researcher. Now this is the bit where it all gets kind of dodgy: she create a drug that can turn a young man into a much younger girl. So, of... See full review

Zero-G/Liber’s 2023 mature work-based fantasy romcom was quite the hit and showed some originality in its choice of characters. This is a world like ours but one where we rub shoulders with humans who are descended from magical spirits. Himuro is one such fellow who is descended from snow folk. When he gets too hot he melts and whenever he gets emotional it starts snowing. On his first day at work, he meets the very-human Fuyutsuki his ultra-cool work-colleague to be. They hit it off immediately and even start dating. The true mystery here is, despite the fact that they clearly have strong feelings... See full review

Project No.9’s 2023 lightweight romcom features High School girl and boy who live as neighbours. She (Mahiru Shiina) is an extremely popular girl with a reputation for being angelic. He (Amane Fujimiya) has been bullied in the past and has self-esteem issues. However, he is kind and generous – something that catches Mahiru’s eye as she takes him under her wing. Initially he is not attracted to her which is the original basis of their relationship. Since she is so popular with boys he promises her that his relationship with her will be purely platonic. Romances like this pretty much write... See full review

David Production’s 2022 re-boot of the 1980’s franchise came exactly 41 years after the original. Unfortunately, it veers way too close to being a homage for 1980’s children’s cartoons to warrant contemporary attention. It is bright, colourful, zany, utterly stupid and looks highly orientated towards a western audience. The story concerns a high school boy plagued by an alien girl who thinks she is married to him. Defining the story is pretty hard as once the basic premise is established it is more-or-less abandoned in favour of whatever-goes. The writers clearly just made it up as... See full review

Wow. What can we say about DLE’s 2022/23 instant-classic? Derived from the Twitter web 4-koma manga by Yū Isihara the set-up is quite simple: a High School girl wanders around a depopulated post-apocalyptic world enjoying conversations with various animals. Her principal companion is a Shiba Inu dog called Haru but the cast includes a whole lot of different dogs, birds, water sprites, magical creatures and, err, aliens. It sprawled over 72 episodes weighing in at just two minutes each. Each played out to the sound of Shinra-Bansho performing “Kimito Sekaino Owarini” which we believe... See full review

Creators in Pack’s 2016 gag-anime features a cast of just four school kids who sit in a library and talk about books. This doesn’t really do it justice. The twelve three-minute episodes go by at a million miles-an-hour and it is a real struggle to keep up with the topic let alone the delivery of the numerous gags. Principal characters are Shiori Kanbayashi and Sawako Machida – two girls, one of whom loves books and has an intimate knowledge of them. The other (Sawako) likes the idea of books but takes them a lot less seriously and rarely actually finishes any book she reads. This brings... See full review

Kinema Citrus’s 2014 feel-good show focusses on that peculiarly wonderful Japanese art-form: calligraphy. Main character Seishu Handa is an up-and-coming young calligrapher who really likes to win at competitions for the art. Yet he is impulsive, insecure and has anger issues. After punching a critic of his work his father sends him to cool-off at a remote Japanese island. The whole thing is a thinly veiled plot to inspire the young man to develop his skills in order to create new and uniquely original art pieces. Helping him on his way are the colourful, friendly and eccentric islanders whom he... See full review

Saetta’s 2018 comedic fantasy is another show that is really hard to pigeon-hole. To give you a clue the title translates as "Non-Human Creature's Wife" and is set in a world much like ours but one where we share it with various fantasy beings. Not only do these bizarre beings co-exist with humans but it seems like people find them highly attractive to the point of being erotically engaged with them. From the audience’s perspective this is strange enough but then there is the plot twist here: any one of the creatures can walk into any old High School and choose one of the male students... See full review

Production I.G.’s 2009 high stakes thriller owes just a little to Philip K Dick in some of its plot points. The story is sophisticated and asks us to believe that twelve people (the Seleção) have been selected to “save Japan”. They are not told how they are to do this but they have been each given 10 billion yen and a seemingly omnipotent concierge service that can make almost anything happen with the funds available. The only catch is that only one of them can survive the experience. One of the twelve “Akira Takizawa” finds that he has had his own memories wiped... See full review

Zexcs’s 2018 yuri-anime is a one-off 58-minute feature derived from the manga by Hiromi Takashima. It is quite a simple and sweet tale of the popular, princely and sporty High School girl Tomoka Kase who falls in love with her polar opposite – the timid Yui Yamada whose principal love is her plants. The story kicks off from the point the two have already started dating and the details of how their love affair came about is simply glossed over. The story covers a period in their romance where the two are facing up to having to move away to attend University. Yui is anxious about her relationship... See full review

Sin-Ei Animation’s 2015 educational comedy is a hard one to classify. Spread over twenty short five-minute episodes it tries to cover the bases of human psychological disorders in a light-hearted and completely irreverent way. So irreverent in fact that it is hard to glean much educational value from it at all. Whilst it is easy to poke fun at erectile dysfunction, sleep disorders and panic attacks the show is just an endless set of puerile gags. What is certain is that such a show would not have covered quite the same topics any other place in the world but Japan. Nowhere in the world does anyone... See full review

Layduce’s 2023 High School romcom is evidence enough that there is still plenty of life in this genre yet. It just takes a good bit of writing and a little originality. On the face of it, the show’s premise doesn’t sound too promising – the tom-boy (Tomo Aizawa) in love with her male best friend (Junichiro Kubota). However, as the story spins out, the audience soon realises that the show is over-flowing with great characters and little twists that keep you hooked and wanting more. One obviously fine point is that it dares to wrap up the story in one season rather than drag it out. We... See full review

PAWorks’ 2023 action comedy has its fair share of ultra-violence which, as is often the case with Japanese shows, seems offset by the inclusion of awesomely cute little girl. The show was a smash hit and it is easy to see why. It is probably the blend of high-child-unfriendly blood and gore with a kid who flies through the whole adventure oblivious to the mayhem going on around her. Protecting her are two hired assassins Kazuki Kurusu and Rei Suwa. Each come with a pack load of baggage and complicated back-story layered with pain. During one complicated assassination the duo accidentally become wards... See full review

Brain’s Base`s 2014 High School comedy features a main character who SHOUTS for the entire twelve episodes. Main protagonist Kenji Kazama is a self-styled bad-boy. He and his gang of delinquents quickly meet their match when they rock up to High School and bump into the all-female membership of the "Game Creation Club". As is always true in these tales the girls are struggling to keep the club alive and get members. Thankfully they girls are able to fall back on their command of extreme violence to get their own way. Pretty soon Kenji is shanghaied into the club and proves he is not quite... See full review

Satelight’s 2016 high school romcom contributes such little to the genre it leaves the audience wondering what on earth its point is. This highly generic and derivative story features two highly unoriginal protagonists: a shy/cute boy and a shy/cute/weird girl. She is Yuki Kurihara and she has developed a crush on a boy one year below her in High School. After stalking the object of her affections (Shinya "Momo" Momotsuki) for a while she asks him out and he says yes. The resulting couple are so lame and dense they actually suck in light. They work their way through the set list of high... See full review