A very messy show in its writing and composition, but a very ambitious one in its ideas. On top of that, the backgrounds are gorgeous, the characters are nuanced, and the soundtrack is one of the best I've heard in any anime. A show defined by critical core failings and tremendous strengths.

Take the base concept of .hack//SIGN, remove all the things that made that show creative or interesting, and fill the resulting shell with rotting, festering garbage.

An inconsistently strong character drama. Some serious weaker segments, but also high peaks.

Standard 4koma SoL with a tiny bit of carrot-on-a-stick faux-romance. Okay for what it is, though the jokes are hit or miss. Basically the definition of inoffensive, empty-headed fluff - it aims very low, but it generally hits its' mark.

A strictly watchable police procedural. There are a couple strong episodes in there, but it's mostly just dull, and the villain drags it down with him.

Even more important than it is good, and it is very good. The animation is incredible, and the action set pieces are singularly epic. Sadly, due to the cramming of plot necessitated by turning a six-tome story into a two-hour movie, the thing doesn't make any damn sense, but it actually coasts just fine on style and execution alone.

-edit- Just watched this for the second time, which impressed upon me again both the impressive nature of the visuals and the vapid nature of the plot and writing. Cringeworthy whenever it attempts to be about anything, but still extremely pretty popcorn.

Devastating portrayal of teen social anxiety and the quest for a real identity. Triumph of atmosphere, incredibly confident pacing, wonderful music and backgrounds and everything. A nearly perfect work.

A generally competent action-drama that fails to really be anything more. Early potential is squandered by empty fights and characters that don't truly reflect off each other.

Another charming parent-child slice of life show. The execution can get pretty bland and there are some weaker episodes, but it's a fundamentally lovely time.

A reasonable but unambitious comedy with solid comedic timing and some hit-or-miss episodes. It's kind of sad to see a studio with as much talent as KyoAni seemingly settling into a groove of shows with almost no dramatic ambition, but if it's what they're most comfortable doing, there's nothing for it. Amagi is fine for what it is.

Fairly ambitious, but very flawed. Bounces hectically between drama and comedy, with portions of each actually coming off successfully. The main strengths are the premise, the main character's story, and a couple side character stories - crossing songs with action sequences was also a good choice. The main weaknesses are a great deal of the comedy and the main "love story," if you can call it that - there is no relationship between them. The whole show also begs for an emotional resonance that it never really earns - these characters are never developed well enough to care about, much less cry about. Clearly they were trying to make something powerful, but I can't call it a "good" series.

Distinctive but flawed - just like Ano Natsu, I feel they retread too many plot points to pad it out, and Menma herself is kind of a grating character (though I guess it makes sense her personality wouldn't have changed since childhood), but the ending had me bawling, so I guess they were doing something right. All the stuff with their parents is really good, and the characters have great inter-group dynamics outside of Menma. I feel like I'd prefer the anime of the NEXT six months in these characters' lives, but this one was pretty good too.

This series would be an easy 8... if it were six episodes and not twelve. There's far too much filler relationship-misunderstanding blah padding the length of it. Fortunately, aside from that, everything is pretty good - the characters are vibrant and decently developed, the animation and visual style is FANTASTIC (same people as Toradora, so obviously), the movie premise is nostalgic and deeply personal. It opens and closes very strong, it just has too long of a middle stretch - it would be way stronger if they just cut out the beach trip episodes entirely. Virtually every pair of characters in this show has an adorable relationship. The actual confession scene might be the best one I've seen. I'd recommend it, but many people might tire of the overdone back-and-forth triangle juggling. I'm a sucker for this stuff and even I got tired of it.

Starts out as a pretty atmospheric and compelling mystery/horror story, but devolves into self-parody pretty quickly. Both halves are entertaining enough for what they are, but there are no actual characters, only tropes/cliches, and that kind of kills it for me.

Haven't seen this for many years, so it's difficult to objectively say how strong it is, and what it is strong at. I remember very vibrant animation, a nicely developed post-apocalyptic world, a decently vibrant set of characters, and an extremely creepy and fitting "antagonist," with a suitably ambiguous ending.

Occasionally funny, with a somewhat unique main character and a fairly unique premise, but I really don't know why I finished it. Not much there and the love interest is a zombie - I think it just maintained a pretty charming, dreamlike mood, which was more important than what was actually going on. Great ending track, though.

Incredibly vibrant, tightly paced, colorfully populated, well-scored, exuberantly animated caper-fantasy escapism. Much like Bebop in that there's not a drop of anime-ism in this show - it's just a frenetic adventure. Any audience would like some portion of the cast, and the setting is strong and unique. You probably won't find any emotionally resonant stuff in this show, but that's not what it's about, and what it IS about, it excels at. Good times.

I laughed a couple times an episode, but that's not really a good ratio, and there's nothing else here. Mainly finished it just to finish it.

Sadly Hosoda's weakest film. Lots of interesting ideas, but the script clearly needed a couple rewrites, and likely a co-writer. Just a jumbled mess of a narrative.

Like many kind-of-great shows, this one's a war of extremes. On the one hand, the pacing is all freaking over the pace and there are massive stretches of absolutely nothing, in addition to it starting off with both seemingly random fanservice and the weakest three-part arc of the entire series.

On the other hand, the art style is absolutely unique and fantastic, every single character leaps off the screen, and when the pacing is on, the various exorcism stories are gripping, vivid, and unique. I can't really give a show with characters this strong, direction this unique, and individual scenes as powerful as many within this show less than a 9 - those elements are so good that they make up for pacing issues that are as clearly intentional as they are ineffective.

Regarding the long-winded jokes and verbal wordplay, my charitable assessment is "it doesn't translate well into english", my frank assessment is "it wouldn't translate well anywhere outside of the writer's self-satisfying otaku skull".

Endearing slice of life with great characters and some real piercing points about the creative instinct and life as an artist. A warm, lovely little show.

Definitely better than the typical anime comedy. A solid cast with great chemistry, a decent number of standout jokes, and a clever but not annoyingly so level of self-awareness made for a generally good times popcorn show.

Competent execution of the silly ultraviolence genre. Not much else to it.

A marked improvement over the original series both in aesthetics and storytelling. A solid little action-drama.

Starts off about the same as the first season, but its final arc actually has some reasonable drama and character stuff.

A thoughtful and well-directed character drama that has the misfortune of being surgically attached to a overwrought and underwritten murder thriller. A real shame of a show, but certainly watchable.

A terrific shonen manga let down by a sluggishly paced adaptation. Still a very solid time.

A heartbreaking series of well-sketched character vignettes that all tie together into a fast-paced scifi thriller. Held back only by its weak animation and a somewhat underwhelming ending.

Generic cyberpunk action-thing defined by some fairly likable leads, really bad writing, and a kind of excruciating super-90s aesthetic.

Incredibly beautiful and very emotionally resonant slow waltz through one boy's story of love lost. The individual pieces were stupendous, particularly the first, which captures a very familiar and painful mood very clearly. The ending was also quite powerful, but I feel the pieces fell just short of completely coming together. Obviously that's part of the point, and something I actually PRAISED sakamichi no apollon for, but considering how much this film deals in overt melodrama, I feel the ending just barely lacked something. Not enough to make it any less than fantastic and an easy recommendation, but enough to keep it from being one of my favorites, or a perfect work.

A clear shounen fantasy/fanservice light novel, but as far as those go, it's relatively harmless and pretty visually interesting.

A very superfluous bonus episode.

A very, very strange little movie. It tells what would essentially be maybe the first arc of a little shounen story about a boy, his blob-monster, and the girl they befriend, but it pretty much breaks all the tonal rules of such things. There's virtually no tension at any time - the aesthetics don't build drama, and the characters themselves act pretty much nonplussed by everything happening, even when they're getting knocked off buildings or having their arms eaten. But... it's actually pretty charming! Its weird, dreamlike atmosphere totally works, the minimal soundtrack is an excellent choice, and the visual aesthetic really works. It's a weird little piece, but I enjoyed it.

11/22/2012: Just watched Ep. 8. In the last two episodes, this show moved from the most successful anime comedy I've seen (interspersed with slow-building but compelling character building), to a still-comedic drama that actually turned all of the prior comedy into compelling plot points, to the single best romantic episode of any anime I've ever seen. I've seen more complete romances, and more standout single scenes (mainly in Toradora), but jesus christ this tone, these flashbacks, this dialogue. Is this easy for KyoAni? Because they sure as fuck make it LOOK easy. They've surreptitiously made me fall in love with both of these characters, and now they're letting those emotional dominoes fall and fuck my life it's tearing me apart. Maybe this show wouldn't work if I hadn't already been turned into an emotional tuning fork by KS, but as things stand, I feel like I could watch variations on episode 8 for the rest of my life and never feel less than absurdly grateful those variations existed. I make art BECAUSE I haven't FOUND those variations. Like Meadowlands, like Naota swinging the bat, like Kom Susser Tod - that episode is exactly me. One hundred percent. Perfect.

12/19/2012: And finished. I'm a little disappointed we never got to see Dark Flame Master fight the Wicked Eye, but that's kind of the point of the series, so I'll forgive it. Aside from that, basically flawless. There are a few shows that may stretch the animated medium more, but this show takes a very narrow character story/romance and illustrates it in the most beautiful, believable, heartfelt way it possibly can. Their mastery of atmosphere and animation is absolutely beyond compare, their character writing AND deftness of plotting are miles beyond anyone else, their sense of humor is pretty much the only reliably good humor in the industry, their love of the medium and material is apparent in every single beautiful, painstakingly crafted frame. Absolutely outstanding. The best thing KyoAni's ever done. Obvious 10/10.

A reasonable but superfluous episode of Chuunibyou. Contains about as much plot as Chuunibyou Ren in its entirety.

Straight comedy replete with little character moments too pointless to really fit into the main series. A great idea, and very well executed - the volleyball one and the cooking one are both pretty solid summations of the first half of the series. Obviously not very ambitious, but it doesn't need or try to be. I'll happily take more skits with the cast of one of my favorite shows.

A cynical attempt to prolong some false version of relationship stasis from the first half of the first season. Characters are reversed and become static, episodes amount to nothing, the whole season has no coherent message. A betrayal of basically everything good about the first season.

 A combination of ham-fisted, cliched, manipulative drama and broad, stupid, unfunny comedy sewn together by hollow stereotypes with nonexistent pacing. Maybe I grew up a generation too early to get this or something, but I have no idea how this show gained its reputation as a drama or a romance. I watch plenty of inconsistent stuff because I like the good parts, but this isn't inconsistent, it's just really bad.

*edit*

That was my original summary of the show, from when I dropped it after 7 or so episodes. Let's see if I do any better this time.

12/22/2012: Okay, I'm doing it. I'm forcing myself to watch this steaming fucking pile. I'm now 11 episodes in, having already survived the first arc, and honestly I don't see any end in sight. As soon as Fuko finally disappeared, I was so relieved; finally, I thought, I will no longer have to watch this main character entertain the pointless delusions of a child the writers are expecting us to believe is both in high school and somehow amusing. And now the second arc has the same goddamn thing. I'm currently halfway through episode 11, where for one brief, shining moment none of the terribly written wish-fulfillment brain-damaged moeblobs are on screen - it's just Kyou and the MC. Incredible, I thought to myself - this is just like Haruhi, if Haruhi were worse-written and had the worst, least emotive character design of any show ever. That is the most enjoyable moment I've experienced in like seven episodes. God help me.

*edit* 

10 Minutes Later: It's very funny to me that the most sexist anime I've ever seen doesn't even include a hint of traditional fan service. Normal fan service does a disservice to female characters - these female characters do a disservice to the human race. No wonder Japan is filled with weird sexual hangups; they keep fetishizing these freaking empty-headed dolls. That's creepy, you're creepy, fuck anime fans. Will report back.

12/23/2012: I reach the beginning of episode 12 and think, 'in a perfect world, this worthless character's worthless arc would end right here, and we could forget she ever existed.' Apparently we instead live in a special hell designed only for me, wherein my love of anime and romance is continuously tested by the most praised and least worthwhile show an army of devils could conspire to create. The humor is getting so bad it's honestly surreal; like, there's a joke that she's bad at making jokes, but no element of that contains any actual joke. Is it supposed to be funny that she's autistic? Is her actual non-joke supposed to be funny to the audience, but not the characters? I think the actual joke is that I'm sitting here watching this garbage.

Edit

Another random thought: It is somewhat darkly amusing to me that this show is considered Slice of Life, because like so, so many shows within that genre, the slices presented represent no human life that has ever existed in the history of human beings or well-written fiction. The little skits they put on for their foundling moeblob daughters (let's play school! Let's play wedding rehearsal! Let's play violin recital!) stretch my suspension of disbelief so far it actually wraps around my neck and begins to cut off my oxygen. The MC doesn't even begin to come across as a believable human being – he comes across as what he is, a robotic white knight designed to make desperate VN players feel both powerful and needed. His snarky comments and pranks come across as a desperate cry for help from a soul trapped in a forced destiny that makes no sense and has no meaning. Maybe he will eventually rebel against the dizzying series of cliches and wish-fulfillment fantasies that compose his daily life. Maybe that eventual genre subversion is why this show is so universally lauded. Maybe if I drink battery acid it will all be okay.

Edit

Jesus christ, how did it just occur to me that the character I find most believable in this entire show is JUST A TEXTBOOK TSUNDERE?

Edit

The idea of Fuko just randomly appearing to help in some useless way is pretty great and verging on self-aware. Clannad +1.

Edit

I've heard the Clannad VN is like a gazillion hours long, which makes it even funnier to me that the creators were like, 'aw fuck it, we'll just name them Kyou and Ryou'.

Edit

Man does it make me angry whenever this MC says 'I didn't help you make friends, you did it all yourseeeelf!' Is he just being condescending? Does he really think that these bizarre teenager-shaped mongoloids, who somehow lack the social graces of your average four year old, would actually survive in the wild? They were designed to make you feel important, MC. Embrace it. This is your destiny.

Edit

Wild rabbit-deer-fire dream sequence... man, that is some weird-ass imagery right there. Pretty compelling stuff, though I don't know what it's doing in the MC's head. Genuinely unsure where they're going with this.

Edit

Five seconds later: BOOB JOKE L O L.

I actually paused the video to write my previous comment, and then started it again only to have Clannad smack me in the face with its crass mediocrity. Five seconds of interesting imagery, ten seconds of woopsie-daisy boob joke slapstick. You got me good, Clannad!

Edit

Holy crap, is this show developing a plot? The last third of this episode is actually decently paced and well directed, answering some questions and raising others. I can only hope this won't all be reset for the sake of another arc in twenty-five more minutes.

12/23/2012: Episode 13, here I come. Okay, I confess, this girl is waaay more 'interesting' than Fuko – gotta love those Beautiful Mind wall scraps all over her bedroom.

Overall thoughts: Her backstory is actually handled fairly well, and there was a nice moment on the bus where Kyou wonders how things turned out this way that didn't remind me of half a dozen other shows. The problem is, even when the show isn't being specifically bad, there's just so much fundamental mediocrity – the character design, the writing, the cliched personalities, the glacial pacing, the immature and repetitive humor, the adherence to these underplotted, pandering “let's fix someone” stories, the lack of direction or central narrative forced on it because it's adopting multiple routes of a VN – that it's still weighed down pretty heavily. I'm kind of assuming the MC's desire to go so far out of his way in helping people will end up being a real plot point, related to the resentment he feels towards his father – by doing these things, he's proving he's a better parent than his father ever was, etc. That's a legitimate plot thread, but there is so much padding to get there, along with the issues I've mentioned, that it really is tiring to watch.

These problems also make a pretty significant argument for this not being a good way to adopt a VN. When you make the plot take turns dealing with personal issues of four or five different characters, you just can't maintain a satisfying narrative arc – it rises and plummets, rises and plummets, and none of the tension of earlier peaks informs any of the later ones. Plus, unless the ultimate love interest has enough personality to be an interesting side character for all the other routes (and Nagisa darling, I'm sorry, but you've got enough personality for a fifteen minute OVA), their presence ends up being both strange and kind of grating. I think the better solution is the Yosuga no Sora route, where you pretty much just release a set of stories, and don't muddle things by trying to give it one continuous plot line. Not that Yosuga no Sora is a really great show or anything, and in fact they might have made that choice just so they could show boning without it turning into School Days, but I think that's one thing that show handled a great deal better than Clannad, at least so far.

Counterargument to myself: Steins;Gate. That show used a REALLY excellent trick/gimmick to justify the personal episodes – Okagi's very reasonable guilt over what he was forcing them to do. So maybe my actual conclusion is, 'if you're going to tackle multiple routes, don't sabotage the narrative or make your MC so randomly concerned and helpful he turns from a character into an audience stand-in'.

Episode 14: Waaaay more effective. This show gets way better whenever it stops leaning on an assumption that its characters aren't terrible, and that holds true for this arc finale. Kotomi's godfather also has one of the few respectable designs, with a voice actor and dialogue to match; he does very good work here. As far as the finale itself, it was infinitely superior to Fuka's, mainly because the emotional conflict was both more realistic and relatable, and because the viewer hadn't just spent five episodes waiting for this exact scene to play out in the most obvious way possible. Well, it did play out in the most obvious way possible, but cliches aren't inherently bad, and aside from the strange, prolonged suitcase-journey-montage, the resolution was well-directed and effective. On its own, this episode scores a respectable 8/10 from me.

12/24/2012: Episode 15: Maaan, more of this trippy glowing light robot field nonsense? Okay, so let's give this show the fighting game version of Respect for a moment, and theorize what the best possible storytelling outcome is here. It would certainly have to involve the “other world” mentioned in Kotomi's storyline, as well as somehow justify the existence of a straight-up coma ghost. The glowing light is clearly critical, it's the one thing that's carried over between the two worlds – well, that and a robotic MC who exists to sate the emotional shortcomings of various children. The girl also looks like a young Nagisa, although with this art style any female character with brown hair looks like Nagisa. Then there was that “take you to the place where dreams come true” or whatnot moment, that was clearly supposed to be significant. Finally, we've got the personalities of the two main characters to draw on for context clues – MC is driven by his desire to not be like his father, and Nagisa really wants to act in a specific play for some reason, and is in love with the idea of family – which is incidentally also the poorly translated name of the show. So where are we going with all of this? The family strain seems clear, with the importance of an emotional support structure being the one constant in the storylines. When Kotomi reconnects with both her real and adopted family, another one of those trippy lights is created, meaning they could possibly represent the bonds between people, or something? But how does that explain Fuko...

You know what, it's just gonna end up being some sappy trite bullshit out of left field. I'm just gonna watch the damn episode.

Okay, the opening here brings up another of my main complaints – what passes for humor in this show, and honestly, in most anime in general. Apparently, Japan's animators once got together and all watched a bunch of Loony Tunes, and pretty much unanimously agreed that that was the pinnacle of comedy. The slapstick in this and so many other shows is so repetitive, so overdone, and so lame, and yet I still see all these posts about Sunohara or whoever actually being enjoyable to watch. Look, I'm all for physical comedy, but this is just so dumb. I love anime for its focus on characters, its ability to tell any kind of story, its love of drama and strong narrative... but when I want to watch something funny, I will watch Community. I will watch Arrested Development. I will watch something that treats its audience as intelligent human beings, who like wit, timing, and character informing their jokes.

And it's funny, because this isn't the case with any other genre – I really do like anime a lot, and prefer it to pretty much any western shows, except comedies. I refuse to believe this is just a cultural thing, because many western fans do seem to like anime humor. I also refuse to believe it's a preference thing, because anime humor is not just different humor, it is dumb humor. Even smart, thoughtful shows like Evangelion or Penguindrum slip in their dumb humor, like they're worried no one will stick around for the plots if there isn't penguin slapstick to keep the yokels entertained. Sure, not every single show is like this; Steins;Gate and Toradora have actual banter, FLCL is thick with all kinds of sharp and less sharp references, Chuunibyou actually combines slapstick with great timing, character humor, and a variety of other jokes... but it happens a lot. And like Clannad itself, it makes me wonder if I really have anything in common with anime fans at all.

Choir girl has a sob story of her own! Oh man, whipping out the sad synth song this early? Overplaying your hand a bit, Clannad. If you try for trite emotional manipulation too often, even the Angel Beats fans might catch on.

Ahahaha, and Sunohara actually gets mad and repeats my thoughts about both this conversation and the show in general. You don't get special treatment for having sad stories and weepy synths, Clannad – you gotta sell it with good storytelling and believable characters. I changed my mind, Sunohara's now the best character.

Oh man, MC brings up an interesting character point. He explains that Sunohara is the same as him, in that they were both forced out of their clubs and now have nothing to do – which actually strengthens the general theme of the MC. Because of his father's alcoholism, he was forced to quit basketball, leaving him with all these empty afternoons full of time to reflect on his past. To fill that time, he's been adopting children and helping them achieve their dreams, trying to be the opposite of his father. Even his refrain of “I haven't done anything” can then be interrupted as “No good man would do less than this” - another jab at his father. Nice little arc there. +1 for Clannad.

Wow, just when I go on a humor tirade, the show pulls out two effective jokes in a row. The Fuka cameos have been pretty great, and Sunohara's completely incoherent plan is also awesome. These jokes are effective both because they are more unique both to this show and to the characters they're attached to – you laugh because it's something you haven't heard before, and you laugh because it's exactly what you'd expect from people you've come to know. Generic slapstick virtually never has this.

...and then they follow that up with one of Japan's famous gay jokes. Dammit Clannad.

Episode 16: Man, I love how this show handles pacing (and by love I mean lol wats pacing), and this episode starts with another staggering example. Pre-OP cold open? “Man, my brother's room is so messy! I better clean it up!” -cut to OP- WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?! I CAN'T STAND THE ANTICIPATION.

Okay, Nagisa's dad is kinda growing on me. His dialogue is pretty goddamn surreal. Beginning a conversation by talking about his daughter's butt, and then introducing himself as “Akio, the most handsome guy around” - crazy dads are pretty common, but he's just kind of an asshole without a filter, which is more unique.

Oh man MC, balancing a harem is pretty tough, isn't it? You've got the moeblobs waiting in the club room, tsundere plus one eating in the cafeteria, and now even class rep ojou-san is macking on you in your very classroom. What's a good-natured delinquent to do?

Considering this arc is doing a much better job of bouncing the various character's stories against each other, I wonder if that might have been possible for the whole show. Maybe Kotomi and Fuka's arcs were just so unrelated to any of the real plot that KyoAni pretty much threw up their hands in despair, because the current stuff seems to be working fine for tsundere, ojou, and Nagisa (who I'd refer to as moe, but there are like six characters in this show that just exist to be moe, so that'd get confusing).

Nice subtle touch – Sunohara's sister coming to get the MC for dinner with the Nagisa family. Because now they just expect him for dinner, because he's obviously avoiding his own house as often as possible, but because the show is from his perspective, this is not drawn attention to. Almost reminds me of the “mystery island” arc in Haruhi, when Haruhi and Kyon are both changing in the cave, and while their conversation is mundane, the camera focuses obliquely on the edges of their bodies, sharply representing their mental states. KyoAni are very, very good at abusing the animated medium for unique dramatic and narrative effect... they just spent a few years between Haruhi and Hyouka getting betrayed by their choices of source material.

Second half of this episode – pointless basketball game. This half was legit great pretty much the whole way through. The tension, the animation, the music, and particularly the plot were all working together and coming across as both realistic and realistically important to these characters. MC's final shot was great – it drew on his background and the relationships within the show, and even as a single moment was kind of funny in that the only time he can shine on a basketball court is when he's almost flat on his back. Maybe the best part was that this conflict was only built up in the last two episodes; this show is way, way, way better when it keeps the buildup short, and focuses on KyoAni's sharp drama direction instead of the lousy Key characters. I'd give the second half of this episode a 9/10, and I'd say it moves the show overall up to 5/10.

12/26/2012: Episode 17: The show continues to focus on the characters with personalities, and the pacing continues to bounce between storylines efficiently, with more tension-filled moments and more dynamic directing. It's a shame Nagisa will probably come back soon, but keep it up, Clannad; you're getting there.

12/27/2012: Episode 18: Alright, at this point, they've dragged the father storyline out far beyond the reaches of acceptable storytelling. There is subtlety and there is subtext and then there is slowrolling a plot line because you still haven't resolved the disparate stories required for the real plot to reach any satisfying resolution whatsoever. Scenes need to build on each other to not be redundant and tiresome; sure, sometimes repetition works, but not when it's spread across 18 fucking episodes. That's what we in the storytelling business call “bullshit”.

Oh man, is that a “Sunohara loves the ladies” joke that transitions into a “gay men are strange and frightening according to Japan's archaic and sexist social mores” joke? RAPTURE OF RAPTURES.

Man, they even fucking visually mirror Kyou and MC. It's like they want to draw attention to how much better those two fit together than MCxNagisa.

I write that comment, and then, while MC is thinking about Nagisa, someone knocks on the door... and it's actually Kyou dragging along her pointless sister. She is too good for you, MC.

Alright, this “I have to help my sister” shit is just so contrived and aggravating. Partially that's because it's the most cliched shit in the universe, but I think the larger part of it is that Kyou and MC might be the only two characters in this show who aren't agonizing to watch in scenes together. They have similar worldviews; they actually have real conversations. Why is this show telling me that true love only occurs between a man and a moeblob when there is a character so much closer to an actual female in the cast? I mean, granted, she's pretty textbook tsundere, but so is our MC. Not that tough of a match.

Suddenly the show starts talking about fortunes predicting possible futures and gets hella-meta. I predict a gay joke in the next thirty seconds.

Okay, that was probably the best Fuka appearance yet. In fact, pretty much every Fuka appearance since she's actively left the show has been fantastic – in small doses, her brand of specific absurdist humor is pretty bulletproof. Also, I am fine with this show actively drawing attention to the fact that every women in a fifty mile radius of MC wants his dick; if you're gonna make a silly harem, at least admit that that's your plan.

And here we have the show's thesis statement. Tomoya asks MC what keeps people from losing direction, and he answers... talent (but his was taken from him)... followed by relationships (but he denies his own)... and then she answers for him: family. Not blood family, but the family that defines you as a person. Friends, lovers, whoever. It's a fine theme, but like many of the others, it's lost in the shuffle of side stories and secondary characters. However, this show has positively surprised me in the past, and in very short succession; I'm interested in seeing if KyoAni can pull this shit together.

Tennis Match... OF SADNESS. Okay, this wasn't all bad. I admit, MC and Nagisa are getting kind of adorable together. And Tomoya handles rejection like a champ, as expected, what with her being the one mature member of this entire goddamn cast. Shine on, tomboyjou-sama. And Kyou breaking down was both necessary and solid... okay, fine. I'll give it to them. So much campiness too, but... fuck you, Clannad. I'll give you this one.

12/28/2012: Episode 19: Pretty solid. The show has vastly improved since it stopped trying to build its harem, and the main plot is coming into much sharper focus... even the girl and robot segments seem actually thematically significant now. In fact, I'm willing to say this show overall would be pretty solid as a single season show – both main characters become much less cliched after the first two unnecessary arcs, and even the writing improves. Additionally, neither Fuko nor Kotomi are at all relevant to the main conflicts, unlike the other characters; if you just removed those two characters entirely, this show overall would already be an 8/10 for me. As it is, I'm guessing this first season will arrive at a decently respectable 6 or 7 with the caveat that the first half is a 3.5 and the second half an 8.5.

Episode 20: Straight-up great. Some nice subtle expressions, the classic unlikely pep talk from Sunohara, and really adorable moments between the main pair. Very much enjoying this show right now.

12/29/2012: Episode 21: More focus on the worse characters and bad writing in this episode, sadly, but the direction is still vastly superior to the first half. The melancholy soundtrack accompanying preparations for the festival was really effective; you rarely seen school festivals portrayed in this light in shows, and to me that's surprising. At least for seniors, school festivals can represent a last chance to create a meaningful moment in your high school life – along with the anticipation and sense of work/collaboration, there really should be a sense of nostalgia and loss as well. Good on KyoAni for successfully portraying this with music and montage cuts alone.

The ending of this one is super-cliched, but still pretty damn effective. Mainly because A. the direction and music in this show is top-notch and B. it's just really surprising to see Nagisa outside her usual emotional range. After this many episodes, it's always satisfying to see such established characters pushed past their usual limits – and at this point, it seems pretty certain the play will be a disaster of some kind (unless this show is even more tritely heartwarming than I'd anticipated), so that should also stress the group in some interesting way. Overall not really a great episode though – despite the production, there was just no scene, character, or dialogue that I hadn't seen before, done at least as effectively. I'm a huge sucker for romance, though, so any scenes that progressed the main pair were pretty welcome.

Episode 22: Went pretty much as predicted, but again, skillful direction goes a long way. The speech by Nagisa's dad was pretty great... but the confession scene just seemed kind of rushed and generic. I guess I've been spoiled by stuff like Toradora and Katawa Shoujo, that give these scenes much more personality unique to their characters, but this could have been any confession scene in any show, and I really dislike the choice to lead into it with a montage like that. Considering the glacial pacing for everything else, fast-forwarding the actual confession felt like they'd run out of episodes or something.

12/31/2012: Episode 23: Talking about how Sunohara and his little sister hooking up is totally hot... to his little sister. Damn, Tomoya, that's hardcore.

Not much to say about this episode. Slow and kinda weirdly paced, but it's very in Nagisa's character to do something like this. On the other hand, it doesn't really add anything to the narrative – it's a slice of life episode, but this is not a slice of life show. Meh.


So, I'm what, halfway done now? I guess I'm happy I forced my way through the first part, since there aren't enough anime similar to the second half, but that still doesn't make it a good show. Problems with pacing, with writing, with humor, with the narrative arc, with all the cheap emotional tricks... it's not a very good show. All my original complaints still apply, it just turns out it's half of a 3/10 show and half of a 8/10 show. But I kind of assume Afterstory is going to be better, and hey, no point in stopping now.

PART TWO: THE CLANNADENING

1/1/2013: A new year, a new Clannad. Will this maintain the decent tempo, solid direction, and actual plot of Clannad's last act? Will we regress to more episodes of nothing important happening to non-people? Only time will tell.

Episode 1: Goddammit it's the second one. Seriously, when there isn't an actual plot happening, this show is worse than watching paint dry. One of my main complaints about romances is that you never get to see the couple interacting once they're already in a relationship, so you'd think an entire two-season show devoted to that would appeal to me... but these two have such little chemistry. Worthwhile relationships have banter, they have back-and-forth, they have an alchemy that defines them and makes two people into something more. Tomoya and Nagisa just look past each other awkwardly and act generally pleasant to people. It's bewildering; it's like KyoAni decided to devote a year's worth of animation to chronicling the inner emotional life of a table.

Man, the way they stretch out the relationship-with-his-father plot arc is beyond intolerable. This is why I don't watch western dramas/sitcoms – resolution to personal arcs is so often treated as a carrot on a stick, when really, the second you've done that even once, you have destroyed the narrative integrity of the work. Clannad didn't really have much narrative integrity to begin with, but every time one of these scenes occurs in the exact same way with the exact same resolution it just makes me grind my teeth.

The second half of this episode is way, way better, and in fact accomplishes a pretty singular feat – being a one-off story that both entertained and further explored the personalities of the cast. That's really all I ask; for the jokes to actually try, and for me to feel like these are real people I'm learning more about. A slice of life doesn't need a strong central plot, but it still needs progression – to feel like you're sharing the daily lives of characters, those characters must continue to express themselves in small ways, and grow together. This is why a show like K-On fails – it treats the characters as dolls, not people. To empathize with characters, they must be characters; anything less is hollow voyeurism at best, like staring at mannequins through a hole in the wall.

That got a little off track. Overall I give this episode an 8/10.

1/2/2013: Episode 2: Man, Tomoya's personality is just all over the place. I know it's basically “sarcastic slacker with a heart of gold and something to prove,” but he basically seems to act according to the whims of the plot. Either that or he just truly hates Sunohara... you know what, that makes sense. In fact, why does Sunohara hang out with any of these people? The only person who actually likes him is Nagisa, and that's because she's got the intellectual spark of a dim-witted chipmunk. In fact, considering her appearance, she might as well be a dim-witted chipmunk.

Ah, random violence. Thank god for random violence; if not for that, one of these writers might get a cramp trying to think up an actual joke. Maybe tsunderes aren't actually designed to appeal to dumb otaku – maybe they're designed to appeal to dumb writers.

I suddenly realize this episode will probably entirely be about Sunohara's relationship with his sister. I'm gonna go take a bath with a toaster.

Okay, Sunohara's noir daydream about him and Tomoyo's mutual respect is pretty goddamn funny. If this show had more absurdist genre sketches and fewer girls hitting people, even episodes like this would be worth watching.

...in fact, that whole scene ends up being solid. I'm sorry I called Tomoyo class rep ojou-san – she's probably the best character in the show.

Is she? Hm...

…

...yep. Tomoya is the only other character with anything resembling a full personality, and his is desperately abused by poor pacing and poor plotting. I'd say that's sad, but Tomoyo honestly is a pretty solid character even by non-Clannad standards – I'd probably very much enjoy a single-season romance with her as one of the leads. I'd call it...

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun.

Hm.

Moving on.

Man, I totally thought Kotomi's horrible violin noises were a metaphor for her discordant emotional situation, and that she'd be able to play again when she resolved her issues with her parents. Nope! I guess I'm fine with that, because this gag is pretty good, and that's pretty much the best a character like Kotomi can hope for.

“Yeah, you look like you'll do anything.” Jeez Sunohara, what a charmer. You know what the ladies like.

Dear god. Everyone in this show is so ridiculous that NAGISA has to point out how stupid and convoluted this plan is. Golf fucking clap.

Sanae makes a speech about how Sunohara secretly has a heart of gold... I keep waiting for Tomoya to interrupt with “yeah, no, he's actually just a little shit. I only hang out with him to look better in comparison. And hey, your daughter fell for it!”

Wait, what. TO BE CONTINUED?!?!?!? THE “SUNOHARA'S FAKE GIRLFRIEND” PLOT WARRENTS MULTIPLE EPISODES?! GOD. FUCKING. DAMMIT. CLANNAD, WHY. WHY. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

3/10 would stab self in eye.

PS: All the comments on these episodes have been “waars Fuko” “bring back Fuuuuko” etc. Fuko's arc was the worst part of this show. Hitler's arc was the worst part of history. Therefore these people are the neonazis of Clannad.

1/3/2013: Episode 3: Thank god the character design is so bad; if there were any way to tell two characters apart visually, Mei would never be fooled by this clever ruse.

Man, when they talked about Sunohara having issues with maturity, I thought they meant, like, he was irresponsible. Not that he kicks puppies and leaves lost children to starve. I kept thinking they were gonna subvert expectations with some clever explanation for him... but this show is not about subverting expectations, it is about disappointing them.

This episode is taking me forever to watch. I watch thirty seconds, pause, check the AV club. Watch thirty seconds, pause, browse reddit. I do not want to spend 24 minutes with the least likeable set of characters in this show. I do not want a camera zoomed in on the psychology of the one-note comic relief. I thought this show might have been turning over a new leaf with that first episode, but this has honestly been the least watchable episode of either season. Jeeeezus.

Wow, they're extending it another episode. Fuck my life.

Episode 4: Please. For the love of god. Mercy. Please, please, please conclude this goddamn Sunohara arc in this episode. I really thought it couldn't get worse than Fuka. She was incredibly bland, incredibly boring, incredibly cliched, incredibly manipulative, and basically an inconceivably terrible focus for a show... but at this point, I would welcome another episode of handing out starfishes and looking sad over one more goddamn minute with this repulsive comic relief asshole. Look, I don't care if he's secretly a great guy – the bad plotting and comedy have just decimated him. Because this show finds it necessary to drag every plot element and personal arc out to five times their sustainable length, he has gone TWENTY SEVEN FUCKING EPISODES being alternatively a lech, an idiot, and an asshole. I don't care! I could not care less if he dies in a ditch. The key to a redemption arc is that there is always something good in them – it doesn't have to be major, it doesn't have to be obvious, but it has to be a constant thread in their character. If they end up “saving” Sunohara here, that won't be a satisfying conclusion – they would just be replacing the character they've established with an entirely different character for the sake of a happy ending. That doesn't mean it's impossible – but it would take a heart to heart between Tomoya and Sunohara on a writing level this show has never previously displayed, as well as a subtlety it clearly has no interest in possessing. It would take a scene from one of KyoAni's good shows. And that's clearly not happening.

Fuck, I still haven't even started this goddamn episode. Moving on.

A little bit of a hint as to Tomoya's delinquent past when he describes Sunohara's history. It'd be nice to get more of this during the show – I really do like the way the director is complicit with Tomoya in breezing over both his skipping school and his avoiding his father, but the inevitable result is that you get a very incomplete picture of Tomoya's personality. I'd probably try to include a couple more moments where you get an unbiased outside perspective on Tomoya's behavior, to both define him better and more effectively highlight the really skillful work KyoAni is doing by directing this show strictly on Tomoya's terms. Not that KyoAni's experimentation with directorial voice has anything to do with why this show is popular...

...and a lot of good in the second half of this one, too. Well, first there's some nonsense with the comically evil soccer team – but that sets up both the pretty funny concept of the two delinquents taking on like ten soccer guys (it's weird that in this anime's world, that's only an impressive feat for the male characters), as well as the solidly orchestrated reconciliation. Sunohara not challenging Tomoya earlier because he actually trusts Tomoya is a legitimate point – it doesn't exclude his otherwise uniformly horrible behavior, but it does explain that act, at least. And it's always nice to see Tomoya lose his cool; one of the reasons I enjoyed watching Tonari is because an actual delinquent is a much more interesting character than an anime delinquent. It's far more compelling and human to have a protagonist who isn't uniformly good, and someone with very poor emotional control is a bold choice for the too-often incredibly bland male protagonist slot. Well, unless we're talking about some generic shonen, in which case poor emotional control is one of the top 3 desired attributes, along with likeable and stupid.

1/4/2013: Episode 5: Alright. Mei is out of the picture, hopefully forever. Sunohara has morphed back to comic relief from the Hitler of big brothers. Half a year of high school left. Let's do this.

Aw man, for a second I thought CG girl had made the robot a bitchin' motorcycle. Well, a seesaw is pretty cool too I guess.

Haven't mentioned it yet, so – I like the PV for After Story a great deal more than the first one. Neither was bad, actually, but this one really hits a good synergy between the sunset-colored nostalgic moments in the beginning and the swelling vocals, and the ending is great. That hushed part about trying to capture a memory, very appropriate for the show. Powerful stuff. One of the best things about this show is how subtle it is in building some of the major meta themes, and building a vast catalog of sharp, rose-colored memories is certainly one of them.

And Sunohara's back to being a prop for physical comedy. Okay, I know people have different tastes regarding comedy, but... I feel like every single person must have seen every single variation of physical comedy by the time they were twelve years old. There's nothing else there. It's just people getting hit. How does that continue to entertain you? It's like that imaginary hit show on South Park, “Animals Shot With Wide-Angle Lenses”. Do you have to sniff paint to find this continuously funny? IT'S THE SAME DAMN JOKE. OVER AND OVER. AND OVER. AND OVER.

And halfway through their conversation with landlord lady, it hits me; this season will be all about awkwardly inserting character arcs for the characters too insignificant to be addressed in season one. Because it's not like any human being has more than one emotional conflict inside them, or a relationship that constitutes the ostensible plot of the show could hold viewer's interest for more than three episodes straight. No, of course not, we need arbitrary plot transfusions from any character that happens to pass by. Is Key afraid of focusing that much attention on what actually matters to the story, or are they just such shitty writers that they can't fathom more than one or at maximum two emotional conflicts for any character to go through?

And now we're crazy-abruptly flashing back to Misae world, which is weird, but this story is actually better than the main one, so I'LL ALLOW IT.

1/6/2013: Episode 6. Still in the past, and stuff is still happening, and people are continuing to have conversations that progress their relationships. What nightmare world is this?

Am I allowed to make the “shitty disguises work because everyone is identical” joke again? I think if they continue to use hilariously inept disguises as plot devices, I can continue to point out how ironically brilliant that is in the context of this show. Really, all someone has to do is change their shirt or put on glasses to become an entirely new person. It would certainly fool me.

Oh man, good stuff. KyoAni with their trademark glowing drama lights at the festival, and an adorable little confession scene. This story was pretty damn effective; plot points were struck and moved past, the characters both had well-shaped personalities, the relationship moved quickly. Good stuff all around.

...and then the present rushes back in, and we get some truly weird stuff with the cat. Hm.

1/7/2013: Episode 7: And now for this week's one-note side character everyone cares deeply about: Yukine, the resource room girl. Although this promises to be kinda hilarious; casting her as the kind-hearted guardian of a wide-ranging group of delinquents is pretty inspired.

A thought: The entirely episodic nature of this show, where small issues are brought up, resolved in a couple episodes, and don't actually change the main characters in any way, reminds me of nothing so much as a shonen jump manga. Maybe the reason this show is so revered is that it's often a stepping stone for people coming off Naruto or One Piece, and people both haven't developed a censor for more emotional anime, and are more forgiving of the narrative weaknesses of this kind of structure. Although I guess this theory is basically just a less supportable version of “Babby's first drama”.

Maybe I'd be more susceptible to feeling empathy for these characters if they didn't use that same goddamn synth song every single time they're announcing it's time to feel bad.

Episode 8: Now this is interesting. With the conflict between the two gangs, and Yukine's speech at the midpoint in particular, Clannad is for the first time proposing that families can actually cause conflict and disruption, not heal it. Or maybe the key here is multiple groups – the two gangs are representative of a broken family, like what they did with autism library girl, Fuko, and Tsunohara/his sister. I'm guessing that's the inference to make here, though it would be damn impressive if Clannad actually had anything to say about the dangers of groupthink.

Second half of this one was very solid all the way through – Nagisa's power up bread was funny, the fight was sweetly animated and one of Tomoya's more fist-pumping moments, the reveal about the brother was handled in a very deft and not overstated way. Still not thrilled about all this orb of happiness nonsense, but that didn't really damage it for me.

Episode 9: Wow, it's like the episodes that are actually about progressing the plot and relationship are only a fifth as long as the other ones. Damn good stuff, really melancholy and heartwarming, with some great voice acting work by Nagisa and a couple really nice unique expressions from KyoAni. If this were the show everyone were talking about when they say they love Clannad, I'd totally understand.

1/10/2013: Episode 10: It's the little things that set KyoAni apart from basically every other studio. Tomoya asks Nagisa what class she got into, and as the camera cuts to her, her eyes track down and left just a moment before regaining eye contact – she didn't get into a class with their friends, and she knows this news will somewhat disappoint him, so she's actively thinking of the positive spin to put on the words so he won't worry. Obviously this show isn't a case study in these beautiful tiny moments the way Hyouka and Chuunibyou continuously are, but it's interesting to see that even at this early stage, KyoAni were already miles ahead of the emotional vocabulary most studios are working with.

Tomoya's reflection/montage on her early days back at school is very well done. Good dialogue and a smartly chosen collage of his daily routine.

A bunch of nice small things in this episode – the mood they create when Tomoya's looking at apartments, then just gazing over the crowd of people busy with their lives, is vivid, relatable, and far too rare in anime. Also, the effect they're going for with the Kyou/Ryou meeting is an admirable one; that weird nostalgia of meeting friends from a different lifetime. It would work better if I liked those characters more, but that's not the scene's fault.

Oh MAN. That slow, wordless face-off when Tomoya asks Nagisa's dad about living with her... what show IS this? SO well done. This is not the Clannad I've been forcing myself to watch – this is a Clannad I'd actually watch willingly. Please, PLEASE keep this up.

Yep, flawless. Start to finish, this episode was a spectacular slice of life coming of age story set at the age where things really start to matter. No dumb humor, no ridiculous conflicts or tawdry emotional manipulation, just a lot of very human scenes and really great direction and animation. Ridiculously better than the rest of the show – in fact, this is one of the best episodes of anything I've seen KyoAni do.

If we're actually done with the maudlin side arcs, this show might end up very good.

1/11/2013: Episode 11: Another great episode. No specific points really jump out at me, aside from them finally using Tomoya's overly helpful personality to very strong narrative effect. I don't know if I can justify this opinion with significant specific evidence, but in my mind he's now moved from an unrealistic VN protagonist to an admirable character doing his best with hard decisions. Nagisa is also showing strength of character, and though I never really bought any chemistry between the two of them, their mutual respect and concern is something even more rare in anime. These last couple episodes have been such an improvement that I find it kind of difficult to believe the same writer did both portions – I don't know if that's impressive or just kind of funny. He's clearly better at writing low-key life drama than high school comedy/melodrama, but I guess you gotta write what sells.

On the other hand, if the earlier parts had been successful, this transition would be that much more affecting, so I guess this is more a failure of execution than intent. Either way, I can't begrudge the artistically bountiful son for the sins of the artistically bankrupt father.


ASIDE: A blog quote regarding AnoHana that I think perfectly describes every side arc in Clannad “The problem with the show is that it just assumes that you’ll be overcome with sympathy/emotion about everyone’s circumstances, rather than making you care about them first.

1/12/2013: Episode 12: Tomoya starts off this episode by spelling out another strong distinction between this and most anime – how many shows are there that focus on the persistence, camaraderie, distant longing, and honor of blue color living? Virtually every anime character goes to college (or lives in a world that isn't developed enough to have anything but high school); someone who's making the most of an immediate working life is a huge outlier. Hell, working lives in general are a huge outlier; Genshiken begins to hint at it in the last couple volumes and the new chapters, but most anime/manga have a very, very narrow bubble. It's nice to see a show so gracefully walk outside that bubble, and it makes me hope KyoAni will tackle a slightly older protagonist in the near future. Granted, that's unlikely to happen as long as anime continues to primarily be a peddler of nostalgia and wish-fulfillment, but I can dream.

Wow. This episode was straight up incredible. Some really brilliant animation work on the singing portions, and Tomoya's slow breakdown was beautiful. What a great episode.

1/13/2013: Episode 13: Oh god fucking dammit Clannad. I mean, sure, winning her father's approval through baseball makes sense in the context of his derp-ass character, but this is still some of the most forced and arbitrary drama yet. It's not even drama, since there's no doubt about how it will end – it's just empty minutes. It's clearly trying to mirror the messages of hard work and perseverance that the actual job stuff has been working on, but when applied to the sillier side of Clannad, it's rendered ludicrous. At least it moves quickly, though, and her mom's little speech at the end is nice enough.

Oh my god drunk Nagisa is the best thing ever. This might be the first time the over-the-top comedy completely worked for me, and it's probably because her voice actress is hilarious.

Man, seeing all those side characters again really made me realize how much I didn't miss them at all. Nagisa's graduation speech was legitimately touching though, and brought up the specter of fear at the heart of this show – the need to always move on, and the paralyzing reality of impermanence. This show is all about the mono no aware – the earlier comedy and side-arc parts are clearly meant to ingrain a sense of nostalgia later on, and the girl/robot sections only hammer on this theme even harder. It's a powerful theme, and most anime go to great lengths to assuage this fear without ever addressing it. Overall, I'd say this episode lands fairly easily in the good column, with the emotional turn at the end carrying a lot of the weight.

Episode 14: A great conversation between Tomoya and Nagisa at the beginning here. But seriously, these two are the most chaste couple in the history of romance. I wonder if they're supposed to be intentionally weird in this way, or if this has more to do with otaku standards of “purity” in their characters. Considering the sick nonsense the otaku pulled with Haruhi's VA, I wouldn't be surprised if this is more about the manchild fans than the characters themselves.

I can't believe the most epic song in this show is an orchestral version of the dango theme. I mean, it works, I'm not complaining, but... seriously.

Welp! Guess all that hand-holding finally caught up with them.

1/14/2013: Episode 15: Not much to say. At this point, each episode covers as much time and plot as the first season did, which is kind of ridiculous – I wonder what KyoAni thought of the first season as they were putting these episodes together? Kind of surprised there are still 9 episodes to go, but I really hope they don't drag out the pregnancy drama through most of that; at this point, I like these characters enough that I just want to see them happily through this ordeal.

Episode 16: Could this show have any less need for a sci-fi twist? I'd be perfectly happy to have the girl/robot stuff remain a whimsical metaphor up to the closing credits; if this show suddenly veers into fantasyland in the last couple episodes...

Welp, the second half's incredible again. Eight episodes left? Considering this show's reputation among the bottom half of the anime community, I can't imagine it'll really end in tragedy after all that. We'll see.

Episode 17: Jesus christ, this opening song. I should have realized.

Well I guess this is one way all that father stuff can come full circle. Don't know how anyone could rewatch this show, all that foreshadowing is so morbid and depressing in retrospect.

The time leaping works really well here – it makes it so they don't have to sugarcoat his freefall into depression, and can simply show how much time has passed by revealing his daughter.

These scenes are devastating. I didn't come into this expecting to see uncomfortable moments of bonding between a broken man and his abandoned daughter. Incredible.

I was actually really liking the domestic interactions between Nagisa and Tomoya, and at this point liked them both a lot as characters, so it was pretty heartbreaking to see Nagisa go and no scenes of them as a family... but this is much better. The scenes between Ushio and Tomoya in this episode are probably the best thing KyoAni's ever done.

Episode 18: Oh god. So perfect. I wish so badly the bad parts of this show were cut, so anyone could enjoy this, but as is, this is basically the ultimate expression of anime – a broken thing, split between trash and glory. But this episode is so perfect.

1/15:2013: Episode 19: God, why did they have to put those nonsense lyrics on the actual screen. I could ignore the song so much more easily otherwise.

Great scene with Nagisa's parents.

Oh man, I WONDER WHO USHIO'S TEACHER IS!? Eh, that's fine, I like Kyou well enough. Having the side characters organically show up is much better than reunions, anyway – in a group setting, they end up with a very similar dynamic, but it's much more interesting to see what characters are like in smaller groups.

Wait, how old is Fuko supposed to be now? Wasn't she supposed to be in high school during her arc? So was she actually like 10 years old then and just appeared at the school because that's where her sister worked, or... is she something like 24?

HA! They actually addressed that. Well, I guess 9 in the real world is 24 in Clannad years

And resolution with Tomoya's dad is handled very gracefully. Not one of the knockout scenes, but I don't think it really could have been – Tomoya is trying to make amends to a man broken by the pressures put upon him, and like this show is perfectly willing to admit, things like that don't lead to clean happy endings. In its unwillingness to make condescending narrative choices, this show continues to outstrip virtually all other anime

Episode 20: Wow, I accidentally typed “Chapter 20” for a second there. That's how you know I'm actually respecting this show at this point.

Ushio is freaking adorable. I hate most kids in real life, and hate most characters in anime, so you'd think she'd be doomed, but not even close. She even has a distinct personality, something characters three times her age tend to struggle with.

Ahaha the boar. Amazing.

I would not have guessed twelve episodes ago that “What causes my tears to fall? It's from living too long” would be perfectly appropriate lyrics for a song accompanying this show. How time flies.

When I recommend the abridged version of this show to friends (first couple episodes and last 6 or so of the first season, first episode of this season and everything from 9 onwards), I don't think they'll believe me when I tell them 6 entire episodes were dedicated to a character like Fuko.

This hospital-on-miracle-hill shit can't be good; I'm guessing we're in for some maudlin fantasy nonsense coming up. It didn't hurt this episode, though, even though at this point I think the show's best days are behind it.

1/16/2013: Episode 21: Jesus christ, non-stop trip to tragedytown here. These characters can't catch a fucking break.

This episode's tragedy wasn't handled quite as well as the prior set, but that's partially a consequence of repeat exposure – KyoAni have played most of their dramatic cards at this point, and considering the narrative has pretty much sealed how this is going to play out (he'll decide he doesn't regret it despite the pain, he'll bring Ushio to the hospital, she'll be saved by some deus ex machina involving Nagisa and the spirit world), it's hard to feel as surprised by this turn of events. The flashback to Ushio moments was a particularly poor choice – obviously this is worse for me since I've been rushing these past few (fantastic) episodes, but even to a casual viewer, all those scenes happened within the last hour or so of show time.

Watching Tomoya see his beautiful, spirited daughter wither away was still powerful stuff

How can someone be a fan of both this and the moeblob stuff? For that matter, how can KyoAni create shows like K-On after creating something like this, something that is determined to show how the beauty of life is only ever present as it fades, that our strength in face of loss and change defines us as we grow? I like to be entertained well enough, but it is moments like these last few episodes that burn brightly long after the show has passed

Episode 22: The fuck.

MOTHERFUCKING SHIT GOBBLERS. WHAT. WHAT? WHAT?!?!? Alright, there's deus ex machina and then there's WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT WAS. SURPRISE, EVERYTHING'S HAPPY, NO-ONE HAD TO FEEL PAIN! WHAAAAAAT. THEY BRING BOTH OF THEM BACK TO LIFE. OH MY FUCKING GOD. So many stories shoot themselves in the foot with a shitty ending... this show started shitty, got awesome, and then SHOVED ITS FOOT UP ITS OWN URETHRA. WHAT. THE. FUCK. And then, as if that wasn't enough, it SOMEHOW ends with seven more minutes of the FUKO FUNTIME VARIETY SHOW. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

FUCK YOU, Clannad. FUCK. YOU.

Okay, final verdict time. Everyone says “wait till Afterstory, the first season is just to make you care about the characters,” and in a way that's sort of true. I would say the first season actually made me actively dislike most of the characters – in fact, all of the side arcs only hurt my impressions of them, and I only cared by the end by virtue of how long I'd spent watching the side characters. However, when this show is working on the primary narrative, it is some damn fine stuff. The first couple and last several episodes of the first season are dead-on good, and the second half of Afterstory (minus the flat-out awful ending) is one of the best and most unique anime I've ever seen. Minus the ending, Afterstory actually justifies every bad thing about the earlier parts – every complain I had about maudlin drama and punch-pulling meets the raw and painful, but ultimately beautiful and human reality of the adult world. Accepting a manual labor job and personal responsibility to gain self-respect and be able to support the woman you love? Slowly reconnecting with the daughter you blame for your wife's death? Learning respect for your hated father through your own trials with fatherhood? WHAT OTHER ANIME handles these ideas? Never mind with the amount of grace and careful direction KyoAni bring forward. If KyoAni actually had the balls to fuck Key's terrible storytelling and give the show the ending it deserved, I'd give Afterstory a 10/10 despite the shitty 2nd through 8th episodes with no reservations. As is, it's incredibly flawed, but the good parts are SO GOOD that I still think it's a 9/10. Alright, Clannad. You're a broken bird, but goddamnit do you try your best to fly.

As a standalone story, this alt version is much sharper than the main one - it's not bogged down by extraneous characters, the conflict is reasonable, it stretches the characters emotionally much more than the main story did, and Tomoyo is just a much better character than Nagisa. Sadly, this doesn't really make any sense outside of the context of Clannad, so it's not a real standalone work - but as a single chapter informed by the Clannad narrative, it's quite strong.

Rides on its strong character writing in spite of some pretty serious other issues. Its narrative is messy, and its humor almost always intrusively "anime-ish," but it pulls itself together in the end.

The Gurren Lagann of Death Note - make everything bigger, flashier, dumber, and more expensive, but do it out of love. This show is pure, unapologetic popcorn, and you kind of have to love it. I personally love the cast in this show, as well as the many small rivalries and skill/arms races that develop as it moves along. Also, a huge amount of the humor actually works, because treating a giant pizza or valentine's day episode with the same weight as everything else just drives home the ridiculousness of all of it in the most perfect way. You can either enjoy it ironically or just straight-up enjoy it, I've had a great time both ways. Hard not to like.

ohmygodthisissoperfect

Less tightly paced than the first season, with some slightly weaker stretches - the war just isn't as interesting at the larger scale, either, and dumbing down CC for a while is probably the worst choice the writers could have made. But there's still plenty to love, it's still a great spectacle, and Lelouch is still fun as hell to follow. No serious complaints here.

A movie that to some degree succeeds in cataloging the experience of depression, but as a film fails entirely. There is a reasonable film within Colorful, but this is not it.

One more Great Superhero Story, one that uses a mishmash world of countless heroes to engage with the nature of peace, justice, and heroism, casting its drama against a loose post-war setting. Busy as hell, but also passionate and really smart.

Second verse, just as fantastic as the first.

Essentially perfect. An incredible fusion of styles that results in perhaps the most resonant, "cool" Style of all time. Six parts noir, two parts western, two parts sci-fi, set to jazz. Characters are understated, iconic, and perfect. Stories are understated, memorable, and perfect. Music is lively, unique, and perfect. See the pattern? It's actually pretty far from my favorite show, but that's because I myself love personal stories, interiority, and close character relationships - this show isn't so much about those things, but what it is about, it is pretty much the definitive statement on. And it's not like there aren't any personal stories - and those are done with great finesse as well. And it is still one of my favorites - I'm fairly sure anyone I could ever relate to on a significant level would like this show.

Essentially a two-hour episode of Cowboy Bebop. One of the good ones, but not one of the best ones; maybe on the level of the first episode or Sympathy for the Devil. Certainly no Le Fou, Venus, or Fallen Angels, but hey, those episodes are better than basically anything than has been committed to screen period, so a solid 9 is about right.

A passable but in no way noteworthy comedy/slice of life.

More historical object than anything else. The animation in the second one is quite nice, but yeah, they're just animation showcases.

Insane semi-shounen, semi-romcom story pretty much entirely predicated on the author's love of weird fetishes. The actual narrative stuff is pretty inept and ridiculous in a so-bad-it's-good way, but the scenes of intimacy between the main two are often actually pretty effective. Still a very weird show, and the score is definitely based on unintentional entertainment, not actual merit.

A perfect, beautiful little story about family and growing up. Had me sobbing. Likely an excellent entry to the medium.

A fun, well-directed, visually distinctive ride, with absolutely nothing under the hood. Basically a popcorn entertainment short story. I feel a little awkward giving something this well-produced and ostensibly appealing such a lukewarm score, but it honestly felt way too devoid of passion or intent for me to bring it any higher. This is the ultimate score professionalism alone can earn from me.

-edit- Further discussion has proven my first response premature - the different hints along the way, as well as the structure of the story and the way it attempts to draw such a strict contrast between the two "protagonists," pretty much proves it has a larger point about perception of "goodness" in mind. And it's pretty well-articulated, though again a pretty standard fable idea. I guess I'm just biased against things which aren't about characters or their creators, but I'll still bump this one up a point.

Well-crafted story with a surprising amount of intelligence and heart. Both viscerally entertaining and thematically satisfying, with great aesthetics as well. The worldbuilding stuff is eh, but overall this is just a really high-quality production altogether.

One more adolescent, misanthrophic "the world is full of evil people and awful backstories" sulk-fest. Like I'm ready the diary of a My Chemical Romance fan.

Reaaally awkward mix of genres here. Crazy ultraviolence action mixed with silly slice-of-life romance mixed with half-baked human nature philosophy. The best thing about it was that it was so weird - it's certainly unique. The worst thing about it was that the slice-of-life stuff was borderline unwatchably bad. Once they get into the past of the characters, it improves, but jesus fucking christ do I hate these braindead moe blob characters. Can't recommend it, but there were things within it which COULD have been good, as well as several moments I actually liked, and it at least tried to be something different.

Essentially a hi-def retelling of the first six episodes, with a decent amount of interiority removed. So, a good bit of it is worse than the original, but goddamn is it pretty. The last fight is amazing, vast improvement over the show. I would always recommend the show first, though.

...interesting. The characters are still obviously great, and it's a joy to see these scenes I remember so well given a proper budget, but this volume condenses somewhere between 13 and 16 episodes into one movie, chopping out a WHOLE lot along the way. Now I'm just interested in seeing where they go from here - they've clearly set it up so the last two movies don't really have to follow the show at all.

This one gets a 9 on sheer creative audacity. It's basically a direct comment on the original series - the narrative itself is ludicrous and the settings intentionally dreamlike, and much of it acts as a series of resonant touchstones and moments that directly parallel the original series. It's utterly focused on the idea of revising the past, and seems like both a direct communication with fans of the original and a cynical, scathing indictment of the (idiots) who disliked the original.

A fairly solid fantasy-action show. The writing can be really treacly, but the action scenes and general aesthetic are gorgeous, and there's actually a pretty solid dynamic to the central characters. It's much more focused on its strengths than Fate/Zero's first half was, and though the writing is clearly a big step down, it's overall a more engaging production at this point.

An absolute disaster. UBW's second half tosses away all the strengths of the first, and focuses wholly on its undercooked, overwritten philosophical nonsense. With the story leaning into the worst excesses of the visual novel, the execution essentially has nowhere to go, and so the show collapses in on itself. A big disappointment after both Fate/Zero and the first half of UBW.

Basically just an empty action spectacle. It lacks the creative flare, direction, and momentum of something like Redline or Baccano, and its convoluted, arbitrary world leaves little room for much compelling character work (though there are a few standouts, and the craft overall is of respectable quality). It's also not really about anything, though it occasionally hints at potentially interesting ideas. Way, way too talky for how empty it is, and the fights often lack grounding as well.

Vastly superior to the first season. It actually has some thematic bite, it tackles Urobuchi's usual ideas from an interesting new angle, the characters are far more fleshed-out and developed, and the narrative actually pushes forward with a real sense of momentum. It's still kind of disjointed, and many of the characters are fairly underdeveloped, but it's also extremely ambitious. Pretty, too.

Very nearly my favorite show. Maybe the most spastically creative thing I've ever seen, a fundamentally simple but artistically diverse coming-of-age story. Alien invasion as a metaphor for feeling weird about your boners. Great character work, tons of great lines, tons of great humor, awesome action scenes and development, the most unique thing ever, and the most consistently perfect fusion of music, visuals, and story I've ever seen. My heart catches in my chest at the finale of nearly every episode. Scored by one of my favorite bands. I wouldn't mind a tattoo of the FLCL logo, this one's pretty close to my heart.

One of those rare miracle passion projects that actually come together well. A thoughtful character story expressed largely through beautiful fairy tale adventures. The ending segment hits a couple rough patches, but it's otherwise a remarkable show.

A more or less bulletproof slice of life. With some stronger animation and a couple more transcendent peaks, this could be a real classic.

Thought it'd be funny to watch this entire show. Kinda wasn't. Basically a standard KyoAni SoL muddled by crappy drama and sports it never actually commits to.

Full of interesting ideas on faith, man's desire to master his past and environment, revenge, war, and more besides, but limited by its format. The shounen structure makes it drag on about a third longer than it ought to, the character arcs likewise have more room than they need, and it's filled out with lots of rambling subarcs and lousy humor. A good show, but not a great one.

Two minutes of pure, silly animation.

Fast-paced, exciting, extremely smart exploration of all sorts of themes regarding the internet, crowdsourcing, gamification, and the nature/necessity of leadership. It has shaky moments and is slowed by an unfortunate recap, but it's about as thematically rich as shows get, and very entertaining besides. If it had actual emotional resonance too, I'd probably give it a 10.

A sequel that smartly expands on and directly challenges the messages of the first season, eventually rising to strike at more compelling points about society in general. A worthy sequel to a great series.

A fine reintroduction to Gatchaman, setting the stage for the sequel's first major conflict.

Wataru Watari versus the anime industry. Lacks the depth of characterization in Oregairu, but is full of wit, fully realized characters, and somber reflections on aging and the working life. Could certainly have used more energetic visual execution, but still a very solid ride.

A triumph of bombastic storytelling. Gorgeous direction and art design, larger-than-life storytelling, and even some sharp ideas at its core. A tremendous thing.

I know, I know, I KNOW. But seriously, this show is actually hilarious. Completely self-aware, not even close to fanservicey, and legitimately entertaining. It's a sports show about girls driving tanks that knows exactly how ridiculous that sounds, and does its best to execute it in the most entertaining and absurd way possible. Loving it so far.

Example from exactly where I am at this literal moment: The girls drive their tank to the driver's house to wake her up, firing blanks in a suburban neighborhood on their giant aircraft carrier city. They apologize to the surprised residents as they pass, getting remarks like (from an old lady) "a Panzer IV! It's been so long since I've seen one in action!" They then get their tank stuck in a traffic jam of people heading for shore leave.

Seriously. This shit is brilliant.

*edit* Now halfway through episode five. Still laughing pretty much continuously. Amazing work Japan.

*edit* Done with ten. The show is pretty hilarious throughout, but it actually tunes down the absurdity pretty much exactly in time with my investment in the story and characters. The fights against both the American and Russian team are pretty damn intense when they want to be, even though you know how they'll end - they just know to pace a good match. I'd call this show a hidden gem, but the otaku actually gobbled it up, so it'll sadly probably result in a lot of cheap imitators. But this show is pretty much the best possible version of what it is.

*edit* And done. Man! Great ride. It's got a whole ton of that Gurren Lagann fist pumping right through the end, and the last fight was just as good as the prior two. The humor disappears entirely in the final stretch, as the show no longer feels it has to convince you it's smart - you're here, you KNOW it's a well-oiled machine that loves its characters and concept, and you're gonna see it through. It never aspired to be anything more than a great, well-expressed, feel-good ride with fun, smartly written/paced sports segments and a bunch of diverse, lovable characters, but that is a great thing to have - this show is like medicine for the soul. I loved it, and I eagerly await the second season.

Two massive, delirious action scenes separated by twenty minutes of goofy narrative. One of the purest celebrations of entertainment for its own sake out there.

It's more Girls und Panzer - a light, engaging, consistently entertaining sports show. It sticks to its guns and knows exactly what it is - about as polished and solid as a popcorn show can be.

It just never gets there. The main strength of this series is the relationship between the two protagonists, but the vast majority of the runtime is dedicated to obvious mysteries and silly melodrama. Spontaneous good ideas pop up here and there, and a few specific episodes are well-designed, but the vast majority of it is just not good television. Bad writing, bad pacing, bad character development, bad structural choices... I actually didn't even have that much trouble finishing it, because I'm such a sucker for a solidly written central relationship, but even that relationship wasn't inspiring, and it basically burned every narrative bridge it built. The last couple episodes have some fairly effective dramatic moments and make some strong storytelling choices, but it isn't nearly enough to counteract the hodgepodge of disjointed nonsense that precedes it.

A thoughtful meditation on grief that happens to also be a fantasy adventure. Held down by a variety of minor weaknesses, but the core is strong.

A pretty rich story about forgiveness and self-knowledge that ultimately ends up a little too stranded in its own metaphors, cutting down on its emotional punch. The aesthetics are likewise mixed, with wonderful underlying designs being hamstrung by the awful digipaint execution, making it look like beautiful drawings stranded in crayon. A strong show, but less than it could be.

Another stellar addition to the franchise. This one's focused largely on universal issues of growing up and identity, making it perhaps Monogatari's most straightforward coming-of-age story. Smart and personal and insightful and beautiful.

http://wrongeverytime.com/2014/09/29/hanamonogatari-and-the-crossroads/

About as bottom of the barrel as "doomed girl makes boy sad" shows can get. Poorly written, poorly constructed, poorly everything. My full review:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/looking-up-at-the-half-moon/sub.dvd-complete-collection/.87680

Like if a Hot Topic shirt was given two hours to talk about its philosophy on life.

Maou is kind of a tricky beast to review, because though it’s always fundamentally a comedy, it puts on a number of specific hats throughout its run – satire, sitcom, drama, action, romance, etc. But it’s actually normally quite good at whatever it attempts; the action finales of 5 and 11/12 are fairly satisfying, the everyday life drama of the central characters is more believably slice of life than most actual slice of life shows, the characters are decently well-written (with a caveat – but I’ll get to that). The show’s overall high level of storytelling and aesthetic craft is almost certainly its greatest asset – but it can also sometimes kinda be its greatest weakness.

The base concept of Maou is a pretty obvious joke, but so are a lot of jokes – the strength of the material rests entirely in the execution. And the execution here generally shines. Maou uses all of its resources, constructing jokes out of soundtrack alone, visual cues along, tricks of pacing, tricks of dialogue, tricks of flustered expectations. Maou shows off this control within the very first episode, drawing almost all its humor out of the contrast between the direction/soundtrack (which evoke all the genre cues of a high fantasy conflict) and the actual content (Maou and Asriel causing a public nuisance, being briefly questioned by the police, and filling out paperwork). The show doesn’t always lean on this contrast in tone and content, but it’s a good trick that really makes the most of the conceit. And the aesthetic fluency isn’t the humor’s only strength – Maou works in a lot of different comedy styles, from scenes constructed entirely as deadpan genre satires and played completely straight to classic character-focused humor, sight gags, and an unending stream of pretty incredible facial reactions.

So yeah, a lot of good humor there, and the way the show can filter that humor through action scenes or drama is an excellent trick, leading to most of the show’s best moments. The flipside of that is my greatest complain with the show.

Maou toes a pretty careful line between straight comedy and slight character story/drama. Yes, it’s obviously primarily a comedy – but it also definitely wants you to care about its characters and their problems. And this presents a clash of priorities.

Humor is normally episodic, but when shows want you to care, maintaining the status quo works against that – even shows heavy on comedy like Toradora or Chuunibyou always couched their humor in scenes and episodes that progressed the character relationships and changed the overall dynamic. Though Maou starts in a similar way, the shift from episode 5 into the second arc reveals its true nature as a number of serial, stand-alone conflicts. The character relationships seem to regress back to the most friction-friendly dynamic, and their conflicts remain in limbo. This is a problem for any show that wants you to remain invested – when the conflicts are so clearly low-stakes and the relationships halted, the strings become obvious, and you begin to suffer diminishing returns both in the character’s dramatic and humor potential. Good character humor is reflective of character’s personalities and relationships – if those relationships never change, new humor cannot be mined. Additionally, serial arcs make the viewer less invested in the character’s emotional shifts – it becomes like a shounen where characters are constantly resurrected, in that dramatic turns have no weight because the viewer no longer believes changing relationships will have lasting consequences. It devalues your investment in the show. Maou is professional in all things, and its adherence to the financially stable formatting of serial light novels comes at the expense of its cohesion and meaning – sure, comedies don’t have to say something, go somewhere, or show growth, but that definitely results in a certain hollowness at the core of the show.

That said, this is all my opinion regarding what good comedies do – in my mind, comedies are always improved when they’re working towards a purpose and populating themselves with characters worth investing in. And the characters here are certainly fine, though they generally adhere to pretty standard archetypes and, as I’ve said at length, the structure does a disservice to their development. As a strict comedy, most of the episodes work well enough on their own, (with rare exceptions, like the pool/zoo episode which entirely concerns the female side of the cast walking around and comparing their boobs), though the show really shines when it’s pulling together some dramatic stakes, which lets the overwrought direction bounce off and be constantly undercut by the humor, and also generally leads to much snappier jokes than the standalones. The writing is strong, the visual design works well, the pacing and direction are generally solid, and the soundtrack is the show’s secret weapon. The show very occasionally hints at some really interesting themes regarding class society that make excellent use of the fundamental contradiction of having the Demon King as a likeable protagonist, but the way those themes are inherently linked to the progression of Maou and Emi’s relationship makes it impossible for the show to actually explore them without resolving issues it is not interested in resolving.

Overall, Maou is what it is – a confident, well-constructed comedy with a likeable cast of characters and unusually good and well-used aesthetic strengths. It’s not ambitious or deeply felt, but it’s not trying to be – it’s smart, consistently rewarding entertainment.

Heavy on style, light on substance. I like the idea of a plot centered on hesitantly accepting being a vampire, and I like the surrounding characters, and Alexander Anderson is a sweet villain. I also like Alucard being portrayed as this nigh-unkillable elder god of a demon, as well as how his attitude towards fighting bends between crazy glee/carnality and this solemn respect for competition. The ending is an abrupt mess though, and completely gives up on the glorious Nazi-centric nonsense the manga veered into.

Easily KyoAni's best show since Hyouka. Smartly plotted, full of nuanced, dynamic characters and the small personal moments that KyoAni excel at. A visual wonder as well, full of gorgeous backgrounds, smartly framed shots, and beautiful animation. Just an all-around exceptional drama.

Messier than the first season due to questionable source material, but certainly not enough to knock it down a grade. Still one of the most beautiful and well-observed character dramas out there.

A solid action-adventure show with endearing characters, great fight choreography, and some lightly explored themes regarding post-war societies. Not the most ambitious or creative, but it doesn't need to be - it's just genuine, reliable entertainment.

More Chaika, basically. This season dawdles a bit in the middle episodes, and the ending is very rushed, but overall it's still just an endearing adventure show with nice characters and great fight scenes. Nothin' to it.

Makoto Shinkai's first work is an impressive accomplishment, but judged as a standalone piece, it doesn't really hold up. Although his stylish backgrounds are already in place, they're used in service of a fairly lightweight story; the premise is interesting, but not that much is done with it, and the space conflict stuff only detracts from the piece. It's interesting, and I could see someone really liking it, but it's very clearly the work of an underdeveloped writer.

Excellent, beautiful little love story. Perfect fairy tale structure, beautiful backgrounds and music, enchanting characters - the 40 minute vignette format is a wonderful thing, and this story kills it.

One of the less Ghibli films, meaning it's only a beautiful, timeless story that dwarfs the achievements of virtually any other modern film. A little more busy and disjointed than many Ghibli films, but the world it takes place in is lush and otherworldly yet totally believable, and some of the visual setpieces rank among their best. The cast is also great. Basically as good as it could be without being transcendent.

An overwhelmingly good shounen that elevates its entire genre. The direction and aesthetics are crisp and evocative, the characters are dynamic and engaging, the story compelling, the themes acute - it's just a staggering accomplishment in general. It was hard to let go of this show.

http://wrongeverytime.com/2014/08/04/imperfect-beings-hunter-x-hunter-and-the-chimera-ant/

I was hesitant to bump this up to a 9, but I pretty much had to. The subtlety of the character development, the absurd care KyoAni takes in the animation and design, the triumphant last third of the show... these are all 10-worthy; it just starts slow. I actually dropped it at first and had to pick it up again; the mysteries do nothing for me, but as soon as the various pieces of the characters internal conflicts locked into place, I was hooked. Very few shows have such a universally likable cast, and very few shows have such a vivid visual presence, made even more distinctive for being used on such an everyday world. Alright, KyoAni. Show me what's next.

Harmless romcom that fumbles whenever it actually attempts romance.

A very unnecessary bonus episode.

Way more cerebral than the first film, but that's not a bad thing. Do not watch this high or drunk, you will get nothing out of it.

A very fun movie-length music video for one of the best albums of all time. It's just a ride, but it's quite a good one. I really, really, really wish more albums got this exact treatment, but if there's only going to be one, Discovery is certainly an excellent choice.

A reasonable light drama that's too gentle on its characters to really end in a successful/satisfying manner. Very solid visual execution though.

A fairly unique, very visually distinct, somewhat disjointed dark comedy. Outside of the final arc, there is virtually no traditional character work here - it proceeds as a series of comments on aspects of society and humanity, along with a few wacky adventures courtesy of the tiny fairies that provide most of the best ideas and lines in the show. Overall it's clever and enjoyable, but never terribly significant or emotionally affecting, and somewhat uneven. Still, it's definitely good overall, and I'm sure other people would enjoy it even more than I did.

Completely insane and hilarious and fun the whole way through. Wonderful art direction and actual direction, great sound design, deliriously over-the-top plotting and dialogue. Extremely strict popcorn, but possibly the best show to watch with friends and drinks there is.

Much less propulsive and exciting than the original season, but still very funny and endearing.

Totally redeems Stardust Crusaders in a bravura display of exciting fights and ridiculous drama. The fight storytelling and execution return to the highs (and beyond) of S1, making Egypt Arc an indispensable continuation of the ridiculous JoJo saga.

Likely the overall best season of JoJo yet - easily the strongest cast, a far more creative set of Stands, and a great mix of goofy nonsense and legitimately thrilling battles. Morioh feels like an actual world, and is certainly a place I'll miss.

Noteworthy largely for its sharp character writing, which naturally contrasts a variety of philosophies and social perspectives through the natural articulation of a rich cast of characters. It engages with class opportunity, faith, and conflict, but unfortunately can't quite pull it all together - the ending sadly handwaves a lot of its complexity. Still a very enjoyable and smart show full of well-constructed characters.

Half-trashy half-stylish action movie with some extremely iconic set pieces. The fight in the bamboo forest is one of my favorite action sequences in anime.

Slice of life with somewhat repetitive but endearing comedy and bewilderingly good execution.

An improvement on everything the first season was good at. Consistent humor, tremendous sense of atmosphere, and some actual emotional heft to the conclusion. Essentially the standard bearer for what great slice of life/comedy can be.

A mediocre episode purely designed to set up the K-On! movie.

A mess, but a fun mess. The writing is so bad it's distracting, but in its better moments, it definitely captures that Code Geass momentum and sense of fun. It's also very pretty.

I'm only three episodes into this one, but there's already so much to talk about. The central conceit of this show is the same one as School Days - what if a real person was put in the center of a harem world - but the execution is the complete opposite. Where School Days was relentlessly mean-spirited, pessimistic about human nature, and uncomfortable even from the first episode, this show clearly loves people and loves life.

First, the main character is great, which is both the most important thing and the most often failed thing in shows like this. The MC is not painfully awkward or a blank slate - he's just disinterested, but actually fairly confident and charming, and his Light Yagami impression when he's explaining the rules that their world ACTUALLY WORKS UNDER is amazing. The satire is playful but doesn't pull punches, which is important, because the classic VN concept of a guy who goes around fixing broken birds is incredibly problematic. In this show, yeah, everyone's emotional lives resolve around fixing one big hangup or whatnot, but all this guy does is give them their big breakthrough and then DISAPPEAR FROM THEIR MIND ENTIRELY. Instead of being some kind of creepy caretaker, he's actually forced to play fairy godfather (lampshaded in the second arc), and he has mixed feelings about this.

Lots of little things too, like "I can see the ending" - who doesn't get that feeling constantly while watching anime?

What I'm REALLY interested in is where this show will go (or would go, if it doesn't get there) when it stops doing monster of the week sketches. Will he ultimately feel uncomfortable with his own power? How would he act if he no longer had to gather souls? I don't know if the world they've constructed could handle too much prodding or exploration, but I like this author's take on the tropes of anime, so I'd like to find out.

*edit* I'm on episode 10 now. Still lots of great stuff, but this recent arc has been particularly great because the girl's inner monologue is so painfully realistic. Why don't more shows do this with their socially lacking characters?

*edit* And finished. The last act was actually really strong as a story, not just as a comedy, and then the final episode was goddamn hilarious. That awful song... anyway, this was probably the most enjoyable straight anime comedy I've watched. They had a variety of jokes, and Elsie's semi-tolerant appraisals of Keima's strategies are great. Maybe even more important was that Keima and Elsie are just both great characters, and not at all the typical leads for high school anime. Plus the concept is a loving deconstruction, which is normally a good thing. I give it the highest score awardable for a straight comedy.

Second verse, same as the first.

But seriously, this show has a bunch of solid jokes, some well articulated character arcs, and, most critically, a very strong understanding of the medium's genre tropes, which it alternately eviscerates and articulates with great finesse. It's not great art, but it's a damn solid version of what it is.

Addendum: While this season didn't have anything as dramatically transcendent as the first season's last arc, it did do some excellent work in maintaining the arc-based format while playing with the core parameters of the system - a character already in love with someone else (so Keima's powers are forced into use seducing a man instead), a character who's actually just a standard person and not a trope, a character who's trying to fix Keima while he's trying to fix them. They never really reach any great fundamental insights by using these variations, but I appreciate the effort.

Completely blows the first two seasons away. In addition to being funny and witty, this season actually adds real character growth and powerful relationship drama, turning TWGOK into the first successful and resonant takedown of anime wish-fulfillment romance. An affecting and very relevant work.

Fairly decent sub-arc which introduces a little needed complexity to this world. It's very strange to watch a show like Code Geass or Gosick, where the protagonist is supposed to be a genius but never demonstrates that, and then watch something like this where the protagonist casually makes logical narrative deductions and executes simple but well-realized schemes. Writing is weird.

Basically just an early draft for Makoto Shinkai, it seems. Too inconsequential to even really critique.

Legacy is a funny thing. It can inspire the greatest acts of artistry or heroism, but has no tangible form. It can form the cornerstone of societies or empires, or just as easily lead to their ruin. It can inform all our actions, but when our actions are reduced to mere history as well, what does legacy leave us?

Katanagatari has somewhat mixed feelings on the concept. Its’ two central characters, Togame and Shichika, are each agents of legacy in their own way - Togame’s desire to avenge her father fuels her mission, and Shichika himself stands as a living representative of his family legacy, the sword style Kyoutoryuu. Beyond his nature as a “sword,” his priorities mirror Togame’s - at the beginning of the series, he can only be roused to anger by insults to his father’s home and school, and he initially falls for Togame specifically because of her apparent dedication to her father. The fact that his father was directly responsible for the death of her own does not enter the equation - after all, his father was a mere sword performing its’ duty, and the grudges of that sword’s owner have nothing to do with the sword itself.

On that note, swords are also kind of a big deal in Katanagatari. The central narrative of the story concerns the collecting of the Twelve Deviant Blades, mystical weapons forged by the charlatan Shikizaki playing his own legacy-focused games. But clearly the show’s definition of a sword is somewhat unique - one “sword” is actually a suit of armor, another a pair of pistols, and, most critically, Shichika considers himself a sword. So what’s their definition here?

It’s actually pretty simple - a sword is a weapon. It is a tool for inflicting your will upon the world. When Shichika says he is Togame’s sword, he means it - at the beginning of the series, he is merely an extension of her will, with no individual agency, morality, or doubts. In being her sword, he is performing the secondary duty of being his father’s sword - for it was his father who dictated he take up the Kyoutoryuu style, and who decreed that the legacy of their family would be to exist as swords and nothing else. Shichika’s slow path from sword to human is the central character arc of the series, and the markers of this journey crop up constantly throughout. In the second episode, after being called off by Togame from mercilessly killing some bandits, he frankly asks her if that’s some specific mainland custom. In the third, his will as a sword proves unbreakable even if the face of Meisai’s compassionate plea on behalf of her mission and shelter. But slowly, the influence of Togame and the others he passes begins to change him, and he discovers compassion, mercy, humor, and love - marks not of a sword, but of a human being.

Few characters in this series fare so well. Despite her passion and her own wielding of Shichika, Togame is ultimately no more than a sword herself. It is legacy itself that wields her - she is simply an instrument of her father’s wishes, and her actions are calculated to seek revenge and exercise his will without mercy or restraint until the very end. In spite of this, she learns to love Shichika as well - but her love is used as one more tool in service of her father’s legacy, and it is only at the end, when her hopes of fulfilling that role are dashed, that she allows herself to embrace her love for him. Even that small admission might classify her as one of the lucky ones - legacy’s stern hand leads most characters in the show to ruin, as Togame’s quest leads them from one dying family name to another, seeking the swords that act as both lightning rods for legacy’s ambitions and markers of their dying era. In a show obsessed with swordsmanship and the ephemeral nature of legacy, it is fitting that the very last sword is a pair of pistols - fitting as well that their first mission finds our heroes assaulting a once-great castle, now buried by sand. The way the weight of history’s passage itself is contrasted against the individual weight of family name and expectation that nearly every character labors under is just one of Katanagatari’s many tragic parallels.

Ultimately, despite her growing love for Shichika, Togame is undone by her inability to forget the past and become a human herself. Her last act as Shichika’s master is to order him to forget her and move on - fortunately, by that point, he is no longer a sword at all, and as a human he is not bound to obey. Instead, he makes the human choice to break the cycle, dying if he must, and ending both the personal grudges that doomed Togame and the corrupting influence of Shikizaki’s meddling legacy. In the last act, he destroys Shikizaki’s swords entirely, along with the fake empire they installed and the last of the great swords, Emonzaemon the retainer. Emonzaemon and the Princess Hitei act as constant foils to our protagonists throughout, and in the end it is the two who have abandoned the pull of legacy who survive - Shichika, who has finally become a full human, and the Princess, who herself admits she does not care how her ancestor’s legacy is resolved. After the dust has settled, Shichika emerges as his own man - though the scars of his love for Togame match her own distinctive eye, that love is his own choice, and what he does with it he will do as a human being.

As far as the boring review-ish concerns go, Katanagatari has an incredibly distinctive and frankly beautiful visual style, and is peppered with stylish and well-directed moments of brief action. It seems odd to mention costume design in an anime review, but here it’s just incredible - each character has their own specific theme and aesthetic, and many of them are also thematically relevant (Shichika’s autumn leaf dancing briefly as it falls and Togame’s constant encirclement by the self-devouring serpent being two of the highlights). The soundtrack is eclectic and excellent, and the dialogue is distinctly Isin while also being much more focused in its character illumination and thematic elaboration than he tends to be. His style is clearly an acquired taste, and there’s definitely an argument against his method of slow, circuitous storytelling, but all the elements of this show work towards the same goals, and I believe that the show’s meditative pacing ultimately works to its benefit. Characters reflect each other in their journeys and beliefs (honestly, I’ve only begun to scratch the various parallels here), the personal themes reflect the universal ones, and the construction of the whole builds gracefully out of each individual story, making Katanagatari work as a eulogy for an entire era of swordsmanship and legacy while also telling an achingly personal story of love and self-discovery. It is beautiful and creative and absolutely uncompromising. I don't really have any complaints.

Basically an introduction to the themes and characters Miyazaki would keep returning to for the next twenty years. As usual, it'd be pretty hard not to like this, and we don't have much to discuss if you do.

Certainly can't compare to Kyousogiga, and falls apart significantly in its second half, but overall it's a solid action-adventure with some really great aesthetic flair.

No CG show for children has any right to be this good.

A fun trifle that makes great use of Yuasa's visual creativity.

Romeo and Juliet with mechs. Pretty much. I remember loving this, but I haven't seen it for years and years, so who knows. Much more visceral than most mech shows - the war shown here is not glamorous or heroic, it's just a dangerous job. The battle against the heroine's guard at the end might be my favorite fight ever. The entire series, it's been a group of regulars staging guerrilla missions - now, for once in their lives, they have to fight a PILOT, an ace, a true artist with his mech. And he just utterly destroys them. Beautiful to watch, much more so because it comes after so much scrambling and stealth and whatnot. Also, the ace short-circuits the mech arm of the hero, and so the hero RIPS THE ARM OFF AND BEATS HIM WITH IT. Who can't appreciate that?

A visually arresting shounen that lacks the weight, tension, thematics, or character work to really generate actual investment. It's funny, the aesthetics are strong, and the direction is energetic, but the second half drags and it lacks the weight even stuff like Gurren Lagann possesses. Still fun, though.

Shinkai finally nails it. A film that perfectly blends his romantic and music-lead style with a compelling story and great characters. Just wonderful.

This show is not flawless, but it often goes beyond it. A collection of perfectly compressed and beautifully illustrated fables with scattered and contradictory morals, where the only constants are ambiguity, luck, and the hope to live another day. Kino and Hermes are fantastic characters. The messages are deftly illustrated and fraught with beautiful moral and human ambiguity. The worlds are creative and starkly drawn. The mood is incredible. The work is a triumph.

**MY EPISODE NOTES**


Kino's empathetic but analytical and extremely driven personality, Hermes' detachment and slight inhumanity, the understated but sharply defined visual aesthetic, the sparse but vivid and evocative dialogue... every component of this show makes it clear that it was composed by a team of driven, creative professionals who know exactly what they want to create, despite the existence of very little precedent for this style of show. There are certainly artistic touchstones – some of the flair and style seems reminiscent of Cowboy Bebop, the character designs adopt certain modern (well, 2003 modern) tropes while clearly evoking angular, Tezuka-esque figures, the heavy filters bring to mind any number of psychologically focused anime... but the sum of these parts is something very distinct. And it works. It all works. On the aesthetic front, I have zero complaints.

But what I'm interested in here is the stories it is trying to tell. And so far, the key theme here is “everything is ambiguous. And that's okay.” The first episode spells this out directly (in big block letters, no less) – the final statement of the episode is “the world is not beautiful, therefore it is.” Meaning, the imperfections of human nature (because for all the aesthetic beauty, this is clearly a show about human nature) are what lend us poignancy and individuality – humanity. Without the thousand tiny cracks of our broken nature, we would not be the beautiful creatures we are.

I don't know if I've ever seen a show less interested in easy answers. The first episode tells a brief love story, raises the strong point that full understanding of our nature would make us unable to achieve the compromises necessary to stand each other, and then... ends. There is no solution or resolution. There is simply a moment of simple empathy between Kino and the man who can now only speak honestly to her, and then it is over. Not only does it not resolve the love story, but the actual moment of emotional catharsis is essentially a cheat for this man – all it is willing to say is that two people who do not understand each other can feel empathy for each other. And then Kino moves on.

The second episode is the one that really drives this ambiguity home, and is the one that convinced me I should probably be conserving a note or two about this show. Because seriously, this episode is a tour de force. The first philosophical question Kino raises regards the relative worth of a life – she states that she understands that animals die for her own continued survival, but she has to rationalize her choice to kill animals for the sake of these three ambiguous men. Neither of the answers she arrives at have any real moral grounding (at least from the perspective of the show) – the first one is simply that she values the lives of her own species more than that of others, and the second is that she would not like to be devalued and abandoned if the same situation happened to her. Her raising this question in the first place obviously indicates she has strong feelings about the morality of killing... but her conclusions are purely practical, and do nothing to address the moral issues at stake. What conclusion can anyone draw from this? As I've said before, I love shows that raise difficult or evocative questions, even if they can't answer them – and this show seems to intentionally calibrate its questions for maximum ambiguity.

And then the conclusion inevitability strikes, where Kino learns these men she has killed for are actually slavers, and her benevolence will not save her from their practical needs. Even here, in a moment where villains seem ready to present themselves, ambiguity reigns supreme.


Episode 5: an interesting thought exercise in the nature of work and the nature of purpose. Three men are engaging in what is fundamentally useless labor, but it appears as purposeful work and they are doing it for the people they love. Meanwhile, in the country where nobody has to work, people engage in overtly useless labor to stave off feelings of meaninglessness and indulge in the stress and work ethics that seem key to their idea of living. Meanwhile, Kino simply travels, but is unable to answer when asked for a destination – is her labor any more purposeful than theirs? She seems to enjoy it, but the three railway workers seemed happy in their own way as well – and they're not left with any lingering doubts.


Episode 7: Doing some fun stuff here. The play at the beginning pokes at the subjective nature of lessons imparted through art – and isn't that what Kino's Journey is entirely about? But this also ties in well with the show's insistence on the ambiguous nature of truth and morality – by adding this play, not only are the conclusions to be drawn from the show's stories still ambiguous, but the manipulative nature of the stakes and situations used in these stories is directly addressed. Sure, it's lampshading of a sort, but I actually think the fundamental nature of the stories presented here works very well for illustrating the core ideas involved, and because of that, this playing with the nature of fabricated narrative comes across almost as... double dishonest? As in, it's drawing attention to the fact that the stories are dishonest, but the show already knows and has accepted that, so it's really drawing your attention away from the actually fascinating questions these dishonest stories raise? Bam bam bam.

Also, there's the question of whether this entire play was put on as a farce designed to torture the King's son. Which would add a subsequent level of deception I don't even want to talk about.

Kino, the allegedly impartial but undeniably human observer, groveled to by a king. A striking image. One of many.

It's not that surprising, because this show was previously completely uninterested in building characters, but now that it is, it is using the exact same methods that it uses to build questions to great effect. The broadest possible strokes, but painted with a vivid palette, and articulated in the fewest and most well-chosen words possible. It's also really awesome to see Kino get mad – her slow burn and those lazy, low-hanging eyes. What a great character.

“I don't know if the world is beautiful, but it sure is big.” Hah! Hermes provides the perfect asterix to the show title. That's pretty much all we're willing to agree on here, isn't it?



Episode 8: Not really related to this episode (although it's a solid but lesser one, though I like the representation of inspiration striking), but when Kino and the episode MC were talking, I felt so thankful I was watching the sub and not the dub. I just know the dub would give one of them a frustratingly perky and overtly squeaky or feminine voice – here, they're both distinctive, but the ambiguity of the tone plays nicely with this show's utter disregard for gender roles. I should probably think more about what that ubiquitous full-length dress is trying to say – it shows up too often to not be a meaningful world or theme-building choice


BAM. Nevermind, this episode in one tiny exchange hit that exact perfect note of ambiguity I love it for. Her fiance, who truly does love her, is still a prisoner of his culture's patriarchal ideals – he doesn't understand what makes her different, and wants to communicate with her, but is frightened and unable to truly connect with her. She understands this, and doesn't begrudge him for it, but it is an impasse that cannot be bridged

And then it flies. What an inspiring moment. And then she lands, and embraces her fiance, and the rest of the village is distanced by this – but because they have that human connection of love and respect that crosses paradigms, he also doesn't understand why they are bowing. There is no distance for him.

This show is so... warm? It's got this inherent optimism that shines through such terrible truths of humanity. I guess this episode, and Kino herself, represent that spark of human spirit that can rise over countless tragic waves of human nature

And then Kino's final conversation with Hermes terribly complicates all these ideas once again. So she didn't believe it could fly – her optimism and curiosity led her to aid the woman, not her empathy. And then, “but anyway, it flies! It's like magic!” - is this supposed to chastise the audience for looking down on the villagers? Because from their perspective, yes, she is a crazy lady – why wouldn't they think this?

I think her embracing her fiance is the key to this episode's true message. I think that message is, “human brilliance will shine brightly once in a great while, but only human empathy will guide humanity towards that light”


Episode 9: “How do you judge if a book is harmful or not... and who does the screening?” It's nice that Kino immediately skewers their entire philosophy in her first sentence after hearing it.

A thematic strain here that carries from the Land of Adults – only those who've been exposed to a wider world can lament their smaller cage. A caged body can always escape – but a caged mind can create a society of prisoners, and the only way to cage the mind is to keep people from learning other ways of thinking. This is one of the few themes that seems unambiguously promoted by the show. They picked a good one.


I don't even know where to start with this book-inside-a-book-inside-an-anime-inside-your-head shit


Dear christ is this show getting meta. I really do love the author's speech – everyone lives in a fantasy where they are the main character, but the world disagrees. And the escape he presents – become the author – is not the only one. Isn't the act of reading, of media consumption, an escape – either to stories where you empathize and thus become the main character, or stories where you simply consume without risk, with total prescience – as a god?


The critic's criticisms are vague, but could easily apply to Kino's Journey. Probably intentional


Interesting. The ending provides something of a counterpoint to the episode – that is, it is important to draw your own conclusions, and you can miss out on your own story through either the escapism of loving books or the imagined power of disdaining them. In the end, the authorities were right about those people – they truly did just want to embody their favorite characters. I think the only final lesson is “fiction is powerful, and in a way it is real.” But honestly, this is the first episode that sometimes felt beyond me. I'll have to watch it again.


Episode 10: Another brutal episode. I don't even want to think about what it all means. These lessons are painful


Episode 11: More cynical, contradictory vignettes. Violence begets violence. Idealism may inspire hope or love, but those things can easily beget more violence.

Man, even at the beginning of this episode I was thinking, “when will we get the story of Kino's training? Who made her into such a stone-cold badass?” AND THEN THEY FREAKING TAUNT ME with the introduction of this badass gunslinging old lady before saying that's a story for another time. Screw you, Kino

“The most important thing is to not die” - a couple ways I could take this. First, given the events of the last episode, it might be because our own existence is the one thing we can take for granted, although I don't even know if this show would be willing to concede “I think, therefore I am.” Alternately, it could be talking about the ambiguity of knowledge in a different way – in that, only through endless experiences can we hope to find truth, and we must live to experience these things

“I've heard that a wise man lives here. Are you the wise man?” Does this show have the most nuanced and progressive gender politics or does this show have the most nuanced and progressive gender politics. I have NEVER, EVER seen that question asked so earnestly to a recipient so classically unlikely to be assigned that role. I freaking love everything about this show

Ohohoho MAN, WHAT would the buddhists think of THIS shit? To be self-conscious is to be human – I mean, I fully agree, but I can't see how this isn't a direct condemnation of no-self. In the absence of our selfish desires, we simply become animals? It's like the show is now aware of the labels petty critics might throw at it, and is dismantling them one after another

All these people, so impressed by his inability to feel anything, to desire. Could you maintain your desire for a productive life and better world without maintaining your selfish desires as well? Is there any fundamental difference in the generation of those desires?

And then the “real blue sky” pretty much confirms a lot of my thoughts – there is no destination. There is no brass ring. There is no end to selfish desires, or to striving for more, or to seeking greater understanding. There is only the journey.

Holy shit that's the point of the show. How fucking stupid am I, that I didn't realize her journey is a metaphor for the search for real truth?

Actually, I don't feel stupid at all. I feel much smarter than I used to. This show feels like it's been instrumental in coaching my critical thinking skills – the messages are never truly hidden, but they do require parsing and thought. And so, for me, Kino's Journey has been a very enlightening country

And that blessed ambiguity comes back at the end. Their experiments are ultimately a failure, and the human spirit prevails – not only does the wise man regain his sense of self, but the girl who's supposedly a “success” both feels empathy for the man, and something resembling jealousy or ambition – her final actions betray her wish to understand, her desire to achieve. Enlightenment is a false goal, but enlightened humanity is an equally admirable and unachievable one


Episode 12: Huh. This is the first time I've realized “Persuader” wasn't just the word for her hidden gun – all guns are referred to as persuaders. Which is awesome, and makes total sense for this show. Most truths are ambiguous, but when there is a gun pointed in your face, truth can be no more than whatever will let you live to the next moment – might can be the same thing as rightness. Only death is certain. This rings really nicely with the previous episode's “make sure not to die” - that is the one thing you can be certain of.


This idea is brutal. It takes the traditional idea that it is man's currently useless testosterone and need to prove their masculinity that causes war, and complicates it by saying the female instinct cannot change this, but will “solve” this by directing the violence to a third party – that the only difference between the sexes is a lack of testosterone, not an abundance of feminine empathy. The empathy only extends to their immediate family

There's also the incredibly brutal rebuke of our current wars – we too have discarded weapons that are too effective at killing people, because our current wars are far more symbolic than desperate. We murder to control, to prove points and make the populace feel safe or powerful, or to strong-arm opponents into giving us resources or diplomatic concessions – we do not fight the wars of self-defense, where any advantage would be taken because the battle is actually for our lives. Of course, people on both sides do die – but the people demanding the wars never do

The next point it makes – that all versions of jingoistic “us versus them” mentalities are really just mental extensions of the preference a mother would show to her children. Which we call noble, but is really just as much an animal instinct as the excess of testosterone and desire to expand and multiply that prompts unneeded conflict in the first place

That ending is powerful, but I'm not sure what to make of it. The violence begets violence stuff is obvious, but that unanimous reaction to the revolver firing... I don't know


Episode 13: It's finished. A clear parallel for Kino in a kind country is taken away. Even their kindness was an affect to give them a legacy – to instill the weight of their lives in Kino. They make sure Kino lives, but it is for the sake of their own legacy, and it is only Kino's luck that she was born to her own life, as opposed to this bright and determined other child. The journey continues

A strange little story, concerning Kino's training with her master. It's really nice getting a glimpse of both Kino's early days and her master as a person - it's pretty easy to see how Kino grew into her current self under the tutelage of a person like this. The actual conflict, concerning Kino's desire to follow up on the original owner of her name, is a bit thornier, and doesn't really resolve itself with tremendous grace. That said, more Kino's Journey is pretty much always a good thing.

Another great episode of Kino's Journey. It's actually one of the better tier ones, I just don't want to clutter my 10s list with all these Kinos. As always, the tower's construction deftly illustrates the fundamental unanswerable questions of the show, distilling human exertion into effort with no real purpose beyond being effort to perhaps give us purpose. The things we do define us and give us value, seemingly even if those things do not have inherent value. Perhaps an unquestioned life is best - perhaps even a life of questioning is fundamentally no different from that life, as the end result may not be different. Perhaps only doing is valuable, be it questioning or sculpting art or building a tower that will only live to be destroyed in one cathartic moment.

Starts strong, but ends up dithering in side drama and collapsing on itself in a variety of ways. Ends up just being one more underwhelming action blockbuster.

Shoots for the stars and lands somewhere in the atmosphere, similar to many other Okada works. Doesn't really come together, but the great direction and wonderful characters do a lot of work.

Takes all of the manic interiority that defines Monogatari and expresses it wholly through visuals and sound design. A remarkable achievement of mood and vision.

Somehow possibly the horniest entry in the entire Monogatari franchise. Other qualities: incredibly gorgeous animation, a great articulation of Araragi and Hanekawa's unique friendship, and astounding art design in all regards. Also contains one of the best fight scenes in anime. Goddamn.

Definitely the messiest of the Kizu films, courtesy of adopting too little material and relying on too much CG. Still a terrific time.

An extremely strong domestic slice of life marred by some straight-up awful comedy.

Very solid but unspectacular adolescent drama. Treats its characters as people, though it somewhat flubs the landing. Definitely worth a watch.

A competent light novel comedy with some actual jokes. Dragged down heavily by its obnoxious protagonist, but still witty enough to almost be watchable.

Pandering nonsense with occasional really funny moments and one or two actually smartly written scenes. Still, there's virtually nothing here, and I almost can't believe I actually finished it. The last episode really drove home how absolutely terrible this shit is.

A generally above-average romantic comedy, with a fairly strong cast, some really sharp and poignant moments, and a sharp, cynical edge that it sadly only sustains for its first third. After that, it enters a dark period of generic high school comedy nonsense... fortunately, it pulls itself together in the last act to end as a fairly respectable example of the genre. The writing is solid, the characterization is both distinct and occasionally subtle, it has a few interesting ideas... in general, it's basically Ano Natsu's frumpier, wittier younger sister.

Sharply produced sci-fi action movie with a dash of transhuman philosophy. The Major is a pretty damn compelling character. Just a good film overall. Not much to connect to though.

A very pretty trainwreck of a dark fantasy/moe Frankenstein's monster. The various pieces clash against each other, the tone is wildly inconsistent, the characters are never developed well enough to make any of the emotional beats land (and some of them WOULD land, too!), and the ending is a pile of gobbledygook that goes nowhere and then invalidates itself. There are pieces of a good show here, and the humor (both intentional and unintentional) is often pretty good, but it's a mess.

A reasonable prequel episode. Not great, not bad.

This show is like the Bobobo of Code Geass. Incredibly derp, and the plot couldn't be more poorly explained (which is kind of sad, because the back story is a pretty cool idea and not actually very complicated, but also kind of fitting with how ridiculous everything else is), but as a palate cleanser it definitely does the trick. What makes this better than a show like Baka no Test is the sheer amount of STUFF thrown at the viewer - factions, characters, moods, fights, costumes, plots - it's clear that the writer of these light novels is pretty aspergers for worldbuilding. What makes it still a 5 is...

Wow, now that I'm actually considering it, I realize it's JUST the boobs. This would actually be like a 6 or a 7 on the humor of the scattershot plot pandering alone, but dear god those boobs kill it. Why? WHY? It'd be like if every male character in every scene had a two-foot erection and nobody ever drew attention to it. There is nothing more aggravating.

So actually, in truth this is a 6 or 7 of really stupid popcorn entertainment, heavily sabotaged by the embarrassing character designs. And the funny thing is, outside of those characters, the designs are actually one of the STRONG points - you certainly won't mistake any character for any other in this show. They really took the "anything goes" character design mantra and ran with it - their class has an angel, a devil, a mechanical dragon, a... pink blob... yeah.

So, despite the score, I'm actually enjoying it. It's certainly dumb, but it's a gleeful, incredibly self-indulgent, incredibly overwritten kind of dumb, which is generally the best kind. I'd watch fifteen shows like this before one more like Another.

Pretty much strictly an animation/design showcase. The narrative is intriguing but ultimately pretty threadbare.

Gorgeous, creative, well-written, fantastically directed family story. Pretty much an instant classic.

A very evenly accomplished, extremely fun, visceral ride of an episode. This one clearly has a lot of the creator within it; the way it talks about unabashed, melodramatic, gaudy heroes as inspiring the protagonist's own heroism could basically be considered this director's manifesto. And that's really endearing, and everything within this is pretty beautiful and well-structured narrative-wise, and it's basically just an incredibly pure, vivid form of entertainment.

Another fine slice of charming characters and visual wonder, entirely in the same vein as the original.

A generally entertaining romp with plenty of the interesting social bite that made Maoyuu so compelling. The aesthetics are only serviceable and the show goes through weak stretches, but it's pretty great comfort food all the same.

Likely superior to the first season. Builds on the established world to engage in more compelling material, and directly interrogates the motivation that brings its characters to play MMOs. Standout moments like William's speech and Tohya's finale demonstrate the show at its smartest and best, and there are even some animation highlights. Log Horizon's built into a very worthy show.

You never forget your first harem anime, I guess. The TV show was one of the first anime I saw, and I loved the characters then, but the manga really brought them to life, and probably has a great deal to do with my current doomed taste. The first series to actually show the couple post-"will they or won't they," which needs to happen more often. I wouldn't recommend the show now, but the version of the manga that I nostalgically remember is one of the most Feel-drenched romances I've seen or read. The humor is dumb, obviously, and most moments are cliches, but I really believed in the friendship that was built between the two main characters. Basically taught me that the only things that will appeal to me personally are stories of two people coming to tolerate, then like, then love each other. What else is there?

A three episode OVA that attempts to condense roughly 40 chapters of the manga while maintaining a focus on the manga's least-necessary or likable character and abusing the OVA format to shove in even more gratuitous and unnecessary fanservice. The last ten minutes of this knock it up two stars, since it actually does give the series some well-designed closure, but seriously, just read the freaking manga. Sure, Ken Akamatsu is still a pervert there too, but fanservice in manga is skimmable, just like the bad parts of shonen shows.

Obviously you have to care about the characters to get anything out of it, but if you're already on board, this is a touching and actually fairly well done addition to the story. The buildup to the conclusion is great, and the final declaration is great - it's just pretty great. Not sure if Ken himself wrote this, but it rings like the best parts of the manga - when he wants to, he can sell the shit out of a romantic declaration.

All of the bad or generic elements of Love Hina with virtually none of its strengths. I know "the manga was better" is the ultimate otaku cliche, but in this case it really is true by an absurd margin. While it often comes across as the DBZ of romance, with personal growth stretched across full volumes and often taken back, there were many genuinely sweet moments in the manga, and the characters matured a huge degree and learned to respect and trust each other. The arc of their relationship started earlier and ended further along than virtually any anime is willing to cover, and I'll take any amount of stupid fanservice and comedy to read or watch more stories like that.

But skip this dumb special.

A very well-composed but unsurprisingly unambitious light drama. Energetic direction and sharp plotting keep energy high in the show's first two-thirds, but unfortunate turns into unsupportable drama drag down the third act. Still a very breezy and entertaining show overall, though.

The first two-thirds more successfully lean into the show's dorky strengths than the first season did, but it's unfortunately dragged down by an indulgent, almost LotR-esque multi-episode sadsack goodbye.

A slight improvement over the original series, featuring a more consistently engaging cast and leaning more fully into the show's strengths. Still possesses the same failings, but certainly an entertaining time.

Indulgent fanservice the whole way through. There are some endearing/funny moments, and it still looks pretty good, but this is pretty strictly for the committed fans.

Goes nowhere, is incredibly rarely actually funny, and mainly exists to pat fans of bad anime on the back for watching so much bad anime.

*edit* Coming back to this comment a good eight or nine years later, it pretty much holds up! Lucky Star is a remarkably consistent demonstration of all the worst, laziest tendencies in anime comedy. A painfully tedious experience lifted by none of KyoAni's usual aesthetic grace.

Better than Lucky Star in the same sense that drinking urine is better than drinking bleach.

A wonderfully entertaining caper that's as breezy as it is fun. Dynamic character animation, beautiful backgrounds, and great action setpieces all contribute to a story that's just popcorn incarnate. Miyazaki sure knows how to make an adventure.

Pretty stellar production. Generally well-developed characters, some really inventive and awesome visual stuff, good music too, the plot moves in an interesting direction - legitimately heartbreaking at times. Some episodes, like the Homura backstory one, are just incredibly strong pieces of media literature. Other visual setpieces, like Sayaka's last fight, are straight-up breathtaking. Kyubei is creepy as fuck in the best possible way. Had my doubts at first, but by the end even the visual style seemed perfect - I love the cityscapes, and the crayon style for the characters (in particular their eyes) is really unique. A couple more melodramatic flares detract a bit (dramatic hair tosses or zoom-ins, mainly), but that doesn't make it any less than a great show - in fact, in the absence of these slight problems, this show would be a 10 in the Cowboy Bebop school of 10s - things that don't directly appeal to me, but are too powerful and well-executed to be considered any lower. EDIT: In fact, on further reflection and taking in the strong points of some other reviews I've read, I'm going to knock it up to the full 10. Very, very few shows fire so well, consistently, and creatively on so many cylinders. One of the few justifiable modern classics.

Just slightly worse than the episodes which cover the same ground. It's still obviously a great story with fantastic music and visuals, but the cuts hurt the pacing and remove some pretty key scenes, and I found the updated backgrounds more distracting than engaging - the world looks less sterile and empty, which was a good look for this show.

Virtually no cuts in this second piece, and the updated visuals and music are more appropriate for the more operatic second half anyway. This half also contains most of my favorite moments, namely Kyouko's last attempt to save Sayaka, Homura's story, Madoka's last conversation with her mother, Homura versus Walpurgisnacht, the entire last half hour... I mean, yeah, this show is just incredible, and already one of the most theatrical things anime has got going. It's more of an aesthetic than emotional masterpiece, but I find myself getting more emotional each time I watch it - Kyouko's last speech, and particularly Madoka's line, "If someone says there's no reason to hope, I'll prove them wrong every time" got me a little teary.

Dear lord. Just got back from this, so I'm still pretty shellshocked, but... holy fuck. So visually creative. Gorgeous. Constantly self-indulgent in a way that actually elevates it - ceding continuously to beautiful, theatrical moments. A solid story that further explores the ideas of myth-building hinted at by the original. A sly, constantly shifting reflection of the original, with scenes constantly mirroring, distorting, or undercutting the first series. A new facet of Urobuchi's consistent philosophy, detailing the dark side of human selfishness. An addendum to Madoka's obsession with cycles. An unabashed display of fanservice, honestly reveling in the moments and revelations the original series held close to the vest. A set of distinct acts, each with their own atmosphere and visual vocabulary. A 3.0-esque meditation on the diminishing returns of capturing the past. A beautiful, unwieldy, legitimately epic tragedy. It didn't make me feel in the way the original does, but give me a minute. I'm still kind of blown away.

It's weird for me to think so highly of a show that does so many things I normally take issue with. Like, nearly the last shot of this show was the Hero's face pressed between two sets of boobs – and I certainly roll my eyes, but I don't lose my faith in the material. Plus the pacing was very often either too rushed or too drawn out (I think this, far more than the unique take on a fantasy world/lack of actual action, is what caused a lot of people to drop the show). Plus the art design is middling, the animation constantly has to cut corners, the humor is hit or miss (though I got a fairly absurd amount of amusement out of Maoyuu with the teacup on her head), and some of the villains are one-note absurdities (I don't even like the word “villain” - virtually no character should just exist to be an antagonist, they should simply have believable goals that are at odds with those of our protagonists). Additionally, it juggles so many characters and plots that it sometimes loses urgency, and the “big picture” of all the various motivations and schemes can become muddled in the details.

And yet...

It goes so far. First, there are definitely some really strong strict aesthetic elements to this show – I think the characterization is all very well-paced and well-plotted, I think the dialogue is more sharp and understated than the vast majority of shows (and brevity is a necessity here, since they're covering so much material), and I think the show has a keen understanding of how to make a conflict, be it verbal or physical, completely clear, understandable, and engaging to the audience. That is all really good stuff.
But mainly, yeah. It's the conceit. The base idea of “A show that uses a standard fantasy universe to reflect the actual circumstances of history, human nature, human development, and the pursuit of an enlightened future” is an incredible one, and this show succeeds in following through on that promise in all the important ways. The characters are fairly believable as both single characters and representatives of human nature, the themes dip into actual specifics of history and then back out into reflections on humanity as a whole, and the various pieces all weave together into an actual plot that makes sense as the story of this particular world. The argument this show makes about the value of education and self-worth... hell, if any show set up and executed that episode 9 speech, that alone would garner high praise from me – as is, most elements of this show are solid, and the elements that are actually transcendent easily counter out the moderate aesthetic and minor narrative weaknesses.

This show is probably an objective 8, but there's so, so, sooo much here. Moments of great drama, heartbreak, comedy, a great musical score, an ABSURDLY creative and frankly insane combination of elements, lots of sharp cliffhangers... You could pick this show apart for days, but goddamn does it have passion. I feel a bit too much was left to vague metaphor, and a couple sections in the second and third acts dragged a bit, but it takes some kind of lunatic to write a show like this. The good kind of lunatic.

Perhaps the only piece of totally purposeful "so bad it's good" camp that I've ever been actually impressed by. Reminds me of something like Mr. Show or Weird Twitter jokes. It's something I'd never have expected from anime, but I'm very glad to have it.

I watched this years and years ago, but I remember a distinctive visual style, iconic and compelling secondary characters, and an incredible third act. I'll have to watch it again, but I anticipate the rating will stay the same.

While this work is very unique as a visual production, narrative-wise it's pretty shallow and incoherent. It's basically wacky for wackiness' sake, and while I have to give it credit for visual distinctiveness, that in a vacuum is not enough.

An excellent mix of gorgeous art design, direction, and animation, all supporting some legitimately strong character work and pretty okay ideas. A very solid production on all fronts.

The best season of Monogatari. All its ideas regarding identity and perception and truth come together in a tightly-written, smartly directed set of powerful little dramas. Monogatari's one of the best anime out there, and this is the season that definitively proves it.

One of the Ghibli standouts, and perhaps the most refined Miyazaki statement regarding the environment, mainly because all the characters act in pursuit of realistic and personally valuable goals, and the "villain" might be the best character in the movie. Beautiful, obviously, with countless visual setpieces and a compelling story. One of several anime that singlehandedly embarrass pretty much all of western media.

A harem that works as a strict comedy on the basis of strong animation, silly faces, and its totally ridiculous premise.

One of the very few legitimately successful horror anime out there, carried by a strong psychological angle and Satoshi Kon's tremendously skillful eye for personal anxiety. There are occasional stumbles throughout, but overall it presents a very strong and remarkably atmospheric thriller.

A gorgeous, beautifully scored set of meditations on life, art, spirituality, and everything else. The aesthetics are incredible, the writing is wonderful, the stories are creative and beautifully constructed. It's a peaceful and meditative show that doesn't reach for dramatic heights, but it doesn't have to - that is not what Mushishi is. And what it IS is a shining jewel of the medium.

A worthy continuation of Mushishi. Perhaps a few less highlight episodes than the original series, but still an excellent show.

Incredibly mundane and flavorless slice of life attached to four excellent, surprising episodes of classic Haruhi Suzumiya. Not worth watching in its entirety, but 9-13 are a treat.

A fair enough drama that could have used maybe eight fewer episodes. Though it starts off possibly promising generational or racial conflict, it ends up dissolving into a big ball of romance drama, but the characters are solid and there are great moments scattered throughout. Worse than it could have been, but better than most of its kind.

Really damn weird. I kind of got tricked by recommendations combined with the first couple episodes, where it seemed like it might go pretty deep into how weird adolescence/being introduced to intimacy really is. The dream sequences are a brilliant idea, creepy and distorted and otherworldly, and a couple of the plot points are okay... but it's not a good show. It's not even that it's dumb or fanservicey - it's just too routine. Some of the lines/actions of the characters earlier on made me wonder if the manga artist had ever actually interacted with a girl of any kind, but that improves I guess. I got attached enough to the characters to end up finishing it, but that's extraordinarily unsurprising.

Well, this one was definitely simpler than Nise. Simple enough that I figured this writeup would be redundant – but I looked around online and, surprisingly, I couldn’t find a piece that really dove into the central theme. I’d planned on working on my backlog, but…

Alright. Fine. Hey guys. It’s Bobduh. Let’s talk Nekomonogatari.

This show’s about family. Okay? That’s the main point. Definitions of family, interpretations of family, what it means to have bonds with others, whether those bonds must be expressed physically or metaphorically. Hanekawa Tsubasa’s farce of a family situation is the driving conflict of the show, and the less overtly legitimized but more fundamentally meaningful bonds that surround her are the forces that bring her home.

Hanekawa is one screwed up kid. Her family life is a sham – she’s living with two adults who have no actual blood relationship to her, and her generally successful attempts to come off as an exceptional but otherwise normal teenager are basically her way of playing house instead of having a home. When she is possessed by the cat spirit, she embraces it – she uses it as an opportunity to act out all the rage and stress she kept inside, an honesty represented physically through her attacks on first her parents and then the town at large, and metaphorically through the cat’s extremely lewd fashion sense (yeah, sexuality isn’t handled nearly as gracefully here as it is in Nise). When confronted by Araragi, she lashes out at the very idea of family, saying that people like him just “tie her down and deny her freedom.” Which the show is perfectly willing to admit is true – later on, Araragi questions whether it would have been better to leave her alone, but then chastises himself for the selfish idea of “only loving and respecting her, after she helped him so much.” Because of their existing connection, he doesn’t have the luxury of ignoring her. He articulates this very relevant thought while his sisters sleep beside him, denied their attempt to stop the cat because Araragi himself said he needed them. Bonds place burdens on you. It’s unavoidable.

But family is more complicated than that. The show begins with Araragi asking his sisters how someone can know when they’re in love, and the answers he receives are “you just know” and “you want to have their kid.” So it’s either a vague, self-assigned term, or it’s the definition of a traditional family. One seems impossible to pin down, the other obvious – but this is freakin’ Monogatari we’re talking about here, so of course the obvious one continuously proves itself a lie. Hanekawa’s family follows the traditional structure, but it’s certainly a sham of a family, and no true bonds exist between her and her parents. It’s those flighty, self-assigned bonds that hold actual power; but they’re obviously much harder to pin down. As Oshino says, “aberrations exist because people think they exist” – well, families are kind of the same way. Hanekawa makes a promise with Araragi at the very start, making him swear “not to tell his sisters, not to tell his family” – despite her own later denials, she believes that willfully chosen bonds can match the strength of a traditional family structure. The lie of her disconnect proves itself when Araragi messages her during the finale – for all that talk of embracing her freedom, she comes running when she thinks he’s in trouble. She stresses her lack of the clear familial evidence of blood ties, but even those can come in many shapes and sizes – when Araragi is on the verge of death, this thematic line is turned literal, from a source that isn’t technically family at all, when a downpour of Shinobu’s physical blood revives him.

The theme of the show is made almost frustratingly overt at the end, when Oshino and Araragi share the big, capital-letters exchange: “Don’t you think Hanekawa was possessed by a demon we call family?” “But she didn’t consider her adopted parents a family.” “Perhaps her idea of family was an aberration for her.” It was Hanekawa’s refusal to lean on the true familial bonds around her, and preoccupation with maintaining the appearance of a traditional family, that led to her downfall. It was Araragi’s belief in the chosen bond between them, and reliance on the other “blood ties” that surround him, that allowed him to bring her back. When Araragi calls Oshino’s suggestion of marrying her to give her the family she wanted a bad joke, he means it. Trying to play house according to the old rules would be a meaningless concession to her first, false definition of family. He doesn’t have to marry her to become her family – they already are one.

Oh, and if you’re looking for a traditional review: the art and sound design are great as always, the direction is excellent (employing some neat tricks I didn’t mention here, like a very strong focus on light and shadow), though it takes more of a backseat to the story than in Nise, the dialogue often suffers from self-indulgent Monogatari syndrome, but the narrative overall is fairly well-constructed, and the last act is a standout segment of the series so far. Good times 8/10 would strongly recommend.

KyoAni's great comedy achievement. Very nearly as perfect as Hyouka in an extremely different way. Gorgeous, heartfelt, consistently laugh-out-loud hilarious. An incredible show.

An extremely diverse mix of shorts in all sorts of styles and quality levels. No one person will like most of them, but there's probably something for everyone.

Essentially 26 12-minute episodes of Inferno Cop. Exactly as shrill, juvenile, and tedious as that sounds.

I actually liked this season a decent bit more than the first one. There were many reviews online that called it worse because it was more focused on fanservice, but saying this show is about fanservice is entirely missing the point of the direction. The director is intensely interested in representations of sexuality in this show - he uses the camera's eye to represent characters' self-image, the way they want to be seen, and the way they are perceived, using visual framing to set the emotional tones of conversations in scene after scene after scene. It's pretty brilliant, largely successful, and woefully underdone in anime. "Fanservice" itself is an objectively bad thing - the term itself implies it is something other than the work and story itself, something added to pander to the base nature of the audience. This here is not fanservice - this is a brilliant director using visual language to address questions of self-representation, intimacy, and the male gaze.

Ultimately, there is plenty of 10 quality material here, but it's just too disjointed and awkwardly paced, and the quality of conversations is uneven. But that is in no way a mark against this show - experimental runs like this are important. We need shows like this to demonstrate the potential of the medium. Nisemonogatari is an incredibly impressive work.

An intimate and thoughtful Ghibli production that almost seems more powerful for its temporal relevance. This is their last film as stands, and I actually prefer its perspective to the default Miyazaki worldview; it is a damn shame that we will not be getting more films like this.

A film I found somewhat unsatisfying as an overall narrative, but transcendent as a collection of child and adult vignettes. Also an unimpeachable aesthetic accomplishment.

Gorgeous animation that fails to elevate an ultimately far too repetitive gag action story. It's a shame animation this beautiful doesn't get a narrative worth investing in.

Perfect family drama. Beautiful, heartbreaking, full of small moments of truth. Just a fantastic thing.

Endlessly entertaining renaissance slice-of-life that hinges entirely on the organic, heartwarming, and utterly true relationship between the two leads. The setting is great, the music is great (one of the all-time best openings), and the character building is transcendent. It never reaches that far, but it never really tries to - it settles into a comfortable groove, and sometimes that's exactly what you're looking for.

Not as consistently engaging as the first season, and the repetition of "they're gonna break up!" conflicts gets pretty wearying, but this is still one of the best romantic duos in anime.

One of them explains the bread and wine consumed in the show, the other is just Horo leading morning exercises. No, I don't know why I watched them either.

A solid vignette bridging the two seasons. Much heavier on moe Horo shenanigans than the first season, which I can't say I have a problem with. Hopefully this indicates the second season will be much more overtly romance-oriented.

A fine drama held down by production circumstance: too many episodes and animation collapse. A six or eight episode version of this would probably be very strong.

I mean seriously, what the fuck was I expecting with a title like this? The next Genshiken? Well, if that was actually the case, I was truly, tragically mistaken; not only is this show generic and dumb, but the female lead is probably the least likable character I've witnessed in any show... ever. It's actually kind of awe-inspiring - this character takes the tsundere archetype to the ultimate extreme of being the most self-obsessed, vile, hurtful human being in the known universe, who is repeatedly tolerated and even championed by her shitty doormat of a brother. I spent the first half semi-convincing myself it was self-aware, but the second half was just watching el titulo imouto be the worst human being I've ever witnessed.

Production values are high, Kuroneko is kind of adorable, and their third friend secretly being a classy lady is a nice gag; there is nothing else good I can say about this show.

*edit* Just remembered something else I hated about this show. It uses the classic tropes of the buddy cop film, in that there are moments where everything is supposed to click and the MC thinks "Oh, so THIS is why she likes all that weird shit she likes" (cue Jackie Chan listening to hiphop in Rush Hour). The thing is, those moments weren't any different - the culture this show is attempting to justify is just weird and creepy as fuck, and no amount of swelling pop music is going to make something like idol culture anything but a demented form of fetishism that cultural relativism can't begin to justify. Genshiken acknowledged what made otaku weird while illuminating what made them human - this show only makes me think otaku are just fucking creepy.

-EDIT AGAIN- Finally decided to look up the thread where I got a little deeper on this subject. If I'm giving something a score of actual 0, I need to justify that, right?

http://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/18ij4o/anime_you_watch_even_though_you_hate_them/

There are a number of shows I've finished and thought were mediocre or bad, but I think the only one that made me actually upset was OreImo. People say it's a humorous examination of otaku culture, but it's something so much worse than that.

The perspective that show takes on otaku culture is "it's awesome, there's no reason to become a well-rounded person, your media interests can compensate for a lack of redeeming personality features." It never raises any counterpoints, or forces the toxic and childish Kirino to grow as a human being. A show can celebrate nerd culture while still being realistic about its characters as human beings - I feel Genshiken does this very well. The place OreImo differs from Genshiken is that it offers nothing but positive reinforcement of truly unhealthy, antisocial behavior, and basically encourages the viewpoint "my media can be my total identity, and if someone else doesn't respect that, I should not have to meet them halfway" which I think is the worst kind of enabling and the opposite of a constructive theme.

There are plenty of characters I dislike just because they're poorly written, but Kirino might be the first one I consider actively harmful to the mental development of the viewer.

The relationship between Kuroneko and MC is adorable to me; that's the entirety of this score. In reality it's probably not any better than the 2/10 original, but I find the pair of them totally charming. Plus the sister not being there makes the show infinitely more tolerable.

A new addition to the Monogatari saga that demonstrates the series is somehow able to maintain its Second Season quality. Great arcs full of both new ideas and great insights into the old characters. Just a stellar piece all around.

Oh hey, it's another great goddamn Kon work about media and reality. This one's a legit horror/thriller work as well, and unsurprisingly far better than most traditional entries in that genre. Kon does good work.

A staggeringly creative, insightful, beautiful, well-scored, sharply written story about talent, competition, friendship, and finding purpose in what you do and who you are. Absolutely phenomenal production, full of setpiece highlights and populated with an incredibly rich set of characters. An incredible show.

A solid, humble tragedy. Tells a concise and poignant story in just the right amount of time.

A stirring, complex, and consistently thoughtful reflection on identity and capitalism, framed through the wonderful device of space debris trawlers. Certainly has its weaker episodes and narrative threads, but overall a terrific show.

A very, very ridiculous show. It's a Mizushima production combined with an artistically ridiculous manga, so it's got chops, but those chops are put to worse on what's essentially a gross-out sex comedy combined with a prison breakout drama. It works, more or less.

It works as a well-realized Bladerunner-esque detective thriller in a 1984-esque dystopian future, and it works as one more of Urobuchi's passionate attacks on the inherent inhumanity of utilitarian systems, and the definition of human beings as agents of change within their environment. This isn't even really my kind of show (the detective stuff doesn't do all that much for me), but I loved the writing, I loved the style, and the characters are easily superior to anything in Gargantia or Madoka. Another pillar of Urobuchi's ridiculously fast-growing canon.

Terrible sequel to the original series, terrible self-contained story, and just one of the most fundamentally hateful, misanthropic works of fiction I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing. Sheer awful garbage.

An unnecessary but perfectly reasonable added adventure in the Psycho-Pass world that offers a couple quick reflections on Sybil as a vehicle of imperialism.

Mindless but well-animated and well-paced action fun. It's been a while since I watched this, but I remember it being more or less the definition of popcorn entertainment.

A show that copies a huuuuge amount from Evangelion, with mixed results. Some decent characters and standout scenes, and the visual design is really, really strong, but other characters are given importance far out of line with their development, and I get the feeling this was just to mirror certain aspects of Evangelion. The show hurts for it, and also hurts because there isn't really all that much beneath the surface, but there's still enough good here to tentatively recommend it.

A fairly perfect little mood piece with gorgeous backgrounds.

This one starts off extremely rocky, and the CG never gets less bad, but overall it comes together into a really compelling action-drama package. The CG actually lets the fight sequences be really thrilling, and once it gets into the meat of the story (and reveals the third, best protagonist), the whole thing comes together in a narrative that essentially fuses elements of Psycho-Pass and Gargantia to tell one more story about the endurance of the human spirit. Good times.

Definitely better than the average romcom, but the average romcom is terrible, so... but yeah, I think it's pretty solid. I like how the lead is basically battling with depression throughout, but that doesn't actually come into focus until the end. I like how it portrays a far more adult relationship than usual, allowing for stuff like dealing with the awkwardness of having had possibly unwise sex with someone you're otherwise just living with. Various nice scenes throughout, etc. It's definitely significantly weakened by its incredibly brief running time - problems that should be given more time to develop organically have to be rushed, and the characters can't be made that distinct. The MC needed something more, as well - he was too much of a nice-guy lump, though perhaps that was intentional (and could actually work, if they did more with it). But for what it is, it's fine - a workmanly romance that deals with more interesting and adult relationship issues than anime is normally willing to touch.

The only reason this doesn't get a straight, unquestioned 10 is that this genre only goes up to 9 in my internal value system. For what it is, it is absolutely perfect; a visually enthralling, sonically soaring hot rod ride to hell and back, that never takes itself too seriously but is clearly, unabashedly in love with its characters, world, and aesthetic. Every single thing is cranked to eleven, and then twelve, and then they drop a bomb in the nitro and fucking tear it to sixteen. This movie is maybe the sexiest thing ever

*edit*
After a second viewing and thinking about it more, I really have to knock this to the full 10. The audio/visual elements are just flawless, the aesthetic is something I've never seen before, and, critically, the film has an incredibly deft and light touch in its world and history-building. It really feels like the last adventure of a crew you've already come to know and love, and that is an incredibly tough trick to pull off in something as fast-paced as this. It's gotta be a 10.

This one is nothing like Steins;Gate - its best parts are its resolutely undramatized depictions of adolescence and the slow-building character work of the protagonist. It's a very beautiful show, in that it evokes their island home with such clarity that you can really feel their affection for the place. The sci-fi/drama stuff can be a little hit or miss, and the group's devotion to maintaining Aki's spirit of wonder can get a little tiresome (meaning the finale, which doubles down on both these things, is definitely a weak point), but it explores the themes of adolescence and our reliance on mediated experience and information with a deft, human touch. An excellent show.

Starts in a gorgeous flurry of energy and animation, but runs out of steam quickly. Its script suffers from structural problems that keep it from ever really pulling into something engaging or emotionally resonant. The animation is great when it exists though, and the watercolor-style backgrounds are lovely.

Fantastically animated slow-moving romance/drama about a hired killer discovering his own humanity. The character growth is great, the pacing is great, and when he actual cuts loose, it's terrifying. Nearly perfect samurai movie.

A show with enough wit to potentially be a kind of haremish Genshiken-lite, but too much love for bland light novel tropes to ever rise above them. A disappointing waste of what seems like a solid writer.

Fantastic slice of life with endless highlights - the way music is used both in both narrative and as a demonstration of the medium, the bracing immediacy of the very atypical setting, the lightly written and deftly developed characters... One standout I have to mention is the reoccuring theme of just barely missing those crucial moments of happiness - there are many points where the narrative approaches some typical peak or turn, but backs off just before, either due to the timidity of the characters or just an unhappy turn of fate. This is a sharp reflection of the way of the world that is so rarely captured in media, nor made into such a major component of a story. Finding significance in every small moment is the key, as well as taking life as it comes - the true peak of the series occurs just over halfway through, and only due to unplanned circumstances. That episode 7 performance is one of the best moments in any anime ever, by the way.

A show whose strengths and flaws are all on display even before you start the first episode. The visuals and direction are strong, it toys with several interesting themes (self-worth, artistic struggles, finding your place in an uncaring professional world)... but the drama goes in circles over and over, and the character of Shiina is just... poison. Her terrible base design and inability to interact meaningfully with other characters drags the entire show down with it. Still, there are good scenes throughout - even good full episodes. But it is not a good show.

A lousy mystery story with lousy writing and lousy aesthetics. Nothing else to it.

An absurd clash of half a dozen genres that somehow manages to make all sorts of points about media culture and the nature of heroes while also being hilarious and ridiculous all the while. It's VERY inconsistent, but its highs are VERY high and show up pretty regularly. A glorious, actually successful mess of a show.

Freaking anime. This one combines some highs and lows as well, but it's more frustrating than most because the lows were so goddamn unnecessary and indicative of everything that's hurting anime in general. The characters are vivid, distinct, and each given a strong backstory and goals, the relationship between the two main characters progresses perfectly, and has many moments of give and take, there are a good number of standout moments, the first three and very last episodes are bulletproof... but then there's stupid, stupid fanservice degrading Wanko's character, and stupid, stupid humor degrading so many slice-of-life scenes. I really, really liked this show and eagerly await the second season, but my least favorite character was the fucking cameraman - WHY, in a bittersweet, slice-of-life romance, does the director feel the need to completely debase the main characters with pointless fanservice? Outside of that, and the zombie fan stuff, which did nothing for me, this was a strong, often unsettling romance with distinct interest in its characters and a tragic focus on mono no aware. The parallels between what Rea was trying to escape and the necessities of her new life were just one of many bitter ironies underscoring this unusually thoughtful but frustratingly flawed romance.

Starts out as a fairly snappily written but cliched high school love drama thing, but becomes something much more interesting. Adopting a VN to an anime seems like a bad idea fundamentally, because a VN is actually four or five stories, and trying to splice them all together just makes the protagonist seem like some distant, unrelatable miracle worker at best, and a serial cheater at worst. This show takes that thought to its logical extreme - the main character actually IS the kind of person who could and would juggle any number of relationships - he starts out spineless, but his power turns him into a monster. Really cool idea. Sadly, the early rom-com stuff really drags it down, the pacing is absolutely glacial, and the more interesting ideas of this story only crop up once in a while. Still, I'm impressed by the idea.

Basically Bebop-lite, pretty standard, fairly unique space pirate candy. Caster weapons are a sweet concept.

Decent comedy-adventure series with a relatively engaging main cast, some great funny faces, and nice messages about the importance of family and believing in things.

Just horrible.

Extremely underwritten romance vignettes, only enlivened by occasionally bizarre dialogue.

A funny, heartwarming story about family, identity, and childhood. Great characters, a wonderful whimsical sense of reality, and really solid writing and construction all bolster its core priorities. It's a little inconsistent here and there, but still a great show.

A reasonable enough OVA starring one of Sekai Seifuku's least interesting characters. Nice to see these guys again, at least.

One of if not Miyazaki's best, absurdly creative, beautiful, haunting, evocative, heartwarming, etc etc etc. Pointless to review, because I don't have very much to say to someone who doesn't find this incredible.

"JoJo except with idols" tells you everything you need to know. This show is a whole dang lot of fun.

Leans even further into absurdity than the first season, with mixed but generally positive results.

Attempts to tell an actual story, making it measurably less good than the first two seasons.

One more great Kon work, full of beautiful images gracefully linked through absurd match cuts and swipes and all sorts of technical goodness. Also a great story, unsurprisingly one that again challenges the mediated and personal nature of our various realities. Just a great film in general.

That was a very solid show! The ideas were quite interesting and seemed fairly consistent, the mood shifted pretty organically from meditative psych thriller to sci-fi drama, the visual and sound design was excellent, Lain was a solid central character, and it ended very well. Some specific things that really stuck out to me were the excellent contradictory ideas it introduced later on, some really well-directed thriller elements (the sister episode in particular was a highlight), the excellent use of a very broad visual vocabulary (the colors, the repeated camera shots, etc), and the so-smart-it-seems-obvious connection of defining the self with online personas.

There are definitely things that did bug me, here and there. The biggest ones were the times the show sort of attacked its own pacing by directly telling things to the viewer – when the various personas talked to Lain as her sister was being attacked, when it introduced all the historical internet information, when it just sorta recapped the show for half an episode… in addition to being a pretty clumsy kind of storytelling, they also hurt the impact of the other things going on at the time. I think the show would be a decent bit better if those things were cropped.

I also thought the show focused maybe a bit too much on the ideas at the expense of its narrative. By that I mean that while Lain’s development and the ideas about identity were obviously the focus of the show, the show definitely also wanted to work successfully on a straight mystery/thriller level, and many scenes were dedicated to this pursuit. Because of this, when it turned out that the G-Men didn’t really represent anything more than themselves (they were just two guys being paid), and when the ultimate “antagonist” only really showed up for a couple episodes (frankly, I don’t think this show actually needed Eiri – but either way, I think the lines of connection between him, the G-Men, and the Knights could have been a bit refined and more fully articulated in general), it felt somewhat anticlimactic to me. I generally try to judge shows according to what they themselves are trying to do, so picking at the plot structure of such an idea-focused show does seem kinda inappropriate, but I think this show was interested enough in having those plot points land in a satisfying way that it’s a valid comment.

I think a complaint many other people would try to make is that some of its ideas are derivative of Eva – the construction of the ego, the question of whether living with the pain of the real world is worth doing, the occasional allusions towards singularity, the plentiful time spent in Lain’s mindspace, essentially talking to herself about her feelings… to this, I’d just say “these ideas are fucking fantastic, and Eva doesn’t have a monopoly on them. Lain uses all these things in its own way for its own purposes, and that’s totally cool and should be encouraged.”

Overall, my complaints are with very specific elements, and I think the show in general is very strong, and its ambition and creativity far outweigh their impact. Assigning a score to this one is a little tricky for me, because it’s kind of an impersonal show most of the time, and I really, really prefer shows that connect to me on an emotional level. But that’s my personal bias projecting unfair assumptions on a confident, distinctive, and generally excellent piece of art, and I don’t gotta be that way. I’ll have to think about this more, but for now, I’ll give it the full 9/10. Hopefully that’s enough love to keep Lain trucking.

Super dumb, super generic wimpy dude + tsundere fantasy adventure nonsense. I actually like the idea of people slowly fading away without their MacGuffin, but that's not explored well, because this is not a good show. I must have been pretty bored, pretty sad, and pretty high when I was watching this crap.

One of many adolescent dramas that feels like it could have used a few less episodes. Gorgeous, though - beautiful backgrounds, animation, and music. Overall a fine genre entry.

Easily the best horror anime, and a brilliant thriller in general. Great atmosphere, an incredibly wide-ranging and lively cast, a gripping plot. It uses vampires to dig deep into questions of community, humanity, and generational shift, and it doesn't arrive at any easy answers. A fantastic work.

Fine supplemental episodes filling out the final events of the show, but not truly indispensable, and not as strong as the show proper. Worth a watch though, and the first one in particular provides closure to Nao's story.

For the first half, Bahamut is a tremendous thing - essentially the Raiders of the Lost Ark or Pirates of the Caribbean of anime, an energetic adventure full of demons and zombies and dramatic, well-composed fights and giant enemy crabs. The show gets serious holes punched in its sails in the second half, unfortunately, and loses a lot of momentum and visual appeal, but the overall production is still very worth a watch, and it at least ends well. A fine action-adventure show.

An uneven but occasionally great shounen. Tremendous pacing issues in the first half, along with middling writing and often melodramatic directing, keep me from actively recommending it, but if you push through, the second half improves dramatically in weight, characterization, and execution. Not great, but if you're looking for popcorn, Titan generally delivers.

Better than the first season in terms of animation and direction, but pretty much just as loud and muddled and stupid. Also leans heavily on character stories the writing just cannot support.

As far as I know, as good as a thing can be. Enjoyable on a ton of levels, insightful, deeply personal, inspiring, carefully written, filled with breathing characters, epic.

The exterior ending to Eva. Actually tops the show, which is pretty impressive considering the show tops virtually all other media. The moment when that song hits is my favorite moment in anything.

After watching 16 episodes, I'm definitely seeing this as more a "this is a good show" kinda thing than an "I love this and would happily recommend it" kinda thing. This is partially because this show is SO FOCUSED on worldbuilding, to the detriment of its' characters and pacing of its storytelling, but also because... well, some things it just doesn't do that well. I think it overplays its world, honestly - I got the point ten episodes ago, and outside of the karma demon explanation and maybe one speech about trying to create a society free from conflict for the adults, the rest hasn't added all that much. It's basically straight plot and worldbuilding, and its' world is certainly well-designed and plot well-construed, but the pacing is problematic and the characters pretty ill-served by that focus. It seems weird to beat on this, because it does a bunch of other things REALLY well - female protagonists, good use of visual motifs, a very well-realized world. Overall, I guess it's a very solid version of a show that isn't really my kind of thing.

-edit-

Alright, after finishing it, my thoughts are essentially unchanged. The last act was almost certainly the best, containing more compelling horror and action segments than any other, and the finale was satisfying from a narrative standpoint. But "from a technical standpoint" is pretty much the way it goes with this show. The main, huge, utterly damning problem is that Saki, Satoru, and the other kids never became human beings - they were always characters fulfilling certain roles in a narrative. Ultimately, it was EASILY the queerat leaders who seemed the most alive and worth following. This was kind of the point, but I feel the ending hinged on you actually feeling sympathetic towards the human perspective, and I just didn't. I wanted Squealer to win. I wanted every character I'd been following for the last twenty-five episodes to die.

It's probably to the show's credit that its' ending provoked such strong anger in me, but I'm not sure that's exactly the effect the show was going for. Either way, it had an often-great visual aesthetic, it told a good story well, its' world was well-constructed, its' themes were strongly articulated, and it was certainly ambitious. The pacing was inconsistent, a number of the plot beats didn't land all that well, and the characters were totally inert, but it's still a good show. Many people would like it very much.

A beautiful work that brings all the pain and small triumphs of working life and a career in the arts to life, establishing a rich ensemble cast and running through countless tiny character arcs to embody the lives of an entire company. Funny, engaging, heartfelt, sharp - Shirobako is the full package, a rewarding adult drama in the vein of Eccentric Family. We are lucky to get shows like Shirobako.

A fluffy but harmless globe-trotting Indiana Jones caper with zombies.

Spiraling, unwieldy, self-referential, mythic, silly, strident, brilliant. Yes, it is the shoujo Eva - what that show is to adolescent depression and insularity, this show is to adolescent identity, social dynamics, and gender. It's a mad pastiche of themes, ideas, narratives, and motifs, and it rises above all these pieces to offer an honest declaration of faith in our better nature. You will believe in something eternal.

Pretty much total madness. Contains many of the same pieces as the series, though it's obviously a more simple narrative, with less interesting concepts. But it is VERY pretty, and its score is VERY good, and there are a couple setpiece sequences that basically justify it by themselves. Doesn't really work without the series, doesn't fully work WITH the series, but it's still a lot of fun.

A surprisingly thoughtful idol show that actually digs into all of its characters and focuses on the practical, workmanly nature of entertainment industry labor. Highlights are the bold concept episodes and the overall meditative pacing. An unusual production.

It's more of Shonen Hollywood - more pointed observations, more solid character writing, more middling aesthetic fundamentals. A fine show all around.

A terrific theatrical tragedy, elevated by wonderful direction and great central performances, held down only by its awkward emotional distance.

A strong though still somewhat dry drama. Somewhat shoots itself in the foot in the last episode.

A solid scifi-action flick that nails both the action and the scifi - its big setpieces are extremely well-composed, and its world is compelling and invites a variety of interesting questions regarding human nature and transhumanism. The character side is much weaker, and the show doesn't really conclude anything in this season, but overall it's a solid piece of entertainment with some fairly well-articulated higher pretensions.

Gripping, funny, endearing, well-plotted sci-fi/slice-of-life adventure. An excellent cast mixed with actual bursts of real, funny humor (in an anime?!?!) and an extremely sharp and actually dramatically fascinating take on a sci-fi classic. If there were one or two more transcendent scenes, this would be a solid 10, and as it is it's actually a pretty high 9. The "goodbye" scene prior to the final shift is a thousand kinds of perfect.

A not-terribly interesting retread of the original series.

A fairly superfluous epilogue to the main story. Most of this episode is non-essential, with Okabe's fantastic dramatics and the last scene being the exceptions. Both Kurisu and Okabe's final speeches are great, though I'd really like to know how much time the two spent together in THIS world line before I buy the ending - it struck as actually more abrupt than the real series finale. Still, I would probably never turn down a few more minutes with Okabe and Kurisu

A very solid psychological drama/character study hamstrung by a standard, uninspired genre shell. It has some solid visual flair, and the soundtrack is solid, but this show lives and dies on the strength of its main character. Her journey from severe anxiety into manic competitiveness is extremely well portrayed, but the episodes of SoL/mediocre sports drama it's scattered across just don't do anything on their own. I'd probably give it a 7.5 if I could.

Could potentially be a nice character piece, but ultimately faffs around with meaningless philosophy and a nonsense mystery. Nice art design, though.

Suisei no Gargantia is a strange little show. It covers all of Urobuchi’s pet themes at once, while also shifting wildly in tone and pacing throughout. It combines a number of seemingly incompatible genres, including Ghibli-esque adventure, slice of life, sci-fi drama, action, and even some moments approaching psychological horror. It clearly displays some of the most supportable accusations generally leveled at Urobuchi – that his characters lack nuance or depth, and that his stories work primarily in support of ideas and have little power as narratives in and of themselves. Gargantia by itself is a pretty cogent argument for why Urobuchi is such a polarizing writer.

But the thing about polarizing writers is that for all the people they turn off, there are also plenty of people who really like what they do. Like, for example, me.

I think Gargantia’s pretty fantastic. It lays out some of its larger thematic points from the very first scenes – the show begins with our hero Ledo in space, waging a tense battle against some crustacean-looking monsters. They seem pretty much like the classic space bugs, but interestingly enough, it’s Ledo’s own forces that continuously assume insect swarm formations, relinquishing their individuality to create larger weapons of destruction. Ledo himself has no personal ambition – he fights because that is what humanity does. Unsurprisingly, when a wrong left turn at the worm hole sends him plummeting irretrievably into a laid-back semi-capitalist mainly-collectivist society, he finds himself with a lot of unwanted time on his hands.

Ledo’s journey to discovering individual purpose is the central narrative and thematic through-line of the show. It’s displayed both directly through the narrative, in the way he begins to discover his own humanity and desires (dredging up repressed memories of the human connections he once valued, discovering his own sexuality, beginning to bond with the people around him and eventually feel an individual desire to work and aid in the success of their society), as well as through the very genres the show switches between. Ledo doesn’t just switch from a militaristic, central-goal oriented society to a collectivist, humanist one – he switches from a tensely paced military drama to a slice of life/adventure story. This tonal shift is also used to elaborate the “personality” of Gargantia itself, which is another central character in the story and relevant to many of the show’s other thematic points.

Regarding those points, this is definitely a show with plenty to say. Ledo’s awakening to his own individual purpose ties into a number of other ideas, including what purpose society should serve, as well as the dangers and rewards of entering the adult world. Ledo’s ultimate turn comes not when he discovers the value of Gargantian society, but when he is actually returned to a society based on the Alliance model, where all individuals work in service of a single larger goal for maximum efficiency. As Ledo himself admits, up until this point, he has never had to make a choice – his integration into Gargantian society was as mindless and natural as his original submission to Alliance protocol. When Ledo finally chooses to break from protocol and defend Gargantia, he is becoming fully human.

That idea of choices making us human is the fundamental difference between Alliance and Gargantian society. It crops up constantly throughout the show, as the various characters (and, interestingly, robots) discuss the definition of humanity, and also ties directly into one of the show’s other central themes – the difficulty and necessity of integrating into adult society. Along with Ledo, Ridget, Pinion, and even Flange are forced to make difficult choices and step up to new responsibilities, and the show’s overwhelmingly consistent take on this is that while entering society is a difficult step, it is made possible by the fact that we are all supporting one another. While mindless submission to a central goal makes us inhuman (a point the show alternately casts in terms of military necessity, economic efficiency, and religion), the connections we choose to make with each other are what make us great.

There are certainly other ideas stewing in the Gargantian mix – of particular note is the relationship between humanity and the Hideauze, which reflects lightly on our natural tendency towards defensiveness and misunderstanding, as well as furthering the point that humanity without willful choice is no different from either instinct-based animal nature or programming-based robotic nature. The nature of Gargantia and the various character arcs articulated throughout all point to Urobuchi’s certainty that the purpose of society is to enable the individual, and Ledo’s arc seems to articulate his belief that the two often mirror each other, and that your identity can end up being constructed by your society.

But this is supposed to be a review, right?

So let’s run down the list. Visually, the show is an absolute joy – the animation is solid, the color palette and designs are extremely distinctive, the direction is generally dynamic throughout. Writing-wise, the themes are strongly articulated, and the narrative flows well (many have taken fault with the shifts in pacing and tone, but I personally feel this is more an issue of expectations, and didn’t have a problem with either the segments individually or their segues throughout), but as I said originally, the characters outside of Ledo and Chamber are fairly routine. Amy in particular is an extremely static character relative to her importance in the story – she is important to Ledo, but she experiences virtually no growth of her own, and just isn’t that unique of a character. Even in a story primarily concerned with Ledo’s development, this isn’t really excusable – Amy is supposed to represent everything he comes to value, and having her be a pretty standard device weakens the impact of his own narrative arc. Several other side characters do fare better – unsurprisingly, all the thematically relevant ones (Pinion, Flange, Ridget) come across as more dynamic and multifaceted than those who serve a single role in the story.

These complaints are unrelated to the primary goals of the show, but would certainly result in a richer overall experience, and I don’t believe more development for Amy (or, in particular, giving her a more pivotal and active role in the thematic story) would come at the expense of the show’s central goals. The general writing in the last act also sometimes dipped below the weight its ideas deserved, and though the existence of a final “villain” was almost an afterthought as far as the show’s thematic journey was concerned, I would have preferred more nuance in Striker’s perspective. My one solid and specific complaint with the show relates to episodes 5 and 6 – both of these episodes leaned towards fanservice in ways that did a disservice to the characters, and episode 5 in particular had some incredibly offensive transvestite stereotypes. Fortunately these complaints were very specific to those moments, but they’re still things I hate seeing in any show, particularly one so clearly focused on conveying actual meaning.

Overall, though I think the show could have benefited from a little revision, I feel its ideas are plentiful, that they reflect off each other in compelling ways, and that they are generally well-articulated. The mix of genres leads to a compelling and constantly shifting journey, the excellent visual aesthetic makes it a pleasure to watch, and the generally sharp writing leads to some extremely compelling speeches and generally snappy exchanges throughout. Despite the plot itself and many of the characters trending towards archetypal, the show succeeds as a well-articulated expression of its core ideas draped in a vivid and tightly written genre shell. Urobuchi is nothing if not professional in his understanding of storytelling fundamentals, and though this show is not his best, it is perhaps his most thematically rich, and adds a much-needed dash of optimism to his formidable resume.

Very interesting. I thought a lot of the ideas in this movie were compelling and well-explored, particularly the representation of character in a cyberworld, the maintenance of tension in a conflict that had no identifiable stakes, and the deliberate removal of a true main character. However, ultimately I enjoyed it a great deal less than Girl Who Leapt Through Time - it seemed somewhat too academic for me, and the splintering of the main character left me less personally invested in the narrative. Still quite beautiful, with a ton of great scenes, and very clearly an ambitious work, so it earns a high score, but for me personally that score is representative of my intellectual appreciation of the work, not my emotional one.

Quite different from the series, but as good throughout as the series ever consistently is, and an incredible piece in its own right. A meditative mood piece that really dives into Kyon's self-perception more deeply than the series ever does, with countless striking images to boot. Accomplishes the nigh-inconceivable task of making a great Haruhi movie that doesn't actually have Haruhi in it.

Fractured and flawed but regularly brilliant, filled with imagination, character, and wit, combining basically everything anime does better than any other medium and blending on high. Maybe halfway between Toradora and FLCL, but more episodic than either. Still, it's really sharp and basically as good as the hype - if Mikuru didn't exist (or was replaced by a real character and not one of these bug-eyed otaku-baiting moe Real Dolls that are sinking anime into a festering cultural ghetto), I'd probably give this one a solid 10.

The real episodes are as good as the first season, but Endless Eight was such a deliberate troll that I think virtually any other studio wouldn't have been able to recover. The stupidity of that decision blows my mind.

An enjoyably well-produced but incredibly poorly written and composed adventure dragged down by rampant, creepy sexism, constant adoration of the protagonist, and rape fantasies.

Significantly better than the first season in storytelling, with a great deal fewer incredibly questionable scenes. It's still not actually well-written, and Kirito is still a tension-destroying power fantasy, but it's now competent enough to actually kind of reflect on the ideas it wants to, and the fight scenes are significantly more engaging in the second half than ever before.

Yamada manages to follow up a fairly lukewarm series with a romantic arthouse extravaganza. What the hell, Yamada.

A reasonable slice of life/collection of vignettes, elevated by KyoAni's execution and held down by a regrettable underlying narrative.

Ups and downs. I originally dropped this series after four episodes (the fifth started with a cosplay-based cold open and I closed the tab), but a review mentioned the second half basically redeeming the first half, so I gave it another shot. The second half is indeed better, and the ending (minus the silly epilogue) was really powerfully done, but it doesn't level out to a good show. I really liked the lighting design specifically, many beautiful skylines that lent the right otherwordly feel to the campus, and Yuuko is the first character since Kawashima Ami to actually be in control of her sexuality, which is always a welcome change from the usual leering camera. But the male protagonist isn't distinctive in any way, the humor almost always sucks, the portions not related to the main plot/relationship should be excised, and did I mention the main character sucks? This "audience surrogate" bullshit needs to stop right now - Katawa Shoujo had FOUR distinctive, driven, flawed, relatable main characters, and you were ACTUALLY PLAYING AS THOSE CHARACTERS. Saying it's pandering is just an excuse; I'm sure any audience would prefer someone they care about and relate to over a cardboard cutout they're meant to take the place of. Anyway, this is a low 6 show with a few moments and ideas from a 9 show, but I can't in good conscience bump it any higher.

As far as stupid comedies go, it's pretty stupid. Somehow strangely watchable, though. Maybe because every episode is 1.5 minutes without the OP, and the OP is actually great

A giddy, exuberant love letter to mechs, hyperbole, and hot-blooded heroism. It starts out as basically a parody of itself, but by a third of the way through, I realized this show is just fucking rad. By embracing the absurdity of the genre and pushing it way, way, way, way, way past its logical extreme, it becomes truly incredible. And even beyond its ballsy full commitment to its own grandeur, there are moments of genuine comedy, a wide cast of endearing characters (particularly Rossiu, whose arc and conflict contain a depth and frank honesty completely out of whack with the rest of this show), and some of the best, most distinctive visuals Gainax has ever produced. Screw these new kids; no one knows how to bare their souls like Gainax does. AND THEIR SOULS ARE ON FIIIIIIIREEEEE.

The plot wanders an absurd amount and the character development is glacial as always, but this show definitely has some things going for it. The visual design is fantastic, and the world they've created is extremely compelling. Some individual arcs are true standouts, and the two male leads contrast against each other extremely well. It's easy to see why someone would love this show.

A gorgeous and evocative mood piece that naturally invites personal resonance. Just an excellent film altogether.

A tremendous work that excels on too many levels. Combining engaging vignettes with a diverse soundtrack and absolutely gorgeous direction and animation, it tells all manner of stories and reaches for a wide array of emotions, establishing a very diverse cast along the way. It definitely has weak elements, with the dramatic grasps of the second half standing out as particularly tenuous, but its strengths completely overwhelm its weaknesses.

Sadly can't match up to the original series in terms of aesthetics or writing. Still a watchable idol show, but far from a great one.

A vast improvement over the first season. Still lacks the aesthetic brilliance of the original, but makes up for that with some legitimately compelling core storytelling.

A movie that's better around the margins than it is as an entire film. Not a worthy followup, unfortunately.

A fine victory lap, basically serving as a greatest hits collection for a very great show.

A competent movie, but not a good one. Every beat is standard, the characters are cliches, the beats land so predictably it's almost funny. No real personality in it, though I like the setting and the princess's voice actress.

Madhouse showing off, again. An incredibly endearing time-travel slice-of-life, with slight divergences into true sci-fi and drama. The animation is great, the writing is really sharp and outstandingly organic, and the main character is devastatingly adorable (in a flawed but endearing character way, not an anime way... well, okay, maybe some of that too). The pieces/tones felt a tiny bit disjointed, particularly in the staggered final act, but it's still a great piece anyone can enjoy. And again, this protagonist is a triumph.

Disappointing. It has a distinctive cast and visual style, but the plot wanders and the pacing suffers as a result, with the ending being a series of such stunning coincidences that even I, a lover of freaking anime, just had to keep calling bullshit. I guess if I'd been more attached to the sentimental side of the story, maybe I would have forgiven the rest of it... but I wasn't.

Possibly even an improvement over the first. The ideas of time dilation and Anno's direction are absent, but in their place is some gorgeous visual design and sweeping themes regarding youth, humanity, and death that touch on moments and ideas from Gunbuster, Eva, and FLCL, among other shows I'm sure. It works almost as a culmination of all Gainax's cornerstones to date, and its final messages sacrifice none of the cruelty of the original while providing just as strong a message of hope. It's a beautiful little piece.

Wonderful little show. It starts off with a great combined sense of earnestness and humor, and then just builds on itself through the combination of its strong central characters, solid direction, and fantastic use of setting. The way it builds pathos out of time dilation is riveting, even if the drama is sometimes (fairly intentionally) overwrought and dramatic turns not really given enough room to breathe. And the deeply ingrained themes regarding human connection and our bestial will to survive are solidly portrayed. Anno's psyche and incredible gift for direction are all over this thing.

Basically the high school romantic comedy I've been wishing existed ever since I started watching anime. Characters are vibrant and funny, development and story turns are satisfying and ring true, the main love story is toradorable, and I absolutely love the visual/animation style. I could watch any number of shows like this of this caliber and not have watched enough.

Possibly the weakest Monogatari arc yet, combining tedious Araragi shenanigans, too much exposition, and basically no thematic/emotional payoff to basically exemplify all of Monogatari's weakest elements.

A strong action-drama with an incredibly rich cast of characters. The narrative wanders and has some pronounced missteps, but the world and cast are wonderful. Definitely a rewarding series.

A gorgeous, deftly written, personal, rich, insightful slice of life about family and living well. Full of wonderful little vignettes and moments of stunning beauty. Virtually flawless, the writing is far beyond any gradable caliber, the storytelling is incredibly sharp, the visual design is breathtaking. One of the very best.

An unfortunate step down from the first season - more an enjoyable, rambling jaunt with good friends than a thematically cohesive drama.

An okay comedy short with some nice animation highlights, let down by a seriously disappointing middle stretch. Aims low, inconsistently hits its mark.

Very, very solid romance/drama. The dialogue can be overwrought from time to time, the direction's a little stiff, and it's light on actual message, but the characters are dynamite and the good dialogue is very good. All the conflicts build beautifully out of the base nature of the characters, there are many standout moments, and most importantly, the show is unafraid to let its protagonists be pretty shitty, selfish people. A bit too flawed to be ranked higher, but the things it's good at are really, really impressive and important.

Basically pure popcorn - the animation and direction is great and the side characters are very funny, but the story itself is total nonsense. Comfortably occupies that Yozakura Quartet "light reading" category I like having one show of every season.

It’s a common complaint about anime. Why are so many series obsessed with high school? Why do we only get young protagonists? Why aren’t there more stories I can still relate to, now that I’ve grown beyond that setting? And it’s an extremely valid one – anime does squander its infinite potential by adhering to such similar settings, and we really are deeply lacking in protagonists covering the range of mature human experience. The reasons for this trend (the age of the fandom, the high premium placed on nostalgia and escapism, the natural tendency to continue making what sells, the adherence to safe formulas, etc) are as understandable as they are disappointing. And the complaint doesn’t even take quality into account, which is another issue – many of these shows tread the same ground, they often deal in archetypal, empty characters, they often exist as pure escapism or viewer self-insert fantasies, their humor repeats, their drama repeats worse, they exist as commercial shells and have no greater human ambitions. Sometimes it can feel like we’re well and truly fucked when it comes to imbedding some creative spark and ambition in this sea of similar, empty productions.

To this jaded and completely reasonable perspective (one which you can probably tell I largely agree with), I would have to say: OreGairu.

I didn’t have huge expectations for this show. I knew Brain’s Base was a very talented studio, but their most recent productions (Tonari, Amnesia) hadn’t really displayed that. I’m actually a huge sucker for romance, and so I pick up pretty much every romantic comedy – but that suckerdom does not extend to liking things even if they’re bad, and so I pretty swiftly put most of them back down again (or ride them out while whining endlessly, like with Sakurasou). The art style didn’t look that special, and the premise seemed kinda predictable. I figured a few episodes wouldn’t hurt.

My reaction to the first episode has been my continuous reaction since then – “Dear god Brain’s Base, you’ve finally done it,” and “Finally, after all this time, a smart romcom actually exists in our world.” It begins with a monologue by our protagonist and central loner, laying out his cynical view of high school and justification for his detachment with more acuity and wit than I’d ever seen before.

This monologue is then immediately trashed by his teacher, who ridicules his maudlin prose and chastises him for missing the point of the assignment.

And that’s pretty much the show in a nutshell. It’s a show about smart people, which is different from being a show about people who the show tells you are smart. The characters display their intelligence through their wit, through their reasoning, through the carefully constructed shells that surround them.

It’s also a show about young people. Our protagonists may be smart, but they are anything but wise – their views of the world are incomplete, their perspective fails to understand a thousand thousand things, and their philosophies are predicated on the viewpoint that the reason they’re alone can’t truly be their own fault. They need to believe that – for all their defenses and rationale and witty repartee, they are deeply insecure and deeply lonely. The show doesn’t tell you that – it doesn’t have anyone outright break down over their need for connection, though Yui sometimes come close. You just get to see the scars – the walls they’ve constructed to make sure their fundamental pain is kept as distant as humanly possible.

The show juggles the disconnect between their critical, analyzing nature and incomplete perspectives with inspiring ease. Many episodes are full of fractured gems of genuine insight from Yuki and Hikki, but their own personalities and egos are always the limiting factor in their analysis. Outside of the surface conflicts provided to illuminate their ideas and give the early episodes narrative focus, OreGairu is essentially the definition of a “character conflict,” in that virtually all of the conflicts of the show stem directly from the nature of the characters themselves. There is no injection of outside drama keeping these characters from achieving success – their conversations in the very first episode reveal every hurdle they will eventually have to overcome. This is how character writing is supposed to work – it can be difficult to empathize with characters going through conflicts that have no bearing on your own life, but when those conflicts are based on fundamental human flaws, their journey can become universal.

Which brings me back around to the school anime complaint. People have told me they feel they’ve “outgrown” the high school focus – that it has no resonance with their life any more. I feel that with most shows, this complaint is valid – most shows are attempting to provide entertainment, and if the shenanigans on-screen are no longer what entertain you, then there’s nothing more to say.

But OreGairu is not about pure entertainment – it is about understanding, illumination, resonance. Even if your school days are a distant memory, the fundamental conflicts of this show are about our universal human nature. I’m biased, obviously, as I can see a character like Hikki articulate the precise, perfectly logical reasons he chooses to disengage from his experience, and see a shadow of my much younger self. But I think most people can relate to that fundamental insecurity, that need to rationalize your world in a way that makes it less judgmental of your own choices. The desire to disengage because engaging invites disappointment or pain. The difficulty in accepting the limits of your own perspective. Many people have said they relate to Hikki’s struggle, or see too much of themselves in him – that’s definitely not something to feel bad about. The well-articulated strengths, flaws, and scars present in both Hikki and Yuki are what make them worth empathizing with – what make them uniquely human. Regardless of your own point in life, the internal struggles these characters face are something we all deal with in our own way.

That’s a lot of somber analysis for a romantic comedy, huh? Well, I hope that doesn’t make the show sound dry – because it also works better than many as a comedy, and better than almost any as a romance. The comedy generally evolves naturally from the personalities and banter of the characters, as expected. While there are occasional standout gags, the humor generally does play second fiddle to the character drama, and there are even occasional missteps where the show leans slightly too far into the genre conventions it’s normally eviscerating. The romance fairs much better – it is incredibly understated throughout, and grows at a pace with the character’s own personal development. All the romance that exists is built out of the need for understanding and trust the protagonists exhibit – their shields are pretty tough, and until they learn to trust each other, nothing else can grow. This process is depicted as naturally as possible, and is built on a tremendous understanding of how chemistry works. Even from the first episode, Yuki and Hikki trade barbs with ease, and from very early on it is clear their senses of humor bounce off each other well, and that their worldviews both complement and often mirror each other. They’re clear equals in many ways, and seeing them slowly come to respect, trust, and understand each other is honestly an incredible joy to watch.

What else is there to say? The show is. The visual aesthetic and soundtrack are generally just serviceable, though Brain’s Base often display great subtlety in using the character’s physicality to display their emotional state and relationships. The narrative craft is excellent, with the early episodes offering simpler stories to establish the core relationships, and the second half concerning itself more with truly clashing their personalities against each other, and forcing them to address their own weaknesses and shields. The voice acting is solid, and some of the side characters display a great deal more thought and nuance in their depiction than expected – Hayama in particular is a much-needed counterpoint to Hikki’s perspective.

There are certainly flaws here – not all the side characters are interesting or well-articulated, not all the story arcs are equally insightful, a good number of jokes don’t land or repeat, and there’s even a tiny dash of fanservice. But the things this show does right are so distinctive, so important, and handled so well that I really can’t force myself to spend time further articulating these weaknesses. Even after spending all these words discussing it, I really feel like I’ve failed to capture the fundamental point here – the writing is just good. That’s a much rarer thing than you’d think – very, very few people can write characters whose personalities have true weight, and whose every action reflects the sum of their person. Very rarely do I find myself watching a show and actually trusting its writer – secure in my knowledge that the characters will hold up and only show themselves as even stronger the deeper I dig. It’s easily one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, and certainly a very personal favorite. I’ll still be talking about this show for a very long time to come.

Basically a pure fanservice episode OreGairu-style. Meaning it's pointless, it has some really bad styles of pandering (objectifying the girls, waaay too much sensei nonsense), it's regularly funny, it makes use of its trademark wit and great characters/character dynamics, and it's pretty forgettable. This show's writing and characters are just far too good for anything related to it to be actually bad, but this is about as skippable as you can get.

A stunning sequel that actually builds on everything the first season accomplished, eclipsing it in every way. More incisive character focus, more well-constructed drama, more growth, more reflections on the nature of identity and adolescence. On top of that, the production takes a massive step up as well, with the animation and direction each working hard to elevate the wonderful material. A perfect sequel.

Flawless, whimsical fable about trying to live without realizing you're already doing it. Incredibly, exuberantly creative visual flare, with constant purposeful motifs and uses of color. Ambitious and distinctive direction, strong soundtrack, great narrative conceit. Sharp writing and witty, endearing character work courtesy of the writer of Uchouten Kazoku. It's so complex and well-constructed that I wouldn't even know where to begin poking at it. Simply put, one of our few legitimate masterpieces.

Starts with a real unique potential in its dystopian-children's-fable premise, but ends up leaning entirely into the "children's cartoon" side with a series of "wacky" episodes that utterly destroy investment. So much less than it could have been.

What the HELL is a show this mediocre doing with a score this fantastic? It makes no freaking sense.

Alright, that aside, this show certainly failed in the one reason I actually decided to give it a chance - depictions of actual, non-will-they-or-won't-they relationships. Scenes rang true here and there, but the main failing was, as so often is the case, in the main character. His generic nice-guy-ness left nothing to really develop, and forced everyone else to fall for him in unrealistic, character-damaging ways (aside from the neighbor, whose backstory was deftly shot, emotionally charged, and unique, as well as one of the few truly well-used moments of nudity in the show. Surprise surprise, this stuff is best used to depict emotional moments with more baggage and resonance than titillation). His blandness dragged the whole show down with it.

His sister (yes, the other most main character) is also basically punishment to watch. In all the stories she's not actively involved, she just mopes on the sidelines, almost deliberately attacking the main emotional arc of the current story. Her character's position is completely understandable, but because it's dragged back and reset five separate times, it spends a lot of time being really tedious. What's even more frustrating is that as soon as her own arc starts, she immediately shows signs of an actual personality that was never really addressed in her prior scenes. A sad side effect of the format, I suppose.

Which is unfortunate, because there are good things here too. The score is, as I mentioned, absolutely fantastic. A suite of vivid and melancholy classical mood pieces, they complement almost every scene and add more emotional weight than the show itself can offer. There are specific scenes and moments that ring true, as well, and I feel this format is definitely the best and most honest way to adapt a visual novel.

This show is also semi-infamous because holy shit people actually have sex, and that is sadly another generally missed opportunity. Most of the nudity is used gratuitously, and does very little for the characters. Some scenes are somewhat adorable, and the show doesn't entirely miss the inherent nervousness and honesty of these moments. Ultimately, I'm most disappointed on this front because a show that is willing to depict sex has the unique chance to deal with many related emotional moments in any relationship, and instead the sex is mainly just used as a silly finale to most of the stories. The morning-after scene in Katawa Shoujo's Lilly route was so honest, unique, and endearing that I guess this was guaranteed to be a disappointment, but they didn't even really try.

Also, there's a decent bit of fan service all around. Blah.

*update* Roughly two months after finishing, I'm still recalling bits and pieces of this, as well as the scenery in general. I'm not sure if being memorable makes it any better, or if I was too harsh initially due to inflated expectations, but it's worth mentioning. I'm going to give it a point in spite of both significant plot issues and a terribly bland main character, entirely because of the stickiness of the repeated songs and landscape. Also, if Angel Beats is a 7, this has to be a 7 at least.

A surprisingly effective war drama that actually takes its premise in some very interesting directions.

Harmless popcorn. Standout bits of animation throughout, a nicely convoluted fantasy world, and an ultimately charming cast. The narrative's kind of a mess and it's very light entertainment, but as a warm slice of life/shounen mix, it's pretty endearing anyway.

Standard shounen arc in the Yozakura Quartet world. Distinctive for a few reasons - the direction's kind of distinctive, the YZQ world itself is a pretty fun/creative place, and the animation is just gorgeous. Seriously, tons of extremely impressive animation sequences here.

Pretty empty writing-wise, of course. But as pretty, warming popcorn, it's a fine way to pass the time.

A lesser arc of Yozakura, and one that largely avoids the main cast, instead focusing on the policeman and his two kid charges. The first two episodes meander and are really heavy on fanservice, but the third is a wonder - tons of beautiful shots, fantastic animation, and a tremendous finale. Certainly worth a watch if you're already on the Yozakura train.

Incredibly thematically rich, as you'd expect from an Ikuhara show, but also very compressed. The story is so dense that there's not enough time for characterization, making it all fall a little emotionally flat. Still beautiful and smart, though.

A charming sports narrative, held down by a poorly constructed and overly busy narrative structure, a focus on performances over stake-establishing or character work, and the animation's inability to keep up with the show's ambitions. Very strong start, though.

Compelling, beautiful depicted story of youth rebellion and societal alienation.

A show with great characters and overall personality that is utterly defeated by failings of series composition. I really wish this show's creativity and dramatic pretensions were matched by storytelling worthy of their ambitions, but they are not.