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People might say it's average, it's uninspired, yet so many seem to love it. Who's right? All of them. When you look at it from one angle you could see the moe-pandering, erotic comments, factory-line melodrama. Yet, you could look at it from another angle and see the sometimes well-realized characters, sometimes more sensible humor, sometimes more interesting banter.

"Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai" is a Frankenstein mixed bag of stitched-together conventions done well, and to me that is it's main problem. The anime doesn't have a strong identity and the plot takes the backseat, quickly appearing as random gimmicks that mess with ... some characters. However, what pulls things together and leads the way is the characters and the dialogue. However, even with that understanding, the issue continues in how the show prioritizes itself.

You might hear some say the pacing of "Bunny Girl Senpai" is horrible, that it encapsulated too many stories in too short a time. My take, that isn't the problem. The show is directed very competently and does a fantastic job at telling stories briefly. The problem is this format naturally places too much focus on the plot, which is a vague series of mini-obstacles to an unclear resolution. This show would've done well with either being less ambitious in it's length of story-telling, or in adding a few more episodes of down-time to focus on the cast. It also could do well to have more thorough lore that makes the series of events in this feel more coherent or progressive, while now it feels completely lost and meaningless beyond the ensuing character interaction. It could've also doubled-down on it's ridiculous nature and tried to justify itself with logic less (this criticism being directed at the tedious usage specific character).

"Bunny Girl Senpai" is a victim of improperly managing priorities and suffers quite a bit because of it, yet it manages to have some engaging character moments between some overdone drama. I believe the show lives up enough to the hype and succeeds in being an almost best-of summary of things you'd see in Clannad without some of the added nonsense. I understand why someone would give it an 8 out of 10 if the more extreme silliness of the show didn't phase them to the negative in some way, but there's enough grounded heartfelt dialogue that most of the time I felt an incentive to keep watching.

Approaching Rokka no Yuusha with the expectation of a moderately-average fantasy story will meet you with quite the surprise! For me, the surprise was quite pleasant.

As far as premise goes, Rokka no Yuusha is your typical heroes hunt down the demon king storyline. It's been done hundreds if not thousands of times before, and the premise itself never really becomes anything notable. However, the unexpected area where this show shines is in its characters! The story almost writes itself with the characters as the focus, rather than preparing for the next plot-event in the "epic" storyline. The cast felt very genuine and dynamic and all ... grew on me to the point I was almost rooting for all of them. And that bit about "rooting for all of them" is what makes the small bit of story we got here actually quite interesting. Minor spoiler-warning...

The story of this anime isn't the tale of heroes defeating the a demon king, but the story of the heroes finding each-other and building trust. The plot is of the greatest danger facing those chosen as heroes, being their search for each-other while they're separated and vulnerable. This sets up a "who-did-it" scenario which challenges these heroes abilities as-well as reveals truly who they are as people. This is honestly a brilliant way of introducing characters in a story as they show eachother who they truly are. And the story serving the characters isn't all that allows them to be good, the design of this mystery plot-line is handled well enough that surprisingly I really didn't know who it could be at times. In my defense though, the whole mystery relies too heavily on magical lore that isn't laid-out even to the characters beforehand and is nigh deus-ex machina'd along when it's serviceable towards the confusion. However, even with its contrived setup, the story does very fairly distribute its accusations and the characters are for-the-most-part very rational about the situation (except that little girl). Another great thing about the characters is they really are tested and develop in satisfying ways, while also budding a surprising and unexpected romance that felt very genuine and believable.

There is issues with the show though, being around its weakest link - its visuals. There's a lot of horrible cgi for the creatures of the world, and it really is horrible most of the time. The actual animation also isn't that impressive and lacks a lot of consistency with the characters proportions. The backgrounds also grow quite derivative and unimaginative, basically making most of the world look like a tropical forest. The directing, however, is great (as expected by the man who directed Spice & Wolf). The soundtrack is also fantastic, creating an atmosphere very along the lines of the game "Shadow of the Colossus" (the constant horse-rising and Egyptian stone-age theme helping with that). Overall, I really felt the staff created something that felt original in presentation, while not that creative still.

Even with all this praise though, the main thing that holds Rokka no Yuusha back is that it's incomplete and feels a small part of a great journey. If the development of this journey continued to be as ambitious and risky as this segment, I'd have loved to watch more and might've ended it with an even higher score. However, the ending of the anime gave me a feeling the coming story might be more along the lines of the generic demon-king plot, so maybe it's for the best? I'll definitely be reading the novels though to find out.

I usually don't agree with the idea that a show gets better as it goes along and to "keep watching til it gets good", but this really is a show you have to put in six episodes to really see what it's about. Even once the main predicament starts, I was convinced it was a brief bit of the anime with an obvious answer to "who-did-it". The characters are also introduced in archetypal ways that someone who likes a more rich cast might be instantly turned off, but I assure you there is something to these characters if you give them a shot. Yes they are goofy at times, including their designs, but the characters really have a lot of charm (except for the newcomer at the end who I despised). Give it a shot!

This show is just too convoluted and dull, yet its gravest sin is that it'll be just good enough that you'll watch the whole thing. Its got a neat concept, but played through a mostly-cheesy series of uninspired events - featuring a corny ham-fisted romance and an absolutely cringe-inducing villain (on so many levels). The show doesn't feel very planned-out at all and just does as it pleases most of the time. Everything is so convenient, at times to literally nonsensical degrees that it becomes frustrating. Yet there's some really well choreographed action shots (while not many), some funny lines (here and there), some great ... orchestrations (with mostly abysmal timing). Birdy herself is the only all-around good character. Some other characters do have moments where they're interesting, but even their personalities are convoluted at times. Nothing adds up neatly in this show! I honestly don't understand what the inspiration could've even for this. I'd assume it just rooted as a brand-recognition project for "Birdy the Mighty", but the franchise itself seems pretty barren and niche outside of this.

It was a struggle watching through all of this, yet I can't say I didn't enjoy the show at all. It's the definition of "mildly entertaining". If you sit down on the couch with your sandwich and Birdy Decode is on, you're safe watching til your sandwich is done

This is a great expressionist manga, using wild levels of creativity and story-design to build abstract themes in-direct to the main events going on. I took Alien Nine as almost a metaphor for more real experiences involving relationships and maybe being behind the curve as people you know get more invested in their own. The characters aren't very developed, neither is the story's setting itself, but it creates this visceral atmosphere where the emotions are almost what's leading the way. It's really a unique experience, maybe a bit similar to some things you'd see in the weirder parts of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Even-so though, I ... thought the third act/volume got a bit confused and made things feel pretty convoluted at times. The finale ended up being a bit of a let-down as I was hoping it'd be a bit more complex than it was. But note that doesn't mean I could just explain the universe of Alien Nine.

In an interview present in my physical copy, the mangaka himself says he was going for the type of disconnected imaginative experience you'd get out of reading a book and creating your own vision of it. The mangaka wanted a manga that let you use your imagination still, noting it was directed at imaginative individuals. I personally thought that was brilliant and worked wonders in the manga for the most part. But even for the less imaginative folks out there, this mangaka puts a lot of effort in his work and the designs/scene-planning are just fantastic. I'm sure he would make a great director if he worked on anime. So in conclusion, read Alien Nine!

To 'Fate/Stay Night',

You were the first anime I ever watched and I used to absolutely love you, and your soundtrack stands as one of the most atmospheric in anime for me to this day! However, you haven't aged well at all. Your animation's very clunky and the details are lacking much of the time. I was willing to forgive you, but you're just so barren of events. You try to deliver a slow character-intensive thrilling experience, but you just absolutely fail to deliver. Rin stands as an exposition dump this time around for basically the entire series. The characters basically just voice their worries, how ... good the food is, and how clueless the MC is in every conversation. I also didn't remember your romance being as ham-fisted as it was. As I have a lot of nostalgia for you, I did find a bit of charm in it, but I knew every second that I was dealing with some cheesy and hilarious stuff. How Saber is portrayed is part of the problem, she's like an emotionless robot. And why did they all have to be eating whenever there was a long conversation, and why was Sakura even there? You're just too oldie otaku-pandering for me nowadays with all your plot skin-ship fanservice and the way in-which Saber says "master" to the MC like a maid.

There needs to be more action, more focus on drama beyond Shirou's clearly-flawed ideals. You're just an anime for a younger me I suppose. But I have to say, if anyone else read this, that if they typed in "Unmei no Yoru" on YouTube and listened to it, that there is no anime in existence that will come to my mind but you. Some of your soundtracks are just so perfect for the setting, and I should mention the start was actually pretty well-done (around the first 3-4 episodes). There is also a few cool and interesting moments, but you're just too flawed of an experience for me to lend you more than a 4/10...

A review with love,
Piegoose

P.S. Watch the first 3 episodes, than the Unlimited Blade Works movie for a 7/10 experience

This is a great watch for those who're already a tad familiar with Fate/Stay Night. As a standalone it's a bit lacking in context, but either way it'll still be a good watch. It's a simplified version of a much longer story, but it's pretty tastefully done and the directing is fantastic. The dialogue is also noticeably better then the TV counterpart (which was extremely hit-or-miss at times), while still certainly being cheesy. But Fate/Stay Night is mostly dumb fun with maybe a bit of emotional investment for some. It's not exactly the most intense of Battle Royale story-lines, but you gotta give Kenji Kawaii ... (the man behind the music) heavy credits for giving the Deen series a truly unique feel for the Fate universe that was never again matched. While other Fate stories may be more in-depth with plot and characters, I think this movie has the best overall package for those Fate vibes. It's a shame they didn't make a whole anime of this quality back then. And I should note I watched this way back when it was a thing, just gave it a rewatch and still like it (while TV counterpart not so much).

If you're going to step into the Fate universe with this though, definitely watch the first 3 episodes of the original Fate/Stay Night anime first. They brush over that part in particular which hurts it a bit.

I didn't expect anything special, but I would've if I knew beforehand this was written by the creator of Black Lagoon. Right off the bat you'll be getting Fate Zero vibes, which also makes sense (beyond some basic similarities) since the same director worked on both.

The premise is neat in having characters from different genres collide and sometimes test eachother's philosophies. I couldn't say who exactly each character represents since most are pretty specific, or like a mixture of shows. Because of this, I personally don't think "Re:Creators" is effective at being a parodic commentary on anime genre tropes. Luckily (or maybe not) the show ... was mostly invested in exploring the mechanics of the gimmick of the situation. It managed to get pretty interesting and creative at times, but the elephant in the room is the situation just isn't something that can be logically reasoned with so they were wasting their effort (for example, where's Beowulf). Taking this route doomed "Re:creators" to being more convoluted than it needed to be.

The show honestly shouldn't have even taken it as seriously as it did. I mean to get into this show to begin with we were all willing to suspend some disbelief, so why continually test it in vain? For one, the government wouldn't have been as out of the picture as they were portrayed. The government wouldn't leave one female officer to plan directly with several extremely dangerous individuals who could crush Tokyo in an instant. Yet we don't even get a scene expressing that basic idea, at least expressing the fear of the government being too strict with them. There should've been more surprise, confusion, disbelief, and doubt. They'd more likely than not be stern and try to contain them til conflict arouse.

The creator of "Re:Creators" tweeted he regretted how he handled the character "Mamika" in the story, and I think that says something to what really stuck with people about the series. The plot mechanics are nice, but the meat of the series should've been the characters connecting and conflicting on a deeper level based on their stories - which are mostly untold/unshown. In the beginning I actually took the lack of their backstories as an attempt to have us, the viewers, implant the similar actual manga/anime characters that come to mind. You could see the issue with that from what I said before, in that most are too specific. The characters really were a disappointment since they started so well! Some of them can be fun or can bring up some interesting ideas in conversation, but most are just reactive or blank-slate archetypes (which, ironically, aren't acknowledged by the show) with convenient dilemmas to propagate the major conflict.

To truly enjoy this show you'll have to appreciate the effort being put into developing the plot mechanics. There'll be a lot of talking and exposé (which got to the point of boring me to tears). You'll also have to not be too critical and just try to have fun with it. There's a fair amount of stable ground to the lore, but once you start to ponder a bit outside the box, you might start seeing the still wobbly ground. I'd say give "Re:Creators" a go. It's fun and smart at times. I do think the directing style they chose didn't suit the anime though, while I love the director's work in "Fate Zero". This show just didn't have the grounds to be as mind-gamey, slow, and melancholic.

To those of the present, this one's pretty similar in premise to "Darling in the Franxx" with coupling pilots and focus on their relationships, and I'd say this is better in most ways. One reason being the lore of "Simoun" plays better with that basic idea of couples as pilots. It paints an asexual picture on those who are pilots and tries to present them as heavenly, yet they at some point are to be removed from their places and merge into regular society, in their Holy Land, with the gender they each decide on. This part of the lore is interesting, and it gets ... even more intriguing when it's learnt that there's a faraway steampunk-like country somewhere that seems to be suffering from the their earthly technology and is bent on getting closer to the mystery of the Holy Land.

Where things start to get questionable is when you start to see the priorities of the show, being the pilots and their interactions. For the most part the characters are actually handled well and it's fun watching them, but it's very apparent that the story itself was taken as a second thought to how to develop their relationships. Time and time again the story plays to character progression when it's convenient, sometimes to the point of being irritatingly irrational. What saves the story from being complete filth though is how mysterious is continually represents its Holy technologies and its world as a whole. As the show went on, to me this felt cheap and increasingly dull as I just wanted to learn more about the setting and the motives of either nation, yet we're stranded with these pilots and their limited scope and off-an-on melodrama. There definitely is melodrama too, while I still think the characters are done well for the most-part. I appreciated their consistency and differences in subtle to serious situations, but it isn't always like that.

Another reviewer (YourMessageHere) said "while the thing is wrapped in sci-fantasy window dressing it's a story of spoiled obsequiously devout snobby teenagers getting what's coming to them", and I'd agree while I wouldn't say the story is completely oblivious to that. The anime does test these characters and they aren't completely useless and boring. Many of them do grow, but the whole design is just so convoluted that I just couldn't take it around the midway point.

I actually came to this series from looking into the staff for "Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)", being these two: Akatsuki Yamatoya and Shou Aikawa. They partly worked on the script, story, characters for FMA2003 and I was curious how they work on other projects. From what I've seen here, the duo work well at handling the basics of character interaction, but they aren't the go-to's for story design.

To conclude, "Simoun" isn't bad and has many things going for it. The design and concept of it in how it's directed gives a pretty original and regal atmosphere to it. The music is fantastic most of the time and plays well to bring an avant-garde feel. The characters can be fun and you'll be rooting for them every now and then, but they can also be outright cringey and completely irrational. The setting is interesting in a thematic sense, while little explored from what I saw, aswell as how it plays into the asexual pilot interactions. I did glance a bit further into the series and the pilots do seem to remain the focus and how they handle their little excursions in the greater war going on. I do think I'd have some fun if I watched more, but it'd be too tedious at this point. So I give "Simoun" a 6/10 for the effort and in getting some of it right.

In short, don't watch this - read the manga. If you refuse to read though, this is still fairly entertaining while irritating.

The original comic is of horror by famous mangaka Junji Ito. This movie turns that into a thriller disaster flick and while it doesn't completely ruin it, it dampers the experience and makes it completely ridiculous later on (seriously, whoever was in-charge of the soundtrack must be insane). The biggest issue with this movie is that the director clearly didn't agree with the horror of the original, he must've not thought you could make regular fish scary. Well I beg to differ, but he ... at least did well at representing the dangers of walking sharks. This movie takes out the slow unraveling mystery of the original, and makes it an instant disaster which removes the eerie atmosphere. I also thought it was pretty lame that everyone's careers got switched to film jobs. Was nice having a main character in the comic who's a diver on a trip with his girlfriend, was personal and secluded. While the change in character isn't that big of a deal imo, a few of these new characters only add horrible and pointless melodrama!

Junji Ito's stories are ALL about execution of a wild idea. This movie takes the wild idea and tries for a normalized execution seemingly to meet a wider demographic. The problem is that the director behind this doubted Junji Ito's style, so this project was doomed to fail. You'll definitely get a laugh out of it though.

This is a straight-up gem people! Randomly clicked on this and didn't even need to smoke another bud. This OVA is just crazy story and action, imagine "Inferno Cop" with an actual budget. It's that 80's indie Japanese goofy comedy style, but with the stakes turned high with a hilariously random plot and directing. It's almost that the OVA tries to give the impression it's not intending to be funny, but just happening to be telling a story in a strange way. It's almost a parody of anime as a whole. The dialogue's always quirky and funny, the character's never leave a dull moment. They're ... sleeve-rolled macho personalities with embarrassing habits. Why not take a break and have a good time with this?

If you want more afterwards, I recommend the live-action movie "Repo Man (1984)".