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First, the obvious: this is a sequel. There is no part of this show that is a remake, and if you haven't read or watched the entirety of the original Higurashi before getting to Gou, you're gonna have a bad time. Get outta here now and go do that. *THIS REVIEW HAS SPOILERS FOR THE ORIGINAL HIGURASHI SERIES SO REALLY, WATCH OUT.*

If you're a Higurashi fan and you're wondering if Gou will ruin your fond memories of the original because of it's low score, know that that score is in large part due to confused first-timers or chumps criticizing it for diverging from the OG.

That ... isn't to say that there aren't also plenty of valid reasons to criticize Gou. In fact, let's start with those. For starters, the show takes an entire cour to get its wheels turning. The first twelve episodes are spent retreading routes 1,2, and 7 of the original Higruashi. These episodes are sprinkled with minor changes and all have different endings than the originals, so while it was fun playing 'spot the differences,' after 3 months that got a little old. The show could have easily started at its own halfway point and given up its prolonged fake-out stunt in exchange for much better pacing.

In addition to these pacing issues, Gou looks pretty awful by modern anime standards. The directing is generally uninspired, with flat panning character shots taking up most of its screen time. There are a number of hideous CG objects, including the iconic Hinamizawa waterwheel that now haunts my nightmares, and Oishii's car, which doesn't so much drive as it does get dragged around the screen by an invisible cursor. Asides from Rika's ritual dance there are basically no animation highlights, and while the character designs are alright, they're often misdrawn in unfortunate ways. If you've come to Gou looking for a visual treat, you're out of luck. This show isn't pretty.

However, it is pretty good. I subscribe to an old school of thought that says that aesthetics aren't everything, and while it is preferred to be immersed by the deliberate directing of a confident piece of animation, a good story can make up for all that and more. What Gou does right is that it understands what a sequel should be. Too many modern stories use sequels to retread familiar territory with a small twist, keeping the world familiar, the characters relatively static, and more importantly, the original ending more or less intact. For me, these kinds of sequels are closer to fanfiction, indulgent expansions for the fans that play it safe to avoid making anyone unhappy. They're also incredibly pointless and boring. If you're going to add to a story, have a reason.

And boy oh boy, does Gou have a reason.

In Gou, Ryukishi blows the original route 8 ending of Higruashi wide open, shattering the tied-with-a-bow conclusion and sticking a knife point at his original theme of trusting your friends at all costs. This was a flaw that was alluded to in the original, as some great minds on Twitter have pointed out. The original Higurashi points out that the so-called 'trust and unity' of the original ending was only made possible by uniting the main cast around a singular threat, the classic move of bringing people together by providing them a common enemy. For Keichii's club, everything was gravy. But what about Takano, their common enemy? How different was her delusional rampage from Shion's or Rena's? The message of the story was to try to understand the people around you better, to reach out to them when you notice something wrong, but at the end of Higurashi this was only achieved by making someone outside the club who was going through a similar experience into a scapegoat. What was more, Rika treated escaping June of 1983 as a singular point to wiggle out of, not as a solution earned through personal growth. The way she saw it, if she could survive 1983 then she would be happy with her friends, no questions asked. She never bothered to stop and think about how so many of the lingering issues her friends faced would continue to persist regardless of whether or not Takano was trying to kill her. Satoko was still overcoming her abuse and abandonment issues. Rena was still struggling with anxiety and depression. And the Hinamizawa virus, the metaphor for paranoia and distrust in small Japanese communities, was still around.

These are the weaknesses of the original Higurashi ending that Gou challenges to the extend of its abilities. At its beginning, Rika finds herself sent back to 1983 Hinamizawa for an unknown reason. Convinced that she's already figured out the solution to the problem, she proceeds with confidence, only to discover that 1983 has changed. Takano is no longer a threat, but all of Hinamizawa's other swirling problems have been amplified. Rika, who we learn has been away at boarding school, resorts to her old methods, assuming that her hard-acquired glut of knowledge will get her out easily, but what she learns instead is that the town she was so eager to escape from is not so eager to let her go. What's more, the friends she treated more as trophies from her victory are more complicated--and have more agency--than she gave them credit for.

And so Higurashi is put to the test by its own creator. There are a lot of people who were angered by the choices that this story made and the direction it took some of the story's original characters, but I never felt like this show was anything more than a hard-pressing interrogation of the the easy answers given by the original. The twists arose naturally from the loose ends of the first ending, emerging from Rika's failures and breaking open the naive notion that a cohesive, trusting community can be created simply by banding together to stop one bad actor. For the reasons I started off listing, this show is far from perfect. However, it is purposeful, inspired, and bold. It strikes hard at the core of its own original thesis, and it does so using ideas that Ryukishi has clearly been carefully planning for a long time. In my many long years of watching anime I've never been as excited for each new episode of an airing show, and I've never spent so long debriefing every piece with my friends. For capturing my attention and obsession for twenty-four straight weeks and still leaving me hyped as fuck for Sotsu in the summer, I give Higurashi Gou an unironic, uninflated 9/10 and recommend it to everyone who has an ounce of love for the original Higurashi series.

I don't know about you guys, but the reason I continue to watch anime through the years is because of the creativity. You'll find stories in anime that you won't find anywhere else, concepts that have never been explored in Hollywood, and surprises that make most novels look formulaic. However, as I grow older I find myself becoming more of a grump about airing anime. Most seasons these days don't even have one show that I'll watch to completion, and if I do pick up something new it's almost always from the backlog. What's up with that? Anime's in a bit of a boom: standards ... for visuals and audio are higher than ever, huge companies like Netflix are funding production of shows, and the anime audience has expanded further into the mainstream than ever before. This should be the golden years.

And yet, the vast majority of modern shows are creatively bankrupt.

That doesn't mean they're bad. Look, I liked Demon Slayer episode 19 as much as the next guy. But from a story perspective the highlights of modern anime are mostly been-done shonen moments except now they have better animation and OSTs. I get tired of that. If I want flashy visuals paired with cool music, I'll go watch an AMV. Give me a original, passion-driven story any day.

Along comes Deca-Dence. An anime-original years in production, not created to sell source material or advertise a gatcha game. All you have to do is dip your toe into the first episode to see the level of thought and detail that went into this show. The world is vibrant, complex, and obviously deeper than the audience can see at first glance. The animation is fluid. The combat mechanics are innovative. It's everything that anime fans are always claiming they want to see, so why in the flying fuck is it currently sitting at a lower score than The Misfit of Demon King Academy on MAL? Do we, as anime fans, recognize the message this sends? Don't try new things, keep making power-fantasy isekai trash. That's where the money's at.

Anyways, here's why you should watch this show, and not Re:Is it Wrong to Pick Up My Little Sister in A Demon Dungeon: Zoku.

Deca-Dence starts out as a Gurren-Lagann esque story following a group of surviving humans in a post-apocalyptic world struggling to survive against a swarm of aliens that have taken over the planet. Even with that basic premise, the show differentiates itself from its ilk in a few key ways.

First of all, the protagonist Natsume doesn't have any special powers. No magic drill. No mecha. No titan form. In fact, it's the opposite: she's handicapped, having lost her right arm when she was a child. She has to combat the harsh elements of the world in front of her using the same technology as everyone else, and anything she's going to contribute is going to have to come from her ability to manipulate that technology. This gives a lot more weight to her achievements, because they feel earned instead of handed to her on the platter of destiny.

Second, there's the combat system itself. In the world of Deca-Dence, 'Tankers' and 'Gears' fight insectile aliens using gravity balls strapped on their backs that allow them to levitate when near their opponents. They then use harpoons to skewer the insects and drain their blood. Studio Nut has done a great job in the first six episodes for making these scenes look FANTASTIC, following characters through the air as they duck and weave in an anti-gravity situation. These fights also have an interesting element to them, because while the insects they hunt are a threat, they're also a resource, so combat is both a fight for survival and also a hunt to keep the fortress of Deca-Dence, where the humans live, functioning.

Third, the show DOESN'T bombard you with action. It knows it doesn't need spinning angles and exploding aliens to keep your attention. Instead, it takes time to get to know the characters and their daily lives. A good portion of the first episode is dedicated to following Natsume around as she adjusts to her job of cleaning the ship. Sprawling shots of the vivid landscape set the tone for a story of mythical scale, while moments of reflection for both Natsume and the other protagonist, Kaburagi, do more to invest the viewer in the first few episodes than any minute of high-tension.

So yeah, it sounds good, right? But wait, that's only just the beginning. Deca-Dence would be a perfectly solid passion-project as a straightforward post-apocalyptic survival story, but this is a review whining about creativity in anime. See, what makes Deca-Dence so fah-reaking awesome is that it has layers. There's the original premise, which is great and the show sticks to, but starting in episode two there's an additional perspective added to the story. This hardly even feels like a twist, because it arises so naturally from all the information given in the first episode, but it breaks open the scale of the story and introduces an additional dimension (and an entirely new art style) that shifts the audience's understanding of everything happening with Natsume and the ship of Deca-Dence. This isn't just a twist: this is a twist done WELL, a piece of the story falling into place that feels like it should've been there all along, and the result is a show with a split perspective, an unusual level of complexity, and the tact to handle it. If you're looking for shows that take big risks and pull them off, THIS IS WHAT YOU SHOULD BE WATCHING.

Obviously it's uncertain how the show will manage to tie everything together. It could all fall apart, as anime loves to do (fuck you, Erased.) But as of the halfway point I can safely say that Deca-Dence is ambition meshed with talent, a fascinating and engaging look at a unique and layered world, with fantastic visuals to back it up and likable characters. If you're watching any anime this season, you should be watching Deca-Dence. Shows like this are the reason I watch anime.

It feels wrong to swing the hammer at a show made by Masaki Yuasa. Everything the distinctive director has been responsible I've enjoyed immensely, and even his messier works like Kaiba and Kemonozume were full of heart and punch.

Eizouken was different though. I had to drag myself to the finish line on this one, forcing myself through the final few episodes. It really shouldn't have been this way. Every PIECE of Eizouken is incredible: the animation is distinctive and evocative, switching styles with a grace that demonstrates great understanding of the medium. The central trio all have powerful, unique personalities not often found in anime--Asakusa, ... the imaginative gremiln, Kanamori, the stern pillar of willpower with a love for money, and Mizusaki, the bubbly, popular idol who really just wants to make anime. Their dialogue is well-written, their various strengths and weaknesses well-defined. And if you look at Eizouken at a glance, the story is completely functional, following our artistic trio as they embark on their maiden attempt to create their own anime. It's an informative and passionate tale of the many challenges faced by budding creators, and a lot of the specific aspects that go into making an anime.

So what's the issue, you ask? Well, at first I wasn't sure. All I knew is that by the time I got about halfway through I was bored. Even though the quality of the show hadn't dipped, my interest had plummeted. After thinking about it a bit though, I noticed a pattern that hung through to the finale.

Every conflict in this show has an immediate, easy resolution.

There's no tension! The show throws a non-stop barrage of problems at our protagonists, but they shrug off every single one after a minute of deliberation. Eizouken sometimes starts an episode with the group being presented with a conflict: a lack of funds, a story idea that hasn't come together, censorship from the student council, whatever it may be. Then, Asakusa will go on a walk, or see something neat, have an idea, and that idea will fix the problem. Queue fifteen minutes of the main characters going to the baths, or wandering around looking at the town. Look, I have no problem with slice-of-life stuff, but even this show's fucking title is aggressive: Keep Your Hands of Eizouken, a bold challenge towards anyone who would meddle with our trio's project. I can only assume this title is supposed to be about the student council, who consistently attempt to stand in our protagonist's paths, but rather than building towards any sort of meaningful conflict where the practical nature of the administration clashes with the creative-driven soul of Asakusa and Mizusaki, the student council functions more like the show's Team Rocket, popping in to stir things up and then easily being bested, often off-screen.

All throughout the show Eizouken provides signs that it wants to be about creative perseverance, not simple, easy living. The show brings up the financial viability of anime, the social taboos of being implicated in creating it, the restrictions imposed on the mobility of minors, the struggle of working for a deadline, and more. But rather than delve into these roadblocks the show seems content to wave them aside with ease. None of our main characters are forced to really grapple with anything difficult. Everything they do takes two sped-through tries, if not one. Asakusa is supposed to be lazy and easily distracted, a fatal flaw for the director of a production, but everything gets done on time anyways and she's never forced to face it. Mizusaki initially worries about how to not disappoint her high-society profile while working on anime, but then everyone just immediately accepts it and she moves on without having to make any difficult choices. Kanamori resolves financial problems by waving her hands. Where are the sparks? Where are the moments where the characters fail and face consequences, or have to take a real step back to dig deep and do some growth? We keep getting told that the club is always on the verge of being shut down, but they continue to do whatever they want and nothing comes of it. It's an ethereal threat, just like the rest of the threats in the show, one that has no weight, and as the show goes on and the audience starts to realize that none of the so-called conflicts have any bite behind them and the show gets boring. This is the A-grade Yuasa show equivalent of a maxed-out shonen hero who always wins easily.

I could see an argument that the merits of this show outshine any issues with lacking tension: after all, it's a show about making anime first and foremost. But the fact that a show about the conflict of creation lacked any actual tension feels pretty damning to me, and the fact that it was straight-up a chore to watch by the end when it should have been magical and addicting... well, I can't really overlook that. I love Yuasa and even in this project you can see many of his countless strengths exemplified, but for Eizouken in particular...

I guess it was just too goddamn Easy Breezy after all.

Anime. Comedy.

For me, those two dreaded words have slowly warped in meaning over the years, once instilling excitement and anticipation and then slowly drying up into a well of disappointment and crushed expectations. As I took recommendation after recommendation I figured that surely, eventually, I would find a show that clicked with my sense of humor and leave me crying tears of sweet mirthful bliss. Comedy is all personal, remember, so I'm not bashing any of these shows for those who enjoyed them, but these were my personal reactions. Noazki-kun didn't quite elicit a confession of love from me. Cromartie High was a little ... off-the-mark. Detroit Metal City got me to nod appreciatively, but never actually laugh. Konosuba just made me wish there were more D&D episodes in Community. My recommendation list stretched thin, I finally turned to the looming behemoth, the all-mighty and universally revered Gintama, and after three separate attempts to watch it I finally collapsed 20 episodes in, bored out of my mind. Craving the sweet release of mindless, hilarious entertainment, I crawled back to my roots and checked to see if The Devil is a Part-Timer was still on Netflix.

It was. Could it stand the test of time? Well, it was worth the risk. The answer?

...Kindof? Let's take a look. But before that, let's talk comedy.

The greatest comedies all have a few things in common. First off, they HAVE to be innovative. Comedies of course dry up when they recycle the same humor over and over (helllooo One Punch Man) but just presenting different types of humor isn't enough. Shows have to be imaginative, constructing new and unheard-of situations that belong solely to them. Gintama is pretty stellar at this once in awhile, but it suffers from a lack of consistency, which is something else great comedies have in common. Dud episodes stand out a lot more in comedies than other shows, as you can kind of ignore weird filler in a plot but when your objective is face-value entertainment, 20 minutes of boredom will snap you right out of a laughing mood. The best comedies though aren't just consistent and creative, they have strong central casts that have uniquely compelling dynamics and garner strong emotional ties from their audience. This is something anime comedies usually do well, as most 'comedies' are actually really just feel-good and often random slice-of-life shows. That feel-good feeling is crucial, as it elevated the impact of the jokes if you also CARE about the characters, and is often enough to get you through the slower parts. Finally, and this is the one that nearly every comedy, anime or not, fails at, there's propulsion. By having a status quo that actually shifts you dramatically increase investment in the character's lives, create a plethora of opportunities for fresh humor, and introduce another level of investment as people will now actually care about the plot. Unfortunately, most shows will excessively spam the 'reset' button at the end of each brief story arc, forcing everything back to exactly how it was, or, in the case of American sitcoms, they'll just have all the main cast take turns dating each other to the point where these romances cease to mean anything. This ploy makes sense: once you have a formula that works, messing with it too much can be dangerous, especially as it can muck up that comfort of reliability so many viewers crave. However, only those comedies with propulsion to their story line truly rise majestically above the rest to become real masterpieces.

So where does The Devil is a Part-Timer stand in all this?

In a bit of an odd place, truth be told.

'Hataraku Maou-sama!' or 'The Devil is a Part-Timer' is a glossy 1-cour saga following a premise that sounds extremely anime. The Demon King, referred to often simply as "Satan", finds himself cornered by the forces of Good and decides to flee the generic fantasy realm of Ente Isla with his trusted remaining general. Whoops though, they end up in Tokyo, looking like regular people and missing nearly all of their magic. A classic blunder. While I guess this is technically a nifty spin on the isekai genre, this endearing set-up isn't exactly revolutionary, and so as usual a lot of it comes down to how it's handled. From the beginning the show really leans into the contrast between the two words, focusing on the difference between the mundane streets of Tokyo and the mythic kingdoms of Ente Isla. Though it may be a generic world, Ente Isle seems to be fully-enough realized to act as an actual counterweight for the show's Japanese adventures, a gimmick that pulls a lot of weight. What also helps is how utterly serious everything in Ente Isla is: from the dramatic lofty church music to the stern faces of every lord and king we get a glimpse of, this is a place perpetually trapped in the dramatic stakes of a Tolkien story, something that goes a long way towards making Satan's bumbling adventures in Tokyo that much funnier.

However, while the contrast with Ente Isla is great, there isn't enough of it. For a show entirely predicated on the humor derived from putting medieval mythology into a modern setting, the mythology gets under-served. There's a thin trickle of problems that make their way over to harass the devil, but there's not enough focus on establishing these elements in their home world first. By the time characters arrive in Tokyo they've usually already pretty much instantly normalized their surroundings, and their mythic auras are curtailed before we get the chance to see them shine. What I'm really trying to say here is that I feel as though Ente Isle could have been an absolutely phenomenal source of drive for the story as a whole, with consistent cutaways to a slowly-mounting crusade intent on the final eradication of the Devil juxtaposed against him trying to handle tough customers as a cashier. The slow stream of scouts and assassins slowly mounting into a full-on clusterfuck war would have given the show the kind of overarching storyline that it really craved. As is, the show is kind of broken into somewhat-detailed but unrelated arcs that give temporary senses of direction but ultimately fall into that classic, horrid pitfall: they reset to the status quo at the end, at most adding another character to the main cast but never truly altering the dynamic. It's a bit of a bizarre dance because the truth is that what makes the show so compelling a lot of the time is the fact that it's clearly straining against this urge. There are multiple moments where characters have straightforward emotionally-charged conversations out of nowhere that directly and explicitly shift the future nature of their relationship. However, these shifts are clearly holding back, wanting to push the show forward but afraid to change too much lest the magic formula get shattered. The show asks some big questions about the contradictory natures of its characters, but, ultimately, it is afraid to give a real answer to any of them.

Speaking of the characters, the show for the most part triumphs with its main cast. Establishing a cast dynamic easy to invest in and open to lots of options can be quite difficult, but Satan and his general Alciel provide a rock-solid core by presenting a duo that is capable, endearing, randomly ignorant, and most of all mysterious. The cause for the shift in Satan's attitude upon arriving in Japan is one that plagues both the viewer and the rest of the show's cast, and the fact that we never see what he was really like back in Ente Isla adds to the confounding nature of his personality. On top of being intriguing, Satan and Alciel capitalize on their dual existence in everything they do, often relapsing into old speech or the fictional language of Ente Isla, framing their daily lives on a grand scale (they refer to their apartment as the 'castle', most dilemmas as 'battles', and their bicycle as 'Dullahan, the Trusty Steed'.) Though the depiction of their adjustment to Japan is rushed, the do the premise justice on a constant basis. The problem is that they are constantly degraded, both in-show and on a meta level, by the show's single most obvious problem: Emelia Yusa, the Hero. Framed as a foil to Satan, Emi the angelic legendary hero whose quest is the slay the Devil is riddled by every bullet the demon pair managed to dodge. Unsubtle, obnoxious, and cliche, Emi serves essentially to remind us that the Devil is supposed to be evil, and outside of a few scenes with legitimately earned dramatic weight she is written as an emotionally-volatile tsundere identical to every other character of the archetype. Her rampart immaturity, lack of confidence, and general inability create a mockery of the fantasy-real world dynamic that sabotages the self-serious vibe of the other world and actively detracts from the atmosphere-based humor by making Ente Isle seem like it's filled with samey high-school girls like anywhere else. Coupled with her complete lack of any traits, ticks or struggles indicating she used to live somewhere else and the fact that her already eye-rolling contributions to the humor are repeated as many times as possible, Emi is the show's most poorly-handled element. Her irreversible entrenchment at the heart of the show is the greatest thing holding it back.

The ACTUAL highschooler, on the other hand, is a totally different story. The show's token character that's actually from Japan is Satan's bubbly co-worker Chiho, and the weight that Emi drops she is more than ready to pick up. Endearingly earnest, simple, energetic, and adorable, Chiho is the foil Satan deserves. She's brash, she speaks her mind, she's strikingly more competent than the actual hero, and she's unabashedly a totally standard teenage girl who loves to dress up and go shopping and hang out with her friends and just also happens to be friends with Satan. Chiho's reckless involvement with the elements of Ente Isle and her endearing and wholesome relationships with both Satan and Alciel make her the light of the show, and the occasional melancholy the show dips into capitalizes on the bittersweet divide between her rather ordinary life and the grand scale of the world of Angels and Demons that she brushes up against every day. The show is honestly worth it just for Chiho and Satan's interactions, which is exactly the kind of dynamic that carries good comedies. Chiho is a complete success.

Finally, I want to touch on consistency and innovation. The show has one or two episodes that are actual duds, but the main problem is that it peaks around episode 5 with the resolution of its first arc. After that, the show stays funny, but it finds itself unable to mount a scenario to riff off of as compelling as its first one and suffers from an overall slight decline in the consistency of its humor. This of course is tied to the show's innovation: while several of its later episodes stand out as creative and uniquely enjoyable, the show's second actual arc is simply a re-spun version of its first one, utilizing several of the exact same details and gimmicks and, in spite of a new antagonist, it begins to feel rather cyclical. On top of this, the show dips into cliche comedy territory once or twice, yanking out the pool episode and haunted house episodes with no real unique characteristics, a sign that perhaps the creator was running low on ideas. The show never becomes truly repetitive, but it oftentimes fails to push its own limits, seeming to take the 'safe' route. While the second half does still have some real stunners and certain relationships continue to have meaningful development late into the show, a general decline in creativity and consistency makes me wish for what could have been if just a little more thought and effort had been put into expanding the story.

Overall, that's about how I feel about the show as a whole: that just a little more thought and effort could have tipped this show into the territory of truly great comedies. It half-succeeds at just about every criteria I laid out for great comedies, presenting reasonable consistency, a mostly-endearing cast, the makings of a driving overarching plot, and an acceptable amount of creativity, but never truly masters any of them. Considering when I watched it and the realness of the merits it DOES have, I'll always consider it a classic, but it will never quite reach the heights of stuff like Scrubs or Community or the Ranma 1/2 manga.

HOWEVER.

If you are looking for specifically ANIME comedy, I cannot recommend this show enough. I've watched just about every anime comedy that's been highly recommended to me, and I've enjoyed few of them enough to even finish them. The fact that I was still laughing out loud fairly often at this show when I had even already seen it before is extremely unique for me among anime comedies. I completely and totally understand the drive to seek out things that are specifically anime: while I would say "just go watch Community," there is an itch in all of us that only anime can scratch, and if you're feeling that way and wanna laugh and unwind with something fun, The Devil is a Part-Timer might be one of your very best bets. This show is no masterpiece, but it is very watchable by any standards, and if I were just comparing it to other straight anime comedies it's probably more like a 9. I'll keep trying those recommendations, but for now, I'm at least happy to know I can come back to this one.

Right now, as of writing this review, the number-one review for this show is 5 lines long. Look, I understand that being concise is nice, but I think few shows deserve that kind of treatment.

Obviously not every show is for everyone. Not only that, but people are often looking for different shows at different times. For instance, I'm usually into really dark thematic shit like Utena and Madoka, but I recently moved across the country to teach highschool in a culture I know nothing about, and I found that at the end of each insanely stressful day the last thing I wanted was to ... get home and overload my brain with symbolism and essays. Once I adjusted I returned to my usual ways of course, but for that first week I just wanted something that would entertain me and lift my mood. So, in spite of myself, I actually had the audacity to hit "play" on the first episode of The Seven Deadly Sins, a show I had heard was pretty much complete garbage. And guess what? I ate up every single episode, OVAs included, and if season two were to go out right now I would pour myself a drink and binge it straight through the night.

Why?

Do I think the show is actually good?

Well, that's actually kind of tricky. Let's start off with the reasons you shouldn't watch this show.

1. If you literally cannot stand cliche plots, you should not bother with this show. The plot is as cliche as you can get. There are essentially no serious surprises, and the show doesn't attempt to base itself around any sort of novel premise. It's pretty much just standard fantasy, with good guys versus bad guys and a few in-between guys. Don't overthink it.

2. If you hate bad writing, don't bother. There's a ton of extremely unnatural dialogue in this show. Every episode has blatant dismissals of the 'show-don't-tell' rule, and no one talks about anything that actually matters, ever. Go read a book instead.

3. If you're turned away by fanservice, put on something else. There's not all too much of it, but the smattering of fanservice in this show is some of the most egregious shit I've seen. Basically, the main character likes to grope the other main character seemingly against her will every couple of episodes and it's supposed to be a joke. That's kind of fucked up, and if you are incapable of just kinda zoning out for those scenes (which makes total sense) then get out of here right now.

Wow, that makes this show sound absolutely terrible. I guess it kind of is? And yet, Here I am, advocating for this pile of stereotypical tropey garbage. Why? Well, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot. I mean, I really don't binge shows anymore. I don't have that kind of stamina. But I watched like 5 episode of this thing a day, I firmly believe there's a reason to its addicting nature.

First of all, and this is a grossly overlooked quality-- The Seven Deadly Sins is consistent. It literally only takes one or two off-beat episodes for me to drop a show like this, meaning that I drop most of them. However, this particular one never made a significant misstep. From the beginning it promised action, humor, cuteness, adventure, and plot development every episode, and it delivered straight through. It never stopped building its core story, providing enough hooks to pull you to the next episode, but it also never stopped spending heartwarming quality time with its main cast. This is actually a pretty tough accomplishment to pull off over 24 episodes, and I fully commend the highly-qualified production team for their success here. The show doesn't let up, with a finely-tuned pacing that expertly holds the viewer's attention span without feeling excessively rushed at any point.

Second, the music. Look, music can carry an entire show if it's used right. And I don't just mean that the music is good: I mean that it's placed well and not abused. The music is done by Hiroyuki Sawano, so the tracks are obviously great already, but many a great soundtrack has been squandered by abusing its signature songs and bombarding early episodes with the full numbers. The Seven Deadly Sins holds back: it's got the song Perfect Time under its belt, which is likely one of the hypest soundtracks of all time, and yet instead of drowning all the action scenes with this particular piece until you become numb to it, it saves the full version with lyrics until THE VERY LAST EPISODE. Before that, it uses only instrumental versions of the song, leaning instead on a myriad of other pieces to carry the bulk of the excitement. On top of this, the second opening is one of the best openings ever made, going a long way towards pushing investment without playing the show's trump cards. This is smart and conservative show-making, guys. I was impressed.

Third, the plot. Look, it's literally a stitched-together corpse of tropes, as I've already mentioned. However, it's stitched together in a different way then shows before it. This might seem like I'm grasping for straws, but it makes a huge difference. There are very few moments in this show where you won't say "I've seen this before", but by stapling together a wide range of cliches it keeps the overall story from being too predictable while also preventing you from being entirely sure how a scenario will play out. It's the sense of guessing that keeps stuff interesting, and The Seven Deadly Sins does a fairly good job of keeping you guessing through all of the cliches.

Finally, and this is easily the most important--The Seven Deadly Sins is [i]uplifting.[/i] Seriously, this makes the biggest difference in the world. I enjoyed watching this show way more than Fullmetal Alchemist:B, even though that show is much better by traditional metrics. Tone pulls WEIGHT like NOTHING ELSE, and if you go down the route of committing to being serious and intense you had better be able to back it up with execution or else your show will quickly become trying and boring no matter how big your plot is. The Seven Deadly Sins never pretends to be anything other than a raunchy, loud, feel-good adventure tale, focusing on the fun rather than the drama and keeping its characters rather free of the 'tragic backstory' trap, slipping in moments of substance but never de-railing to go chase some idiotic piece of prehistoric drama that no one cares about. Everything in the show works towards the atmosphere: the bright, crisp, cartoony art, the upbeat music, the generally positive character interactions, the morally simplistic plot; this is a concerted effort to craft something wholly positive, and by Jove does it pay off. This thing is a blast to watch.

Overall? Overall, if you're looking for a smart, thoughtful story, run for the hills. However, if you're at the place we all reach eventually where you just want something to entertain you and make your mood improve, give this thing a whirl. It's got a team of geniuses behind it: no really, you've got key members of the teams of everything from Evangelion to Steins;Gate to Oregairu and the Eccentric Family, and all they're trying to do is make you feel good. They're pretty good at it. Just don't go in expecting a masterpiece and you should be alright.

It is said that there are seven wonders in this world, but the eighth and most important one that is often forgotten is a series that from start to finish is just a feel-good brain-off hype-fest. I dunno why all the other scores for this show are so low or what kind of no-nonsense all-business attitudes people had while watching this air, but holy crap are you missing out on a fun time if you judge this based on conventional merits.

Let me give you a few tips about watching Symphogear:

1. Get a drink. not a hardcore drink. Nothing with vodka. Just throw some peppermint schnopps ... into a smoothie. Or grab a hard cider. Just make sure it's fruity or sugary and that it tastes good.

2. Set up a BIG SCREEN. Get a projector, or a massive flat-screen TV. Make sure this thing covers an entire wall.

3. Turn UP the volume. Don't worry about your ears, they'll be dead soon anyways with the way our generation listens to music. Within a minute you won't care about the pounding pressure on your eardrums because the singing from the first scene will be like an enchanting siren luring you away from the confines of reality.

4. Don't stop to think about anything unless that thought is incredibly stupid.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear, a title I just shamelessly crl+c'd from the top of this page, is one of the absolutely dumbest shows out there. The show has about 3000 different tones crammed into each episode, the characters spew incomprehensible muddled philosophy and nonsense from long-forgotten action movies, the plot was seemingly written by the same guy who spearheaded Mars of Destruction, and the direction can't decide if this is an idol show or a horror movie. However, in spite of all this, Symphogear is not bad. Yes, you heard me, SYMPHOGEAR IS A GOOD SHOW, because what Symphogear is is fun, and fun is good. There is only one way to watch a show like this: to throw yourself into it completely, to get wildly over-invested in the petty drama and bullshit character turns. You can't half-ass it. I repeat, you CANNOT HALF-ASS THIS SHOW. You cannot wait for it to come to you, to entertain you through your one-in headphone and half-closed eyes. You must cast yourself into the ABYSS, and there you will discover new, nonsensical truths, such as the truth that Hibiki is in fact a Bear Grylls-Ghandi hybrid and a fucking BEAST or the truth that MY GIRL MIKU has all of the chaotic emotional complexity of an especially tormented FAULKNER PROTAGONIST and that she will go down in history as a LEGEND and a TRIUMPH over the darkness of human nature.

It's actually a very difficult thing to achieve, to hit the 'so stupid and nonsensical that it's hilarious' button while also holding down the 'actually care about the characters' lever, but I believe that the key lies in a couple of rather important choices Symphogear makes. First of all, it's not ALL stupid. It doesn't reinvent itself every episode or try to just spam random for kicks. It tries to stick to a central story and some cohesive character arcs that it takes very seriously, and it's the fact that Symphogear is actually tied together by something earnest and traditional that makes all of its dumb, off-the-wall moments so much more effective. Its shockingly out-of-place side plots ARE actually out of place, which makes them MUCH funnier, and the fact that it doesn't take things to the very extremes of "wtf" TOO often means that when it does, it's a golden chocolate treat rather than an overused device. There's an ample amount of petty melodrama in the show that keeps the overarching plot from ever being the backbone the series is resting on, which is very much a good thing. Also, the fact that the show saves all of its biggest cards for the end means that it has a legitimate build with an insane payoff, and you'll likely find yourself cheering and screaming at the screen all at once for the last four episodes straight if you're watching the show properly (as described above.) Finally though, Symphogear's greatest asset is simple and easy: clean, honest positivity. The show never gets nasty or negative, nor does it descend into the world of cheap gimmicks like questionable fan-service or out-of-nowhere dark twists. In an era polluted by cynicism, Symphogear just wants to have a good time with the characters that it loves so dearly, and THAT is invaluable.

So, yeah. Don't listen to the haters. Don't worry about the details. Just jump around, yell at the screen, and aggressively cheer for Chris. This show has no deep message or profound moments or original plot devices.

It just wants to see you grinning like an idiot.

Look, if youv'e gotten this far in the series, you're not gonna be reading reviews to check if you should finish. This review is for people who are wondering if this is a series that will be worth investing in, or for those who just finished the first one or two series and are thinking "...is this worth it?"

This is a review of Monogatari. The great, sleazy, sprawling empire of Monogatari. With much love and in keeping with the style of the show itself, I'll make sure it's a disorganized disaster area.

It's been a while since I wrote a review, but MONOGATARI IS OVER and ... the sentimental poeticism of that fact spurred me to fill out these heinous numerical scores once more. Of course, Monogatari isn't really over. We'll no doubt soon be facing down Owariszokumudamonogatari or whatever 354,653th side story/spinoff pops up to fill the void left in many a loyal fan's heart. However, the main story is done, there's no doubting that, and that's good enough for me. I'm out. I can't take any more. I managed to make it to the end of this season pretty much just by riding the rocketship of nostalgia. Good god, how many sloppy cgi slideshows must we endure? For this loyal fan, the magic is over.

Which, I suppose, means the series worked.

I mean seriously, when I first started watching this behemoth epic many moons ago I was just a dumb college freshman (or something close) and I fell in, hook line and sinker. The convoluted problems of Araragi and his friends ranged from life-changing to so cryptic that I was forced to fall back on that most shameful of actions, looking up essays written by other more experienced critics in order to understand what the f**k I had just watched. I was mesmerized by Hitagi (heh) and her callous glamor, Hanekawa and her poisonous external perfectionism, Nadeko and her disturbing emptiness, and of course Araragi and his flaky, self-deprecating, morally-questionable, creepy, dense thought process. The show was magic. Broken, messy, and inexplicably relatable, Monogatari was an emotionally-poignant series of truths I wouldv'e had trouble coming to alone. It felt like a respite from a mad world of superficiality, a beacon of integrity that actually tried to be real. Sure, it was often gross and off-topic, but that only served to make it feel more legitimate. I remember my youthful head-over-heels fanboy self writing that "Monogatari, unlike any other work of fiction, understands the tumultuous chaos of daily living. This show's true apparition is life itself."

Look, I know half of you hate this franchise. I've heard it been denounced as pandering bilge, try-hard philosophy for middle-schoolers, cash-grab pornography, and self-indulgent holier-than-though psychology more dated than Freud. And I'm not really gonna defend it: it's got all of those elements in it. The Monogatari Franchise is one massive experiment in everything, and as is charachteristic of experiments, things often go horribly awry. But, somehow, after wading through all of the literal human feces (*cough*cough* Tsukimonogatari) we've reached the conclusion to that experiment, and have found ourselves with a truly excessive coming-of-age story or something. And, it turns out, what made the franchise work or not wasn't any of its own merits: it was what the viewer brought to the table. "I am imperfect" is a fact I acknowledge readily. "I want to do better" is another. "I can recognize some of my most detrimental flaws, but even then I have difficulty figuring out how to address them, and these are such difficult and personal concerns that I don't really know how to foist them onto someone else" is one as well. When I started this series, I was looking for answers. Answers about my own habits and traits, answers about how other people's minds might work, answers regarding that slow-burning yet indestructible anxiety that perpetually lives in the back of my mind. Monogatari was willing to listen, to offer advice, to never try to hand anything ut on a platter: its coded images and style and writing made me work to figure out what it was trying to tell me, and through that allowed me to figure out for myself the thoughts I was missing. And that was magical.

And now we've reached the end.

Now it's just a story. It's not the embodiment of life or a tried-and-true philosophical 5-course meal. It's an often-frustrating story about a bunch of great characters with sometimes-brilliant, sometimes-infuriating presentation. That was was struck me most watching this final season: everything I fell in love with was still there, but I had grown past it. That doesn't mean it wasn't satisfying as all hell to watch all these long-struggling plot threads reach something resembling a resolutions, or that I wasn't secretly praying that they'd play the world-renowned masterpiece Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari just ONE MORE TIME (even though the whole point is that we've grown way past that song's message). By all metrics (asides from, perhaps, visual creativity) this season was just as good as any of the previous ones and more. It's just... well... Monogatari finally caught up to itself.

It doesn't feel confusing or convoluted anymore.

I no longer begrudge its antagonists or condemn its flawed characters.

I no longer feel as though its winding labyrinth is something I can get lost in.

So I guess...

SHOULD YOU WATCH THIS BIG, HORRIBLE THING KNOWN AS MONOGATARI?

Here I sit, many years after beginning the epic franchise, and I am aware, even now, that though I may not often reminisce upon the passion this winding saga once drew from me, that is merely because I have channeled that passion into other places. But, more importantly, the reason I have become the person I am today (aka a functioning, employed, yet dreaming and ambitious member of society) is in part thanks to this series. Is that enough for you? It depends on who you are, and who you want to be.

Are you imperfect?

Do you want to better?

Are you humble enough to put a little bit of faith into one of those trashy anime things?

Monogatari is a mess, but it also genuinely cares about you. If you want to condemn it, it's easy. It's got a bunch of issues. That's why I'm not even discussing all that animation/plot/sound nonsense. We're past that. As sappy as it sounds, if you open your heart to it it will open its heart to you. It will challenge you and laugh with you and care with you. It will pull out your passion and give it to you to hold. "Do with this what you wish" it will say, expecting no loyalty in return. And, as its final gift, it will bring you to the finale with a knowing smile on your face, knowing that you care about all these lovable idiot characters, but most of all that you care about yourself.

Or maybe it wont. Maybe you'll just think it's dumb.

Only one way to find out.

I, like countless others, have been hearing a fairly constant stream of praise and hype for Makoto Shinkai's supposed be-all-end-all of anime. I was never a huge Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood fan, but seeing a movie about teenage romance (at least, so far as I was aware at the time) surpass it handily for the #1 spot on MAL was still a bit of a shock. After that, it was record and awards out the gates for months without so much as a glimmer of the actual product.

Now, finally, I've had the chance to watch it. I went into it obviously expecting it to not be ... the be-all-end-all of anime, half because I find the concept ridiculous and half because anything that appeals so well to such a wide audience is unlikely to strike a very specific chord with me in particular. It's just hard to be universal and personal at the same time, and that's just dandy. Kimi no Na wa is a blockbuster and a family movie first and foremost, which is a tricky enough task in and of itself. Getting an emotional reaction out of millions of people is no easy task! So, here I am, both to try to halt the hype train a little bit and to give the movie the recognition that it very much does deserve.

Let's start with the hard truth. This isn't the greatest anime, movie, or anime movie ever made. The hype surrounding this work is borderline poisonous, and anyone who actually believes it is bound to be disappointed. Even from a technical standpoint, it isn't perfect. I appreciated the pacing of its individual scenes, but it could've afforded to add up to 20 minutes of content to the first half to better establish the status quo and a few of the characters. Almost all of the animation is creative and immersive, with spinning shots and dynamic scenes, but because of this the few deadpan scrolls present felt woefully out of place, like they belonged to a Pokemon showdown. The main characters are fundamentally likable but not especially complex, and most of the side characters feel like they exist primarily to support the movie's thematic objectives. This movie might change your life, but it definitely isn't going to change everyone's life and it isn't going to go down in the halls of film history as a masterpiece. I know many people who haven't seen it probably already suspect as much, but here's confirmation: Kimi no Na wa is remarkable, but it isn't mind-blowing. The anime community has a tendency to overreact. It happens.

There, that's out of the way. Let's move on to the positive part.

Kimi no Na wa is, I believe, an extremely important film in this day and age. In a world where the only internationally and even domestically respected anime comes from Studio Ghibli, a studio who's iconic creator Hayao Myazaki is in his twilight years no matter how many times he comes out of retirement, having a new, widely-successful film made by a new studio and a new director is fantastic. Sure, those of us deep in the rabbit hole have seen the wonderful works of Masaaki Yuasa or Satoshi Kon, but none of those ever made big enough waves worldwide to cement their creators as household names. Beyond this though, all of the aforementioned directors work(ed) in ways that oftentimes seem to differentiate themselves from what many anime viewers would consider "anime". Outside of a love for fantasy and sci-fi, few of the tropes and traits that in many ways help to define anime as a genre are found in Myazaki's films, much less Yuasa or Kon. Which brings us to my central point, and what I believe to be Kimi no Na wa's greatest triumph:

Kimi no Na wa is anime.

It's the anime you know and love (or hate with a burning passion). It's got the tropes, the character types, the insert songs, the OP, the fantasy elements, the tried-and-true rom-com elements and sex jokes and blushing and high school and little sisters and tender emotional moments. It has all the usual, but it presents them in a way that is tasteful and cohesive and well-executed, taking so much of the stuff you'd find in your 20-a-season grab-bag of anime goodies and turning it into something that you can actually sit down to watch with your family. As I briefly mentioned already, Shinkai has a sense of pacing and comedic timing that most anime either lack or sacrifice for the sake of filling an episode, and it shows. Purely on a scene-to-scene basis the movie is enjoyable to watch, because it's fast and snappy and it never points at its own jokes. Kimi no Na wa also has all the bizarre-ness of an anime storyline. What starts out as a pretty simple Freaky Friday premise evolves into something much grander and unexpected. I've always strongly believed that a great way to keep a movie engaging is for it to have two parts: the premise, or what gives the audience something to hold onto, and the turn, a half-way shift that draws a new conflict out of the original set-up and puts what's already happened into perspective. For example Howl's Moving Castle begins with Sophie getting transformed into an old lady and embarking on a journey to reverse her curse, but as the movie goes on the focus turns to the horrific war that Sophie learns is destroying her country. Kimi no Na wa does an impeccable job at implementing this technique--just when I was beginning to fall into a rhythm and started subconsciously solving the rest of the events of the movie, it pulled on a new face and kept me on my toes until the very end. It's a film that, despite its Hollywood structure and execution, isn't afraid to get its nose out of the books when it comes to the actual content. It's not just what the story is, either: the presentation is delightful, jumping forward when it chooses and filling in the details of events later for impact, a tactic that is so very anime.

Shinkai's directing also does something important: we've all heard that the movie is drop-dead gorgeous, and it is, but even more important than that Shinkai demonstrates why this specific story should be an anime, and not live action. His repeated emphasis on closing doors, for example, is impactful due to the extreme exaggeration of the perspective. And his use of thought bubbles above character's heads, as if in a cartoon, is a choice afforded him only because of the medium. Shinkai also maximizes his use of human expressions, something that live footage cannot replicate due to the limitations of the human face. Because we often envision ourselves hyperbolically, watching characters make faces or strike poses that are legitimately impossible actually makes sense to us. Even the music is discernibly anime; a tag-team of touching instrumentals and empowering rock songs complement all the movie's significant moments, pulling on that fundamental hunger for fantastic animation set to catchy music that drives so many anime fans. And, as I mentioned earlier, there's even an OP, a la Rebellion style. Who doesn't love a good OP? There's nothing like vague plot-hints sowed together into a colorful two-minute music video to get me excited about what I'm about to watch, and I mean that with complete sincerity. And, if you weren't convinced by all of this, the movie even has the audacity to open with a boob gag. I haven't seen a move that bold since Bakemonogatari. Fortunately it actually managed to fit right into what the story was doing and not feel remotely voyeuristic, but the fact of the matter stands: only pure, unfiltered anime would open with a girl freaking out over her chest.

So why is it so important that Kimi no Na wa is anime? Well, regardless of its actual merits, I firmly believe that this movie marks a new era for the medium. Shinkai has shown that pure, well-crafted anime can turn heads internationally, and people across the world are seeing that perhaps anime has more to offer than just Disney-dubbed Myazaki movies. I see the film as a sort of bridge, a piece of work that enamors anime fans and average people alike without sacrificing any of the things that make anime what it is. I think it's also helping to remind a lot of people why they got into anime in the first place. In an era where people keep insisting that anime is dying, seeing the fundamentals executed so well in a brand-new way has to mean something. We may not get another End of Evangelion or Ghost in the Shell for a little while, but for me at least getting to watch two hours of the medium I fell in love with prove that it can produce something that is thoroughly and completely competent and enjoyable made me quite glad, and considering Shinkai's dismissal of his own work I find myself excited to see what he'll create next. An artist who's never content with that they create can go great places.

So yeah, at the end of it all, I'd say it's well-worth the watch. The movie is a spectacle, and you're unlikely to find yourself bored even if you don't find yourself particularly emotionally impacted (like myself.) I predict it will have a significant impact on the future of anime, I give it a hearty recommendation, and I hope that because of this review at least a few more people will go into with enough sensibility to fully enjoy it.

Fun fact: this is the greatest fucking thing ever created.

Okay, let's be real for a moment here. Obviously there's a slight bit of hyperbole in that above statement. What I really mean by that is that this is essentially the absolute best version of exactly what it's trying to be. I don't want to oversell this, guys, but considering how much attention it looks like this has gotten I'd say it's about due time that a few more rave reviews got thrown in its direction. I'm not one to dole out unconditional praise towards any story, but this piece of art has absolutely deserved it ... and yes this is a piece of art. It's an absolute tragedy that something like this gets thrown under the bus as 'Japanese yuri trash' and written off by 99% of any worldwide audience based on medium and genre alone, and then gets written off by 95% of the community that doesn't think that Japanese cartoons is just Naruto and Pokemon because it doesn't conform to any traditional standards of cool and lacks a male protagonist/stupid slapstick comedy.

Let's start with the basics.

This is a lesbian romance story. It is not pornographic in basically any way. This is way more like Toradora, but with all girls and more story. There is a serious lack of non-heterosexual protagonists/romances/stories in media across the entire goddamn globe, and the problem only gets worse when you look at anime and manga where 90% of protagonists are straight males, gay/trans jokes are used as filler fodder, and gay relationships, simply put, do not exist. They may be implied, hinted at, or jostled around, but at the end of the day even fucking Revolutionary Girl Utena doesn't ever give its wonder duo a straightforward love scene. This thing is a gift. A miracle. I had given up hope that such a thing as this would ever come out of Japan. In fact, I don't think I've seen anything on this level of tact and comprehension regarding gay stuff from, well, anywhere. That, and this thing was started twelve years ago. Are we moving backwards?

So now that we have that out of the way, why is it that you should read Aoi Hana, asides from the fact that it has lesbians in it? Because believe me, good politics do not make a good story on their own. Well, I'm well aware that a common complaint about anime/manga romances is a lack of conclusiveness or development. Drama seems to build steadily around a series of delays and misunderstandings until if you're lucky you get a kiss or a confession. Well, throw that bullshit out the window and welcome to 55 chapters of characters actually acting on and expressing their emotions. Funny, isn't it, how all those hormonal Rakus can't get a damn word out, but when the risk of societal persecution is hanging over these girl's heads, they're still able to actually do stuff about the things that they're feeling. This is pretty much the antithesis of Nisekoi & Friends, so if you're looking for a romance with, ya know, actual progression and relationships and stuff, Christmas has come early, drop your straight shit and get on the Aoi Hana train.

But again, it's more than just story where lots of stuff happens that makes something good. You've gotta have good dialogue. Well, Aoi Hana has you covered again, pouring out page upon page of some of the most naturalistic dialogue you've seen. Characters seem to hit that perfect balance of awkward and eloquent near constantly, with an endless stream of asides making the conversations feel full and complete rather than hacked-down dramatic bilge. There is more to these girl's lives than just romance: there's school and acting and gossip and family and the future and foreign nations and just a little bit of everything. Yet, they all still manage to feel deeply distinctive from one another, such that it's often easy to tell who's speaking just by their phrasing and manner of speak even if you can't see their face. The first few pages had me sweating with joy: even though it was just a girl getting up in the morning and heading off to her first day of high school, a scene we've all seen five million times, the extremely believable way in which it was written immediately elevated it above basically everything else out there. I will say, if there is a flaw in this gem, it's that it loses some of the naturalism of its dialogue when it's doing flashbacks, but there are very few of these so it's not a big deal.

So now we've got a unique, brilliantly-written, momentum-filled romance story. What's next? Am I going to tell you about how fucking relatable these characters are? You're damn right I am. I'm a mostly heterosexual dude (admittedly with an emphasis on 'mostly') and I related more to the struggles of these characters in their day-to-day lives than anyone in fucking Fullmetal Bother-hood or whatever that nonsense was. It's the little moments that make Aoi Hana truly brilliant, the ways that the excellent dialogue and the inertia of the plot mix in small ways to make you hug your heart and screech "that's me! I've been there!" inside as you will to holy God that you won't be crying by the end. And at the end of the day, that's what makes Aoi Hana work so well. It's a lesbian romance, yes, and it is most definitively invested in that particular issue, but it's also predominantly about people in general and the stages and mishaps and random junk we all go through in adolescence. I don't think you could ask for a more stellar demonstration of how growing up gay/bi is at once both similar and different than growing up straight, and I don't think you could really ask for a better romance-drama of ANY kind, period.

At the end of the day, you should read Aoi Hana. I have no reservations in saying that. It's got a bit of an artsy style, it likes to jump around a bit and let you fill in some gaps in its story for yourself, it's got a ton of side characters that build little stories that sometimes go somewhere and sometimes don't--but all these are just perks. Regardless of whether you find its perks enhance or distract from the story for you (and I personally thing they enhance the fuck out of it) there is no denying that the meat of this tale is pure 24-carat gold that you should read as soon as possible. Aoi Hana is a masterpiece simply because it is one of the most well-constructed and well-executed love stories out there of any kind, so if you like romance and you like manga, go forth, go forth and be filled with bubbly joy and stress and doom and lose yourself in this magnificent work.

Yes, I apologize, but I'm going to have to join the Mayoiga debate, since there are apparently a large number of individuals in the anime community who are convinced that this beautiful disaster is somehow entirely unaware of the fact that it's a comedy. Now, I've heard a lot of things said about the matter, and so I would firstly like to clarify that I am not a diehard fan of the show trying to justify it, nor am I attempting to tell anyone that they are somehow stupid or foolish for assuming that Mayoiga is actually just mind-numbingly stupid trash. I don't even consider ... this some enlightened or critical interpretation: this review's main purpose is to tell people that yes, this show is worth watching, and that yes, it is only worth watching if you look at it from the standpoint of "Mizushima and Okada have fun messing around with B horror tropes", because while there are certainly a fair number of blatant giveaways, much of Mayoiga's humor comes from the small details.

So why is Mayoiga good again?

Most anime comedies are bad. That's an opinion, obviously, but it's one that I'm fairly hard-set on. Anime comedy derives mostly from physical comedy, overreactions, making fun of anime tropes, stupid sex jokes/boob jokes/food jokes, and other versions of uncreative/broad-appeal humor that gets reused over and over. When anime does set up good jokes, it often ruins them by pointing to them aggressively to make sure you understood the fact that yes, this was in fact supposed to be humor.

Mayoiga never does this. Once. What makes the show work more than anything is that it's so absurdly self serious one-hundred percent of the time. More than anything, this is likely why there is so much debate surrounding it, because there is never a single moment in the show where Mayoiga acknowledges that anything that it's doing is a joke. On the other hand though, this is what makes it so entertaining. You have stuff like Nyanta and Jigoku wandering around with amunition belts and assault rifles or Lovepon ceaselessly screaming about her gradually-escalating need to execute someone, and no one pays this even a lick of attention. It's pretty much the anime equivalent of that comic with the dog in the middle of an inferno saying "this is fine." In Mayoiga, nonsense passes as logic and no one questions it once. The names "Hyouketsu no Judgeness" and "Jack" are acknowledged to be 'similar'. A character claiming to be able to see dead people is accepted as a valid argument as to why another character is not in fact a ghost. Medieval forms of witch torture are used as practical assessments of guilt, with a council of thoughtful glasses-pushing intellectuals actually trying to stab a twelve-year-old girl just to check if she'll bleed or not. The offhand way in which Mayoiga spews utter nonsense without ever treating its story and world as anything other than absolutely intense and important makes what would be an absolutely attrocious plot into a phenomenal piece of entertainment.

But it goes past that. Mayoiga's dialogue and overblown character tropes may be fun, but what really makes the show special is that it assumes that the audience has seen at least a few B horror movies and murder-mystery plots in their day, and it uses that to violently thrash their expectations in the most viscerally unsatisfying ways imaginable. If Mayoiga was a violent gorefest it would quickly slip into the realm of incoherence, lose the appeal of its nonsense dialogue, and turn into another Another (heh). But instead, Mayoiga capitalizes on lethargy and apathy. It treats its plot twists and reveals like inqonsequential details to skim over. Instead of whipping its characters up into a frenzy, it makes the majority of them lazy, subdued, whiny, and complacent. It devotes ominous attention to cast member that are never remotely relevant. If ever there were a perfect backdrop against which to place a few under-the-radar psychos and sociopaths, it's the one that Mayoiga creates through its easily-distracted mob. When characters start going missing, large portions of the cast are more concerned with existential reasoning or even debating the spelling of said character's names than with worrying about their own or their comrade's safety. Beyond this, Mayoiga goes so far as to present some of the worst direction concievably possible, pace itself in ways that make no sense, and demonstrate a staggering penchant for anticlimax right through to the very end. It could be argued that the plot was technically 'resolved', because it was, but it is done is such a way that you're left confused and slightly baffled, wondering 'wait, what? that's it? this is a story, weren't there supposed to be dramatic stakes?' and then you can't help but chuckle at the fact that Mayoiga got you good one last time as you realize that it couldn't have been any other way.

So yeah, Mayoiga is hilarious. I laughed out loud at least two or three times an episode on average, with plenty of chuckles in between, and I'm talking about from the very first episode. This is funny stuff.

That said, even for what it is, it's by no means perfect. I enjoyed the show immensely, but I still wish that it had been just a little bit better at what it does. The final third of the show is noticeably less funny than the rest, with a reliance on anticlimax and executing big moments horribly taking away from some of the show's momentum. In addition, the show is composed by Okada, who has always loved her melodrama, and this becomes more and more apparent as the number of faux-emotional flashbacks intensifies until that joke has been overdone and it loses its charm. If these flashbacks and idiotic backstories had become increasingly more absurd and creative perhaps this would have worked better, but the show's best backstories are mostly the early ones so unforunately this wasn't the case. In addition, it's usually the case the truly successful comedies succeed the way they do because they manage to be engaging even when they aren't throwing out jokes simply through atmosphere/intesity/actual plot, and again unfortunately when Mayoiga isn't making you laugh, it isn't really doing anything of note. In my opinion, this is what sets something like the first season of Jojo apart from the rest of the fold--even Mayoiga--in that even when Jojo isn't being immediately absurd, it manages to breed an atmosphere of fun and excitement that keeps you interested because it feels like an adventure and not just one big joke. So yeah, this thing is flawed. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a great time, and that it's consistent enough to not give you that empty feeling of 'I want to laugh more, I'm in a humorous mood, but the show's just not quite getting there". With the right attitude, Mayoiga delivers.

In the end it kinda just makes me sad to see the show getting so much hate, because it's a kind of unique and truly dedicated comedy that we see rarely-to-never in anime, and it would be cool if more people could appreciate it. After watching people explode over stuff like Konosuba (personally, I find Konosuba to be, well, kinda garbage, but to each his own) I was excited to have an airing comedy that I was also invested in and could laugh along with the rest of the community. At this point, it seems a little late for that, but it's not to late for all you smart people out there who spend your time wisely and wait until the end of the season to see reviews and decide what looks like it's worth watching. Despite what almost everyone is saying to the contrary, I firmly believe that if you go into Mayoiga expecting a comedy and a self-aware but deadpan parody that you will likely find yourself happily laughing for twelve delightful episodes. Every type of humor isn't for everyone, granted, but for what it does Mayoiga is pretty much one-of-a-kind among anime, and I think it's worth giving a shot, even if just to see if it's for you.

In Mayoiga-esque fashion, here's the score breakdown loaded ino the end of the review now that it's almost entirely irrelevant.

Story-- Decidedly unique. Better than Trasformers: Dark of the Moon. No other information necessary.

Art-- Totally fucking terrible, the CGI looks like a bad skyrim mod.

Sound-- Surprisingly competent, could even be counted against the show because it's too effective. Opening is catchy AF.

Character-- You either love them or you Lovepon them.

Enjoyment-- Really the only thing worth mentioning, it's a good time, that's enough of that.

Fin.

Hail Lovepon.