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Short review. Most of what I said about the first season also applies to this second season so I’d recommend reading my review of the first season before this one.


--- Animation & sound: identical to the first season

The animation is still of high quality. It is clean and smooth, there are very few inconsistencies, and the fight scenes look very good. The backgrounds are well drawn and detailed. Some buildings look very cool, for example the Hartgen castle and the Emperor’s floating fortresses.

Sound-wise, however, it means that the opening and the ending sound as shit as in the first season. Nomizu Iori still ... doesn’t know how to sing. The background music is still very meh and forgettable, though it is not bad enough to hinder the show.


--- The end is rushed and disappointing

There are too many things happening in a short time, especially in the three last episodes. In episode 8 the black Chaikas organize a series of fights in Hartgen castle, red Chaika’s team vs white Chaika’s team and Tooru vs his former master Shin, among others. You would have expected these fights to be somewhat epic but they’re not, they’re wrapped up in 30 seconds each. It is even more apparent in the fight against the reincarnated Emperor Gaz. I expected him to be a charismatic, extremely powerful and clever wizard, but instead what we have here is a boring villain who says lame pseudo-philosophical lines about war (“humans crave for war”… no they don’t you goddamn imbecile), has less screen-time than the blue Chaika in season one, and is defeated in a matter of dozens of minutes thanks to some unexplained event. Everything was part of his plan, except the betrayal of his human weapon, apparently.


--- Other flaws in the story

There are probably others, but here a few notable ones:

– In this second season we get the confirmation that magic does everything: magic circles can be used as elevators and ship engines, while magic guns (“gundos”) can replace GPS and be used to start a fire. We’re getting closer to magic coffee machines, I tell you.

– The characters get the Emperor’s remains too easily. One of the eight heroes gives Tooru and his team the remains after a fight that isn’t even a fight to the death but rather a game, while the other heroes are so weak they get bullied into giving the remains to whoever attacks them first.

– With all the Chaikas, Fredrika and the introduction of Niva, the girl who is also a magic gun, there are moments where this series reaches a point of loli overdose. There are so many children on the screen it looks like a field trip rather than a quest.


--- Verdict

This second season is on par with the first one, that is to say it is slightly entertaining but there’s nothing new or incredible about it. If you enjoyed the first season you will most likely also enjoy this sequel. If you didn’t, skip it, as it doesn’t get better than the first one.

What a cursed period Winter 2021 was! In the same season, three awful anime series with horrible animation quality started airing. The worst was Ex-Arm, with a CGI animation so bad nobody could actually watch it. There was also Redo of Healer, a very badly animated rape fantasy targeted at incels. And lastly, there was Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?, or “So I'm a Spider, So What?” in Shakespeare’s language, the train wreck of an anime that I’m reviewing today.


--- The premise

This is yet again another “isekai” (or should I say, “shitsekai”), that is to say, an anime where the protagonist is transported to ... a parallel world. In that case it’s the whole classroom – teacher included – that are reincarnated as newborns, and the parallel world is a RPG-like fantasy world featuring elves, demons, monsters, and also tons of video games mechanics. Our protagonist is a girl who is reincarnated as a spider in a cave full of atrocious CGI creatures, and must fight them to survive and get experience, levels and skills. That’s the spider arc. Then you have the generic isekai arc which follows the boring adventures of the rest of the classroom, who got the chance not to be reincarnated as ugly monsters.


--- One of the ugliest shows

The spider arc is mostly animated in CGI, and oh boy does the CGI of this anime sucks ass. It is ugly, badly animated, and the movements are very jerky. Most of the spider arc happens in a cave, so the backgrounds you get to see are boring 3D backgrounds that look less detailed than the caves in The Battle for Middle-earth, a real time strategy video game that was released in… 2004. The spider looks very ugly, too. With her human eyes and her spider body, she looks like one of those abominations I used to make in the video game Spore when I was 10. The other CGI monsters look even uglier than the spider, and when these cursed creatures fight it is hard to understand what the heck is happening on the screen.

The animation of the generic isekai arc isn’t better. In the first half of the series or so it consists mostly of 2D animation, but as the series progresses there is more and more CGI. Just as in the spider arc, the CGI is very ugly. It is not an overstatement to say that the 3D hentai game Koikatsu Party looks better than the CGI of this anime. Some characters such as Sophia or the demon lord are made out exclusively of CGI, and you often see 2D characters and CGI characters on the same image. CGI is also used for monsters and armies, not just for background crowds. Towards the end of the series CGI is used in all fight scenes, making them look like utter shit. This is supposed to be the climax for god’s sake! Oh and did I also mention that the ground looks uglier than old video games’ textures?

The 2D animation is also very bad. Character designs are comparable to those in The Irregular at Magic High School – they are generic and soulless. 2D backgrounds look like they come from a low budget visual novel from the 2000’s. There is little actual animation, and most of the time it is jerky. 2D fight scenes don’t look good and consist for the most part of static images with movement lines. Not only this, but as the series progresses, the animation gets even worse! There are more and more face inconsistencies, with ugly faces and characters’ eyes looking in two different directions. In the second half of the series or so, there are entire scenes with absolutely no goddamn animation. Characters leave or appear on the screen with no actual animation as if it was a shitty PowerPoint presentation! There are some episodes where the animators tried very hard to spare effort by hiding the characters’ mouths when they’re talking, for example by putting a character in front of them, or by showing static images of silent characters.

In short, the animation of this show is so ugly it’s near impossible to take the story seriously.


--- The most insufferable protagonist ever created

There are three things that make the spider insufferable. First, as I mentioned earlier, she looks ugly. Second, her voice acting is extremely annoying. Third, she can’t help complaining and yelling all the time with her irritating voice. Since for most of the series she is alone in caves, she is always talking to herself, describing what’s happening to her, reading stats and skills’ description, talking to the AI, making cringe-worthy jokes and references, and so on. And this is what makes her insufferable: she is always talking. When the spider appears on the screen you should have your Paracetamol ready because her high-pitched voice is going to give you a goddamn headache. And if her dialogues aren’t enough to make your ears bleed, do not worry: she also sings the ending song!


--- The rest of the cast sucks ass

The rest of the cast on the generic isekai arc’s side is a bunch of stereotypical and soulless characters. There are too many of them to remember about and I will not waste my time describing why they suck. In a nutshell: there’s the generic anime main character who is kind, brave and whatnot, and the bad guy who is mean and pretentious. Oh, and the demon lord is a little girl with a cuteness fang, how original. With the former teacher there’s a failed attempt at character development which can be summed up in this: “I wanted my students to like me so I studied video games and light novels”… absolutely ridiculous. The only thing that’s good with these people is that they are less annoying than the spider.


--- The story is nonsense

The first thing that’s wrong in the story is that it follows two arcs – which are actually two different timelines – at the same time, making the show confusing. To my knowledge, it wasn’t the case in the light novel or the manga adaptation.

The spider arc is about accumulating experience, leveling up, getting new skills and evolving. It has everything a MMORPG has, including skill points, MP, HP and SP. There’s tons of talk about skills and other video game mechanics, lots of annoying terminology, and walls of text that are unreadable. Video-game skills play a huge role in the story, but they also make the fights unfathomable. Stuff happens on the screen (stuff meaning orgies of bad CGI), that’s all. There’s no real tension because you know that the spider is going to win any fight thanks to some skill she pulled from her ass.

The generic isekai arc is about generic isekai stuff. In the beginning of the series the characters are in a generic magic academy where they do nothing relevant to the plot. Then there is a conspiracy and they are forced to leave the academy to fight the demons in atrocious CGI battles.

As the series progresses the story gets more random and ridiculous. There is an “administrator” who talks to the spider with a smartphone and gives her overpowered skills, there are elves with mechas, there are clones, there are computers, there is future technology… And in the last episodes, which is supposed to be the climax of the series, we get to see disgusting fight scenes between ugly CGI models and mechas that have nothing to do in a medieval fantasy universe.


--- Sound

Perhaps the least failed aspect of the show, but it’s still horrible. The quality of the background music ranges from meh to alright. The voice-acting is meh, as the lip-sync is sometimes badly done, and as I said earlier, the spider’s voice is insufferable. The openings and endings are also very bad and skippable.


--- Verdict

One of the worst anime series I have seen in my life, both in terms of story / characters and technical value. The only reason I give it a 2 instead of a 1 is because Ex-Arm exists. It is absolutely not enjoyable. Avoid it at all costs, it is not worth your time or the money spent on Paracetamol.

Gankutsuou is an anime adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo, a book written by famous French writer Alexandre Dumas. The story revolves around the Count’s revenge against three people who betrayed him. In this adaptation, however, the story takes place in the future instead of 19th century France, and it is told from the point of view of Albert de Morcerf, the son of one of the people the Count is trying to get revenge on. I have not read the book and my only knowledge of the original story comes from a french television movie with bad acting, therefore I will try to ... avoid comparing this adaptation with the original.


--- The good part: the Count and his revenge

The main theme of this anime is the Count’s revenge. The Count of Monte Cristo is first introduced as a mysterious and incredibly rich man. After befriending the protagonist Albert de Morcerf on the moon, he comes to France. The Count uses Albert to meet the three people who had betrayed him and to prepare his revenge against them. Of course, the Count having changed his appearance and identity, they don’t know what’s about to happen. As the series progresses, he brings division among them and takes them down one by one. The preparation and the execution of the Count’s revenge is satisfying to watch, and constitutes the interesting part of the anime.

The Count is also a great character. A very charismatic and bad-ass man who does whatever he wants to do, has cool clothes, and a fantastic voice-acting. Everything is part of his plan, including his encounter with Albert on the moon, and he doesn’t hesitate to use amoral tactics to achieve his revenge.


--- The bad part: anime cliches and other infuriating things

Sadly, this adaptation added lots of ridiculous anime cliches – you know that it’s an anime when one of the characters is a cross-dressing femboy – to the original story, hindering it greatly.

The most problematic thing for me is Albert de Morcerf, who is nothing more than your generic anime protagonist. He is shy but brave. He protects women. He is kind and very naive, maybe even dumb. The fact that the story is told from his point of view and not from the Count’s makes the story so lame in comparison with what it could have been, and I haven’t counted the number of times I wanted to slap Albert’s face.

This adaptation is also plagued with unnecessary romance stories, with things like a bad guy trying to steal Albert’s girl, and the usual stuff about forbidden love between commoners and aristocrats. Why combine the revenge part, which is actually interesting, with boring romance stories already seen hundreds of times in the medium? It also tries so hard to be emotional it’s irritating and as a result, the last episodes aren’t interesting at all: duel with CGI mechas, intervention of the “power of friendship”, slow and boring conclusion with the characters’ reunion and whatnot… ugh!

I could also mention how incredibly stupid most of the characters are, Albert in particular. It quickly becomes obvious that the Count is responsible for all the bad shit happening around them, yet they do nothing.

Lastly, there’s no explanation as to why the Count is so rich. In the original story, it was thanks to the hidden treasure he found on the island of Monte Cristo (hence his name). In this story there’s no island, no treasure, and no place named Monte Cristo. We just have to assume that the Count has unlimited money because… magic? Oh right, I forgot to mention that the plot-writers also added supernatural elements. It wouldn’t be an anime otherwise, huh?


--- The art-style is a weird mix of 2D, 3D and photographic images

Judging the animation is going to be a bit difficult for me since I did not watch the series in the best conditions (streaming site with mediocre image quality) and because I am probably unconsciously comparing it to modern standards, but I will do it anyway because it wouldn’t be a complete review without talking about the animation.

A thing a lot of people praise this anime for is the uniqueness of the animation. While I do think the animation is original and very colorful, I wouldn’t call it good either. It is a mix of 2D and 3D that doesn’t blend well at all. The characters and some of the backgrounds are 2D while vehicles, some props and most of the buildings are 3D. The 3D buildings are ugly, blocky, repetitive, and often look ridiculous. There are some scenes where it is hard to understand what the heck is happening on the screen because of the ugly 3D. Some horses and cars are made up of 3D polygons, which also look bad. The floors are sometimes uglier than PS1 video games’ textures. There is also an excessive use of photographic backgrounds as if it was a goddamn visual novel. Regarding the 2D animation, it isn’t particularly better. While most character designs are good, the hair and the clothes look really weird. There are also a few episodes where the characters’ faces often look ugly. In short, the animation of this anime greatly hinders it.


--- Sound: nice music and good voice-acting

The voice-acting is pretty good, the Count’s voice in particular. The background music fulfills its purpose fairly well, though it is not something I would re-listen to on YouTube. The opening and endings are pretty bad, however. The singer doesn’t know how to sing. For some reason, both songs are sung in English.


--- Verdict

This series has an interesting revenge story and a cool character but all of its potential is ruined by a generic protagonist, anime cliches, unnecessary romance stories and a disappointing end. Some episodes and scenes are well done so it’s not a complete waste of time, but it’s not a good show either.

Although the first scene of Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate makes it look like a serious anime, it quickly reveals to be nothing more than your typical garbage anime adaptation of a visual novel that is most likely also garbage. Generic protagonist with a generic character design who somehow manages to make all of the girls horny for him, stereotypical female characters with childish personalities, dumb excuses for fan-service, failed attempts at comedy… And despite that, I’m still going to write a review to explain in detail why this anime is terrible.


--- The premise

The protagonist and his friends are all members of the “food research ... club”, a useless club where they do nothing but eat food at the expense of their high school’s budget. Enters a girl whom I will refer to as “serious girl”, because who cares about the names of stereotypes. Serious girl is a candidate in the election for the next student council presidency, and she wants to reform the high school and disband all of the useless clubs including the “food research club”. To save his club, the protagonist has no choice but to run as a candidate for the election and win it. But as it turns out, the electoral campaign is just a bad excuse for the usual visual novel crap of learning about various girls’ backgrounds and traumas.


--- High school politics

The whole high school politics thing is completely ridiculous and unbelievable. After a few episodes we are told that the high school is actually its own little nation composed exclusively of students, with the student council being its government, and as such there are elections, electoral campaigns, budgets, manifestos, reforms, bribes, conspiracies and even spies… Goddamn it, this is high school, a place where people aren’t older than 18. On top of that most of the characters don’t act mature at all, they act like children rather than people who are supposed to participate in politics. In such conditions, how can you take this seriously? And yes, it is supposed to be serious, at least most of the time. There are even murder attempts and abductions for political motives. There are some moments where it tries to be satirical, but it just ends up being unfunny.

In their electoral campaign, the “food research club” gets advice from the current student council president. He explains them how campaigning works, which could have been interesting. But it turns out that to win an election you just need pretty girls politely asking guys to vote for you, along with cosplaying and yaoi role-playing in front of horny girls. Media apparatus? Why would we need that?


--- Standard visual novel stuff

This is what the show is actually about. After a few episodes the show starts diving into the girls’ personal problems and traumas, one girl at the time. The vast majority of adaptations of visual novels do that, as they try to glue together all the character-specific arcs (“routes”) in one story. Every character-specific arc finishes when said character’s personal problems have been fixed by the intervention of the protagonist, after some boring flashback involving childhood traumas, childhood promises and the like. But the problem is that since the series is only 12 episodes long, character-specific arcs are rushed. Hard to care about characters when their character arcs are wrapped up in less than two episodes. Hard to care about characters who barely even appear on the screen before the time for their character arc has come.

As in any visual novel, the “comedy” is childish. It is irritating rather than funny. There are also dumb excuses for fan-service like showing panties and thighs (le funny camera angle has arrived), groping boobs and... sniffing armpits.


--- The characters are all stereotypes

… stereotypes such as the “kuudere”, the “tsundere” childhood friend, the serious girl, the not very serious teacher who drinks a lot of beer (how uncharacteristic!), the energetic (energetic meaning annoying) short girl, the gay dude who is constantly sexually harassing the protagonist, et cetera. Yes, the only gay character is a sexual harasser who can’t help but remind that he’s gay (“yaoi sticks”, “I’ll take the bottom” [emphasis on “bottom”, in case you didn’t get the allusion]) and wants to have sexual intercourse with the protagonist every five minutes: “You were so cool I almost came”, “his body already belongs to me”… bruv calm down your hormones. Seriously, there are “jokes” like these in almost every episode, sometimes several times. It’s not fucking funny. It’s just sexual harassment on top of being homophobic since it’s picturing gay people as harassers.

The characters’ motivations? They are dumb. The whole anime is about preventing a useless club from disbandment, so that the club members can keep hanging out and eating food in the club room, when they could be hanging out in the cafeteria or after school like everyone else! How is the viewer supposed to root for them when they have such stupid motives? And why would the teacher help them?

By the way there are also too many characters to remember about. There are eight members in the “food research club” and two of them are clones of each other. Not only this, most characters all look the same, with hair color and haircut being the only way to tell them apart.

The serious girl may be the only decent female character – by decent I mean not utter shit – since she has a reasonable objective, and is not childish or overly cute. But she alone can’t save the show.


--- Average visual novel protagonist

The protagonist has a generic character design seen hundreds of times in recent anime and visual novels. Take any visual novel made in the last ten years, there’s a 90% chance that it’s the same character design. What about his personality then? He’s a visual novel protagonist, what do you expect? He has no charisma, no personality, he is lazy and passive. He does practically nothing on his own, most of the time he is forced by other people to do things. Despite that, all of the girls around him – his teacher included – want his dong, but of course he doesn’t do anything about it. He helps cute girls because he wants to bang them and says that he likes bumping into pretty girls, but he doesn’t notice his childhood friend who is basically throwing herself at him. In short, he is a terrible protagonist that you can only hate.


--- The romance

This anime is an adaptation of a visual novel of the dating simulator type and as such, its main purpose is romance (and the H-scenes, of course!). Since the characters are utter garbage, it comes as no surprise that the romance between these characters is also of low quality. The worst thing is that the plot-writers didn’t even pick the best – or should I say “least worst” – girl and went for the psychologically deranged one instead.


--- Not saved by the production value

Though there aren’t any big face inconsistencies or things like that, the animation isn’t great. I have already mentioned how generic the character designs are. The art-style is not ugly but pretty unoriginal. It reminds me of Katawa Shoujo, you know, that visual novel where you bang disabled girls. The backgrounds look like your typical soulless visual novel backgrounds, but less detailed. Some don’t look good and are very basic. Ugly CGI is also used for cars, machines and moving objects.

On the sound department, it’s even worse. The background music is standard visual novel stuff. It is not very well placed, and doesn’t always fit the situation. The voice-acting is exaggerated. Most female characters have irritating high-pitched voices, making them even more annoying. The opening is generic and deserves to be skipped.


--- Verdict

This is a very bad anime series. The story is standard dating simulator bull-crap mixed with high school politics that you can’t possibly take seriously. The characters are stereotypical and annoying, the protagonist in particular. The romance, which is supposed to be the main purpose of this type of anime, is also of low quality. The sound and animation are very meh. This series is not even entertaining. It belongs to the trash can.

Hitsugi no Chaika is a medieval fantasy anime focusing on Chaika’s quest to gather the remains of her deceased father, Arthur Gaz, in order to give him a proper funeral. Emperor Gaz was a powerful and evil wizard who ruled the Gaz Empire for five centuries until he was defeated by eight heroes, bringing an end to a three hundred years long war. The world is now at peace, and our protagonist is a former saboteur who is jobless in peacetime. Chaika encounters him in a forest and decides to hire him and his sister to help her in her quest.


--- At first glance ... it looks like your generic stuff

The few early episodes make it look like it’s a garbage show. Every characteristic of the generic fantasy anime is there, from the very unoriginal art-style with the character designs that don’t fit the universe (weird haircuts, colored hair, clothing that is impractical for fighting…), to the excessive use of magic circles that all look the same and can do about everything modern technology can do including fuel, rifle cartridges, projectors, microphones and even fixed telephone. You can only be thankful that there are no magic cellphones or magic espresso machines. But you can’t be very thankful either since one of the main characters is a goddamn sniper loli with a Victorian dress.

The genericness applies to the backgrounds which, even though they are well-drawn, look pretty dull in the few early episodes. It also applies to the characters designs, which are for the most part generic and forgettable. The best examples are Fredrika and Vivi: their character designs are very similar; you will have a hard time telling them apart in the beginning of the series.

The opening, the ending and the background music are also unoriginal. The opening is generic and bad; the female singer doesn’t know how to sing. The ending is pretty much the same, but with Chaika naked. Great.


--- But surprisingly, it’s not that bad

I would even say it’s an okay anime. Firstly, thanks to the animation, which is actually of high quality overall. It is clean and smooth, there are few to no inconsistencies, and few static images. The fight scenes look very good. Even if the backgrounds in the few early episodes are pretty unoriginal they are well drawn and well detailed, and as the series progresses we get to see some more original ones. There are a few cool buildings and vehicles, for example the steampunk-looking floating fortresses that we see in the three last episodes. Even the CGI is alright, with cool looking vehicles made out of wood and iron.

Secondly, the story and characters are somewhat decent or at least, not utter shit. You have a clear objective for the main characters which is gathering the late emperor’s remains, and it is implied that the completion of this objective will have important and harmful consequences, as it could potentially revive the evil emperor. There are also some secrets, like who was actually the emperor, what happened to the eight heroes who killed him, was he really as bad as people say, among others. Some of them are unraveled in this first season. For once, the protagonist doesn’t have morally good intentions. He and his sister actually want the world to be at war again since as former soldiers they have no purpose in a world of peace.

Lastly, there is at some moments decent comedy – I am not talking about the incest jokes – which makes the anime more entertaining to watch. Nothing incredible, but it made me chuckle more than most “comedy” anime series I’ve watched.


--- Still, it’s nothing great

I have already mentioned some of the flaws in the first paragraph, but there is more. Even if the characters are somewhat better than average – and in the wonderful world of anime, average means garbage – they aren’t all that great either. Chaika is made slightly annoying by the fact that she is a naive, clumsy child who easily gets scared, shocked or happy. Sure she is cute and all, but that isn’t enough to make her a likable character. Then you have the protagonist’s violent sister with big boobs, Akari. Oh sorry, did I say sister? Actually they aren’t related by blood. Totally didn’t saw that coming. But it doesn’t matter since she will still call Tooru “ani-sama” (TL note: ani-sama means “big brother”), and make predictable, unfunny incest “jokes” by attempting to murder him each time he gets too close to another female. By the way, despite the fact that they are very poor (they live in an old run-down house and eat bugs), Tooru and Akari still manage to be clean and well-clothed. Not very coherent.

During their quest, the main characters are chased by a group of people sent by the government (the Kliemman organization or something like that) because gathering all of the emperor’s remains would have grave consequences on the world. The characters of this group aren’t good. You have a boring romance where one of them, Vivi, is in love with the leader Alberic but doesn’t have the courage to confess her feelings, and will do everything she can to be noticed by him. For some reason there’s also a goddamn cat-boy in the team. These guys are bad at their job. The best example of their incompetence is when after a fight between Tooru’s group and some other guys, one of them asks “you think a magic battle took place here recently?”, when they were literally 20 meters behind and should have seen everything. In an episode you also see them doing shopping, because that’s relevant to the plot, apparently.

Other problems include cheesy lines about finding a goal or following your convictions, and some fan-service (suspicious camera angles showing the loli’s thighs, bath scene…).


--- Bad naming syndrome

People seem to think that characters’ names is a minor detail, it isn’t. The characters’ names are said in practically every dialogue. If the names are bad it will automatically hinder the dialogues. In this anime the names sound European, with the exception of Tooru and Akari (because saboteur = ninja = Japanese), so you have random and ridiculous names such as Gillette (like the razor brand), Trabant (like the East German car) or Vivi (like… nothing). For the love of god plot writers, choose better names. If you have to give your characters European names, pick names that are actually used by people, not brand names or European-sounding syllables soups!


--- Pedophilia

Yet another anime that portrays a romance between an adult and a child as something normal. How am I not surprised? According to the synopsis, Tooru is 20 and Chaika is 14. By the way, it would still be pedophilia even if she wasn’t 14, as her body, her behavior and her character are that of a child. Seriously. As of today, I have reviewed 25 anime (not including this one). 5 of them had some form of pedophilia. In all of them it was portrayed either as acceptable, either as “funny”. Disgusting.


--- Verdict

Hitsugi no Chaika starts out as generic garbage and ends up as an okay show. The plot and the characters are slightly better than average (average meaning bad), and the animation is of high quality. There are a few cool things here and there, a few good comedy moments, and good fight scenes. It is a somewhat entertaining show that is easy to watch. I would recommend it to fans of the genre, but it has nothing new or incredible.

The premise of Himegoto is that of a porn. Our protagonist, Arikawa Hime, is a male high school student with very feminine looks. His parents who are always traveling abroad left behind huge debts and he is being chased by debt collectors. The debt collectors attempt to rape him but he is saved by the student council, which is made up of three sadistic girls. He is then forced to become their pet dog and wear girls’ clothes for his entire school year. From then on it’s just all sexual abuse, sexual harassment and humiliation for poor boy Hime.


--- “Sexual abuse is wholesome 100!!!”

In ... every episode Hime is forced to do humiliating things, like cheer-leading, cosplay, wearing skimpy clothing, and even nude modeling. Even if it is stated that he was already into cross-dressing before that, it doesn’t justify him being constantly humiliated and abused. Everybody around him, boys and girls, are constantly sexually abusing him, including his brother and his “friend”. People are constantly lifting his skirt, groping him, touching his d*ck and his nipples. Boys attempt to rape him at several occasions. What’s worse is that all of it is portrayed as cute and funny, when what he is going through should be enough to drive him to suicide!


--- Rape = comedy

The situations where the protagonist is sexually abused by everybody around him are apparently supposed to be the “comedy” of this anime. There’s absolutely nothing else. In other terms, the comedy is non-existent.


--- Rape, but inclusive

There’s nothing wrong with cross-dressing and femboys. The problem is that it is through being forced to wear skimpy clothing in front of horny males attempting to rape him that Hime accepts that he wants to wear feminine clothes and a wig. In this anime, sexual abuse is a way to “awaken your true self” and accept your feminine side. How progressive!


--- And everything is forgiven at the end!

Yep. Towards the end of the anime (ep.12 and 13), two boys attempt to rape him, but the student council just stands there and watches until he is saved by some other group. The three girls of the student council are scolded and then everything is forgiven. Yes, all of the sexual abuse and humiliation he went through. “Isn’t it great you made up with them?”, says one character. Yeah right! Isn’t it great he made up with his former abusers? “Thank you”, Hime says to the student council. Yeah thank them for abusing and humiliating you all this time, you absolute fucking buffoon!


--- The production value is decent

Since it’s adapted from a 4-koma manga and the episodes are very short, the animation doesn’t have to be of high quality. The background music is forgettable and generic. Same for the opening and ending, they’re the generic shit that you should skip. They’re also surprisingly cheerful for a show about sexual abuse. But it is decent enough for this type of show. Most of the character designs are well done. They fulfill their purpose of looking cute, most particularly for Hime. The voice-acting is also decent, I believe.


--- Verdict

Is there really anything else to say? This show belongs to the trash can. Even if it is only 40 minutes long it isn’t worth your time.

Due to its nature of OVA and remake of a really old (but legendary) series, on top of being a space opera, that is to say a genre that is long forgotten, Space Battleship Yamato 2199 was either avoided or went unnoticed by most anime fans. In 2012-2013 the anime community was apparently too busy watching soft-core porn series such as High School DxD and its sequels. Or perhaps were they repelled by the stench of nationalism coming from this OVA, which would be a better reason than wasting their time w*nking to demon teenage girls. But I highly doubt that anime fans are this ... politically aware. So what’s worse? Porn addiction, which slowly destroys your brain and makes you see people as objects? Or nationalism, which encourages you to sacrifice yourself and others for the glory of a mystic entity while your ruling class is profiting off arms sales? The answer is obvious; today I will be teaching you about the wonders of nationalism!


--- The story and why it is good

Ignore the joke in the intro. Let’s forget about the nationalistic undertones of the series for a moment – I will talk about them in a later paragraph – this is an excellent OVA.

The story is set in a future where Earth is being bombed into eradication by an alien Empire known as the Gamilas, who are some sort of space Nazis led by a space Hitler named Desler. The bombings have covered the surface of the Earth with toxic contamination and people are forced to live in underground cities. Humanity is on the verge of extinction. To remove the contamination and to fight with the aliens on equal footing, Earth turns a WW2 Japanese battleship, the Yamato, into a powerful spaceship and sends it on a quest to retrieve a technology that can restore Earth to its former state from the alien planet Iskandar. The OVA follows the Yamato's journey to Iskandar, and the many challenges faced by the crew as they travel through enemy territory, and fight the Gamilas Empire in space battles or on other planets. While this does not sound like a very original premise nowadays, the story is well-executed. There are cool weapons such as the Yamato’s Wave Motion Gun, which can destroy entire continents, or the drill missile (yep, it wasn’t invented by the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies). There is cool technology such as the Warp, which creates artificial wormholes to move faster than light. There are good and likable characters on both sides, such as the charismatic and brave Domel on the Empire’s side, and Okita as captain of the Yamato. Okita Juuzou, another man of honor who respects his enemy. An old captain who wants to save his people and homeland, and whose body was made weaker due to toxic contamination, but doesn’t seek revenge or extermination of his enemy. How could someone dislike that grandpa? The characters’ motivations are easy to understand on both sides of the war, without them being one-dimensional. Some want to get revenge, some want to protect their families, and some others want glory and recognition. There are epic space battles where both sides actually establish strategies to kill each other. And there is tension and situations where it gets desperate for the Yamato and its crew, the battle against Domel is the best example.


--- Improved story and characters

This remake improved already existing characters and added new ones. In the 1974 series there was only one female in the crew, and her only purpose in existence was to fall in love with the protagonist almost immediately along with being sexually assaulted by the robot Analyzer on several occasions. In this remake not only did Analyzer stop being a sexual assaulter, a few relevant female characters were also added, such as Yamamoto Akira. The romance between the protagonist Kodai Susumu and Mori Yuki is also more developed than in the 1974 series. The relationship between the characters are a bit more complex. Characters are developed throughout the whole series rather than getting their own dedicated episode, as it was the case in the 1974 series. In the original series, the characters on the Gamilas Empire’s side were all cartoonishly evil and had mischievous faces, except from Domel. In this remake they are more developed and made more human, as they have families and better motivations. Schultz and his men, for example, are second class citizens who seek to become first-class citizens through success in the military. Domel also has a wife and family.

The universe in general is more complex and more coherent. There are a lot of cool additions, such as the fact that the Gamilas Empire has its own language which, for once, doesn’t sound too ridiculous. They have their own names for technologies and planets, for example Pluto is called Plat. In the original series the Nazi aspect of the Empire was mostly about aesthetics, with the German-sounding names and such. In this remake, the Empire has racial discrimination and a secret police that suppresses any opposition (yes, there is an opposition now). The Nazi character of the empire is also made more obvious with other additions such as a Nazi-like salute and a Swastika-like symbol. There are also other alien races, and some of them are under the domination of the Empire.

Contrary to the 1974 series, it doesn’t have filler episodes (or episodes that feel like fillers), meaning that the entire series is good to re-watch, except maybe from one or two episodes where not much interesting stuff happens, such as ep.9 and ep.14.


--- There are a few problems, however

The first flaw is fairly obvious, it’s the fact that an entire galactic empire and its space armada is unable to destroy a single spaceship sent by a dying civilization. It doesn’t matter that the Yamato has powerful weapons like the Wave Motion Gun. It shouldn’t be capable of breaking through entire armies, taking heavy damage and still manage to repair while in space, and resupplying only once or twice on an uninhabited (and hostile) planet in an entire year.

The second flaw is that the end of the series is too long. Without spoiling anything, towards the end of the series, when the quest of the Yamato is basically completed, some unnecessary events happen and this justifies the existence of two episodes which could have been used differently. Note that this is also a problem of the 1974 series and not just this remake. This remake could have removed or replaced this two episodes just as it did for the filler episodes in the 1974 series (such as the one taking place on a planet inhabited by tribal ants, which was absolutely ridiculous). It could have used them to develop the Gamilas Empire a bit more. It could also have used them to explain certain things that are left unexplained even at the end of the series.

Even if characters were improved, some of them are still pretty bad. The best example being Desler, (aka space Hitler) who is the same as in the original series: nothing more than your typical cartoonish bad guy that wants the whole universe under his boot, always has an evil plan (that fails, of course), makes bad decisions and kills his own subordinates for fun. He doesn’t have enough charisma to compensate.


--- The stench of nationalism

Perhaps the major flaw of both this remake and the original is its nationalistic undertones. For some reason, most reviews and comments about the series completely ignore this aspect, while some others give little attention to it. Yet this isn’t something trivial. The fact that few people are pointing it out, and even fewer people are actually denouncing it is somewhat alarming. If the show had been a German cartoon or live-action series about the Bismarck fighting against fascist aliens, it would have caused a controversy and the show would have been canceled almost immediately. But when it comes to Japanese involvement in WW2, people get strangely forgetful.

Firstly, the fact that in this series, the Earth is saved by the Japanese, and only by them. In ep.2 of the 1974 series there is a scene that shows how the historical Yamato was sunk by the USA at the end of WW2, scene in which the Japanese navy is portrayed in an almost positive light. This scene should make uncomfortable anyone who knows about the atrocities committed by Japan and its armed forces during the Second Sino-Japanese War and WW2. Fortunately, this scene is absent in this remake. However, the ambient nationalism didn’t vanish, as the Earth is saved by the Yamato – a symbol of Japanese military supremacy – and an all-Japanese crew. The space fighters are also named after WW2 Japanese fighters, such as the Zero. Why are the crew members all Japanese? Other countries were not eradicated yet, and Japan is not supposed to be the most advanced country in space exploration or space technology, so it doesn’t make sense. This remake added new characters, including relevant female characters to get rid of the sexism, so there was an opportunity to add American, European, Russian or Chinese characters, but they didn’t do it. Instead, Martians and Iskandarians get more representation in the crew than non-Japanese earthlings!

But there’s more. Let us look at the premise of this series again. The Gamilas Empire bombs Earth with weapons of mass destruction, and humanity sends a single space battleship, the Yamato, to fight back against the entire Empire and save their homeland from eradication. This situation looks awfully similar to how the historical Yamato was sunk: it was sent to fight an uneven battle against an overwhelmingly stronger enemy, at the time where Japan was being bombed to hell (the bombing of Tokyo is one example) by said enemy. In short, this series is yet another attempt for Japanese nationalists to play the victim, when it was Japan that started the war and killed (directly or indirectly) dozens of millions of people, mostly Chinese. It is yet another attempt for Japanese nationalists to portray themselves as the good guys, in a fantasy where their heaviest ship bravely faces a Nazi-like empire and saves the people whom they oppress. Who contributed the most to the defeat of the Nazis, again? It was the USSR, with the help of the US and the UK. It was certainly not Japan, which was allied with Nazi Germany. So perhaps the series should have been called Space Tank T-34 instead?

This doesn’t prevent the series from being excellent nevertheless. It is good that this OVA removed the scene mentioned earlier, and that some plot points were added to make it less nationalistic, but the nationalistic undertones remain. They will surely make a lot of people uncomfortable, myself included, and for good reasons.


--- The animation is still very good

Despite its old age, the animation of the 1974 series is very good and one of its strong points. Is the animation of this remake on par with the original? It definitely is! The animation is clean and smooth, the space battles look particularly awesome. The backgrounds look very good and are very detailed. The Gamilas cities and buildings are well done and original, they really look like alien cities. Their design is mostly the same as in the 1974 series, but with much more detail. Iskandar also has very cool Utopian-looking buildings. The somewhat archaic art-style is replaced by a more familiar one, making it easier for today’s anime fans to watch the series. The downside is that it looks generic. Despite that, the character designs are well done and easy to recognize, without using extravagant hairstyles that would feel out of place in a series like this. Vehicles and spaceships are CGI, including the Yamato. I will always say this: good 2D animation looks better than good CGI. I would have preferred to see the Yamato in 2D again, but the CGI in this anime is of high quality, and the Yamato is still so goddamn sexy. There are however a few things that look ugly, for example the rare CGI crowds, a huge CGI bug on some planet, and also some special effects like explosions and smoke which sometimes don’t look very good.


--- Great music

The sound is another strong point of both the 1974 series and this remake. The soundtrack is awesome. It definitely fits the series as it sounds military, with drums, trumpets and such. Most of it is the same as the 1974 series, but there are also a few new tracks in the same style, which are made by Miyagawa Akira, the son of Miyagawa Hiroshi, who composed the music of the 1974 series. The opening is an updated version of the original opening with modern animation and sound, which is good since it is such an incredible and memorable opening. The sound in general is very good. The sound effects, like the alarms or the sound the Wave Motion Gun makes before firing are just so cool. It is sad however, that the sound effects for the laser fires were not updated. The voice-acting is also very good, with well-known seiyus such as Ono Daisuke (Erwin in Attack on Titan, Jotaro in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure) voicing Kodai Susumu, or Ootsuka Akio (Rider in Fate/Zero, Wham in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Batou in Ghost in the Shell) voicing Elk Domel.


--- Verdict

Overall Space Battleship Yamato 2199 is an excellent OVA, and a good remake of the original series. Many things were improved and made more up-to-date to modern day standards, which makes it more accessible to modern audiences, while keeping the elements that made it a legendary series. Though I would have loved to see the Yamato animated in 2D again, the animation is top-notch, and so is the soundtrack. So I would strongly recommend it to most anime fans, but you have to be aware of its nationalistic undertones.

Bastard!! is dark fantasy OVA focusing on a powerful magician known as Dark Schneider. He tried to conquer the world with the help of four other magicians known as the lords of Havoc, but was eventually trapped in the body of a child named Rushe by a group of clerics. Fifteen years later, the lords of havoc are trying to awaken Ansla-sax, the god of destruction that destroyed the world and brought humanity back to the medieval ages. Trying to defend their town from the lords of Havoc, the clerics bring back Dark Schneider so that he can defeat his former comrades. Joined by a ... few other people, such as a girl named Yoko and the princess of the town, Dark Schneider goes on a quest to track down his former friends, beat them up and reconciliate with them, because as you know if you’ve watched Dragon Ball Z, when you beat the crap out of somebody they become your friend. With a plot as simple as this you would think there would be no way to fuck this up, yet…


--- Dumb and random

This OVA is plagued with dumb, random and unexplained things.

Firstly, it is never properly explained what were Dark Schneider’s motivations. He wanted to conquer the world, but not to rule it, and as such he brought chaos to every country. Perhaps the motivation was sex, as it stated that he had sex with hundreds of women. Same thing for his former comrades. Why are they now against him, and why are they trying to revive a god that would probably annihilate what’s left of humanity, nobody knows. Perhaps the manga readers know, but a proper anime adaptation shouldn’t have to make you read the source material to actually understand what the hell is happening. If the lords of havoc were evil for the purpose of being evil, it would make sense, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, as after they are beat up by Dark Schneider they loose any evil goals, without any explanation. Not knowing what the characters’ motivations are makes it hard to like them, and hinders the show significantly.

Secondly, you often don’t understand what is happening on the screen. Why this spell does this, why doing this does that, how the hell did Dark Schneider “shrink himself into his arm” to dodge an attack, you are never given a proper explanation.

Thirdly, the universe is completely random. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, and you often see ruins of skyscrapers and modern buildings, but at the same time you have tons of things that feel completely out of place in a post-apocalyptic world, such as magic, orcs, ninjas, medieval castles and towns, monsters, dark-elves, werewolves, minautors, cyclops, vampires, and so on. The randomness also applies to the names, as they are just random syllables put one after another: Di Amon, Tia Note Yoko, Arshes Nei, Witos-neiki… For the umpteenth time plot writers, randomness is not an efficient way to create good names. Some of the names are apparently references to Heavy Metal (Meta-Rikana = Metallica), but I know jack shit about Heavy Metal, and even so it doesn’t make the names sound less ridiculous. Of course, the attack names and incantations also sound ridiculous, with the characters saying random stuff like “zazard zazard scrono-rono-sook”, or “tesla”, sometimes English words that are unrelated to the effect of the attack, like “damned”, “exodus”, “accused”, “raven”, “riot”… Why not “garlic bread”, “prostate cancer”, or “dialectical materialism” while we’re at it?

Lastly, there’s the fact that Dark Schneider is overpowered, and basically immortal. It doesn’t matter if he died after tearing his heart out of his body, he will come back to life anyway, with an explanation that can basically be summed up in “shut the fuck up it’s magic!”. Regarding how he defeats his enemies, it is either very stupid, like using very hot fire to beat a fire elemental, or the usual anime thing where anger makes you stronger.


--- No, the characters aren’t that good

One of the things people praise this anime for is the characters, and in particular the protagonist Dark Schneider. While I do agree that Dark Schneider is a better protagonist than the average modern protagonist with zero charisma and no balls, as this one is arrogant, manly, and has had sexual intercourse with hundreds of women, it doesn’t make him a good character either. When he is first introduced, he is portrayed as a bad guy with incredible power. But it turns out that he is just a very arrogant good guy, as he fights bad guys, saves his friends, spares his enemies and even sacrifices himself to save his former comrade who had become his enemy. As you can see, Dark Schneider shares many similarities with the archetype of the “demon lord” in modern anime, that is to say an overpowered man who was, is, or pretends to be a demon lord, but is actually kind and good, like Diablo in Isekai Maou to Shoukan Shoujo no Dorei Majutsu, Sai Akuto in Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou, or Maou Sadao in Hataraku Maou-sama!, to name a few bad series that I made a review for (obligatory self-advertising).

The other characters are worse. Male characters are very manly, while female characters are frail and stupid, and that’s all. Alright, the vampire count Di Amon is pretty comical and somewhat enjoyable, but he doesn’t have much screen-time.

To sum up, the characters, which are supposed to be this OVA’s strong point, are actually very average and forgettable.


--- “Randomness equals funny”

Some people defend this OVA by saying that it is bad on purpose, as if that was an excuse! To these people, having an incoherent universe, cheesy dialogues, and throwing Heavy Metal references everywhere is enough to make a show funny and entertaining! To these people, randomness equals comedy! It’s a parody, so all of its flaws are made on purpose, some of them say! And what is it parodying, exactly? It’s true that this OVA is – or tries to be – a parody. There are a few things that indicate it, for example when Dark Schneider uses a 5 yen coin, or when one of the characters breaks the fourth wall. But that is not sufficient. A parody should make it obvious to the viewer that it is a parody, otherwise it will just come out as as bad as the thing it is trying to parody! Parody or not, this OVA isn’t funny, and at best you will only smile a bit.


--- The production value is decent at best

The animation is pretty average overall. Obviously, it must be taken into account that this is an OVA from the early 90’s, and that it can’t be compared with modern animation standards, but it doesn’t excuse everything. It doesn’t excuse, for examples, the characters designs. Most of them are boring, forgettable, and sometimes even ugly. One of the characters is literally just ninja Guts. The girls are neither cute nor sexy, which makes the fan-service even more tasteless. The art-style appears to me as the standard art-style of that era, and doesn’t strike me as particularly good. One of the features of that art-style is that pretty much all of the males are huge, tall mountains of muscles with normal-sized eyes, while females are short, frail, and have the usual large anime eyes. The fights scenes look okay to me. However, the backgrounds look meh.

The sound is also average. The quality of the background music varies, it is sometimes shit, sometimes good, but never like something you would re-listen to on YouTube. The sound effects can also be bad. Regarding the voice-acting, some of it is bad, mostly secondary characters (the clerics, for example), but Dark Schneider’s voice-acting is actually pretty good.


--- Verdict

To conclude this review, Bastard!! is yet another anime that tries to be “so bad it’s good” and ends up being so bad it’s shit. The plot is a failure. The characters are pretty bad and boring. I don’t know if the arrogant protagonist was something original at that time, but nowadays it just feel like a re-skin of the “demon lord but actually he’s a good person” type of protagonist that you can find in a lot of recent series. The animation and the sound are nothing incredible and don’t manage to make the show entertaining. I guess that people who understand what the hell is this OVA parodying, and are Heavy Metal fans that can get all of the references could enjoy it, but most people should avoid it.

Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo, or “Cross Ange: Rondo of Angel and Dragon” in the language of imperialism seems really similar to Soukou no Strain at first glance. Indeed, both of these anime feature a female protagonist coming from a privileged background who looses everything after being betrayed by her brother, and both involve piloting CGI mechas to fight against an enemy. However, while the latter has pretty decent story and characters, but is hindered by its very average production value, the former is like watching a catastrophic train crash in slow-motion, but with very good graphics, and also tons of sexual content. ...


--- The premise

The story takes place in a futuristic and technologically advanced civilization, with some sort of magic power called “the light of Mana” as the source of advanced technology. In this society, nearly everyone can use Mana, either for telekinesis or for making vehicles move. Mana allowed to create some sort of utopia where money doesn’t exist, but this is done at the expense of the few people who cannot use Mana, the “Normas” (all females) who are discriminated against and excluded from society. The story focuses on Angelize Ikaruga Misurugi, the first princess of the Misurugi empire. At her sixteenth birthday she is betrayed by her brother Julio, and revealed to be a Norma. Her parents who were hiding the truth are killed, and Julio takes over the Empire. Angelize looses her status and her name, which is shortened to Ange, and is sent to Arzenal, a military base on an island where Normas are forced to pilot mechas called “ParaMails” and fight against dragons coming from a parallel world. Did I say dragons? Ah no actually they’re called “DRAGONs”. Don’t ask me why.

Of course, later in the story it is revealed that the situation is more complicated than it was presented at the start of the series, and that “DRAGONs” aren’t just evil monsters who want to exterminate humanity.


--- The protagonist

Overall, not a great character.

In the first three episodes she is irritating as hell, as she is always crying and complaining with her annoying voice, acts dumb, and causes the death of three other Normas. She tries to kill herself by piloting the Villkiss, an old ParaMail that no one can pilot properly, but of course she is the only who can use it to its full strength. Then there’s a complete change of personality: crybaby and weak Ange turns into a tomboy-ish top warrior who tries very hard to be cool and bad-ass, is arrogant, selfish, and sees other people as inferior. Not a very believable personality shift, but at least that made her a less annoying character. Then, in another episode, her ParaMail is sabotaged and she ends up stuck on an island with a dude named Tusk, who later becomes her “knight” and boyfriend. The scenes on the island are very cheesy. They’re supposed to make Ange evolve as a character, but again, it’s not very believable. One thing that I learned with this episode is that, if a generic harem lead falls and ends up his face between your legs, your selfishness and arrogance disappear afterwards! Incredible, huh?


--- Fan-service overload

The first critical flaw of this anime is that it is plagued with excessive fan-service. It is not just an anime with a lot of fan-service, but rather a 25 episodes long shower scene with a plot. Seriously, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of bath, shower and locker scenes. Even scenes where important information is revealed are sometimes bath scenes. At some point you have Alektra, the Normas’ commander, revealing important things to Ange… in a hot springs. Why do people treated as subhumans get the luxury of having a hot springs in their military base, nobody knows. In this anime, there’s always a dumb excuse to make the female characters naked: if they’re thrown into jail they are undressed, if they’re about to be executed they are undressed, if they’re found guilty of treason they are undressed and whipped, et cetera. I don’t remember a single episode where you don’t see at least one of the female characters naked. They’re also naked in the opening, by the way. Then there’s also a lot of panty shots during mecha battles, the Normas’ skimpy clothing – what is even the point of such clothes? Mustn’t be very practical in winter! – the fact that Tusk always ends up having his face in Ange’s pussy after a fall, as if he was a harem lead, Salia getting her ass slapped as a scolding, and Ange giving Tusk her panties as a lucky charm. There’s also a lot of sex scenes that are completely unnecessary for the plot, with a gang of lesbian Normas whose only purpose for a big chunk of the series is having lesbian sex. If that wasn’t enough, we also get to see anal rape and, at several occasions, sexual assault. And the beach episode… ugh. That one wasn’t needed, it’s not like there isn’t enough fan-service already! This is one of the most cringe-worthy episodes. There’s a dumb contest where the girls have to carry eggs with their chest. And then you have Ange disguising as a mascot to avoid an important woman. And then they talk while she is wearing a goddamn swimsuit. And then she and her friends escape from Arzenal, while still wearing swimsuits!


--- Ange’s boyfriend is a generic harem protagonist

The second critical flaw of this anime is Ange’s boyfriend, Tusk. As I said earlier, he is basically just your average harem protagonist, except from the fact that he is not the protagonist. Tusk is, along with the antagonist, one of the worst characters of the series. He shouldn’t even be here. What is a harem lead doing in an anime about girls piloting mechas? Simple, he’s here to save the damsel in distress, for example by fixing Ange’s ParaMail, saving her multiple times, complimenting her, and having sex with her. Tusk is annoying. He has absolutely no charisma. He has an ugly and generic character design, and I swear I have seen his face dozens of times in other garbage series. He has an irritating voice. He isn’t likable. He is a white knight who sees females as weak beings who need his protection. His relationship with Ange is boring and predictable. Seriously, there were several other girls with a better personality and better looks in this series, so why did the plot-writers have to make Ange fall in love with this garbage character? It could have been with Hilda, after all their experience and personality are somewhat similar. It could have been with Salamandinay, since they seemed to get along so well after playing golf in a parallel world! Heck, it could even have been with Salia, or just anyone in Arzenal, really. But certainly not with this pathetic excuse of a white knight who just can’t avoid putting his face in Ange’s pussy every goddamn episode! Tusk shouldn’t be in this series. Without him, the show could have been much, much better.


--- The antagonist is a rapist god

The third critical flaw of this anime is the antagonist, Embryo. He is the man who created this nearly Utopian society, but he thinks that it has become corrupted and wants to destroy it, killing the whole of humanity in the process, to create a new and supposedly better society. He is, more or less, a god, as he is nearly immortal and has overpowered abilities like time and space manipulation, controlling people who use mana, brainwashing, bringing people back to life, and… making females super horny. It seems to me that his goal of creating an ideal society is just an excuse for him to have his own harem of Normas. His only objective after he meets Ange is to have sexual intercourse with her, and for that reason he will abduct her several times, attempt to rape her, and torture her, but of course Tusk is always here to save the damsel in distress. As you can guess, he is a pretty garbage antagonist. He is also stupid. Towards the end of the series, he doesn’t even hide the fact that his goals are selfish anymore, and looses the support of his harem of Normas, making him loose the battle. And yes, despite the fact that he should be unbeatable, the good guys still find a way to beat him in the end!


--- The plot is random and ridiculous

The fourth critical flaw (yes, that’s a lot of critical flaws) of this anime is that the plot is random and full of ridiculous elements that makes you want to jump out of the window. I have already mentioned some of them earlier, such as the fact that the antagonist is a rapist god and the revelations in a hot springs among others. But there is more, here are some examples:

1) Characters like Ange, Salamandinay and Embryo have mecha battles where they sing like Disney princesses, because this apparently makes the mechas stronger. There is no proper explanation for this, and anyway, hearing girls sing stuff like “lulalalila” when they’re trying to save the world is just infuriating.

2) Towards the end of the series, Momoka and Tusk sacrifice themselves to save Ange, and then you have half an episode where Ange remembers about them, and cries about the fact they’re dead, just for them to come back miraculously, so that she can finally have sex with her boyfriend.

3) Normas get paid for their kills and buy their own things, including weapons, fancy clothes, ParaMail customization, etc. They even lose money if they take a break when they’re sick. This would make sense if Normas were mercenaries, but that’s not the case since they are considered as subhumans and are forced to fight.

4) In the few early episodes, you have a scene where Ange’s outfit is teared apart by bullies, and she wears it anyway. I am pretty sure this scene is stolen from Soukou no Strain.

5) Momoka cooks onigiris during a battle where the very existence of humanity is at stake. Doesn’t she have better things to do?

6) While fighting, Tusk and Embryo talk about Ange, and Tusk says stuff like “I know her better than you do, because I know how many moles there are on her thighs” and something which translates to “I fucked with her and you didn’t, Ange accepted my d*ck”.

7) Alektra has the Aurora, a huge submarine that can fly, hidden under Arzenal. How could she hide such a huge thing under a military base? And why the hell is it named the same as the Russian cruiser Aurora, a symbol of the October revolution?

There are many other annoying elements and events but I will not talk about them because the review would be too long.


--- The other characters

So the antagonist is shit, the protagonist isn’t great, and the protagonist’s boyfriend is garbage. What the about the others characters, then? Well, they are pretty bad.

First, we have Momoka, Ange’s former maid. If you’ve watched enough bad anime, you know that when there’s a master-servant relationship, it means that they’re actually friends. Unsurprisingly, this is also the case here. In ep.7, she comes to Arzenal to find Ange, as she still wants to serve her, but since Ange isn’t a princess anymore, she no longer needs a maid. Despite that Momoka harasses her until she accepts, and she continues acting as her maid and wearing her maid outfit… in a military base. Ridiculous.

There are many annoying characters such as Vivian, the archetype of the energetic girl, who is made annoying by her high-pitched voice and her catchphrase. Ange’s sister, Sylvia, is also very annoying. Once Ange is revealed to be a Norma, she starts hating her and turns into a little bitch who enjoys torturing people. Ange’s brother, Julio, is also a bad character. He is just your average evil character who is easy to hate because he is a coward with a punch-able face, like Joffrey in Game of Thrones. And Rosalie? Her only personality is being dumb.

Finally we have Chris, a girl with an exaggerated childhood trauma, which boils down to this: “when I was a child, my friends gave me a single hairband, and I had to cut one of my pigtails to put it on, waaaaah!!!”. That’s it. That’s the trauma. And she betrays her friends because of this. I’m not joking.


--- There are a few characters that aren’t utter trash

Which doesn’t mean that they are good either.

First we have Alektra, aka Jill (TL note: aka means “also known as”), the Normas’ commander. Since she is supposed to be a serious and bad-ass character, she smokes cigarettes, because you know, having lung cancer makes you cool. She does have a legitimate goal: to create a world where Normas aren’t discriminated against. But at the same time she isn’t a completely white character as she is ready to sacrifice others to achieve her goal.

We have Hilda, who leads the lesbian gang whose only purpose for an important number of episodes is having lesbian sex and bullying Ange. She gets some character development around ep.9, but sadly her background is cheesy.

Then we also have Salia and Salamandinay, who could have been decent characters if they weren’t made ridiculous by things like Salia role-playing a magical girl when she is alone or Salamandinay playing golf, tennis, baseball and other games with Ange… in a parallel world.


--- Animation & sound: the only aspects of the show that aren’t a complete failure

Overall, the animation looks good, though there are face inconsistencies in a few episodes. The mechas are in CGI, and the CGI is pretty good, but good CGI will always look uglier than good 2D animation. Tusk has a generic character design, with the face of an idiot you can find in dozens of harem anime, but apart from that the character designs are well done and easy to recognize. For example, Salamandinay has a pretty cool character design. They are very similar to the character designs in Code Geass, which is nothing surprising since both series are made by the same animation studio. The backgrounds look good. Most of them are a bit generic but they are well drawn. There are some buildings and landscapes that are original, such as the “Dawn Pillar” or the Arzenal base.

Sound-wise, the background music can be bad at times, but not horrible. The main problem is the bad music placement. The two openings are pretty meh and forgettable, both in terms of music and graphics. Ange has an annoying voice in the few early episodes, but after that it’s alright. The other voices are mostly good, but there are two characters with irritating high-pitched voices, namely Tusk and Vivian.


--- Verdict

Cross Ange is a very bad show overall. The plot is dumb and plagued with invasive fan-service and dumb elements. The characters are absolutely terrible. Without the good animation, watching it would feel like a chore. Either avoid this show or watch it to admire the train crash, since that’s the only way it can be remotely entertaining.

“They’re running out of ideas” is what I first thought when watching the first episode of Mushoku Tensei: Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu, or “Jobless Reincarnation: I Will Seriously Try If I Go To Another World” in Donald Trump’s language. Indeed, the premise of this show is something seen hundreds of times in recent anime and manga. It is an isekai anime focusing on a friendless and socially anxious otaku who is hit a by a truck and reincarnated in a fantasy world as a newborn baby. I had also read some of the manga version before and it didn’t come to me as particularly good, ... and I got bored of it pretty quickly, so needless to say, I expected nothing of this anime adaptation.


--- I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the animation

It looks very good. You rarely see something as beautiful as this in an anime series, let alone in an isekai. The animation is stunning and the backgrounds are really awesome, their quality is that of a movie. Rather than having the generic MMORPG starting town and generic landscapes with always the same terrain, we get to see various backgrounds and landscapes like deserts, mountains, middle-eastern looking cities and European-looking cities, all of which are very well drawn. Though the character designs are not that original, they’re well-drawn and easy to recognize. The fight scenes are very well done too. Contrary to most modern anime, isekai in particular, the big monsters in this series are not in ugly and jerky CGI like in the train wreck that is Kumo Desu ga, Nani Ka?, but in well-drawn 2D animation.

Sound-wise, the background music is pretty alright, though very forgettable. The opening is very meh, and sadly it can’t be skipped as it merges with the start of the episodes. The voice-acting is good, no problem with it.


--- A pretty standard beginning

As I said earlier, the premise is very unoriginal. Our protagonist dies after being hit by a truck, and is reincarnated in a fantasy world as a newborn baby named Rudeus Greyrat, in a family consisting of his “dad” Paul, his “mother” Zenith, and a maid. We see him growing up and learning about the new world he’s in. Since this is an isekai, the protagonist is, of course, overpowered: Rudeus is a child prodigy who learns magic at a very young age and makes tremendous progress, surpassing his teacher in a relatively short time. For the first third of the series, it’s basically a “feel-good” anime with very few conflicts, as Rudeus learns magic easily, gets along well with his family, and even makes some friends, like his teacher Roxy and a girl named Sylphiette.

I can understand the appeal of the “restart your life from zero but keep all your current knowledge and experience” thing, and I have to admit that watching Rudeus slowly growing, learning stuff and getting stronger is nice, but it doesn’t happen that much, as he is overpowered and learns too quickly.


--- Cool story though

Contrary to most isekai and isekai-like shows, Mushoku Tensei has actual world-building that makes you want to learn more about its world’s history, mythology, countries and such. I also liked the fact that, FOR ONCE, the fictional languages and the names don’t sound too ridiculous. There are also no video game mechanics, and few MMORPG elements (adventurers’ guild and quests).


--- The characters are alright

… except from Eris who is pretty much your average tsundere. Ah no, she also looks like a dog when she gets angry. The bad-ass demon dude that accompanies Rudeus and Eris towards the end of the series is pretty cool. Coming back to Rudeus, he is not the average isekai protagonist. Firstly, he’s not just some high school student with a pretty face, but a 34-year old and regular-looking fat dude – obviously his reincarnated body doesn’t look like that. Secondly, he keeps most of his personality after his reincarnation, but he slowly evolves. The new world he’s in allows him to change and become better – except from one flaw that I will talk about next, so there’s actual character evolution. Thirdly, he’s actually not that overpowered, at least not as much as in the standard power fantasy isekai. He can’t be completely on his own and has to rely on others to a certain extent.


--- PURE DEGENERACY

This is the part that really fucks up the show.

What I mean by “degeneracy” is that this is anime has a significant amount of pervy elements. Sure, this is a pretty common thing in anime, but the problem here is that it is either borderline or straight-up pedophilia, as it involves children younger than 12. Rudeus kept his personality from his past life, meaning he is still a virgin otaku with a porn addiction, and as such, he will take every opportunity to do perverted things, which includes: sniffing his “mom”’s pants because she’s hot, looking at her teacher’s pants and stealing them, touching a female child’s body and trying to remove her panties while she’s asleep, groping her, and even buying an aphrodisiac like a goddamn rapist. At some point, his inner voice even says that one character, who is clearly a child, is “gorgeous”, so its pretty clear that he is a pedophile. Yet he isn’t portrayed as a degenerate, and isn’t punished for his actions. On the contrary, he is even encouraged by other characters such as his “dad”, and the father of the young girl he’s trying to sexually assault, who is apparently alright with this. Not only this, but characters in general are super fucking horny for no reason, with stuff like Roxy and the maid fingering themselves while listening to Rudeus’ “parents” having sex, or the dad having a bastard child with the maid. At some point you even have Rudeus and his “dad” Paul casually talking about fucking a woman, when Rudeus is supposed to be a 7-year old child. At this point, I think the show should’ve been named “That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Pedophile In A Fantasy World Where Everyone Is Horny As Hell”. The worst thing is that the anime attempts to portray this type of event as wholesome or funny, which makes it even more creepy.


--- Verdict

Mushoku Tensei had awesome graphics, alright characters, a decent story and could easily have been the best isekai show to be ever created. Sadly, the fact that the protagonist is an unrepentant pedophile who attempts to rape a child and that he isn’t punished for his behavior really brings down the overall quality of the anime. Since it has stunning animation and a pretty cool story, it is enjoyable, and can be watched.


NOTE: Even if I said that the characters and the story are alright, I had to give them low sub-scores (4/10 and 5/10) because of the pedophilia.