This was an anime I certainly came in with a pessimistic viewpoint. The first episode is weak and failed to draw my attention. In fact, I almost dropped it. But I felt like that would go against my bias toward underdog anime, so maybe there had to be a good layer hidden beneath. I feel in order to write properly about it, I must be direct with almost everything, so proceed with caution.
The setting of the anime is fairly standard. If you are a fan of bottle settings, this one will not fail to provide. Besides the occasional scene in the non-fictional classroom Hime and
...
Kanoko are in, alongside occasional backstories and maybe a fast food location, you will be inside the cafe nearly the whole time. Be it the main area, the kitchen or the breakroom. Get used to these settings because you are not getting much more than that. The aesthetic is nice and very faithful to the manga, though the source itself already looked gorgeous, so it was not hard for them to make an anime version at all with it almost appearing like the most detailed panels in full color. Whether or not you want to call that a praise is up to you. Lastly, the soundtrack is absolutely wonderful. Though I would not take too much outside the anime, everything you hear well watching is a treat to the ears, especially in the cafe scenes when they are in their personas.
But with all that out of the way, let us jump into the characters. Given how focused the anime is on fleshing them out, naturally, most of the remainder will be dedicated to them. That is why I felt the need to note everything else prior. Normally, I list in order of least to most interesting, but this show made it a bit hard to order them since a lot of the characters get fleshed out pretty nicely. Well, save for one notable exception. The analysis will only cover as far as the anime gets, being Vol4, Ch21.
= Koshiba Mai =
She was very easy to read. The only unique interaction you get with her is that she immediately sees through Hime's facade after Hime's extremely-confusing-but-somehow-happened fall, which foreshadowed that her cafe was known for putting on acts as she would explain later on. Once she catches wind of Hime's potential when she saw her fake personality, she purposefully changes her mood from being okay to saying she was injured and even proceeds to make a fake cast so that she can force Hime to work in the cafe to cover for her. The blackmail was where I was initially disinterested as it lent itself to very bad Oreshura vibes for me and almost made me stop mid-episode, but I kept going.
Unfortunately, for practically the whole anime, the blackmail is a recurring element. She mostly jabs Hime in the early episodes, but refrains from it as the story fleshes out into more drama, though she does give her a big jab in the final episode. I almost feel like if they had found a better way to introduce Hime to the cafe, my score may have been a point higher. Mai was a character I soon wanted to forget and almost every time she was onscreen was uncomfortable. She was purely in the anime to move scenes along and to force Hime to keep working at the cafe.
= Nishidera Nene =
Honestly, there is not a lot to say about this character. She is a background character for quite a heavy amount of the anime, only surfacing to more significant scenes once her character is revealed more in a flashback involving Sumika. However, the big drama of this flashback is revealed in spades earlier in the show, but we do not get to see it in its entirety until near the end. Other than her role in Sumika's past, Nene is simply the kitchen chef. She has brief character involvement when she confronts Kanoko for judging Sumika without getting to know her, which alludes to who the "white-haired girl" was that is shown in Sumika's memory earlier in the anime.
Nene's outward appearance is noticeably different from the past, but not enough to the viewer unless they watched the anime well mostly looking at their phone. But if one was not paying attention, her character build is a bit different from the past, she wears a hat and has minimal screen time, making it easy to forget about her until her past work at the cafe revealed that she acted as the "Saionji" persona. Guess the cafe was better at fake names back then since it was legitimately different from her real last name.
Not a bad character, but well her light screen time was slightly clever so the viewer did not suspect her too much early on, it does not do enough for those who fully pay attention to every episode. And the end result is she would have been better off simply having more time in scenes instead so that the viewers could get to know her better. Up to the very end, she was simply "Sumika's schwestern" and nothing more.
= Mitsuki Yano =
This character was fairly interesting at the start. Yano comes off as very aggressive outside her persona and constantly shoves Hime away whenever they are not being "sisters," but as the story continues, you later find out it is because she believes Hime betrayed her in the past, as they had known each other prior to their second meeting in the cafe. But the short of it is that they both have a misunderstanding for a while and eventually see where they went wrong with each other and make up.
But after their reconciliation, Yano starts to become a pretty boring character as the show continues. She still exhibits most of the same personality traits she had at the beginning, but coming off as mostly non-aggressive and now bothered that Hime still messes up at the cafe fairly often, despite how long she had been working there at that point. Her strongest character trait is her diligence, but that is nothing new to this character type.
= Chibana Sumika =
Sumika is a character who had initially come off as very threatening, exhibiting a standard upbeat "gyaru" personality as she is referred to going forward for the most part. Though, her character is not all that mean and she simply comes off as too friendly at worst. Her interactions with the other characters are fairly standard for a while and when the cafe only has her, Yano and Hime working, she is a jokester at best. Though, she is not afraid to help Hime out on the sidelines from time to time.
The real meat of her character comes in much later as we are introduced to Kanoko. Sumika slowly catches on that Kanoko has a clear infatuation with Hime and wants to put a stop to it. From the perception of Sumika, she is reminded of the aforesaid romance from Youko that tore her friendship apart with "Saionji,” the persona of Nene. So she wanted Kanoko to back off from Hime. Sumika learns that Kanoko is simply going to keep her distance from Hime and is content on being her friend and nothing more, also learning that Hime has been putting on a facade the whole time. This is the most major involvement Sumika has in a storyline that is not being comical to the other characters and the key moment that led her to choosing Kanoko as her schwestern.
= Shiraki Hime =
When we are first introduced to her, you get an immediate idea that she is a repulsive character. But well she inherits similarities to other bully characters common in most anime, she actually has different motives. She is putting on a "facade" as she says, but she is completely okay with being nice the whole time. The worst thing on her mind is that she wants to purposefully aim for somebody rich, so it shows she does not care in the slightest how their personality is.
Her most consistent theme is her “facade,” the cute act she puts on constantly to feel enamored and live an easy life. But the act came at a cost of her practically neglecting any real friendship. She was able to perfectly handle it without error until she decided to stick up for Kanoko, which resulted in her revealing her secret and choosing her as her first friend. Though this is good as it shows Hime is not willing to just let other people suffer, it is probably the last “good” thing she does for a long time that is from herself and not to help her public image.
Though I actually did not have too much more to say about her, the very nature of how messed up Hime’s character is keeps her more interesting than the other characters. She acts so nice all the time and she notes that it is just to have her life be easier, but it constantly makes you wonder if she went through something pretty psychological to feel little care for the inner workings of other people other than the fact they should feel enamored around her.
= Mamiya Kanoko =
This is the real star of the show. Kanoko is one of the most messed up characters I have ever seen in this genre altogether. Her friendship with Hime is not necessarily bad, and she is very kind to her, but her clear romantic interest behind closed doors is the very result of how physical Hime got with her early on. She specifically leaned on her to show affection, said she could stare at a picture of her to “calm herself” and so much more. From the viewpoint of Hime, it was something she believed would make Kanoko a fan of hers, well being more open to her than other people.
Instead, it sent a horrific signal to Kanoko that made her overthink that Hime had more feelings than friendship. I have seen lots of anime in this genre, but even I have to admit “yandere” was not a character type I ever expected to come across. Yet, here we are. As noted earlier, she blabbed to Sumika about being in love with Hime, but she believes that it being a one-sided love would be better for the both of them. But in the long run, Kanoko is constantly in pain over it and never properly understood why until she talked to Sumika. It leads to one of the darkest, depressing moments. And yet, one of the most beautiful in the entire anime. It made her standout far more than Hime would to the audience going forward and further make people hate Hime.
But that is to say, I feel it would be unfair to pin the blame entirely on Hime. Despite how much she lies, she also tries to be kind to others a lot of the time. She simply chooses to distance herself to meet her goals and nothing more. That is not really the air of a “bad” character to me. Kanoko even understands it and does not judge Hime for it either. In fact, any attempt Kanoko ever has at judging Hime is immediately restrained with shackles in her head, even to the point of breaking down in tears apologizing once when she simply called Hime a “jerk” which is quite sad to watch.
= Wrap-up =
If I could list any other criticisms, I wish they had explored other characters' homes, families and such more. For an anime so character driven, the viewer usually wants to know much more about them. Instead, the most you get is their interactions with each other in the past if they had met prior. Otherwise, some characters meet as the story continues in the present time. So you really do have to judge most of the characters at face value for a while until their "big drama" scene unfolds or if you pay real close attention early on. Though I will say the show does foreshadow some of them fairly well where they don't come off as a huge surprise when they finally happen. And they start to give you a ton of character development in the last few episodes to where you are letdown the show is already over.
If this ends up as a one-season wonder to Passione, that would be pretty sad. I don’t demand they finish the entire manga by any means, but it would be nice to have one more season when things actually started to get more interesting. I feel as though two would be enough to gauge interest in knowing how it unfolds in the manga. But where the anime stands now, and especially how it concludes, I simply have to say it is above average at best. I wanted to enjoy it more as I saw it delved into a more unique territory that was not obvious at first, but I was put off at a lot of the little things it did wrong. I would maybe recommend it for a one-time watch, but only if you are aware you will have to go to the manga to get more of the story. I do not see this coming back for another season.
Writing: 6
Character: 7
Art: 7
Music: 8
Enjoyment: 6
Overall: 6.5
Feb 12, 2024
Watashi no Yuri wa Oshigoto desu!
(Anime)
add
Mixed Feelings Spoiler
This was an anime I certainly came in with a pessimistic viewpoint. The first episode is weak and failed to draw my attention. In fact, I almost dropped it. But I felt like that would go against my bias toward underdog anime, so maybe there had to be a good layer hidden beneath. I feel in order to write properly about it, I must be direct with almost everything, so proceed with caution.
The setting of the anime is fairly standard. If you are a fan of bottle settings, this one will not fail to provide. Besides the occasional scene in the non-fictional classroom Hime and ...
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
 0
Love it
 0
Funny
 0
Confusing
 0
Informative
 0
Well-written
 0
Creative
 0Show all 
Jul 6, 2022 Mixed Feelings Spoiler
I will be a bit less harsh than other people who wrote reviews of this anime. However, that is not to say that there is not harshness to be shown altogether. And I will be mentioning direct plot details, spoilers to be more specific. However, I would recommend you read what I have to say instead of watching this so you do not waste four hours of your life. Though, with how poorly I explain some things due to how forgetful I was of this anime myself, you may wind up wasting at least fifteen minutes of your life reading all of this.
This anime has ... a very dry story. We meet Kanata Akehoshi, a farm girl who is so bright in personality that even the eyes of the blind would need to look away. She is seen carrying a massive horde of potatoes that is nearly as big as her entire body. You can tell she is clearly built on superhuman strength. Shortly after, you are introduced to a brand new character that was not in the original Battle Athletes at all that came from the sky who proceeds to give Kanata, our heroine, a random wristband that needs to go to "that person." Oh, but don't get your hopes up. Takes about eleven episodes until it is revealed who this is, so throw that into the far reaches of your brain for now. Kanata then decides to enter the Grand Games after our little space alien from the sky informs her that she needs to win it. That is it. No motivation. Just "please help me." "Okay!" says Kanata Akehoshi. Kanata enters it as every single human being on the planet earth expected her to. Then she meets a random girl who is initially antagonistic toward her, but immediately warms up to Kanata after she arm wrestles a bully that said whoever loses the match has to go home. In what is the only true "comical" display of Kanata's raw power in the whole anime, the other girl's arm is struggling to move even a single coordinate of Kanata's arm on the table well she sits there with a big smile on her face, ready to obliterate her. She apologizes, only for Kanata to refuse it and offer friendship instead. Kanata and her new friend, Shelly Wong, then proceed to meet the remainder of the cast as the story goes on. If you have seen the original Battle Athletes, here is the anime's attempt at nostalgia bait. Two of the other competitors are descendants of the previous ones. I would say the one who resembles their ancestor the most is Yana Christopher, who bears the appearance and optimistic personality of her ancestor. Meanwhile, Lydia Gurtland is a more marginal resemblance to Jessie and is just a cut-and-dried tsundere who suddenly becomes a neutral-positive type personality once the anime reaches the second half. I would like to assume her initial "cold-heartedness" was their "attempt" at her having a bit of Jessie's genes, but it ultimately failed in my eyes. I did not mention it earlier, but given Katana's last name does not match her grandmother's, I would like to assume Shelly is a descendant of Ichino Yanagida. However, there is no connection at all, so she is more than likely a fresh character. That is the end of the descendants, so now we move onto the brand new characters. Since all of them were pretty forgettable to me and MAL lacks any database on them, nor could I find very many databases that listed all of the characters at all, I am only remembering descriptions and whatever names I can think of and what I was able to find. There was a kangaroo named Oshinoke that was just one of the most absurd comical relief mascots I have ever seen in a while that serves no purpose but to make the viewer smile. You find out at the last episode she is a female, so I guess it is not too weird she was always with the girls. However, this whole anime could have been without the kangaroo and I would not have felt anything was missing. There was also Jefferson Natdhipytadd, a "humble detective" who just happened to be at every crime scene so conveniently it almost hurts. I swear I forgot he existed every time he was offscreen. And has so many cheese one-liners that you will be grateful he does not show up any other anime. And lastly, off the remaining supporting characters I can remember, there was Paglia Respighi. She initially competes in the games and befriends all of the girls, but later goes on to betray them to assist a corrupt doctor. More on that later. So, that only leaves our main anti-hero, Eva Garenstein. Separated her from the recurring characters because there is of course more to talk about with her. To the credit of the creators, her design looks noticeably different from everybody else. Her eyes appear lifeless, but this fits in with her PTSD of undergoing human experimentation for several years and inevitably parting ways with her mom. She completely forgets Kanata for a good portion of the anime, only existing to win the competition and has little to no interactions with any of the main cast for the first half. Her only goal is to meet her mom again and her writing does not match how interesting her conception was. She was "tuned" by "doctor" Johann Reinhardt Roberts in an effort to guarantee she won every competition. When Eva's own progress begins to slow down, a clone of her with a sample of her DNA that was created. Specifically "tuned" in the same way Eva was to be able to win effortlessly, aptly named "Seva" by Paglia. She is teased near the start of the second half, but begins to actually appear near the last few episodes. Johann did not allow her to be properly "re-tuned" every match like Eva usually was, resulting in an overload and her nearly dying. All you get from the real Eva's development is she becomes friends with everyone else near the end and an awkward near-face hug with her mom once they reunite. Eva visits her, now presumably adopted into the family, twin sister in the ending and then shows her a Joey, which is the apparent love child of Oshinoke, who we found out was actually a betrothed Kangaroo to a male one named Dokonoke. Guess Seva apparently has the kangaroos in the hospital because "animal therapy works wonders" I guess. Oh right, I mentioned the Grand Games and forgot to mention that Eva also told Kanata to become the Cosmo Beauty. This title grants those with significant propaganda power, based on how the anime explained it. Besides Kanata, all of the other girls have a specific dream. Shelly wants to prove that disabled athletes can make it to the top. Lydia wants to win in order to stop the Gurtland Company from providing weapons to the war on the moon, which is apparently going on. Yana basically shares the same dream since she simply wanted to stop the war altogether, but not having weapons would meet her goal, so their partnership strengthens over this. Lastly, Paglia wants to cure a disease on her home planet. This is why she wound up betraying the other girls by assisting Johann since he promised her he would help with the disease on her planet. One of the oldest clichés in televised media. And it hardly has any differences from the norm to make it an interesting subplot. Eva would want to win the Grand Games in an effort to reunite with her mom, since that was requested of her by The Control Committee. Pretty straightforward, isn't it? These are the main antagonists of the anime, but their purpose is so simplistic that I do not even need to elaborate on them since their namesake does all the work. But to word it anyway, they wanted Eva, later Seva, to win the Grand Games so that they could control the stocks of the universe and reap off the benefits of a universal takeover. Sounds kind of cool on paper, but it is delivered so boringly that you could care less once you see the anime try and explain it. And once Kanata Akehoshi wins at the end, they are taken into custody. Nothing else but an epilogue of everyone. Oh wait, I also forgot to mention Yana has a war crazed friend named Yucil who told her to kill Lydia in an effort to stop the war on the moon with an invisible gun. Then later when Yana obviously fails to do so, Yucil decides to try and kill Lydia herself. For whatever reason, Lydia being trained in athleticism was enough to win against a war veteran in a fight. Also, the only fight scene in the whole anime. Yucil mentions there is an analog bomb at the race podium and Jeffry takes her there in an attempt to get her to disarm it. She betrays him and stands up on the podium. However, Yucil has an abrupt change of heart, shoots her gun in the air to get everyone out of the area, puts down a pendant and decides to detonate the bomb without leaving the area for some reason, much to the dismay of a crying Yana on her way to the finish line. The epilogue then shows Yana tending to a plant she watered in a previous flashback where her and Yucil were on the moon at war that has now grown a bit more, with Yucil's pendant next to it. This was set to be the saddest scene in the anime and I actually felt a bit bad here since it was a nice foreshadowing to the flashback. Then my respect for the scene dropped harder than entering the hemisphere when Yucil comes out of nowhere with no explanation as to how she survived the bomb besides it not being "that easy" to kill her. Now then, some of the good things the anime did. It showed a lot of strong potential with the concept of "generations" in the characters. You can, very obviously, tell that Kanata is a descendant of Akari Kanzaki and the anime tries to "hide" this with her being the only one without her original last name. Or maybe they thought it was funny that the previous anime already did "Chris Christopher" and did not want to do "Kanata Kanzaki" though I think everyone would have loved that. Kanata mentions that her grandma is "very famous" a few times, so it should have come as no surprise that nobody was shocked at the ending when she finally took off her granny hood to reveal she was Akari Kanzaki. If this anime had been written better, that ending would have made me feel very warm inside. But, I'm sure everyone who watched the original Battle Athletes definitely got goosebumps seeing Akari Kanzaki again after so long. Myself included, albeit I first watched the original only a couple years ago, one year prior to the spin-off. As for the picture at the end showing Akari in what looks like a pilot getup, I could only presume "Mrs. Cookie" is a character who appeared later in the manga since the one thing I have seen this anime do correctly is remain consistent to the past. However, I do appreciate the attention to detail in the picture she had of her past as the outfit looks reminiscent of the '90s anime style, right down to the bulkiness of Akari and Mrs. Cookie's outfits and even their healthy body portions. If you have been a seasoned anime fan by now, you would know the majority of female anime characters normally look pretty anorexic, minus the bust area. If I can only praise the anime for anything, it is that the homaging of the past, for the most part, is very nice whenever they do it. Oh, and well I did not understand what the "Divine Light" was, I did heavily enjoy Kanata's hair having two short strands whenever it happened to her, an obvious homage to Akari. But what really sold me was the final race between her and Seva where her strands stood up the same, but now sporting a Rainbow Light around her; the camera panning sideways exactly the same as it did in the finale of the original TV anime and her arms being right behind her, just like her grandma in her own finale. Out of every race in the entire anime, this one gave me genuine goosebumps for the attention to detail and I personally enjoyed it a lot. If every race could have felt as good as this one, my score would have been higher. Smaller things are I did not think the anime looked nearly as bad as everyone told me it would. However, I will say it could have had much better movement for being an anime focused on sports. Still frame detail is acceptable, backgrounds are generically rendered but get the job done. And with that, I am just about wrapped up on my opinions about this anime. For its very bland writing, extremely lazy plot progression, stiff movement and lazy characterization, this anime is not good to me. However, for its respectfulness to the original material in terms of Kanata's past, very satisfying finale race and warm ending with the reveal of Akari Kanzaki, this is not bad to me either. Many people may hate me for giving the TV anime of Battle Athletes a lower score than ReSTART, but I have no regrets. I preferred how the writing of the OVA better when comparing it to the TV series, so at least one of the originals I ranked higher than ReSTART. If only the manga had been fully translated, I could have known if there were a few more descendants or not. Oh yeah, just a random comment at the end here. We had no random lesbian scene this time in ReSTART. I know that was a weird thing that happened in the original Battle Athletes, both the OVA and TV series. Calling it "weird" since it felt like it came out of nowhere is all, not that I found it weird they tried a romance like that.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
Jan 14, 2022
School Rumble
(Manga)
add
Mixed Feelings
[Spoiler Warning]
First time I have written a review in ages, first of a manga and first of this year. I actually intended to do one last year, but the "Part 2:" part refused to show up on MAL for some reason. Forgot what I even wanted to write about. This is not at all an absorbable review for newcomers to the manga. I am writing this with the mindset of those who have read it already. Names mentioned will go off what they were called the most in the manga. And this review is as fresh as can be, having just wrapped up the manga ... today after a month of reading. This may come as a shocker. School Rumble has a very high score from myself and was one of the first anime I ever watched and was what led me to enjoying the types of anime I enjoyed. The comedy in the anime was robust, balanced and everything felt great to watch. Even with my distaste of abuse humor, I could laugh at the anime for the most part, though Eri got very difficult at times. The dub was even done pretty well, minus their decision to cut a literal story element from episode four at the twelve minute mark with nothing in its wake but long pauses. But enough about the anime. This is a manga review, after all. I am here to specifically dart on the characters and a bit of a wrap-up at the end. And from what I could gather of it, there are a handful of extra scenes present that the anime left out. If this sounds absentminded, it will be due to how much extra stuff School Rumble has. It throws me out of the "serious" part of its story quite a lot and I always try my best to jump back into the story. To begin, Kenji Harima, the character I always had the most interest in for having a great ending. Thought it was rushed. He continued onto the path of "incentive, tryhard, fails, gives up" rinse and repeat. This would not have been an issue if it was not for the fact it, more or less, continued on this way indefinitely across the even more serious parts and even his ending. He pretty much is stuck on a permanent Groundhog's Day loop with what he wants to do and his continuous pain of failing to impress Tenma really starts to feel like a burden on the reader as much as Harima himself. In this regard, I do respect a narrative that can really make the reader feel bad for a character and want to jump into the story themselves to help them and Harima has the highest mark for this easily. I suppose well we are on this train, let us continue it with Eri Sawachika. I enjoyed the deeper parts of her character, but wish it had a bit less abuse humor with her developments with Harima. The whorish nature of her character is the biggest weakness in enjoying her development, even with the understanding that it stems from her tightwad aristocratic lifestyle. That does not automatically mean I should be the submissive reader going "oh poor rich girl she is my favorite" just cause she is, hands down, the biggest prick in the whole series in a lot more ways that are irredeemable. Without saying the events of it directly, one scene near the end of the manga made me disrespect Eri for the rest of the entire manga. Easiest way I can describe it for those who have already absorbed this was that it involved a snowman in the front yard. Now then, the last part of this specific triangle, Yakumo Tsukamoto. No need to mention Haruki Hanai much. He was purely comic relief for Yakumo, but he had his moments where he was able to express some nice sentiments to Yakumo. I think I could probably count them due to how useless he is the vast majority of the time around her. And before I detail the ones that do matter, her character itself. Shy, reserved and tries to be as nice as she can be. She was previously a brat when she was a kid which is the primary factor in why she tries to be so nice. She really does not have all that much going on if we just count Yakumo herself. What really makes her character get more interesting is how much she grows around Harima. Ultimately, if I had to pick another character that is deserving of Harima, it is the other Tsukamoto in the family, Yakumo. She cares so much for him and I really enjoyed the dynamic of these two. Just about any romance fan would. She has something that happens within her heart that plays a major role in three specific moments, but I will leave it out since it would be too direct to explain. Now then, the last one I will give a paragraph to, Tenma Tsukamoto. Outgoing ditsy character and primarily meant for comic relief to such a degree that even the fan service scenes would continue to draw her in a more comical matter, never once with definition. You can grow to love her humor as it arguably rivals Harima's a very fair amount of the time, especially in the first half. She is meant to completely extract the funnies from this series and she does a near-perfect job at doing so. For a main character in regard to story elements, she takes quite a long time to get into gear for serious elements, which show up near the end. She has ones I would deem subtle early on with how she feels about Ouji Karasuma and occasionally some really sweet moments with how she appreciates her friends. Out of everyone that Tenma knows in the series, I would say Mikoto is the closest to her. She always tried to understand her feelings, never judged her nearly as harshly as Eri and most people did and always enjoyed distressing with her due to their shared empathy of romance. Second would be Tenma's sister Yakumo. Mikoto Suou. A character that honestly is more confused about love than Tenma is. I genuinely had no clue near the end who she truly liked and got so lost with her writing. I do not think I could even touch up on it without it being direct spoilers, so I will just leave it there. She was primarily meant to be poked at for her breasts, is outgoing and her strongest character strength was being able to whip Eri around when she was being too much of a degenerate. Akira Takano, sporting a style of humor so unique it could almost be made into a spinoff altogether. Had some moments that genuinely had me dying from how good the timing was in them. Was also the only one in the entire series aware of Harima's feelings toward Tenma in the most direct manner. Hiroyshi Asou, a potential "love interest" for two girls at specific points in the narrative, but I honestly forgot where either one began and ended. He is good at sports and has a major role in the basketball arc, but is ultimately a dry character. Haruki Hanai, meant to be outgoing and unlikable for being, well, too outgoing. Develops two crushes across the series, but only one of them cares deeply, though the other is arguably more deserving due to her near-identical personality trait that I believe would make for a more fitting pair. English voice sounds oddly similar to Tenya Iida from My Hero Academia, despite the two being different voice actors. Karen Ichijou, very adorable character. Am sad she did not have more scenes. Am also sad her romance did not flourish at all. She had a few serious scenes that I wish had "conclusion" style developments in them. Every big moment she gets is ultimately overruled by a joke setup. Now then, quicker notes for everyone that has something I remember about them, going from top to bottom of the character page listing on this site which will make it easier to categorize. Sarah Adiemus, hardly memorable past being one of Yakumo's close friends and sharing one good serious moment with her. The backstory with the church was cute, though. Tae Anegasaki, meant to give Harima abuse humor scenes and only stood out during her introductory. Fuyuki Takeichi, likes to take inappropriate pictures. Had two major focuses with the pool and Photoshop portions and possibly liked someone, but I never figured it out. Lala Gonzales, pure comical relief. Has some outrageously funny moments and a few warm ones with other characters. Primarily exists to make Imadori's life trash. Shuuji Harima, honestly forgot he existed multiple times. Kyousuke Imadori, comic relief for Lala and Mikoto. Miki Inaba, thrown into the plot to be a background love interest to another character. Harry McKenzie, pompous ladies man. Kozue Mihara, used to be fat. Nara Kentaro, was the only non-main character to figure out Harima liked Tenma. Mai Ootsuka, cute freckles. Itoko Osakabe, primarily eye candy, but has one notable serious moment with her backstory. Megumi Sagano, loves her grandma. Youko Sasakura, possibly lesbian. Junko Tonami, very cute. Shigeo Umezu, dating Madoka Kido and shenanigans are primarily around his anxiety with what she does when they are not together. Jirou Yoshidayama, picked on by Harima. Tsumugi Yuuki, looks much better without glasses and undone hair. Had two notable serious scenes that were nice. That is it. That is everyone. Everyone that I cared to write about, anyway. I know I missed a few. In conclusion, the narrative kept me interested enough to see it to the very end. Though these would go on to have some of the best writing in the manga, occasionally, the overly extended comedy sequences could feel like a slog. I am not fully satisfied with its ending, but most will disagree with this sentiment. The ride was long, but I really wanted to read it due to how much I heard that the anime did not properly conclude the series and left out a few important things. Having now absorbed those as well, I definitely liked having the additional exposition. But, I would never reread this manga. The anime is more redeemable to me to come back to. That being said, I do not regret absorbing this manga. It felt nice to have the closure, regardless of my opinion on it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
Jan 30, 2020
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon
(Anime)
add
Mixed Feelings Spoiler
(Major Spoilers)
I don't have much to say that's already been said. I was initially captivated by the origin of the Sailor's powers and wanted to know how much story could be told with so many episodes. I of course later found out it was simply a case of the manga being popular, so they were able to afford tons of filler episodes. In fact, if you add up all of the fully canon episodes, you get the usual twelve episodes, or "twelve episode curse" as I like to moniker anime doomed to not have more episodes than that. It also has five that are mixed, ... leaving twenty-nine of the episodes to be filler. All of what is said here is under the assumption you have already seen the anime, as I simply want to state my thoughts about it. First, I will address what each full canon episode offered to me and disregard the other episodes, ignoring elaborate character descriptions since one of the top reviews could do it far better than me, so we will get right to the point. Usagi finds out she is a sailor soldier, the titular Sailor Moon, and needs to "fight for justice" as she calls it. Well failing to fight the villains, she is saved by a mysterious masked man, who quite literally goes by Tuxedo Mask, as he sports a tuxedo and a mask, who continues to save Sailor Moon whenever she is in danger. What follows after is the discovery of Ami being the next sailor soldier, Sailor Mercury, after Luna noticed that she had a different aura to her and believed her to be evil. And right after that, we are introduced to Rei, who becomes Sailor Mars through the same deal of Luna noticing something about her. Then Usagi attends a ball, stops the villains from trying to steal what they believe is the Phantom Crystal, but is actually just an ordinary gem. Usagi inadvertently gets wasted and then receives a very questionable sexual interaction by Mamoru, the main love interest for Usagi, who did not receive consent from the intoxicated Usagi. Then Makoto, who is Sailor Jupiter and the last sailor soldier in Usagi's group, is introduced and the usual villain scenario takes place once more. All of these girls are then lured out by the villain of the respective arc into a trap after being fooled by a fake Sailor Moon, only to be rescued by another sailor soldier, Sailor Venus, who goes by Minako outside her duties of justice. After every soldier is introduced, the exposition dump is ready to commence. Due to unfortunate timing, Usagi is sucked into another dimension with Mamoru, who agreed to fight the villain of the arc in exchange for their Rainbow Crystals, which if all gathered, bring forth the real Phantom Crystal. Usagi must transform in order to save Mamoru and herself, where he discovers she is Sailor Moon. Mamoru himself, before fighting with the villain, transforms into Tuxedo Mask, where likewise, Usagi finds out that Mamoru was him the entire time. Well saving Sailor Moon, Tuxedo Mask suffers a fatal wound. Sailor Moon's emotions build up so much that she awakens the Phantom Crystal, with her aura forcefully stealing all of the Rainbow Crystals from the Dark Kingdom to do so. After effortlessly defeating the villain who impaled Tuxedo Mask, Sailor Moon regains her former memories, which revealed that she is actually Princess Serenity of the Moon Kingdom and that Tuxedo Mask is really Endymion, the prince who was fated to be with Princess Serenity. Afterward, Tuxedo Mask is abducted and turned evil. The sailor soldiers discover the location of the Dark Kingdom and plan to rescue Mamoru from their evil clutches. What follows suit, however, are the summoned enemies by Queen Beryl, the main antagonist of the story, effortlessly and mercilessly killing every other sailor soldier. Sailor Moon remains the last of them by the end and, after successfully bringing Tuxedo Mask back to the side of justice, he is once again impaled and this time killed. Sailor Moon must fight the now fully powered up Queen Beryl to save the world. All of the spirits of her dead companions lend her strength to defeat the evil queen and peace is restored to the world. To summarize then, Usagi gathers the other sailor soldiers, engages in a bunch of fights, meets another sailor soldier and finds out she is the reincarnation of the Moon Princess, only to have all of her loved ones killed in front of her and then having all of her memories wiped clean. The plot felt very confusing and I was not very intrigued near the end. What especially annoyed me was that, after Usagi underwent a heavy amount of exposition dump on her past, her worry and fear made perfect sense, but her "friends" instead tell her that she is a coward, with one of them in particular, Rei, slapping her and telling her off. I thought it was very shameful and drastically lowered the score for me. Usagi is a teenager and her reactions made perfect sense. She was confused and vulnerable. I did not have a single ounce of respect for her friends anymore after this episode, since they have established that, no matter whose feelings get involved, what matters is "saving the world" but the thing is, yeah, this is the plot and all, but it could have been handled much better. Maybe part of the episode could have been Usagi trying to accept everything, followed by all of her friends comforting her in a warm embrace and telling her they will always be there for her. We did not need Usagi to be treated like a kid when she had every right to act as one in such a scene. It was just outright pitiful to see Usagi mistreated so harshly. This is especially worse at the fact that Usagi wants to give up after seeing her friend die, only to once again be reassured that she needs to put an end to the great evil, with no words that properly comforted her. At one point, her eyes are literally lifeless as her last friend dies in front of her. They conveyed Usagi's reactions to death perfectly, but completely failed to have a good supporting cast. I would have respected the outcome much more if her friends cared more about her. Then, all I have left is the mixed episodes, which is not very much. They are summarized by the villains of the arc dying, finding out Tuxedo Mask is evil and then finding out more about Minako's past. Of course, being mixed, you would also target these episodes if you were only interested in progression. I still have a fairly high score for all of the negativity I gave the main story, so why is that score so high? Because of the filler! I never thought I would say this, but I liked the filler of the anime more than the story. Where the anime lacks in a consistent story, makes up for with very charming comedy and characters. When you are not busy remembering that Usagi's friends are trash at being good friends to her, you can appreciate their antics in comedic situations. All of the yelling, Usagi fumbling around like an idiot most of the time, the goofy faces, upbeat soundtrack and sometimes comedic fights made the filler a breeze to watch. I really did enjoy the filler much more and looked forward to every one of them. If I were to ever re-watch the series, I might very well just ignore the canon episodes altogether, outside the ones introducing the main characters. I would like to imagine my overall score might have very well been a four or less if the filler was not here. The original anime has two hundred episodes, so even if the canon did not start out strong, I do not want to give up on it. There still appears to be plenty of filler to go as well, meaning there should be more funny situations to come, well the story will also have more room to properly grow and maybe the friendship of the girls will mean something. My appreciation of the filler is not merely because I like high school comedies, but because something about them felt more consistent than the main story. Even if they repeated "(insert new villain and gimmick)" here every time a new villain was introduced after the next one was killed off, the writing still made the filler episodes enjoyable. And I just have to say again, though I mentioned it before in a more serious fashion, Usagi nails a teenage girl very well. She has jumbled emotions, constantly "falling in love" with every handsome boy she sees and constantly wants to mess around. I would say both her and Makoto were easily the most comedic characters in the anime. If you want to try out Sailor Moon, you may get more out of the story than I did, but for me, the filler was easily the best part.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
Nov 27, 2019
Yagate Kimi ni Naru
(Anime)
add
Mixed Feelings
[Spoiler Warning]
I could draw similarities to other romances, but the whole theme of this anime is one character does not know how to love and the other loves her. I could draw similarities to Sakura Trick, but only that one of their main characters shares the name Yuu and is the hesitant one in the relationship, well the one who is the most amorous is the long-haired one. But, I will be more blunt. The romance idea is interesting, but if this anime really has the twelve episode curse (always call the thirteenth episode a "bonus" episode since most anime typically have twelve for the sake ... of a better naming convention for the curse) going for it, then I have to say the ending was incredibly unsatisfying. But before we go there, let's go back. The anime establishes the main characters pretty quickly. We have Koito who does not know the concept of love and Nanami, who shares this feeling. Nanami is the typical popular school girl rejecting every confession she receives and is the head of the student council. I always thought it would be funny if there was an anime where somebody just straight up accepted a random confession, but I digress. She does great student council work and is accompanied by her equally "gorgeous" friend, Saeki. Koito is told to join the student council and witnesses Nanami rejecting somebody. Later on, she asks for advice on how to reject somebody. And eventually, Nanami finds out Koito does not know how to love somebody. So, well comforting her as she is on the phone by holding her hand, Nanami abruptly falls in love with Koito right off the bat. Suppose with such a short amount of episodes, we have to be thrown into this right way and this really hints at believing there will not be another season. From here, this is the entire anime. Nanami loves Koito, but Koito does not love Nanami. The anime is so adamant on this theme that Nanami literally tells Koito at one point that she is not allowed to fall in love with anyone else, but it is okay for her to still love Koito. Very strange romance, but whatever, it could work. We find out later that Saeki harbors real feelings for Nanami, but suffered a horrible experience in middle school with a girl who wanted to date her in middle school and went on to say it was a phase. I can relate pretty well to this feeling and that episode was very sad to watch, especially when said friend confronts Saeki later on and harbors no guilt for what she did to her. This is basically setting up the triangle, though. Saeki loves Nanami, but Nanami sees her as a friend and loves Koito, who does not love anyone. Feels more like a conga line to me than a triangle. Now, here are where my struggles begin. As I said earlier, had this season simply acted as an ending for a new season, this could have worked out very well. It is too soon to say that this isn't acting as that necessarily, but it is rare for an anime about high school girls to garner another season unless it really pushed the ratings. I want to point out this is going off the anime alone, since I know the manga is rated a lot higher, so maybe it has a much more satisfying conclusion. But for now, the anime just ends with them getting off the train and we do not even get to see the stage show they were setting up for the whole anime. On the other hand, I dislike an anime having a bad ending, so no ending is at least better than that, I suppose. But, if the anime does end with just them getting off the train and you are expected to indulge yourself into the manga after that, then I guess it did a good job since, again, it did not really "end" per se. They just left the story and we have to hope it gets another season. Subtle negatives are the fairly bottled setting and support characters not getting enough screen time, but you expect that of the twelve episode curse. At least I can say they explored a bit more than a lot of high school anime do, since well they had a lot of time in school and the standard walking home, they explored other characters' homes and even some unique places. Not particularly unique for anime, but unique for the genre. They also really loved using the train for serious moments, but it started to make the scenes feel cliché and that is unfortunate. I can count out the serious scenes that used the train for the classic slow motion effect. Koito being kissed for the first time by Nanami, Koito finding out Nanami would rather die than be herself and one where the memory is vague, but Koito was starring at Nanami well thinking about something. I suppose we rarely got to know about the characters beyond the serious moments, but it happened sometimes. We did not even know Koito liked marine life so much until the last episode. We find out Kanou is a writer and it serves to setup the plot for the stage show. Which, speaking of, with how much buildup the stage show had, if the anime really does stop here, then that really is the worst to not even get to that part. Hyuuga is basically the comic relief of the friend group of her, Kanou and Koito, but she is not explored at all beyond knowing she likes sports and a male senpai. I do not have a whole lot else to say but the positives. I suppose I should go over the most glaring score difference of all my ratings, the soundtrack. This is the most interesting opinion I have ever had of a soundtrack yet, but I believe it does not fit this anime at all. I do not mean that in a bad way at all. The soundtrack sounds amazing, but the trouble is it feels out of place in this particular anime. The more serious score works great in serious scenes and fits nicely, well the more happy score feels like it belongs elsewhere. The happy score sounds very enjoyable outside the anime and the orchestra did an amazing job. You rarely hear soundtracks given so much love with the high school genre, so it is very welcomed. This might sound very sad to say, but I really believe the soundtrack drew me into the anime. Without it, I may have gotten bored. Not that I solely rate certain anime on here by that alone, but a mediocre scene with a great soundtrack can make that scene into a good one sometimes. It is easily where the most praise goes. If I had more subtle praise besides the score, it would be with the blunt nature of the anime. I admire Koito sticking with her guns to the very end and being open-minded throughout, since this did not make it feel like her blunt nature was just a trait to lure in the audience for it to be swept under the rug once she started to fall in love with Nanami. However, she does eventually start to harbor feelings for Nanami, but it is very late into the anime. It shows signs during the sequence of them being outside a building during the rain and at its most prominent during the second-to-last episode no less, when Koito is finally smiling back at Nanami with her heart after receiving her kiss as usual. If there is a second season, it may be finally exploring Koito beginning to understand what love is. But, I did agree with her. Nanami is selfish for telling her to not love what she hates. Likewise, it seems like everyone else could get their points out very quickly about situations and it did not feel like something took too long to be resolved. I dislike the majority of romance anime for the characters either becoming "closer friends" or having strange romance development that means nothing in the grand scheme of things. This anime at least has a satisfying ending in regard to it not feeling like we were not moving forward at all. But, it is a poor stopgap if nothing more comes of it. Last thing is I enjoyed that the anime did not only have the main characters as the only homosexual pairing. It was not afraid to introduce somebody else liking Nanami and even have another couple introduced later on that are already dating. It calmly brought forth the idea that some people can have more to know than you think. When Kodama and Hakozaki kissed, that caught me off guard. It was a nice build to the story, especially since Saeki would later confide to Kodama and figure out that she was dating Hakozaki and ask for help with her crush. You feel so bad for Saeki, to have been screwed over and can not be with the one she loves because of it. That is where I noticed the theme of the love conga line. Everyone has shackles of their own. Koito is apathetic, but wants to love. Nanami is in love, but does not want anybody to love her. Saeki is altruistic, but is willing to sacrifice her well-being for it. I do not recommend this anime at all. Since it most likely will not receive more seasons. Rather, I would recommend reading the manga instead. It has a much higher score and will give you the conclusion you want. I primarily watch anime and have only truly had one manga I wanted to read because the story was just so curious and another because the anime was way too short. I am not a manga person, so if the anime lets me down, that is it for me. People constantly rave about manga being better and Yagate Kimi ni Naru is definitely not an exception. You are much better off reading the manga. But please, listen to the anime soundtrack. It sounds great.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
Nov 16, 2019
Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo.
(Anime)
add
Mixed Feelings
[Spoiler Warning]
I actually do not have very much to say about this at all, but figured I would anyway. Yes, for me anyway, this is not much to say. Act 1: All of the girls are having a good time, they talk about sex all of the time, it is really funny. Act 2: Somebody begins to realize they have feelings for somebody, they are literally unable to handle it and nothing but confusion happens. Final Act: They try to jumble up all of the stress the characters are having into a stress-induced finale. Coming off as comically strong, but ultimately falling flat with very unsatisfying conclusions throughout. Basically, ... a lot of scenes of romance that you wish led to, well, ROMANCE but hey, Kazusa looks pretty cute and all of the girls are nuts. Izumi wanted to protect her purity, but she was too dense to realize. Yeah, the female character is too dense, what a rarity in anime. She realizes it by the end and that's the most development we get between those two. Sonezaki and Amagi are severely crippled with how their relationship progresses because of how adamant Sonezaki is on being pure. The only other couple in the anime, and the first ones to become a couple, you don't feel satisfied with their dynamic, but it was at least more wholesome than Kazusa and Izumi. It is an anime that talks about sex the whole time, but there are a grand total of two scenes that almost lead to a kiss. One of them is between the wholesome couple before they are very, very unsatisfyingly cutoff before it happens. The other is between two random girls in the epilogue, who seem to be far more confident with experimentation than the entire cast with the ten seconds they had onscreen. Sudou might have had the most interesting drama in the whole anime with her confliction of which sex she is attracted to. Not in the sense of actual sexual desire, but general attraction, since it was never implied she wanted to do anything beyond a desperate plea to ask Sugawara to touch her. But no, the only girls in the whole anime that tried to do something with each other were those two epilogue girls in the Literature Club. That is all the female interaction you are going to get. Oh yeah, I suppose I should bring up Hongou. To the majority of viewers, this was probably the most interesting character. Though her plot was originally pretty interesting, they kind of threw it out the window during the final episodes. She was originally aspiring to be a writer of erotica and used sexting strangers online as some kind of influence, but was actually talking to a teacher from her school, Yamagishi, the entire time. Their development is very absurd, but a surprising deviation from the norm. It is just overall very comical and I would suggest you watch it yourself to see. It is actually hard to explain in words. Hmm, what else. The comedy was a strong selling point. That was my only draw to continue watching it. I enjoyed a lot of the scenes, but I do wish if they were going to go about the drama route, they handled it better. I do admit they tried something unique, but since it did not work that well, they should learn from it with the next one they do. The soundtrack is also great for the anime, even a few I would listen to outside of it, but this is anime we are talking about. The majority of anime soundtracks are never released besides OP and ED songs, so you are basically only going to hear them here unless you are desperate enough to spend the time splicing out the SFX to only leave the BGM. Would I watch this again? Of course not! Once the shock value is gone, all I have left are a bunch of crazy girls and unsatisfying romance. It was really funny, but knowing what all of it leads to, I really could only enjoy a handful of scenes over and over again, but not the entire ride. However, if you really believe you have watched every high school girl romance out there, you owe it to yourself to tackle this one. I will say its idea of tackling heterosexual, homosexual and age difference relationships all in the same anime is very interesting. It has ideas I would love to see a more talented individual try in the future. My list score is from my overall response to it if I were to absorb it entirely comical, well my review score is tackling it on other grounds, which is why it is noticeably lower, since a review needs to bring up all points surrounding the material. But, like I said, you will have a real treat here if you want to deal with a bevy of emotions. I would not even call this an emotional roller coaster, but rather an impassioned catapult. Once this anime launches you up into the air, all you can do is wait for the ground.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
Oct 23, 2019
Clannad Movie
(Anime)
add
Recommended Spoiler
(MAJOR SPOILERS FOR CLANNAD MOVIE, ANIME AND GAME)
Alright, unpopular opinion time. I think the Clannad movie is better than the anime. But, before you chew me out, at least read why I am saying this. Okay, so I have known Clannad for a fairly long time now. I know that even the anime gets criticized for not following the game as faithfully as it could. I understand there is now way in hell a movie could do it better. However, the movie deviating from the plot of the game is exactly why I favor it over the anime. Allow me to explain. The movie knows it won't ... be able to fit everyone into the scenario, so instead of jamming everybody in with a bunch of side stories that will go absolutely nowhere, it prioritizes Nagisa. Now, this does mean that Tomoya pretty much marries her on the spot, since they only have the length of a standard film to work with. Understandable. Before I jump into my favorite parts, though, I am actually going to start with criticisms, because as you know, my score is really high for this, so I have less negatives to say about it. The pacing is still abrupt. The beginning is very similar to the anime, where something feels off about Tomoya just seeing Nagisa walking around and the whole composition of this scene, the movie, anime and game, this scene just generally feels off to me and the movie only reminded me why. But, the movie does it the worst out of these three, since it rushes it. From my understanding, their first communication is supposed to be long in a sense of "atmosphere" or whatever, so the movie rushing it ruins the one thing it has going for it. Though, the animation in this scene is actually the best in the movie than the anime because of the scene choreography, featuring nice, fluid hair, beautiful colorization (which is sad to be unable to appreciate when you can not really find the movie in HD) and nice choice of BGM. However, that aside, the scene is very awkward. Rushing in general. For the girls who did make it into the movie, they were immediately pushed aside to later become minor characters near the end, since well, they are still Tomoya's friends. They just did not have any screen time. Hell, Kyou has a single speaking line in the whole movie. Tomoyo has the most attention, since she is the one leading the charge to take down Nagisa's posters and is a lot more antagonizing here than in the game. As I said, everyone not being in the movie is sad, but understandable. They did not want it to look like a complete mess. Sunohara also went bonkers a bit too much in this movie than he should have, most notably during the sequence where he was taking upset about the posters. Great Dango Family being butchered was unforgivable. It is the only reason why I did not score this movie a nine. Now, the part where you are shaking your head at, why am I saying this is a great movie? Well, because I am doing what everyone else is not doing, that being appreciating it as a standalone product. In that sense, yes, I know it still has scene pacing problems, but for the scenes it did good in, they were pretty great. The movie deciding to retell the events of the game was actually intelligent, since it allows scene choreography to flow more naturally and it does help the scenes that did not look rushed. I liked that certain comedy was handled pretty great, most notably Sunohara having the most Sakuga moments out of anyone else in the movie with how bizarre he is here. Now, praising the most controversial parts. Tomoya's original voice? I like it better! Tomoya is a depressed person, so it was weird he did not sound this melancholic in the anime. Scenes where he grieved, got angry and just talked in general fit the personality of his character way better. And he even does feel like a real delinquent with the minimal social interaction at the beginning. It complements his character very well. I am sad he was the only one who got a new voice for the anime, because I would have loved to see how this person did him with a full-length anime to work with. As I also said before, this movie opted to have original scenes in place of being faithful to the game and that is where it shines. Since I absorbed this film after the anime and game, I already know the story and so watching more of it in a rushed format would have greatly effected my score of the movie as a whole. Instead, I am being treated to a unique take on Clannad that is pretty enjoyable. In fact, I prefer how certain characters were in this movie than the game. Most notably, Sunohara. For starters, we see that they beat him up on the soccer field, which I believe the game mentioned that the fight was not started by him. Seeing it in action here, you can actually pity Sunohara. You feel bad that he was quite literally beaten up on the soccer field during a game and his anger was justified. He feels like he is really taking on the sadder aspects of his character way better and, due to how mistreated he was in the game, I feel happy seeing other characters pity him in the anime. Very notably, Sakagami, who listened to him during his grieving of Tomoya. Sunohara was also the most upset during the vandalizing of Nagisa's posters, which made him seem very commendable as a person, since instead of the anger he got from the mistreatment on the soccer team degrading him as an individual, he instead feels pity for other people who go through the same stress. It's more admirable and I wish this trait was in the game version of his character. And for that earlier matter, the friendship of Tomoya and Sunohara. I understand the game does portray this better, since they established their friendship came over something pretty minor and they both disliked certain aspects of each other, so they naturally weren't very close and Tomoya messing around with him a lot makes sense. But, in the movie, Tomoya has a legitimate bonding moment with Sunohara which I appreciate a lot and I like the retelling of their friendship having holes, but they are trying to be close, rather than them just being distant and kind of having bonding moments. I want to say the game portrayed a more unique friendship, but I am still pondering if I prefer the nature of their bond in the movie or game better. They are both still good in their own ways. Then there are the serious moments. This may be very controversial, but I believe the movie conveyed one particular scene significantly better to me than the anime. Nagisa in the hospital room just had a lot of love put into it. Nagisa slowly muttering her last words in her dying breath, acted very well, made me tear up more than I expected. The anime just has this weird montage sequence that made the whole death feel a bit weird, well the movie instead conveyed it in a much better manner. You could feel for both Nagisa dying and Tomoya crying. The entire composition of this scene is just beautiful and the BGM was chosen perfectly. I have a harder time watching this without feeling sad than any other scene in the entire anime. The anime did Nagisa's death scene too "epic" as comical of a word as that is to use. What I mean by this is that there is an intense track in the background, but it is not particularly sad sounding, but more like a buildup track of some kind. I'm not particularly good at describing this, but it just did not feel nearly as good as the track in the movie for Nagisa's death. If I remember right, the game does her death scene comparable to the movie, not using a weird atmosphere around her with bright lights, but rather a real, very sad death with appropriate music. The way the movie did Nagisa's death will always be my favorite. So that leaves the more minor things. I actually think Nagisa looks more attractive in the movie than in the game as well, subtle as the design differences are. I have read that people said Toei did a very bad job with the animation, but I feel like those opinions are entirely out of hatred, because I like to analyze animation a lot in anime and I did not see anything wrong with the frame pacing, detail or anything else. I suppose the anime does look slightly better, generally, but when I say I prefer the design of a character, that is different. Objectively, I am aware the anime does have a lot more detail, but subjectively, I like Nagisa better in the movie. The movie does not come close to the Illusionary World sequences at all in the anime, which are still better than the majority of anime to this day. I can fully agree with anyone on that. The anime does make great use of the talent on staff. Those people will be missed. Their effort on the anime is unforgettable. The soundtrack was also nicer in the movie in regard to unique flavor, but I prefer that the anime used the raw game OST. I recommend this movie a lot, but only if you are willing to absorb it without a hateful mind of Toei and a bias toward the game. You are allowed to prefer the game, but please try to watch the movie as a standalone product. It will make it much more enjoyable.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
May 22, 2019 Recommended
It's nice to have specials that genuinely feel like more episodes of the anime. Biggest disappointments with them are that some of the plots here would have made for some nice, full-length episodes. Most notably, the siblings of Tanaka and Oota, Rino and Saya. They really did not get very much screen time at all in the anime, so seeing them have a dedicated special felt sad due to how short these are. The special with the WacDonald's worker, Saionji, felt like it fit the short length of the specials the most.
I enjoyed my time with all of these, and at the end of the ... day, we should always be grateful to see any manga adapt into an anime, as well as those that are raw anime. It just makes you wish the anime standard was twenty-four episodes instead of twelve. The moment you fall in love with these shows, they are over.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
May 22, 2019
Tanaka-kun wa Itsumo Kedaruge
(Anime)
add
Recommended
Hmm, I noticed someone has already written a nice, concise review for the anime. I feel I would make Tanaka proud if I could describe it more simply, so I will do so for the more nonchalant reader.
Tanaka sits around all day. Ohta (how the subs spelled it, anyway) helps him so that he does not linger in one spot for too long. He has two generic male friends, one of which believes he is a lady killer. Tanaka sometimes does things. He gets into such petty trouble that it's laughable at how non-troublesome it actually is by comparison of normal human standards. The piano ... is relaxing. You might fall asleep well watching. But, that's not because it's bad. It's a very calm anime. Embrace your listlessness with Tanaka. Enjoy the atmosphere.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all 
May 15, 2019 Not Recommended
This is a pretty hard one to write. I don't want to scoff any of the points I've thought about well watching this anime, so I hope I can convey every thought I want here. Firstly, even though there's a lot of them, I want to address the negatives right away this time. This review will be spoiler heavy, so I will cut off here with a short, non-spoiler version to start off. Then separate it from the main, spoiler review with a visible warning from when it starts.
Hmm, explaining the entire context concisely without spoilers. Uh, let's see, the main character loves to study, ... but every girl is instead trying to get on his dick. Despite coming off as nice to each other, all of them are pretty mean to the male lead. The main girl in particular makes his life a living hell. If you watch all of this, I can assure you that you are expecting another mostly generic harem. Bright points are the art style being nice to look at, voice acting being pretty top notch and the soundtrack is quite nice on the ears. All of the tones for the girls, even for Japanese voices, sound fairly distinct from each other. Upon finishing the whole anime, I believe you could identify every one of them by their voice. This anime won't leave very much to remember and, at least I felt, it has a lot of mental stress the longer you watch it. For those who dislike watching an innocent character get tormented, this anime may not be for you. Nothing too physically brutal, but more verbal. Sometimes, public shaming. I would suggest watching it with a friend to get a better experience with it, since there's a lot to nitpick more than there is to wholesomely enjoy. (END OF "I want to see this for myself" REVIEW) So, before we can analyze it, we must explain it. Ore no Kano- Oreshura follows the plot of studyholic Eita as he tries to pursue a difficult career path and insists on studying whenever he can, being the top of his grade. He has a childhood friend who mooches off of him frequently, named Chiwa. Short, petite and cute enough to be perfect eye candy for loli viewers. And will most likely be girl of their choosing as you realize the rest are pretty developed in comparison. Our story starts here, then. Eita wants to study a lot, goes on about how love is worthless and is, more or less, content with being single for the rest of his life due to certain family circumstances that made him grow to hate the very idea of it. Then out of nowhere, a new transfer student- this isn't the part you care to read about, you know how this goes. She naturally becomes the main girl for the rest of the anime upon her introduction, but not in the ways you'd expect. Enter Masuzu, a literally self-proclaimed bitch whose whole goal is to make the viewer hate her, but despite this, she still ranks pretty high on this site. That's because your hatred toward Masuzu is actually justified for the story they're telling to make sense. Her character is very hateable, so much so that even the other girls dislike her a lot. I have more to say on her, but we will get to that later. The only other significant male character is Kaoru, who is pretty dormant for a good chunk of the anime and initially serves as Eita's lunch buddy at best, offering mild dialogue and opinions toward Eita's strenuous situations. He comes off as a bit of a trap, but is still pretty boyish in design. I imagine a good handful of viewers were fooled, however. The story unfolds a bit more, now with all these characters set to be the only ones you see for a little while. Masuzu actually has a blackmail plot set in motion for Eita, starting by trying to get him slightly closer to her. Then, upon walking home from school together, she reveals that she has acquired his personal journal, which contains stories of his chuuni-driven youth. From here, she threatens to expose all of his embarrassing thoughts to the world, but will hold onto them safely as long as he pretends to be her fake boyfriend. Masuzu meets Chiwa shortly after and the three eventually end up in an unofficial school club about, you guessed it, love. And from here, the anime continues to fold with these characters and their antics, primarily involving Masuzu setting up bizarre schemes for the sake of having fun watching other suffer, as well as she herself occasionally reading off of Eita's journal to Chiwa, describing them as wise words of her first love. Eita, always, sits through these and suffers. Himeka, uh, I really can't describe this one for very long, even knowing I am now allowed to delve into the plot more. There is a comical, then brutal, fight scene that breaks out fairly early on in the anime and Himeka is one of the bystanders during this. Through witnessing this, she immediately falls in love with Eita. Himeka serves as the most absurd of the girls due to her abrupt introduction and similarly being a chuuni, same as Eita, albeit she still embraces it. She has cute characteristics, but is also busty and has a relaxed voice on top of this. For the more unique fetishists out there, Himeka may have something for you. Then, the same events continue, now with Himeka present in the club as well. The most notable moments that Himeka commits to are when she first meets Eita, as she was very quick to embrace him, much to the annoyance of the other girls. She is the only girl in the anime besides Masuzu who blatantly lies to everyone, calling Eita her "ex-boyfriend" to explain why she is so affectionate around him. And, occasionally, she tries to embrace him whenever she can, as well as making him feel sexually frustrated due to her innocent personality, attractive body and similar chuuni ideas. Lastly, we are introduced to the most flamboyant girl of the four, Ai. You think you've seen it all, but you have never seen a tsundere like Ai before. Initially starting off with the trait more generically, she blossoms into one of the most unique girls in the entire cast. Frequently being manipulated and teased, Ai is meant to make the viewer laugh and nothing more almost all of the time. Indeed, her greatest trait is that she is a tsundere character that also serves as comical relief. Perhaps, the first I've seen in an anime and most likely why she ranks above Masuzu. Now that all of the girls are into play, the anime begins to develop them as it continues. As you would expect, Masuzu gains the most development, but quantity isn't necessarily quality, even in the anime world where most are cursed to have only twelve episodes. Yes, even a character that doesn't have very many scenes can outshine one that has a multitude, but we will get on that later. The anime's dynamic remains, mostly, unchanged. The most notable change to happen to the default flow is that Kaoru, previously only a lunch buddy of Eita's for quite a number of episodes, is now a significant character due to the fact he knows Ai very well and, unlike any other character in the anime, is able to control her very well, isn't afraid to be blunt with her and actually manages to swing in another dynamic that isn't the usual antics of Masuzu or her club. Eita, Kaoru and Ai actually have quite the handful of scenes together, which is a nice change of pace from the normal flow you grew used to, as Eita is not tormented and their conversations feel more natural. I really don't believe I am scoffing anything, despite how airheaded my statements sound. If you watch the anime yourself, you will grow to see that it really does unfold pretty similarly. But, now that I have a lot of context out of the way, it's time to delve into the negatives. Every girl in the anime actually has their own personal moment with Eita at one point, something I actually did appreciate...at first. It came off as healthy exposition, was a good way to get to know them and it made it seem like there would be more unique developments. Despite this, however, the girls still generally treat Eita the same as they did when they first met him, much to my annoyance. This annoys me in a lot of anime, however. There are scenes where the female seems like they are respecting the male more, but then they still go back to the same dynamic, as though they are acquaintances again. As such, Oreshura is not breaking any new ground with this, but it's certainly still annoying nonetheless. And for an anime that actually does a fairly good job at tying the girls' backstories together, it's shameful they don't feel that important when their bonds don't feel like they've strengthened with Eita, yet seem that way with one another. As I said before, Masuzu has frequent scenes where she reads off Eita's journal in front of Chiwa, but that further expands to all the other girls. I find it extremely annoying since you have to sit through her shamelessly reading his personal sentiments in front of others, sometimes in scenarios where there's abuse humor from them slapped onto Masuzu's reading. Most notably, one instance where Chiwa wanted to hear something from it one time, due to the way Masuzu phrased it, and both her and Himeka held down Eita, forcing him to endure it and being whacked whenever he tried to stop it. These scenes, I believe, served no purpose at all in the anime other than to be funny to those who love this stuff. As I have said, more times than I can count by this point, a lot of people love abuse humor. More power to you for being able to laugh a lot at it, but even trying, I can not see why it is funny to see Eita suffer, especially due to how nice his character is. Which brings me to my most notable point, the suffering. Unlike other abuse humor cases I've witnessed in anime before, Eita's pain seems really dark by comparison. The worst of it actually begins around the arc where they go to the beach, to determine who is the one for Eita. As a bonus, of course, these episodes tailor toward the viewer seeing every girl in their bathing suit, a classic anime trope. However, one of the running gags really did not sit well with me. They managed to break new ground in one area, I suppose. Okay, so you have the standard "melon breaking" game taking place. Guess who is the one- Eita. They blindfold him, but don't give him a stick to hit the melon with. Pretty interesting, so this grabbed my attention to see how it would go. They said to use his head to hit the melon and all of the girls are giving him directions as to where the melon is, with some of the lines actually being pretty funny. Masuzu is the last one to give him a direction, completely different from where everyone else was guiding him. Oh, but I left out some context. Eita and Masuzu are being suspected of being a fake couple by this point, so Eita intentionally chose to follow Masuzu's word over the others, despite how obvious it was that she was in a completely different direction. He finds some "melons" alright and this scene was almost pretty comical, as I was wondering why he had to use his head to hit it over a stick in the first place. He falls onto Masuzu and begins inadvertently groping her, following the other classic trope of "why is this so soft" and my expectations were that this scene would end, maybe, with Masuzu trying to comically push him off and say he is "too daring" or something. Much to my surprise, however, all of the other girls, knowing he is blindfolded, scolded him for being a pervert and, not joking, duct tapped the word "LEWD" (in Japanese) onto his back, so that once he ripped it off, it would leave the mark. Now, this may not seem as dark as I made it out to be, but what really sets me off about it is that he has already had a bonding moment with each of the girls by this point, on top of all of them knowing how Masuzu is. Eita was blindfolded, yes he did go out of his own way to listen to Masuzu himself, but he definitely did not intentionally aim to grab her chest. The "squeeze" thing is just a trope that they do cause they're confused as to what they're touching, so that doesn't really count as an intentionally perverted action. It just hit a lot of wrong notes for me, due the exposition I was given before, and I feel the punishment he received was very harsh. The same thing happens one more time, this time with one word for each arm, when he is trying to encourage Himeka to go up onstage for a certain scene. Basically, Himeka gets one more deep moment with Eita, she does the usual embrace, but this time, Eita embraces her back, saying something very nice to her (watching the whole scene, with the atmosphere and all, helps more than me explaining it in its entirety) and it's pretty meaningful. But, after this, the duct tape punishment happens again and, well, I thought it was a bizarre thing to do to him. There's a lot more I could go on about, but then it might sound more like a rant and less like a review, so I wanted to keep it as short as I could. It's fairly obvious by now, but abuse humor never sits well with me since it's usually executed in very poor ways. I'm not blindly hating on the whole anime over it, but rather how it uses it. And it happens a bit more in the series beyond the beach arc. It's just hard because his character remains so nice and he receives little to no reward for this kindness. Oh, but I suppose I did say I would mention the positives at the end this time. One thing Masuzu said really hit me pretty hard. "No matter how well I pretend to be your girlfriend, I can't do anything about time." I have witnessed certain relationships that "blossomed" way too early and the one thing Oreshura made clear was that Chiwa has the deepest bond with Eita out of the other girls. Indeed, you need time to have such a bond with someone. And as manipulative as she was, I appreciated that quote a lot. And, well I surprisingly did not bring it up once earlier, Eita actually has random phases where goes into what I'd like to call "Chuuni Mode" as his eyes go absurd and he transforms back into his wild, youthful self, complete with the imaginary backstories he made up and moves. The first time this happened was rather hilarious, but he actually does this during that "fight" I mentioned earlier. It starts off with him being in that mode, which is why Himeka fell in love with him in the first place. He does it only a few more times throughout the anime, but it was honestly such a nice deviation of character that I am upset it did not happen more. Or rather, I am upset he has had a lot of stressful situations with the girls and did not think to channel this source. It may have been out of character for him to rely on it through such means, but it this "form" of his was honestly so entertaining that I am sad it is spread so much throughout the anime. It would have been a hilarious running gag if it happened at least once in every other episode, if not every episode. Oh, and a more minor one, but I actually appreciated a lot of the action that this harem has. I don't mean fighting anymore, but sexual. Eita gets hugged quite a bit in the anime, his fake girlfriend kisses him a few times (he even does it once to her) and, overall, it helped certain scenes shine more. In a lot of anime, where romance is the target, I do not see enough action. Maybe I suppose it's because I understand Japan is far more serious about stuff like this, with hugs and kisses conveying far more serious connections, but that's perhaps why they felt so special this time around. Masuzu obvious has the most action since she is pretending to date him, but Chiwa hugs him a good amount of times and even kisses him once, so look forward to that if you came down here with the intention of reading spoilers beforehand. I can assure you it's quite adorable once you get to it, but it's the last scene in the anime, so you will have to wait a while. It expresses the most clearly that she wants out of the Friend Zone. As I said before, Himeka does hug him a lot, but her youthful spirit could play a role into that as well, as I believe she does not fully understand how love works and believes you can be that affectionate all of the time, even when you're not really dating. Only about three of the girls really gave him anything more than a hug. I gave this anime pretty harsh scores, but I'm content with them. I do believe the story suffered due to the characterizations being out of whack at times, certain abuse humor really killing the more "serious" impact those "bonding" moments could have had and, well, a lot more things. Look forward to every scene with Eita entering Chuuni Mode, every deviation that strays away from the harem formula and tuck yourself in because it is a rough ride. Oh yeah, I forgot, Masuzu has a sister. Her relevance and substance to the plot is so standard that I actually advise you watch it yourself instead of hearing it from me. I'm sure some of you, reading this after watching, thought I forgot about her. But no, she just wasn't that significant. Oh, but wait, I did say "three of the girls" earlier. Yeah, she actually does kiss him once and is the only one who wanted to make out with him in the anime too, as her character is genuinely perverted and almost worse than Masuzu. But yeah, this one was a mouthful, but I wanted to make sure I conveyed every thought I had about Oreshura. You don't have to avoid it, because I think the unique experience is still worth it due to the fact it could vary from person to person, some might even love how it unfolds. I have at least one favorite scene from it (EP12, 4:02-4:30) that managed to make me laugh the most out of any other instance in the anime. I'm sure you will enjoy it too. Oh, so you read all the way to the bottom, huh. Just a note of warning, I figured I'd spoil who he actually ends up with down here, since I partially cared enough to reveal it, should the viewer have any hope he ends up with one of the normal girls. Sadly, it's the obvious one. He stays with Masuzu. I wanted Ai to end up with him.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Informative
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all |