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((Reviewer's Note: This review contains mild spoilers, some profanity, and a Donald Trump reference guaranteed to be dated in about six months. Reader discretion is advised.))

You know, there comes a point in one's anime hobby where the viewer has to roll their chair back, adjust their glasses or rub their eyes, and wonder exactly what in the hell would possess them to give certain shows any more than a second glance. For me, it was this one.

Absolute Duo might just be the single worst anime I've ever seen. In fact, I'm almost certain that it is. I've never beheld something that is not only completely ... devoid of the slightest trace of originality, but takes its generic ideas and smashes them together into an incoherent Frankenstein rollercoaster of awe-inspiring incompetence. It actually kinda scares me that this got picked up to be adapted. Granted, 8bit has been known to take chances on, shall I say, less-established (read: garbage) source material, but the lack of quality in this just makes me wonder exactly what would possess anyone to think the source material was any good, either, and how it managed to get a high-enough profile that an anime studio felt comfortable putting manhours and their name on adapting it.

I guess I can start with the story. Tor Kokonoe is our main protagonist. He is a completely average looking, inoffensive dude who is off to this bizarre battle school to learn to fight after a tragedy in his past left him feeling unable to protect anything. Immediately, this should be setting off alarm bells. This sounds like every light novel adaptation in the last five years, and with good reason: this show is the distillation of every light novel trope, cliche, and standard that has been floating in the anime toilet bowl since Sword Art Online rose to prominence in 2012. Nonetheless, I will continue.

Tor meets Julie, who ends up becoming his "Duo", a partner to eat, sleep, and live with throughout his time at Battle Harem School. What's a Duo? Well, besides just an arbitrary pairing, exactly what a Duo is is never really defined by much of anyone. The blackhaired loli school principal implies that the whole point of the school is to find a pairing capable of attaining "Absolute Duo", but whatever that means, and why she's after it, is left to the viewer's imagination.

And thus we get to the next big sticking point I have with LN adaptations in this decade: they are always woefully incomplete, and that has something to do with the way that light novels are written nowadays. See, nowadays any hack writer can attach themselves to a decent character design artist and start his own light novel, or at least a web novel that may eventually find itself published in the light novel format. As long as there are moe girls to be found within the pages (and crucially on the front cover!), it will likely sell, regardless of the quality of the actual writing. And as long as these light novels are continuing to produce an income for their writer, there is no incentive for there to ever be a proper ending.

As for why I bring this up, well, Absolute Duo is one of the most incomplete adaptations I've ever seen. The 12 episodes produce roughly a dozen plot holes big enough to drive a bus through, and scarce in the way of explaining or elaborating on the very concept they named the show after. What the hell is an Absolute Duo in the context of the show? Why do Julie and Tor have all sorts of unexplained powers that constantly take their enemies by surprise?

The concepts that propel the show's copious battle scenes are pretty stock: every student at Harem Battle High has a "Blaze", a weapon materialized from their soul or some such that somehow can't actually be used to hurt people (unless, of course, you want it to, or something). Instead it inflicts non-lethal wounds that eventually render the enemy unconscious, quite convenient for when you wanna hype up your heroes without actually having any meaningful stakes in the battle. After all, killing is wrong! It defies reason how hard it is to care at all about battles where each blow means nothing, where no one is in danger of being maimed or killed, where the drama is completely subverted in favor of unpleasant fanservice and incompetent, unfunny romantic comedy.

And yeah, there's harem shenanigans in this show. The best harems, like the girls in Nisekoi and Monogatari, give clear and understandable reasons why each girl likes the harem protagonist. Usually these reasons are tied to his personality, sometimes its his looks, sometimes its his skill and confidence, sometimes its a promise he made them when they were kids. Hell, sometimes its just because he happens to be the only piece of man meat within 10 kilometers! Tor, on the other hand, is just a charmless puppet, a soulless, emotionally bereft clod who couldn't muster up the testosterone to hold a girl's hand, much less deal with the unyielding overt flirtations of the girls at Harem Battle High. The four main girls in the show are all just tripping over his dick to an uncomfortably fanatic degree despite the fact that he acts and looks like he has no interest in the opposite sex whatsoever. He's not particularly competent in battle, or even that attractive. He's a self-insert fantasy, the kind light novel hacks have been flogging onto the willing masses in droves, and he's about as transparent as you can get.

That said, Tor is a perfect match for the girls of Absolute Duo, because they too are bereft of anything resembling a character. Julie, our lead girl, is yet another albino deadpan loli. Now, deadpan lolis can make for great characters: Shiro of No Game, No Life is one of if not my very favorite lolita character, and she's as deadpan and socially inept as it gets. That said, Julie just comes across as creepy and eerily infantilized. She's been through some trauma, sure, I get that that can stunt a person's development and hinder their idea of boundaries, but Julie takes it to an insulting and uncomfortable extreme. She behaves like an infant, incapable of doing anything for herself except when danger is imminent, constantly reliant on Tor. It transcends the cuteness factor of her being a helpless girl and starts to trip into creepy land when she starts invading his bedspace in the nude in later episodes.

Then we have Julie's opposite number, the outsider looking in, Lilith Bristol. Lilith is perhaps the closest we get to a character with something resembling a personality instead of a list of traits stapled to a character design. She's resourceful, intelligent, feisty, and is easily the strongest student that doesn't rely on plot armor or a superpowered darkside. I won't go so far as to say she's a well-written character, but she's the closest the show comes to producing anything of substance, even if her three episode arc in the middle of the show was rather poor. Hell, "rather poor" is actually doing pretty well as far as the rest of this travesty goes.

The other two girls, Tomoe Tachibana and Miyabi Hotaka, are a Duo themselves, which leads to some obligatory yuri-baiting as they shower together, change together, and embrace each other buck-naked in one of the EDs. Absolute Duo knows how to pander to the least common otaku denominator, and it does so with great pleasure and glee. However, these two are also interested in Tor's cock-a-no-way, and thus the harem is completed. Oh, joy. Their personalities are bizarre, like the author was grasping at straws trying to find some original gimmick, and then just settled on:

--Tomoe being really angry at the slightest hint of ungentlemanly conduct from Tor and then apologizing profusely when it's a misunderstanding every fucking time; and
--Miyabi being useless but then turning evil near the show's climax so they can show her in bondage power armor. Oh, and F-cups. Because those are necessary.

Have I given you a glimpse at just how bad this is? I could go on, but I think I've already spent about a thousand words too many eviscerating this turkey. Nonetheless, there is more to cover, but I'll try to be brief from this point on.

The art in this show is nothing to really write home about. There are some decent stills, and admittedly the OP is very poppy, high-energy stuff. The first ED is also kinda artsy and came very close to striking a chord with me with its visuals highlighting Julie's loneliness and how arriving at Battle Harem High is her first step into overcoming her solitude and obligatory tragic backstory. The animation is dreadful. 8bit have shown that they know not what they do in this department, with an over-reliance on terrible 12 frame-per-second CG effects. The color scheme is all over the place with no real grounding in a fixed aesthetic style. It's just generic. It looks like the basest, most simple visualization of anime.

The sound design is functional but doesn't strive for anything more. The voice actors in the original Japanese audio do the best they can with the script they've been given. If you look at their filmography you can tell that they're all relative newcomers to the industry looking to make a big break, with the exception of Tor's voice actor. I don't know if I should praise or condemn Yoshitsugu Matsuoka's performance, because he manages to make Tor sound like the gormless loser he really is. This man is the voice of Soma Yukihira and Sora Nai. He should be lending gravitas to the performance, but it's obvious that he didn't care any more than the director of this fecal festival did.

I think that about exhausts all I have to say about this show. This has quickly become the longest, most rambling review I've ever posted on this site, but this is what this show did to me. It's not just bad, but it's the kind of bad that is all too pervasive in anime today, the ever-present idea that a show shouldn't aim to actually say or do anything meaningful in the medium, the pervasive notion that you can just pander really hard to the worst demons in an otaku's nature and glean some quick bucks out of it. It's sickening, and it's not worth your time. I hope you'll do yourself a favor and not only stay away from Absolute Duo, but make a point to avoid anything that looks like the same kind of show. We can make anime great again, but it starts with building a wall between our wallets and this ocean of half-baked light novel mush.

Until next time, remember that hugs can cure anything, including post-traumatic stress disorder and violent schizophrenic hallucinations.

"Fun things are fun!"
--Yui Hirasawa

((Reviewer's Note: This is a review that only discusses the first season of K-On! There are mild to moderate spoilers below the fold, you have been warned.))

K-On! is a show that everyone, whether they have seen it or not, is very quick to form an opinion on. It was perhaps the culmination of the "moe" trend in anime, pioneered specifically by the creative minds at Kyoto Animation, into practically the formation of its own genre in 2009. KyoAni was riding high on the success of Haruhi Suzumiya's first season in the late 2000s, and specifically the most iconic scene in the ... series, the epic rock concert at the end of episode 12. So why not adapt a four-panel manga series about a bunch of cute girls learning to play in a rock band? And thus, K-On! the anime was born, and the rest is history.

Where K-On really excels as a show is in the very close attention to detail that comes out in every frame. The characters are drawn cutely but with a dose of realism. Their body types are rather normal for a high-school girl. Their uniforms are regulation-length. The fanservice is kept to a minimum, and what is there makes sense within the events of the storyline.

Characterization can make or break slice-of-life shows. Characters you want to see on screen can overcome a lack of any driving plot structure. K-On manages to make its characters engaging, lovable, and always fun to watch. You could put these five girls in just about any situation and the results would be something worth your time. The characters also evolve and change, none more than the presumptive main heroine, Yui Hirasawa.

Yui starts off the show as someone who might be charitably called "attention-deficient" and might uncharitably be called "an idiot". Over time, as she joins the Light Music Club and gets closer to the rest of the girls passing their time in the small, somewhat cramped club room, a change begins to take place over her, and it happens so carefully and with such subtlety that by the time you notice it you'll be done with the first season.

The other girls all complement each other in a variety of different ways, and scenes play out very differently depending on who is there. Tsumugi Kotobuki is a wealthy girl with a heart of absolute gold. Mio Akiyama is a big scaredy-cat and doesn't enjoy being in the limelight no matter how often the girls press her to embrace her role as the face of the band. Ritsu Tainaka is a troublemaker and riffs off the other girls effortlessly, and her comedic portions are perhaps tied with Yui's coming-of-age as the best part of this first season. Very late in the season we are introduced to Azusa Nakano, a kouhai to the other girls who joins the Light Music Club. Unfortunately, she doesn't get much characterization in the five short episodes she's in. She actually comes across as incredibly redundant since her attitude is a little too similar to Mio and her instrument of choice is the same as Yui's.

The flaws with Azusa's introduction didn't detract much from the characterization of the group as a whole. They all get closer. They all learn from each other. They're all great friends, and one of the big themes of K-On is that your friends can make you something better than you are by yourself. A lot of people like to rag on the show for being "not about music" but it was never about four girls playing music. It was always about four girls growing closer with music as the excuse for them to hang out after school. The music is the backdrop, not the main attraction.

That said, the few songs that are in the show are a great treat. Light, poppy, fun little ditties that absolutely will get stuck in your head long after you've finished watching. The OP and ED are both fantastic visually and aurally, with "Don't Say Lazy" probably being one of the most iconic EDs of the past decade. The background music is solid, and the sound direction is on-point, with great use of silence to focus the viewer's attention during the serious parts of the show.

K-On is far from perfect, however, as the 7 atop this review will attest. The actual plot of the show, as much as there is one, is really stock and won't take anyone by surprise. There is the unfortunate fact that two out of the 13 episodes of the show take place at the beach, and the second one feels like a rehash of the first. As mentioned above, Azusa is introduced so late into the season that it's hard to grow attached to her as much as the original four, and her attitude comes across as needlessly tsundere in a show where it just feels out of place. The art is consistent and solid, but doesn't really go out of its way to strive for any real great effects outside of the great attention to detail. It's just not to the standard I've come to expect from KyoAni, even for its age.

Overall, K-On's first season is a fun ride, a solid, strong introduction to some great characters becoming something greater than they were at the start through the power of music, snacks, and love. I enjoyed it, and little did I know that the best was very much yet to come.

But that is a story for another time. Until next time, may the cute things in your life always have cute girls to do them.

I had to write a review for this. Because Rewrite is my favorite Key work of all-time. Because it deserved better than this.

If you are wondering if this anime is worth your time, I say this: if the premise catches your eye, or the character designs, or anything at all, I absolutely implore you to check out the original visual novel. It's deep. It's beautiful inside and out. It's got a message that cannot be ignored. None of which can be said about this travesty of an adaptation. 8bit did not know what they were doing, and do not deserve five hours of your time ... spent here. Avoid this trainwreck at all costs.

The story jumps around like a pinball in a dryer. There is no semblance of cohesive storytelling to be found. It takes bits and chunks of the branching "routes" from the visual novel and attempts to tie them together in a haphazard, charmless sort of way. At first I wondered if this was on purpose, like the show was just meant to be a treat for people who have already read the source material it is based on, but no. No reader of the visual novel can find anything redeemable at how badly 8bit botched this.

Characters have been derailed extensively. Shizuru, Lucia, and especially Kagari act in ways that are unthinkable for their VN counterparts. Kagari is supposed to be an ominous, mysterious entity, a legitimate threat to Kotarou's peaceful life and instead becomes a caffeine-addicted, narcissistic victim of fart jokes.

The one thing that Rewrite gets right is the music. It's taken straight from the visual novel, some truly great pieces that practically tell a story all by themselves. The voice actors are all returned to reprise their roles for this adaptation, but Chiwa Saitou, whose turn as Kotori Kanbe made the character one of the most beloved in the novel, sounds almost chronically bored. It's a shame, but I think even she saw that this script and this adaptation would be lovingly omitted from any resumes she makes going forward. Kana Hanazawa, my favorite seiyuu of all-time, returns as Kagari, but I've already mentioned how badly they've botched her character, and it feels like KanaHana knew it too. She puts forth only just enough effort to keep the dysfunctional train on the tracks.

The art is dreadful. The characters, whose designs are lovingly detailed in the visual novel, are reduced to frilly moeblobs with very little detail. There are some decent panning shots of Kazamatsuri, but that's about it. And the CG monsters that crop up routinely during the show are just about at the point where they might have looked passable in a 1980s Gundam show. But it's now 2016, and these CG dinosaurs and leaf dragon look pitiful. Perpetually locked at somewhere south of 18 frames per second, it feels like you're watching a particularly unappealing PlayStation 2 game.

In short, this is something to be avoided. I thought I had learned my lesson when I watched their dreadful Absolute Duo adaptation, but at least that was a case where the source material was also uninspired and trite, so 8bit could be almost excused for going through the motions in adapting it. Rewrite is not only great, but a downright tome of greatness, with nearly 100 hours of content. There was no way they were going to be able to do it justice with just 13 episodes, but I would have at least respected an honest attempt to try. Instead, I got a fanservice-laden clusterfuck of scenes that go nowhere, schizophrenic pacing, dull action scenes, and an ending that teases the inevitable second cour. I'll be taking a pass on that, 8bit. Don't take it personal. I'll be too busy "Rewriting" my brain to cleanse it from this disaster.

Until next time, may the Song of Destruction be heard all across 8bit's headquarters.

“Hey, God... If you’re listening… My life sucked. So please, just let me have a happy dream?”
--Kyoko Sakura

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is one of my favorite anime of all-time, and with good reason. In 12 short episodes, Madoka Magica produces a fleshed-out world, easily relatable characters, a terrifying antagonist, more twists than a churro, and an ending that feels complete but still leaves the viewer pining for more. It’s a thrill ride that punches you in the gut over and over but keeps you coming back for the next episode. From a technical standpoint, Madoka leaves the viewer wanting for nothing, with gorgeous visuals and ... sound complementing the frenetic editing and direction. It is a joy to watch, even as its story leaves you bereft of hope.

Madoka Kaname is our main protagonist, and it’s perhaps best to start with her as she is probably the most normal of the characters, the one most relatable to the audience at large. She is almost immediately thrust into a perilous situation and encounters Kyubey, the obligatory quirky animal mascot. Kyubey tells her that to prevent this disaster, she has to become a magical girl and defend the Earth from eldritch abominations called witches. In exchange for her vow of service (which is eternal, by the way), Kyubey will grant her one wish. It is this framework of “wishes in exchange for power” that is Madoka’s main dilemma.

Later on Madoka encounters Homura Akemi and Mami Tomoe. Mami has been at the magical girl gig for awhile now and agrees to show Madoka the ropes, as it were, before she makes her choice whether or not to join this sisterhood of witch-slayers. Homura, on the other hand, is set up almost like a villain, and goes to grave and drastic measures to prevent Madoka from having anything to do with the whole enterprise. There’s also Sayaka Miki, Madoka’s genki girl best friend, and Kyoko Sakura, an enigmatic and violent magical girl who makes her presence known in the second half of the show’s run.

In case you haven’t heard already, Madoka Magica is a deconstruction of the once-ubiquitous magical girl genre. It takes the conventions of the genre and skillfully, gleefully turns them on their head, resulting in a story more dark and horrific than anyone expected when the show first aired. The fact that Gen Urobuchi (Fate/Zero, Psycho-Pass) is the lead writer should dispel any illusions you have of this being a light and fluffy story about girls uniting to fight evil. This is a story about girls deceiving each other and themselves in pursuit of undefined, sometimes ephemeral dreams, and the fallout of those pursuits. Friendships are made and broken. Dreams are destroyed. Suffering is almost ubiquitous, so much so that it’s sometimes difficult to watch.

In lesser hands, this show would break anyone’s willingness to continue watching as the horror unfolds, but Studio SHAFT are at the reins, and they bring to the table their quirky, no-holds-barred approach to the direction and art, resulting in a show that you can watch purely for the stunning, psychedelic, demented visuals if nothing else. The soundtrack is handled by legendary composer Yuki Kajiura who brings climactic, dark rhythms and haunting lyrics to the OP, ED, and score. The pacing is consistent and frenetic. With only 12 episodes of runtime, director Akiyuki Shinbou made every last one count in a big way, resulting in a climactic resolution that was bittersweet, fitting, and definite. Then the movies came out... but that’s a story for another time.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that the English dub of this show is absolutely worth your time. The roster is stacked with high-caliber vocal talent from the West, and they put forth some of the best work I’ve heard in my native tongue. Each of them brings their own something to the table, but Cristina Valenzuela’s Homura and Sarah Williams’ Sayaka stand as two of the most heartrending, memorable, and faithful performances.

I can’t really talk about what makes this show so great and so worth watching without either spoiling some of the horrific events or just describing the effect it had on me, so I’ll choose the latter. I cried. I cried a lot during my time with this. I am a father of a school-age daughter, and I felt compelled to hold her tight and have “the talk” about strange animals offering wishes despite the fact that these things don’t exist in our world (Thank the gods). And I thought about everything that occurred during it for weeks afterward trying to suss out if things could have gone better, if there was any way the girls could have “won” this no-win situation they’re placed in, or if the show could have been better for having done so. I came up empty. The show is so tightly written, so expertly constructed, that there was nowhere for my unwashed hands to make it better. The game of wishes and witches was rigged from the start.

This show advanced the medium of anime, and while it is not the first deconstruction, it is by far the best I’ve seen. It’s a favorite, a classic, and a landmark, and if you don’t believe me you can scour the lists on this very website for the scores of magical girl anime that were made in its wake hoping to catch just a glimmer of its brilliance only to fall on their faces. Even five years later, people are still attempting to replicate the Madoka formula of deconstruction with varying degrees of success. That is a testament to its longevity, its quality, and its mark in the hearts of its millions of fans.

Until next time, remember that there’s someone out there fighting for you, and you are not alone.

"Fake people have an image to uphold. Real people just don't care."
--Hachiman Hikigaya

My first contact with My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU was last year, when the r/anime subreddit declared female lead Yukino Yukinoshita their "Best Girl 2015" in a massive bracket competition. My interest was mildly piqued as the above mentioned Yukino had bested one of my favorite characters of all-time in the finals (Saber, "Fate/Stay Night").

While romantic comedies are not my thing usually, I do enjoy romantic dramas. That said, SNAFU is a great example of how to blur the line between the two. While there is plenty of comedy, there is also an ... undercurrent of wistful drama, as our core cast come to terms with their feelings for each other in a very quiet, contemplative sort of way.

The story is relatively stock, taking place in the ubiquitous everyday Japanese high school you've seen in a million other anime. Our protagonist, however, is anything but stock. Hachiman Hikigaya is a complete loner who dismisses the very idea of human interaction as an unnecessary bother that only brings pain to others. He takes great pains to avoid having to deal with anyone at school, having been burned by acquaintances and crushes in the not-so-distant past. Hachiman is the subject of this "Romantic Comedy SNAFU", being forced to join the Volunteer Club after he writes a sarcastic bullshit response to an essay question asking him what he wants to do with his life after school.

I think for a lot of high school anime fans, Hachiman is a very relatable character. I'm in my mid-20s, and I still painfully relate to this kid, and want to see him succeed. Seeing him grow over the run time of the show was the highlight of the entire experience for me.

Hachiman is not alone in this endeavor, as he encounters Yukino upon his introduction to the club. Despite her good looks and wealthy family, she appears to be a reclusive, unapproachable woman. However, SNAFU's key tenet is that people are more than they appear upon first inspection. Yukino is no stuck-up rich girl, as once you get past her blunt and direct demeanor you find someone who is actually quite serious when it comes to the Volunteer Club's mission, and to those she considers her friends.

At first the club is just the two of them, but Yui Yuigahama joins in the second episode and from there we have our main tritagonists. Yui is a charming, sweet girl, but adheres to the idea of going along to get along even if it means lying by omission to her friends and demeaning herself.

It is the intermittent clashing and meshing of these three people as they do their damnedest to help out their club patrons that brings about the show's best moments, and the first subtle hints of feelings developing among them is something that the show plays brilliantly. Nothing is ever outright stated. There's no ridiculously over the top shenanigans to indicate that these two girls feel any sort of romantic way about Hachiman, but the evidence is there if you look closely. This quiet romance, paired with the lighthearted comedy, are enough to power the season to its conclusion through 13 brisk episodes.

The supporting cast is a collection of well-tread tropes and anime stereotypes, sporting none of the depth of our main cast. The lone exception, Shizuka Hiratsuka, is a standout amongst them as the hard-nosed Christmas cake teacher with a heart of gold. Her quirks and goals for Hachiman are the fuel of the show's early going.

Visually, the show is nothing to write home about. The art is just good enough to portray the story. The girls are gorgeous, and Hachiman looks every bit the creep that everybody sees him as. The direction is very by-the-book and sticks to what works in this genre. The soundtrack is also pretty much just there to fill silence. That said, the OP "Yukitoki" is very beautiful, as is most everything Nagi Yanagi does. The ED "Hello Alone" is also very beautiful but in a wistful, melancholy sort of way.

My biggest nag with the show is that it is very clearly a light novel adaptation, and an incomplete one at that. It is 13 episodes of mini-arcs that just sort of abruptly ends with not much in the way of resolution. There is a second season, but I won't speak about it because I haven't seen it yet.

In closing, Oregairu/SNAFU is worth your time if you want something a little different from the run-of-the-mill romance. If you're a loner or a bit of a social outcast, you will find a lot to relate to.

Until next time, don't be afraid to stop by the Volunteer Club.

"Life can bring lots of hardships, but it's always important to keep in mind that there are people around you who care for you, and are willing to help you through whatever you're dealing with."
--Nagisa Furukawa

Clannad is an adaptation of a visual novel published by Key, as in "The Key to the Realm of Undying Sadness" or "Keyboard Covered in Tears". In the interest of full disclosure, I read this visual novel a few years back and was unimpressed. To my eyes, it was a glacially-paced, somewhat poorly translated thing with a bunch of heroines I didn't really like and the only character I cared ... for got ignored for 90% of the story. My expectations entering the anime were low, to say the least.

That said, Clannad as an anime is quite capable of standing on its own. The glacial pace is much improved by necessity of condensing 40 hours of reading into just over 9 hours of run time. Kyoto Animation made no conservation of effort in animating the characters and putting their stylistic touches on Itaru Hinoue's original designs. Above all, it makes just enough small changes to make it feel worthwhile for those familiar with the content of the original work.

The story follows Tomoya Okazaki, a somewhat delinquent but ultimately very sympathetic high school kid who has had it up to here with just about everyone's crap and has decided that there's nothing left to do but blaze a trail of deadpan snark through everyone and everything in his way.

On Tomoya's way to school one day, he comes across Nagisa Furukawa, the girl that will change his life in many ways in the year ahead as they form a friendship and later a romance. Their goals and trials are what comprise much of the meat of the story, as Nagisa seeks to revive the long-dead "drama club" while overcoming her personal hangups in dealing with adversity and other people. Your ability to relate to, or at least sympathize with, these two misfits is what will dictate whether or not you enjoy Clannad.

The supporting cast is colorful and odd, some even supernaturally so. Each of them is well-drawn and voiced, and each bring something unique to the table, from the feisty Kyou Fujibayashi to the strange genius Kotomi Ichinose. The main cast is overwhelmingly female, they are somewhat tropey and clearly designed to appeal to the waifu hunters out there, but unlike the visual novel, each of them feels integral to the story in their own way, and each gets a fair bit of screen time to themselves and with the others.

That said, not all the characters are equally enjoyable. Youhei Sunohara is a token comic relief character who is more irritating than funny. Fuko Ibuki is either the most adorable character in the show or a small animal on two legs whose only purpose is to be annoying, depending on your preference for "cute things". Ryou Fujibayashi is almost redundant as a character, just like she was in the VN.

The best thing about Clannad is the soundtrack. The intro is formulaic and nothing special musically. The outro, on the other hand, is iconic as it doubles as Nagisa's personal image song and being insanely catchy, happy, and sad (and playing a large role in the events of the second season, but that's a story for another review). Each main character has their own leitmotif that plays during their parts, as expected of a VN adaptation. They range in quality from pretty good to amazing.

While I am on the subject of the soundtrack, I would be remiss if I did not mention that one of the songs that plays during a key moment in the series is chock full of the cringiest Engrish I've heard probably ever. It's meant to be heartfelt and emotional, but to native speakers of the King's English, you will split your sides listening to such lines as "Like the ripple float on the water, it blows as it goes."

While Clannad does do great work in fixing the pacing and writing issues the visual novel had, it is still somewhat slow in pace. This show likes to take its time telling the story, and while that is not necessarily a bad thing, it grated on my nerves. Entire stretches of episodes go by where very little happens, and some of the mini-arcs in the story overstay their welcome. That said, the conclusion is worth wading through some of the trite high school melodrama, and it carries a message that I think any viewer can take with them well outside of the realm of fiction, which is always something to cheer about.

In all, Clannad avoids being a mixed bag by virtue of its technical prowess, cheerful comedy, memorable characters, a compelling, understated romance, and some very heartrending personal drama. It does not always land with its emotional punches, but when they connect they will put you on the floor. Its comedy isn't always funny, but when the jokes are good they are great. The soundtrack isn't always excellent, but 95% of the time is pretty hard to beat. Ultimately, Clannad by itself is a solid show with moments of true brilliance, and it is not hard to recommend in spite of its many flaws. And by the way, the second season is a borderline-masterpiece, so there's that (but again, that's a story for another time).

Until next time, don't forget to stop by the library.

"I pray that you will never forget this starry sky."
--Yumemi Hoshino

One of the first works that visual novel titan Visual Art's/Key ever published, Planetarian is near-universally loved for its brief and yet evocative story of a broken planetarium inhabited by an adorable android and discovered by a cynical junk-collector. These two are all alone in a post-apocalyptic world covered in eternal rain. It's a story that you can finish in an afternoon, but will stick with you well beyond its running time.

12 years have passed since its release, and it finally gets an anime adaptation. This is one of two Key works getting an anime ... this season (Rewrite), and although Rewrite is far from finished at the time of the review, Planetarian destroys it in its level of faithful adaptation and raw quality. For the uninitiated, this short story is gorgeous and impactful. For those familiar with the source material, this is an opportunity to see the characters and events animated with the level of quality reserved for movies. In the spots where it takes liberties with the source material, it does so in a favorable direction, giving the Junker some much-needed depth and accentuating Yumemi's adorable lack of common sense.

The music is largely pulled from the VN. It's gorgeous, as is most Key music, and punctuates the scenes marvelously. Keiko Suzuki returns to voice Yumemi Hoshino, the aforementioned robotic planetarium employee, and Daisuke Ono puts together a gritty performance as the previously-unvoiced and nameless "Junker". The sound effects and voice acting in the climactic finale are on point throughout, bringing the entire performance to a grand conclusion that will leave you pining to see more. And wouldn't you know it, there's a movie continuation coming out in September 2016.

My only issue with this adaptation is that it took so long to come out, and admittedly the brief run time leaves little time for the audience to connect with the characters on the level needed to maximize the emotional impact of its dramatic conclusion. For that reason, it doesn't quite leave its mark the way most Key works do, but it's still worth your time if the premise intrigues you. If you're a diehard Planetarian or Key fan, you owe it to yourself to see what a great job David Production have done with this beloved work.

Until next time, please go visit your local planetarium. And try not to cry.

"Music is freedom."
--Kaori Miyazono

Your Lie in April. Even the title is a harbinger of what's to come for prospective viewers, but a misleading one in some ways. It is itself a white lie, because the series isn’t about a deception between two people, not really, but the deceptions we tell ourselves. It is a story overflowing with emotion, a true work of art overflowing with loving detail, an earnest attempt to reach for something timeless. It trips over its own feet a little, but succeeds in earning its place in the pantheon of romance and music anime.

The principal actors in this drama are Kousei Arima ... and Kaori Miyazono. Kousei is a musician, or was a musician, before his psychological traumas render him unable to hear his own notes. Kaori is a violinist protege, a wild, passionate girl who quickly makes it her goal to see Kousei play his piano on the big stage once again. She goes to some truly severe measures to see this goal realized, and the trials and tribulations of these two are what comprise the meat of the show.

On the periphery there is a decent-sized cast of side characters. Tsubaki Sawabe is a pretty stock childhood friend character, but never comes across as too grating or abrasive. But on the other hand we have Ryouta Watari, a manwhore so devoid of personality or redeeming qualities that it’s hard to believe he has any friends at all, let alone that any girl would fancy him. He quickly became one of my least favorite characters in all of anime. My only joy in seeing him on screen was when he was the subject of failure and abuse.

It’s here that it should be noted that the comedy that is meant to provide some much-needed relief from the acute melodrama of the show is so bad it’s almost insulting. The primary source of this tone-deaf slapstick is the girls physically abusing Kousei in ways that are meant to be humorous but come across as downright bullying considering the victim’s circumstances. And these slapstick moments pop up and derail the tone just about every time. I recognize the need for a bit of tone shift at times, but the jokes aren’t funny, they aren’t well-executed, and they’re so poorly timed that it feels forced.

So let’s talk about what a beautiful show this is. The art style takes some getting used to. It is a steep departure from A-1 Pictures’ traditional design seen in Sword Art Online and Magi. Characters have lips and noses. There’s no outlandish hair colors or body proportions (except for the huge eyes, of course). The backgrounds are simply gorgeous and extraordinarily detailed most of the time. The color pallette is bright when it needs to be, dark and brooding at times, but never unpleasant to look at. This is a feast to the eyes once you get used to the character faces.

And finally, it wouldn’t be a music anime without some music, and Your Lie in April delivers in spades. I am not a fan of classical music, but the piano pieces that permeate this work are captivating, descriptive of the characters playing the renditions, and well, classic works that have stood the test of time for centuries. It is the way they are played, the tempo, staccato, fortissimo, that depicts the way the characters are feeling. If you’re not a music nut (and I’m not) the characters in the audience during the performance pieces will helpfully inform you of their interpretation, but it comes across through the sound. The OPs are both great with “Hikari nara” by Goosehouse being one of the best duets I’ve heard in anime, the EDs are solid if unspectacular, and above all everything just fits the cohesive theme.

Your Lie in April is something that has to be experienced. It is not perfect. Far from it. But it is an ambitious work that reaches for greatness, demands your attention, seizes the corners of your mouth, and plays your heart strings into a note of bittersweet melancholy, Kaori-style. I haven’t been this emotionally affected by a piece of entertainment since I finished Madoka Magica. It’s not as good as that work in my eyes, but it is still highly, highly recommended.

Until next time, may you continue to develop your own symphony in life.

"Glad you liked it!"
--Soma Yukihira

Normally, I don’t really like cooking shows. I myself can’t cook at all, so watching people get excited for stuff like Chopped or the million Guy Fieri vehicles on Food Network just baffles me. That said, I was hearing a lot of great things on anime message boards about a little show called Food Wars, also known as Shokugeki no Soma. Particularly, the second season was currently airing at the time of this review and receiving an outpouring of praise by voices I respect in the anime community, so I decided I had nothing to lose in giving it at least ... a couple episodes to see what it was about.

As it turns out, Food Wars is perhaps the biggest surprise of my anime watching experience so far. I went in fully expecting to hate it, and what I got was one of the most consistently entertaining, engaging, and quality shows I’ve ever seen.

Food Wars follows Soma Yukihira as he attempts to make his mark in the cutthroat world of Totsuki Tea House Culinary Academy, the best culinary school in Japan with a graduation rate of less than 10%. At this school, your skills are your life, and dictate whether or not you will survive to study another day or face expulsion. The titular “shokugeki”, which roughly translates to “kitchen duels”, are Totsuki’s primary source of meaningful drama.

Soma as a character is very much a shonen protagonist. People look down on him for being a transfer student who worked in a diner serving common food for the common man before coming to the academy, but one-by-one he silences his doubters. He proves himself to be imaginative, quick-thinking, and skilled in the kitchen. This earns him the respect of the viewer, and admirers and rivals amidst the student body and even a handful of the school faculty. The working of shonen tropes into a cooking show is something I did not think would work, but Food Wars makes it work by infusing the proceedings with just the right balance of lightheartedness and seriousness.

The other two main characters are Erina Nakiri, a stuck-up and self-absorbed “ojou-sama” who sadly does not develop very much in 24 episodes. She’s a prodigy, everyone knows it, the end. On the other side of the spectrum we have Megumi Tadokoro, a hopelessly out-of-her-depth dormmate of Soma’s. Megumi is just adorable as a foil to Soma’s cool and collected dominance of the kitchen. And admittedly I’m a sucker for a girl learning to have confidence in herself and her chosen profession.

Outside of the three main characters there is a huge host of students, teachers, alumni, and cooking professionals, but the entire cast is very well-fleshed out. In fact, the strongest thing about Food Wars is its ability to quickly introduce and establish a very large and diverse cast of characters and making nearly all of them relatable and a pleasure to watch. Each character has a memorable gimmick to their cooking or design that I never once felt lost. As a failsafe, nametags are present in the corner of the screen explaining a character’s name and occupation or role within Totsuki Academy to refresh the viewer’s memory almost every episode.

Visually, the show is well-animated and crisp. The color palette is rich and vibrant. The character designs are gorgeous, as are much of the settings and background art. Nearly every dish that is presented looks mouth-watering, even the ones that are supposed to be gross. The fan-service is pervasive and over-the-top but kept brief enough that it never derails the plot. The guys at J.C. Staff know their stuff when it comes to putting together an appealing presentation.

Food Wars also has an engaging OST of uptempo music that really sells what would otherwise be two high-school kids tooling around in a kitchen as a dramatic and high-stakes battle of wits and will. The sound effects are also great, from the sizzle of a frying pan to the roar of the Kitchen Stadium crowds. The Japanese voice acting is fantastic, and there’s a lot of relatively fresh talent in the cast.

Food Wars is a show that has something for everyone. If you’re something of a gourmand or culinary-inclined, the cooking is well-researched. If you’re a casual viewer like me you can get drawn into the characters and comedy. If you’re looking for ecchi, well, you may be a little disappointed at how brief the lewd shots are, but you’ll keep watching anyway for the reasons I listed above. I didn’t want to acknowledge this show’s brilliance at first, but like so many of Soma Yukihira’s dishes, all it took was one bite to put me on my knees in defeat.

Until next time, may your dishes always bring plenty of umami.

Monogatari Series: Second Season is the start of a long-awaited payoff for faithful fans of the series. If you've kept up with the dense dialogue of the first installment and the fanservice-fueled insanity of the second, this is your reward: one of the best seasons of anime I've ever had the pleasure to watch. Second Season is full of heartfelt moments, witty banter, and the pieces of an overarching plot finally piecing together now that we have a fully-developed cast of characters in place.

I won't go into detail about the visuals and the soundtrack. This is a Monogatari installment, so it looks and sounds great ... all the time always. This is nothing new. Instead, let's focus on what's new in this season that is different from Bake/Nisemonogatari.

First of all, in a first for the series, the audience is invited to delve into the minds of the Monogatari cast, liberated from Koyomi Araragi's headspace. This is a much-needed breath of fresh air for the franchise, for as much as we all love the perverted pseudo-vampire, at this point we've come to know him so well that his reactions usually aren't surprising or revealing anymore. Instead, we see the world through the eyes of Deishu Kaiki, Tsubasa Hanekawa, and others. We see how Koyomi is reflected in the eyes of these characters, and the results are often surprising.

As I mentioned above, in this season the series begins setting the pieces up for a real overarching plot, something that it's never really done before. A couple new characters, Izuko Gaen and Ougi Oshino, arrive on the scene and their intentions are quite dubious as they begin initiating the events of the series via "chance encounters" with members of the cast. Although it is clear that these two are far more than they appear on the surface, their motives are never explained, setting the stage for a future confrontation.

The series still hews closely to its light novel origins, adapting each of the volumes into a 4-6 episode arc. I will say that the arcs vary quite a bit in quality. Tsubasa Tiger, Nadeko Medusa, and Hitagi End are some of the most climactic, surprising, and heartrending story arcs this series has ever produced. Mayoi Jiangshi I didn't like all that much, mostly because I have never been fond of Hachikuji, but it still told an entertaining story with a bittersweet conclusion. Shinobu Time is easily the weakest arc, a four episode time-waster only existing to set the stage for the final arc while explaining the events of the previous one. However, even it had its moments, including a tearful farewell that will tug at your heartstrings.

The series also includes a handful of recap episodes to refresh the viewer's memory as to the events of the previous series installments. These are optional to your enjoyment of the show proper, but it's worth your time to check them out if it's been a while since you viewed the previous seasons. These recaps are absolutely not a proper substitute for watching Bakemonogatari and Nisemonogatari, so if you're new to the series, get on that shit first.

Overall, this season is like a loveletter from Nisio Isin and the producers at Studio Shaft. "Hey, we know you love these characters. We love them too. This is our gift to you. Enjoy the tears. Enjoy the laughter. Enjoy watching these characters... no, these people... grow from what they were into something more. See you next time."

After seeing this masterpiece it almost hurts to know that the end of the series is coming all too soon. But for now, the journey has just kicked into overdrive, and the stage is set for something big. And this reviewer, for one, can't wait to see what will happen when the Monogatari stirs again.