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Basically, the reason you never heard of it was because it's nothing special, you're not missing out... so feel free to skip this. It's like below luke-warm. I personally find it pointless. I think it's for children so if you're the intended audience you may enjoy it. But by all means there are anime aimed at cihldren that own this show.

Episodes
The first 4 eps make you think there's a plot which seems interesting and "original" though chlidsh but then it doesn't develop into a story or anything thus, no story. So it ends up being episodic : slow-paced and just plain boring at times. There's no peak, peaking, hill, a mound, anything. This show is just flat, flat as the loli's characters' && or did they have some, i dun rememeber. probably not cuz they loli. but anyways NO STORY.

And for some reason there's like wannabe ecchi, wannabe perverted stuff put in sporadically and it takes away from the atmosphere. But seriously, this anime is NOT ecchi, it has no fan-service...

To break it down more specifically:
it generally follows this formula: main character wakes up, goes to art school, his teacher takes him into a closet and does who knows what to him, goes home, one of the girls ask him for help, he helps them after being blackmailed or being forced to, then an unwanted party in his room, repeat. in other words, boring...

It's episodic light-hearted filler and it's just not that entertaining. I suppose a couple episodes are good as far as "amusing" enough.

Comedy, like everything else, is light, fluff, not that funny. The jokes fell flat on their faces half the time despite how "cute" some of them are and I don't think anything made me laugh really or anything. Eventually the jokes are predictable, uninteresting. I got the sense that they were trying too hard to be funny sometimes, the forced thing where it feels like they're emphasizing the joke in some desperation to make you notice the joke more though I already processed it and found it not funny.
I think some of comedy involves bullying the main character who is obviously a guy (Well I didn't laugh.). It's just dumb, lame, unfunny, irritating, frustrating, pointless especially when it's for no decent reason. Actually this may be in every episode, it's pretty annoying to watch. But honestly it's nothing compared to the infamous Love Hina.

As for the romance, pretty much none since it's light-hearted fluff. I didn't care if what's his face and what's her face got together.

Characters
They remind me of love hina characters. You can have love hina characters on one side and mahoraba characters on the other and you can just connect one to another (on the characters' looks/personality/tendencies). But anyways unlike those loathsome, irritating love hina characters, mahoraba characters are likable. But really, I don't care for them that much. They were all different though at the same time a little stereotypical. Well, the main "girl" character is an interesting character which has to do with that interesting plot I mentioned earlier, which they didn't utilize and actually take it somewhere. Each character is "out" there, with some strange personalities/tendencies/etc and they are quite possibly disturbing if you take them seriously. in other words most of the characters have some form of mental illness, which isn't something you can really joke about. Something about it just seems off... I suppose the only exception is the male lead who is a doormat. Just flat, superficial, whatever... type impression.

the main character is pretty worthless. he doenst really have any shining qualities. whenever he helps anyone, it's always out of reluctance. also, he gets pushed around by always letting people party in his room. i wonder why he still lives there, he claims to be happy because he's making memories, whether theyre good or bad. but so far, it seems not much has been going well for him. It just seems funny (laughing at the show) how its theme/goal is contrdicted by the characters.

SOUND
It's fitting like the opening which goes with the show. The BMG is okay, actually it gets annoying after a while.

Animation
Eh, it fits. Everyone is drawn chibi style and look like they're 12 or younger, and they're not. It's just cute. The use of the storybook thing was a good effect though.

It's forgettable and I couldn't care for it much.There's just better light-hearted, cheer-upper, happy, comedy, slice of life anime out there so... watch any of those. like gokujou seitokai

on a random note, from my memory I tihkn this show is/was less boring than honey & clover not that I'm saying watch this instaed of that or this is better. just to give a positive point, not that it's hard to be less boring than H&C read more

Real life is hard to animate. Several anime have made attempts, but most have failed because the “realism” extends to setting alone or because the anime insists on recording every bland nuance that someone can relate to. Real life is boring and Honey and Clover never let me forget it. Honey and Clover is a journal, chronicling the uninteresting lives of a couple of average and ordinary people. It’s supposed to be melancholy, subdued, and even heartbreaking, but it only turns out as mundane, monotonous, boring, and dull. I find this slow paced and eventless…. sometimes life can seem that way or maybe it just is.

Through some prodding from my friend I watched this anime. All I can say was oh yeah, I was right, I don't like this anime. For a second, I thought that this anime must be really-really good since it's rated so high~

The story of how a couple of kids make their way through college... that's about it that's all there is to it and if I need to explain further then imagine minami-ke or lucky star or whatever other slice of life anime you like but not as funny and a lot more pointless.

Though some may argue that anime in the "slice of life" genre need not have a plot, there should at least be something going on that keeps the anime feeling fresh and dynamic. Each episode drags, and each character repetitiously does whatever antic the creators assigned to him to make him seem more "unique." The girls whine endlessly, the guys angst and nothing ever really moves forward. Though the writers did make an effort to include two separate storylines, neither one ever goes anywhere. Instead, the characters spend a lot of time crying, suffering, internalizing their problems and staring at the sky or out of a window while music plays in the background. Occasionally, the endless boredom is interrupted by something genuinely beautiful or moving, but without fail the mood is shattered by ill-timed and badly conceived attempts at humor.

Honey and Clover is not a great anime; it is a decent one that manages to have the occasional great moment. All in all, your average slice-of-life/romance anime which tries to be clever by introducing motifs and ideas into the anime which are either too superficial or subtle for the average viewer to comprehend. It's lacking in many areas, and in the end, the anime is very much like reading a book in which there are pages upon pages of dull material… yet the final paragraphs are always excellent and worth reading.

I call this a "pathetic" anime. Pathetic in the sense that the characters you grow accustomed to are at their lowest, pathetic if you will. Perhaps they were designed so that you would feel sorry for them. That makes sense right? I mean, I guess that's why it's a feel-good anime, because of the fact that you know you're better than them? Heys, it worked for Welcome to the NHK! in a way~

Or perhaps it is just the demographics. Maybe it was made for the female viewers to feel sorry for the male characters. This sums up the value of the anime, right there. Instead of somehow making it more accessible to everyone, they closed this anime off to the girls and pansies.

Story -
The beginning was okay like over-the-top comedy which is actually funny, and pretty good introductions for all the characters. The start definitely gives the impression that they've actually done something new with this anime. But once the series gets going, old jokes get recycled, and the comedy just vanishes. But as the story goes I kept seeing the same kind of things, and it became dead boring. Needlessly to say, the best parts were the comedy since the drama-romance parts did nothing for me. The humor of the series is silly and tries to force the viewer to laugh but is at the same time it comes out from the warmth and interaction of the characters.

If I were to judge Honey to Clover solely by its outrageous opening theme, I would have ignored the show completely. I delved into the anime further, however, to find that the story is nearly non-existent. Each episode begins nearly the same way: they prepare for a social event and spend the rest of that episode shooting the bull. When this formula isn’t being executed, the show is either pushing half-baked comedy (mostly centering on Morita’s antics or the vapid interactions between the characters) or indulging in introspective monologue. To the anime’s credit, sometimes the comedy hits the mark (that Twister episode was like fun), but most of the time, it… doesn’t.

Every episode, we just get to see a snapshot of a daily life of the characters. With each new episode the story will most likely change a little, but the characters will through their relationships and as well as introspectively. But you know, that's not a story, especially when the characters spend half the screen time talking in their heads. Indeed, each of them are unique in a realistic scenario, but all together, it is just so BLAND. For example, during the beginning every episode consists of the same repeat of stuff -> random Moriota antics, the usual Takemoto "I don't know what to do" introspection, and Mayama's adaptation to his love and work.

It might be argued that the story is meant to be realistic as possible with true down-to-earth dilemmas. True, it does do that, but because of that I really found each episode to be a bore.

More importantly, it's all about the ferris wheels and bicycles!
Honey and Clover features some recurring motifs which are just too superficial and/or subtle for the average viewer to address. There's the recurring image of a Ferris Wheel, and SOMEHOW, the story centers around this confusing theme. Ferris wheels, man. What the crap. But if you think that's ridiculous, you'll love the question Takemoto asks himself every two episodes, the "How far can I go until I stop?" speech which gives a flashback to a scene where a young Takemoto is shown riding his bike until the flashback ends. This happens way too regularly and it's just exhausted...

The timeline that assigns each episode leaps literally by months in between, yet does not stay consistent in length, marginalizing the framework of the plot development and confuses viewers. As one episode features a winter festival in a shopping arcade, the next unfolds with a cruise trip in the spring. It becomes tempting to attribute any semblance of realism to the proceedings that whatever the issues that consternated characters would have been resolved during the substantial amount of time allotted between episodes. Sadly or reassuringly, they remain relatively the same, dragging down the plot overall in spite of the passage of time. Despite the transitory nature of the setting, events and characters are rather ham-handedly manipulated to keep the relationships static and stagnant.

I can't believe this story spanned several years. Nothing happens! Wait, Takemoto gets a hair cut.

There's some depressing romance stuff that doesn't go anywhere. Some lovey dovey stuff, nothing hot or steamy though. This series is going for the realistic approach or something, or the literary kind of approach anyway. Yeah yeah...it just sucked, didn't draw me in at all. I never cared what happened to anyone or what the next ep was about. I think each ep did at least contribute something though. So the romantic aspects fell short for me.

Although full of thoughts that most anyone can relate to- unrequited love, disillusionment, and individuality- it is dryly executed. For example, Hagu should have been the most dynamic character (for all the other characters seem drawn to her), but she is never fully explored, and ends up as only the typically underdeveloped kid used for the occasional comic relief. You don't feel the depth of the emotions that they portray on screen. I personally couldn't feel any emotion when watching them. After all, how can you take those weird expressions seriously.

The anime's only strong point is the style of execution.

CHARACTERS - I guess a little spoilery, but the anime just goes on and on about whatever triangle so in a way... don't really think it's that

Every every characters in this anime have their own personalities, but not all of them are interesting! I was not impressed by the characters. None of them really memorable, except maybe one, well this is "realistic" so they're expected to be ordinary and all that.... Characters change slightly in appearance over the course of the series. Big deal. They're all ugly no matter what. They're annoying with flaws or weaknesses that will piss you off. Pissed me off anyway. The characters in this anime show no driving force or motivation.

Although it boasted romance, I found the characters annoying and thus the plot had very little impact on me. Personally for me, I cannot relate to the chracters, not in the slightest. Now, here's where the turd hits the fan. A love triangle with a midget 18 year old autistic girl as the center (??) gets introduced, while another love triangle involving a school idol, a ladies-man and a older, disfigured, crippled widow takes place at the same time. I mean....why? WHY?! That's where they TRIED to be different but gave in to the cliché romance plots.

AND, everything with Takemoto was awful. His life was uninteresting and his love triangle was a joke. Despite his excellent monologues, he is a bland narrator and an even blander protagonist; his journey of self-discovery didn’t reach me, and this character is so dry. He would fit right in in a harem show. He is your typical shy, introverted nice guy. Without the handful of beautiful girls throwing themselves at him, he gets lost and doesn't know what to do. He spends most of the show confused. Pretty boring guy.

Perhaps you have to be a 19 year old adolescent with a bike to understand his feelings. I wouldn't know, I don't have a bike.

The anime centers around the previously mentioned "pathetic" 19 year old, the King of Adolescence. Unable to express himself to his friends, he decides to take a journey and we follow him (unwillingly) and watch him grow as he travels. But he doesn't, and he's still the same once he returns, and we, the viewer, feel that we've just wasted our time (which we did for watching this wretched anime).

Unfortunately we get to hear him whine the most about everything from jobs to romance. Pansy boy who can't express himself to the loli. He's 19, man. People can get married and have babies at 19... AND he doesn't mention exactly how he became attached to Hagu. Maybe he is a closet pedophile (he does not even have a girlfriend in two plus years of attending college).

There were parts of interest when the story depicted something other than the main character, Takemoto. Almost every time the story depicted Takemoto, the flow of the events became annoying because of his whiny, depressive personality combined with the notion "I just need to sit, whine and everyone will come to support me". I'd rather not want to see the Takemoto character ever again. Therefore, this whole anime as well.

Continuing on, you've got a ladies-man/player who got caught up in another love triangle who wants an older crippled disfigured widow for himself. The other girl in said love triangle wants the before-mentioned guy who likes the cripple, but she doesn't want to like him, but does so anyway (?). Then you've got an over-the-top final-year student who's good at understanding the feelings of others but is unable to express himself (how the hell...?). He often disappears, without notice, to his mysterious part-time job so he doesn't get as much air-time as the other characters. In a sense, he is the most under-developed character since in the scenes where he IS present, he does exactly the same things as he did in the last time he was present.

Hagu looks like a little hamster who really doesn't know how to do anything and who has no clue as to what is going on. She's painful to look at, and she's immature, selfish, naive. She pissed me off when she had screen time. She's an autistic girl (now, no-one's said that she's autistic before, but it all comes together when you see her talk. I mean, all artists have some mental inhibitation which gives them the ability to make trippy paintings which sell for tens of thousands of dollars, right?). Well, she's a loli and apparently, the center of a love triangle. I mean, what's so attractive about an autistic loli? I could not stand how these people kept saying how cute she was or whatever when she clearly was not. I don't get why everyone is going crazy over this tiny girl since she's annoying. She's a brat, period. Hagu's character is questionable at best.
When she was introduced, I was like "little girl". Then it was revealed she is 18. I was shocked and felt disgusted how these guys can fall instantly in love with her (they didn't know her age at the time).
She acts like a child, looks like a child, and sounds like a child. tell me again why 2 or 3 grown men are in love with her? lolita complex? if hagumi never existed these 3 fellows could be convicted sex offenders in 10-20 years (of course, in their world).

Next, we have the other triangle. Mayama is a really nice guy so I understand why Ayu loves him but hey didn't explain WHY she loves him so much. mayama is a pretty boring character. he has one thing on his mind: rika. It gets pretty repetitive...him thinking about her. And they didn't explain why Mayama continues to pursue Rika even though she's not interested. yamada actually likes this boring mayama. she doesn't even know why. exactly. again, through out the anime we get to see her talk about why she wants him and how important... blah blah blah. So I just couldn't get myself to care... Romance isn't even in the question, it's more like just figuring out the basic kinks like why the hell does _ like _ in the first place.

Only character I really liked was Morita just because he was funny. I can't take this eccentric character seriously. He's easily the best character in the series who's used as a zany way to make you laugh. It is obvious that there is more to him than meets the eye, but the anime never gave me an idea of what the hell is going on inside his head. Morita's nonstop wackiness is utterly unbelievable, ruining any serious moments involving him and casting doubt on Hagu due to her infatuation with him. Ultimately, he's only there for comic relief...

The other characters aren’t worth mentioning; they’re either too zany, too dry, or too cute. Bunch of annoying fools. And if they are none of the above, they disappear in the middle of the show.

Yes the characters are in love and supposedly that means I would want to see what happens but I didn't care because I didn't care for the characters. Because Honey and Clover relies on the charisma of its characters, if the characters fail to draw in the audience (in this case, me) then the entire anime will fall on its face.

Ultimately, they want you to empathize with at least once character so that you can compare yourself to them and then evaluate your life, right? With such unique and inaccessible characters, they won't let you.

ANIMATION
This is probably the reason why everything else was lacking.
Instead of improving the plot/character designs and whatnot, you've got overdone and over-polished animation. Not that it's a bad thing, but with such a lackluster plot, do you really need to put so much effort into the animation?

OPs and EDs had lots of live action shots, never a good sign IMO. But anyways, I thought the opening was rather innovative - featuring an assortment of hilariously twisted/grotesque food-related items.

The animation is great, different with a sort of washed out effect with all the blending and such. The animation is unique being excessively bright andhazyfor some reason- giving it a soft, gentle, dream-like atmosphere. It wasn't pale, nor it look like a amateur's work. The animation's actually pretty good and rather detailed.
The scenery in Honey and Clover is crisp and polished. The water textures and the skies in every scene have been rendered by the animators, so you can see for yourself that they have put in a lot of effort in that department.

However, the art is absolutely horrid! The drawing style was incredibly annoying but perhaps realistic. But the character designs. Um....yeah. The characters... it is almost as if they are undeserving of the beautifully done scenery they run around in. Maybe it's just the style of the designs of the characters, but the way the characters were drawn just irks me. Man I've never seen such ugly anime girls. Unfortunately, lots of the characters look like bugs, they are just disgusting. Many of the guys looked really similar except for maybe a slightly different hair color. I'll flat out say that the characters look ugly. their eyes bother me most of the time. and their mouths look like they belong on a fish, big and wide. that's on their serious expressions. the "pretty" female characters aren't so pretty. The series tried to "over-beautify" one of the characters at the begining of the series, but all that shininess made her look, well, plastic.

D:

Seen that smiley before? That's what the main character pulls off every episode. I'm not even joking, that's his most used facial expression. They have such silly looking comedical faces on half the time.

SOUND
I thought the OP was a joke at first. like Mikuru singing in the first episode of Haruhi... surely? But no , it's for reals and the OP is so lousy I couldn't listen to more than 5 seconds of it without going nuts.They picked some girl with the worst voice you can imagine. I could sing a better OP, I swear.

Music doesn't really fall into any genre, maybe emo, just like this series is emo. Since all the insert songs are done by two artists, you'll find them a bit repetitive, and they happen too frequently. About every second episode has an insert song. But still, I liked the inserts of songs during the middle of episodes.

The opening and ending match the anime though. I like the song Waltz (ending song) and sometimes they timed it very well with the story for a good, effective ending.

Takemoto had an annoying, whiny voice which matched his personality. His voice enhanced the pathetic portrayal of that 19 year old, low self-esteemed, effeminate emo.

Morita's VA was good and the rest is okay.

LAST
Well, if you don't like life animes, you might want to try provided: you have high "boring" tolerance. If you do like life animes or j-dramas or k-dramas this is a MUST WATCH. Or if you're the artsy fartsy type maybe you'll like it for it's creative value. I DID NOT LIKE IT. Lots of other people seem to enjoy it so you might be a part of that happy majority. I cannot however and thus, cannot recommend it to anyone.

I just couldn't bring myself to enjoy it. I'll never watch this again. Of course, some will undoubtedly find it charming and unique. Others, like myself, will find it frustratingly dull, filled with pointless melodic interludes and get fed up with the repetitive angsting. This anime is far from groundbreaking.

I'd just recommend NANA over this, which is similar in that it's realistic, romance, comedy, drama except I loved it instead of being bored by it. It's more realistic and more unrealistic than H&C. I don't think I was ever bored when I was watching NANA. Plus it's steamier and longer~ OH AND Welcome to the NHK! that was pretty damn realistic but it wasn't boring since I was so addicted to it. read more

I think the review has no spoilers/plot summary as long as you don't click the spoiler-tagged section, though it is long. EDIT: spoiler tags don't work anymore so watch out or read after you give up or whtaever.

The easiest way to attract attention to any piece of media nowadays is to add sex and violence, it seems. While there's nothing wrong with either, it's a sad fact they are most often used only to cover up the lack of substance, not to enhance the work. Elfen Lied is no exception. In all respects I find this anime distasteful and a clichéd approach to anime. Most non-anime people think of anime as "kiddie porn" or hentai. This particular anime falls into that category and give other quality anime a bad name. It's embarrassingly violent and full of over-the-top situations, but it sometimes has a level of poignancy that is hard to deny.

It was the previous internet-mega-hype anime, a 'must see' 'masterpiece' that would reportedly 'change the lives of its viewers forever' (I'm not exaggerating here). Elfen Lied is no longer half as popular as it was just a few years ago because the people have matured and have seen through the manipulative melodrama of the series as illogical as most of it is and noticed how shallow the series is.

Elfen Lied is hard to categorize. The story of Elfen Lied can either be interpreted as a tale of two faces, a rather campy horror film, or a gory display of senseless violence, bad characters, and downright atrocious events designed to milk sentiments. I'm somewhere between all three. The story does have some variant potential like the entertaining premise. However it is so horribly wasted by nudity, poor character development, unrealistic behavior, useless fan-service manipulation and gore without purpose other than to elicit a response from the viewer. They are rather distracting seeing as that they don't fit well. The gore fits though gratuitous, but feels like it's there to fulfill someone's sadistic pleasure than for a genuine purpose like symbolism of the savage nature of Diclonius. I can't shake the feeling that they went overboard like the producers were getting a kick out of it, which sickens me.
But the gore itselfdidn't make me as sick or captivate my attention as they just annoyed me and quickly become old (I got desensitized by ep 2). If you are able to stand the first 10-15 minutes then you are most probably fine with the gore. But by all means some of the parts when people died in the show were sorta satisfying cause those people werel idiots or annoying. Not that I'm sadistic.

The horror part of this is guaranteed by endless graphic violence which at times seems to just be "there" with no purpose at all except to shock. It feels like there were pools of blood simply for the sake of them being there. Because this is all that Elfen Lied tries to do: shock you and set a few not-so-clever traps which make the anime seem like it has a deep meaning and a complex storyline. Well, it does do a rather good job of being emotionally manipulative, which is probably why Elfen Lied regarded so highly by many people. This anime, without a doubt, is the cruelest I've ever seen. It has an unceasing and quite often shocking brutality level. Here, that cruelty works in keeping the viewer interested in the anime.

This anime was meant to be horror, but the pr0n element was almost as strong, if not stronger. No-seriously, why was there a character whose only concern was having a bath? Beats me... Take out the blood and nudity, and it becomes obvious that it's set in a stupid little fantasy setting. 'Fantasy' in how irrationally the world of Elfen Lied functions. I won't cry for lack of realism (this is anime, after all), but the outright stupidity of the characters is used as a melodramatic plot device so often that it outweighs the brilliance of the original concept. The brilliance of Elfen Lied is in its concept, not in its content. What you get are a dozen plus episodes of angst and oh so tragic flashbacks. With some totally confused and downright ridiculous characters, and an unambitious story that seems extremely forced with unnatural progression, the attempt of a plot that this series has is very unsatisfying. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and is full of inconsistencies. Subjective qualities do not create or bring objective quality.

Wait! What about all the social commentary Elfen Lied was so famous for? It tackles such difficult topics as bullying and racism, doesn't it? Well, no, it doesn't really. Barely mentioning social problems and the dark side of human nature is not social commentary, and taking the easiest, most melodramatic way out of every controversial situation is pretty much the same as avoiding those topics altogether - if not worse.

I must say it left me with a bitter taste; not because of the human relations shown within and the portraying of human misery. Neither plot nor characters were properly developed or explored. It could be a series with some quality, but as it is, it's just average or below depending on your tolerance of its pr0niness/violence/nudity/etc. Not that I mind violence and nudity, but here, it is at the detriment of story and character development.

Elfen Lied should be enjoyed as nothing more than a visceral experience, a shameless indulgence of the id. Those trying to depict Elfen Lied as a thoughtful and deep work are missing the point entirely. The sad thing is - this anime could have been so good. A crying shame the producer was more interested in thinking up porno situations rather than ways to develop the storyline.

STORY - I think even just what's written above is enough to give the gist, what's below is more for people who've already seen the show since all the spoilers are specific examples. But there's still lots of stuff you can read even excluding the spoiler tags.

While I was watching it, I got a bit interested in the beginning, later I was more and more disillusioned and disappointed, and annoyed by the stupidity of characters, not to mention their irrational behavior, which served only to help cover the holes in the story and keep the plot from falling apart.

Elfen Lied has two stories. The first is the mystery of the diclonious. The second is your typical 'guy with plenty of girls together' situation. A certain sense of shallowness becomes apparent with the aspects of this anime clashing with each other – the violence and the loving homey atmosphere. Despite the intriguing premise, violence and cuteness seem to get in the way of effective plot progression, evident by the underwhelming unfulfilled conclusion to the show.

The story, to be honest, was poorly executed. Many parts of the plot showed this colossal level of ignorance and far-fetched attitude and it just ended up disappointing me. Not to mention the cliche elements HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER hello there's split personality and memory loss
and the series use them shamelessly give the viewer a reason to keep watching the series but in truth the viewers are in it for violence and fanservice because the story is pretty much left alone to rot when it shouldn't be.
Well the story manages to be mediocre at best because of a lot of gaps in the plot-line and a lot of things left unexplained. I cannot accept the idea of the HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER Diclonius just being there, I cannot accept the fact that the male version of the diclonius is not explained. Male diclon? Explain. Are diclon innately homicidal or forced to be that way, or do we truly not know? How did the diclonius come to be at the beginning ? Third generation diclonius? A little more history of their discovery would have been good. Why didn't the story explore this fascinating aspect further instead of poking around a bit?
I cannot accept the stupid turns in the story such as Kouta's reactions at certain points, I cannot accept the fact that the producers leave a lot of holes to be filled by the viewers imagination. That is just a sign of shabby anime-making and an easy way for the producers to squirm their way out of explaining a lot of things that they threw into the anime with no reason. I find it cheap of the producers to resort to such trivial ways of begging for success.

I appreciated the shorter flashes which were used to build suspense for the viewer, but I had already guessed the truth by the middle of the first episode so emotionally I did not feel the suspense. The story is delivered in a mediocre fashion. Everything is just ahead-hinted enough as not to be a surprise anymore, and the events themselves are so trite not to be worth that much attention. You'll discover that things are more closely related than what they had initially taken at face value; though it is clever what they do with the plot, it almost feels TOO coincidental. A very linear and abused cliché-galore.

DEEP AS THE OCEANNNNNNNNNNNNNNN?
Supposedly there are "deep" and "symbolical" aspects of this anime, but no -- In the end, both the story and the symbolism are drowned in the gore and nudity, and it wasn't all that good to begin with. Perhaps the reason why some people prize the story, is that it's surprising it's even decent considering the s***load of gore and fan-service.

Sadness, memories, and family. They're about the only deeper themes that are followed though in this series, and not much more than the shallow spectrum of those themes. What Elfen Lied does really well is introduce several serious and powerful themes and ideas, but that's all it does. What it ends up doing later on is either completely forget about them or, even worse, contradict them. Though this can be rather hard to see though all of that blood, gore, and nudity.

Though I must say I think the episode previews sounded sorta deep. lol.

the pr0n gore galore
this anime actually does offer something... blood, gore and tits! This is almost like a parody of how many people think anime and manga looks; nudity and blood in abundance. The gore and extreme fan-service does NOT contribute to anything.

The context of the anime seems mature, and so these sort of plot routes just seem unconvincing. It doesn't go as a horror/SF story but instead the story progresses mostly as a harem anime. The plot itself doesn't seem to be supporting such scenes enough, instead, it seems to be something 'randomly' assembled just to provide some insubstantial justification for them. Sometimes the visual gags go a bit far and are more cringe-inducing than anything else, and it can feel like you're watching the wrong show for a moment before a flying limb brings things back into perspective. This show is touting itself as horror and yet finds room to throw in worthless ecchi crap? The constant boobery should have been eschewed, just to keep the anime's maturity level consistent. The pace of the story is rather bad like some things happen too fast... HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER You have a new character arriving at Kouta's door every two episodes. They just come and start living with him... very unlikely. The way he accepted other characters into the house left me blinking in disbelief.
A great deal of time is spent developing your typical, cliché “guy surrounding by a bunch of love sick girls” show which obviously isn't "developed" really not that I care... uh "harem" much?

The amount of UNECESSARY distasteful scene was simply ludicrous. If people are hit, their clothes magically rip off their bodies rendering them sometimes completely naked. All the characters in here just loved getting naked... Any excuse, and off the clothes will go, or just some parts... just enough to reveal the most pr0n parts of their bodies, if nothing else. If a person falls over, they just had to pick the most pr0n angle to view the fall such that you can see up their skirts as they fall over. There are countless more examples, but it would take me all day to list them. It got to the point where it was so bad that in any situation I started wondering how they're going to make a pr0n out of it. For example, if it was raining, I'd be thinking... oh dear, now they're probably gonna show wet t-shirt scenes and maybe getting their clothes off when they find shelter or something like that. And sure enough, most of them time that would happen. It would be happening even when I'm not expecting it. The producer's prime talent appeared to be able to: take any situation and turn it into pr0n.

COMEDY/ t3h m3lodrama
It can be disturbing and it can be beautiful. There were scenes where I told myself that I should be crying but I wasn’t. Actually, sometimes it can be hilarious (not because of it's "intended comedy" but because I cannot take it seriously at all sometimes. The melodrama was just bad). It's hit-or-miss. The dramatic moments fail more times than they succeed and the same can be said for the comedy moments. Rather than focusing on the "make me cry" scenes, it should have focused more closely on the great assets it had, Lucy was unquestionably one of them, so was the Kurama’s relationship with his wife. Honestly, the only other anime I've seen that has worse melodrama than this is like ef~ tale of memories, i mean for that i couldn't even laugh at the melodrama, it was just bad...

The comedy part and the horror show part don't get along, because Elfen Lied is not a parody. I'd say the greatest downfall of the series is that the humor often comes in the wrong places, and can bring things to a screeching halt. But the comedy can be summed up as some perverted, ecchi-natured type of situation kind of joke so to me it's the tasteless kind... Needlessly to say I only cringed, never laughed... from that anyways...

ENDING - 13th ep.
When the series is over, you don’t really feel much has happened, since a lot of time was spent explaining a corny back story.

When more questions arise even with the ending which is actually an open end, then things are really bad. So in the end it didn’t even deliver a decent enough climax to make up for the shoddy plot. Which is just depressing for someone like me who was just waiting for the "moment" where it finds its stride.

The ending HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER doesn't fit AT ALL with the mood of the anime.
Moreover, the ending is anticlimactic, and does a really half-assed job of putting an end to 13 episodes of wannabe-intense wannabe-drama. Instead, along with nudity and splatter, it only proves that everything is the anime is meant to be food for the teenage fandom.

It couldn't be more disappointing and, even worse, it leaves a lot of ends loose (not the kind of untied ends that are left up to the audience to guess, but the kind that doesn't get a proper explanation).

What happened was the writers walked themselves into a corner and couldn't find a good way out. That way included HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER the moral that they tried to tie into this show, which was forgiveness, therefore settling on something outrageous. It was just a clear gift to the fan-service...

Kouta's decision is truly astonishing in the final episode, it makes him a character one finds hard to believe in. QUOTE "It's true that you massacred my family in front my eyes when I was a kid, and I will never forgive you for that. But I love you". The "no matter what happened in the past, what hardships you caused, how tragic one's past have you made", all you have to say is "I am sorry, I love you" and he/she will forgive you and fight for you to the death and longer. The fact that one sentence will make past go away is just... ugh.

I couldn't comprehend Kouta's feelings AT ALL. The romance is complete crap to me. Hell, didn't even notice till ep 13 when they shoved in some blush thing and I was like for reals? Just bad...


==========================
I can’t say that I enjoyed it, but I can’t honestly say that I didn’t enjoy it either. Perhaps enjoyment is the wrong term to use since a lot of negative emotions are evoked. Yet it’s not the negative emotions that put me off this anime, it’s the fact that there was an abundance of holes in the story, the characters are not believable and many of the dark themes introduced are never fully played out. The whole thing just seemed to be an excuse for gratuitous violence and naked young girls - too sick for my liking.

CHARACTERS
I can't even say the characters were the saving grace of this anime, because they just weren't REAL. Characters are incredibly unreal, and incredibly shallow so I couldn't feel sorry for them, or feel happy with them. Not to mention most of the characters in the series seemed to have the maturity of someone ten years old or younger. Many other character reactions, especially Kouta's, make no sense. Details like this make me wonder about the true aim the series creators had and who was their target audience. Most the characters emoted the same kind of cookie-cutter cuteness seen in many other shows. Just as the plot, characters also are pretty stereotyped, bringing forth a nice collection of seen-already/done-before types, mixed together to make Elfen Lied even more shocking, but poorly succeeding in such intent. It's like they made them from a character-building kit. The characters as a whole in this series were forgettable and clichéd,
repetitively dull and lacking character development.

Our protagonist, Kouta, is just as generic acting as his outer appearance would suggest. Really, how hard IS it to make a half-decent male main character? He's nearly empty. What does he do? Nothing! He just throws some random words or shouts in scary situations. He's as good as brick wall. No wait, he knows one thing, how to be nice. Whether you bite him or pat his head - he will be nice. Kouta, your typical all-around-nice guy & another disturbed character with a troubled past.
Kouta who finds it easy to HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER continue housing new girls that just pop up at his door with absolutely no reason at all except for his big, humongass heart. Which by the way, I don't think they ever explain why Kouta & Yuka lived in that huge house by themselves well I do remember them mentioning something but maybe not....


Plus the fact the he proves that stupidity can reach up to the stars when he HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER last ep: forgives an act as heinous as the term implies. "To make mistakes is human, to keep making mistakes is demonic"...an old Latin saying...
and this guy is as retarded as one can be.
Kouta, apparently HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER I think last Episodehas a really bad memory. He supposedly forgets some truly unmistakable details. It's unmistakable because these are the only two moments in his life that these blatant details appear, and if he had any brain at all he would have noticed instantly. That could have saved him a lot of trouble. The main character suddenly 'remembering' important plot aspects in the penultimate episode? Not good. But then again if that happen to be I'd be pretty traumatized so eh...
He's got to be one of the dumbest lead characters I've ever come across. He cannot connect the dots to the simplest things. It's almost as if he refuses to see what is in front of him. HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER ep 2
He didn't want to cooperate with authorities even though he had no reason NOT to trust them. Look, all they wanted to do was stop a homicidal psychopath from killing you and everyone you love. 笑笑笑笑笑笑笑 lmao?　
Save for the cliché bimbos to ruin it all...
who have trouble keeping their pants on.

Nyuu... Oh man. Nyuu was the worst character; she was absolutely pathetic, although strangely cute, sometimes. She was mostly out of contest, nor she developed, nor she did something important to the series. Waste of time. I don't get these "cutesy" anime characters that have zero vocabulary, and as a consequence have zero personality as well, and whose only purpose is to act stupid and innocent while flashing the audience on occasion. I don't know about you, but I don't get turned on by checking out retarded people, sweet and lovable as they might be...

Most scenes with the Nyuu character were so contrived it was eyeroll after eyeroll as they tried to find new ways to get her naked. This anime was such a forced approach toward sexuality that it just never clicks and the viewer never believes the relationships are valid. Nyuu is a useless, nothing more than comic-relief, to up the fan-service even more, be super cute,

HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER and a way for the viewer to gain sympathy for Lucy. It constantly tries to elicit sympathy for Lucy, when in fact she doesn't deserve it.

What a deep character, cuteness and fan-service together. How lovely.

Yuka is pretty uninteresting and boring and rather colorless in comparison to the others. I think if she was replaced with the dog, there would be no difference at all. Actually, that might've been better. Yeah it would, the dog is so darn cute. She just doesn't do anything. She's a 'filler' character, and she is shallow with her blaring jealousy and whining. This fact helped me to remember her name, yuka means floor- 床, not that her name means floor. No, seriously if I didn't know yuka meant floor I would've NEVER remembered her name. Plus that line in ep 1 I think about floors was awesome... Though the series tries to place her into a motherly role somewhere in the series, it just hard to buy that.

I would have thought that being the only HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER character with a relatively normal childhood, Yuka would help ground them a little, but she just ends up being an accessory.

Mayu and Nana are way too stereotypically and obviously played out. They've had HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER hard and harsh lives, but that doesn’t mean they have to have the voices and behavior of innocent 5 year olds.
By all means, Nana and Mayu’s deep emotional HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER scars should have affected their behavior. If all they’re going to do is act like normal young girls, why bother giving them traumatized pasts at all? So Mayu is a bright cheerful, cute, happy STARVING HOMELESS girl...


Mayu is the most perverse trap in anime. It shows you a dreadful HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER past and then a present as if it the past never happened...How can a child who passed through the 9 Levels of Hell, starving, alone, cold and homeless be so happy is beyond my ability to process. Her tragic past is obliterated by her present attitude and nothing goes back to show us that this past actually did happen.
Mayu's personality is just typically passive. The character just makes you concentrate on the past and makes you forget the present so the producers may slack off some more. She did do some pivotal things but she could have been replaced easily. Mayu's story was for more shock value. Honestly, I don't think she was necessary for the story.

The only saving grace is Lucy, who seems like a genuinely cool and disturbed character, and is played exceptionally well and maturely.

But I still gots problems with her character...
HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
I never got convinced about the motivation that Lucy had for killing people. I wasn't convinced that she was good with just one human. I think that, in general, motivations were too segregated, Lucy has had bad experiences, but she also knows nice people, so is difficult for me to understand her actions. Just because of being bullied? The dog's death? Lucy loses her innocence as a child when she is forced by circumstances to become a murderous beast? Oh please...There are plenty of animes out there which demonstrates how one is able change for the better using their determination and belief to overcome their obstacles. Lucy's case is rather foolish.

I'm sure I should have felt pity for those girls at some point, but I just couldn't bring myself to feel anything for them.

Kurama's story. He has this aura of past tragedy, up till his story was unfolded. You see - suddenly he HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER stopped being intelligent, mature, caring but rather made error after error, and he did not even make the most basic association everyone with a brain would have made. Thus - that led to tragedy and I could not sympathize with him anymore. How could he make such grave error. I couldn't empathize, it was just ridiculous. Just stunned. Gawd 35... HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER last ep well she barely gets anything other than psycho sadistic whatever and then by the next ep she's a cute, poor little girl which is so unconvincing... just HELL no. No sympathy from me.
The silly villain.
Basically a waste of a character, no wait his entire purpose is shock value. Well... he's crazy and ... he's blonde. He's got a gun! And... he's a soldier. What a magnificent character. I think that describes him in every detail. Name? Why should you need it? Is that detailed description not enough? The truth is I don't remember his name, so sorry.
BTW. How long do you think can a psycho crazy guy last ?
Answer: as long as weak scenario needs him there :(
He's supposedly a special forces soldier, but he is too horrible as a soldier to be believable. I guess any psycho can join the Special Forces... no previous experience necessary! He would've surely HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER lastepmade it as general in a few years if not for Lucy. (seriously, what's with this army guy who can't seem to die? why is he such a nut job?) I forgot what happened to him at the end anyway.
He was just boring, tedious...

WTF - N O WAY
Every few minutes I kept thinking, "that would never happen". (Of course, I’m not referring to the whole Diclonius stuff.)

OMG the characters were so bad. They don't talk or react like normal human beings... Okay I know anime characters aren't generally "normal" but you gotta have some degree of realism in them. Watching the character interaction in this anime was so bad it was actually funny (got some enjoyment out of that, you know making the best of it, but still that ain't good~).

very specific examples.
HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
ep 1
A boy and a girl teenager finding a naked girl with horns, and what do they do? - take her home and hide her. They don't even consider the hospital. Only anime-characters desperate to get from point A to point B in the plot would do this. What on earth would make them think THAT was the best course of action? Maybe if he wanted to do something perverted to her that would be plausible and that would explain why he didn't want to take her to the nearest hospital. But uh I don't wanna see that.

the sniper team which was supposed to kill her and even when they had a good opportunity, they missed (lol?). And just to quote the director of that mission from the 1st episode "It's not the kind of enemy that will let you have a second chance". What idiots.

If you're fighting a being that can repel projectiles, such as bullets, and are moreover doing so in a confined space, you DON'T keep shooting at her like an imbecile, you GAS her. Anyone incapable of grasping such an obvious tactic would have little business heading a secret military complex, unless they happen to be a character in an anime that regards eyeglasses as the ultimate sign of intelligence. Well, maybe this is too nit-picky... ?
----- END

Their behavior is then later contradicted when they even consider taking someone to the hospital since that someone got a cold...

Who in their right minds would take home a naked bleeding girl with horns; lie to the authorities and then hand her over to someone with a dubious claim? I find it hard to believe that if a police comes to your house and says we are looking for a missing girl you will lie to them without any reason. And his behavior to the professor totally contradicts his behavior to the police (to the police he lies, to the professor he says the truth - without any real reason to do so).

If someone suddenly attacks your friend... would you then believe it if that someone tells you that they just did it cause they're feeling hungry?! What's hunger got to do with attacking your friend on sight?! That's the worst excuse ever.

If someone tried to strangle you for no reason, would you simply sit up afterwards and ask IN A CONVERSATIONAL WAY: "what did you do that for?" I doubt it. I'd be trying to get the hell away that person.

A little girl finds a bleeding man with an arm cut off.
Hell, I'd be shocked and disgusted, scream 'Oh my God' and maybe throw up (but obviously that's just me), the girl just stood there normally asking 'What happened'

That girl had a little puppy she took care of. One day the real owner popped up and took the dog away... just two eps later that dog was back without any reason (did I miss an ep?), as if nothing ever happened.

In the last episode (I think), as we all remember Nana is surrounded by the special forces people. She's like bleeding, injured, etc. No wait, she's naked too. But amidst all this Kouta just walks up to her as if she's not naked, bleeding, injured, surrounded by special forces. But then when he gets up to her, he has the "audacity" (?) to ask her Did something happen? It's like...


Kouta and Yuka make some decisions that make me question whether they’ve lost all logic and reason.

There are too many logical problems and few characters' actions make you go "huh?" if you try to make sense of them; just soak in the visceral violence and the general moods. That's what I did...

To be quite honest I didn't really notice most of this while watching so I wasn't bothered by this but looking back on it it's pretty apparent but the stuff I did notice was enough to be like WTF. Perhaps I was distracted by all that unnecessary crap and I was just like yep stuff is happening, etc, not giving much thought, and not really digesting and realizing how unbelievable/hilarious some of the stuff is. Even if you ignore just how ridiculous some of the stuff they did to move the "plot" it's still not very good...

ANIMATION
They could have put some more effort into animation, especially since this anime features only 13 episodes. The artwork is good but the animation is deceivingly simple.

It has the "huge eyes" drawing style, but that's normal anime style. However, childish character designs take away the edge from violence - robbing it of meaning. I was put down by overly cute designs of characters. Such childish looking characters and bloodbath does not suit together, and I suppose it was done in an attempt to be more shocking but still, it fell flat on it's face. The exception is Lucy who is the only character I could take seriously from her looks alone. The character designs were rather generic. Kouta is incredibly familiar-looking, and you'll have sworn that you've seen him in another anime before. The same goes for Yuka.

The adults were for the most part, extremely ugly. The adults in this show were all portrayed as ugly which made me feel a bit depressed. Is this the creators way of indicating once you get to a certain age, you automatically become ugly? Like Kurama... The world is full of beautiful people, and they're not just young girls with big boobs.

The themes dealt with don't really cooperate with the 'lightheartedness' of most of the visuals. The dark mood the creators (I hope) were aiming at was watered down due to the bright colors. A much more mature-looking animation style would have fit so much better with this anime. As for backgrounds, they're pretty unmemorable, ordinary but pretty decent.

The action scenes do have merit despite their forced graphic nature. It lacks the fluid animation which I would expect from a modern anime series. I do not mind blood and gore at all, but sometimes Elfen Lied shows it so that it looks like ketchup sprayed over the screen. Consequently, it looks tacky. I don't know, it should've been shinier? Also the Latin "gothic" feel of the opening might not fit the theme entirely, since there are no connections to Christianity or heaven/hell. But a good song regardless. All these factors make the visuals average for that time's standard - you’ve seen worse, but definitely better.

It's just the blatant pornographic nature of this anime clouds most of its possible merits. The creators use nudity and horror as a means to trigger sexual impulses in the human brain and that’s about all the contents of this animation.

SOUND
The gothic sounding music was rather good and wonderful. The opening theme excellently matched what I thought the anime was going to be like, the anime that it TRIED to be, and the anime that it SHOULD have been.

Everything about the opening is thought out very well and the music and images go together extremely well. The OP theme is brilliant, and sets the tone perfectly. Purity of the Lilies is the single music score that makes Elfen Lied OST worth keeping.

Unfortunately it's dragged down by being used too often. No seriously, they hum it, there's a music box version, some different instrumental version, different singers sing it, like seriously I don't care how they tweak it it's still the same song. Although the music box version and this other version with other people singing it was rather pretty though :) They wanted to play it at every moment by the end of the series which was grating. It’s a damn fine song but enough is enough, let it die already.

The ending theme is the sugar-coated pop song. It's a cute ending theme, playful, maybe a parallel in the way that HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER Lucy/Nyuu's identities are: the former is more tragic sounding, while the other is playful and carefree. The ending song is nothing special but it fits with Nyuu's personality. Happy and careless.
It was catchy but it didn’t really seem to fit and it didn’t evoke the same feelings as the opening song.

Most of the other main characters have a whiny, bland, pathetic, mourning tone, obviously trying to show innocence. These voices constantly reminded me how contrived these characters were. Also, the voices of soldiers didn't sound so convincing. However, the tone of Lucy voice was great.... Overall, the acting was weak or maybe the characters are themselves are just bleh so...

FIN
The overall value of Elfen Lied is mediocre at best. When I finished watching it, nothing at all crossed my mind. Neither positive nor negative. Just emptiness. Which well reflects the real content of the anime. The audience, being 'distracted' by the visually strong contents, can't really focus on whatever the anime tries to say (which, mind you, ain't much).

So the series didn't take any of my emotions. No suspense and smartness for thinking about actions nor funny situations, and not even terror. In summary, nothing special for me, except for the music. Um... classic? masterpiece? Best of 2004? uh... I don't think this series is a deep, detailed series in the least.

If you like plenty of fake blood, flying body parts and boob shots, and/or fan-service/harem shows then should enjoy this, otherwise, not recommended.

BTW I stopped watching the OVA as soon as knife -->pikachu-peekachu. (no, not the yellow pokemon from pokemon)

I guess if you something violent but with class BACCANO! The violence in BACCANO is way better too. read more

Akazukin Cha Cha is a surprisingly smart comedy series that is laden with cultural jokes, word plays, and takes from other anime series. It's a very cute and funny anime, with a wild gang of crazy characters that make each episode exciting. It's a magical girl show, so I'm sure people will be put off by the fact that every episode ends with Chacha transforming and defeating the enemy. Well, that's not what makes the show hilarious/enjoyable/entertaining ... it's what's before! That's what fast forward is for. Though actually there was an episode where they made fun of that aspect of that show so.... I HAD to give it a 7 OVERALL just because it is 74 eps and there are some eps that are not as good as others but there are some eps are that so funny that they're 8 or 9-worthy.

It's super-cute, often hilarious, and references folktales. The writing, humor are excellent, top-notch, and just plain clever/smart/awesome/funny. And there is a lot of slapstick comedy. With all the characters and conflicting interests, each episode inevitably leads to some sort of wacky situations that make for hilarity. The situations that arise are sometimes a little silly, but they are just fun and quite funny, too. Sometimes it pretty much made me just fall off my chair and laugh, it's just that funny. for like a one episode test I'd recommend trying out episode 18.

The episodes are sometimes hit or miss - some are amazing and I can watch them over and over again for its sheer brilliance and some aren't very much with the jokes and humorous situations not working as much. The quality from each episode varies. The middle episodes are generally less interesting, whereas there are some really awesome moments/episodes in the latter part of the series especially the ones with dorothy/seravi. The later episodes did not have the "defeat enemy" and made the anime more enjoyable. The aspects of Akazukin Chacha that I didn't like can be said for mahou shoujo/shoujo anime in general, so I guess it's not completely this anime's fault.

Despite the hilarious scenes, this anime has an unoriginal, base plot.
The Magical Princess thing appears to have been added when they desperately needed something to compete with Sailor Moon, which detracts from the anime, but is easily forgivable with the anime's humor. The manga actually precedes Sailor Moon and doesn't include that subplot.

The show's mostly light-hearted, cheer-upper but it does have a couple episodes that are emotional and sorta sad which are executed well.

CHARACTERS
I think this aspect really makes the series shine. All the main characters are all interesting, witty, infectiously cute, authentic, lovable or love to hate, and fun to watch. It's a great combination of a rich set of characters. It's very easy to understand the characters and connect to them.
Among the main characters there is a lot of rivalry due to conflicting love interests. It's more like a love octagon or BIGGER rather than just a triangle actually.

As for the side/minor characters like the bad guys, most of them were memorable thesemlves. They weren't your usual "bad guys", you know "the show needed them, boring" bad guys etc.They themselves got into silly situations before the ~~ and their clash with the main characters was entertaining/possibly hilarious due to the personalities of each of the bad guys usually when they're in a non-serious, silly situation. Overall there are a lot of characters you meet along all these episodes and most of them are memorable/fleshed-out considering how many there are...

ANIMATION
The art in this anime series is competent. They did a really good job on the various gestures and facial expression/exaggeration, animation effects, etc. The animation is cartoony, but nonetheless fitting and pleasant. Oh and it's cute too, in its cute 90s way~

SOUND
I like the first opening song and the 1st ending song and I don't care for the rest. The voice acting of the seiyuus were very good considering the characters all have big personalities/dislikes/etc and so they portrayed the characters well. I like the BMG and sound effects as they go with the show. They have appropriate background music for whatever mood/situation the characters may be in. Also there were parts in the show when the characters and sang and that was cute and fun and enjoyable.

Cha Cha is one of the most surprising and funny comedies I've been able to see. A cute and clever variation on the magical girl staples, which is a pity since some of the its strengths were reduced by the genre requirements.
This show is WONDERFUL though this series did not really make me think or emotionally move me nor was there a significant overall storyline. This is one of the funniest shows with a constant stream of jokes, sight gags and puns that had me laughing out loud. All in all, I say check it out! You might be pleasantly surprised! Very childish but a feel-good anime that is really funny. It's an anime that children AND adults can enjoy. You'll actually laugh, it's not the "sympathy laughs" that most animes now-a-days try to evoke from the viewers. PLUS it got a viewer rating of 15% when it aired in Japan 1994~ I know Nodame got like 5%~ rating and that's considered good so 15% is BIG.
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This anime is NOT for everyone. I do recognize its value to an extent but it just wasn't as enjoyable as I'd hoped. So I'd recommend this if this anime itself really interests you (not just 'ooh revenge, cool') & not just the ratings... Maybe this anime's for a certain type of audience and I'm not in it...
To be BLUNT this show was boring.

I have never seen the movie, nor read the book.

For me, Gankutsuoh was never very emotionally intense, nor was it particularly stimulating. It did not capture my imagination at any point nor thrust me into its world. It just did not interest me. I felt disconnected to this anime from the start and it pretty much was like that the whole way through. I think my connection may have grew gradually but not as much as I'd hoped. Nevertheless, I was appreciative of Gankutsuoh but it's still pretty disappointing. It lacks something. It's slow paced and boring, it gets more bearable, no, possibly enjoyable at episode 15. Maybe I did start enjoying it somewhat/significantly after that point but yeah that's LATE! I tried my best to pay attention to get the most out of it but you can't make yourself "get into" it well maybe a little but not enough? Basically, appreciation does not equate substance or enjoyment.

There are some weird events/etc that are pretty disturbing (there's one I thought I'd never see in an anime and have never seen in any other anime I've ever seen as far as I know/remember) which are the parts that kept me interested/shocked for that moment or so but the thing is sometimes they don't tell you why or what it is exactly and they withhold this till 10 episodes later or more (don't mention it at all...). then like however many episodes later they reveal it and hopefully you paid attention enough to remember and get something out of it. Despite the shocking revelations, most of Gankutsuoh is irrelevant to the central story, and doesn't particularly reveal much about the characters, the setting, or the plot.

There were times when I forgot parts of what I had just watched after I finished whatever episode/s (In all seriousness). The main story is given away slivers at a time. Despite stuff happening etc, not counting the shocking parts, I was just not engaged/interested...

I finished it because you know that's just annoying not to finish with the ending plus the revealing of why "events" were "shocking" but even so I forgot the ending that everyone complained about so much. I'm pretty sure the question: What the hell is "Gankutsuou"? was never answered at least not thouroughly enough...

ANIMATION
Gankutsuoh has beautiful, bold animation with the shifting patterns in clothing and hair. pretty~ I guess some people will find it annoying as hell, all right I was a little annoyed at first but I got used it and honestly I'm all for anything
that'll make it more interesting.

SOUND
The opening was awesome and totally suits the anime, the ending song was quite upbeat so it's odd and unfitting. The opening song is just awesome and it absolutely sets the mood.
The voice acting is uniformly good, and fit all the characters. The Count's voice is just perfect and I loved the French narration. (Though someone did tell me it was unintelligable French, lol...)

CHARACTERS
They aren't interesting but I'm sure they have qualities/personalitites/etc. Honestly, I couldn't remember/keep track any of their names nor their relations very well (if I did I'd forget and repeated this cycle) except a couple of the mains because of the foreign French names plus Japanese romaji pronunciation and the fansub group was like we're doing the book's original name for this character and it was just like... No way... I just felt so disconnected and not that interested and the circumstances just led to that. But a character I did find interseting was the Count, what can I say, he's just cool... But I didn't really connect to any of them.

This anime is different from others in its atmosphere, etc and I do appreciate that and dramatic/shocking stuff does happen but it's just not entertaining or engaging for me. The characters and story and possibly the setting alienated me. There doesn't seem to be much connection and bond between the audience and the anime. So to see if this show's for you watch the 1st ep and maybe a couple more AND if you feel bored, confused on what the hell's going on/don't really care what the hell is going on cause it's alienating you due to your disinterest, I would recommend you drop it before they get do some shocking revelation and you get curious and get forced to watch more to find out what it is or whatever. But then again, like I said 15+ gets more interesting from my memory but can't guarantee it's worth it if you watch till end... I don't know really know how I feel... read more

The premise behind the story isn't original and there really isn't much story to this anime.
It's chock full of uninteresting, repetitive humor and pointless character clashes. Also, a large number of boring, long, pointless dialogue sequences plague it throughout.

Fruits Basket has a nice message and so it WAS nice at times. I'd say 3 or 4 out of the 26 I actually enjoyed/felt something and maybe a couple moments from a couple other episodes.

Here are the problems: no plot really, fillers, boring, slow-paced, formulaic, not that funny

NO PLOT
The story is horrible because there was none to begin with. While I did enjoy this anime during a couple of the episodes, I felt that it was seriously lacking in the story and character department. It felt as if we were going in a circle, the "story" just did not move enough, it was just static and it felt the same all the way through. The further along I got, the more I felt like I was wasting my time and the last episode proved it. The ending which this series has is very irrevelant to the story itself. Out of no where "something" is revealed and almost nothing is solved. The ending was like... that's the end... It leaves the viewer in disgust and in disappointment. It leaves the view wondering in anger. What was the point in watching it in the first place?

FILLERS / BORING / SLOW-PACED
I was incredibly bored every minute I was watching it. It is a struggle for me to finish most of these episodes. I did not really find them interesting or enjoy their interaction. They just talk all day long that it becomes boring and there are also times when what they're talking about is just pointless. There are some awful fillers that have absolutely nothing to do with anything and aren't interesting in any way.

There was no way I could watch to episode 26, especially after hearing that the anime ending has no closure but I did and I regret it. Don't you hate it when animes do nothing for 90% of the episodes, and then, like, 3 episodes to the end, they make up some sort of convoluted plot, and the resolution of THAT story is considered the end of the show. I've seen it done way too much, and it's stupid. The end is badly paced, under-explained, just lame and stupid (I felt stupid for watching it... No seriously, it was like watching Wedding Peach and that says something... You know as much as I hated/loved wedding peach wnen I was 6.)

FORMULAIC
Every character had a tragic past that they needed to overcome, and I just got tired of watching the same sequence of events (character is reminded of bad event, Tohru drags event out of them, Tohru heals their soul through her kindness). There are so many characters, and Tohru can only be in one place at a time. Most of the episodes had very similar plots since the characters are similar... There are some touching moments/episodes, but sometimes they're like deliberate. I got the feeling they were trying too hard to make sad stories for the characters that it ended feeling contrived, so I didn't really feel much at all for the characters in question.

While usually the emotional moments are okay, some tend to be dragged out WAY too long, it was sickening.

NOT FUNNY
It "tries" to be funny, and sometimes way too hard. I'd say Furuba is mostly-lighthearted anime with light-hearted comedy. Honestly, there were comedy elements that I didn't like at all. The antics of ~plot spoiler~ is funny to an extent but it's sorta becomes cheap after they repeat you know for the god knows how many times and just that antic itself. But in the latter half of the series, it turns into a drama. But while it's trying to be dramatic all of a sudden, bits of comedy show up and prevent you from taking the drama seriously. Also, the setup itself from the start with Tohru's living circumstance just bothers me because it's plot-holed, unconvicing and seems to have been put there solely for comedic effect (and it wasn't funny...).

CHARACTER
It seems that many of the characters seem to have "special" feelings for another but nothing happens. However most of the characters are likable, if a little annoying during the "comedy" moments. Actually they're annoying because they are the SAME throughout the series. I never felt any of the characters grow. Yuki and Kyou just keep on fighting and it gets old very fast, I wanted them to just kill each other by the end of the anime. SO there's no romance... maybe a little fluff

Only 2 or 3 episodes made me actually feel something for the characters. Furthermore, many of the character reactions were unrealistic and not consistent with their personality. I have this feeling that they forced the characters' behaviors/reactions/thoughts too much and it made it hard to get into it.

But anyway, you hardly get to really know them with the slow- no progression- no plot circumstances. More and more of these characters are introduced later in the series. It's almost as though it is building up to something. But then it doesn't go anywhere. It's almost as if the time spent with these less important characters was wasted and would have been better spent with the characters you're already familiar with. But even so, many of the characters ended up with only a few sentences of development. The characters could have been given appropriate screen time instead wasting time on stale- pointless dialogue.

All the character's have a similar story. they all either act feminine to hide their insecurities, or they are completely bi-polar and have split personalties to give them a unique personality. To sum up the characters, you have boys dressing as girls, or people with anger management problems and you have to feel sorry for them. There's at least 1 Sohma that is just completely cliche, over-the-top, trying way too hard, not funny, and just lame.

Tohru
Too bad the main character is so awful, and takes away from the anime so much.
She is one of those main characters that is overused, cliché, and found in any anime.
She is very dumb, dense, unimpressive, crappy, unrealistic, ridiculously too kind and never gets angry, constantly smiles. We are supposed to identify with and empathize with her?

I can't take "let's save the world with a totally depthless, clumsy, naive and dumb girl. Let's inadvertently fix everyone's broken hearts, souls and sad past with this personality of someone inhumanely nice. Tohru is annoying most of the time with her lack of thought pissing me off often. I understand that she is in a mental distress since ~spoiler~, but this anime did not address that very well so I don't feel guilty saying this.

SOUND
Overall, the music was average. The OP was calming and fits with the show. Each character has his or her music theme that represents their personality. The BMG was nice and the ending song is okay and fitting. My only complaint is that they used the opening theme as BGM in a lot of the episodes cause that's cheesy...

Voice acting was good, though sometimes when the characters try to sound emotionally broken etc, they end up sounding overly flat and apathetic instead, as if slowly learning to read from a script.

ANIMATION
There are times when I couldn't believe that there are so many freaking scenes with the fuzzy background, and for some reason a slight breeze is going through someone's hair to emphasize how beautiful they are, or a romantic scene, etc. It's just like...
Fruits Basket has huge eyes and that kiddy style animation made the drama even less serious. Character designs are of the typical big-eyed cuteness kind we've all seen so many times before.The style of animation just hurts the show overall. Plus there was horrific overuse of the super deformed style, which I disliked to begin with.
I don't think the "animals" are cute at all, why do people say that, they just look cheap like a simple shape and 2 dots for eyes.

SO
Don't feel the need to go out of the way to watch this one. I will never recommend this series to anyone, especially a male. I only watched this series because people gave it such high ratings, but it turned out to be a REALLY overrated. This show reminds me of Full Moon cause they're both overrated has some really big flaws, awful main character but even so I think Full Moon is better because of its redeeming last arc. At least that anime "ended" and actually has a "plot" no matter how filler-marathon it was. read more

There is nothing about this anime that is truly special in any way; it’s your average romantic drama comedy. Anyone who mistakenly believes anything in Kare Kano is “original” never saw another very popular shoujo that precedes it by two years. I did enjoy parts of the story but honestly it has some flaws...

COMEDY
On the whole, it's nothing extraordinary and so the humor part is very limited. The jokes are relatively boring, I don't know why people say hilarious... After you see one joke, most of the time they just repeat it, thinking that we'll laugh at it even if we didn't laugh at it that much the first time...

STORY - More in recap/characters
It's slow-paced and boring at times to be honest. There really isn't much of a story going on. We get to follow some high school students through their everyday lives. It's about the characters and their relationships pretty much. Some episodes are nice but most of them are just not nice enough. It's like mixed and I think there's a couple fillers in there too.

There are too many flashbacks, and too many parts which characters are just thinking and speaking out their minds over and over.
They keep having self-discoveries and keep thinking about how people would think about them. I would prefer the story line to keep moving rather than to pause for all those monologues because honestly they do this so much it just loses its value, etc real quick. Speaking of which, the past of Arima and Yukino could have been cut down instead of repeatedly showing it.

ANIMATION
If the storyline and characters are good I can look past mediocre animation, but this one went way beyond anyone's tolerance. This hardly should be called "anime" at all; simply not very much animation going on. The ending theme consists of someone holding a camera while walking through some random building. OMG at least take some random scenes from the show for the ending but wait they used up all the ACTUALLY ANIMATED scenes from the series for the intro and they had enough recaps without having their credits sequence be one too. Almost everything in this anime is either stills or terrible live-action clips of traffic signs, buildings, and cats. The animation put a damper on scenes at times for example a meaningful scene with Yukino ruined by the ugly insertion of two live-action traffic signs in the middle of it. In the rare times something ACTUALLY moves, it moves badly and very cartoony.

They color the main characters sometimes and put something that resembles a background in the back and frequently recycled pictures from the first 8 episodes. Around half way through the series, it for the most part stops being animated. The screen pans through still images of a street or a traffic light while you hear the voices of the characters. Animation reached an all-time low after episode 19, I've never seen such horrid animation, it's as if they took paper cutouts and haphazardly drawn sketches done with crayons and taped them to popsicle sticks and just moved them with their hands (actually I am SO sure they did that at some points). Rather than enjoy such creativity, such massive abuse of animation annoyed me and took me away from the story. They're obviously cheap tricks from lazy illustrators to save work from the many standstills/zooms, dumb industrial-scenery-shots with no meaning or reference to the show, everyone constantly drawn deformed....

One of the very last episodes was a photocopy from the manga with square boxes one after another.
If I want to read a manga, I'll read a manga, not watch one.
If you haven't read the manga just go and buy that instead and to get the full experience of the animated version put your eyes very close to the pages and slowly scroll along them while having your friend squawk out the characters voices, be sure to go back a chapter and re-read it for the recap experience like every 2 pages.

Just taking into account when it's animated at its best it STILL looks older than 1998, that's for sure...

RE-CAP
WHY are there tons of recaps? There is an ELABORATE recap at the start of almost EVERY episode that you just don't need. Heck, some episodes wasted more than 10 minutes telling back what happened and bore you with the stuff you've already watched and what you already heard get recapped before countless times. Even during the episodes, the dialogue often rehashes what has been shown over and over again. Honestly, it just makes the plot seem more lame and more average, etc... In the middle of the series, there are two consecutive recaps, which is unforgivable being that there are lengthy recaps at the beginning of each episode not to mention those re-caps only plays this annoying classical music song for the whole episode (needlessly to say I didn't watch those episodes). If there was some advanced story or web of character relations, it would be understandable, but for this anime the recaps were a total waste of screen time. They repeat the most basic premise of this whole show is based on so many times...

CHARACTERS
Too many 'characters and their stories'. Apart from Yukino/Arima and a couple others' stories, others to me are somewhat 'extras', redundant and pointless. No great drama, just some normal high school romance.

While the series does develop its characters in a decent fashion, it plays musical chairs with its cast. There were whole episodes where the main people, Yukino and Arima, did nothing. It's unfortunate because some the supporting characters' side-stories are actually quite uninteresting to me.

I didn't like any one of them in particular, but the interactions between them were amusing. But their exaggerated expressions and actions spoiled the mood of certain sentimental and poignant scenes. Characters were good but I felt they weren't taken to their full potential like finishing their stories. Some of the side characters are good, and some aren't like Yukino's bratty know-it-all sisters, generic tomboy Tsubaki, and ill-tempered Tsubasa.

SOUND
Most of the voices are great although Tsubasa's voice was annoying as hell though it may fit the character nicely perhaps but that didn’t keep me from cringing.
The opening and ending themes felt a little nostalgic and fits the mood of the scenes. Some episodes where there were no scripts but a narration done roughly by a man and a woman telling what's happening in a cold, emotionless voice I just couldn't help myself but fast forward.
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I couldn’t get myself to finish it (Actually watching up to this episode was a trial in and of itself in a way). It simply has too many flaws that can't be overlooked. Shakugan no Shana is one of those anime that has a really intriguing plot but can't follow up on it. The first episode was stunning and I was looking forward to a deep and somehow philosophic, mature anime but it turns out to be a bad-guy-appears-and-is-defeated-anime.

STORY
Don't be deceived by the intelligent beginning. I thought I was going to witness an excellent story and drama just from the opening. It quickly became boring, lame, and confusing. It evolved into just another of the partly romance, partly action stories, with both aspects being underdeveloped, flat. If I had read a paragraph summary of the show then it would've been just that much more boring (ruining the only part of show) it was one of the few redeeming things the show has, that concept...

It has uninteresting dialogue, repetitive battle scenes, and slow execution. They bring in some sort of awkward romance story that isn't really fulfilling or moving. So this series basically becomes a horribly cliché and contrived romance with absolutely no progress in any meaningful direction. The actual story development with the baddies, romance and all that is REALLY cliché. Neither the story nor characters are worth it for watching this series. The action was actually boring to me, the ones I saw anyway...

It's best summed up as a sword girl + generic male lead fighting to save the day. They came up with some 'intricate' plots but really they aren't that impressive. The show tries to blur its simplicity with many terms and names. It's roughly about a boring and overly confusing and overly repeated plot about mistes, torches, flame hazes, guzes, balance of the world, etc... The whole thing is just confusing and I don't feel like it's my fault. There's not enough explanation yet there's so much confusing, boring dialogue

there was this one scene that I thought was the ultimate example of why it's so...
It's like manipulative and impudent at the same time.
So they show Shana changing and they show her taking her panties off (lol)
But while she's doing that she's talking about all that mumbo-jumbo and that mumbo-jumbo made no sense and because I have yet to thrown in the towel even though the signs are huge that the show is shit I re-watch that scene. I realize it really doesn't make any sense. it's like they're trying to cover it up with this weird loli fanservice which doesn't do much for me. Have her say shit that makes no sense which the viewer will take in as really too complex and deep or whatevers to comprehend while she takes her undies off. Was this in the ep I dropped it? PRObably

CHARACTER
As episode after episode passed, I just felt horribly unsatisfied without any character development.They lack any sort of sort of dimensionality: unconvincing voice acting, dull dialogue, no development. Everyone else besides Shana is merely "devices" to make things a bit more intricate and to help push the "story" on. Characters are basically given whatever set of feelings and goals and repetitively do the same action. Nearly all of them are meaningless and replaceable. The male lead is not very appealing and can be easily forgotten. Shakugan no Shana is blessed with Shana, a cute character, but that's it. Shana is the only interesting character and even so she's not THAT interesting. Shana is clearly "loli" which doesn't make me like her any more BTW but hey if you're into that sure…

The enemies are just enemies, it's like they exist only because the anime needed them. They don't explain their background all that much, they don't have motives really, boring, possibly annoying, same old same old, in other words I couldn't care much... From the 1st ep I just thought the baddies just weren't that "cool" but then again I didn't get to see/meet the other baddies I saw in the opening so who knows. But I doubt it...

ANIMATION
I loved the artwork. It's what made me want to watch this in the first place. Though I did find the animation itself to be a little ordinary since I've seen other anime that look like this. It's normal production quality of recent anime. Basically as much as I like the artwork, I can't watch for that

Sound
One department Shana does quite well at is music. Its theme songs are very good and even fits in with the series with the lyrics. As far as voice acting, I couldn't help but feel that some characters weren't sounding too convincing. That could simply be due to the poor execution of the characters and storyline, consequently damaging the mood of the scenes.

There are better anime of this genre out there fo sho. Shana never really passes more than an average/below average show. I would recommend that you watch the openings, because they look awesome and all that & maybe the firsrt couple eps if you just wanna know what it's about but I can't fathom watching all 24 eps... Overall, a show with huge potential that fails to live up to its hype.

SLAYERS NEXT!! read more

While not a big fan of mecha, that's not the problem I have with this anime.

Apparently, it is the general consensus that this anime is the weakest, being that Fumoffu and the Second Raid are often hailed as being much better (KyoAni anyone?). So I guess I'd recommend watching the first few eps (the school arc) and then immediately stop and move on to fumoffu (I think that's enough to make sense of fumoffu) if you want a no plot comedy. As for FMP itself, it only goes down... I knew from watching a certain episode preview that that "arc" would be terrible and it was.

FILLER COMEDY
Most of the time the FILLERS were more interesting than main "story". The comedy aspect is just so underplayed since it just so happens the comedy/school filler aspect is just much better. By much better, they were the only good parts because they were really funny but were sometimes fillery/boring as fillers usually are. It's redeeming factors are the antics between the two main characters. The first couple of episodes were funny and I enjoyed the relationship between Sosuke and Chidori but it gets old.

STORY:
Everything boils down to "throw the mercenary and the schoolgirl in a painfully ridiculous situation". But beyond the antics for popularity, Full Metal Panic is hollow.

The "plot" comes in and it isn't strong or intriguing in the slightest. It's just not COOL... They put too much emphasis on that but even so the series is just a bunch of arcs and once one ends, it's completely forgotten. The whole reason the events took place is not fully explained. Whispers? Lambda drive? Nothing is explained and we know so little that's it's laughable. It feels like the people who made it, they themselves didn't really know what to do with the ideas. But at the same time or maybe because of such poor development, I just couldn't care about all that uninteresting Mithril, mecha stuff. FMP is one of those unfortunate anime that expects you to sympathize with characters and situations when you don't even care. It has an uncohesive story that never brings anything to the table. There are some funny scenes, but there isn't anything really compelling about this series.

Actually, the worst part is that it pretends that it does have a story, but there isn't really. Everything is black and white; there are no moral issues, political intrigue, motives, etc to make it worthwhile/interesting/smart/etc. The story is lame; the episodes with few exceptions are either far-fetched or clearly melodramatic. The episodes get more and more ridiculous with each episode.

The plot tries too hard to blend hard military SF with school hijinks and it just doesn't work. They the anime will try to transition from one of these "serious" tones to another between episodes, and sometimes, within one episode. If the anime were to devote it self entirely to one or the other, I'm sure it would've been much better.

ACTION
I was bored by the action parts, because I really didn't get any detailed/decent reasons on why they are fighting and so there's no way I could care that much. But the action scenes themselves are not exciting and the result is predictable.
I didn't feel much excitement watching it, it wasn't well planned out and things didn't fall in place well enough. The fight scenes were, in a couple of words, unbelievable, simple, lame, and boring.

No to the action
No to whatever "story" that isn't much of a story...
Yes to the comedy

CHARACTERS
The absolute worst part of this show is the bad guys. The absurdity with which they are written makes the show unfun and worse. G was the worst character, he has no personality and has all the predictable qualities in any given bad guy and honestly he doesn't even seem to have a real motive or story which makes him that much more uninteresting. It's like we get it, he's evil so what...
As expectedly so, he's boring and looks ugly in that typical cheap shonen anime way...

As for the other characters, they're all very typical. There's not much complexity in the personalities. However Sousuke's uniqueness is likely to appeal to most fans (he's pretty odd). Tessa is quite bland. They are generic as an archetype can be, cliché but they are likable.

I find the female lead to be unattractive (though I'm not a guy but still come on... NO). Therefore the fan-service with her was that much worse~ (I guess that's a big warning to anything).

ANIMATION
The mecha designs are dull and nothing special. The CG with the submarines, torpedoes, and whatnot were pretty well done, but even so I don't care about them. Thick lines, thick colors, and thick just about everything else don’t do the anime justice. Average animation, though there were some noticeable variations in production quality; at times it got better, at others worse. The character designs aren't half bad but are fairly simple.

SOUND
The opening and ending songs are like standard poppy whatever songs which is fine with me but even so they don't really fit with the actual show that much. The insert music is decent, doing its job, but nothing spectacular. On a good note, Sousuke and Chidori's voice actors are were very good and held up the only aspect of the show I enjoyed...

SO
The first 3 episodes or so (before that darn field trip) were "fun", but then the show just nose-dives, and I came to the realization it became bad, boring compared to its beginning. I couldn't finish it because I found this anime to be rather bad. It's purely typical anime in late 90's vein? Though nothing groundbreaking in the realm of plot, character development, comedy or drama, Full Metal Panic tried to do a lot in a small span of time thus not able to do anything even decently so I could not help but feel disappointed.
Very fragmented plots, very ordinary anime plot tools, cheesy humor at times, ridiculous dialogues and even more ridiculous situations. As much as I wanted to like it and as fun as it was in the beginning, it turned out to be mediocre. read more

This anime is EXTREMELY overrated. Like it's so ridiculously popular and everywhere I read people go "Oh this is funny but it's NOWHERE near as funny as azumanga daioh. Since comedy is subjective – what one person finds funny, another won’t. This anime isn't for everyone so [PLEASE] give up after a few episodes if you find it boring-dull-etc, there's no point watching every episode of whatever anime that's ridiculously popular unless you yourself actually like it (especially this one because there's no plot). Personally I find it deeply offending when people call this hilarious let alone funny just because there's so much better out there.

There is no story, period. But that's not important because this is a comedy anime and all that's important is that it's actually funny and fun. I must first mention the pacing of this anime, it's VERY slow, as in really EXTREMELY boring. Well it is slice of life but still, but if you LOVE slice of life perhaps that's fine. The formula they abuse and pound into the ground is: they do a joke, it's lame probably and not that funny, and then they do a long long long silence with the characters staring out to the side or something. The thing is the joke or the awkward thing usually isn't even that interesting or shocking as they make it out to be with these long silences which I would guess they put in since they're deluded that someone will actually laugh uncontrobally for 2 minutes straight at that joke... The anime has lots of moments like this where it's so dragged out you feel like ripping your hair out, or you already fell asleep so the mentioned doesn't apply. The dragging out "moments" of silence are just excruciating and really pointless, cheap maybe... I actually read somewhere of someone who thought this show was "fast-paced" (笑　LOL 笑) because every episode is consisted 4 parts, each being 5 minutes but honestly I was so bored I didn't even notice? In fact I didn't even realize this show takes place over a span of time of their high school years, well they look the same... jeez.

I can watch a crazy anime with no plot but this anime isn't even funny nor crazy. I understand the jokes, randomness, and humor it's just that the jokes fall short of anything funny. Most of the jokes left me with a faint smile at most. The jokes are not laugh out funny and honestly they're just childish, simple, and sometimes dumb (there's nothing clever or brilliant). To me laugh out of funny means funny so therefore I do not think this anime is funny. The jokes are clean, the whole anime is clean, you know those new ones with the fan-service and ehhh-ughh but I've seen clean anime that are funnier/actually funny/even hilarious so it's not too significant or much of a merit.

What's more is that you eventually start predicting the jokes just from the set-up or from the sheer repetition or from the boredom with the long silences. Maybe some of the jokes worked the first time or second time to the point of mildly amusing but they repeat it and it whatever joke soon becomes even less amusing and possibly annoying.

I do appreciate the randomness of this anime but it works sometimes and I do enjoy those parts. Sometimes it's lame and/or dragged out and/or trying too hard, repeated, and if it works it makes the anime amusing/nice slice of life and keeps it at bay for that moment from sleep-inducing boring.

Overall, there is literally one or two episodes and maybe a couple of moments from other eps that are possibly amusing enough to be enjoyed.

The anime relies solely on it characters but even so the characters are cliche and flat, like the dumb one, smart one, athletic one, etc. But nontheless most of them are likable and distinct, even Tomo for me. Tomo, I see why people hate her but I think she keeps it real. Osaka at times is good and the jokes work with her sometimes and that kimura-sensei is awesome compared to anything in this anime - probably the most interesting thing out of this whole anime, he really made this anime more enjoyable (by that I mean, he keeps me awake). Those two characters are the ones that are genuine sometimes and close to actually funny at times.Yukari-sensei was just trying way too hard and I don't know what that other teacher's name was... Honestly, the characters sometimes seemed boring and annoying because of the slow-pacing and that they weren't doing much to make it move forward if they were trying too hard to be funny which is a really big turn-off for me.

Of course there's not much character development if any or depth since there is no plot but like I said it's about the anime actually being funny. But it is sorta annoying and pointless that the same things happen to the characters and they react to it the same way however many times they repeat it.

The animation is below average. It's clean, simple and sort of dull but it fits really well with the anime.

The BGM was okay, but some of the BGM got annoying eventually. But more significantly was the lack of BGM, like I mentioned about those moments of silence, I really think there's more silence then actual BGM. To me moments of silence = silent treatment so I in a way I felt insulted, in all sarcasm... creepy....

It's not enjoyable overall. It was a waste of time for me. From all the raving, buzz, popularity etc you'd think it would be the most fun/enjoyable/hilarious/etc anime ever in the whole wide world and it's just not. So don't wait for it to get amazingly hilarous, it doesn't... Or if you find it hilarious and whatnot then go for it, watch all them episodes.

However, I liked Ichigo Mashimaro & Minami-ke which is similar with the slice of life, comedy, no plot, bunch of girls, but I wasn't bored to death by them as I was with Azumanga Daioh but was actually genuinely amused and had some laughs so I recommend those instead of Azumanga if you wanna see a slice of life/comedy. Plus the animation and voice actors are better.

Or if you want to watch a hilarious anime that will actually make you laugh out loud but has less than 5% of the popularity of azumanga daioh: akazukin cha cha. also jungle wa itsumo hale nochi guu which is actually random. I don't consider azumanga daioh random at all actually. I mean compared to Jungle wa itsumo hale nochi guu or cha cha or any other actually funny comedy series, especially the former, it's just not... read more