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Review of Monthly Girl’s Nozaki-kun

Monthly Girl’s Nozaki-kun (Gekkan Shōjo Nozaki-kun) is a romantic comedy anime adapted from the manga of the same name. The studio behind it is Dogakobo, who have also done Majestic Prince and other shows. The director was Mitsue Yamazaki and the music by Yukari Hashimoto. The manga is published Square Enix in Gangan Online and is currently still running.

The show revolves around the relationship (or lack of) our main two protagonists: Chiyo Sakura and Umetarō Nozaki. Sakura one day confesses her love for Nozaki, however he mistakes her as his fan and gives her his autograph, and she then tries ... to tell him that she wants to be with him forever. Nozaki takes this the wrong way and takes her to his house where he tells her that he is actually the mangaka for a Shōjo series called Let’s Fall in Love. He then enlists her help as an assistant which Sakura takes to try and get closer to him.

The plot itself is simple but entertaining. Each episode is pretty episodic however still follows the overall plot of the show, Sakura trying to get Nozaki to notice her love for him. All the episodes revolve around Sakura helping Nozaki with his manga or helping him find inspiration for it. There are many reoccurring side characters in the show that either provide inspiration or help Nozaki with his manga. The plotlines are very well done and the comedy hits the mark.

There are a lot of characters in the show and it can feel a bit overwhelming. Each either helps Nozaki with the manga or provides inspiration for characters. Each character has their own story which adds to show, giving us the viewer a reason to care for them and like them. But since there is such a big cast sometimes characters felt a little under developed even with this. However when it comes to them being on screen they were well voice acted and very likeable. The main two protagonists Sakura and Nozaki were well crafted. Sakura was cheerful, bubbly and caring whilst Nozaki was stern but eccentric. They both complimented each other. However as the series got on it was easy to tell what the reactions and actions were going to be. The character designs suited the show but nothing revolutionary.

The animation was good. It was fluid when it needed to be and very colourful. The series involved a lot of talking so the animation didn’t need to be balls to the walls epic, but it was still good. The animations on the opening and ending were also good and captured what the show was about.

The music fitted the show but it was not outstanding. It was cutesy and it helped with comedic effect when needed. The opening did a good job drawing you in and the ending was nice and cutesy fitting the show. However overall the music was good and did its job.

Overall the Monthly Girl’s Nozaki-kun is a nice, sweet romantic comedy which doesn’t fail to make you laugh or put a smile on your face. I would definitely recommend it if you need a break from the more serious anime out there. The show is incomplete as it ended with an opening for another season. At the moment there has been no announcement of a second season but take that how you may. Overall I found this show very entertaining and a good escape. It is currently licensed by Sentai Filmworks and is available on Crunchyroll for streaming. I will leave a link and if you want you can sign up to a two week free trial of Crunchyroll to watch Monthly Girl’s Nozaki-kun in HD with no ads. Thank you for reading my review and till next time sayonara!

White Album 2 Review
There are certain anime which leave a certain impression on you after you finish watching it. It’s a feels like a void, that after watching this you won’t be able to find anything to fill the emptiness that this show leaves on an emotional level. White Album 2 is a rollercoaster ride of emotion, and trust me it is one hell of a ride.

White Album 2 was done by Satelight who have done a wide range of anime from Noein to Fairy Tail.

The story follows Haruki Kitahara and the light music club in his high school. It takes place in ... the last half of his final year in high school. The light music club is disbanding and the only thing that can save it is if Haruki gets the mysterious piano player from the room across from where he practices and finds a replacement singer before the school festival. Now White Album is a sequel but a standalone sequel, you don’t need to see White Album to understand what is going on in White Album 2. The story itself is what White Album 2 does very well. It is a drama, romance, slice of life anime and from the anime from the same genres I have seen White Album 2 is a great one, it does have its flaws but so does every anime. The story is set in two arcs: before the festival and the aftermath of the festival. The first focuses on character development and showing us the personality of the characters setting up the second half of the show. The second arc presents us with the development of the characters relationships with each other and expands upon their already developed characters. The story is tear jerking and wonderful and fills you with so many emotions through the course of thirteen episodes. To me it is a good love story with many twist and turns from, illness to love triangles.

The characters are also very well crafted. To start things off you have our main lead Haruki Kitahara, he is a smart, preachy, meddlesome and caring boy who would do anything to help his friends. He is your typical male lead from a slice of life show. Haruki is also a member of the light music club and he plays the guitar. There is also the dual female lead: Setsuna Ogiso and Kazuki Touma. Setsuna is the school idol who everyone adores, with a beautiful voive. Kazuki is the mysterious student transferred from the elite music department. Both characters like Haruki’s are very well fleshed out, they both add something different to the drama aspect of the show. Setsuna is the happy go lucky girl of the group who is near enough perfect, whilst Kazuki is your typical quiet tsundere character who at first doesn’t say much but you have a deep feeling she wants to say more than she does. In anime I usually don’t like the tsundere characters but Kazuki Touma is the exception. Her character is so well developed and her interactions with the other characters so well done that I couldn’t help but love her as a character. There are a few side charcaters like Haruki’s friends and Kazuki’s mother and they fill their roles perfectly. The only character I actually had a problem with was Haruki himself just for the fact that he was a little bit dense when it came to women but I suppose it was kind of a character trait as well.

The animation is quite good. It’s not Kill La Kill or Gurren Lagann quality but it’s very pretty and works well with the show. The animation was at its best during the musical performances especially at the festival performance episode. They used great use of lighting in the show which helped the moods of the scenes.

The soundtrack is amazing. Its musical score fits the show so well. The songs used in the performance scenes are well written and catchy as well as the opening and ending songs. The music in most places was light and peaceful and added a sense of magic to the show. The voice actors do a great job making their character’s come to life. Hitomi Nabatame did a great job voicing Kazuki Touma. She has appeared in a wide variety of anime like Oreimo voicing Saori.

Now I have gave my praises I should probably let you in on the flaws of the show. To me they are pretty minor, the biggest of these minor flaws being how abruptly the show ends. It just stops. However it could be argued that this is to show reality and that even though the characters want one thing doesn’t mean they will always get it.

Currently I White Album 2 hasn’t been licensed outside of Japan. I searched for a while and I couldn’t find any details on if it was licensed or not. However fear not if you want to watch this anime then you can do so on Crunchyroll, I will leave a link and you can go watch it and if you want to enjoy White Album 2 to the fullest you can sign up for the 2 week free membership and try out their premium services. Thank you for reading my review and till next time sayonara

Baccano! Review

Baccano is a 16 episode long anime series, 3 episodes of which are OVA episodes. It was produced by Brain’s Base and licensed by Madman Entertainment, Funimation Entertainment and Manga Entertainment. It has both an English dub and sub.

Baccano is set in the great depression of the 1930’s in America and follows a cast of characters who meet each other throughout the shows duration. The basic plot is that it is a series of interlocking stories from different characters perspectives which weave together to create this great tale of immortal gangsters, circus assassins and bank robbers. This anime overall has a very ... pulp-fiction sort of feel to it and pulls it off very well and this gives the show such a uniqueness .The two most common places where the stories take place are New York City and the Flying Pussyfoot express which is a train running from Chicago to New York.

The plot for Baccano is fantastic. It jumps from story to story fluently and explains itself wonderfully. The plot drives the show and instantly gets you hooked in the first episode. The thing I find the most interesting in episode 1 is how they show you so many spoilers but they are so disjointed that they don’t mean anything to you and I think that it is brilliant. The show switches between its 3 plots effortlessly and although can get confusing at times it still manages to keep you highly entertained. However some people may get confused because of the switching between plots and the information given and I confess I have watched this show 3 times and I am still learning new things about it.

Because Baccano has not 1 main plot but 3 it is hard to distinguish a main character however some would argue that Isaac and Miria are the main characters because they featured heavily in all 3 plots but to me they are just important side characters. The truth is that there is no main character in Baccano. Everyone is a main character. The characters vary from mafia members to bank robbers as well as a psycho/monster/circus assassin called Claire Stanfield who also goes by the name Vino, who coincidentally is my favourite character. All the characters get a decent amount of screen time and development. The show did well in managing all the characters however some people would argue that the sheer amount of characters is a negative point for Baccano. However, I cannot say the same. I loved pretty much every character in this show bar a couple of annoying characters such as Jacuzzi Splot. Yes that is his name.

To me the animation looked flawless. It showed Baccano so well and provided pleasant viewing every time I watch it. The animation is smooth, clear and connected in all the action scenes as well as the scenes where things were a bit more calm and collected. Overall I cannot fault Brain’s Base they did a fantastic job animating this show.

Now here is a question sub or dub? My suggestion after watching both is, dub. Without a doubt dub! It fits in so well with plot since it is set in America. The voice actors do a fantastic job in the heavy dialogue scenes and differentiating all the different accents that the characters have. No information or emotions are lost in the translation. I would also pick dub over sub because of all the information we are given throughout the 16 episodes. It’s easier to miss out chunks of information when reading subtitle than just watching the dub and I do confess you can still miss bits out but not the extent that may happen when watching the sub. Although it is your personal preference I just recommend the dub a lot more.

The soundtrack to this anime series is phenomenal, Baccano has tracks that fit for every situation the characters are faced in and it is used to high degree of mastery. The opening theme “Guns & Roses” by Paradise Lunch is amazing, I can just sit and listen to on loop whenever I want it’s just a great song. The opening itself shows most of the characters and their names which is helpful in the later episodes when the show is in full swing of weaving in and out of the various storylines. The ending theme “Calling” by Kaori Oda is good but skip-able (more for the reason that you want to find out what happens next than the ending theme itself).

Overall Baccano is a bundle of awesomeness that you should defiantly watch. With its beautiful, animation, amazing characters, unique plot and epic soundtrack it’s a show that I think should not be missed. It had some minor flaws here and there but they really are tiny compared to the overall greatness of the show. Give Baccano a watch!

Jyu oh sei Anime Review

Jyu oh sei or in English planet of the beast king is an 11 episode anime released back in 2006. The studio handled the production are the hard hitter bones who have produced many shows ranging from Full Metal Alchemist/ Full Metal Alchemist Brother hood to Space Dandy. Bones is one of my personal favourite studios but that doesn’t mean that every work they put out is going to amaze me. Jyu oh sei is one of those shows which had an intriguing premise but it never lived up to its full potential.

Jyu oh sei is set in the distant star ... system of Balkan and follows the tragic tale of a boy named Thor. He and his twin brother Rai return home one day to find their parents dead, they are then kidnapped and sent to the Plant of Chimera, a jungle plant where plants rule and the only way to survive is to become a beast. The plot of this show isn’t bad per say just rushed. The show only has 11 episodes and in this short amount of time it covers a lot. To speed things up there is even a time skip at the end of episode 5. The main objective of Thor the main character is to become the beast king (basically the ultimate ruler of the planet) and get back to his old home and get revenge on those who killed his parents and sent his brother and him away to Chimera. Jyu oh sei is filled with tragedy and surprisingly politics. Even though the planet Chimera where most of the show is set is a chaotic world ruled by plants the people there follow laws and have multiple societies. The show does well to explain the laws of the planet and define the path that Thor must take to become beast king. When picking up the show it looked like a survival/action show and even though those genres are present they are definitely shadowed by tragedy and drama that Jyu oh sei produces.

Jyu oh sei also has taken inspiration from Norse Mythology, many of the characters names being from Norse mythology like Thor and Odin.

There are not that many characters to discuss. The main ones only really being Thor the protagonist, his best friend/ love interest Tiz, his sort of adult figure/guide Third, his brother Rei and a boy named Zagi. There are few side characters which fade in and out through the running of the shows but the names above are the ones to remember. Thor is your basic strong willed protagonist. Out of the main cast he is definitely the most likeable and his brother Rai being the exact opposite of him made him to me anyway the least likeable character. Thor’s goal is to get back to Juno his home and confront those who murdered his parents. At times his character can be a bit bland however as the time goes by he begins to grow and becomes a more rounded character. The biggest problem I have with his character is due to the direction of the show and its writing. Later on in the show another female character is introduced and he instantly falls in love with her and declares this after only knowing her for like 20 minutes and at the beginning of that episodel she hated him. His voice actors did a good job both in the dub and sub but I wouldn’t say that dub is amazing but it is good enough to watch. Tiz and Third are Thor’s left and right hands, they help him through his journey to the top and provide a good contrast of characters.

The soundtrack to the show was pretty under par, I can’t recall any piece of the soundtrack that stood out to me whilst even watching the show. The opening wasn’t to my taste and I feel that it doesn’t really fit the show and what it was going for. The ending however I thought was quite good and the only piece of music from the show that I have went back and listened too.

Bones usual shows have stellar animation however not every show can have jaw dropping awesome animation however I felt that the show wasn’t the best animation wise and this was definitely seen in the short and few fight scenes. Compared to other anime from 2006 it definitely wasn’t this best however I have seen worse and isn’t so bad that it ruins the show, if it was better I just think the show would have stuck out a little bit more.

Now the plot to me was ok but I did have a few problems with it, for one it was really rushed. By the end of episode 5 we had a 4 year time skip. The main gripe I have with this show is how much more developed it could have been if had been given more time and more episodes. The ending of the show I felt was also rushed and they could have done with a 12 episode to wrap it up a little bit more neatly.

Overall Jyu oh sei is an anime which I thought would be a survival/action which turned out to be more of dramatic/political/tragedy. Jyu oh sei went in a direction I never thought it would and for what it did I applaud it. Even though it feels rushed in some places especially the time scaling after episode 5 and the ending, I would still say that if you want to watch something that is quick and is filled with tragedy and drama then go ahead just don’t go in thinking it’s going to blow your mind because it won’t. It may sound like I am hating on the show, but I’m not it just didn’t stick out. Jyu oh sei is licensed by Funimation and Manga Entertainment and can be bought in DVD with both sub and dub. Thanks for reading!