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The fact that this sits at a 7.22 score (4.8 on Crunchyroll) at the time of writing, almost makes me want to give up anime for good. Are standards truly so low today?

To call it an imitation of HameFura is an insult to HameFura. At least HameFura has funny characters and decent comedic timing. Akuyaku has none of it. The characters are as vapid as they are boring. The story is a complete mess (it's full of all these tropes, but none of them are developed into anything remotely coherent) and has about as much substance as a soap bubble. The art + animation ... are below subpar and looks really really low budget. There's nothing that made me sympathize particularly much with any of the characters because none of them had any personality or likeability. Aileen, the man character, is very predictably written, though I will say her stubborn persistance has its charms.

The final battle with the other chick is deeply underwhelming and annoying. You get the usual villain evilly giggling through the battle while our hero is struggling and doing her best. It's the trope of tropes. She doesn't even actually defeat her. It's the stupid bird that saves the day.

All in all, Akuyaku brought nothing new to the table. Had it at least been funny it might have been worth it just for the gags, but it isn't. I think I half-chuckled once and I can't even remember why.

This is yet another conveyor-belt isekai in a genre that keeps deteriorating with each new installment.

This is the most absurd thing I've seen in a while. The story makes absolutely zero sense and keeps hinting at some deeper lore and backstory that's never elaborated on. There's witches and magic and action and we're never told why. There's a couple of main characters who have some kind of past with each other that seems significant to a virtually non-existing plot, but their memory of it has been erased. Are we told what it is or why it was erased? Nope.

The writing truly took a backseat here, so why is it still a fun watch? Simply put, because of the characters. ... They're charming, stupid and weird and mostly female. The man guy is a boring weakling, as is often the case in this type of anime, but it never gets too annoying. The villains are fun and there's a bunch of great gags, some poking fun at tropes.

So if you don't mind the lack of coherent story and just enjoy watching stupid characters do fun stuff, this is a fine little entertaining show. Quite well animated too.

Well I guess I'm like one of the four or so people on MAL who didn't like this show. It's not the first time this has happened. I watch a show then go to MAL to see what people think about it and feel like I watched an entirely different thing.

Bocchi the Rock was a major disappointment for me. It's been hyped to the clouds everywhere, with clips on TikTok and twitter memes and all that usual stuff. But why?

It's hardly the first anime to deal with social anxiety. A fairly significant percentage of slice of life stories have at least one character who ... suffers from it. It's everywhere and it's been dealt with in a million different ways. It's one of the things I love about Japanese manga and anime: the fact that stuff like anxiety, pathological shyness and introversion etc. are brought up. Sadly we rarely see these types of characters portrayed in Western media.

Hitori Gotoh (Bocchi) is in a league of her own, though. Her social anxiety borderlines full blown mental illness. She's basically a hikikomori character who hasn't (yet) become a total recluse. She undergoes very little character development throughout the show and, for me, it starts grating on my nerves around episode 4 or 5. I've had my own fights with anxiety and I could not relate much to Bocchi in terms of how she reacts to things. I could relate to her inner monologues and fantasy world, but not so much her seemingly pathological self-loathing and inability to pretend.

But that's not so important really. The show isn't going for realism. It's a comedy and there are arguably many funny scenes. It was also refreshing to see the visual experimentation with claymation, #D animation and real life footage. The art was good, the voice acting was good etc. Technically it's good, even impressive at times. I particularly liked the concert scenes.

Where the whole thing falls apart for me, is in how Hitori Gotoh is set up as a character. We start out learning how she's this prodigy who can play guitar like Hendrix and who has a massive following on YouTube. So you spend the entire show waiting for the payoff. When will people finally see how talented she is? When will she finally blow away the audience. We have been told she's that good and the only thing standing in her way is her social anxiety. The story would have made sense if it was about her overcoming these anxieties through her music and friendships and that the payoff would be recognition - from her band members, the club owners, the audience.

But, it never happens. In a 12-episode anime which is about a band, there's three concerts. One on the street, one at the club and one at the school. At the street and at the club she does show a bit of what she can do, but even so, the reaction from those around her is pretty underwhelming and it feels anti-climactic. Only one of her band members comments on it and it's like "oh cool you're that chick from YouTube. Nice to have you on board". And that's literally the only time in the entire story where Bocchi is praised for her talent by those around her. It doesn't happen again. In the last concert at the school she's basically ignored - her guitar breaks - and it's the lead singer who gets all the attention. Except for when Bocchi does a stupid thing (lol how funny) and once again is the clown of the show. We can't have her get praised now, can we? Nooo! She must be humiliated in front of the entire school.

Why even bother setting her up as a major talent when you basically never see her use it? And even when she does use it (that one time at the club) there's no particular reaction from people. The Ijichi sisters both recognize her from her YouTube videos and both are like "oh so that's you. Cool. Whatever".

I sat through the entire show waiting for Bocchi to finally get the recognition she deserved by finally overcoming her fears and really show what she could do, but that payoff just never happens. Her social anxiety is played for laughs, but becomes extremely repetitive and takes the place of another, better story that's hiding in there somewhere. The girl who we are told is a great guitarist spends 12 episodes being a clown to be laughed at (not with) and hardly showing off her talent - which is basically her one redeeming feature.

There's a narrative principle called "Chekhov's Gun" named after Anton Chekhov, the Russian playwright. And it goes like this:

"Chekhov's gun is a narrative principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed. For example, if a writer features a gun in a story, there must be a reason for it, such as it being fired sometime later in the plot. All elements must eventually come into play at some point in the story."

In the case of Bocchi the Rock, Hitori Gotoh's talent is the gun. The show literally begins with showing what a great guitar player she is and how admired she is online for her videos. She is a character who has this enormous gift to share with the world, but who is prevented from doing it due to her crippling social anxiety. That's the setup. Now we wait for the gun to go off. We wait for the moment when she finally breaks through her shell and gets the admiration and recognition she deserves. And it sorta kinda happens once (at the club) BUT - and here's the kicker - it changes nothing whatsoever. It does not grow her as a person, as a musician or in the eyes of her friends etc. That one thing we have waited for falls flat and stays there. The rest of the story is just more of her being socially awkward and the last concert is - in terms of Bocchi - a failure.

In Bocchi the Rock, Checkhov's gun is loaded with blanks.

And this is why I can't recommend it. It's unfulfilling, even frustrating. There's no payoff and little to no character growth. There's a decent story in there somewhere, but it never materializes. All in all, Bocchi the Rock is a dud.

I'm pretty sure I watched Ao Haru Ride a few years ago, but recently came across it while browsing for romantic/romcom animes and decided to watch the first episode to jog my memory. I ended up watching the entire thing and the OVA's. And while some scenes did remind me that I had watched it before, most of it had been happily forgotten. And for good reason. I guess my brain pretty much treated it as useless information and binned it.

Because, wow! This is one of the more annoying and frustrating stories I've had the displeasure of sitting through.

Let me sum up:

Kou is ... a clinically depressed and rude douchebag who, back in elementary school, talked to a girl a couple of times ("talked" might be too generous here - more like exchanged a few words with her). Back then he was a sweet, soft spoken kid and the girl was also a sweet kid and they developed a crush on each other. Then stuff happened in Kou's life and he had to move away.

Years go by and now we're in high school. Our main character is the aforementioned girl. Even though it's now like six years later, this girl, Futaba, never forgot those 10-20 minutes in total she spent with Kou back when they were 12 or whatever. Because yeah - that's certainly something that people do. Unbeknownst to her, Kou moved back and now (surprise surprise) attends the same high school as her.

"Everyone likes tall, broody, sullen hunks with genius IQs." - The Love Hypothesis, by Ali Hazelwood.

Kou is now a tall, broody and sullen hunk who also used to be in the advanced classes for smart kids, but because he's sullen and broody and doesn't care (in that attractive way hot guys with great hair don't care) he falls behind on his studies and ends up in Futaba's class. She hadn't noticed him before then, because he had changed a whole lot. You see, his mom died (which we find out very late in the show) and he's so traumatized by it that he's turned into a very boring, standoffish, depressed and extremely passive-aggressive jerk who wallows in introspective self-pity, the way only anime characters can. In short, he's miserable and if he existed in the real world, he'd make everyone around him miserable too.

However that doesn't stop Futaba from obsessing over him, because it's pretty clear that Kou is supposed to be a tragic antihero kinda guy, the sort of dude that teen girls find hot because he's "mysterious".

The rest of the story is pretty much about Kou negging Futaba and playing hot and cold with her. Futaba on the other hand is a pathetic slave to her emotions who won't back down, regardless of how big of an a-hole he is to her (but just enough to still be cool and mysterious). Somehow Futaba gets 3 other classmates (none of whom are worth mentioning due to their lack of personality) to obsess over him as well. So they basically spend the entire show trying to get through to Kou because, yes, it's very normal for a bunch of high school kids to spend every waking hour talking about one guy, trying to interact with that guy and do whatever they can for that guy, just so that guy will bless them with his attention.

That's basically it. However, to add insult to injury, the romance between Futaba and Kou is never realized, because both of them are a couple of emotionally immature kids who can't get their acts together and confess despite every goddamn stolen glance, embrace and touchy feely moment between them. By the end it's so bloody obvious how they feel about each other, but because this is Japan, they're apparently both too obtuse to read the signs and act on it. And that's how it ends. We've all been blue-balled. Kou and Futaba don't end up together in the show - but there's a whole bunch of internal dialogue platitudes about not giving up and so on. There's actually one scene where Kou seems to have an epiphany and that particular scene works well. But then, the next day, he's more or less back to his brooding self.

And that's how it goes. The story doesn't deliver on any of the promises it sets up. Kou does go through some minor character development, I guess. But not enough to salvage this mess of a narrative. Futaba pretty much spends every scene chasing after Kou and that's basically her entire reason for existing. 99% of every thought of hers we hear, is about Kou. Kou this, Kou that. Kou, Kou, Kou. Frankly it ends up being kinda creepy. And what a sad message for teen girls (Ao Haru Ride's target audience). As if there isn't anything else in life than the man you are in love with. By the latter half of the show, I was praying for a scene where Futaba slapped Kou in the face and told him to get his s*** together. But no. Lots of tears and lots of pleading. But no well-deserved kicks to the groin. Futaba's reason for existing is Kou. Without him, she'd be air. As an independent character she has very little substance beyond her schoolgirl crush.

If Ao Haru Ride is a representation of the romantic hopes and dreams of writer & illustrator, Io Sakisaka, I can't help but feel some pity for her and hope she didn't end up with a Kou of her own.

Since I know it's based on a manga series, I looked up how the rest of the story goes and as far as I can tell, Ao Haru Ride is to manga what terrible American soap operas are to Television:
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"...just when Kou is about to move on from his past, Yui Narumi, his friend from Nagasaki, moves to his town, and he stays with her to help her through her father's death. When Futaba realizes that she cannot change Kou, she decides to move on. When she begins a relationship with Toma Kikuchi, Kou realizes that his relationship with Yui is holding him back and preventing him from accepting positive changes in his life. After he removes himself for good, he begins actively pursuing Futaba. Futaba's lingering feelings for him complicates her relationship with Toma, and they amicably break up.

During Christmas, Futaba agrees to meet Kou in the same place where they promised to meet years before until his transfer, but it is cut short when Kou is involved in a minor accident. At the hospital, Futaba and Kou admit to each other that they are in love. At the end of the series, the two, along with their friends, move on with their lives as they establish new relationships and accept new changes within each other. Kou changes his surname back to Tanaka, and Futaba believes that something interesting has finally started for her."
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It's hard to imagine a more unfulfilling and anticlimactic ending after sticking with these generally unlikeable characters through such a slog of a story. A story, by the way, which is so popular with fans that it not only spawned a 13-episode anime, but a series of books, a serialized spin-off ("Ao Haru Ride: The Affinity of the Stars"), an audio book, a crossover comic and a live action movie.

Why are vulnerable and "damaged" men so attractive to so many women? It is said that women see men as projects they can 'fix'. I don't think that's a universal truth, but it's very much the core story of Ao Haru Ride. It's a fantasy about a guy who needs fixing and a girl who will do everything emotionally possible to fix him, regardless of how much of a dick he is to her. Maybe this appeals to Japanese girls and women because Japanese males are notoriously bad at being males. Or maybe it appeals to women because these types of guys trigger their maternal instincts? I don't know. But it's probably safe to say that had Kou and Futaba ended up together, their relationship would likely have been a codependent toxic mess. So... yay, I guess?

Why this story needed to be told remains a mystery, though.

Started out entertaining enough despite all the re-used footage from the game (yeah I noticed) then basically turned meaningless after the story jumped forward in time and by the finish it pretty much no longer had a story to tell except "yay everything is shit and then everyone brutally dies. The end".

The animation is fine enough and conveys the world and mood of the game quite accurately. But there's just not much of a story here (just like the game itself, coincidentally - or not). I'm not sure what the deal is, but it's like they are more into worldbuilding than coming up with ... anything approaching a satisfying narrative or likeable characters. This show had none. In fact, the least likeable character in the story is David. And he dies the way he lived - as a nobody.

If that's what you consider a great tale to tell, then sorry I'm not gonna subscribe to your newsletter.

Oh, spoiler alert by the way.

I have not played the game this was based on and after watching the anime, never will.

This show wants to be everything at once - drama, comedy, isekai, harem, battle anime - and fails at doing any of the genres well.

First of all there's the obvious issue of the story referencing a bunch of stuff that is never explained to viewers and which, I assume, only makes sense to those who played the game and read the manga or light novel or whatever the basis is.

Secondly, the whole thing is just so boringly generic and predictable and huge chunks of the main story arc ... makes no sense at all. Especially the Karyl character is just terribly conceived.

Thirdly, in the last 3 episodes they introduce like 70 new characters without explaining who they are and where they come from and stuff the story so full of false endings and mythology grabbed out of thin air, that I was loudly begging for it all to just end already.

The only thing Princess Connect! Re:Dive has going for it is a few mildly amusing running gags. It should have stuck to being comedy and quit the whole drama thing, because it doesn't work, it's predictable and we have seen it all a gazillion times before, but rarely so incompetently done.

This is garbage.

As usual I am at odds with the majority opinion on this site.

I did enjoy the first two seasons of Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai, which were mostly comedy and satire.

I haven't read the manga, so this is purely from the observations of someone who watched the anime:

Season 3 begins by introducing a bunch of characters who were conquered off screen by Keima Katsuragi. They all apparently have their own stories in the manga, but we get them as flashbacks in the anime. And it basically continues like that through the season. References to things that never happened in the previous shows, but ... only have backstories in the manga. Even at the very end, a completely new character pops up that Keima Katsuragi knows by name, but who no one who never read the manga will know who is. Elsie - who is a major character in the other shows, hardly even makes an appearance. However, since she's pretty annoying, I'm ok with that. It is, though, a super inconsistent way to conclude a story.

Add to all this one of the single most unsatisfying and frustrating endings I have ever seen in any anime ever, I have to give Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Megami-hen a measly 4 stars. And that's primarily for the art.

The story is a complete mess and there's no conclusions to any of the characters, least of all the protagonist himself who just returns to the darkness of his room.

What a total letdown. What a disappointment. What a waste of time.

God knows there's a lot of bad anime out there, but it's rare to come across something as downright appallingly written as this trite and idiotic garbage.

Majikoi is a completely messed up mix of lowbrow humor ("oh no he saw my panties"), ecchi ("please wear my panties on your head") and self-important, bloated battle anime nonsense ("clever of you to use the Kuwazawa Tornado Blast Technique but it is no match for my Horuko Lightening Punch") with ridiculously overpowered enemies who are always absurdly 10 steps ahead of the whining protagonist and his band of plucky girls who all want to screw him.

Don't watch ... this abhorrent trash unless you're 11 years old and think boob jokes are fun and smug evil people who act like smug evil people are cool.

This is for pubescent boys in their early teens and no one else.

They sure don't make anime like this anymore! It actually took me a couple of episodes to notice why I was so in awe of what I was looking at, and it amazes me how so many reviews here completely miss it:

The production values are simply through the roof! Every background is a work of art. The detailing is mind blowing. I can't recall watching anything quite like it, to be honest. The background art alone could be used for teaching anime artists how to do this stuff.

The same goes for character animation. The movements are amazingly fluid and natural, body language and facial ... expressions are the quality of animated movies with much bigger budgets. Kyoto Animation truly knocked it out of the park on this one. Visually it's a masterpiece.

As for the story, it's based on a series of mystery novels written by Honobu Yonezawa. It's obvious that the target audience is younger people (early- to mid teens I believe) as the "mysteries" are all fairly benign every day type things. I found it entertaining and cute. It's not exactly Agatha Christie or Conan Doyle, but more in line with The Three Investigators book series or The Famous Five by Enid Blyton, though much less fantastic as the "mysteries" here truly are something taken from normal every day things. It mostly works, though a few of the episodes could easily have been left out.

Aside from the "mysteries", Hyouka is about friendship and first loves and for me, it's the interaction between the characters that makes it worth watching (besides the impressive artwork). I'd have appreciated a more definitive conclusion to the relationship between the two main characters, but I've come to expect from Shōnen that romance is often expressed internally rather than externally. Even romantic animes aimed at older audiences often don't show the protagonists kissing or even holding hands. This can be frustrating for Western audiences who like everything expressed in ways that leave no doubts and nothing to the imagination, but it is what it is. Cultural differences and all that.

Sadly, the director and several of the animators who worked on Hyouka were killed in the arson attack on Kyoto Animation in 2019. If nothing else, this anime stands as a permanent testament to their awesome talent. Hyouka is anime done right.

If you go by the poster and the intro, Adachi to Shimamura looks like a romance. Two cute girls on a bike, deep eye contact, hands brushing up against each other, cherry blossom leaves falling like snow through sunlit scenery.

The first couple of episodes builds towards something like that. Then the story gradually loses balance and becomes about a one-sided, obsessive and unrequited puppy-dog infatuation of one girl for another who doesn't seem to care much about anything but herself.

Sounds familiar? That's because it is. It's basically the same premise of that other horrendous and disturbing Yuri/shoujo ai anime, Citrus, though the characters ... in Adachi to Shimamura are somewhat less obnoxious and sociopathic.

I don't know why love between girls is so hard to write for light novel authors and mangakas, but they always seem end up this way. The relationships are portrayed as essentially unnatural - as something that inevitably results in toxic, unequal and deeply unhealthy dynamics with possessive behavior, borderline stalker obsession, emotional abuse and general creepiness.

Other notable examples of these toxic relationships in shoujo ai are Bloom into You and Fragtime.

In all the above mentioned animes, relationships between girls are depicted as unequal - with one girl who has an unhealthy and cringy obsession with another girl, who is generally emotionally distant and cold and doesn't necessarily change for the better by the end. There's also copious amounts of emotional and/or physical abuse in several of them.

Adachi to Shimamura leaves you with a bad taste in the mouth. In the last inner monologue by Shimamura - the object of Adachi's creepy obsession - we learn that Shimamura is basically just using Adachi's infatuation to not feel lonely and that she'll go along with it until some day she'll be on her own again.

How... ROMANTIC!

This isn't a love story. It's a story about a lonely girl who becomes obsessed with another girl who suffers from chronic boredom and goes along with it for a bit of entertainment. It's sad and depressing and creepy.

Oh and there's a space alien girl too for whatever reason. I assume there's some point to that in the manga this was based on, but in the TV show it's just utterly pointless.

We deserve better shoujo ai than Adachi to Shimamura, Citrus, Bloom into You and Fragtime. But I guess this is all we can expect from a society as conservative and patriarchal as the Japanese. I've yet to see a satisfying and realistic story about love between girls. But if you have to pick one among the ones I mentioned, Bloom into You is probably the least terrible.