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My New Boss Is Goofy. What a unique title. With that, I chose to give the show a watch out of curiosity.

I'm glad I did. The show is based around the lives of Kentaro Momose, who has quit his old job working under a powerdrunk and abusive boss and his new boss, Yusei Shirosaki. Momose starts working under Shirosaki and at first is worried about possibly getting on the bad side of his new boss. It soon turns out, however, that Shirosaki is nothing like Momose's old boss and is a kind-hearted, yet extremely goofy guy and the two strike up an immediate friendship. ... The two are joined by their friendly, yet quirky and attention-starved section chief, Mitsuo Aoyama and new employee who jumped ship after talking to Momose regarding his own abusive boss, the extroverted bisexual Aigo Kinjou. Along with the four human members of the cast, we also have a little white kitten who Shirosaki names Hakutou after finding him abandoned. Hakutou's internal dialogue reveals him to be a tsundere to the highest degree, which only serves to make the little guy cuter.

What we have from there is a 12 episode slice of life anime with next to no drama in spite of the set-up. While Momose's old boss is mentioned quite frequently and shows up a couple of times, there is next to no conflict in the show. There's certainly none among the main characters and even though Aoyama can get a little bit much at times with his neediness, what we get is a fun, charming, relaxing and honestly healing workplace slice of life comedy mostly based around the extremely close friendship of Momose and Shirosaki, their cat and their colleagues. All of the characters have their own charm. All of their dynamics work and even Hakutou add to the plot and are a draw.

The animation is perfectly fine, the soundtrack works for what it is, but neither are really the focal point of the show. There's certainly nothing bad enough to detract from the overall quality of the show, the animation and art style suit the show perfectly and the background music, opening and closing themes do their job and again add to the charm of the show.

My New Boss Is Goofy isn't an action-oriented anime. It's not particularly plot-driven either. The central charm is the characters and the goings-on in their lives in any given episode. Whether it's Shirosaki and Momose finding Hakutou and Shirosaki being the best cat dad he can be, Shirosaki and Momose visiting Shirosaki's grandmother and Momose meeting Shirosaki's older brother, Momose and Kinjou hanging out bonding over past relationships or even Hakutou trying to find Shirosaki's lost shirt button as a thank you to Shirosaki for loving him from the second he adopted him, plots are very character driven which is helped by the fact every single one of our central characters is likeable and has their own quirks. The show doesn't try reinventing the wheel, and it doesn't have to or need to.

As you can tell from my review, I really enjoyed the show. There are heavy BL overtones that the show never follows through with, which may disappoint some people, but given the charm of the shows and the warmth of everything, it's not something which detracts from the show too much. Some may even find the fact it's simply a show about two extremely close guy friends, their friends and their cat with no romance *more* of a draw. All you have is a purely wholesome, warm, pleasant, soul-healing slice of life anime you can just sit down, watch, whether as a marathon or an episode at a time and feel good after watching. My New Boss Is Goofy may never get the acclaim of say, Vinland Saga season 2, and it certainly doesn't aim to be the epic that is. But as an entertaining, feel-good anime, it does its job perfectly and is my favourite anime of this current season. Do yourself a favour and check it out.

So it seems that people are jumping to a lot of conclusions about Rokudo's Bad Girls without having properly watched the show. Because that rating is very low and several reviews are nitpicking at things which either aren't true, are subversions of classic harem tropes or things which simply aren't there. If those people would give the show a proper watch, they'd see that Rokudo's Bad Girls has a lot of charm, a lot of heart, a fun story and some wonderful characters who make the show a fun watch.

The show starts out looking like it's heading in some pretty cliched directions. You have Tosuke ... Rokudo, the archetypical loser protagonist who hangs out with his fellow outcasts, Masaru "Colonel" Hinomoto and Kouta "Chief" Kijima, the three being bully bait, particularly for school delinquent Haruya Iinuma. Sick of being picked on, Rokudo and his friends find a charm of his grandfather's, which he uses, hoping to improve his fortunes. Unfortunately, rather than granting strength or finding some way to turn him into a cool kid, Rokudo's charm leaves him with a pentagram on his forehead which leads to any female delinquent or "bad girl" falling in love with him. The bad girls include notorious delinquent and brooding loner Ranna Himawari, Iinuma's girlfriend Tsubaki and loli ruler and most powerful delinquent in school Sayuri Osanada, all of who begin to see Rokudo as the perfect man.

Now, you may think, as do some negative reviewers that this will lead into your standard "dorky protag becomes a chick magnet by dubious means and ends up with his own harem of women out of his league who lust over him for no apparent reason" harem anime, right? Well, you would be wrong. Because Rokudo instead uses his newfound power to try reforming the girls who fall in love with him and tries to use his new power to improve the people around him. As Rokudo falls into a world of being challenged by delinquents, he begins forging new friendships including with former tormentor Iinuma due to his association with these bad girls and begins to change them for the better.

Rokudo himself is a change from the standard "cowardly, easily bullied loser" protagonist trope in that while he is occasionally scared by the delinquents around him, he never has screaming, crying meltdowns. He tries his utmost to be the leader his friends think he is. He begins to grow, improve and change (well, as much as you can in 7 episodes so far) and is never humiliated or treated as someone without dignity. He's not a perverted dork who abuses his power and uses it to seduce women he'd never normally have contact with. The only girl he seems to be forging a romance with is Ranna herself. Rokudo is more or less Takemichi from Tokyo Revengers done right. And he's refreshing for it.

On paper, Rokudo's Bad Girls shouldn't work. if it played all of the standard "Loser who gets a harem somehow" tropes straight, it wouldn't. it would be another dime a dozen, forgettable harem anime for the pile. In practice, it does, because it completely subverts the tropes in question, barely functions as a harem anime and gives us a cast of fun, interesting characters, a good story, an upbeat, optimistic tone and gives us a crew of protagonists we want to see happy. It's not the same old, same old. It's enjoyable, funny and entertaining, which is what a good action comedy anime should be.

The anime may not be for everybody because of the animation style or they may not like the characters, but if you come in without pre-concieved notions that this is "just another harem anime," you may just be surprised. I'm enjoying the hell out of Rokudo's Bad Girls so far, and I'm hoping it gets a second season.

Ah, Kaginado. What fun. As someone who loves Key's work, this series is a wonderful parody of the tear-jerking moments and characters who make up Clannad, Little Busters, Air, Kanon, Rewrite and as of this season, Angel Beats. Much like season 1, it's wonderful to see all of our favourites return. This time we have an overarching story where Yurippe and the Angel Beats crew they to destroy the Kaginado universe and comically failing before realising they're enjoying things themselves. The music is taken right from the visual novels, the animation is great and colourful and each episode is fun as well as funny along ... with the occasional dark joke at the expense of each character's darkest moments, as well as several callbacks to season 1.

Kaginado season 1 had charm which continues onto season two. The only drawbacks in my opinion are that in some episodes it feels like they're trying to cram too many characters in in spite of the short run time of the episode, and it still feels like some girls got shafted, i.e Tomoyo and Kotomi from Clannad as well as Ayu from Kanon due to still barely appearing or speaking among others, while characters who already got used frequently in season 1 still appear quite frequently.

That said, they're minor gripes which overall don't detract from the story. You still get a lot of fan favourites making appearances and even Kappei from Clannad shows up in the first episode making light of essentially being the "forgotten" Clannad character. Kaginado season 2 is a more than worthy follow-up to the first season and I highly recommend it. And in typical Key fashion, we have a heartwarming moment at the end which will bring a tear to your eye. Do yourself a favour and give it a watch. 10/10.

Hoop Days was an anime I wasn't expecting much going into. It doesn't have a particularly outstanding score here on MyAnimeList, it's not exactly a new anime and while it may have been my first proper sports anime, I had people left, right and centre telling me that sports anime in general aren't very good. On top of that, the voice actors in the English version were those who work for Blue Water Studios, Ocean Group's cheaper sister studio which isn't exactly known for quality dubbing outside of a couple of notable exceptions (i.e. G Gundam and Cardfight Vanguard.)

With that said, I was pleasantly ... surprised from the very first episode with how much I really enjoyed Hoop Days.

The story of Hoop Days is nothing too complex. It's the story of a High School student named Kazuhiko Aikawa and the basketball club of Mizuho high school. To start with, Mizuho only has 4 players, with their captain, Takumi Fujiwara being banned from playing for a year due to punching out the team's coach a year prior. Slowly but surely, however, Aikawa's positive attitude begins to rub off on the rest of the players in the basketball club, and slowly but surely the boys' basketball team gets back together, regains their passion and begins to win games in their quest to be the best basketball team in Japan. Again, nothing too complex, but it works. The characters are so well-written and likable that you genuinely want to root for them to achieve their goals and succeed. Aikawa in particular is such a nice guy that you can't help but feel his positive attitude rub off on you as a viewer.

As far as voice acting goes, I was pleasantly surprised and a little annoyed. Surprised because while I had fears coming in due to my own past negative experiences with Blue Water Studio dubs, they did a really good job dubbing the characters in Hoop Days. Each voice actor was cast appropriately for their character. Mark Gatha in particular turned in another strong performance as Aikawa. The voice acting suited the characters perfectly. On the other hand I was annoyed because as a fan of the Gundam franchise, I wondered where the quality voice acting was in such Blue Water dubs as Zeta Gundam where the voice actors seemed to really phone it in. If they'd been this good in Zeta Gundam, it more than likely wouldn't have left such a sour taste in my mouth. But this isn't a Zeta Gundam review, and I really can't complain about the voice acting in Hoop Days.

Animation-wise? Nothing too spectacular. A lot of gratuitous CG on the basketball during games and the hoop in games, but as the same studio that created Hoop Days created Initial D's anime, it's to be expected. There are a lot of Initial D elements present to be honest. The same goes for the soundtrack. Very urbany, very hip-hoppy and europoppy, nothing that wouldn't sound out of place in Initial D. Failing that, the animation is nothing overly spectacular. If you're expecting high-quality HD-quality animation, you won't find it here. Hoop Days is *definitely* a product of the mid-00's.

All-in-all, Hoop Days is a fun anime. While it may take itself a bit seriously at times, the characters are enjoyable, the story (while simplistic) is enjoyable and the soundtrack and voice acting are very good. If you're looking for an anime full of complex, mind-blowing twists, you won't find it here. But if you're looking for a light-hearted, fun and entertaining sports anime, Hoop Days is a good place to start. At only 24 episodes, it's not overly long either. Highly recommended.