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Words are hard. Well, defining a word is simple, easy even. But a word takes many meanings in as many contexts in as many cultures and locales. Emphasis and enunciation help assure us that human communication will always be a tricky business and dissonance is ever present. Trying to convey your feelings into writing is hard enough. Reading one person’s feelings and infusing it into a letter for him/her addressed to another party? Even harder. It requires awareness of the many tells of voice and body. And it requires empathy. Trying to convey emotions without proper understanding of what those emotions are is like is ... like trying to describe snow when you're a guy from the tropics where it's wet half the time and hot the other half.

Here we have the gal from the tropics trying to describe what snow is, the eponymous Violet Evergarden, utterly ignorant of the many social nuances of human communication and the many tells of semiotics that she might as well be deaf. (Wait, I’ve seen that story before.) Violet seeks to know what *sigh* “I love you” means beyond what the dictionary says. She seeks to experience it by writing love letters for people in hopes that little by little, she gains more insight. Perhaps, she even needs to experience it firsthand. (I think I know just the guy.)

Okay, I’ve taken enough cheapshots at the rather cliché nature of the setup for such an interesting concept but the thing is, it comes down to execution. And it is an interesting concept. If any studio can go ham in teasing the extraordinary out of the ordinary, it's Kyoto Animation. So take my hand and take a leap with me. This is Violet Evergarden's story of finding clarity in empathy. Let’s see what Kyoto Animation has in store for us.

Alice in Dreamland is one of the latest attempts at retelling the Lewis Caroll classic story, infamous for their rather senseless attempt to make sense of the nonsense that is the mad, wonderful world and story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. To set itself apart from its predecessors, Alice in Dreamland upped up the ante in the madness scale. And by jove, they did it. What could be madder than dolls with mouths that never move, prancing about in the most cost-saving way possible, in various admittedly surreal, bizarre, and horrifically beautiful backdrops, to play a patchwork failure of a story?

The MacGuffin of the story ... is the status of “Queen of the Stories”. Why is it significant? How can it help conquer the "Darkness" that’s also never explained? What were they on when they made this? Some things we’ll never know.

We have over a dozen characters randomly thrown in while the story is running with little to no purpose, character, or motivation. They just lift them straight out of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and smashed them together in a boiling cauldron that moonlights as a chamber pot. They're not characters. They're afterthoughts designed to occupy the space of a scene. They play so little significance for the amount of screentime they got that you could cut the numbers down to half and still retain the story.

And when I say story, I am just being polite. It’s a loose progression of events made up of dolls awkwardly shambling and talking about things that should have at the very least leave you mystified and interested even if it doesn’t make any sense (it doesn’t). It’s not engaging in the art of story-telling. At best, it’s merely explaining why one thing happened or needs to happen. At worst, it’s just plain nonsense.

This is just nonsense. It's amazing how, in trying to give conventional structure to a source story hailed as literary nonsense, they made it even more nonsensical.

The GRRM Reaper once posited the Furniture Rule: that at its core, literature is an exploration of the human condition; the rest is fluff, furniture.

Houseki no Kuni begins as a simple story of immortal, genderless life forms, the Gems, with each individual based around a gemstone from which they take their physical characteristics. They are being hunted down by Lunarians for what seems to be collector’s fancy. Slowly, the story moves on, teasing the layers of mystery of its world and a more intriguing aspect of the entire dynamic unravels, one more conducive to philosophical discourse. The introduction of a third faction, the Admirabilis, elevates ... the nature of their conflict and is poised to bring the series higher should its story continue.

The CGI nature of the show doesn't really take away anything from the narrative but rather enhances and prepares it with its CGI portrayal of the three factions telling a story: the Gems, with their janky yet solid movements, aimless and unmotivated beyond mere survival; the Lunarians, ethereal and eternal, purposeful in action; and the Admirabilis, frills and filaments galore, excess made manifest, seductive and ephemeral.

Underneath the trappings of a fantastical concept, however, Houseki no Kuni is a thesis of how our place in our world is intricately intertwined with our purpose. It's a story about identity.

It's a story of Dia, valued, vaunted, a tier above other gems, yet struggling to find a moment in the light under the vast, dark shadow of a peer better and stronger.

It's a story of Cinnabar, self-exiled, isolation poisoning the mind, bereft of a shoulder to lean on.

Most of all, it's a story of Phos, aimless slacker, wanting to do more than just making an encyclopedia that has no equivalent value assigned by other Gems. Phos wants to fight, swept up in the idea that Gems prove their worth in the only way their circumstances allow: fighting the Lunarians. Phos' initial value was demonstrated when, devoured and broken to bits and pieces, the grim, though temporary, fate evoked nothing but cruelly nonchalant reactions from fellow gems.

How can someone so brittle prove their value when, to paraphrase Einstein, the fishes are judged by their ability to climb a tree.

Houseki no Kuni’s approach to the problem is a rather straightforward one. Instead of changing the playing field to a pond, our little fish is given an opportunity to be better, losing parts of itself in the process. Part of its identity must give, in the hopes that the best version of itself can be achieved. And that hopefully the best version of itself is its truest self. Whether it’s true or not remains to be seen.

And I must say, this conflict of identity and the show’s solution ties in fully with the larger, grander aspects of the narrative: the three factions, each crucially lacking traits the other two possess. Can the three factions be so much more together much like how Phos had become much more than the Mohs scale of hardness? We'll see.

For now, enjoy one lost little fish trying to scale a tree, struggling to find the right balance lest it loses sight of who it is.

Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis was a fun, vibrant, swashbuckling adventure in such a clusterfuck setting. To quote Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories", it's a Secondary World that does not inspire Secondary Belief. But it works for the kind of story Genesis attempted. Shingeki no Bahamut: Virgin Soul attempts to expound on that simple narrative with a far more ambitious story, one that is set up to fail in the light of the world built in Genesis. The established world simply does not hold up to scrutiny once a more serious narrative repeatedly brings forth its glaring flaws.

Virgin Soul is set 10 years after the events of ... Genesis, under a new social equilibrium and power dynamic of a new world order. Enter the ubermensch, super-powered, menacingly armored humans under the control of the king. With humanity's newfound might, they now waged war upon gods and demons. The latter has been soundly defeated years ago and made slaves under the cruel whip of the species they once tormented.

Here, the most glaring problem arises almost immediately. Ethics, morality, socio-economic realities, these are such complicated concepts for a setting with so many holes and so many facets still left unestablished.

The power dynamics introduced in Genesis is one where humans fight an eternal war with demons, with the occasional help from the gods thrown in. One can infer from the events in Genesis that humans are merely proxy in the wars of the gods and demons. It's so simplistic in nature and now that the wheels had turned, you cannot bring yourself to care. Now humanity has the upper hand and by god, they have every right to hold demons in contempt and to flaunt their power against the gods whose whims and fancy they are no longer under the mercy of.

And what is ethics? At what state of social equilibrium is this world under? How do they view slavery? A necessary evil in rebuilding? A proof of humanity's triumph? This should clue you in to how secure or how tenuous the king's hold is and how the events of the story changes that.

On the side of the gods, their effort to bring humanity back into their fold calls forth into question the benefits of such an arrangement. Aside from ready cannon fodder which seems to be composed entirely of one kingdom, there is no other stated benefit for their leader to be feverish about. There is still the matter of survival, though certain conversations side-line that in favor of the idea that humanity, that the sheep has strayed from the flock and requires a shepherd. Or maybe the gods are the supreme arbiter of the world order? Except that the events of Genesis says otherwise.

What is faith? How does it work in pantheon of what seems to be a shit-ton of deities? Are angels gods? Are they minor deities? What do they inspire in people? We have a world where deities have physical manifestations. Surely its not your usual Abrahamic belief?

It's hard to be invested in a setting you keep questioning. Other reviewers will say the failure of Virgin Soul lies in the characters or the story. They are wrong. The failure of Virgin Soul lies in the setting that should have given more depth to the story and more nuance to the characters and their decisions.

Exploring nuance in the politics and ethics of a setting with the barest of social equilibrium... it's simply isn't done. Especially so when much of the meat of Virgin Soul before the final third of its runtime is an attempt at that.

Not much else can be said about Virgin Soul. If you know your Gaise Macon, your Arthas Menethil, your Lelouch Lamperouge, then you've seen this story done better, even by such an infinitesimal degree.

Imagery is such a powerful component of world-building. It’s that one image, frame, or symbol that encapsulates a series so fully and leaves a lasting impression seared into memory. Here, it’s an abyss. And it’s such a perfect, haunting all-pervading imagery of a series that drags you deep into its pitch black vastness that invites mystery, intrigue, and, inevitably, questions.

Welcome to the Abyss, a gigantic and seemingly endless yawning chasm whose origins and nature remain shrouded in darkness.

The great city of Orth is built around a mysterious hole in the ground, one without a hobbit prancing about. It’s a much bigger hole than that, one ... that houses several mapped layers, all with unique micro-climates and ecosystems. Don’t hold your breath however. Much of the upper layers are bypassed in the haste to the deeper layers. Such a format is utilized to avoid stunting the pacing into a glacial crawl. Strangely enough, it’s that haste that actually causes the series to meander in the middle parts as a setting that offered so many possibilities ended up giving so little.

The expectation set when one begins this story is that the focus lies in the abyss itself. The stated goal of the protagonist is to reach her mother at the bottom of the chasm. It is understood that the goal is immaterial. It is merely a catalyst for a journey… for THE journey.

And yet this journey isn’t really about the abyss. That must be corrected before one enters with the wrong expectations. Made in Abyss is about the people exploring the abyss, not the abyss itself. I think that actually makes the title poetic. These people are “Made in Abyss”. This story is about how the Abyss shapes those who brave it.

And that highlights its choice of protagonist: a wide eyed kid who’s just as enthralled by the wonders of her world as we should be, a kid filled with the sense of invulnerability and utter fearlessness that reeks of the sweet summer of youth.

That enhances the kind of story this is more than it takes away. All too often we have protagonists who are jaded by the wonders their world has to offer. To see the brave new worlds through the lens of a kid experiencing them just as we are is a treat that should not be missed.

And, more importantly, we start the journey tabula rasa.

The anime did splendid job of circumventing the limitations it imposed on itself by the choice of protagonist. Riko, while chirpy and bright, simply cannot be expected to scale the chasm on her lonesome, or even with her little gaggle of friends. That’s where Reg comes in. Reg is a mysterious bio-mechanical relic of unknown origins saddled with his own limitations that both he and Riko must tango around. Yet even with Reg’s spectacular capabilities, one could still feel a sense of unease. A gut feeling says when push comes to shove, it’s not enough.

Yet they persist. Along the way they are aided by the denizens and veterans of the pit: the jolly Hablog, the indomitable Ouzen, the troubled Nanachi, and the tragic Mitty as their lives are continually shaped by the calls of the great pit.

Sadly however, much of the character progression is not felt. This is still a 14 episode series (that is, 12 normal episodes plus a one-hour special). But it doesn’t need such sweeping character arcs right now. This is the first of hopefully many adventures and it did enough on its own to establish the many characters with respect to the Abyss that captivated them.

Much praise must also be lauded to the visuals, and especially the character designs. Such whimsical image serves to highlight the stark contrast with the brutal reality in a journey that strives to go deeper into the heart of the earth and innermost to the core of the yearnings that makes us human…


…Into the abyss, with all of its attendant connotations.

With a runtime of roughly 11 minutes of story per episode and a multitude of pairings vying for the screentime, Tsurezure Children cuts to the heart of the matter. It’s both the series’ greatest strength and gravest weakness that strangely enough compensate each other so well as to elevate the series above much of the genre.

Tsurezure Children is a testament to how much can be implied without showing anything at all. To make up for the limited screentime that should have crippled character progression and investment, Tsurezure Children draws on our experience and our little forays into young love to fill in the lines as ... it were, as it weaves little narratives that centers around the higher points of a romance story, leaving much of the build-up untold.

Such a setup forces us into a quandary where it would only work if and when we feel a connection to the couple in question. Fortunately, the series comes with a variety of pairings and at least one of which have struggles that connects to us, speaks to our inner romantic, and demands our investment.

The couple may be set and the shipping arguments laid null, but there’s always a little something for everyone: a couple or two whose journey you would prefer the most.

I’ll keep this review short and sweet, much like the series. Now go watch it.

The center of videogame stories are almost often gaming prowess of some schmuck who can go hayaku. But there is another important aspect that is not usually touched on: how videogames affects our day to day interactions and how it opens up a whole new way of forming bonds. There's a reason why MMO players say "Came for the game, stayed for the community." It's a beautiful sentiment that captures the often unheralded but nonetheless important aspect of gaming in today's society.

I'm happy to say that Gamers understands that aspect and struggles to make it the core of the series. While the characters right now ... may feel like it'll just fill the check-boxes of typical high school stock models, this series can get by with simplistic characterizations because its potential lies in the character interactions more than anything. This is a celebration of gaming as a community after all.

So far, however, Gamers is an anime you wouldn't feel bad missing out on. It has shown lopsided execution with a penchant for slapstick humor that can grow old easily, especially if its not your type of humor. The artstyle is less-detailed which enables more fluid animation but it's largely centered around the aforementioned slapstick comedy and the OST is nothing standout.

But the anime is not without potential, despite its abysmal first episode which I feel I must warn you about. How it goes about fulfilling that makes or breaks the series.

Happy TI7 everyone.

TNC! Tangerine Chicken for the win!

Esports, through the years, have yielded amazing stories tempered by colorful and magnetic personalities. It promises a wealth of untapped potentials for stories that can go toe-to-toe with some of anime's best character dramas and captivating sports series.

Sadly, Quan Zhi Gao Shou offers little and captures less of the allure of the narrative weaved by esports. It’s worth noting that the genre tag did not even include “Sports”, given that esports is sports through the medium of video games. It’s a run-of-the-mill redemption action series with the questionable virtue of not having moe or harem elements, which apparently is enough to be praised and loved ... in this day and age. Claims that the series is mature due to simply having "adult" characters are equally hilarious as attitude and temperament, not age, defines maturity. This is not mature, grounded series by any means. Especially not when your adults are nothing more than upscaled teenagers.

First off, we need to make one thing very very clear: adaptations are suppose to stand on it’s own. So zip it with the piteous noises about the source material. Quan Zhi Gao Shou as an anime stands or falls on it’s own (de)merits.

Let’s start with the basics: a drama is as compelling as its characters. Nothing cripples a show as much as the lack of character investment on the side of the viewers. This is supposed to be a man's journey back to the top, a sports drama people have been perfecting for years, decades even and they fucked up the one single crucial element: character motivation.

There is only one character of consequence in this show: god-mode MC-kun who’s APM (actions per minute) is so god-tier glorious he can solo MMORPG bosses. The numerous side characters the anime crammed without proper pace and care are simply background props and cheerleaders relentlessly praising and gaping in awe over MC-kun. The antagonists on the other hand are busy trying to outdo each other in a contest to see who is the most irredeemable prick to make MC-kun look better by comparison. It does get aggravating how the show executes character investment with all the skills of a stereotypical 90s high school movie.

What this show really needs and what it tellingly lacks is his reason/motivation for soldiering on despite everything so far. That should have been the core of the show’s drama and it should have been established early on immediately why we want to root for him. But they didn’t. Instead it’s left to the viewer to project their idea of why he is doing all of these. Every single platitude by non-LN readers points to various reasons they assume is his motivation and struggles moving forward. (LN readers on the other hand seem to know what I’m sure is some emotionally manipulative boohoo story somewhere detailing the why of his love of the game to fix it all up. The characterization is so sloppily executed that they're overdue at least one boohoo scene to compensate.)

The alternative is to set him up as the complete/mentor character, a paragon, that enables the growth of the people he works with. While the setup was indeed teased later in the story with just one other side character, there was never enough commitment to develop it.

A even better option is to have the main cast bounce their development off one another. Maybe they help rekindle his love of the game, and he in turn build them to a competent team from the ground up, all the while learning more and more about himself via their interactions as they form a professional team together. I assume that is the intention, yes?

Let's talk about that. The show has a tendency to jump from one scene and one event to the next without rhyme or reason, except maybe to have another excruciating demonstration on how godly-good the MC is. These scenes should have served to showcase why we would want these side characters to help the MC in his potential comeback. The MC prattles on that Glory is a team game and yet we never get the sense of how and why they work as a team, except for the fact that the MC tells us, the viewers, that they are really good players. Oh, and that they follow his commands to a T, with little to no input of their own.

Yeah, this anime's universe revolves around MC-kun it seems. Even his rivals, pros who are supposed to be his equals, are in awe of him, constantly fellate him, and their actions are almost always done with him as context. I hate to bandy the term Mary Sue around because it has lost all its meaning and therefore power in internet criticism, but yeah, this is textbook Mary Sue.

What we have so far is more a spectacle than a story. And it’s not even a good spectacle. Yes, the visuals is well within standards, CGI notwithstanding. Yes, the background looks gorgeous. The anime is certainly pretty when you look at the still frames. Put those in motion however, and it all becomes awkward. It’s grating. The show is so scared of going off-model on the characters and ended up with motion looking stilted instead of overflowing with life and vitality.

And it doesn't help that though there were a few series over the years that embraced the concepts of character motion and grounded, subtle facial expressions as powerful narrative tools in anime, Quan Zhi Gao Shou knows only three: scheming face, evil scheming face, and wacky-tries-to-be-funny face. Maybe that’s what passes for slapstick humor in this anime because the comedy genre tag certainly confuses me.

To be honest, the show is more cartoonish compared to other anime with less detailed and more fluid designs.

The action scenes are subpar as well. The anime has a huge boner for shitty shot angles, shaky shots, poor choreography, and the firm belief that adding enough flashy fluffs would cover it all up. So in other words, your average anime. If you like the fight sequences in Asterisk Wars, you’ll like this. The problem with these kinds of fights is that you get no real sense of space or flow. A fight is a synthesis: thesis and anti-thesis, action and reaction. Some of the best fights in motion pictures have both action and reaction in ONE frame. QZGS doesn't. It has a tendency to show action in a frame and then reaction in the next. What it does is merely gives the illusion of thrill because there is movement and pretty colors flashing about. Refusing to show both action and reaction in one frame rids the viewer of a frame of reference to ground the action which ends up limiting the impact of a fight. The impact here is subdued, lame even. A shame really that they prefer the Hollywood shaky-cam method instead of the clean, wide shots, and solid choreography typical of Oriental martial or action movies.

The sound is okay, I guess. Nothing stood out but I'm not an expert on these things. It's Chinese though. I've already seen several Chinese live-action flicks so I don't really care but it might throw you off if you got so used to Japanese that you can get the gist of a conversation just by listening.

Also, I want to add that like almost all hack-writing involving videogames, there is way too much emphasis on mechanical skills/reflexes and way too little on good game knowledge, map/situational awareness, proper positioning, and the value of a good support. When you play the game at the highest level, the APM gap tends to narrow a lot. It becomes more about knowing all the options available to the enemy, predicting which one he'll chose, and then proactively stopping it instead of being reactive and defensive.

Credit where credit is due, of course. The character designs, animation, and visuals are, again, well within current standard and that retirement announcement in Episode 2 captures a glimmer of the fervor an eSports gaming community has for its own flock. And while I have a plethora of reasons to go against the MMO eSport concept of the show, it does help non-gaming savvy viewers to easily identify the characters when they assume their in-game avatars.

Here’s to hoping that it’ll get better and to knowing that it probably won’t. Let it have a good arc at the very least. Let it have it’s own Mother’s Rosario.

*slyly winks at those who understands what I am implying*

Alternatives? Well, there is Log Horizon, a world-building masterwork that captures the soul of gaming in a way no other piece of fiction has, since or ever. But the one I highly recommend in the topic of esports are the Valve documentaries "True Sight" and “Free to Play”, which are available on YouTube for free. The former is a series about the lives and times of pro-players preparing for the Dota 2 Boston Major. The latter is a story of three players, set in the beginning of one of the largest and most prestigious competitions in esports, Dota 2 The International.

Youjo Senki asks the question “If the reason for lack of faith in a higher power is the lack of need to yearn for the peace of mind granted by the concept of a higher being that will see you through the tough times, how far can you break someone before they start seeking comfort in a higher power? A greater purpose? A deeper meaning?” It then follows it up with the question “How much of the story can you sacrifice for the sake of spectacle?”

The answer apparently to the last question is “pretty damn much”.

But first, the watching order for Youjo Senki. Start with ... Episode 2, then Episode 3. Episode 1 occurs in the middle of Episode 3 but I recommend watching Episode 3 first and then go back to Episode 1. You can skip Episode 1 but it does provide a good spectacle.

And ultimately, that’s what the show is despite its great concept: a spectacle. I cannot ultimately judge a show by its first season alone though but judging the first season’s ability to stand on its own is not without merit, no?

Let’s get right to it. Youjo Senki lacks sufficient character development given that it desires character-driven drama. That problem is the most glaring. The most painful part is that the show tried. It just didn’t do so well. We see Tanya scheme and we see the scheme backfires at her. We see her plan based on the knowledge she retains from our world. We see her develop a sense of camaraderie with the men under her command. We see her rage as events beyond her control cascade around her. It makes for a fun watch. But it ultimately does not advance her character in any significant way because the need for spectacle supersedes the need for character development.

Tanya is grounded to a world she is not invested in. She only cares about herself. She has nothing to lose and that gets in the way of tension. Without risk, there is no drama. Being X is simply a monster generator at this point, creating more and more powerful enemies for Tanya to overcome with no rhyme or reason.

Their dynamic is ruined because the show forgets that love is an emotion just as strong as hate. The show taps on to hate and threatens to leave the viewers detached as Tanya's proverbial hate-boner stiffens because the only reason we have to be even invested in her is because she is the MC and by extension her enemies are ours too. Well it's not. Love and hate are two sides of the coin that is the basic currency of drama, the currency of investment. Love a character and you'll inevitably despise her enemy.

But Being X is now merely a phenomenon, not a character. And with nothing to lose, Tanya is virtually without weakness.

It’s for that reason that the fights are just purely spectacle instead of a narrative. The battles that should have developed the character and the story became a sport of how fast and how spectacularly can she mow down her enemies.

Good rule of thumb: “A fight must not break the narrative, but rather reinforce it. If the story has to be put on hold for the fight to occur, that fight shouldn’t occur at all.”

But for what it’s worth, this show is enjoyable. And we don’t know to what heights it can truly soar until its story ends. So for now, enjoy. This is Studio Nut’s first splash and I must say they did a splendid job, my complaints notwithstanding.

Masamune-kun no Revenge started with a not quite tired yet premise: a fat guy got rejected by a hot chick so he decided to become a hot guy, seduce the hot chick then dump her. Of course the premise is simply to hook you in. It’s the execution that keeps you in. And maybe this time it’ll be a better and more nuanced take. Maybe this time the guy will be so tunnel-visioned into his revenge it reaches unhealthy levels and he ends up offing his social interactions and a real chance at happiness and love. Maybe this time… oh wait no. They’re making a ... harem-comedy and our dumbass MC has a 99.9% chance of ending with one of the least interesting female leads to ever grace the rom-com genre. I mean the title blatantly say “Masamune-kun no Revenge”. (Get it? Because it says no revenge. Eh? Eh…? I have no friends.) To the shows credit, it dashes your hopes early on so you don’t have high expectations.

Let’s start with the characters, which I believe are the show’s gravest and greatest weakness. We have the MC who went out of his way to make it flat-out impossible for us to like him, a flat tsundere (and I’m not talking about cup size), a quiet girl that you have a sneaking suspicion is the root of the problem, a tomboyish probably-meant-to-be-a-genki girl that got sidelined so fast before she could even utter “It’s not like I like you or anything ba--baka!”, best gril Kojuurou, an obese monkey wrench, and Stage 4 Plot-itis.

The characters are of so little note and lack even the most basic character development that much of the show’s drama relies on external circumstances to wreck havoc. There’s nothing that makes you root for any of them. You have no investment in any of their actions because you know squat diddly what’s in it for them and how it will change them. Even the eponymous revenge you’ll eventually find hard to care because there’s no sense of stake on how it affects the MC or the female lead, other than well putting the female lead, a right bitch, in her place. That’s it for most of the show’s runtime. You get a glimpse who Aki is so late into the story that it doesn’t even matter anymore because by then you’d like nothing more than to make sweet love to her lovely empty head with the business end of a pike.

Stage 4 Plot-itis is probably the most likable character, to the point where you’re left wondering what’s a girl like her doing in a show like this. She’s also the most pointless one introduced. Yes, even more than obese monkey wrench. The purpose of Stage 4 Plot-itis is that she represents a way out for the MC -this sweet, soft-spoken, pretty girl who’s going out of her way to make her intentions known and all he has to do is give up on his revenge. But the way she was introduced and the cagey defense of the MC about the circumstances of their encounter only adds unnecessary friction and drama. It feels like the author was just throwing obstacles after obstacles to the main pairing and the characters involved are handed the temporary idiot ball to deliberately make the obstacle worse. And if they actually developed Futaba to be Aki’s competition, Stage 4 Plot-itis could be safely written out and the show could proceed with its drama, but this time coming from the characters themselves as their motivations, dreams, hopes, and feelings collide.

The setting and the story aren’t even noteworthy so the show has to rely on their characters to carry the series. Which they failed. They’re not the first and they will not be the last in a genre so rife with the same failures repeated over and over that you’re left wondering if it’s pretty much tradition at this point.

But let’s be real, the reason why we’re watching this is to participate in our favorite annual event: Best Gril 2017. If that’s the case, don’t waste your time. This one’s a no go. Neko trumps Aki, no contest.