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I´m sorry that this review will get rather long but this time I just want to write that much about this anime ;)
Sometimes you stumble across one of those anime which happen to feel different, whether they are good or not is up to you but still they are/feel different.
Chihayafuru is one of that kind.
Basically, it´s a mixture of sport, a little comedy and drama which is not the most common type of anime but definitely not unique either.

To sum up the whole anime: Chihayafuru is all about "Karuta", nothing more, nothing less.
Karuta is a Japanese game using cards with poems written on them.
To ... win the game, the player has to win a certain card on the game field which is the appropriate card to a different one (also a poem) which is being read out by a third party.
If you touch the right card before your opponent does, you win that card.
Once you manage to clear your field (25 cards for each player) you win the game.
So basically, it´s all about memorizing all cards/poems plus the appropriate cards/poems and being faster than your opponent.
This is a VERY simple way to describe the game, if you watch Chihayafuru you will come to understand that it´s way more difficult than it might sound up to this point of the review.

The anime involves six main characters, the five Karuta club members and a friend of the two founders of the club, who happens to live far away from them and therefore does not appear that often. Nevertheless, he is one of the important characters, if not the by far most important one.
The characters are one of the strong points of Chihayafuru because the five members of the Kurata Club are all quite unique in their appearence, behaviour and their way of playing the game, one uses her speed, one pure mathematics and another his memorizing skills.
Using their different abilities, one can easily see the differences in their style of play which is important for the anime, otherwise it would get boring quickly.

Talking about the battles, they happen to be surprisinlgy interesting, one would think that an anime all about sitting on the floor and touching cards has a high risk of becoming monotonous but the battles are really intense and thrilling and as I have already mentioned, the style of play changes with every character of the Karuta club.

Another good aspect of the anime is it´s humor, they´re not frequent enough to call Chihayafuru a comedy anime and they are not breath taking or jaw dropping but the gags are enough to reduce the tensed atmosphere which is omnipresent because of the high aims of the Karuta club.

The pacing is also well done.
Unlike some shounen anime (just for the shit storm, lets´s mention SAO at this point), there are many setbacks and defeats for the Karuta Club, so we´re not bound to watch Chihaya and her friends, being totally overpowered, blasting their way to the top of the world tree... uhm national championship.
Furthermore, unlike even more shounen (take a look at DBZ), the better players never seem to outrun the inferior ones, we actually get to see a lot of progression, even the screentime is allocated nicely, although two of the five members can´t do shit against the three good ones.
So no Yamcha, no Chiaotzu but equally shared focus.
That´s why I said this anime is somewhat different, of course, there are more facts like how the school settings stereotypes are completely ignored and how the strongest player of the club has the biggest flaws, problems and the smallest understanding of the whole game.
These things made Chihayafuru feel some kind of unique to me and I cherish that.

Of course, there are debatable aspects of Chihayafuru as well, the anime explains a lot of techniques and rules which can feel tedious, though it´s important to understand the game which makes up the whole anime.
I can understand if poeple stop watching tha anime due to the seemingly endless talks about one syllable, two syllable and dead cards, positioning techniques and movement patterns.
Like I said, tedious but necessary, necessary but tedious.
Also, if you expect the anime to involve anything else than Karuta, you´re bound to be disappointed, of course, there are some other aspects like love but they are almost crushed in an instant.
One scene from Chihayafuru sums it up:
* Cell phone rings* "Sorry, it´s my girlfriend... hey there... mhm ... mhm... yeah, let´s break up." "Wait, did you just break up with your girlfriend?!" "So what, let´s play some FUCKING KARUTA !!!"
I know that this is totally taken out of the context but it still does um up the overall attitude towards anything that is not Karuta.
I know there is some stuff going on behind the scenes, especially one character does a lot of thinking, and they sometimes think about things like love and so on but nothing really happens.

To come to an end, Chihayafuru is a surprisingly interesting anime about an old card game with intense battles and loveable characters.
In spite of that, there is nothing else than Karuta in this anime, so if you can´t bring yourself to like this game, you may not enjoy Chihayafuru very much.
Try to at least give it a shot, I had A LOT of fun with this anime.

+
Characters, Equality among the Characters, Intense Battles, Humor, Opening (!!!)

-
A lot of theory, Nothing else than Karuta

Onii-chan Dakedo Ai Sae Areba Kankeinai yo ne! is one of those Ecchi-anime which happen to pop up once in a while and though there may be a ton of crappy ones, some of them at least have a decent story, or a good sense of humor, making up for the usual flaws Ecchi-anime often have.

But nope, we are out of luck with this one, meaning that this anime does not have a decent story and while we´re at it, it also lacks of interesting characters, character development and all the other stuff that make up a decent anime.

To be fair, it´s an Ecchi, ... so there isn´t a real need for story and deep characters, I can somehow understand that point of view but it´s no excuse for not having it at all, saying: it´s Ecchi, so who cares about that crap, just add some boobs and panty shots and call it a day.
Is it really too much, if you ask for quality ?

Starting with an unbelievably embarrassing intro, which by the way sums up the whole anime, we get to know a handful of girls who all try to seduce one guy.
By the way, thats all there is to it, that is the whole story, once again, it´s an Ecchi but if you are really trying to make a good anime, even Ecchi needs at least SOMETHING you can work with.
There really is nothing special about the characters whatsoever, we got the brocon girl, the big titted brute, the bisexual pervert, the housewife and a loli, to top it all, we get to know a seemingly mentally disabled manga editor, who is so incredibly stupid that, well I can´t find words to describe her awkwardness.

If you like Ecchi, there are plenty of moments that will give you your 12 year old boy panty shot boner, the whole series consists mostly of Ecchi moments, perverted communication and girls seducing a boy who does not give a damn.
This is, suprisingly enough, the best part of the whole series, the main character just does not care about all the nymphomaniac crap that s going on in his home, letting all the girls run against a wall over and over again, funny, but no salvation, more like a sacrifice.
Talk about humor, I did not laugh that often during the nine episodes that I have watched, though there are plenty of funny scenes but they just did not get me.

So whats left ?
I really did not enjoy watching this anime, and it felt really awkward that after a week of waiting, I get nothing but brocon pervertedness and swimsuit-softporn.

3 points for this one, if you want real Ecchi, there is enough thats better and if you want real Comedy, there is even more than enough thats better.
But if you can enjoy anime without development, story, deep characters etc. then please, give it a try but don´t blame me, if you feel like your time was wasted.

I guess there won´t be anything I can say that has not already been said a few times but I still want to tell you my opinion about Mushishi because this anime certainly is worth the effort of writing a review.

It took me a lot of time to start watching this anime due to the synopsis, I just didn´t know what to think about it and so I ignored this anime for quite some time.
But oh boy how wrong have I been by doing so

After watching the first episode I was kind of confused to see that there is no real introduction and I ... was even more confused after finding out that the whole anime is about just one guy, seriously ?
This may be a point someone might criticize but after watching a few more episodes I thought it was kind of unique, or let at least say refreshing.
Refreshing is the right word for this anime and is even more suitable for the only main-character : Ginko

A constantly smoking, one-eyed, weird-looking fellow with white hair and green eye(s), who seems somehow creepy at first... this could be seen as some kind of antagonist within some other anime but this is the hero of Mushishi and damn what a good one !

Wandering mostly through the nature of medieval Japan (which is, by the way, drawn in an extremely beautiful way) and occasionally visiting tiny villages and towns, Ginko makes his living by solving problems based on the so called "Mushi", beings very close to life itself and extremely versatile concerning appearence and dangerousness.
Every episode takes a look at other people, other places and other Mushi, some of the stories are good, some are decent, some are genius but all of them are unique just because the Mushi and their effects when exposed to humans are that versatile. ( For those who already know, just remember the moonlight bridge, the string from the sky, the bamboo- mushi and all the other crazy stuff that happened, I mean... seriously, they had quite some fun writing stories like that )

Moreover, the art is very special too, almost every side character looks the same, once again, I won´t say this is something that shouldn´t be criticized but I won´t because I liked it a lot.
The repetitive style of the side characters sets the focus on their actions and their feelings, you have no chance but to take a look at their personlaities, rather than their looks, in order to judge them.
To make it even more interesting, your final judgement can be even more complex after thinking about how they deal with their individual "Mushi-problems", or maybe are even the Mushi at fault for the people acting the way they do ?
Can they even be charged for just being alive ?

These are some questiones that came to my mind while watching Mushishi and I´m glad about that because this anime managed to make me think about somehow important questiones but without punching a certain image and problem right into my face and saying " this is it and now make up your mind!"

What else can be said about Mushishi ?
Sadly enough, it´s nothing that will become mainstream but maybe that´s for the best because that way it keeps this special status in my heart ( sry for writing stuff like that but I couldn´t come up with a better way to describe it ).
It may be anything but mainstream and it may be very peculiar but that´s what makes Mushishi so great, that fact that there won´t be an anime that can come close to it.
I had a great time watching Mushishi and can only recommend it to everyone, it sure is worth trying out so you better do so or else you will miss a truly one special, one BIG anime.

The Sky Crawlers - a movie recommended by a friend who really knows a lot about anime, so I thought I should give it a try.
To be fair, I can understand anyone who says that this movie is kind of boring because after all, this movie is more about what doesn´t happen than about what does happen.

As always, I don´t want to tell you anything about the story and the characters and in this case I think it´s very important, because it´s this innocent first impression after watching the movie that made me write this review. Not knowing anything about this movie and therefore ... not expecting anything is the best way to enjoy it, at least that´s what I think.

Because this movie feels so empty you have no chance but to fill it with your own thoughts and for that purpose The Sky Crawlers gives you a lot of empty space.

Talking about emptyness, that´s what the whole movie is about, empty people in an empty environment, the lack of emotions ( up to a certain point ), even missing camera movements and the choice of colours, everything in this movie seems to support this empty feeling you get while watching.

Even if something happens it´s just barely mentioned, no matter how cruel or sad and after mentioning it the movie gives you, by just doing nothing, enough time to make up your own mind.
This makes the movie somewhat interactive because it gives you barely enought information to know whats going on, the rest is up to you.

The Sky Crawlers truly is a unique movie because it does everything in it´s own slow, dull and somehow depressing way , while throwing psychological, social and ethical problems at you but without telling you what to think about them. Like I said, it´s easy to misunderstand this movie but if you watch this movie while thinking about the topics given to you by it, I´m quite sure that you will be satisfied and mesmerzied.

As already mentieoned in the synopsis, we get an adaption of a dating sim in which there is one MC, who decides between six girls everytime a new arc is introduced.
By doing so, the anime covers up many preferences which is, without a doubt, one of the good aspects of this series.

As mentioned above, this anime consists of six romantic short-stories plus one additional short-story in which the MC did not decide for one of the six main female characters .

These six women/girls all show different character traits, hence each short-story is kind of unique judging from the overall atmosphere and process, though the outcome ... keeps most of the time the same.

Nevertheless, by having only short-stories, the series is kind of limited compared to other romantic animes due to the amount of stories.
Each short-story consists of only four episodes which does not leave much room for experiments.
However, most of the arcs are still quiet enjoyable, even if you´ll hardly ever enjoy all six stories equally.
Fortunately, there is a Sequel called Amagami SS plus which continues the same stories from where they stopped

Most of the characters are nothing too special, for example, we got the dense main character Tachibana who is slightly perverted, as well as his best friend who is mostly the same.
As for the women, there are stereotypes like the childhood friend with a crush on the main character and the shy and silent girl with big boobs.
Though these characters are nothing special, it is still good to have them due to the variety of love-stories, after all there still are more characters who are at least a bit one-of-a-kind.

Talking about the art/style of the series, there is not much to say, personally, I like it but that's up to everyone to decide.

All things considered, I had quiet some fun with Amagami SS, it may not be a masterpiece but it gave me a good time and many enjoyable romantic moments and that's all I asked for.

Overall: 8/10

Now to be fair Elfen Lied is not bad but still i was kind of disappointed after reading so much about this anime. Maybe my expectations were too high or whatever lets start the review.

The story involves three humans and for most of the anime two so called "diclonius" as well as their struggles and individual pasts.
Furthermore there are many aspects like violence inhumanity and ethical problems highlighted in this anime.
Of course there is an unknown all-mighty corporation which happens to be the essence of evil and is also full of scientists without morals or qualms as well as some kind of private ... army/ a whole lot of mercenaries
The counterpart consists of the MC Kouta and his friends Luka Lucy/Nyu and Mayu later on completed with Nana
Thats all there is to say for me because i dont want to spoil the story too much

Personally i didnt like some of the characters at all the MC is as dim witted and reckless as any other MC of almost any other anime
The human girls Luka and Mayu are nothing special as well Luka has a crush on Kouta who has a crush on Lucy/Nyu and there we have the love triangle
As for Mayu there is really nothing much to say about her because she is just plain boring and has nothing special except for her sad background story
The only interesting characters within this anime are the doclinius Lucy/Nyu and Nana due to their split personlalities and psychological cracks

The style of the anime consists mostly of nudity and a whole motherf*****g lot of violence which is funny in the beginng if you like it but it becomes quite dull during the following episodes
The whole idea of inhuman humans and experiments and all the hatred towards the doclinius gets overwhelmed by the cubic kilometers of blood and the tons of cut off heads and extremities

Please dont get me wrong this anime isnt bad its actually good but after hearing so much stuff about it i expected it to be a lot better
To be fair the problem lies within the length if Elfen Lied had been 24 episodes long it could have included far more character developement and far more information about the whereabouts and secrets of the doclinius and the corporation behind them but with only 13 episodes the anime bears a great potential but is too short to make use of it

Overall Elfen Lied was not what i expected because it lacked of depth and developement due to its length but it is still a good anime and i have no problems with recommending it to people with an affection to bloody and violent animes who seek for the dark side of humanity

And now srsly
Whats up with all the german stuff anyway ?
I am german and i dont get it somebody tell me !