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Ability shop is like an Aesop Fable in manga form.

The main bulk of the story is the 'life lesson' that is to be learned at the end of the story. Being a one-shot, the plot has to move quickly, with the escalating actions leading to the climax compiling quickly one after another. Although the rushed pace is inevitable given the author only had 50 pages to work with, those 50 pages were well spent building rising conflict and leading to an valuable, if obvious, life lesson. The ending was more positive than I anticipated, which prevented the story from driving it's point even further home, ... but the ending is still acceptable.

The art is fairly decent; there is not much to say about it. The characters are differentiable, although they may not be the most appealing in design. The art does not hinder the flow of the story, and the small action scenes don't need major scrutiny to see what's going on.

Toshiki will not be the most noteworthy character in the manga universe, but he certainly played his part well, undergoing surprisingly rapid "growth" throughout the story culminating in the life lesson that he has learned. Side characters are side characters, they are there to support the main. None of them detract from the main story, though none of them will ever stick in your mind as memorable. Heck I had to look up Toshiki's name when writing this review.

Enjoyment here is definitely the most debatable factor here in this manga between individuals who have read this one-shot. I didn't enjoy in the sense that it was a fun read, but I enjoyed the fact that I came out of feeling like I learned something. That's incorrect; the lesson taught here is rather clichéd. What I truly enjoyed was having the value of a clichéd lesson reaffirmed within me.

Honestly, the greatest strength of this one-shot is it's brevity. There are no extras to this story; no fan service, filler arcs, beach chapters, warped power levels, plot holes, plot twists, or loose ends. It just tells a story of a boy who learns a valuable lesson in life, and will likely teach it to you too.

Questions, comments, criticisms, and compliments are welcomed whether or not you found this review helpful.

To the rhetorical question: "Why would I watch a mystery anime with mediocre mysteries?", I provide the following four rebuttals.

1. "I don't mind mediocre mysteries."
2. Heartwarming character interactions and development
3. Awesome loli detective with puffy cheeks.
4. Beautiful Victorian setting and clothing.

Gosick is a so-called mystery anime set in aftermath of World War I in the fictitious country of Sauville. The anime follows the exploits of Victorique and her servant/friend/partner, Kujo, as they unravel the mysteries surrounding Victorique's origin and the impending world conflict. However, despite ... being a mystery anime, the mysteries in this anime are not its main appeal. To understand the flaws in these mysteries, consider the mystery manga/anime Detective Conan. Detective Conan takes tender love and care to lay out clues, evidence and suspects so that it is easy for the reader to follow the detective's train of thought. However, to this date, I have yet to completely 100% solve a mystery in Conan before the main detectives; the mysteries manage to maintain their complexity despite being thoroughly scrutinized up into the point that they are solved. In high contrast, it's impossible to follow Victorique's game-breakingly fast train of thought and yet your hunches about the mystery always end up as correct. In conclusion, the mysteries written into Gosick are shallow and yet predictable, and there is really nothing impressive about Victorique's ability to solve them.

So then, how would a mystery anime with middle-rate mysteries maintain the interest of its viewers. Quite simply, the individual mysteries are mere pieces of a larger whole. If one considers the anime as using mysteries an unconventional method to reveal plot points rather than as a series of individual cases in which our heroes tackle one by one, the mystery on the grand scale becomes immensely complex. Suddenly the story is riddled with twists and foreshadowing as thick as a jungle and just as convoluted. Each smaller mystery becomes part of a larger story, a tale surrounding a lonely girl and the circumstances in which she came to this world. Roughly a half way through the anime, the scale of the anime blows up exponentially, involving things like conspiracy in the royalty and under-the-table political dealings. Despite the growing number of threads in this story, in the end they all manage to wind themselves down and point towards a specific event, the outbreak of which clearly defines the last two episodes. Indeed the events of the anime can be thought of as the fuse to a small bomb places at the last two episodes which blows up quite literally into the climax of the story. After that explosive event blows away all previous setting and development, the story decides to wrap itself up in a heartwarming bundle. All in all, a good tale.

Although the story maybe good, it is the characters that stand out in this anime. The relationship between Kujo and Victorique is a complicated one to say the least. Most of the time, Kujo dotes on Victorique like a father dotes on his spoiled daughter, he constantly brings her candy and sweets, and often carries her around when not carrying her luggage. In return Victorique abuses Kujo physically and verbally while demanding more sweets or else rolling around on the floor like a spoiled brat. Kujo tolerates all this, but once Victorique steps out of line in front of other, he thoroughly chastises her like the typical Asian parent. You may notice that I make a lot of father-daughter comparisons when describing their relationship. Well there is nothing incestual between; the point is that they care very deeply for each other. Their relationship is far beyond mere platonic friends and yet they aren't quite in the romantic area yet, the way they see each other is most aptly described as beloved family. It is this special bond between them that allows them to cross fate, time, and space in order to see each other one more time. The supporting cast is quite large, and they have their fair share of heartwarming moments for being supporting cast.

Finally, the production quality of Gosick is quite solid. The setting of a early 20th century Victorian European country is drawn beautifully, with fantastic architecture on the buildings, gorgeous frilly dresses on the women, and awesome suits with those scarf-necktie things on the men. The animation is quite good although at times the quality sometimes drops, especially and most unfortunately during action scenes. The sound is pretty decent, BGM and OP and ED all are listenable but not too memorable. Special props go to Yuuki Aoi, the seiyuu of Victorique, for doing an awesome job voicing a cool, smart, yet spoiled and bratty loli detective.

All in all, if any of items 1-4 in the introduction appeal to you, it won't hurt for you to give this anime a shot.

Questions, comments, criticisms, and compliments are welcomed whether you found this review helpful or not.

Does a good anime need to have a good plot? The answer is: NO! Take a certain over-the-top mecha-robo anime with plenty of drills (and thus male Freudian artifacts) for example; it's plot wasn't the most original storytelling, but that didn't stop the anime from being explosively entertaining.

But does good anime need to have ANY plot? The answer is undoubtedly: NO. If otherwise, the slice-of-life genre of anime wouldn't exist; and hits like K-On, Lucky Star, and Hidamari Sketch would never have gained the popularity that they did.

So is A-channel like Lucky Star, K-On, or Hidamari Sketch? The answer is still: NO. The latter ... three anime, although plotless, have some extra premise or setting in which the contents of the anime revolve around; K-On has the pretense of forming a band, Hidamari Sketch has the setting of an art school, and Lucky Star has an otaku as the lead. A-Channel, on the other hand, has nothing.

But is that a bad thing? NO! That just means that A-Channel is a slice-of-life in its PUREST form.

A-Channel portrays the easy life of four ordinary high school girls. The main focus if this anime is undoubtedly the characters and their interactions with each other. The biggest concerns or conflicts that the characters have are simple things like their weight, jealousy over different body proportions, or being over-protective of each other. The characters do ordinary things together like going to festivals, walking home in the rain, eating at fast food restaurants, singing karaoke, or playing in the snow together. There is no storyline at all, major, minor, or subplot; all A-Channel portrays are the sweetest moments amongst the smallest actions found in daily life. It's like someone cut out the most boring 23 hours and 40 minutes of the characters' days and turned the most lively 20 minutes of each day into a show.

The characters are what drive this show; they are indeed a good group to be friends with, being diverse and varied and yet not straying too far from the norm. We have Tooru, the clever troublemaker, Nagi, the ordinary one, Yuuko, the nice-bodied scaredy-cat, and Run, the airhead of airheads. Taken individually, these character may not seem like the most interesting ensemble. But when put together, it their interactions that make this anime shine. Character development doesn't come from the growth of the characters themselves, but rather that the viewer learns more about the characters as he or she continues to watch them, just like in real friendships. The diversity and depth of the interactions are astounding, and often it's the littlest of interactions that can send the viewer the biggest signals. (i.e. Yuuko showing slight interest in the idea of Run not wearing any panties.)

Being a slice-of-life, the production value of the show need not be very high. Most slice-of-lifes can get away with mediocre animation with a lot of still shots and mediocre sound with just an opening, ending, and a handful of background tracks. A-channel does exactly that. The animation is fine; the four girls look satisfactorily cute from most angles and distances, and the sound is alright, with an upbeat opening, a winding-down ending, and BGM that doesn't find itself to be to obtrusive to the ears. There is one praiseworthy aspect of the production, and it's the number of insert songs sung by the seiyuu. Often times, when wanting to show a collections of events, the producers would display a montage of clips accompanied by an insert song often times sung by the seiyuus themselves. This technique was most apparent during the karaoke episode, and I thought it was a nice way of letting the episodes flow rather than trying to directly tell the story. Voice-action, however, is a totally different story; this is the area where slice-of-lifes absolutely cannot skimp, and A-channel here delivers what it must. Each of the seiyuus for each of the character does a splendid job of delivering the right performance at each given situation.

So is A-channel something you should watch? Well it really depends. If you want something action, drama, romance, story, plot-twists, thrills, chills, or the like, then look elsewhere. But if you're into cute girls doing cute things from day in to day out, a light hearted slice-of-life comedy for a few laughs, I suggest you give A-channel a try.

Questions, comments, criticisms and compliments are welcomed whether you found this review helpful or not.

Sora no Otoshimono is a perversion comedy series that provides more for the reader than just tactless fanservice. The series unfolds as a series of comedic episodes interspersed with large chunks of dramatic plot movement at a moderate frequency. These comedic episodes derive their humor from Tomoki inspiring man to reach out towards ever greater heights of perversion. The dramatic arcs experience a full 180 degree shift in tone, becoming heartwarming, heartbreaking, or heartrending stories that move even the most stoic of readers.

The storyline of Sora no Otoshimono starts off fairly generic: Sakurai Tomoki is an ordinary over-enthusiastic pervert with recurring dreams living an ordinary, ... perverted life in the town of Sorami. Suddenly an angel falls from the skies into his lap; she claims to be Ikaros, an "entertainment purpose" angeloid and declares Tomoki to be her master. Hilarity ensues. The story is developed fairly slowly, with most chapters, save dramatic ones, pushing the plot a little at a time. Most of the plot is focused on the budding relationships between characters, so savor the action and conspiracy theory you get while you can.

The artwork in Sora no Otoshimono is easily the strongest point of this manga. Minazuki Suu has a unique style that makes her pictures look soft and ephemeral like mist under the morning sun. The curves on her female characters are luscious and the scenery in the backgrounds are gorgeous. Most of the humor in the manga comes from the art and not the dialogue; the facial expressions during key punch line moments have been the most unique and creative that I have seen. Rather than a single 'wtf' face as I will call it during gag moments, she manages to draw a variety of emotions on her characters during punchlines which increases the repertoire of gags she can use. There's Tomoki's 'wtf is he/she/that doing here, oh god I'm screwed' sweaty face, there's Tomoki's 'wtf, the answer is so simple, it's like I've reached enlightenment, but I'm still screwed' sort of serious face, and then there is Ikaros' 'smile'. The characters are drawn with two different styles, normal vs. chibi, in order to help further define the tone of the story at that moment. You know that sh*t is about to hit the fan whenever Tomoki is drawn in his normal form.

The characters are the driving force behind this manga; it is their interactions that make this manga so funny, and it is their ordeals and pain that make this manga so moving. Admittedly there are weaker characters; I personally don't like Sohara because she doesn't do much besides be the "childhood friend." However as a whole the characters are quite solid. One of the strongest characters in the series is Tomoki himself; despite being the male lead of a harem he is quite the loveable guy. He is the most bodacious, daring, persistent, shameless, creative, talented, and brilliant pervert I have ever had the honor of given my full respect to. Just bow down and worship him when you learn of the "Tomoki Peeping System." True he is only a juvenile pervert, meaning he can't handle the "real thing," but he is still manly enough to garner a higher popularity than some of the female leads in his harem.

I look forward to Sora no Otoshimono every month for the plot, even though it is primarily an ecchi manga. I know it is weird to call this manga "tender-hearted," but that's how many of the (non-ecchi) parts feel to me. The only time I had ever cried while reading manga was at the end of Elfen Lied when the main protagonist finally learns the real name of "that" girl. That was before my eyes watered on three separate occasions while reading the first 50 chapters of Sora no Otoshimono. Minazuki Suu has had experience writing powerful drama before, and this experience shows in her ability to move the reader without needing pages of non-comedic content as setup. But having that frightening ability does not mean she paid with her ability to write comedy. The comedy is supposed to be the strong part of this series. I have been praising the small bits of drama over and over again in this review, but that doesn't change the fact that this manga started out as, survived as, and gained popularity as a ecchi comedy manga. So this means that this entire time, I have been underrating the comedy aspect of this manga. If I can enjoy the secondary drama in this manga to this degree, imagine how enjoyable this manga would be for someone who appreciates the comedy aspect.

*EDIT*
Although I have been referring to Minazuki Suu as 'her,' it turns out she is actually a guy. Go figure. His drawings are so feminine that if I was friends with him personally, I would make fun of his masculinity on the basis of his artwork. But with all due respect; great mangaka.

Questions, comments, criticisms and compliments are welcomed whether you found this review helpful or not.

Infinte Stratos has absolutely dreadful plot but top notch harem romance comedy and fan service. The key to enjoying this anime is to completely ignore the attempts at plot throughout the anime while savoring the characters and their fanservice. Infinte Stratos' premise is begins with our main protagonist, Orimura Ichika, just happens to be the only male that can pilot the Infinite Stratos mecha unit, which was thought to be only compatible with females. Thus our main protagonist is sent of to the IS academy and becomes the only male in a sea of females. And by stint of being male, he becomes the most ... popular student in the academy -_-.

The plot is simply torturous to watch. Throughout the series, major story developments have been random and sporadic; the events throughout the anime seem to have no relation to one another. Major events often occur suddenly only to fade away without leaving any trace of their occurrence or importance. The premises and themes used all have their potential, they were just extremely poorly developed by sloppy writing. The societal structure of woman dominating men which would have provided numerous opportunities for genuine conflict and for Ichika to develop as a main character is completely ignored. Various fancy names and technical terms are thrown around without explanation of their significance or origin. The power levels between characters are not only ambiguous, but also inconsistent, so no apparently growth in IS piloting skill actually takes place. The complete abolition of plot would have made IS much more tolerable.

Character development simply fails due to its ties with the plot. Ichika undergoes no development at all; his skill at pilotnig the IS as well as his thickheadedness remains constant throughout the story. The development of the girls themselves lacks the drama needed to make their supposedly difficult pasts believable, which results in a general lack of empathy for the characters. Important plot elements used in character development are grazed upon so shallowly that they fail to be thought provoking and emotion evoking and end up as just laughable. The development itself is sometimes overly drastic; some characters experience complete 180 shits in attitude and personality that do not coincide with the resolutions of their non-existent drama.

Once their development has been completed however, the characters become astoundingly entertaining; the actual characters are easily the strongest part of the anime. Ichika, although undergoing no development, was never really a weak or herbivorous character, given his tendency to feed and massage the ladies around him. Each female character can be easily related to a certain trope or character archetype, but they are portrayed as more than just moe anthropomorphisms of abstract personality fetishes, although this certainly does not mean that the characters are not moe. Each character is given personality traits and quirks outside of their defined trope that makes them more real and likeable; even aspects that seem trivial are given some detail. Most entertaining is the interactions between characters, the abundance of various personalities allows for different chemistry mixtures that spice up situations that are otherwise very cliched and trite. Although all the reactions are often predictable, the characters are executed soundly and the situations are still fun to watch. Easily the weakest character is our main protagonist himself, as he remains a thickheaded punching-bag for the girls around him.

The production quality for Infinte Stratos is quite high, which is a shame given it's agonizing plot. Immediately noticeable is the cast of seiyuu; most characters are voiced by a well established seiyuu famous for her roles in other anime. Not surprisingly, the voice acting is top quality; special props goes to Kana Hanazawa for the most moe anime voice this season. The music is of satisfactory quality with a catchy opening theme and a decent ending theme. The animation for the ending theme is actually not a harem-o-meter; the most recently captured character runs closely behind Ichika and moved to the back of the line as the next character is captured. The art itself is clean and vibrantly colorful, up to today's standards as a 2011 anime. The IS personal units themselves are well designed and easily differentiable from each other. The battles themselves are quite well done, with dynamic camera movements drawn well and plenty of special effects.

The amount of negative reaction Infinite Stratos has received is definitely understandable; I myself at first whined and pussy bitched about the horrendous plot, and found the character interactions to be predictable and boring. However approximately half-way through the season, I finally accepted that Infinte Stratos was not the awesome mecha anime that I expected, but was instead a decent romantic comedy. Suddenly the plot became much easier to ignore since I stopped looking for it, which allowed my mind to be more positive and accepting of the character interactions, making them more entertaining. Therefore, although still accompanied by the frequent face-palm, I found myself smiling much more naturally and frequently as I watched this anime, and was sufficiently entertained.

Questions, comments, criticisms and compliments are welcomed whether you found this review helpful or not.

First of all, if you are reading this and haven't checked out the original Soul Eater yet, then I recommend that you stop right there and check out the original Soul Eater first. Why do I say that when Soul Eater Not is a spinoff and not a sequel? Because Soul Eater Not is everything that Soul Eater could have been, but was unable to capitalize on due to focus on plot: a school life/slice of life comedy.

Have you ever wondered what the daily lives of Shibusen students would look like? Well I personally haven't because Soul Eater was sufficiently awesome, but Ookubo Atsushi disagreed ... with me and created this. Technically a prequel to the original Soul Eater, Soul Eater Not seems like a slower pace, more comedy/character centralized manga with less focus on plot and more focus on the daily lives of Shibusen students. It takes place long before the Kishin shows up when Medusa is still the school nurse and Sid is still human. It can be seen as background information, explaining details like "Where does Maka and Soul get the money to support themselves?" and "Where does Kim live?" There is a slight continuity issue them mentioning Kim is a witch, but that can be taken out of context.

The story follows a new character, Halberd Tsumugi (Yes her family name is Halberd, the bane of cavalry,) who is a new student at Shibusen and has to become accommodated to Death City. Since we were introduced to Maka and her merry band of friends when they were already well on their way to becoming full-fledged Meisters and Weapons, Soul Eater Not provides new insight into life at Death City by starting the process from scratch. It seems to be written at a much slower and more relaxed pace than the original Soul Eater, and takes place earlier than its parent story, during times that were much more peaceful and mundane for Death City.

The characters of Soul Eater Not are just as varied and unique as our mains in the parent story. Our main protagonist Halberd Tsumugi, is a meek, shy weapon girl who attends Shibusen yearning for a school life surrounded by bishounen. She quickly meets two meisters: Anya Hapburn, our resident type-A tsundere Ojou-sama that should be voiced by Kugimiya Rie, and Tatane Meme, our resident big-breasted klutz who may have a few secrets she has yet to share. Both of them want to become her partner, and the story has not progressed far enough to indicate the nature of this conflict.

Soul Eater fans can be relieved by that the design and artwork is completely up to par with the original Soul Eater. For those of you who don't know what that means (go read Soul Eater already), Ookubo Atsushi uses rather abstract and warped and wicked artwork. The recurring visual themes include faces on inanimate objects, skulls, eyes, and other gothic themes. The backgrounds and buildings are always awesome to look at, which are styled with a sort of wicked Halloween sort of theme. Where Ookubo Atsushi's talent really shine is his ability to draw faces, especially contorted faces twisting with agony. He can draw a myriad of different expressions that are quite different from the generic Japanese moe faces like >_< or ^_^.

Overall, Soul Eater Not is a good manga to try if you have read the original story. In my personal opinion, I think Oobkubo Atushi got a little bored or stuck while writing the original Soul Eater, and began publishing this just for a change of pace.

Questions, comments, criticisms and compliments are welcomed whether you found this review helpful or not.

Throughout mythology, dragons are depicted as fantastic creatures whose significance dwarfs that of the mortal human. These dragons represent strength, power, and any other virtues a biker gang with dragon tattoos would respect. Dragon Crisis introduces a new type of dragon: dragons that are cute and loli and scream, "suki" and "Ryuuji" over and over again; the moe dragon.

That's right: the MOE dragon.
Can dragons be moe? Yes they can, but only while in their human form (or unless there are fringe fetishes that I dare not dabble in.)

Meet Dragon Crisis, an anime which casts Kugimiya Rie as Rose, a character who is *gasp* ... NOT a tsundere. But fans who found Louise particularly annoying should NOT relax just yet, since Kugimiya Rie uses her most loli voice yet, twice as loli as Louise. On top of that, Rose spends a good portion of episode 1 not being able to say anything other than the word "Ryuuji," which becomes tiresome to hear very quickly, even for fans. Beware of the word "suki" as well. Make no mistake; I love Kugi, but I also know that she's not liked universally.

Once Kugimiya Rie's voice has been addressed, Dragon Crisis turns into a rather enjoyable anime to watch.

In a modern world filled rare monsters that can take human form, there are magically imbued items known as "Lost Precious" which demonstrate mysterious powers, and are treated like dinosaur bones by collectors. Those who can wield such "Lost Precious" are known as "Breakers." The "Breakers" have formed a sort of guild known as the "Association", and it also acts to regulate the collection and distribution of "Lost Precious"

Enter our protagonist Ryuuji, a lonely high school boy who was living alone until his cousin Eriko steps in. Ryuuji is kidnapped and coerced into assisting his cousin in stealing a large briefcase from a black organization known as "Fang". With the help of Eriko's Lost precious, they manage to successfully steal the briefcase, and from here it's obvious what comes out.

The story so far has been episodic with no overarching plot. Each character is given two or three episodes in which to develop, and then the story moves on to the next character. The arcs begin with comedic/set-up episode, and end with a rising action/conclusion episode. The story mainly focuses on character, and so the comedy and the ecchi scenes have been rather light. Action and dramatic scenes seem a bit forced at times, and the battles are smooth yet could use a bit more blood.

Dragon Crisis suffers from the same character development issues as Kami nomi, mainly the girl-of-the-week plot format. The characters are well fleshed out within their own individual arcs, but once their story is resolved, they disappear, never to be seen again. Rose, although present in all the episodes, gets pushed to the sidelines once her arc finishes, and simply remains as Ryuuji's lover. The most well developed character in this Ryuuji himself, as he slowly pulls himself out of his isolated shell and begins to accept both Lost Precious and his ability as a Breaker to use them.

Ryuuji unfortunately also suffers from the same dysfunction that many male leads in anime suffer from these days; being a weak character. Not weak as in poorly developed, but actually physically weak and reliant on many of the bodacious females around him. Ryuuji is supposed to be a "Level 10 Breaker" and that there are only seven of such high level breakers in the world. With that kind of exclusivity, one would expect Ryuuji to be able to mow down his opponents like the Level 5s in Academy City can; he does not. His seemingly overwhelming strength is either overrated or still in latent form, and he has been reliant on Rose's powers to get him through most of his problems.

The animation quality is up to par with current anime standards, special care and detail was put into backgrounds, trees, and special effects from Lost Precious. The battles sometimes tries to make use of dynamic camera movement, but perhaps due to budget restrictions, those scenes end up looking rough and choppy. The color palette is a little on the pale side but other than that the animation is quite solid. The character design seem a little off at first, particularly the eyes, which seem slightly too big. Other than that, the character are varied and diverse, one of them is even heterochromatic.

The opening theme is rather unique sounding and memorable for this type of anime. I particularly liked the BGM I refer to as "Eriko's theme," which was played when Eriko was first introduced. The sound is jazzy, classy, with a hint of sass perfect for Eriko's character, a well chosen track indeed. The ending theme was a circus-y song featuring chibi Eriko dancing (which is good) while shots of our heroines in swimsuits flash in the background (which is great), until the pace changed and suddenly all our heroines were dancing chibi style (which is also good).

First and foremost, the ability to enjoy this anime is highly dependent on the viewer's ability to withstand Kugimiya Rie's overly loli voice. Once that has been cleared, one must accept that this anime is character driven. There are no Eragon-style dragon battles (yet), so the action is lacking compared to most shounen. But given that this a short, 12 episode series, it does a pretty good job of entertaining the viewer.

Questions, comments, criticisms and compliments are welcomed whether you found this review helpful or not.

According to the principles of classical conditioning by Ivan Pavlov, animals can be conditioned to respond to neutral stimuli in unconventional ways by means of pairing two unrelated stimuli. For example, if food is brought to a dog causing it to salivate every time a bell is rang, the dog will begin to associate the food with the bell and begin to salivate at the sound of the bell, even without the presence of food. Likewise, if one happens to laugh his or her ass off after watching an episode of the first season of Mitsudomoe, he or she will begin to associate great humor ... with the catchy, kiddy opening theme of this anime. Thus every time the catchy, kiddy opening of Mitsudomoe Zouryouchuu starts playing my face broadens into a wide, wide grin; I preemptively humor myself in anticipation.

And all you watching Mitsudomoe should do so too, whether consciously or not, because Mitsudomoe is still funny.

Mitsudomoe is a gag comedy. The basic premise is the same as last seasons: the insane crazy life of the three Marui triplets: Mitsuba, Futaba, and Hitoha. The jokes consist mainly of slapstick comedy and raunchy toilet humor (although the animators drew the line one step before Gintama and don't actually show anything.) Like the first season, there is no over arching plot or epic quest: you don't expect such things in a comedy like this. What's taken advantage of is the character development done in the first season. We have a general sense of who the characters are, what are their quirks, and what makes them tick. What's done quite well in this second season is the mixing and churning of these old characters in order to create novel situations and thus novel humor; no joke is overused or stale in this show. That doesn't mean that the writers have abandoned character development as a source of humor. It's present, albeit in amounts appropriate for a gag comedy.

Each episode essentially contains three or four little "short stories," each of which is independent to one another. I also noticed that they have aired these short segments out of chronological order i.e. they air the class swimming in the pool before they air the segment showing the class cleaning the pool. Also some of the events are split into two different segments, i.e. the Christmas story, which was split in two. However this uneven airing of episodes does not cause continuity issues due to the lack of actual plot.

I did have qualms with the first episode. Instead of an actual episode featuring the Marui triplets, we got basically a full episode of the Gacchi Rangers and their apparently screwed up antics. Although I didn't mind this kind of development, it seems a bit wasteful for an adaptation that lasts only eight episodes.

The art is clean and consistent. The backgrounds are fairly detailed and the color palette fairly vivid. The one thing that may bother people is how childish everybody looks. The Marui triplets look like third graders to the untrained eye when in fact they are supposed to be sixth graders. This my be due to the stylistic decision to give all the characters especially round cheeks and squat faces reminiscent of a fat baby. This design is applied to almost all the characters and in the end is just the style of the art.

For comedies such as these, the voice actors have the especially important role of not only giving the characters life, but giving the jokes that they make impact. And in order to do so, the voice actors often have to make their screams and expressions loud and exaggerated. The seiyu playing Mitsuba, Takagaki Ayahi does a particularly fine job of screaming “DIE!!” at the top of her longs in a squeaky voice.

The Opening theme and the Ending theme are well suited for this anime. As stated before, the opening theme suits the mood and the style of this anime well. A catchy, kiddy song sung by the Marui triplets heralding the screwy antics yet to come. The ending theme is better than last seasons. It is certainly pleasant to the ears. It sounds like it's being such by someone with a voice similar to Rie Kugimiya's voice, which I have no problems with.

The enjoyment level is certainly up to par with the first season of Mitsudomoe. I highly recommend those of you who haven't seen the first season to check it out first before indulging in the second.

My only other qualm with this series is the length; eight episodes is certainly not enough Marui antics for me. Here's to a third season hopefully.

I welcome questions, comments, criticisms and compliments whether you found this review helpful or not.

What?!? Plot in To-Love-Ru? You're kidding me right? Adding decent story to arguably one of the finest ecchi harem mangas written is like adding hot fudge to an ice-cream sundae or adding bacon to a cheeseburger. Yep, it sounds that good.

To-Love-Ru is back! After an ambiguous end to the original series due to outside circumstances, I find it commendable that both Yabuki-sensei and Hasemi-sensei have he balls to pick up this series where they literally dropped it off in the summer of 2009. Based on the three chapters currently out, I feel that Yabuki-sensei and Hasemi-sensei are pouring much more time and effort ... into this sequel. There are new characters, a new storyline, great art, and (I'm not kidding) potential PLOT!!!.

Before I begin, I realize that it is quite premature to write a review on a series with only three chapters published. Rather than reviewing the actual manga, consider this a review of the manga's potential, based on conjectures and projections from the three chapters published, the original series, and a little bit of optimism.

Story:
To-Love-Ru Darkness: 9/10
Original To-Love-Ru: 7/10
I begin with perhaps both the selling point of this new series as well as the most projection-based and questionable rating I will make in this review. I have absolutely no hard evidence that To-Love-Ru Darkness' story line is that good. All I know is that it seems to be much more existent than the storyline in the original work, which garners it a higher rating than the original. Based on foreshadowing made in the first three chapters, as well as the epicness of Yabuki-sensei's previous series Black Cat, I suspect there may be a fair bit more action, drama, and maybe even conspiracy theory than there was in the original To-Love-Ru. I also have the feeling that some of the orignal Black Cat cast might make an appearance here or there. At the first least I give the story a high-probability of being non-episodic. But even that is a huge step up from the original, plotless series, and I believe the inclusion of story could be the biggest change, the biggest improvement, and the biggest selling point of this new series.
Also, it seems like the main cast of the series has been swapped. We all know that La-La and Haruna both crush hard on Rito; now its time for some of the other characters to shine. It seems like the focus here is on this new girl named Mea, Momo, and Yami. Since Yami-chan has been a favorite character throughout the two Yabuki series she has appeared in, I find this fact a major plus. (In my loli-Yami-chan-loving heart, the story is 10+/10.)
One final thing about the story is that there seems to be a lot less comedy than there was in the orignal series. I don't find that a bad thing, which is why I overlooked it, but I am aware that this may actually turn off a lot of viewers, as the original series was mainly comedy.

Art:
To-Love-Ru Darkness: 10/10
Original To-Love-Ru: 9/10
Holy Shit Yabuki-sensei is a God. His skill at drawing has been improving steadily throughout both Black Cat and the original To-Love-Ru. Black Cat, being a tradition shounen-action manga, nurtured his ability to draw seamless and awesome action while To-Love-Ru gave him plenty of time to practice drawing naked bodies. Based on the conjectures I made about the story, I believe both skill sets will serve him well in this series. There hasn't been too much action to judge on, but the ecchi scenes were steamy. I mean...holy god...look at him squeeze those nipples...O.O. The ecchi and the ecchi humor has gone up a serious notch in my opinion, as there is less “KYAAH DON”T LOOK!” and more serious, serious seduction going on. On that note, Momo scares me shitless.

Characters
To-Love-Ru Darkness: 9/10
Original To-Love-Ru: 9/10
Once again, I don't have any foundation for this rating, which is why it received the same score as its predecessor. The same cast of colorful, some coercive, some kind, girls (I was tempted to use a different word to add to the alliteration) returns with their main and supporting roles switched. The older sister La-La has had her chance to shine; now its time for the voyeuristic, younger sister to take over and plot in the darkness. Although its not enough to warrant a bump in points, I feel that there is increased capacity for character development in To-Love-Ru Darkness than there was in the original series due to the (potential) presence of drama and plot.

Enjoyment
To-Love-Ru Darkness: 10/10
Original To-Love-Ru: 8/10
Being the evil bastard I am, I enjoy the darker, more dramatic storyline of To-Love-Ru Darkness more than the light-hearted episodic comedy of the original series. As mentioned before, the ecchi scenes and the ecchi jokes have been notched up a level, and I would consider it at the level of seinen, aimed at older males. These girls are seriously trying to seduce Rito's pants off, and some of their methods are crazy hot and aggressive. Finally, since its a Yami-centered series, the enjoyment on my part has been boosted up a level. Now if only Yui were be a main gal as well.

Overall Rating:
To-Love-Ru Darkness: 9.5/10 mean
Original To-Love-Ru: 8.25/10 mean
I feel like To-Love-Ru Darkness has serious potential to outshine the original series. As the name implies, Rito's days will be much darker and steamier time than were in the original series. A suitable analogy for the relationship between To-Love-Ru and To-Love-Ru Darkness would be that of the first few chapters of Mahou Sensei Negima with its latest epic chapters and arcs.

I welcome questions, comments, criticisms and compliments whether you found this review helpful or not.