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Brought to use from Shinichiro Watanabe, who most people will remember for Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo is a fantastic looking fusion of Feudal Japan with a contemporary feel, but what lies underneath the surface?

The plot begins when Fuu Kasumi, a waitress in feudal japan, is living a fairly normal life...riiight before the brash and arrogant vagabond Mugen decides to crash there for some tea, bringing in quite a few mooks and then our other male lead, the straight faced and cool Jin, to end up entirely wrecking the place and nearly getting them both executed. With some words and some coin flips, Fuu hires Mugen ... and Jin as her bodyguards while she journeys the land to find a mysterious sunflower scented samurai.

Story-wise, the show is primarily episodic, but tries to have a building plot throughout it involving the sunflower scented samurai and Jin's past. To be honest, though, this mostly ended up amounting to nothing in the end, as the stuff teased in the ending is largely obvious before it even happens and does not amount to all THAT much, mostly on the Jin/Mugen side. This might not be such an issue, except the series tends to tease it out quite a lot over the course of its show, which makes it feel like it is trying to build up to more: This makes the episodic nature feel a bit less fun and the self-contained plots trying to lead into this end up working less. It was particularly tiresome to see the end of the show use this to poor effect, as dramatic leadups to the finale get interrupted halfway through for silly and bizarre episodic plots, which severely hurts the overall narrative and really helped tarnish the story for me. It gets buoyed up by many of the episodic plots being quite solid, at least. One issue is that all of this makes the show very slow feeling, which also hurt it for me.

Character-wise, the main trio of Jin, Mugen and Fuu are all pretty well done, although I feel Fuu could have gotten a bit more focus/depth to her. Jin and Mugen's sharp contrasts nonetheless mixed with many similiarites is a very effective use of the having characters be Foils, although I feel both Jin and Mugen suffer slightly from the plot's developement. The one shot characters are hit and miss, with some great ones like Sara and the gay Hollander, some good-but-not-amazing ones like Mukuro and some really memetic ones like Francisco. The hits weren't large enough to help compensate for the pacing issues and lack of overall strong narrative.

One of the issues I overall had with the show is that the investment I had in the characters was somewhat limited by how the show did not explore them a ton, feeling a bit more like a "monster of the week" style show. Probably one of the bigger examples of this is Jin, as there was a lot of potential to explore the ramifications of his past, but it ultimately mostly gets some token stuff in the story before the admittedly quite cool fight at the end. Fuu also did not get as many focus episodes as I would want and remains a bit too static throughout the series.

One thing this show undeniably has is top notch presentation. The artwork, even about 12 years later as of this writing, is superb and rivals or surpasses a lot of anime that has come past it, with interesting and well drawn character designs for both the beautiful and ugly alike, very well choreographed (although sadly usually short) fights, great facial expressions and even the ability to adapt the style to do things like show traditional Japanese artistic styling. This is combined with a really superb score: Pretty sure that everyone knows about the hip-hop beats and stylings, but less known is that this show actually incorporates a lot of traditional Japanese folk into the mix, and then when you get to some of the combat tracks which can range from graceful to rock, this show spans an impressive amount of genres and manages to do them all quite well, with the OP "Battlecry" being especially memorable with the striking visuals, and an impressively graceful ED.

Still, while the impressive visuals are really nice, the story ends up lackluster, and helps limit the investment of me into these characters by hurting how much I can connect to them because of the shallow exploration of their characters. If you want an episodic, sometimes wacky, sometimes action-y show, then Samurai Champloo will meet your desires, but if your interest lies in the set up they provide in the story and how it evolves in the story, you will find yourself disappointed. It is, if nothing else, enjoyable.

A show with Top 100 stats on both ends of MyAnimeList is worthy of a little attention and combined with having friends who both loved and hated the show made me enter it with quite a large amount of curiousity. A definite good thing about Baccano is it instantly thrusts the viewer into its OP, a very snazzy and jazzy piece that introduces you to the important players of the show in a way that feels like it is lifted right out of a Quentin Tarantino movie. It is quite effective at setting the mood of the show and doing something which I feel the ... show does, for the most part, effectively: Showing instead of telling. Showing off all these characters in the OP and effectively means we skip a fair deal of silly introduction and get into things faster.

The plot itself takes a nonlinear format that instantly made me think of Pulp Fiction, with Isaac and Miria filling a similiar role to Pumpkin and Honey Bunny. Aboard the train the Flying Pussyfoot, a collection of the main characters in our opening (mostly) all board it for a variety of reasons, with their motivations and how they got there being told in frequent story sections and cuts to the past and future to show us. The nonlinear story telling for the most part works, but in a few places it leaves plot lines fraying and irrelevant to the overall narrative, with this being most obvious with the stuff involving Eve, as most of the things relevant to the plot occur during the Firo plot anyway. I feel as though chopping off a few less relevant plot threads for some of the stronger or more notable ones would have done a very good job at stregthening the narrative.

Going into each plot into full detail would not only greatly spoil the show, but also take forever to actually go over, so I'll mostly briefly go over the primary plot on the Flying Pussyfoot. It primarily focuses on the entanglement of multiple forces who are all plotting to take control of the train for different reasons, ranging from an ill-thought-out robbery to the release of a prisoner from a US Senator via extortion, and how all of them collide together. Some get more screen time than others, with Nice and her group feeling sadly irrelevant. One great thing though is that three of the best characters in the show get the most screen time in the show: The duo of Isaac and Miria and their crazy, stupid and hilarious antics, and Ladd Russo, an assassin of the Russo family who lives for the thrill of murder and is ABSOLUTELY insane, although somehow NOT the craziest or edgiest character in the show.

These three together do a good job carrying a feel deal of the show with hilarious antics with some drama to them, and the show is usually at its best when focusing on their antics. In addition to the plot of everyone colliding on the train, there is the plot of the supernatural "Rail Tracer", an entity seen in Isaac and Miria's made-up story that goes onto trains and gobbles up all of its passengers...right before a string of murders begins just as described! I won't go into detail here, in part because discussing anything aside from the basics essentially requires spoiling you on a major plot point, but I will say that the Rail Tracer story line was very disappointing to me, and that I wish they had gone for something with a more supernatural, maybe even less explained edge. And yes I know that it has to follow the light novels, but that doesn't mean I have to like that part of the light novel's storyline.

I also personally found the stuff with Szilard slightly...disappointing for what is essentially the buildup of one of the bigger bad guys on the show, although this is moreso whenw e see the stuff with him in the past rather than him in the future. again, difficult to discuss, as the nonlinear nature of the plot can make discussing one thing a spoiler for other parts.

The plot felt like it would have benefitted from some streamlining to be really good, like removing Eve's plot, but instead ends in a spot where it goes from anywhere between really fun (Isaac and Miria or Ladd being insane) to somewhat interesting but not breathtaking (stuff with the Gandors and Firo) to active dislike (the Rail Tracer). The decidedly mixed end bag ends the show on a feeling of average plot.

Art-wise and sound-wise, the show is good with a variety of character designs, some pretty well handled shots, some decently jazzy backgrounds and a really nice OP. It isn't anything that will BLOW YOU AWAY or anything, but it looks noticeably good and has some really good voice acting (NOTE: I watched the sub), like Isaac, Miria, Ladd and Nice's. Jacuzzi's voice actor was perhaps too good at his job, though, as there were a few times it made me want to really punch the character.

The show ultimately ended up feeling, to me, like something with plenty of bits of good and bad that all got souped and mixed together, and a work with a bit too little room to breathe in it. The good outweighs the bad to me, I think, but the Rail Tracer plotline ends up a solid disappointment that harms some earlier segments, and the complex narrative combined with the amount of characters it is juggling means that it ends up dropping some balls. Worth a watch when it has a good deal to chew on, but not something I think I'll find myself remembering a lot.

From Kyoto Animation, responsible for far too many of the slice of life shows around to possibly remember, comes the charming and wonderful Miss Kobayashi's Maid Dragon, an extremely charming and heartwarming slice of life show which stands atop the head of slice of life shows.

Our story begins when the titular Miss Kobayashi, a programmer who loves to hang out for drinks after work, wakes up after a night of especially hard drinking. Getting ready to go back to the grind of work, she opens her door to a rather surprising sight: A giant, scale-y dragon! Utilizing shapeshifting this magnificent dragon, Tohru, declares that Kobayashi ... totally said she could crash at her place after saving her life last night, and that she now wishes to serve Kobayashi as a maid. Thus begins Miss Kobayashi's Maid Dragon, a delightful romp of the story between one middle classed Japanese office worker and her fish out of water dragon maid.

The show is not exactly subtle with its premise and goes right for the jugular early on, with Tohru being pretty inept at the idea of modern society with a mindset more fitting a magical fantasy world, where dragons and humans are mortal enemies and the gods themselves can rain down divine punishment. Tohru herself is fittingly overpowered, with giant flaming breath, magical tricks involving dimensions that would make modern physicists spin in their graves, tearing the sky asunder to deal with a rainy day when taking out the laundry and more. Kobayashi, on the other hand, brings Tohru down to Earth and slowly gets used to actively living with another, quite odd person.

As the show progresses, a more diverse and fun cast join the fray, such as the WAY TOO ADORABLE Kanna Kamui, who serves as a bit of a surrogate daughter with Kobayashi and Tohru due to being banished to our dimension by her parents, the dark and chilly Fafnir, who sits on the edge of wishing to destroy the world but soon becomes distracted by the weight of MMORPGs and other games to care, and Lucoa, a goddess demoted to dragon who is just along for the fun, although she feels like one of the less fun members of the show due to being one note.

This show has all the laughs you would want from a slice of life show, or at least the jokes landed for me mostly, but another good technique this show works together is the ideas of tensity, developement and a nice warming of the heart. Kobayashi isn't a generic, I don't care kind of protagonist, but more as just kind of internalized her life and chugging along content enough, with hobbies that exist but do not dominate and define her life. She handles and soon compartmentalizes the changing world around her as Tohru and Kanna enter her life, which also causes her to warm up and examine parts of her own life, such as her relationship with her parents. Just how well the compartimentalization works can be seen in the ending and is done well.

This is contrasted with Tohru, who is impressed by the world of less danger that Earth brings compared to hers, and begins to enjoy a slower pace of life with the one she loves, as her attraction for Kobayashi is very, very real, and enjoyably is not relegated to mere subtext and is discussed at points. The tensity of how people will react to someone fairly alien if exposed forms a rather enjoyable part of the show and the show makes use of tenseness well, one of the most notable examples is in Episode 10, where the episode seems to be using tenseness and the general plot to make it seem as if it is building up to a Cringe Comedy routine, but then turning out to be something even more wonderful.

This series also had a lot of heartwarming moments that were really able to speak to me, especially the start of Episode 9 for example, or how comiket is handled for the cast. This is the part I can least discuss without spoilers, so I won't get into it a ton, but lets just say that lots of the characters get nice, heartwarming moments.

The story cannot be discussed a lot, it doesn't have a ton, especially since it is a slice of life show, but undercurrents of things like the ending are laid out through the series and some solid continuity. I give it a 6 because as far as slice of life plots go it is perfectly fine and has some nice things, but it isn't any masterpiece.

Stylistically, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid has some really nice animation, using some good effects when the dragons use their powers, really great character designs with things like Kanna's hair or Tohru's eyes. There's even some surprisingly well done action sequences in this slice of life show. It is somewhat basic, but definitely trying to be and does so very well. It has extremely catchy opening and endings that are incredibly cute and will get stuck in your head for far too long. It also has some good ambvient music and some really nice voice acting all along, but especially with Kanna and Kobayashi and helps make the characters leap off the screen.

So, what's the shortform of this review? If you want a slice of life show, watch Miss Kobayashi's Maid Dragon. Even if you don't end up liking it, it is simply very worth forming an opinion on. If you like maids, watch this show, and be amused by Georgie and Kobayashi interacting. If you like dragons, then you'll like the parts of this show that examine the oddities of this mythological creature adjusting to a low powered world like ours. If you want lesbians and a little romance, it got some lovely bits of that. It even has some action! It will tickle your funny bone and warm your heart.

WARNING: Some of the nature of what makes Chivalry a good show requires me to discuss some spoilers for Episode 4 of the anime. It won't wreck your enjoyment of the show, but you have been warned!

Chivalry was a show which I went into with rather average expectations: The 5-6 kind of light novel show that is enjoyable but forgettable. For some, that will be true. For me, however, I was pleasantly surprised with this show's willingness to innovate within its genre, its desire to go for ambitious animation even if it was beyond their means at times and I enjoy the fact that they ... went for some pretty cool, flashy fights.

The first thing to get out of the way is the comparisons between Asterisk Wars and Chivalry of a Failed Knight, as the surface connections are so easy that a blind man could see them through a snowstorm. I will try to get through those comparisons throughout the review, instead of dumping them all at the start, but I think the difference in score between my reviews of the two series tells a lot of what you need to know.

To begin with we have Ikki Kurogane, our main character, who's visual design is somewhat bland, although I do appreciate the brown colors that he uses. Unlike most Light Novel cookie cutter protagonists, Ikki is a rather driven person who reminds one of a more traditional action protagonist. Known as the "Worst One" at school due to his extremely low magical talent and some plot I won't get into, but nonetheless Ikki trains hard to become a strong "Magical Knight" in spite of basically everyone shitting on him and his lower end magical prowess. He doesn't go for the "too cool for this show" vibe or "I don't give a shit and things happen to me" vibe, instead being a character with his own personal goals and desires who actually ends up fairly cool. Considering the need to be low magic for the plot to make sense, his power set is pretty good too.

One of the good things about this show is it doesn't go for full fanservice harem, but is instead a romance-action series, eschewing the desire to use hot girls in place of plot (although this show does have plenty of fanservice, I'll get to that more later). This can be most seen in Ikki and his eventual girlfriend, Stella Vermillion. Stella, in comparison to Ikki, has great natural magical talent and uses it fully to her advantage, but feels it overshadows the hard work she puts in to reach the level she has. Stella fits the Tsundere archetype, but has an important distinction I feel which some Tsunderes miss: That the "Tsun" part is not just acting standoffish and dickish for no discernable reason and that the character usually softens when actually getting to know them. Stella's character arc understands this well, as her Tsundereness becomes driven by a lack of proper social understanding, and when she actually gets together actively with Ikki, the method of her Tsundereness changes as she developes more. She also is presented as an equal to Ikki who frequently bests her fodder even better than him and has her own goals and motivations.

The way this romance handled impressed me, in that it is a developing story throughout the entire first season, that the show goes for the full on romance from Episode 4 on, and that becoming romantic doesn't automatically make them click perfectly. Instead, they have issues with their physicality, they misunderstand each other, and in general they act more like what you'd expect a couple of people in school in love to act like. Comparing the characters of Ikki and Stella to Ayato and Julis from Asterisk Wars shows how superior Chivalry is by comparison: Ayato and Julis, especially Julis, have vague at best reasons for want they wish to do, with Julis' Tsundereness often being illogical, and Ayato's personality being quite difficult to discern and coming off as generic. In fact, amusingly, Chivalry has a side character later with a similiar motivation to Julis, except it also adds actual backstory and depth to the reasoning and gives it more examination in about an episode than Julis gets in a season, making this side character come off as far more realistic and interesting than Julis ever does. Ikki and Stella have motivations which are delved into and do not have silly, pointless stop and go.

The other two main characters are Shizuku Kurogane and Alice. Shizuku is probably the most hit or miss character given both her archetype and her general character: She is Shizuku's blood sister and is madly in love with him, although fortunately this gets played more for the dramatic parts of Shizuku knowing she will be unable to get him rather than a constant harem. In fact, Shizuku's romantic love for her brother gets surprising examination throughout the series considering this will usually be played for comedy only if it is not the show's focus, and she has fairly well thought out motivation to her. She also gets one of the cooler fights in the series and utilizes her power set impressively. While she could be annoying at times, I overall liked her, although I am someone who generally wishes more not-blood-related siblings with romantic stuff were because it seems like a cop out otherwise, so take that for what it will.

Alice is the main character with the least screen time to her, but was quite enjoyable, and given that I have read up some on the light novels I would be very interested in where she went in a sequel series. A pre-op male-to-female transexual, Alice has pretty cool powers over darkness which allow her to teleport, bind people's shadows, and generally has a lot of potential for future fights in the series. She serves as the primary grounded one of the group who helps them understand themselves and others better and questions their motivations, while not releasing much info on herself. The fact that she is treated as normal and not just a joke trans character is a pretty big plus, and she has a pretty stylish look as well that is pretty fun.

There are of course more characters in the show like the mini villains, but going into them too much would just be spoilers: This show does have some good variety from complete douchebags to friendly rivals, though, which gives it someone who will appeal to most people at the least.

Plot-wise, Chivalry is nothing groundbreaking, but it paces itself well and the way it handles aspects like Ikki and Stella's romance is an actually refreshing change of pace compared to various other shows I have seen, working fairly differently within the light novel adaption-esque genre. It fits a solid amount of character developement into 12 episodes while giving us a little mini-arc to go along with the main plot and sets up some prospective later villains which seem appealing. The story is essentially that the combat school, a school for "Blazers" which are people who use powers and gain weapons derived from their soul, is holding a tournament in preparation for the big national tournament for Blazers to decide who will represent them. Ikki, who failed the previous year for reasons the show delves into, is in such dire straights that he must win the entire national tournament to graduate, and so is putting in all of his efforts into doing so. When he becomes roommates with the recently transferred Princess Stella Vermillion, the two get into a fight which quickly leads to them understanding each other a bit better, and then plot going from there. We even get some political intrigue later with the involvement of the Kurogane family.

The plot is not a blow you away plot, but it is solidly good and enjoyable, and has room to become more as time goes on. It doesn't skimp on fights, giving us multiple 8+ minute fights and actual characters and interesting powersets behind them instead of just useless mooks. It definitely isn't super deep, like a Madoka or whatnot, but it isn't super shallow either. When compared to Asterisk Wars, a show where even saying it HAS a plot is dubious at best, Chivalry comes faaaar ahead, compare the middle season mini-arcs to each other or how Chivalry uses seeming filler to effect and you get the difference.

Art and sound-wise, the show is very hit or miss. The first three episodes in particular have some bad art that seems to come from Silver Link punching outside of their weight, although I applaud their attempt: The obvious one of these is the very start of the show, which starts with a pan through Ikki's room and to his TV, which will probably make you feel like you are playing some kind of Xbox free game based on Heavy Rain. There's also a pretty laughable shot of Stella's flaming "aura" in the first fight which is really, really bad animation that brings to mind bad 90s anime. The "aura" in Episode 2 are also pretty bad. But the show noticably improves in its art as it goes on, with the ocassional flub, and actually ends up doing some pretty impressive stuff as it goes on. I especially applaud some stylistic choices in the last two episodes which are fairly well done and give me a Persona 3/5 aesthetic feel to me, which is great appeal, the use of monochrome with striking visual colors giving it a trippy feeling that really matches the tone the show is going for right now. This, combined with what I actually thought was some fun fight choreography (albeit not AMAZING) pushes the art to a 7 despite the flubs.

Sound-wise is a similiar story: The early episodes seem to have some issue with properly volumizing the sound and end up ocassionally being too drowning, but it has some notable background beats which become better interwoven as time goes on, especially in stuff like Kuraudo's fight. The OP, "Identity", is a pretty nice song with some cool, surprisingly dark visuals which really show off the difference between it and Asterisk War's extremelt generic, poorly animated opening. Chivalry's ED IS rather forgettable, however.

Overall, if one is looking for a romance series with action or an action series with romance, Chivalry is perfectly acceptable and actually pretty good unless you are unwilling to sit through fanservice, as the first three episodes have quite a large amount of it compared to the rest. It does not innovate the genre and totally make you rethink how it works or anything, but within the context of a light novel action series it innovates for a story. It has good action which gives unique powers and personalities to its opponents and doesn't just do the entire tournament arc in a flashback or anything dumb. It has solid motivations and growth for characters in a 12 episode series and some neat designs. For me, being a breath of fresh air, the striking visual presentation at points and some other personal appeal makes it get into an 8 star for me, and an average of about 7.5 feels right for the series. It is a good series with some obvious flaws, essentially, and some surprising elements. At only 12 episodes, I heartily recommend it at the least given the low time investment.

Kiznaiver is a show with a fairly interesting premise and some actually quite good art and sound design, which is largely let down by a somewhat flat and rushed plot. To start with, the opening is a trippy experience with some slick visuals and a catchy song and the most memorable part of the show for sure, and I should note it has a pretty nice ED too. The character designs are for the most part pretty good and only Sonozaki is notably generic, and even then it actually works fairly well with her characters. The introduction makes her come off as rather crazy and ... menacing and is actually pretty tense for what it is, basically just about revealing a secret about yourself, with characters getting decent starts: Tenga is the loudmouthed, fighting type who wants to live an exciting life and is a nice guy despite being a delinquent, Nico is the crazy girl living in a world of fantasy but is actually lashing out for attention, Chidori the girl with a crush who can't speak out, and so on. Our main hero, Katsuhira, has lost most of his ability to feel pain and so has difficult emphasizing with other people and has become dull of heart. Our heroes are made into Kiznaivers quickly: People who, through science, are bound together to experience each other's pain in order to develope a deeper connection.

The primary problem the show suffers is simply that the show does not really explore these characters in any depth for the most part, with only Sonozaki, Katsuhira and Maki getting any notable screen time. I feel like this is the fault of the episode length: Only Maki gets a true arc to her and she is notably the best character in the show for this, even if Tenga is pretty fun. Katsuhira and Sonozaki come off as incredibly obnoxious for the first 1/4th of the show, with Sonozaki in particular coming off as extremely evil, but they have backstory that does explain their actions: Katushira frankly still comes off as unlikeable and is my second least favorite character in the show, but Sonozaki's backstory is very reasonable for her actions and frankly it would be weird if she DIDN'T come off as crazy given what it entails, I kind of vaguely liked her in the end aside from some pretty conflicted feelings of parts.

Maki is notable for the fact she gets an actual character arc, which nobody else in the show does, and it is DEFINITELY the high point of the show, with a reasonably done backstory that for the most part does not feel overly melodramatic, is fairly logical and works into the themes of the show. I feel like if the show was about twice as long and had character arcs like this for all of the main characters, it would probably be actually pretty good. Well, maybe not everyone, since Katsuhira and to a lesser extent Chidori's are baked into the plot, but for characters like Nico, Yuta and Hisomu it would have been especially good. Hisomu I particularly feel the need to point out, as he feels quite out of place and pretty much a gag character with his masochistic shtick when he doesn't get any personal developement. Nico also is practically begging for a character arc that could have done wonders for the characters, but she is instead left a one noter. I also applaud Maki's backstory for having a tension/break between two same sex characters not surrounded around gay angst, but instead actual issues between the two, and in fact the show not even bringing attention to it.

Story-wise, the show isn't amazing, but it does follow logical progression and avoids making too many major mishaps...except in a way the ending. I won't get into it as it would be a lot of spoilers, but the latter 1/4th of the show I am very conflicted on and I feel like it was definitely not the BEST direction to take it, if nothing else it was definitely rushed. I do wish to give the story some props for doing some logical things that many other, better constructed stories I feel don't despite being good ideas: For example, the secret shadowy organization getting their government funding pulled due to being too conspicuous for their results and the resulting actions. Artistically, the show looks quite nicely drawn and rarely suffers off model moments, and I do want to give some sound design props for the cool noises of Kiznaiver effects activating and the like.

If you see more into the show's characters, then you will likely come to like it more: My personal issue was a lack of character developement and attachment to the characters in a series where such things are VERY important, the crux of it even, and some divided issues about parts of the plot. At 12 episodes, it is certainly worth a watch to decide for yourself, as it is if nothing else technically competent. If the concept was expanded on or redone, I can see something great comint out of it too, so that's a plus.

WARNING: Review contains minor spoilers, as the show has almost no story and some one off events need to be discussed to get across the show's quality.

Asterisk Wars is a series which has been derided by many and lauded by few, although the most common consensus to this show is likely "average". In my opinion, though, the people who pointed out all of this show's flaws are pretty much perfectly on track: This show has an unlikeable and generic cast set in an ill-concieved setting with no plot to drive it and poor fights.

Lets take it from the top. Our show begins when Ayato Amagiri, ... your standard flatbread hero, arrives at one of the six elite fighting schools, Seidoukan Academy, so he can be a fighter, as he is a Genestella which is basically a superhuman. The first action we get to see is him returning a handkerchief to a girl...by leaping through her open window?! What rational person does this, even if they can superjump places? It is a total invasion of privacy and instead of just, say, getting to her door and knocking, or shouting to her, or hell going to the window and saying she dropped it or any number of things, he just leaps into the open window of a total stranger's house. Inside is our female lead, Julis, and naturally since this is a harem series, that means we need to walk in on her dressing. Don't ask why a beautiful princess would decide to undress with an open, undrawn window where anyone can see, take pictures or so on of her.

Unsurprisingly, Julis is upset about this! She is one of the top ranked fighters in the school and so you can guess her reply to this problem. The first few episodes are dedicated to showing off some of the main characters and exposition. Lots and lots of exposition, most of which isn't even true exposition, like Claudia telling the main character a bunch of terms and things about the city that the viewer will have no idea about. Right, on that note, the two other main girls introduced now are Claudia and Saya: Saya is one of Ayato's old friends and therefor has the hots for him, but we don't really get a lot of their history together, and she is your general emotionless girl or "Dandere" type. Claudia is the hot, very forwardly sexual student council president who flatout prepositions Ayato for sex multiple times (the first time, in episode 3, being a hilariously bad scene for Ayato's reply) and liking him for...really no well explained reason, she just kind of shows up to exposit at him and then wants to fuck him after giving him a strong weapon.

A big issue is that all of these characters are pretty generic and have very little chemistry with each other: In fact, they very rarely even interact with people unless Ayato is directly involved and the focus, making them feel like they're just gone from the show when not existing, and we get very little insight to anyone's private lives aside from Claudia. Ayato is your generically overpowered main character, whose power seems to mostly be hitting really hard and his sword cutting things really well, with a cardboard attitude of "I don't really care but I do". I should also note that most shows in this fight involve Ayato aaaaand are boring, with most of the first season's tournament arc ending dedicated to Ayato/Julis and the other MC teams casually curb stomping their opponents in under a minute.

This is NOT how you write an overpowered main character. Overpowered main characters can work fine: For an example of that, Josuke from Part 4 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure would usually be considered pretty OP, with his stand Crazy Diamond being very physically powerful, pretty dang fast and having a potent ability to fix things. In fact, Josuke's stand for most of the Part 4, would be considered a lot stronger than the main antagonist's, but by giving the antagonist actual guile he becomes a menacing threat, and giving minor villains powers which can exploit Crazy Diamond through actual weaknesses, for example its short range, or having specialized abilities, ends up making some pretty great fights. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is practically based around the idea of the heroes being overpowered and weaves it nicely into the plot, taking a weakness and turning it into a plot strength.

Ayato is just...generically overpowered. He can move faster than everyone and hit harder to everyone and generically power himself up with yells and special effects to be even strongerer and then he beats up his opponents! Not once does Ayato display any battlefield tactics, special skills (the special attacks he calls are almost all literally a sword slash that doesn't seem to be any different than normal) or abilities of note to make his fighting interesting. Its the worst way to write an overpowered MC, especially since naturally in a harem series this means things like beating up the highly ranked female harem members because they are generically not as strong as the AMAZING Ayato Amagiri and now they will fall for him or he will carry them in his arm because they totally couldn't do it themselves.

Julis is your generic Tsundere girl who will probably be the harem winner. She has very few motivations and is one of the most blush heavy Tsunderes I have ever seen, even when she is going through the heavy Tsun parts, and her power is to control fire, which is never used beyond "circle of fire trap", "shoot fire" or "fiery explosion", and most of the time she shoots fire at people and they just get owned. Saya is small girl with a huge gun, which is only used to fire generic laser blasts. Claudia actually has some neat powers, dual wielding triangle lightsaber blades with an ability to see the future, but she doesn't actually get any fight scenes so. Kirin's power is "has a sword" and gets paired with Saya for some quite boring fights.

Oh, right, Kirin. She's another main character introduced in a latter pair of episodes, which I hesitate to call a "mini-arc" given its anemic lack of plot or advancement, and is a 13 year old with large boobs which get way too much emphasis for her age and is also somewhat weird to have in Ayato's harem in the first place. She largely comes off as a superflous character who exists to give Saya a partner but since she is a female on this show she MUST also be added to Ayato's harem. Her voice also is very annoying even for the usual archetype and she has the spine of a jellyfish without actually acting abused enough to fit her supposed backstory. Also, she is somehow ranked #1 in the school when Claudia is #2. Kirin wields a normal, non-laser sword, one of the only people to do so in the show. Claudia dual wields lightsabers and can SEE THE FLIPPING FUTURE. The only possible explanation is Claudia does not give a shit.

I also want to talk about a character who you would think is minor but frankly feels like he recurs as much, if not more, than Saya and Kirin: Lester MacPhail, whose name is quite literally pronounced MacFail. MacFail here is one of the most anemic attempts at a "bully" character I have seen in quite some time, being established as a loser who has lost to Julis 3 times but is itching to fight her and lose again. He is never displayed as a competent threat and nearly gets killed by one of the laser swords getting upset at him and flying around trying to murder him in a...hilariously awkward scene. He loses every fight he gets into, although SOMEHOW he is the one who gets the "valiantly fights but loses" fight scene to Irene, which if anything makes Irene look weaker by having to expend any effort on this failure. Its also hilarious because this guy is supposed to be kinda badass, like having built up muscle when Genestella are supposed to have trouble doing so, but he is basically a total loser in the show and one of the most pathetic strong man/bully types I've ever watched. This makes him more endearing than most of the main cast!

Finally for characters, I will mention Irene, the only decent character on the entire show: Pretty generic, sure, but her and her younger sister Priscilla are basically the only characters with actual energy or personality to them which helps makes any scenes in the show feel alive. She wields a laser-scyche (basically every weapon but Kirin's in the show is lightsaber-esque) which can control gravity and turns its user into a vampire because it requires blood to function. Since Priscilla can regenerate herself rapidly, Irene can feast on her blood to power up without worry, while she tries to just stay out of trouble, a somewhat interesting team dynamic. Their backstories are pretty generic and their powers are ill explained, but they are unique enough and Irene is the only character in the show who uses her power in a variety of interesting ways, making her basically the only character to be remotely competently done in this show, although her boss and essentially loan shark Dirk is decently set up, which naturally means she basically is put on a bus to end the season.

Story-wise, there just isn't much to comment on. Ayato gets to the school, acclimates to the school a little, gets into some fights, meets Kirin and has some more random fights, then they go to the tournament and fight some jobbers until Irene shows up for a mini-arc to close the season. Ayato gets some very, very light setup for plot involving his sister, Julis and Saya get some weak motivations (help an orphanage she did stuff in as a kid, she wasn't an orphan she just hung there, and advertise her father's guns respectively) aaaaaaaand that's pretty much it. Backstory for the series is vague, with Apocalyptic Event causing super people to show up and a really terrible Megacorp to take the place of nations, which doesn't really factor into the show at all. The tournaments are supposed to be gladiatorial, blood filled spectacles to satiate the populace, but less people die in them than the infamous "Hallway of Running" from Hunter x Hunter so it reeeally doesn't show up.

Sound-wise, most effects are dull and forgettable, with literal stock lightsaber sounds being used at times, and most background music is entirely forgettable. Not really good sound effects on the powers, either. The OP is fairly bad and that counts for a lot of the sound design, while the ED is okay, although stylistically even slice of life shows like K-On and Miss Kobayashi's Maid Dragon have done this ED style better. Art-wise the show actually usually isn't that bad, but it does suffer from not really having a very discernable style and bad looking effects in fights. The reason it goes down to a 2 is actually because of the horrible, Fates end of support style CGIs that are in the post-credits scene (usually involving Claudia), which already looked awkward in that, but here is done with way worse animation and ends up looking laughable and disturbing. This was so bad it dragged the animation score from a 4-5~ to a 2. Enjoyment is a 2 because it is a good show to talk to friends about the issues with and Irene's part was ever vaguely entertaining, but is a definitive 1 if you're not going to have anyone to go with.

Overall, Asterisk Wars has quite little to get people involved and was a pretty miserable experience, if you want a good harem show there are far better options out there and if you want an action show there are far better options out there. However, it can be worth watching if you want to form your own opinion on it (it has ANYONE who likes it, after all) or because of all the analysis done on it, or simply if you like to ocassionally watch bad shows and see what happens. I'm still going to watch Season Two, after all: I gotta see things through to the end.

Gun x Sword is an anime that is rather different from many of its contemporaries, although it has two obvious comparison points: Trigun and Cowboy Bebop, although I feel the Trigun comparison is somewhat misguided, mostly in that their similiairites are something many anime of its style have anyway, like colorful one shots.

Getting into the show itself, the main character is the tall, dark and lanky Van, who travels the world with a single purpose in mind: To kill the mysterious clawed man who took his wife, Elena, from him on his wedding day. Van isn't exactly your average protagonist, as he is quite apathetic, ... snarky and not the most sane, with him perfectly willing to let the starter village from the first episode burn since it doesn't concern him at the start. Most of his heroics come from other characters baiting him, being on the job for money or the fact that he DOES have a code of ethics which he adheres to to an extent: Slipping out of that, of course, is when he's at his worst. Van is also rather interesting in that the show doesn't take a generic "vengeance is bad" route and shows it in a far more fascinating manner, and Van's contrast between his normal self and when anything regarding The Claw is near are a highlight of the show.

He is primarily joined by Wendy, the gun to Van's sword, a girl from said village who travels with Van in pursuit of her brother, who has been kidnapped by the very same clawed man. Compared to Van, she is much more optimistic and enthusiastic, but she isn't an overeager kid archetype either and is still rather serious. The two are joined by various characters throughout their journey, but going too far into it would be somewhat spoilers, and many of them do not stay for as long until closer to the end, but they end up for the most part good.

The Claw, naturally, is the main villain of the piece and he is a pretty amazing piece of work: In some ways, he feels like a bit of a deconstruction or different look at the idea of a "sympathetic" antagonist, as many of his actions + his personality are somewhat incongruous and his personality is so far removed from the reality of the situation that he comes across as far more insane than most "crazy" villains you will see in media. It also makes him rather hilarious in many ways and the reveal of who he is has to be seen to be believed. He ends up with a fun and crazy cast of minions and underlings as well, but I will say one of the minor issues with this is that his minions don't all get the development they could use, although the ones that do are pretty great, but there is clear missed potential there.

Although the story starts off with a good deal of one shots, most of them are actually quite good, and the show actually goes on to make almost all of them relevant in some manner, some small and some large, leaving the show with shockingly little filler to its name, and the one shots are almost all enjoyable anyway, many of which with some pretty out there concepts. The show especially picks up after Episode 5, which introduces the rival character Ray Lundgren, who is...a rather hilarious rival archetype really, as his primary rivalry with Van is who will get the last hit on The Claw, as Ray ALSO desires vengeance on The Claw.

Artistically, the show reminds me of old school anime in a lot of respects, and it does have some really good shots at points, but the art can sometimes get a bit underdetailed and I feel like the mecha fights while usually good aren't always the best or most well done. The art is at its best when doing stuff like Van's expressions or the cockpits of the mecha. Musically, though, it is a lot better, with the opening being pretty epic and the ending especially being memorable. The music that plays when Van summons his mecha, Dann, is very nice and it has a smooth and noticeable take throughout.

Overall, Gun x Sword is a pretty good anime with some fascinating takes on the concept of vengeance, especially refreshing in that we don't get a generic "vengeance is bad" aesop, a pretty great hero and villain, plenty of good comedy with a good deal of nice action and a solid if sometimes issued story, and a lot of memorable characters. If you're not convinced yet, I'll leave you all with just three words: Mexican Power Rangers.

(NOTE: Some spoilers, mostly minor.)

Anybody who has seen Kouta Hirano's other famous work, Hellsing, will not be very surprised nor disappointed going into his next one, Drifters: Lots of action, badass shots of the characters, and not a ton of plot.

The story begins when Shimazu Toyohisa, a fighter in the great Battle of Sekigahara, is taken from his death in the battle at the last moments by a mysterious desk clerk in a world of infinite hallways, sending him to a mysterious world and averting his death. In this unnamed world he meets two other famous Japanese historical figures, Oda Nobunaga and Nasu no Yoichi, ... and begin to carve out a name for themselves in this world populated by fantasy races and humans alike by saving a nearby elven village and going from there.

Along the way, the main plot comes into focus of people like Toyohisa, sent from Earth at their moment of death into the world, as "Drifters", who must fight the "Ends", figures similiarly ripped away but often from worse circumstances and working towards the end of the world for humans under, naturally, Jesus Christ.

The main three characters are all good enough, Oda in particular can be rather great at times and while Yoichi can be boring just being the snarky one of the group works out well and Toyohisa is over the top bloodthirsty in a great way. The problem more comes from the side characters, which largely range on the annoying end of the scale.

Olminu particularly gets a lot of issues for this, as her spot on the show is essentially two things: boob jokes and being the one surprised by whatever the main characters do. This also in turn tends to make Oda's character get dragged down some, as he tends to be the one most often making said jokes which can be extremely ill-timed. A boob joke or two isn't going to destroy an entire show for me, but it is rather excessive here. Which works into another issue of the show I will get to. Hannibal particularly irks me, I'm a bit of a historical fan of Hannibal, and seperating him from Scipio so early ultimately ends up making him feel superflous and their little stuff irrelevant.

Count Saint Germi is probably the most annoying, as most of his screentime is dedicated to fairly poorly done gags about being a drag queen, and to have a way to resolve season 1's plot easy. Not only do the jokes fall flat, it has a very serious issue in that it denies us any true cool villain to work with the Orte Empire (basically the early villains) and leaves us basically with nameless grunts, which is a pretty big disappointment. While the show does a good job setting up what would presumably be later-arc villains, the result IS mostly setup so there's no major investment to pull it together. In particular this can cause the late-middle part of the show to drag in pacing.

Hellsing already had plenty of oddly placed comedies, but the worst thing about Drifters assuredly is its comedic elements, or rather, its comedic TIMING: Many small gags are thrown into tense situations and mostly serve to annoyingly break tension when it should not be broken, and often times totally deflated scenes for me me, not to mention the jokes falling flat as much as they hit.

The battles in this are cool, but a lot of it is more tense army battle/strategy than cool, showy fights: It lacks some of the flash of Hellsing, which makes me prefer Hellsing more in that regard. Two things that must be praised are the art, which is pretty high quality, and the very nice music and sound, with the musical talents from Hellsing coming over for some quite nice pieces.

If you want a standard action series, then Drifters isn't bad in that regard, but it overall was a bit too flawed for me to fully enjoy. A second season could certainly help with a lot of the show's issues if it ever gets made, but I'm not highly optimistic.