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Dec 18, 2019
Board games is probably not the most mainstream hobby out there but in my experience, it is one of the best social experiences you can have with your friends. For the past 5-6 years now I've regularly hosted board game nights at home with my former high school classmates and it's one of our most regular ways to hang out and reasons to meet. Board games are a great way to interact with each other in a fun, intelligent and rewarding way which also offers flexibility and versatility, and just in general it's one of the most social experiences you can have. I just wish
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more people gave it a chance because it sure beats going out clubbing, I'll tell you that much.
In case it wasn't obvious, Houkago Saikoro Club is a slice of life anime about exactly that: board games and the social experience that they provide. Despite the cover, it is not really a cute girls doing cute things kind of show, because while the main cast is primarily female, there are also numerous male characters in this show and more importantly it never really tries to go too excessive with the moe. Instead it focuses more on the actual games, and this is something I very much appreciate. You see, the games they play in this anime aren't just random made-up ones, but rather all 100% real board games that you can likely find in any sizeable store that sell these types of games. Even the ones you see in the background on the various shelves that are never actually used or even mentioned in the show are all real too. I've played several of them myself and even own a handful so for any fan of the medium then it's also a show which is packed with relatable references in that sense. It's almost like an easter egg hunt for trying to see how many of them you can find.
On the downside, I guess for anyone that doesn't play board games themselves and/or is relatively unfamiliar with them, I think a lot of the intended appeal of this show goes out the window. If you're solely trying to watch it for the cute girls factor then... you'd probably be better off watching an anime more directly dedicated to that end goal, because again that isn't really what Houkago Saikoro Club is about. Don't get me wrong, the girls in it are likeable enough as they are, but I wouldn't really call them outstanding either.
Overall, it just feels like an anime made for people that are fans of board games, and for those of us at are it's a very relatable, realistic and enjoyable watch. But for anyone else, they'll probably miss the point of the show to some extent. That doesn't make it bad, but it definitely makes it niche. Take that as you will.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 13, 2019
Dr. Stone is an interesting shounen in the sense that it takes a bit of a different direction from the norm. Despite the manga being published in Weekly Shounen Jump, Dr. Stone is by no means a battle shounen, but instead focuses on something more intelligent and creative, namely scientific discoveries and the development of early human society. That is not to say that the show is necessarily realistic all the time, but rather more of a liberal and fictional take on something that at least has realistic roots.
That being said, I also have to stress that the opening arc of Dr. Stone is... not
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very good, to put it lightly. More specifically the first six episodes of this anime are honestly quite awful and mostly annoyed me when I watched them. At the time it just came across as a very childish show that couldn't shut up about trying to shove in your face just how incredibly realistic it was all the time, despite having a superhuman and all-knowing protagonist in Senkuu with a seemingly perfect memory and who somehow managed to not lose his mind after staying conscious for literally thousands of years. Not to mention the rest of the cast consisted of his friend Taiju who does nothing but scream in every possible moment (Black Clover flashbacks on that one) and a Jojo character in Tsukasa, capable of punching lions to death with his fists. Overall it just felt like a mess that pretended to be way smarter than it actually was instead of being something that actually felt like an actual representation of how someone could try to get by in life in their particular situation.
However, fortunately and to me quite unexpectedly, after that Dr. Stone managed to resolve most of its problems almost in a split second. See, the main story of the anime doesn't actually start until episode seven, and from there on out the show is actually quite good.
So how did it manage this comeback exactly? Well first of all it pretty much got rid off the super annoying Taiju from the spotlight entirely and Tsukasa only rarely shows up anymore. Instead, we get to meet a whole new cast of characters that are much more likeable, believable and fun to watch. And most importantly, the general direction of the story changes drastically. Instead of merely having the rather monotonous goal of simply going around reviving petrified statues all over, we instead get a much more interesting plot direction as Senkuu and the others tries to elevate a primitive village into something with modern day technology. Senkuu of course has the knowledge of what he wants to achieve with it, but actually getting there with such limited resources and a group of sceptical natives that don't understand what they're doing is no easy feat. Basically, you can say that in many ways, the main story of Dr. Stone is actually not too different from what Slime did a year ago, I.E: showcasing the development of society and technology, as well as how to implement it in an otherwise primitive world. Once again, it all feels a bit like playing a game of Civilization.
That is not to say that there still aren't times where Dr. Stone's showcasing of science becomes very questionable as far as realism goes, such as when Chrome supposedly makes a fire lens out of his own sweat and tears in episode 14, which for numerous reasons would be impossible to do in reality in that situation. Nevertheless you can still at least see the thought process behind it and what the show is trying to get at. And I think that might be the most important thing to remember about thie anime, namely that despite the direction it's taken and the fact that it's largely based on real science, it is ultimately still a shounen. In other words it's still primarily an anime made for kids and people in their early teens. It doesn't have to be 100% believable when it's merely a fictional show made for entertainment in the end. I mean god's sake let's not forget we have a character literally rolling around inside a watermelon to move around.
Overall, Dr. Stone is far from a flawless anime but it is creative and original, and it has an interesting concept to work with that still has plenty of potential to be expanded upon in the future. Ironically, the initial premise of the global petrification and how the world ended up in this primitive state is one of the least interesting aspects of the show, but the civilization building side of it is always fun to watch. The opening arc is still unforgivably bad though and that is definitely dragging down my overall score of the show, but nevertheless I would still recommend people to drag themselves through the lackluster early parts because what comes thereafter is worth the effort. If you can get over the fact that some of the characters seem to have a couple light-years of distance separating their eyes for some inexplicable reason that is.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 1, 2019
Watching YU-NO is like researching a piece of anime history disguised as a piece of entertainment media. It's something that really would have been far more impactful had it aired 20 years ago than it is today, but nevertheless it's interesting to watch for educational purposes perhaps more so than the story itself.
In essence, YU-NO is based on a classic visual novel from all the way back in 1996. At the time of its release, there wasn't really anything else like it on the market. Visual novels back then were still relatively unambitious and it wasn't really a medium attempting any grand storylines until YU-NO
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came along. I guess you can say that YU-NO was for the visual novel medium what something like Evangelion was to anime for its time. Something that paved the way for so many other works in the decades thereafter. But in the same way that Evangelion is not normally considered anything revolutionary for people that watch it for the first time today, the same problem can be seen here as watching the anime adaptation of YU-NO 23 years after its original VN release will make it a lot more difficult seeing what the big deal is supposed to be.
It is however quite clear that a lot of famous anime have taken ideas and inspiration from YU-NO originally. Steins;Gate might be the most obvious parallel there seeing as its time leap machine is clearly based on YU-NO's reflection device, and its world line and attractor field concepts are pretty much directly taken from it as well. You can kind of think of YU-NO as the grandfather of all sci-fi and time travel-oriented visual novel stories, which has surely also spilled over into other mediums in Japan over the years considering that the game has always been amongst the top rated VNs in the country because of its legacy.
That said, the actual anime itself isn't really that special by today's standards. It goes through the various routes one at a time in a way which is not particularly unusual for VN adaptations but it comes with the regular problem of whichever heroine who's route it's not currently on seemingly disappearing from the story all of a sudden which feels quite unnatural. The characters themselves are also fairly bland, and you're often left with the feeling that a bunch of content has probably been cut out from the original since the pacing can be quite jumpy. As a result it can sometimes get confusing and it's a bit difficult to really settle down with it. Eventually things does start to make more sense about what is going on in the grander scheme of things but it takes quite a long time to get there, and once it gets to the final arc things will have changed so much it feels like you're watching a completely different anime than you did at the beginning. A better anime admittedly, but nevertheless the continuity of it all feels a bit strange as a result. On the other hand, the plot reveals towards the end are quite shocking in a lot of ways, and I mean that in a positive sense. It somehow managed to tie all the loose plot threads together in a much more complex manner of fashion than one would anticipate.
Overall though it's a bit difficult knowing whether to recommend YU-NO or not because the main reasons for watching it are not really related to the anime itself but rather just because of the source material's legacy and impact on the industry in the past two decades. It's something more worth watching to satisfy your curiosity and to learn something in the process rather than for what entertainment value it possesses by itself.
But as a side note I can in that case also mention that the 1080p remake of the visual novel is being officially released on PC in Japan and on multiple platforms in English on October 1st 2019. In other words, literally the same day as this anime ended. I'm pretty sure that's not a coincidence so we can definitely assume the main purpose of this adaptation was to boost sales and interests of the VN's remake, and I think I might as well just go ahead and oblige to that because if you haven't seen YU-NO yet and you've been thinking of whether you should do it or not... your best bet is most likely to just go ahead and pick up the just released VN remake instead. I'm probably going to do the same one of these days.
Edit: Or so I said but I didn't actually get around to reading it until early 2022. Good game though!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 20, 2019
Hey, can I say something amazing right now?
This anime is, that's what.
Joshikousei no Mudazukai was the one show above all which throughout the season I genuinely didn't understand why it didn't have a higher score on MAL. Me and many of my friends were in agreement that it's probably been the best comedy of the season, and it almost always manages to be entertaining.
By design it's nothing out of the ordinary. Just another high school comedy starring a bunch of girls. However, what truly makes it shine is the character cast and the dynamic between them. Mudazukai is very self-aware and every girl in the
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show is primarily referred to by some stupid nickname that the main character Tanaka has thought up. Tanaka herself, more commonly known as Baka, is as her name suggests an absolute moron. I can't stress enough just how stupid she is, but her stone-faced and deadly serious way of approaching the most ridiculous ideas she thinks up and then promptly forcing them on her friends is probably the core of what makes the show so funny. It's like a domino effect where her antics spread to everyone around her almost as if infecting them with her stupidity which in turn causes them to bring out their own abundance of great comedic interaction. All the characters are basically forced to accept and embrace their own quirks as a result, which effectively turns their own tropes into their advantage instead.
If you want to draw some parallels then Joshikousei no Mudazukai can be compared to the likes of Nichijou, Aho Girl or Asobi Asobase with similar kinds of over-the-top, meme-like and really stupid comedic scenarios, but thanks to the character cast it all works out really well. Obviously comedy is still very subjective so it's difficult to really critique it, but if you enjoyed any of those anime then I would definitely recommend checking this one out too.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 18, 2019
I can't recall the last time I saw an anime with as inconsistent writing quality as Kanata no Astra. I swear, this anime flip-flops between being really cool and being downright stupid every five minutes. It makes for a very strange viewer experience but if nothing else it sure keeps you curious.
I'll put it this way: the actual premise and setting of Kanata no Astra is really intriguing. Space anime that aren't mecha are rare enough to begin with, but to on top of that make it a sort of survival story with a great deal of exploration of the unknown celestial bodies of space
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is a great combination. You can also definitely tell that the author had a clear idea of how the story would finish before he started writing it, and as a result the overarching main mysteries of it all are quite interesting and a bit surprising as well. You'll be able to guess some of it but certainly not all of it, and those surprises might just be all you need to make it a worthwhile viewer experience.
But on the other hand, where Kanata no Astra really suffers is more in the details of it all. Anyone that actually pays attention will notice lots and lots of minor things throughout the story that either just plain don't make sense or feel way too dependent on random coincidences. For starters there are the planets that the characters end up visiting throughout the series which somehow all end up feeling about as one-dimensional as the procedurally generated ones in No Man's Sky. It's all one big biome with an ecosystem that is seemingly very small but still filled with nothing but over-the-top fantastical organisms, not to mention they're still conveniently edible for humans (not to mention the device that measures the level of organism edibility). Then there's the pacing which feels very jumpy considering that there are several weeks in-between every planetary stop for our main characters, yet they seem to always pass by in a breeze as if nothing of note happened meanwhile, even if some massive plot point had just been brought up in the past episode. It's not like the travel time is the same as going through a loading screen in a video game but it often feels like the plot treats it as one. It just doesn't really make much sense.
Sometimes the author does try to come up with an explanation to make an otherwise one-in-a-million coincidence plausible, but it still often ends up feeling rather forced. For example there's one episode where he clearly wanted the main characters to randomly come across a certain object on a planet they were visiting, so thus naturally on this particular planet it just so happened that only a very thin strip of land around the equator was actually habitable, and it just so happened that on a certain part of that strip there was a bunch of hazards which could cause you to crash your ship, and it just so happened that the characters not only do so but then also end up disembarking and walking to the exact they needed to find the object in question... etcetera. Like it's not illogical but it's just layered coincidences upon coincidences to force the plot in a specific direction rather than feeling like an organic universe and as a result it just doesn't come across as natural at all. Now the mysteries in Astra that are more closely tied to the main plot are eventually explained further down the line, albeit some in more satisfactory ways than others, but again it's the details along the road that are not really properly addressed.
The characters themselves are also a bit of a strange bunch. Some of them are supposed to be geniuses but sometimes they end up doing some really stupid decisions anyway. But either way I still consider them an enjoyable group in the context they're presented, and when all is said and done and you know the truth behind their respective pasts, it definitely gives them a better outlook than it does at first.
At the end of the day, the idea of exploring the unknown in space has always excited me and honestly that's still the main reason why I enjoyed this anime despite everything. For the most part, Kanata no Astra doesn't have the best writing and there's no way around that fact, but it still has its moments where it shines. More importantly though, in the end I'm not sure it really matters. Yes, it could potentially have been a really great anime if it had been better researched and polished, but it is still an enjoyable anime in a very unusual setting and that also has a proper conclusion. That's a lot more than can be said for most anime. I think the best thing you can do is to simply try to not take it more seriously than necessary because if you can look past all the triggering little details spread out throughout it then you should have a much better viewing experience.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jun 25, 2019
Isekai Quartet represents the most wholesome and pure type of fan service one can write. In other words a spinoff truly made for the fans of not just one franchise but four of them, more specifically KonoSuba, Re:Zero, Youjo Senki and Overlord; kind of like a 2019 equivalent of what Carnival Phantasm was for the Nasuverse back in 2011. It should go without saying that you should have seen at least some and preferably all of these series before watching Isekai Quartet or you will not be able to appreciate this anime for what it is.
This chibi crossover spinoff basically takes all the main characters
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from these various franchises and sends them to another world... again... where they meet each other in a seemingly ordinary human school and are forced to become students. Of course what the anime is actually about is simply putting all these loveable characters together just to see what the hell happens, and that is really the charm point of it all. Just seeing the crossover interactions play out is something any fan of these series should have a great deal of fun watching. After all, character relations such as Tanya's hatred for deities like Aqua and in turn Aqua's animosity towards the undead such as Ainz is unavoidably going to lead to a great deal of interesting confrontation.
It's a simple show by design but it definitely works. The only real problem with it is that there are so many characters involved and potential interactions that would have been fun to explore, but with only 9-minute episodes (excluding OP and ED duration) we only ever get a quite limited amount of exposure to a large portion of Isekai Quartet's character cast. There are so many things I would have liked to see the show touch upon that never ended up happening simply because it ran out of time. But nevertheless it is still a great spinoff which I would highly recommend any fans of the related series to watch. It may be short but it's exceptionally sweet.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Mar 30, 2019
"O kawaii koto~"
Imagine if Death Note was a romcom. Imagine that Light and L were not trying to outwit each other with the world itself at stake, but rather just that they actually liked each other romantically but were too shy and awkward to just it outright. Do you think that sounds ridiculous? Maybe, but that's more or less the idea behind Kaguya-sama. Well, except it's not yaoi of course.
If you ever need a benchmark for how to do a romcom really damn good, then look no further than this. There really aren't many series within the genre out there that can manage to not
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just be cute and hilarious, but actually quite intelligent as well, but Kaguya-sama does it all. The anime follows the daily lives of Shirogane Miyuki and Shinomiya Kaguya, the top two students at Shuchiin Academy, and also president and vice president respectively of its student council. They're both geniuses and they're also both hopelessly in love with each other, however they're also... two tsunderes incapable of ever taking the first step themselves. In fact, due to how proud they are, they think confessing to someone is a sign of weakness as it implies that the one being confessed to is more valuable and desirable than the person doing the confessing, and this fact combined with their shyness have them both 100% determined to never make the first move. Instead, they both try to do everything they can to mind game the other into confessing to them first, no matter how complex the scheme required to accomplish that may be. As a result, you have a perfect setup for complete and utter hilarity.
It's a brilliant concept in general and it's executed really well, mainly thanks to how loveable the characters are and how the chemistry between them works. The show is definitely not just about Shirogane and Kaguya: the other members of the student council are just as important to the anime's enjoyment. The cheerful and free-spirited secretary Chika is the consistent X-factor of the series who always ends up somehow interfering with the main duo's carefully thought-out plans and flip everything on its head, whereas the introverted and somewhat paranoid treasurer Ishigami is probably the most normal and relatable character in the show, although I wouldn't go as far as to call him the voice of reason either. In any case, the point is that they're all very different from each other and they work perfectly together as a group as they all operate in harmony to emphasize each other's gags. Kaguya-sama is a comedy first and foremost, operating in a “one sketch per chapter" basis in the manga, and in the anime they're essentially doing three of those scenes per episode. Now that is not to say that it does not have romance too, but it is a very slow burn on that front, and at the very least in the span of what the anime covers, it is not really the primary focus.
Kaguya-sama is a very well-directed comedy show that makes great use out of a brilliant original concept, and really anyone with a decent sense of humour should be obligated to check it out. Great narrative, surprisingly good production value by A-1 standards, and just a very charming series in general.
PS: Chika's dance as the ED of episode three is probably the greatest thing you'll ever see.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Mar 28, 2019
I will admit that I'm generally not a very big fan of shounens, but Yakusoku no Neverland is in my opinion without a doubt the best thing to have ever spawned from Weekly Shounen Jump. Then again it needs to be said that it is not very similar to most other things from the same magazine.
It's been literally years since I felt the need to give out any 10s to an anime TV-series, but in the case of Neverland I knew from the start that as long as they don't mess it up, it would be worthy of it for sure. The first arc of
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the manga was simply brilliant after all, and the anime which covers it is not too different.
Horror is a genre which generally does not work very well in anime for the simple reason that it's very difficult to make cartoons straight-up scary. However, they can still be creepy and eerie, and that's one of the areas in which Neverland excels. It has one of those truly great opening episodes that immediately hook you, starting off showcasing the wonderful and cheerful orphanage of Grace Field filled with children who spend their youths in complete happiness... until the rather shocking truth of the whole situation is revealed at the end of the first episode and at that point it's almost impossible to not be immediately captivated by what the story has to offer. I won't reveal anything about what that truth actually is though, and I would highly recommend you try to avoid getting spoiled by it before watching if it is somehow possible.
At its heart, Neverland is mainly a mystery and a thriller though, as our main characters Emma, Norman and Ray try to investigate the secrets of the mansion which they live in and start to plot an elaborate plan to escape it along with the other kids that live there, all without attracting attention from the eyes of the ones opposing them. The direction is quite simply superb, both in terms of making the viewers feel engaged in the main characters' situation and to be wanting to cheer for them, but also in terms of slowly unwrapping the mystery in a way which is not too quick, eventually resulting in an incredibly satisfying finale. The main characters are all quite intelligent but in very different ways, with Emma being the cheerful and strong-willed one whereas Norman and Ray are more scheming and unpredictable, but for totally different motivations.
The production value is also excellent. The art and animation across the board is always on point, the opening theme is pretty kickass and the voice acting does an adequate job of breathing life into the characters. I think in particular Morohoshi Sumire's performance as Emma is quite commendable in that aspect.
Overall I think Neverland is a fantastic anime in terms of story, direction and the ability to immediately get you hooked an invested into the show. As a result it's a show I would highly recommend to anyone that enjoys well thought-out thrillers and mysteries.
To add to that, we've now also gotten confirmation that a second season is in the works for 2020 so the joyride isn't stopping anytime soon. However, I should at least mention as a manga reader that the quality of the story does in fact drop a decent amount after the first arc and it takes a considerable amount of time before it recovers to a similar level as it had in the beginning. Thus I would not expect the second season to be as good as the first one, but still definitely worth watching at least. Or if you've been hooked enough on the story by now to be unwilling to wait that long, well then the manga always lies around the corner if you want to give it a shot.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Mar 28, 2019
Just when you thought anime couldn't surprise you any longer...
I reckon this show will mostly receive meme and troll reviews but I'll try to do this seriously. I've seen a lot of anime over the years, but nothing quite like Dimension High School. This is so far the only show I've ever seen which is basically 50% (CGI) anime and 50% live action. While I have seen live action segments occasionally in anime before, it's never been to the extent which it is here, and never done as a major plot point by itself.
Most likely DHS was intended to be some sort of meta take
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on the ever so popular isekai genre. Instead of having an anime character being transported from the "real" world to a fantasy one, we here have a group of high schoolers in our three-dimensional world being transported into the second dimension every so often. However, in terms of story it is nothing like your typical isekai anime.
Basically we have a group of students in a Japanese high school and their teacher who every so often get visited by a floating, talking rock with the ability to send them into the second dimension where they get trapped inside a classroom and forced to solve puzzles by giant sphinxes. I've no idea how someone managed to come up with such an absurd premise but I digress. The sphinxes' games are upheld by their absolute rule, which says that if the main characters are unable to solve a puzzle before the allotted time runs out, the sphinx will eat one of their souls in order to collect three-dimensional energy as the sphinxes seek to one day be able to enter the third dimension themselves. If the remaining players manage to solve a puzzle however then they will be sent back to their world, and anyone who had been devoured will be handed back, however in the process they will also lose the one thing they treasure the most in life.
It's a bit convoluted but you get used to the rules relatively quickly. In any case the puzzles themselves are definitely the primary content of the anime and its main selling point. Now there was actually another anime that aired two years ago called Nana Maru San Batsu which was also about quizzes, and I learned there that they can offer a quite unique way for the viewer to interact with the show as you can effectively participate yourself by trying to figure out the answer to the questions before anyone in the show does. However, with DHS there is a bit of a problem if you try to do the same thing. In Nana Maru San Batsu the questions were mostly about trivia which anyone has a chance at knowing, but in DHS they are much more complicated puzzles which are not only difficult and far-fetched by themselves, but they are also pretty much impossible to solve if you are not fluent in Japanese. The intricate word plays and kanji usage which are essential to solving these puzzles are thus impossible for a western viewer to figure out if they don't possess advanced knowledge of the language themselves. I think it's a bit unfair to actually criticize the show for this fact though, after all it's aimed at a Japanese audience from the start and it's not the writers' fault that most westerners lack the necessary knowledge to fully engage in the show.
Nevertheless, even if you can't figure out the puzzles on your own or properly understand the characters' thought processes as they try to do it themselves, I still think they were decently entertaining to watch. And while the anime is certainly very dumb and silly by design, it actually managed to deliver a surprisingly satisfying and well thought-out ending.
Dimension High School feels largely like an experiment. I don't think we'll see a whole lot of anime/live action hybrids in the future as I don't really see the point of it for the most part, but it was an interesting idea at least and you can't say that it wasn't innovative, as weird as it may have been. It is still a very simplistic anime in the end but it doesn't really need to be any more than that. I was struggling trying to think of what I even wanted to rate the show as a whole though, but I do think it deserves a bit more than what MAL is currently giving it at least. The mere fact that half of it is live action doesn't automatically mean everyone has to mass downvote it you know.
PS: Just for the record, this is a full-length show. The fact that MAL has it labeled as only 10 minutes per episode is quite ridiculous; they're basically only counting the parts of it that are animated and discounting all the live action timespan. Mildly triggers me.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Mar 27, 2019
I am honestly shocked this show feels as genuinely original as it does. After all, with such a simple yet loveable concept, why are there so few anime like this?
Doukyonin wa Hiza—more commonly referred to by its English title of My Roommate is a Cat—is in my opinion one of the best slice of life shows in the last few seasons. The story follows the life of the shy novelist Subaru who recently lost his parents in an accident. Lonely and socially awkward, he one day randomly comes across a stray cat on the street whom he decides to take in on a whim. He's
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never raised a pet before but little does he know that it might just be the best single decision he's ever made.
There are numerous things to like about My Roommate is a Cat really, but first of all I like the dynamic between Subaru and his cat Haru in the sense of just how important they are to each other given their respective pasts. Subaru has recently lost his parents as mentioned, but Haru has also had a rough life on the street with her siblings, always on the run from enemies and scavenging for food. They give each other the support and peacefulness that their lives have been missing.
Secondly, the overall tone of the show is quite mature. This might partially be related to the fact that Subaru and all his other human acquaintances are adults, but just in general the writing feels quite genuine and the relationships between Subaru and his friends always come across as human. As a result there isn't really any character in this show that I find much of a reason to dislike. They all fill the roles they've been presented quite admirably without ever coming across as tropey.
Last but certainly not least however, is how the author has managed to portray Haru and her view of the world. You see, this is an anime that really has two protagonists: a large portion of the show is seen from Haru's eyes instead of Subaru's. This is generally done by first having a few scenes play out from Subaru's perspective, and then a while later you'll get to see those same events again, but this time from Haru's eyes. It's a brilliant structure that manages to provide some drastically different anglings of the same events without ever feeling repetitive—in fact they manage to fill in a lot of holes that have intentionally been left somewhat incomplete the first time around from Subaru's perspective. What I find especially impressive about this though is just how believable Haru's thought processes and actions are when you get to see things from her eyes. I can totally imagine a cat looking at the world in the simplistic and childlike way that she does and it's always a pleasure to watch.
My Roommate is a Cat is an absolutely heartwarming and charming anime that feels both realistic and creative at the same time. It makes me wonder why there are so few anime about pet raising out there. Evidentially it's not a bad concept at all if executed properly. In any case if you're a slice of life fan then this should be a must-watch; even if you consider yourself to be more of a dog person than a cat person I would still recommend it as I have some total doggo fanatics amongst my friends that have still loved this show.
Plus you know, Haru is cute as a button. Seeing her wiggle her tail along to the beat of the OP was the best moment of every week this season for me.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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