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When I initially watched Black Butler my view on it was a lot more positive, though far from something I would have even then called great. After having read the manga though, it has become very apparent to me just how much the studio fumbled with this adaption. They basically only adapted the first few episodes out of the manga and the entire rest is all anime only plot. Characters like Ash, Angela and Pluto have never appeared even once in the source material and the storyline portrayed there does not hold a candle to what the manga was doing. I got at times uncomfortable ... with the suggestive vibes Sebastian gave to Ciel and whilst I know that he is a demon, you do not want to get in contact with the Ciel x Sebastian shippers who are genuinely a few of the weirdest people I have ever met. The entire ending of the anime only gave birth to the abdomination that is the second season of Black Butler which is even worse and which I'm probably going to review later on. If you want the real Black Butler experience, watch the first few episodes and then immediately go to Book of Circus since for whatever reason the studio picked years later up where the manga story line was meant to go.

Naruto was my first Anime ever, which is probably not uncommon. It is called one of the Big 3 (Naruto, Bleach, One Piece) for a reason. It has left a mark on the community even years after airing and there are reasons. Is it overhyped though? In my opinion it is and that is because of a couple of reasons.

The first reason for me would be the amount of filler episodes. Let’s be honest, filler nowadays just doesn’t work anymore for anyone. Only few would sit through it, especially when it has as many filler episodes as Naruto. Naruto Classic has 220 episodes and 91 ... of them are non-cannon. In comparison to it’s continuation that is considered that is even not that bad.

The second reason for me would the female characters. Whilst I never participated in all of the excessive hate they receive, especially towards Sakura, I‘m also not delusional enough to say that they’re perfect. Now, obviously no character has to be perfect but the problem that I have is that the female ninja have nothing in comparison to the male characters. Sakura is acting like an annoying fan girl towards Sasuke, Hinata can’t even form a proper sentence in front of Naruto without stuttering and blushing and looks like she’s about to faint, Ino joins Sakura in fangirling over Sasuke and is only focused on her appearance and Kurenai, the only female sensei we have, loses her only fight against Itachi. That wouldn’t be such a problem if she wouldn’t have used genjutsu against Itachi, a prodigy who possesses the Sharingan! The only female characters who actually did their job in Classic were for me Anko, Tayuya and Tsunade. All were acting more independent since none of them were dragged down by any romantic feelings for someone or fought a stupid fight and especially Tsunade had a proper character development in her introduction arc by overcoming the death of two loved ones.

The lack of good-written female characters hurts because Kishimoto did a fantastic one with the male characters and gave them so many moments. Zabuza and Haku as first antagonists were really enjoyable and the first fight where Kakashi fought against Zabuza as well as the final fight on the bridge were great. The parallels between Naruto and Gaara during the Chunnin exams were good and I know no one who doesn’t love fights such as Lee vs. Gaara or Naruto vs. Neji were a core philosophy and question in Naruto was established. Can hard work and determination surpass natural talent and defy destiny by making it to the top? Orochimaru as the first major villain was perfect because he was scary, creepy, obsessed with power and was also cunning and resourceful, fitting the snake he was meant to physically and metaphorically symbolize. Jiraiya, despite being a pervert, had such a big heart and trained Natuto well. In Classic all three of the Sanin were outstanding in my opinion. A character I especially appreciate because he uses wits over raw power is Shikamaru. He isn’t as strong as many others in the show judging by physical power or maybe even special abilities. But he uses what he has and uses it to it’s full potential by using his mind. Sure, he is lazy most of the time but a genius who cares for his friends and allies and I think nothing showed that better than the Sasuke Recovery arc which is next to the Search for Tsunade arc my favorite from Naruto Classic. Because this is in most cases the only and/or last time we see some of the characters fighting alone and fighting good, whether they ultimately lost or not isn’t even important. We never saw characters like Neji, Choji, Lee and Kiba with Akamaru have such good and intense fights again and that’s a true pity. The Sound 4 were also good antagonists for this arc and whilst all of them fulfilled the roles within this arc well enough, I would have loved seeing more of Tayuya and Kimimaru since they were interesting and I loved the abilities and powers they had. The return of the Sand siblings in this very same arc was also nice, especially seeing how Gaara changed after meeting Naruto and letting him fight with Lee together, the very same boy he nearly killed, made his attempts to change even better.

If you want good female characters, this Anime isn’t something for you as it‘ll leave you hanging for the biggest part except on rare occasions. Despite that I also won’t deny that Naruto had a big impact with its many characters and I think the fact that is still so well-known today speaks for itself. Naruto has left it’s legacy and especially main characters like Naruto and Sasuke are still standing tall today. Despite it‘s flaws I‘d still recommend it for anyone who can overlook the reasons I listed because whilst Naruto could have done a lot better, it also did quite a bit very good.

Attack on Titan has blown up over the years and the first season of this show has aired as of this year officially 10 years ago and everyone in the Anime community has probably watched at least the first season. The first season feels almost like an entirely different world in comparison to what is going on in the later seasons but we don't want to spoil.

The basic premise is humans against Titans, man-eating monsters. Humans have been living for decades peacefully behind walls who protect them from Titans until a few unknown Titans appear and destroy the first of 3 walls, leading Titans to ... flood the district and killing countless humans, the mother of the main protagonist included who then swears to kill all Titans. Him and his two friends join the scouts, people who leave the safety of the walls to explore the outside world and have to fight against the Titans on the way.

The action scenes in this show are really well down and so is the violence as people constantly die. If you want to get attached to characters, just don't in this show as you never know who might die or not although this enhances the feeling of the cruelty of this world. Whilst the fight scenes certainly will get you hyped up, the first season doesn't do the best job in promoting it's characters as deeply as they could have done, some of them appear for a few episodes and then don't get explored that much again.

The second half of this season is probably the stronger one as a plot twist is thrown in which deepens the mystery of this world a bit more.

I don't need to say too much about Aot though since I feel like it has become a modern classic nowadays.

Attack No.1 is my second volleyball Anime after Haikyuu!! and my first one where all the players are girls so I was curious to see how they would handle depicting young girls at the time it came out. I find it admirable though that the manga and Anime are apparently based on the the fact that the women team of Japan won the Olympics (?) a few years prior to it's release. So this Anime is a sort of celebration for this win at the time.

Once again, this Anime is very old so the artstyle and the music aren't what you would probably like ... to see and hear today and the character writing is more superficial and stereotypical at times too. We have the bully who becomes the best friend of Ayuhara, our main girl, and at times the story can feel a bit ridiculous when we get to the points of extreme bullying and certain scenarios which just look a bit unrealistic at times.

What I did like a lot about Attack No. 1 though is that we see Ayuhara developing her skills over a couple of years instead of just one year in high school and see how she fights and makes it big in the end. We start in the second year of junior-high-school with national tournaments and are by the end at her second year in High School where she's presenting All Japan internationally. Whilst I don't know how realistic the techniques are that they use, things like Trinity Attacks and Balloon Spikes were really fun to watch too.

Older Anime easily get forgotten these days due to all the new stuff coming out each season but if you ever have time, I'd recommend trying this show out.

Ashita No Joe, or Tomorrow's Joe as it's called in English, is already over half a century old so it's probably no surprise that not many people are watching this anymore. The animation with it's charcoal-like look and the music are due to that obviously of no comparison of today's animation but if you decide to ignore that and give it a try, you might be surprised.

It's my first boxing anime and whilst it does tell the tale of an underdog, it's very different from most of today's high-school sports anime. There are real stakes in here, people actually get seriously injured and suffer the ... consequences of a fierce match of punches. The tone is very gritty and not as light-hearted as your normal sports Anime. The protagonist, Joe, starts of as a stray dog with little to no respect for the people around him yet throughout the story he connects with people through the passion he discovers in boxing, he experiences losses yet learns from everything and no matter how much he's taken down, he always stands back up as he only lives for boxing and risks everything in the ring.

I don't know how this Anime stands in comparison to other famous boxing Anime such as Hajime No Ippo but it definitely is worth a try if you're willing to accept the older style of it all.

The second season of this Anime was undeniably packed with more action, especially during the end of it as the climax was really starting to show. Despite that Assassination Classroom has kept this welcoming and easygoing vibe that I enjoyed so much during the first season. Yet a lot of stories are told throughout the second season, with the most anticipated probably being the one of Koro-sensei and also the one that definitely shaped this entire season the most. The closer the viewer gets to the end, the more it feels like farwell is literally close as all of the students are about to graduate ... and that is something heartbreaking, considering that the viewer watched this class for two entire seasons and comes to realize that they're about to move on. The ending was for more than that heartbreaking though as we not only receive a very unexpected plot twist regarding one of the students in class 3-E and realize that they have way more ties to Koro-sensei than we thought they had but also have to say goodbye to the very teacher that tought the entire class so much. Koro-sensei was initially shaped up to be the villain but throughout the entire run of this show it becomes painfully clear that he isn't. He's the teacher who helped all the students in 3-E to learn and grow up and we've seen what positive influence he had on their lives so it's truly saddening to see him dying and seeing how much it affects all of the students since all of them genuinely saw him as their admirable sensei in the end. The little timeskip shows us how life has been for all of the former students a few years later and it's a joy to see that they still meet up to clean the house that used to be their classroom whilst at the same time being very realistic as one of them wonders whether they will have time to meet up like this in the future when they're busy with work.

Overall this show was a very unexpected surprise and I couldn't be more glad to have watched it since it's very inspiring and even with it's Shounen elements and octopus sensei very grounding and humbling.

To be honest, when I at first read the summary of this Anime and heard from classmates who had watched it what this show was about, I was sceptical to say the least. Junior High School coupled with a octopus teacher that they have to kill sounds at first, and admittedly also the second and third time, a little bit weird. What I wasn't prepared for though was the heart behind it all and the way this show managed to straddle the line between Slice of Life, School and Shounen as well as it did. Whilst the focus lays most of the time on Nagisa ... and Karma, none of the other students are irrelevant and each one of them has his or her little moment where they shine and before you even know it, the entire class feels like your own. There's such a homely vibe to it all whilst watching the episodes and whilst it might not be as packed with action like some other shows within the Shounen genre, you can enjoy and chill whilst watching this Anime, lean back and just take a breath from your life for a while. That's at least the feeling that I had whilst watching this show.

This is the oldest Anime I've watched so far and maybe that's why I expected something much more worse yet I found myself more surprised than I had initially expected. The entire movie gives off the vibe of old Disney movies, only that this one doesn't have a happy ending and instead focuses on loss and tragedy. I found myself feeling for some reasons very nostalgic whilst watching this because it reminded me of old tales I used to read when I was a kid. Would I recommend it? It depends because I feel like this story and (obviously) it's animation would have little to ... no chances even coming close to some of the stuff we got in the last decade. But you might be pleasantly surprised if you decide to give it a try.

Admittedly, I am not a big fan of romance since there is often a lot of cliché involved in it such as a female protagonist who is clumsy and a damsel in distress and surrounded by hot men fawning over her. Unfortunately Akatsuki no Yona fulfills for a big part of the series such stereotypes. Our main girl, Yona, is a beautiful girl who is a spoiled princess and already surrounded by two attractive men fawning over her. She's in fact in love with one of them already, her older cousin, who commits within the first two episodes murder on her father though which forces ... her and her guardian, who is also in love with her, to flee from the kingdom.

The entire point of the series is her being the chosen girl and ancestor (?) of the first king of the kingdom who had four dragon warriors with special powers on his side. By now you've guessed it probably but all those warriors happen to be handsome men as well and they feel a special connection to her the moment they see her due to the dragon blood of their ancestors. Their entire point of being born is to serve her and this makes all possible romance forced in a way, something I'm not a big fan of.

Yona herself stays for a large part of the series helpless too and even if that is explained by the fact that she was a spoiled princess who never left the palace, this is still annoying since it makes her come over as clumsy, naive and incapable of her own. She has undergone some character development by the end of the series which did impress me and I did wish for her to go further too. Unfortunately the series didn't continue and I do know the manga which is sad because by the end of it, this became actually a more decent show to watch.

When I watched Akame ga Kill! for the first time, it was an easy 8 for me. Now I've had some time to reflect on it and also looked up what differences were made from the manga. Many people often say that it's very edgy, bloody and that a lot of people and die and that is certainly true. If you want to get attached to characters and see happy endings, this certainly isn't going to be something for you. I personally feel nowadays more conflicted about all the fights and the blood since it fits in some scenes and in other scenes it comes ... over as "being bloody and violent for the purpose of coming over as cool and mature" which it isn't.

The ending in manga and Anime are very different with the manga actually having characters getting happy endings and showcasing characters who die in the manga as still being alive by the end of the series whilst at the same time having characters die who are kept alive in the Anime. Since the Anime kill characters who are still alive by the end of the manga, this obviously causes the characters in the Anime to choose different paths. Being different from the original source material doesn't have to mean anything bad though since some may like the less happy ending in the Anime more. The manga features a more peaceful ending for some characters who get together by the end of the story and also features an Arc that was skipped in the Anime which is a shame since it's a missed opportunity to get to know characters who played a major part in the story line.

Something that I do love about this series though are the women who are very much capable of fighting and standing up for themselves, something that isn't guaranteed in this media. My favorite has always been Esdeath since she was so strong and powerful although I fully understand if people find her annoying for being more or less obsessed with Tatsumi and being a Yandere.