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Legs are great. They are especially useful for walking and shit like that. But there's more than meets the eye! No, wait, wrong situation. There is more than their functionality because they can also be aesthetically very pleasing to look at.

Legs are not my fetish number one. Stockings may hypnotize me occasionally and perhaps blood has escaped my head after witnessing cute lil toes under ideal circumstances. However, I do appreciate certain aspects that are related to the way legs are portrayed more consistently. I love it when anime girls get on their toes to reach upper shelve, or to give a hug or kiss. ... Garden of the Words has some of the most memorable leg-scenery where they are neither hot nor cute but not not neither either, it's weird but I liked it. I am also a huge fan of tickle-attacks which gives soles special value. Point is: legs can be replacement for men's lost dreams and give hope for better tomorrow.

But I didn't especially enjoy Miru Tights. It doesn't offer anything new nor does it deal with already existing leg.. gimmicks in very interesting manner. In fact, it makes the whole concept of leg fetish seem quite a dull and meh. Legs exists, some like them, end of story, not a big deal. This seems to be its message, or at least that's how its execution can be summed up because its take is very neutral and it does not do specifically anything to get your attention, other than have legs for those who like legs because legs. Basically, it takes legs for granted instead of showing respect or giving them the value they deserve.

There has been quite a few ecchi-ish shows about variety of different fetishes and the likes. Many likable half-seriously or full ironically. One thing in common in both: men of culture memes as mindset. This show really did not do it for me unlike most of the others. The art is ultra bad, especially the color pallet is awful, the girls are 5/10 at best. There is nothing original in the art department. Not a single girl, piece of clothing or leg scene that stands out. To be accurate, I did like one lesbian leg scene, but it wasn't animated, the camera zoomed into a desk and all there was left was the distant voices of girls doing gay things to each others. The one thing I wanted to see wasn't there.

To continue with the art. Unless you like black, partially transparent pantyhoses as much as bank robbers do, there is not much for you here. As a whole, its art approach is very bland, making it boring to look at. Many of the leg scenes are still art work with camera roll-over or alternatively 8 fps animation. You can find more variety and better artwork at literally any popular h-website. Including SFW content which Miru Tights is all about.

The main thing that even makes watching this different from browsing stills at any hentai feed are the story events, but they are nonsense. Girls stare at their own legs, play with torn pantyhoses, or try out bunny costumes for the sake of it. One single event often taking the entire episode. The stories are identical yet completely different each time yet still identical.

You can find better leg footage from most seasonal shows that offer fanservice or ecchi traits, which makes this very pointless since the only thing it really wants to spotlight can be listed in its weaker sides. If there's anything I could praise, episodes 06 and 07 because cats and tickling, so there's your +1 and +1, mainly because giving this a lower score would imply it achieved something ultra bad, but it didn't even manage to do that.

Pretty girls in sports wear that unveil every inch of their sexy bodies with mind-boggling efficiency. Muscle-bros so big you need a rock climbing permit for a piggyback ride. When gym enthusiasm collides with anti-broscience humor, you have Dumbbell, the funniest ecchi comedy since Prison School. However this is not an entirely comedic series (nor is its ecchi pushy in case someone minds), rather it can also be very serious and motivational at times.

What the series manages to do with its cast is the impressive part because with simple character traits it manages to deliver smooth and hilarious comedy. We have characters such as ... Akemi, who is really into big muscle boys. She has a downright muscle fetish and whenever she sees some awesome gains, her eyes turn into hearts and she starts drooling all over the place. Our real main character (Hibiki) is in bad fit. All she does it eat candy and slowly get fat, but for her, it's time to change and start her adventure towards ideal sexy body! Her role in the comedic narrative is one of the best and most relatable for anyone who has started gym and once been a newbie. Her reactions, learning-curve and muscle pains are both hilarious and accurate. We also have some less significant side characters such as Ayaka who is tanned, petite, and in good fit. She mainly exist there to fill some ecchi quota and also to offer variety, because in this series, it's important that there are gym-goers anywhere from over-weighted newbies to body builder pros. As a whole, the series has many more characters than I listed down and does splendid job offering accurate jokes that are relevant to each gym-archetype you'd see when going to one.

Men! No pretty girls without manly men! When bodybuilder pros lift weights, the execution, the determination and the seriousness is so awe that it becomes funny. This is one of those series that can be funny and serious at the same time because even the jokes have relevant substantial value. It's kind of like self-irony. The female casts' reactions and the anti-broscience take on gym is pushed so far and to such extreme that the series reaches a point where it becomes motivational. While the series has not yet overtaken r/fitness, it's easy to say that it is going to change some of its viewers life and make them do sports. I am training my butt as we speak.

Does it have a story? Already gave that away. School girls want to train. The story itself is highly slice of life oriented. These girls are each others friends and hang out/have life outside gym as well, so it's pretty based from that part. Production values? The art itself is surprisingly decent. Comedy delivers due to good use of production values that are simple but arguably exactly enough for a series of this sort. Opening song/animation is welcoming and memorable. You can pretty much catch the required mindset by simple watching the OP. Not the highest values in the industry, but good decisions have been made.

As far as entertainment value goes, this is the funniest and sexiest show you can watch this season. Pure, simple, genuine entertainment. I pray for the uncensored version and recommend giving this a try. Some people seem to like it ironically and praise it because it's not cool to say that this show is actually legit good, I guess, but it really is.

With massive chapter count of 953, Tomo-chan might seem like an unconquerable mountain to those who don't know what the catch here is, but the truth is almost the polar opposite. Tomo-chan falls under the definition of 'short but sweet' as its chapter count is almost equivalent to its total page count due to it being originally released in one-page-a-day format. The overall length is the one of four regular manga volumes (tho for some reason they were released in eight), and time-wise, most people should be able to read the entire series in 2-5 hours. A mountain it is not.

The second thing that might ... raise some questions is the title itself, 'Tomo-chan is a Girl' as it's giving quite strong implication of gender-bender, but that's not its deal either. Tomo-chan deals with much more simple concept. Childhood friendship between a girl and a boy starts developing into something more. Tomo herself is the first one to realize that she is in love with her best male friend, but unfortunately conveying those feelings seems to be a hard task due to mr. love interest seeing Tomo as his "strongest bro", but... Tomo-chan is a Girl. Hence the title. The daily lives of our two main protagonists are presented as a romantic comedy.

In terms of characters, Tomo herself is a tomboy who is very ignorant to how female x female frienships commonly work as well as to romantic feelings that boys have. The way her tomboyish traits are dealt with counter her weaker sides and make her very likable and real person, making it easy for the reader to side with her. The main dude himself doesn't have very strong characteristics or many visible character traits even, but the way the story is approached makes this seem like a decent choice. He is at his best when he embarrasses Tomo with bro acts or throws in some dialogue/witty remarks that rekts everyone. Since both of our main leads have some dense and embarrassment going on with their characters, side characters goof around and wingman the shit out of our main leads, sometimes teasing them, other times actually proving to be helpful and very much all the time cracking up due to Tomo's and her crush's reactions and behavior. The entire cast certainly has been created one things in mind: to work better as a team, together than alone as separate characters, but it all works well here and offers some nice chemistry and charm. I won't go into detail with how good the side characters are, but they stand out a lot, tie the series together, and as a whole the series feels like light, casual version of Kaguya-sama thanks to its cast.

Story-wise, we face a lot of cliches here. This is not a series one should read for its original take on plot. It's a rom-com that relies on comedy and interactions, going into further detail with what type of events these resolve around would be rather pointless. However, it should be noted that comedy is prioritized over romance and that the work doesn't contain much actual romance development. The entire series has two strong sides that stand above the rest and those are;

1) The colorful characters and their interaction with each others. This is perhaps best seen in forms of casual talk which is close to banter majority of the time. Such simple yet essential things as word choices and ways to phrase a sentence with euphemisms are put in the spotlight. Creativity is chosen most of the time for the sake of comedy and entertainment value + to make the characters more likable. While it occasionally seems like the author is just trying to deliver gags and wits with the help of characters, it's a mild flaw when character behavior remains loyal and doesn't go out of character even when the dialogue seems like sit-com script at times.

2) its unusual 1-page long format which manages to capture good amount of detail and present the story and its characters with minimalist story events via art that has gone thru great deal of planning and polish. The artwork itself is not technically mind-blowing or anything of the sort. It's simplistic and not very praise-worthy when it comes to drawings itself. The part that stands out is the way its panels are constructed, how much is manages to do with so little, how incredibly smooth the series is to read due to its artwork and the art format. So basically, the art itself is a form of story-telling and story presentation, and these are among the greatest merits this work has to offer. This manga presents itself incredibly well and its strongest sides benefit its comedy a great deal. In short: it delivers.

As far as enjoyment goes, Tomo-chan is quality time. It's not a ground-breaking work that can be read with serious mindset. It's a rom-com and can be disliked for the same reasons why any rom-com fails to entertain. Many seem to dislike its ending/not be pleased with it, but this is an attribute that majority of romances have. It's true that the length is unnecessary long for this content when taking into consideration the things that were not done instead of what was done. Partially filler-ish comedy is chosen over character development/relationship development for example. But as for me, this was rather fresh, smooth and entertaining read + ever so smooth reading experience. It managed to make me laugh and react + tomboy is the best girl type, so yes, easy pass from me. With fewer blushing scenes and more solid pace, and definitely with fewer feelings pondering, it could have been even better, but nevertheless, a good series for the reason that it's so enjoyable.

It's not a very hard task to tolerate with low production values, but when the heart and soul of a beloved franchise gets destroyed by directing that completely misses the point of the series, it becomes near impossible to overlook the massive amount of problems we have at hand. Welcome to the 2nd season of One Punch Man, sequel which inferiority is beyond comparison, show which is not only terrible but an absolute disgrace towards its fans. This is simply not acceptable.

This review will cover 3 main points explaining why I personally found this series to be complete bollocks. These are 1) Comedy 2) ... Directing, and 3) Art.

1) The comedy doesn't deliver due to poor comedic timing. It's a hollow, near dead version of what it used to be. Scenes end before they reach their climax. Nothing shines or stands above the rest. The content is never pushed to its limit or even tried to. There is no pinnacle to be found as the show is flat like the chest of those countless loli tsunderes J.C. Staff is most famous for. It's like the entire thing has been made without any vision, possibly by someone who never thought there was anything fun about this series to begin with.

Season 1 played around with its comedy, waited for the right moment and even pushed the overall comedic resolution to its utmost limit. It was the type of content that constantly showed respect to its audience, and this was done to an extent that made it very easy to respect it back. After all, making a series about a dude who -- most of the time -- wins everything with a one punch is a risky move which could only ever work if there's a perfect harmony and the strongest merits are polished. And that was done and achieved. With this 2nd season, the presentation is bad, the execution is worse, and its overall form is, at best, like a parody of its predecessor; The punch is still there, but it doesn't have any impact.

2) Immersion is the key, and it's best achieved by atmosphere because with atmosphere comes awe, and awe is something that limits disbelief and gives us the basis that is needed to forgive all sort of flaws, problems and questionable choices any series contains and does. Experiencing the gar-like awe this series is famous for and getting into the show at all has been hard, if not impossible. Action comedy series (and visual comedy alike) tend to be on par with blockbuster action by default. They in generally are build around empty and soulless ideas that don't have much good things going on. This weakness needs to be countered to create this so called "genuine entertainment" that has minimum amount of annoying problems that ruin the fun. This is typically done with written details (such as oneliners or unique characteristics), audio directing, and visual execution that solely exist to make the series seem better than it would otherwise be. I.e. value is placed on details to carry the otherwise lacking content. This job is what the director is supposed to do. But OPM S2 did nothing to fight against its own flaws, rather, it only created more of them, poisoning its own core.

Audio choices, audio directing and directing itself are some of the most important things when it comes to turning mediocrities into something outstanding. But it isn't there. Rather than playing around with the mood and teasing the audience by making us wait -- or alternatively doing the opposite by throwing in some ridiculously energetic beats -- the series is more like "let's get this over with" and then they do. End of story. It promises to reward the viewer but never does. No real value is given to any scene or moment with the comedy (like mentioned earlier) and the same thing applies with the story board, the action scenes, the visuals, and music choices and seiyuu work. To get completely serious here, nearly every scene could be used as a material for Every Frame a Painting videos as an example of the unpreferred way to do shit.

Perhaps the best example of all of this are the first 8,5 minutes of episode 09 which are so poorly made I doubt anyone who gets into film school, but hasn't even taken any lectures yet could manage to do worse job even if they tried to. Heck, I doubt there are even many graduates who could purposely achieve this level of awful. Pay attention to the lackluster sound mixing, monotonous voice acting, the near complete absence of SFX and note the music choice that would be tagged as (mellow piano) in hearing impaired subs. Perfect mood for a scene where some incredibly socially awkward dude tries to kiss his crush with whom he has never spoken with, right? Guess again! It's the most badass fight scene in the first half of this arc! And this is only the audio we're speaking of. What the actual krukk? Talk about failed delivery. Life of an art house visionary, I tell you. This can hardly be called "directing", rather, it seems like a serial production process for products that should've been buried deep under ground and sealed away in cement. Tho a better example of how awful the SFX is is a fight scene from episode 11 where the sounds of landing punches were most likely created by someone repeatedly hitting church organs with a wet sock.

3) Art. When we asked for "loyal adaptation", no one meant "keep the webcomic art as it is", but that's all we've got. MadHouse's art and animation cannot be overhyped. One Punch Man is the single best animated action anime that has yet been made, one may disagree but not change my mind. I saw it 4 times, own it on blu-ray and it looks glorious, visually one of the best things that are called anime, especially when looking into modern productions. Season 2 is a generic J.C. Staff production where still artwork flows around the screen, cheap effects and camera tricks are trying to create the illusion of animation and movement; Even the most basic scenes are done with voice-over narration to ensure there is no need to even animate mouth movements; If there is a way to save money and time, it's chosen every single time; Character models are only few steps away from sanic-tier, purposely terribly drawn memes; The color pallet is not only bland, but inconsistent to a point that the episodes could have as well been made by completely different teams who never shared any data between each other. Just compare the colors of episodes 3 and 4. Let me repeat what was said in the opening paragraph: low production can be forgiven, but One Punch Man 2nd Season's production is a heartless piece of industrial waste, anime that has not known love or passion.

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What J.C. Staff is doing here is despicable as it's making their creation seem like an attempt to use this entire medium as an investment platform. Minimum effort and risk to ensure profit. The ultimate safety route. "We missed out Bitcoin so let's see if this can cash us some." I guess that's why they couldn't even color metals properly since those aren't gold or silver. This is the furthest from a work of passion, driven by creed alone. Saitama is not "ok" anymore like in the meme, rather, it's a full turn around with a K.O. (sorry, I just had to put this here somewhere)

When series comes with such obvious and serious issues, I don't think there is any real reason to go in depth with the story and characters because OPM S02 is fundamentally so broken that no amount of pros falling under these categories could fix it. I will only talk about them briefly. Keep in mind that the technical aspects of the show lessen the entertainment value of its story and characters -- and ultimately they are just an inferior version of the re-drawn manga, which I personally recommend reading instead of watching this anime -- but since they are a part of this anime and not an entity that can be completely taken out of context, and considering this review is not aimed for the manga, you will face criticism that is only relevant to the anime. + This anime is not 100% loyal to canon anyway.

The story type changes during this season. The monster of the week formula is put in the background when new type of elements and side-plots are expanding the verse and moving the main focus from Saitama to other characters. At first, the series seems to be quite lost when the storyboard is all over the place, introducing characters at episodic speed and following wide range of different pov's in each, offering fights that don't seem to have real substantial value and showing monsters that are partially making the entire idea for the series seem old and outdated. It takes over half of the entire run time before the story finally tightens up, the supposed build-up phase concludes and the filler-ish feel of the past events start seem significant. Most of this run time is used to make the viewer understand the characters better and see what type of people they are, the actual means used to achieve all of this being secondary. Despite everything there is to criticize, the characters are not a missed shot. Fubuki is strengthening her role as the best girl for anime only watchers, King especially is portrayed to be an actual real human, and Garou "The Hero Hunter" is shown to be an actually very well-thought out villain. With mild issues in the storyboard (and major in their execution, of course), the story knows where it is headed and majorly improves towards the end. From these departments, the series seems bearable even under its massive problems listed above. There definitely was room for improvement from these departments, too, but even so, at least they managed to make watching this series more tolerable.

Who are we? Every person ever. And what do we want? Throw shit at Naofumi. And when do we want it? Every second, non-stop, 247.

Modern problems require modern solutions. If society humiliates you, lets you down, you get accused of crimes you didn't commit, the general public turns against you, the game is rigged, system corrupted, you are bullied, isolated and alone, you see the worst in people and proceed to turn against the world and enter a safety mode where you become something of the sort of a "cynical little animal." Or that's what I would do.... unless... there was a cute animal-eared ... waifu and rare-breed loli bird eating up all the negative feelings, ensuring I get healed, fed and mutually respected. This is the life of Naofumi, the shield hero, our main character -- and, unlike most isekai Jesuses, he is not "a big deal." After experiencing the worst, he relies on the worst, buys the cheapest slave he can get and, just like that, their adventure in this world where royalties are meanie wienies, double standards a way of life and the slaver dude the greatest guy -- begins!

It's not hard to point out where this show's weaknesses are. The story events are insignificant filler, the isekai core plot hardly more than an excuse for the series, the side-characters solely exist to put our main lead in this unjustified situation where he is treated like garbage, most of the "bad things" have no other purpose in the series than to provoke the audience with injustice; the opposing characters' ignorance is pushed to such extents that when their development finally starts, it is done in a manner that does not convince. The change does not come from within the characters but from the outside, entirely relying on the will of the author. in fact, it is so extreme that it starts to feel like it's driven by anti-government, anti-society and anti-religion agenda. The female casting is waifubaiting and the adventure side could entirely be labelled as wish-fulfillment. It's easy to point the finger here and go "this is the type of shite I am supposed to hate in anime." Finding these flaws annoying and letting them ruin the viewing experience and kill the entertainment value is understandable. But even after all of its issues, the show is not exclusively bad, but has some strong pros as well. However, there where the cons are practically self-explanatory and easy to list down, the pros don't stand out nearly as strongly.

First of all, Tate no Yuusha has charm. Anyone can write a coherent backstory which leads to being isekai'd, and it certainly is not much harder to make the side character seem more like decent humans by extending the storyboard with anti-shield-wielder backstory that explains why they are so deeply hated, and how it's all "just politics". These problems could be countered, but that would be side-tracking, like trying to prove that it can be done for the sake of it. But charm is something that is much harder to accomplish, and it was achieved partly because the main focus was most of the time put on Naofumi's party, which is the most relevant thing there is. Secondly, Naofumi is a great character. On the surface level, it's easy to judge him or not even give him a chance, but below the first layer lays much more. He is a genuinely nice guy who has to mask his core personality to survive due to other people being unreasonable. He isn't your average gary stu isekai Jesus who is nice just because he cannot be anything else. Naofumi chooses to help people and decides where his own adventure leads him while, at the same time, ensuring his kindness is not taken for granted so that he won't be used. How many isekai series are there where the character has to take measures and alter his own personality for his own well-being? There aren't. Almost every single one of them rely on being so overpowered that their measures are bs at best, trying to hide the fact that they could destroy the world by simply farting too hard. He doesn't even seek revenge because that would simply make him feel bad. And what is this sentence if not 5000 years worth of human philosophy summed up? Finally a character who chooses this path not because it is "the right thing to do and according to muh morals" but because it benefits him the most. One can easily claim he is the same as your typical isegary, but he has awareness and reasoning that makes perfect sense, and that is what sets him apart from nearly all of the other alternatives. And thirdly, from the main cast department (read;waifu squadron), this is the purest isekai series I have seen. It's not driven by lust and sexual remarks, but by characters who have something decent going on under their skin.../fur/feathers. There is no romantic subplot or sexual tension to keep the audience interested with fanservice or useless feelings pondering. It's just a dude getting comfy'd by bunch of lolis. And with this, I speak of yours truly/the viewer.

There is not much more that I have to say. It's isekai, so it's okay to dislike it, of course, but it has heart. It's definitely not a soulless piece, but a genuine anime that has lots of good things going on in the cute, comfy and main cast departments. I almost never felt like it was fake as so many modern anime is, outside two occurrences: 1) episodes 15-17 or so where the 4th loli appeared and I absolutely hated her, and 2) the last few episode where the show has clearly started to lose its way. While the overall pace can be criticized, the episodic flow is smooth, the production is stellar, directing follows a clear vision with consistency, and there is nothing that ruins the fun or makes the series worse from these parts. Outside some CGI, the art rarely stands out for negative reasons. This time, I hardly found the CGI monsters to be a problem either, I acknowledge it exists, end of story. I highly enjoyed watching this series and it deserves some praise from me. It's not the smartest anime you can see, but it is a smart production with nearly as smart execution. I much rather recommend giving it a try than advice not to.

Sarazanmai is a prime example of a show that falls under style-over-substance, and those who are aware of the industry's state should already know that this field of anime hasn't exactly been very praise-worthy in the recent years. This is.... an addition to the overall selection we have. Not much more since its substance is so lacking that it lessens the impact of its style + those who know the director won't see anything new. Moreover, it recycles animation and entire scenes to such extent that it becomes partially skip-worthy. The repetition level is extreme, especially during the first half of the show.

If we look ... into the audiovisuals and directing, Sarazanmai comes with high values. Directed by Ikuhara Kunihiko, Sarazanmai was expected to be a polished work driven by passion, and, if we limit our judgement to production and ignore the repetition, it's easy give a *shrug* and say "yea, whatever". It's hard to agree and almost as hard to actually care. When exclusively looking into technical achievements, practically any term relevant to art, art directing, visual execution and animation techniques could be described with a wide spectrum of praising adjectives. I don't see the point in doing any separate writing work to go into detail with this. In short, if you want to see how good modern anime can look like, this is your must watch series from this anime season.. unless you have any other type of demands in which case watch something else because it still sucks.

And now to why this show is not very impressive from other departments.

Assholes. I am not entirely sure why this work was so deeply inspired by the action of inanimate objects and living things alike entering and leaving the anus(es) of all sort of weird looking monsters and whateverhteshits, but it happens to unbearable extent. It just feels childish and, well, shit. Something that could have easily been avoided ends up playing significant role in the series. Since this was clearly a driving factor in the director's own vision, it gives an unnecessary bad impression of the entire show already early on, and due to it being one of the scenes that are repeated almost every damn episode, it is hard to overlook.

Then we have the characters, who... exist. At least most of the time. I am already done with this criticism , by the way, because there just really is nothing to talk about for the characters are quite literally "nothing". Okay, bit more: It becomes obvious soon after the start that the entire cast is just a part of the animation and story, sometimes nothing but tools that exist in that moment for no other reason than to act out a lame joke. Due to this, the main characters' own, non-existing personas rarely have the opportunity to put weight on any action. To make it clear as possible: this show doesn't have a single character who could be considered an actual self-aware person who has their own will.

Finally we have the story. What the series is trying to say I do not know. There are weird creatures, beings that are neither dead or alive, otters/liars (word play that only makes sense in Japanese), bad and good people (note the lack of quotation marks), flying 'everything', police force ran by dudes whose entire beings are build around homosexual undertones, cross-dressing celebrities, at least one furry and kappa + gay frogs, also; truck-kun has his 1 second cameo just to run over someone. This could as well be placed in the character section, but since none of these described.. elements have any actual character value -- rather, their features are limited to what they look like and what type of a role they have in the story -- you see them here. The story events seem to be a rather obscure collection of highly random things that simply occur and not much more. Most things are rather loosely connected to each others because apparently, it's really important to make the whole thing seem mysterious even if it makes the entire story the opposite of coherent. It was hard to find any real importance or significance from the anime itself. Nothing seems to really matter much. Meaningless little tales that all play out the exact same way. After episode 01, you have seen it all, figuratively. The dialogue and Sarazanmai's themes center mainly around being connected, desire, something something meaning of life and also love exists + cats are cool, and desire twice. But at the end of the day, all it has here is its style, the rest is secondary, dragging miles behind the audiovisuals, which also got old immediately after the start.

All of these things mentioned above collide and create one hell of a weird combination. Series which core idea seems to be resolving around "desire" and "love" shows no passion, no soul and has personality-lacking characters that are not, at least in my standards, not even passing the requirements of being characters. My main question is this: How can this "desire" and "love" reach anyone under complete absence of resonance? Object don't feel either and self-insert is close to impossible. From viewer's perspective, all I can say is this show didn't even try to make me like it. "Look at me" is all it wanted. Then it asks to look at it again 10 more times, but essentially, you're just rewatching what it did already on the first time. It's not all, 100% bad, but each time when it looked like my opinion could change for something more positive, the series threw in some incredibly generic/filler-ish drama (such as the cameo of truck-kun, like mentioned before, and scene which slaughtered the heroic sacrifice trope) or alternative close up of a g-frog's twitching asshole giving anal-birth to an object the size of their own head. I am not making this up, just to be clear here.

Do I recommend this show, then? I watched it for the production and saw just about everything it had to offer by the end of episode 01. I also found it hard to accept the show without complaining about some of the decisions that were made, some of which were just downright cringey, others which just come out bland and left so little impression that they weren't enjoyable even in the given moment. The style wasn't enough to make me overlook all the things that I found to be meaningless or just garbage, which formed a decent pile by the end. After the finale, I can conclude this series is incredibly forgettable and, just like most modern anime; became irrelevant the second it ended. That's a "no" in English.

I expected Ultraman to be some type of lame superhero anime, but instead, the series shows respect to its audience since the very beginning. It quite clearly asks the viewer to just to sit back, relax and enjoy the ride without asking too many questions. Its approach made me go in with the preferred mindset effortlessly, and I found our series terrificly entertaining.

The art and animation are one of the strongest merits. The fight choreography are insanely detailed and visually fluid to a point it can hardly be called an anime. Punches during fight scenes truly deliver impact and shit explodes at ridiculous magnitude. CGI ... series tend to suffer from low frame rates and compromises when it comes to animation, but Ultraman did not aim to save money here. The production itself is more than enough of a reason to give this a try. I believe some practical effects were even used here to achieve this unique style, but I am not too familiar with this niche in the industry.

The writing offers some idiocy, and especially towards the end, the series seems to be falling quite flat with its Super Power vs. Super Power story line -- some things are just downright out-written to conclude the series, but the English dubs make up for most of it. There are dudes throwing one liners half-ironically and the bros just sound ridiculously manly and badass all the time. I couldn't find him in credits, but I swear Clancy Brown was there. I highly recommend watching this English dubbed for maximum entertainment, the Jap version is just too serious and not very fitting.

From the character department, Ultramen are portrayed so OP that there's even a scene where one of them has an inner monologue moments where he literally says "I wish I hadn't fucked up that dude so badly." I just love stuff like this. For the first half of the show, it really looks like the characters weaknesses are not morals or cryptonite but being so powerful they might actually kill people whom they try to help. It balances out once more powerful super aliens jump in. There are also two quite questionable characters in the series, specifically Ultraman Jr. and Idol Girl, they have their development, and one the reason for their questionable ideals seems to be leaving room for this development, but still one could argue they are annoying to some extent.

In short, hang onto the good sides and you're in for some genuinely entertaining series.

Fat guys wearing diapers and sweating like pigs. Over weighted = over powered. Who cares if you can't bend to tie your own shoe lases when can just walks thru walls anyway. Let the slimiest man win!

I never quite understood why sumo was called a sports instead of the male version of plus sized beauty modelling, but Hinomawhatever helped me to open my eyes to the beauty of this art. Partly because it quite closely follows the normal, formulaic pattern commonly seen in sports anime and partly because of its manly and bro cast. I never quite respected sumo nor thought much about it, ... but now I kinda do.

The setup for our story will seem rather familiar to anyone who has seen classic sports series. Main bro is a prodigy with the heart, but he can't be the unbeatable sumo Jesus just yet for there are several things in the way. He himself is a manlet, practically new unit between meter and decimeter -tier midget who is too short to officially be able to become a sumo pro. He also can't join the school with the best sumo club in Japan because he is terrible at reading maps, so instead he ends up in a school which sumo club is practically dead and the whole fight sports scene in the school ruled by thugs, delinquents and cool badasses. The nearly-a-Jesus type of character with these hardships/obstacles is used to create some rather interesting mixed martial arts battles very early on and also to introduce bunch of characters who get to discover the beauty of sumo sports in the same manner as the viewers who are new to sumo do when watching the series. Development and awe-inspiring coolness exists for a while, offering a strong start for the series. This commonly slows down the pace later on and requires some back stories, build-up and character depth. And this is more or less like the route that was now chosen, but the route itself is ever so entertaining to follow.

The events are rather simple since Hinomary is a simple series that doesn't try to really be anything more. Our cast contains a wide variety of characters from people who are totally ignorant to sumo to pros whose entire life centers around it. This brings quite a few different perspectives in to the mix and shows many sides of the sports itself. The series can be rather educational from this part and thanks to the colorful cast, the way Hinomary is dealing with the basics of sumo feel very natural and smooth. The author is clearly knowledgeable about other sports series as well as the sports in question and that at least carried all the way thru this season, which main focus outside showing what sumo is and who our main characters are, is a simple interschool sumo tournament where different sumo clubs from different schools face each others.

The strongest sides with the series lie within the awe moments, fights, GAR-like atmosphere and Hinomaru's (sumo Jesus's) personality. The weakest parts are the believability of other club's members success and the lack of a proper training arc + the pacing which can be -- at time -- jumpy and seem like new episodes start off from episodic settings rather than continuing from anywhere that was shown in former episode.

Outside Hinomaru, the most interesting (and relatively bro) main character is Chihiro Kunisaki, who is a talented wrestler that now joined Hinomaru's sumo team. The remaining 4 club members from "our side" can occasionally feel bit filler-ish and much less interesting. We have super shy and skinny dude who looks incredibly unfit to physically even participate in the sports. Fat dude who is practically the exact same as the thin dude (personality-wise) except has always loved sumo and is somewhat good at it. There is also another Jesus in the series named trainer-Jesus person and he is more or less like anyone else in the series except supposedly holds lots of sumo-wisdom and wear glasses and is training our main cast.. kind of. The last club member is a delinquent thug person who was portrayed to be incredibly cool and badass in the beginning of the series, but then his personality was put on a leash pretty much and now he is just another person doing sumo without many visible&interesting personality traits, but even he gets thru some development later on and his personality change gets explained rather well eventually. There is also one more "main"character in the series because all sports series need a mascot girl. Student council president who is the thug dudes sister and has a brother complex over him. The good part is that the opponents of our sumo Jesus themselves are way more interesting and cool than the main cast which is more so portrayed to be "real people" than completely badass sumo pros. Other basic sports elements exist also, such as tragic past story for main bro's mother and a love interest subplot. The series has many things to offer due to these simple elements, but it should be noted that these things didn't really go anywhere during the first season.

In terms of production, Gonzo is underrated as ever. The first ED is beast as hell. Side character bros look awesome. Like really advanced awesome. Some sumo wrestlers still are just big and otherwise they do not stand out, but others have highly unique and manly character design which is also memorable. The music is fitting and those sounds when men fall on the tatami exactly as loud as they should be, meaning hella. The animation is especially fitting for a series of this sort and art design along the color choices do their work splendidly. It's subdued and simplistic and I see no reason to complain about it, much rather praise this simplicity for how efficient it is. Some weird errs still exist, such as sumo Jesus really looking like 1 feet tall compared to the bigger and fatter sumo dudes who are like 8 feet compared to him during certain shots. This may seem ridiculous/annoy some viewers. It stands out, but personally I didn't find it annoying.

I highly enjoyed this series because I am a huge fan of sports series and Hinomaru didn't especially do anything that was there to ruin the experience for me. The story board is somewhat lacking and clearly unoriginal + the other main characters are not as amazing as the real mains and their opponents, but the generic sports pattern itself is being dealt with in respectable manner and Hinomaru's way to deal with its characters and execute the common tropes are pleasure to watch even when the series lacks some depth.

ps, there is a a slice of life oriented sketch at the end of each episode that starts after the ED, highly recommend watching those

Yakusoku no Neverland is the biggest disappointment of the year so far. Not so much because it was so exceptionally bad, but because it had potential to be outstandingly great. What looked like a prime example of well-build thriller and highly atmospheric mystery end up being just a bunch of empty promises. Perhaps the English title, 'Promised Neverland' is actually a self-parody since following the series was an experience far from magical. At least one thing the series foreshows, I guess.

The first 4 episodes are all passable, of highly respectable quality to be exact. I was impressed by how it managed to gasp my ... attention with audiovisual story-telling and directing that was nothing less than immersive. Originally, I wrote a preliminary review with an 8/10 rating just to show how much I liked the series at that point. Then the actual story started rolling onward and the downhill was quite radical. Essentially, everything in the series exists just to delay anything from happening since apparently, there is no substance to offer here outside the superficial plot points, false-tension, beyond obvious cliffhangers, and mind-numbing twists which look like the outcome of plot bingo.

Double agents, triple agents and mind games so psychologically inaccurate they aren't even laughable but facepalm-worthy. By episode 6, I was left stunned by how practically every bit of potential that there was had been destroyed by giving priority to some sort of pseudo-complex tactics instead of relying on the simple settings that already had enough room to work as a linear story. Don't get me wrong tho. I love depth and complexity, but I also strongly dislike them when done lousily/half-assedly. These need several different things from build up and planning to slow pace and development for them to work. There is nothing that even remotely is making the "depth" seen in Yakusoku no Neverland seem probable or believable, often being the opposite of awe. There simply isn't much work put behind it. To put it simply: "Show don't tell" is one of the best philosophies to live by, but Yakuskoku no Neverland is all tell and very little show. Details are not valued but instead the entire thing is just rushed thru in a manner so lame that the reveals don't even look like proper twits but empty, content-lacking ideas.

Good example of how terrible the story events become is a scene that starts at the end of episode 5 and continues all the way thru the first half of 6th. **The next paragraph describes and spoils these events**

SPOILERS:
Secret door exists behind a bookshelf. Getting into that room where the shelf is is dangerous because the kids are not supposed to be there. Two characters go there anyway and one of them starts raging at shit (loudly, duh) for not knowing how to open the bookshelf door, followed by another character quite literally saying "use your eyes" and discovering how to solve this 'puzzle' mere 3 seconds later, followed by the door to the room-where-no-one-should-be starting to open slowly. >>cliffhanger, and wait 1 week to see what happens. *me yawwning for one week* Oh, look, it is false alarm, just another kid playing hide'n seek opening the door. Literally who could have guessed. Well, too bad there is actually a locked door behind the bookshelf puzzle, but this gets also solved in 3 seconds when black kid becomes a masterthief, bumps into mother and now we have the key and can open the door.... I was struggling here not to drown in my own drool. The events -- not just this single example -- are braindamagingly horribly written and executed and I have no idea how people manage to tolerate such levels of bullshit without getting annoyed by them.
[/Spoilers End.]

The writer practically never challenges himself. Whenever our characters and story are cornered, he seeks the easiest way out.

After the promising start, even the character behavior starts to more like resemble 'actions and dialogue that are masked as devices' in the narrative. Emma taking Ray's hand for a split second just to create yandere-like psychological outburst that feels completely random and out of place, giving me Mirai Nikki vibes rather than even mildly resembling her genuine behavior. Ray "The Fetus Memory Man's" character seemed more and more like a puppet the further the series advanced, him practically becoming a walking keikaku doori. Sister's existence is filler at best. I would call Emma's zero fucks given attitude there "character development" since she was such a naive moral soldier in the beginning, but I am sure she was just getting as tired of watching these "twists" as I was. Originally, I compared Yakosoku no Neverland's atmosphere to something which is commonly only achievable in video games, but at the end, if this was a game, the only thing there is left are the immersion-ruining, heavily scripted events that are the epitome of disbelief, and casting that behaves like npc's.

Perhaps I am being too kind praising the beginning. Even episode 1 already had a lousy cop-out in it when our main characters literally teleported from under a car to the middle of a field. And btw, this isn't even the only time when the question "How on earth did you manage to get from point a to point b?" Could be answered with "Oh, that. Yeah, I teleported." Given, I should have lowered my expectations already then, but I completely forgave it since it seemed like a mild flaw when the series otherwise was doing such convincing job, but as it is, I am very much non-happy now. It's likely that I wouldn't have become so disappointed with the series if I had been able to change my mindset for ironic -- or even more casual -- viewing after the beginning, but it was hard for I genuinely thought this was going to be a serious and intelligently constructed anime which I could like for serious reasons, but instead, the strongest sides there were, were pushed in the backgrounds, overtaken by the overwhelming amount of lame that the series' writing had to offer. I will be still waiting for that one "cute but edgy" show which doesn't make me feel like I am 20 years too old to watch.

Anyone who has ever run knows that it sucks. Why waterboarding is a thing when treadmills exist is a complete mystery to me. I guess even the KGB had its limit on how fucked up their torture methods were. Anyhoo, Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuiteiru -- Run with the Wind -- is a story about people who are literally the epitome of masochism and, as weird as it may sound, actually enjoy running. I was expecting a psychological series going in depth with this pain = pleasure thing, but turns out our series relies on fujobaiting instead.

It should be warned already on the title page ... that every factor from story progression, seiyuu choices, male casting and slice of life-like approach yells out one thing loud and clear: homo undertones. While great many sports series have chosen this approach (Haikyuu, Kuroko, Wind Up, Free -- just to name a few), Kaze ga has very little charm outside its naked ecchi boys / manservice factors. Just to specify to what extent this exist and why it is a problem: there are 4 scenes of our young boys being naked already shown in the first episode before we even know their names. I don't mind male ecchi or bros bathing together washing each others dicks when it is manly and #no_homo, but when it becomes the first thing that stands out in a sports series that was told be filled with drama and comedy, and executed with cute boys who don't, in any way, act like genuine humans, we are off to a terrible start.

The selling point of sports series tends to be their cast for their stories can never truly work if the person(s) going thru the story are not worth of being followed. Kaze ga's cast and approach I'd like to describe with a short meme: y Tho? Our "club" of 10 boys are, outside few expectations, the exact same people. They have nearly invisible personalities, all they have are things that are common between all of them for there aren't such things that would separate them from each others -- outside their outlooks. And even this isn't entirely true since there are even twins among them. As a whole, the cast is fake and empty to a point that I wonder if this is what feminists see when watching CGDCT or ecchi anime. The cast doesn't have much appeal to me. I couldn't find any way to care about any of them. They have nothing that would make relate to them, they offer no entertaining personality traits, their behavior is dull and mainly reminds me of cardboard. None of them have any interesting past stories or current stories. None of them even says anything mildly interesting at any point during the run. The more they talked the more I came to go meh over them. How awfully boring must ones life be to hang out with any of them? A question I found myself asking several times.

Outside episode 16, the sports side is an absolute joke. Even tho I don't like running myself, I have seen series that focus on running and track&field and which I have liked. Kaze ga's take on this torture method is exactly as dull as the sports itself. Nothing stands out, nothing feels meaningful, there aren't even any fitting/atmospheric or agro songs used that could make these scenes better. Instead, same few songs are repeated over and over and none of them is very fitting. So often, there plays some supposedly emotional song whilst our cast members run and sweat, followed, for example, by a scene where they get scolded for being too slow. What the series is trying to deliver here never reached my end. And typically, these running scenes are very short and made in the exact same manner, only thing that differs is the aftermath. Watching the execution here feels like repeatedly hitting ones head in the wall with a force so light that you barely even feel the effect, but still know it is happening. There are even sports series centering around baseball and fighting sports which field work (AKA running) is more noteworthy than anything Kaze ga achieved. The best characters here are these one-dimensional 'evil' buttholes who just come around to mock our sports team for being a disgrace towards track'n field. Why? Because their phrases are truthful remarks. Especially towards the end, the melodrama Kaze ga mixes together with sports is nothing less than a disgrace towards all athletes.

In terms of actual story, one of the driving motions here are our boys interest to girls.. Literally "lets run for the are girls.. on the other side of the road." I am not sure who the writer is trying to fool with this since they only introduce one slightly relevant female cast member and she is more obviously filler than any other character. Also, she falls under the trope "every food she prepares turns poison" because apparently it is funny when women can't cook. She is totally adorable regardless. Yet it feels so unnecessary to insert such things here yet not deal with them accordingly. The outcome is just idiotic. The events itself are rather formulaic. Male x male interactions in fujobait manner, bathing together naked, and running. Some pseudo-psychological things going on since, apparently, running (for our mc) is the same as running away from problems, and the main dude seems to have some. Even so, there is no clear reason for the series to exist, story-wise. It's clear from early on that the mc's "insecurities" are just bullshit used as an excuse to work as some sort of ongoing cliffhanger to make people interested in what type of "mysterious" reasons he has for being such an angsty loner. Other sides of the "drama" are practically sitcom-tier since the cast acts like a bunch of drama queens instead of there being any "real" drama going on. Sometimes randomly asspulled and beyond fake event occurs, such as one character suddenly losing a consciousness at the end of an episode just to create a cliffhanger worth of 3 pennies. To talk more about these cliffhangers, they are used to some extent and every time they match the definition of "horse shit". False tension and not much more.

The production, outside the incredibly bland character models (their bodies look like spaghetti and have even weirder necks than people in Ballroom e (not exaggerating -- same studio, also) -- and worth-of-nothing sports scenes, is one more thing that is not making this thing any better. The naked men bathing -scenes seem to be the ones that have gone thru the most planning. Comedy moments are over-simplified to a point that it looks just cheap and it is practically the exact same execution every single time. Dude's doing 2 frame shaking when being cornered. Otherwise the series screams it is made by Production I.G with their modern standards (which have been going down and down rather consistently for years if someone hasn't noticed). The pacing is simply too slow during any part that is not related to running and too fast with anything that is. Obviously, because they wanted to save money when animating running masses. CGI is being used during track events and it's like 3fps when out zoomed. Often, people who run look like they are floating over the track rather than touching the ground with their feet. Looks so incredibly lame. Not that it couldn't be forgiven if there were some actually good things going on. Pros that out weighted the cons. To me, even the smallest of problems stood out for I couldn't achieve any level of immersion with the series, rather saw it as nothing but a soulless product.

All the criticism aside, I did quite enjoy moments around Akane "Prince" Kashiwazaki, who is the polar opposite of everyone else. Seems to hate running and is in really bad shape. His running form is so awkward and wrong that I managed to laugh at it few times, mainly reminding me of zombie movements from Resident Evil games. Even his posture while standing is advanced scoliosis, so I guess kudos for creating a dude like him. Other thing I have to drop here is the ending of episode 19 which was simply hilarious. If only there had been other good things I could praise than the rare few.