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When I sat down to look at what would be airing for Summer 2019, I initially found it difficult to pick shows to watch. I had seen tweets and posts on reddit which said that people were excited for Dr Stone above all else. I took a look at the trailer and I thought “Hmm, doesn’t look very good.” In hindsight, this was incredibly foolish of me.

In my view, Dr Stone is an interesting take on the “mad scientist” trope. Usually a mad scientist is depicted as someone who cannot wait to bring about death and destruction, and ruin and calamity to all life. They ... devote their lives to science to pursue their twisted and vile desires. But Senkuu is not an evil person, he devotes his life to science for his own wholesome reasons and is aided by his friends who are not as capable as he is, but help him do things he cannot do. Senkuu is a mad scientist but a strangely wholesome one.

Story – 9/10
While Taiju is confessing his love to Yuzuriha, a strange magical light turns everyone in the world to stone. He wakes up 3700 years later and realises his friend, Senkuu, is responsible for helping him gain consciousness. Senkuu has already decided “Hey, I guess I’ll save the entire human race” and Taiju helps him along the way. They wake up two more people (as of episode 6) Tsukasa (a very strong fighter who helps them fight predators and hunt) and Yuzuriha. There is some drama but I want to keep this review spoiler free so I won’t say anything about that. But the story is very interesting.

Art – 8/10
Art is very subjective. I really enjoy this style and it also fits the story quite well. There are some very good facial expressions here for all you Hinamatsuri and DanBeru fans.

Sound – 7/10
Nothing special to my untrained ear. But this OP is fantastic. Regarding the seiyuus, I am fond of them. The seiyuu for Taiju also does the voice of Saitama in One Punch Man, as well as Suwa – the best boy from Orange. For Tsukasa, he has been Bucciarati in JoJo Part 5 as well as the lead in OreImo. Oddly suitable. I believe he is the most senior of the main cast, but they all work well together.

Character – 6/10
Ok so hear me out…I like every character that has been introduced so far but as of episode 6, there are only four people in this world. I can tell there are more going by the stellar OP. As much as I love the way the three best friends (think of the song from The Hangover) interact with each other and how they trust each other, I think I am going to have to wait until the cast expands a bit more to truly see how great this show it. But as it stands, the current cast is great. Unfortunately I cannot, in good conscience, rank the characters any higher at this time. When the show is over, I will revise this review.

Enjoyment – 9/10
I am giving this show a 9 despite what I just wrote about the characters. I have a good feeling. This is a great show. I highly recommend it to everyone. Even if you are a bit bored of shounen, especially battle shounen, then this is for you. Because I was a bit bored of shounen when I saw the trailer for this show.

This show is old so what can I really say about Fairy Tail that other people have not? Probably nothing much, so I will instead briefly discuss why I dropped it.

I enjoyed this show quite a bit but please do not think that this is a "good" show. Eating a lot of junk food is enjoyable but it is not good for you. Now you could make an argument from a possible philosophical viewpoint that the occasional overindulgence with junk food is a form of catharsis, but at this point you become pedantic because everyone understands what is meant by "too much junk food is ... not good".

In this way I want to compare Fairy Tail to junk food. It is fun but not memorable. It fills you but does not satisfy you.

I admit that the sound and art is good, but the characters are not that interesting and if you don't like shipping characters then it's difficult to care about them. Lucy is a babe, and Gray is really cool (sigh) and my god, when main characters start fighting does it become fun to watch. And yet this can't save it from falling short of other shounen which I believe would be more interesting to watch.

I think a big part of why I enjoyed this show so much at the start was that it was really simple and fun. The characters were straightforward and the world was interesting. The fights were also too straightforward. I read a lot of high fantasy so I understand the rules of making magic interesting to read and watch. A lot of shounen series like One Piece and Hunter x Hunter do it brilliantly without really knowing Sanderson's Three Rules, and even DBZ understood this to a degree. But Fairy Tail in my opinion relies on too many ass-pulls to show main characters winning.

Nevertheless I will happily recommend this show to anyone who has a lot of free time, and nothing else to watch. Or if you have other things to watch but feel like watching something very straightforward. Because this is how I watched it and I really enjoyed it a lot at first. I think the best way to enjoy this show is to not think too much and let it transport you to another world.

Snow Fairy is one of the most amazing openings you will ever hear.

I'm not exactly sure if this is even anime. I mean it's made in Japan and it's animation so it does meet the bare minimum. But I'm not even sure if it's art.

It's a three minute short about some kind of blob that engages in fetish sex with her parents. However it isn't erotic at all. The only memorable things about this are how bad and weird the show is. It feels like three wasted minutes.

The sound is odd but the end credits stuck in my head so I gave sound the highest rating I've given any of the subsections; 2/10.

I recommend this show ... to people who want to watch, not the worst anime ever, but the most pointless anime ever. Those who want to waste three minutes of their life. Or if you've heard how terrible and weird this is and don't believe it, watch it and you will see.

This has no artistic value at all.

So here we have the fourth anime I've ever dropped. Not that this was a bad show, I just didn't feel it the way I thought I did.

The premise isn't special. Parallel universe attacks, then the world they attack attacks them back. I think I would have enjoyed this more if it stayed as a gritty military and political drama instead of adding sexy elves, magical girls and goth lolis.

It isn't really a bad show, but I feel that something needs to be more than simply "not bad" to stand out. The way I felt watching this reminds me how I felt during God ... Eater. Both were extremely generic, while managing to remain just good enough to be good. I should have dropped God Eater as well. I did not make that mistake again. What really bothers me about this show is that they can't seem to make up their mind about what they want the show to be. The Emperor using the JSDF to wipe out his political rivals was awesome, and I expected a lot more of that political ruthlessness right off the bat. Instead we get the protagonist recruiting girls into his harem.

The show looks good, sure. It sounds okay. But the characters aren't memorable. I didn't learn the names of any squad members, they were not interesting at all.

And yet...I still recommend this. If you're looking to kick back and enjoy something, then give this a shot.

It is, unfortunately, almost impossible to write this review without mentioning One Punch Man. I wish that it were, but you are going to see parallels and compare them when you watch this show. This isn't a bad thing, ONE is an incredibly talented mangaka and his work deserves praise. Where One Punch Man was a parody of manga and anime tropes, Mob Psycho 100 seems to be the more serious work. I might be wrong because I am not familiar with the Mob manga.

What I love and pity ONE for is that I recognise a theme in his work; loneliness. Saitama and Mob are ... both extremely powerful characters who are lonely because they do not know how to interact with the world around them. Whereas Saitama doesn't really seem to care, Mob does. Mob, also known as Shigeo, is one of the most powerful psychics in the show and possibly the world. Despite his brilliance, he just wants to be a normal kid. He wants friends and the girl he has a crush on to notice him. I enjoyed that we never get any interaction between him and his crush; in her world he simply does not exist. Many of us have been there and I thought that it was a good way to portray Mob's feelings of isolation.

The rest of the main characters are also quite good. Reigen Arataka was of particular noteworthiness. A conman who has a genuine interest in Mob's happiness, he provides a young Mob - and by extension, the viewer - with a shocking amount of wisdom and encouragement. Reigen has a strict moral code, which is amusing because his job is screwing people out of money. Ultimately he...helps everyone. Even those clients that are deluded and think their real life issues are due to malignant spirits, Reigen is there to help (of course he makes a profit).

Ekubo, or Dimple, is one of these malignant spirits who was once powerful but had the misfortune of upsetting Mob. Greatly weakened after their fight, he seems to exist as a morally grey character who aids Mob but also assists Mob's brother, Ritsu, going down a darker path of his own. Ritsu was also a really good character. Constantly feeling inferior to his brother due to psychic abilities, he experiments and eventually awakens his own abilities. His inferiority complex led him to excel in areas that Mob is below average in, such as school and extracurricular activities.

And that's pretty much the main cast. Teru is worthy of a mention as well. A reformed gangster who tries to be a good guy after he realised what destruction true ESP power could bring. This show excels in it's interwoven story lines. While not complex, everything follows a logical progression which makes everything seem connected. Heroes and villains are introduced properly and in memorable ways, before they have a huge impact on the story. I prefer this to randomly throwing people into the mix and seeing what happens. Having a unique looking character in the back of your mind for a few episodes and wondering what they are going to do is very enjoyable.

The OP and ED were very good. Excellent opening song and downright amazing ending artwork. If you haven't seen the artwork for the ED, check it out on YouTube before watching.

I gave this a 10/10 because other than the story being a little predictable, there isn't much wrong with it. It is a good piece about being unable to relate with the world around you.

{SPOILER FREE REVIEW}

Bit of background before I begin, not entirely related to the anime. Feel free to skip this paragraph and head to the review. I was looking forward to this anime for a while because of this recent shojo addiction. I was going to New York City in June and I watched about an hour and twenty minutes of the live action movie on the flight. It was actually very good and I recommend that you watch that movie instead of the anime. Not that this anime is bad.

So. Orange. What we have here is what seems to be a shojo with a time ... travelling twist. What it actually is, is a very generic shojo with a time travelling twist that seems to disguise the usual shojo story. When I say "generic" shojo I'm talking about almost every single shojo trope being checked off.

* Pretty lead who can't do wrong, check.
* Athletic love interest, check.
* Cute friends, check.
* Mean girl enemy, check.
* Catches the eye of the hottest guy in school, check.

The list goes on. The strange thing about this is that it isn't really a bad anime, especially if you like shojo.

STORY - 5

I give this story a 5 because I think it tries. It tries to go beyond (plus ultra!) the usual shojo story. Our lead, Naho, receives a letter from a version of herself in the future that states her deepest regret; being unable to save the life of a friend. It contains instructions on how to prevent this from happening. During the course of the show, she tries to save him and falls in love with him. I mean it's shojo so of course love is going to play a part. A huge issue I have with this is that it never, in thirteen episodes, shows any indication that Kakeru (the friend who has died in the future) is special. It portrays him as a pretty normal and average person who is depressed. I didn't dislike him, but there was no real reason that Naho would like him either. He has nothing to offer and her interactions with him seem forced and awkward. I enjoyed that they took time out to discuss parallel worlds, and that does excuse time travel issues. It is an easy and foolish mistake to leave this out so props on Telecom for keeping this in because time travel shows fall apart without the time travel being understood by the audience. There are a few other issues I had with the plot, hence the rating, but they would be spoiler territory so not for this review.

ART - 7

I have to confess bias; I love anime art. The bright colours, the funky hair, the details that are put into still frames (and it's anime so there are tons). Nothing special about this art. Nothing bad about it either. The colour of the high school blazers was a forest green and that was the colour of one of my rival schools when I was in high school, eh. Take this part of the rating with a grain of salt due to my love for anime art.

SOUND - 8

I loved the opening and ending tracks. I don't think I skipped either more than once or twice when I was binge watching eight or nine episodes in a row. During the show itself, the sound isn't memorable.

CHARACTERS - 4

This is where the show failed dismally. None of the characters are memorable besides Suwa. Let me list the others, bear in mind that these characters have absolutely no character development.

* Naho - Mary Sue protagonist who is cute and awkward
* Kakeru - Depressed teenage boy
* Hagita - Nerdy friend
* Azusa - She's the cute friend, parents run a bakery
* Takako - Tomboy. That's literally her entire character.

Not really a bad group, but not interesting either. They exist to basically push Naho and Kakeru together. But it's ultimately Suwa who does everything until literally the last scene in the last episode. He's the soccer star with a heart of gold. He cares about everyone and it's obvious that he's into Naho, but when he sees she likes someone else he steps aside to support her happiness. He's kind and compassionate and invites a lonely new kid to hang out with them. It blows my mind that Naho didn't like Suwa before this, although it's hinted that she does due to the scenes set in the future world. But that just makes it stranger that she somehow became enamoured with Kakeru even though there was a latent attraction to Suwa. Nine times out of ten, Suwa is the hero in a shojo love story. This was one of the nine times, he was the hero. Just not the love interest. But this is a story about dealing with mistakes from your past, not about romance.

ENJOYMENT - 8

This had some very sad moments, and if you've ever been depressed it's going to hit you hard in the tear ducts. I like that sort of thing, and this section of the reviews are always the most subjective. "Enjoyment". Sometimes anime that is very boring to some will be very appealing to others. This is not a clone of anything the way God Eater was with Shingeki no Kyojin, definitely not. But with the success of Boku Dake ga Inai Machi, I knew we'd get some time travelling anime in the next few seasons and this is one of them.

OVERALL - 7

It was 8 but I changed it to 7. I recommend this because I enjoyed it, but I recommend the live action movie first.

So. This was my first harem anime. Very weird. Second ecchi. My friend said this was a "trashy" show and I see what was meant; it really is. But that seems to be what ecchi is about; it's tits and ass. Maybe others also have a perverted lead, Issei, who has a dream of being a "Harem King". This essentially means that he wants to have a bunch of subordinate women whom he can command. Kind of creepy. But...

If you can look past all of the sexual stuff, this show is actually pretty cool. The other lead, Rias Gremory, is a gorgeous princess of the ... demon nobility (did I mention that this show is about demons, fallen angels and angels?) who is the best and most interesting character. Issei and Asia are, in my opinion, respectively too perverted to enjoy and too boring. Rias is very honest about her thoughts and actions, and I liked that she accepted things as they were and did not try to change people, even her subordinates. At her core, all Rias wants is to be loved for her personality and not her family name and power. It's hard to not love her for that because she is really fantastic.

The other friends of the leads, who are also part of Rias's team: Akeno is Rias's second in command, a sadist with a cute and friendly exterior. Kiba is a handsome and popular schoolmate and is the kind of guy that Issei wishes he could be, Koneko is a reserved and loyal girl who looks young.

If you can look past the obvious fan-service and Issei's constant need to look at naked girls, then you might actually enjoy this show. Indeed, if you want to see both then you will love it because it has plenty of naked and semi-naked girls. While unnecessary, it turns out that this does have relevance to the story in a way that was, frankly, stupidly brilliant.

But if you can't look past how perverted Issei is, and trust me it took me a few episodes, then consider this; when you were in high school, how badly did you want to see naked girls and how badly did you want to have sex?
Granted, it won't be as badly and I hope you won't be as weird about Issei, but thinking about some of the lengths you went to in your youth to get a girl to notice you or to get porn before the internet etc, you will sympathise with him a bit. Very little because he is really desperate. He is actually well known at the school for being a pervert.

Anyway, this was the first anime that I felt the need to review. I've reviewed a few games, books and movies before. I hope you decide to watch this because there was more to it than hot girls.