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Hey kids, go crazy because Noragami got a second season!

Story: 9/10

I was really looking forward to Noragami Aragoto from the moment it was announced, and I started counting down the days until the premiere.
I'm going to say right off the bat that I have read the manga--I read it shortly after season 2 was announced and have reread it since Aragoto began to refresh my memory. I am going to be judging the anime based on adaptation quality since it's only fair to do so, but I'm going to do my best not to let my biases get in the way.

Season 1 adapted only the ... introduction arc and the Yukine arc, so with this season we get to the really good stuff.
Aragoto starts right off with adapting the Bishamon arc of the manga, which has a storytelling style like a high-stakes action thriller, and is, as a friend of mine said, a bit like a Western in some of the things it does. As the first major arc of the manga, finally anime-only fans get to see the real power that Noragami's story has. Cliffhanger after cliffhanger makes this arc what it is, as well as a lot of shock value added in. I don't mean shock value in a bad way at all, by the way. Noragami's really good about using it at appropriate times without making it seem overbearing or coming out of nowhere.
I've also seen some people commenting that this arc is more like a "standard shounen" formula, but I have to disagree on that because of the structure of the story. Sure, there's fighting going on, but it's not all about the big fight. There's plenty of time for character development and backstory, as well as a lot of exposition to set up said fight.
Anyway, the Bishamon arc was perfectly done, really. Very few things were dropped from the manga (and those that were weren't anything major), and certain scenes I'd been so excited to see animated were done PERFECTLY. One episode in particular was so beautifully done that I had chills the whole time, not to mention that it also happened to be the best part of the arc. Seeing it fully animated was surreal to say the least.

Overall, Bishamon arc is a solid 10/10.

The second half of the show is where we start to run into some problems. I was under the impression they wouldn't be able to adapt the Underworld arc due to how long I thought it was (in hindsight, it's only slightly longer than the Bishamon arc and nowhere near the monster that is the current manga arc). As it turns out, they had just enough time to adapt everything in the arc. Or, they would have, if they hadn't started to severely rush things at some parts, and drag other things out too long. They did end it at the best possible spot thankfully, but took some very roundabout routes to get there.
There's also the issue of the first season OVA's. Without going too much into detail, those silly chapters that connected the Bishamon and Underworld arcs weren't just throwaway comic relief. Both ended up being important in this arc, and thus Bones had to deal with their mistake. I thought they'd incorporate clips from the OVA's to sum up the events without making it seem like you NEEDED to watch them to understand what was happening. But instead, Bones had to come up with all-new reasons for why that character was doing that, resulting in some messy cutting and replacing. Some parts felt a little weak, due to this error.

At least there was no anime-original this time, though. My friends and I were quite worried they were going that route near the last few episodes where things were going too fast, but Bones fixed their mistakes for the most part. There's some pretty important details that got cut, and by changing some other things for no real reason they created plot holes. There was also something they added which felt like a deus ex machina, and once again there was no need for it to be there.

Why did Bones make these changes? Most likely, they did it so that they could rearrange the brief fight near the end of the Underworld arc to be right at the end and thus have an action-packed finale. However, in doing so, they ruined the dramatic irony that plays a BIG role in this arc and very nearly screwed themselves over to the point where season 3 would never be possible. Thankfully, they fixed it, but there's still the matter of some big things being cut and rearranged for the sake of having a fight near the end. I really don't think adapting the Underworld arc faithfully would have felt underwhelming at all though. The arc is plenty strong on its own and I doubt it would have left audiences unsatisfied, like "That fight should have been at the end!" It has a solemn and humbling ending, and there's also the major use of dramatic irony I mentioned earlier.

There was one scene in the Underworld arc though, that was so perfectly animated I actually started crying while watching it. That's what an adaptation should be: Taking the original idea, transferring it perfectly, and maybe adding a subtle touch that doesn't seem overbearing. Unfortunately not the whole season was so, but on the other hand all my favorite scenes were kept intact. Said scene should also have been the end of an episode because of the mood of it, but the way they rearranged things, there wasn't much of a choice in it.

Art: 9/10

The reason the art section gets a 9 rather than a 10 is because of some weird animation slip-ups. I am glad they saved the budget for the fight scenes though, because it's pretty worth it to see the battles with such nice character animation. Other than that, there's moments where the characters move less than they probably should, or where their faces are blank despite not really being in the background of the scene. I also felt the colors got duller as the season drew on, whereas the beginning had really vibrant ones.
Speaking of vibrant, the ED this time around has very bright colors. It works really well in contrast to the muted colors of season 1's ED. A great thing about this one, too, is that the animations are perfectly synchronized down to the last frame. If you watch the ED's side by side, the running animation of Yato and Hiyori line up perfectly so they appear to be running toward each other. It's a really nice and subtle detail that almost made me cry when I first saw it.
The opening also has better animation than the first season's, and it also uses the same color scheme--monochrome characters, with the eyes colored in, and really bright blue and orange backgrounds. There's also a few parallels animation-wise with the first OP, but not as much as the ED. Bones also cleverly slipped in some foreshadowing (I recommend rewatching it if you finished this season), as well as a subtle frame you're only going to see if you hit pause at the right moment.

Sound: 10/10

The opening for this season, Kyouran Hey Kids, is probably my top favorite anime opening for anything ever. Never have I hit repeat on a song so much, and it doesn't get old. This opening was pretty much love at first sight too--from the moment I first heard it in one of the trailers, I thought it sounded good, and actually seeing the full thing was instant love. The lyrics also have the added bonus of matching up to the opening sequences, thus making it seem pretty ship-teasing.
The song has an extremely catchy chorus, and also features heavy electric guitar. Stylistically, it's quite similar to the first season OP, but Kyouran Hey Kids has all the verve that Goya no Machiawase lacked, and now that opening seems tame in comparison.
This band hasn't done any other anime openings or endings, but judging by the work they did here, I see a bright future ahead of them.

The ED, Nirvana, is performed by the same girl who did Heart Realize for season 1. I think I like this one better too, because it's a more upbeat song that fit for this season, and also felt pretty insulting after some of the more painful episodes. The lyrics are also extremely relevant to the character development and the direction the story takes, as an added bonus for all us manga readers out there.
Tia has a great voice, and it's really hard to believe she's only about 20. She performed the first season ED while she was still in high school, so I definitely see a bright future ahead of her too. If Noragami gets a third season, I'd love to hear her perform the ED for that as well.

The OST is another thing that leveled up this season. While all your favorite weird yet good tracks from season 1 make a comeback, Noragami Aragoto also features a whopping 36 new tracks that add to an already amazing OST. This season uses more strings combined with the electronica/synthiness you heard last season, which is an interesting mix that works. It's only fitting to use orchestral music for such scenes, and I'm glad they did. Iwasaki Taku doesn't often go this route, but when he does it hits really hard, and this worked perfectly for the more emotional scenes this season. All of the tracks in this season's OST are really memorable and all are worth a listen. While the first season could be hit or miss depending on your taste, the Aragoto OST comes off as more universally appealing, particularly where the emotional songs are concerned.
Because I'm a sucker for orchestral stuff, my favorite tracks from this OST are the ones with a lot of that. Two of my favorites are titled "Pain" and "Obsessed," which coincidentally sums up this season and my personal viewing experience. Some other ones I really like are "Zen," "Footstep," and "Yomi."
Iwasaki Taku also composed a remix for one of the weirder songs in season 1, "Noratan." The remix is really good, and is also titled as the "Love Noragami Remix," so I think it's safe to say he knows his fanbase.

Voice acting. So the sub is perfect, obviously. Hiroshi Kamiya, who's sort of a god himself, is great to hear as Yato once more. He does a high-pitched silly voice for the comedy moments, and a deep voice for the serious ones. He really makes Yato come to life with his acting.
The acting was really solid the whole time, especially so during some of the more dramatic scenes. My favorite scenes from the Bishamon and Underworld arcs had just the right amount of emotion, and as an added bonus it tears at the heartstrings too.
There's some really good work from the voice actors of Bishamon and Kazuma, who didn't have as much screentime in season 1, but who were primarily the focus of the first half of this season. Newcomers to the show, such as Ebisu, also had really solid voice acting all around.

Talking about the sub, I also have to talk about the dub. I'm almost tempted to knock the overall sound score down a few points just to demonstrate how I feel about it, but just know I'm not counting the dub's score into the total.
So the dub of this show could have been REALLY good, considering all the big-name voice actors in the sub, as well as the emotional scenes that require a solid dramatic performance. However, Funimation's work on this is merely mediocre. Yukine and Bishamon are the only two good voices out of the entire cast, the rest of whom range from average to just plain bad. Funimation did a broadcast dub of Aragoto, as I figured they would due to the show's popularity, but it's really not doing much for me. Because it was done so shortly after the first season got dubbed, all the characters sound the same, which is both good and bad. Good that there were no noticeable changes, bad in that the acting is still pretty atrocious at some points. Some of the casting is still just as cringe-worthy as last time, too.
There's also some awkwardness that came out of dropping the honorifics, which led to words being spoken too fast or too slow. One particularly awkward moment was Kugaha's "Hiiiiiyori-chan" line in the sub being changed to "Hiiiiiiiyorihithere." I get a huge kick out of that part, but not for the reasons I should.

However, my favorite episode of the series was done completely perfectly. It's even more heartbreaking to hear it in English, and for once the voice acting was perfectly on point. Even the characters whose voices I don't really like sounded good in this episode, though it was mostly carried by Bishamon's voice actor who did a phenomenal job. She was already perfectly cast, and this episode only reinforced that.

There's a lot more I could say about the dub, but I don't want this to turn into a rant, so I'll leave it at that.

Character: 9/10

The character score being knocked down a point is solely due to the anime cutting out and changing some important moments that shouldn't have been because I'm a salty manga reader.
Now that that's out of the way.

There was a lot of room for development this season. While the first season only had time with the Yukine arc, both arcs in this season give heavy development to the main and supporting cast. Yato's probably the one who gets the most development, but there's quite a lot for Hiyori and Yukine too. There's also a strong focus on developing Bishamon, Kazuma, and Ebisu as the protagonists of their respective arcs. Nora gets some development later on too.

Yato, starting off as a bit of a jerk and inappropriately obnoxious, with a dark past as a god of calamity, works on bettering himself this season. He starts to correct himself when he steps out of line, and takes action to distance himself from his history and instead tries to be someone to make Hiyori happy. Yato's all around a great protagonist, and there's a lot more to say about him, but that involves spoilers.
Yukine was a selfish brat at the beginning of season 1, and due to the events of both this season and the last, we see him grow into a strong and selfless Regalia for Yato. Honestly, if you only credit season 2 as showing "less of his bratty side" then you're missing the whole point of all the development he went through. Characters, changing as people? Shocking.
Hiyori, meanwhile, is cast less as the damsel in distress as she was in season 1 (more specifically the anime-original arc), and instead becomes a girl who takes action to care for the ones she loves and to keep herself close to Yato and Yukine. There's a slight aside to the anime-original arc, which was a nice touch to show the small amount of development Hiyori got, but other than that they pretend it never happened, and it's for the better this way.

As mentioned before, there's also a lot of development for Bishamon and Kazuma, as the first half of this season is focused on them. We get to find out what exactly transpired between them and Yato in the past, as all those long-ago events become important again and come to a head in this arc.
Noragami also has a great and continuous habit of introducing characters that will be important in the next arc--this is why the two of them weren't showcased as much in season 1, because their arc hadn't arrived yet, but there also wasn't the problem of suddenly adding new characters.

There's also the matter of the villain. Saying anything about the villain at all runs the risk of spoilers, so I'll have to content myself with saying that the reveal was handled quite well.

Enjoyment: 10/10

I had so much fun with Noragami Aragoto; probably more fun than I've had with any of the other shows I've seen. It was a wonderful treat to see a new episode every Friday, to watch it and freak out over the stuff that was animated, and to read the reactions of the non-manga readers.
I'd said prior to the first episode that I was really hyped for this season, but I could in no way predict the storm of emotions that hit when I watched the premiere with a friend of mine. We pretty much suffered simultaneous heart attacks for the entirety of the episode, literally screamed at all the foreshadowing in the opening and ending, and were barely coherent afterward. And that was only the first episode, which in hindsight was little more than an introduction to get the ball rolling.
Anyway, my friend and I proceeded to get all of our other friends into the series so that we could have the whole group as into it as we were. We also discussed the manga nonstop, rewatched the episodes, drew massive amounts of fanart, got together as often as possible to watch the new episodes, and participated in the fandom, making some new friends. All of this, combined with the actual experience of watching the episodes, made it that much more enjoyable.

I also take this time to suggest that you read the manga. Absolutely loved Aragoto with all your heart? Read the manga. Liked this season but thought some parts were weak? Read the manga. Thought the characters were cool but the story had major flaws? Manga. Didn't really like it at all? Manga's still worth a shot. Haven't watched this season yet? Read the manga first.

Not everything can make it into the anime, and thus the little details that got dropped (Hiyori's fundraiser, Yato's fixation on Capyper Land, Yukine's various cute and dorky outfits, Kazuma's weird obsession with Bishamon, the list goes on) are all worth reading it for.

Overall: 9/10

All in all, despite the screwups with the anime, these were the best and most painful 13 Fridays I've experienced, and I'm really sad that it's over now (having the finale air on Christmas was a kind of trauma all on its own). I had a lot of fun with Noragami Aragoto and I'm so sad to see it go, but of course there's still the OVA in March to look forward to, and the slim but possible chance of a season 3 in the future. Pray to Yato to make it happen!

Vamp is incredible. And an experience. And it's written by the Durarara and Baccano guy, both of which tend to be very well received, and pretty popular here. So why is Vamp so overlooked? Other than the lack of an anime adaptation, you'd think that for such a good series more people would have noticed it. I hope with this review to inspire at least a few more people to read it since there's a prominent lack of a fanbase.
On to the review.

Story: 9/10
One of the great things about Vamp is it takes elements from all kinds of vampire stories but avoids casting vampires as ... one, singular species. Some are humanoid, others are animals (or even sentient telepathic black holes). Some can turn into fog and bats, some can only do one or the other, or neither. Some vampires need to drink blood, some don't need to. Most are weak to sunlight (weakness varies), but a fair amount are completely immune. Just like how every human is different, each vampire has different strengths and weaknesses.
Vamp exhibits the typical Narita story characteristics, but I find it to also be a lot more straightforward than Durarara and Baccano. Durarara jumps around the time of day, Baccano does that and mixes up the years, but Vamp tends to proceed in more or less chronological order. All those characters run around, do their thing, and meet back up at the end of the day.
Since it's part of the Naritaverse along with Baccano, Durarara, and Etsusa Bridge, there's also various references to the other series here and there. They may or may not provide hints about the plots of the others.
This story also has that Narita tendency where it'll end on a cliffhanger, and immediately switch to another character's point of view, where they may end up being a part of the same thing as the other character once their timeline coincides with the previous one. As infuriating as this "switch RIGHT as you're about to find something big out" habit is, it's also a very effective suspense-building mechanism because it makes you want to keep turning the page to discover what exactly it was.

As far as the actual volumes go, Volume I is essentially an introduction to some of our protagonists, as well as establishing the beginnings of a conflict that will span the other volumes. This first volume is considered to be the slowest of the existing five--even the translator said they were put off by it but decided to continue reading anyway. I personally found Vamp engaging right from the start, so it's different for everyone, I guess. The other four volumes were definitely better, though.
Volumes II and III cover the same story, taking place a year after the first volume, and a lot of big stuff happens. More characters are introduced, backstory is given, and it's one wild ride the whole way through.
Volume IV takes place six months after the previous two, and slows the pace a little bit to allow characters to feel the aftereffects of the previous narrative. It focuses a lot on how the characters feel about what has happened to them, and starts to build, develop, and strengthen the relationships. On top of that, it really brings into the light, for the first time, the wacky Organization that was previously mentioned but not particularly elaborated on.
(I think it's worth noting here that Narita intended this to be a short story anthology but decided against it later. He said the same thing about Volume V, and again in that volume's afterword about Volume VI.)
Volume V happens to be my personal favorite. It takes place at the same time as Volume IV but is about different characters. It introduces a really, really interesting conflict, as well as expands on the central theme of "Can humans and vampires really get along?" This is the theme introduced in Volume I and continues to be the conflict around which all the stories revolve. It introduces still more characters and ends up having some absolutely heartbreaking scenes that nearly brought me to tears, as well as a setup that could make for an interesting and satisfying finale, if it were to be adapted.

One of my personal pet peeves about Vamp is that far too much of the character development for one character revolves around one of the female characters being kidnapped practically every volume. As I said, it's important to the plot so I don't really know how it could be rewritten, but every time it happened I rolled my eyes and said "Here we go again."

Vamp is sort of a side project for Narita, which is why there usually have been long gaps between the novels. However, I expect it to continue for a while yet because he keeps mentioning in his afterwords what he wants to write about in the future, but hasn't gotten around to yet. Plus, the complicated central theme I mentioned earlier is nowhere near being resolved.
One of the definite other downsides to the long wait are the minor story inconsistencies. There aren't many, but there is the particular case of a certain character mentioned to be an orphan but later suddenly having parents in a different volume. The orphan part wasn't very important to this character's upbringing as I remember, but it's still something that had to be changed for later things to work.

There hasn't been a new volume in nearly five years (Narita has been busy with Durarara and Baccano mostly), but don't let that demotivate you from reading it.

Art: 8/10
Vamp is illustrated by Enami Katsumi, the same person who draws for the Baccano novels. Due to the long time gap between volumes, you can see the improvement over the years. Our female lead, Ferret, gets prettier with every passing volume, and the other characters seem to become more lively the farther on we get.
The cover art gets a lot better as well. Volume I (the one pictured on the front page) is pretty busy visually, the characters are in semi-awkward poses, and our main twins look rather emotional. Volumes II and III are portraits of characters lined up, which is also not very interesting visually. Volume IV is where it starts to get good, featuring some of the important characters walking through the sky a la Howl's Moving Castle. There's a lot of vague silhouettes behind the defined characters, making it also very crowded. But it's still a very nice cover. Volume V is the best composition-wise, since it has much fewer characters, they're spread out, and it draws the eye into a spiral motion. The lighting is also really nice, as well as the facial expressions. Since the covers only get better as we go, I can't wait to see what the Volume VI cover will look like.
However, there are a fair amount of inconsistencies. The collar/neckline of Ferret's dress seems to be different in every drawing, a certain other female character is drawn with the figure of a grown woman even though she's only 16, Ferret's hair is varying degrees of curliness, the twins' eyes change from blue to green, and our male lead Michael seems to grow younger every volume even though he's actually getting older. There's some other details, but those are the only ones coming to mind right now.

Character: 10/10
As expected of a Ryohgo Narita work, the characters are the highlight of the whole thing. They're all different kinds of personalities and each have unique backstories, motivations, and desires. Not to mention each vampire's abilities either directly complements or directly contrasts their personality.
I'll just give a rundown of some of the more major figures, since there's about 30 different characters mentioned total, and new ones are still to come.

First, there's our lead twins, Relic and Ferret. If Vamp were more popular, I'd guess the fans would be divided on which one they liked better, since they're both great.
Relic is basically the most powerful vampire in the world. He has all the typical vampire abilities, but on a much more massive scale than anyone else. Instead of just transforming his body and maybe objects close to him, he's capable of bringing the entire island they live on under his control. And it's quite a large island.
However, he also has nearly every weakness you could think of, balancing him out.
His sister Ferret, on the other hand, is practically human. She's mentioned to have no strengths (though she is immortal and has super-strength, both of which I consider powers, but whatever), but she also has none of the weaknesses her brother does. She's fine against sunlight, running water, silver, and other such things. Personality-wise, she's a lot like your typical tsundere, though with a lot more internal conflict and arm strength than you'd expect to see.
The interesting conflict between these two is that Relic looks and behaves like any other kid his age, whereas Ferret, the more "normal" one, is obsessed with behaving like an arisocrat, and even dresses more like how you'd expect a vampire to dress. The development they undergo during the series is also opposite from one another, and the way they deal with consequences of their actions is also worlds apart.

One of our other lead roles is Michael Dietrich, the obligatory sweet, pure character. He's head over heels for Ferret and though she practically gives him a concussion every time he speaks to her (which seems very exaggerated to me; he's only human after all), Michael's upfront personality is slowly bringing them closer together. Other characters have commented on his capability of bridging the gap between humans and vampires, since he uses his love for Ferret to relate to any and every other topic. The fact that she's a born vampire doesn't bother him in the slightest, and he has a tendency to overlook other such things. He's a very trusting person, which is both a positive and negative trait.

The last character I will mention is Relic and Ferret's adoptive father, Gerhardt von Waldstein. Considering he is quite literally a large telekinetic puddle of blood, he's quite the dork and doesn't behave at all according to expectations. He seems to be the mandatory "character who communicates by writing" of this series. He's also very mild-mannered and tends to joke around a lot, and is rarely ever serious.
On a side note, Narita has written about him before he became a sentient pool of blood, but I'd like to someday see what he looked like before he took on that form.

There are many, many other characters in this series, though. We have Hilda, Michael's younger sister and Relic's girlfriend; Shizune, a vampire eater who is hellbent on exterminating all vampires; Watt, who is a half-human half-vampire with a bitter grudge against the viscount; Val, a plant-based vampire capable of advanced shapeshifting; Selim, another plant-based vampire who practically steals the show when her backstory is revealed; Doctor and Professor, a wacky pseudoscience duo with a dark past; and so many others that I can't talk about for fear of this section ending up too long.

Bottom line: There's a ton of characters, all well-written even if they're not necessarily likeable people. Everyone has a character they get very attached to. It's impossible to avoid in this series.

Enjoyment: 9/10
This series was a hell of a lot of fun to read. I didn't really ever feel bored while reading, but did have trouble finding motivation at times, hence the point deduction. It's a real page-turner, for sure.
One of the only problems I found with Vamp was that at the beginning, I was reading very slowly, though normally I'm very fast. I don't really think it was the translation as much as it was getting used to the different writing style--light novels are written a lot differently than our books. A lot more dialogue and a lot less description, to give a basic idea.
However, once I found my pace (around Volume IV), I was able to pick up my reading speed until I was pretty much at my normal speed, and finished Volume V in just a couple of hours. It honestly felt like the novels were getting way shorter the farther I went.

Overall: 9/10
Vamp is so very overlooked. There's practically zero fans, and the only other review for this series is written by a friend of mine. Most of the members that have added it haven't read it yet. Only one person has translated it, and it wasn't even translated until fairly recently (the series began in 2004).
But despite all this lack of attention, it's a very good series with a complex plot and amazing characters. The stories and art only get better as time passes, so I hope at least a few people will be spurred to start reading it from my review. Vamp needs the fans. Considering how popular Baccano and Durarara are, if just a fraction of those people decided to read Vamp, I'd be overjoyed.

Also, I know that a review isn't really the place for this, but if you do start reading Vamp or want to, let me know! Reactions are amusing, and I can also provide a download link to all five translated volumes if you so desire.

Your Lie in April was that one show all my friends were trying to get me to watch while it was airing, yet I waited until after it finished to even decide to watch it in the first place. Why? You'll see.

Story: 8/10
It's great to see a music-centered show, especially for an instrument I actually play (piano, if you were wondering).
This show starts off with a pretty interesting premise, which immediately caught my attention. You get it all in the description--boy is unable to hear his own piano playing. Then he meets Kaori, an energetic violinist who shows him how she interprets music. Pretty ... generic for a setup, but what follows is what makes the show more interesting.
The story progresses smoothly from one episode to the next: events in one episode directly affect the events of the next, and so on and so forth. There was a little awkwardness around the middle, because one episode the characters were saying "Summer break has started!" and the next they're like "Oh no summer break is almost over."
The pacing of the show is a little weird too; it takes about four episodes from getting Kousei to enter a piano competition to his actual performance. This is due to establishing the backstory of some other characters in the piano competition, that knew Kousei as kids and always placed below him.
A lot of the story focuses directly on Kousei's development as a character, from the "human metronome" he was known as, to a somewhat introverted teenager who has stopped playing the piano, and again to a pianist who lets his own emotions flow into the music instead of playing strictly to the score.
Now, here I have to interject with my own musical experience.
This show has a lot of "No you must play according to the score in a competition, if you add your own flair it's cause for a much lower score." I'm not sure what competition does that, because in all the competitions I know you're supposed to add a little of your own touch to the music because that's what distinguishes between players. It's not necessarily about the number of mistakes you make. If a competition were full of 20-something people all playing the same song exactly as the composer wrote it, it'd be really hard to distinguish between players because to a degree it'd all sound the same.
I've also never heard of a "set piece" in my life--it's boring for judges and the audience to listen to the same song over and over, so usually you pick from a list the competition itself has provided. You may have two or even three people playing the same song, yet overall there's a lot of variety.
Anyway, back to the story.
Pretty early on the show starts hinting something, and as you move through the episodes this hint becomes more and more pronounced before finally coming to a close in the final episode. Since I got spoiled on the ending of the show before I even watched it, these hints just led to the conclusion even more. Even if I hadn't gotten spoiled though, the implications alone would be enough for me to realize the show was getting at something.

A lot of the show is centered on one life-changing event: Kaori persuades Kousei to be her accompanist in a competition she's in, and despite his reluctance, he eventually agrees. In the midst of this competition, Kousei's inability to hear his own playing kicks in. It's really interesting how they used the metaphor of him being underwater and distorted the piano music to help the viewer see inside his head.
However, Kaori's smiling face and her tendency to play the music however she wants helps transform Kousei's playing from robotic to something full of passion, and the changes caused by this solitary scene are brought back over and over again as Kousei's primary motivation to keep playing.
On that note, this show has a lot of issues of repetition. Words and phrases are repeated a lot to give the viewer the impression that they are important. I'm not sure what a better way to do this would have been, but nonetheless it happens a lot. However, this becomes less of an issue once you move into the later episodes.

My number one issue with this show is the comedic relief. This seems to be a common problem among manga adaptations, because what only takes up one panel in the manga can take up to ten seconds in the anime.
The comedy was not really funny since it'd usually come in the middle of an emotional scene. There'd be a great, passion-filled scene going that would suddenly be broken by chibis and yelling. Needless to say, it ruined the mood. I feel like a lot of authors need to realize there can be comedic relief that isn't mood-ruining and doesn't have to be centered around cheap jokes and chibis. Sure, it takes more time, but it ultimately gives the reader/viewer a better experience out of it.
And I wish I could say this problem of mood-ruining comedy goes away as the show grows darker, but it does not. There's less of it, certainly, but it's always there and never handled properly.

Art: 9/10
You can tell A-1 put a lot of money into this show. The visuals are outstanding. Backgrounds full of detail and color, the harsh and shimmering lighting onstage, and the musical aspect of course. This show definitely didn't shy away from drawing a piano, and grand pianos especially are really hard to draw. They used a lot of CGI for these musical scenes, which I was fine with since it makes rendering the instruments a lot easier and provides some nice close-ups of the inner workings of the piano.
Not so much CGI used in Kaori's violin playing, but she was holding it correctly and there was a lot of motion in her playing rather than stills.
The colors in this show are reminiscient of Madoka Magica in that there are tons of colors used in many shots, from a clear blue sky with cherry blossoms swirling about to a starry night to standing by a river with fireflies, to scenes using many different shades of one color like Kousei's underwater entrapment while he plays. Both uses of color are equally impressive, and draw the viewer into the story even more.
This show also has attention to small details, such as the sweat dripping off the characters' faces as they finish playing, and how the characters have full lips and bright, shining eyes.
There's some weird artistic choices though. Sometimes Kousei's glasses are detatched from his face (so as not to hide his eyes when he's drawn from the side), but sometimes they are attached, and sometimes even in the same scene. Presumably, this is sticking to how they were drawn in the manga, but a little more consistency wouldn't hurt. It was kind of bothersome to watch.
As far as other problems, this is more due to personal taste: I didn't like how the chibi characters were drawn. Probably tying into the fact that the comedy was destroying the serious mood most of the time, but a fair amount of the time the chibis would be missing their hair which was odd to say the least.

Sound: 10/10
Damn good sound in this show.
When I found out Goose House, the band who did the Silver Spoon ED that I love so much, did the first opening to this show, I was ecstatic. In all honesty, that opening was about half of the reason I did watch this show.
And it certainly doesn't disappoint. It's a really upbeat and joyful song that makes you want to jump up and dance around.
The second opening is also pretty happy, but is more mellowed-down than the first. It fits well with the direction the show takes.
The ED's are both really good as well. The first one is a bright, happy song, while the second one is melancholy and evokes sad feelings.

The OST for this show is as it should be, and that is fantastic.
The classical pieces performed for the competitions are resplendent in all their glory, done by professional pianists and violinists, not synthesized as is the norm. It gives them a much more authentic sound this way. There's a lot of Chopin, as well as some other classical composers.
Aside from the classical music, the OST of the show on its own is really good. Lots of piano and violin, of course, but it helps to carry the scenes through happy and sad. One issue is it felt like a lot of the BGM was repeated quite frequently. A little weird; not sure why considering the budget for this show was obviously large.

And as far as voice acting goes, it was stunning. There was some weird yelling at the comedic relief, but other than that the voices really bring the characters to life and make you care that much more. This is one of those shows that makes your eyes blur over with tears so you can't read the subtitles.

Character: 8/10
There's four main characters to this show, as well as a few minor characters.

Kousei is our lead, obviously. I found myself surprisingly getting very attached to him over the course of this show, and loved the development he went through. Despite always learning to play music to the score exactly, once he meets Kaori, he learns to step outside the box and bring his own personality into it. You can even hear the change in the music over the course of the show, a subtle but nice touch.
As for Kousei's issue with not being able to hear his playing, I'm not sure what happened to it because at some times he's not able to hear it and at others he is. They didn't really make it clear if it went away or not, either.
Kousei doesn't seem to have much of a personality outside of his piano playing. I can cut some slack seeing as this show is music-centric, but even Tsubaki points it out a few times: She can't decide what his winning qualities besides piano are.

Kaori, on the other hand, has a radiant personality that makes her habit of making the music her own all the more apparent. She's basically the perfect female lead despite her short temper: She's pretty, optimistic, gets along great with kids, selfless, and caring.
I do take some issue with her relentless persuasion to get Kousei back to the piano. I felt that if he doesn't want to play, she shouldn't make him since it obviously brings up unpleasant memories. However, holding back on judging would be wise since you don't see her motivations right away.

Tsubaki is Kousei's friend since childhood. She doesn't play music, but she discusses it with him regardless and supports him the whole way through.
She's similar to Kaori in that she bugs Kousei to pick up the piano even though he clearly doesn't want to, but her motivation is made apparent pretty early on, so once again, hold back on the judging.
They imply a sort of love triangle in this friend group, which did not sit well with me. After all, not every childhood friendship results in romance. After this side plot ran its course though, the show more or less forgot about it and moved to more important things, which is the real issue here. Why add it if it never leads to anything in the end?

Watari is the fourth main character, but he doesn't really feel like it since although we got a lot of time devoted to the other three, at the end of the day we don't know much about him aside from his ladies' man personality and the fact that he's captain of the soccer team. There definitely should have been some time set aside to develop his character.

As for minor characters, there are only four worth mentioning.

First, there's Kousei's mom. She was, to put it bluntly, a terrible mother to him. She forced him to practice for hours on end and beat him and yelled at him. It was good that this show faced this issue of the abusive parent instead of hopping around it, but the big issue was somewhere around the middle of the show they start to paint her as maybe not such a bad person after all. No offense, but she was an absolutely awful person and whatever excuses you make for her behavior, the fact remains that she left a deep and highly negative impression on Kousei, so when the show starts to try to show her in a more positive light, it just doesn't work. Yes, she may have been Kousei's mom, but she was not a nice person and didn't deserve the "redemption" she got.

There's also a professional pianist who was a friend of Kousei's mother. I can't quite recall her name, but she starts to serve as Kousei's mentor when he gets back into piano. She doesn't do much for the story except that, but adding her in was a good choice regardless. God knows Kousei needs a proper mother figure in his life.

The other two minor characters, as previously mentioned, were the two pianists who always placed second and third to Kousei's first. When he quit piano, the two of them became the best.
Their relationship with him was rather odd though, because they seemed to at once both admire him as a hero and despise him as a rival. It was good to see the hints of friendship between the three of them at the end, though.
They have fairly well fleshed-out personalities, but in the end mostly serve as the driving force to inspire Kousei and give the feeling of actual competition rather than just focusing on Kousei's playing the whole time. Know thine enemy, if you will.

Enjoyment: 10/10
I enjoyed the hell out of this show. I'd finish one episode and start the next without even thinking about it or feeling mildly reluctant.
As I've mentioned in other reviews, my enjoyment score is partly based on how quickly I watch the show. With this one, I watched six episodes one afternoon and the remaining sixteen the next day. Some kind of a record, I think. It was just so addicting.
"The scene" in the final episode moved me to tears. Here was where everything came together so brilliantly: the story, the art and animation, the sound, and the character development all accumulating into one heck of a moving scene. It wasn't the end of the show nor the end of my tears, but it's definitely the best scene of the show.

Overall: 9/10
Worth watching? Yes, definitely, especially if you're a musician like me. I recognized a few of the songs and that just made it all the more personal.
I have heard from a friend who read the manga that it's basically a word for word adaptation but with gorgeous animation and the songs included, so it's probably okay to watch this over reading the manga.
Ultimately, this is a really powerful story that shows how music brings people from many different backgrounds together, bridging the gap between them. Despite its flaws and shortcomings, the final impression it leaves you with is very moving and inspiring.

Right, Blue Exorcist. A world in which there are cute demon boys, where exorcists fight with weapons rather than just recite Bible verses, and telling the story of two brothers with a rift between them.

Story: 7/10
Surprisingly enough for a shounen series, Blue Exorcist is actually pretty heavily character-driven, so going into too much detail on the story would lead into a character discussion.
Right from the start, the story is pretty trope-y, and it progresses in what you'd call the most logical manner. Twin brothers, sons of Satan, one of whom has demonic powers and the other one who is an exorcist fighting them. Rin, our ... main character who has Satan's powers, decides that he'll become an exorcist to, in his words, "beat the shit out of Satan."
Honestly, if you just watch the first episode and drop the show, you'll probably think that this is super cliched of a premise and not very interesting. However, if you continue, you'll see how the characters are written, and that is where the show truly shines.
Despite A-1 Pictures usually being pretty faithful to the source material, with Blue Exorcist they decided to go off-script and do an anime-original ending. The show basically crashes and burns when that happens, and it's painfully obvious when the show does move into anime-original. It develops plot up the ass, it gets super forced and over the top, and it's impossible to take seriously. Not to mention the characters are out of character and basically destroy the premise of the show. We get to see history on Rin and his brother Yukio's mother, but it's written really ridiculously and is basically a lot of "Awwww Satan, you're not evil, just lonely" and "I LOVE YOU SATAN, AND ALL THE EXORCISTS IN THE WORLD COULDN'T STOP OUR LOVE" and is just so bad you can't help but laugh. I didn't feel any sort of emotional attachment to these last few episodes, but kept watching in the hopes that it'd redeem itself (it didn't).
It's such a shame that they did go anime-original, because the plot was doing so well up until that point. So why did they? One of my friends said it was because the arc the manga was on wouldn't have made a very good ending, but honestly, anything would have been a better ending than what they gave us. If they couldn't possibly have avoided anime-original, they should've hired better writers that didn't make cringe-worthy material.
The story still gets 7/10 though, just because it was doing so well up until the end.

An interesting choice of narrative was having this be focused on Christianity (though the religion itself isn't used much; it's mostly as support for the exorcist scenario), which isn't a common religion in Japan. I think this might be an alternate universe where Christianity is the leading religion in Japan, since all the relevant characters are Christian and the school Rin goes to is basically its own town, and I doubt there's many Christian schools like that in Japan.

Blue Exorcist also has a lot of comedic relief to lighten the mood. Normally in other shows it's ineptly done and can ruin the scene, but I actually found the comedy to be quite funny and not disruptive like I was expecting. It definitely made me laugh out loud a lot, and I think that says something as compared to most other shows.

Art: 8/10
Not much to say here. It was good, as expected of A-1. I didn't really notice any problems, but there weren't really any moments that were amazingly impressive. The character animation and the opening and ending sequences were fine, though I have some issues with the second ED sequence since it's mostly stills and textures and the animation is done around the stills as a transitional effect like a PowerPoint.

Sound: 9/10
The openings and endings of this show are really good. The first OP took a little getting used to, but it grew on me. They're overall really catchy songs and fit well with the show.
The OST of this show is really good as well. It's done by Hiroyuki Sawano, and while I can't say I'm as fond of this soundtrack as I am of Attack on Titan's and Kill la Kill's, it was pretty good still. The soundtrack was ambient noise a lot of the times, with good stuff happening during the battles. There was a large variety in sound too, and I don't really recall hearing the same tracks over and over again, which is always refreshing.

The dub of this show is really good as well. Bryce Papenbrook is perfect as Rin, and the other actors were all doing great work. I haven't seen the Japanese version (except for the first episode a while back), but I'm sure that's really good too.

Characters: 8/10
This was easily the strongest point of the show until it all went downhill, but I'll get to that later.
As previously mentioned, Blue Exorcist is pretty character-driven for a shounen series, and the characters are really strong. We see a lot of focus on their backstories and motivations, and time is even set aside for the minor characters developing on their own, not necessarily because of Rin or to establish relationships with him.

Rin himself is a pretty generic but relatable shounen lead. He's angry a good portion of the time, wants to fight everyone, and has something to prove. He also is a strong believer in doing what's right, and at this point you're probably groaning over how cliched he is. Yet despite his temper, Rin is shown to be surprisingly sensitive and sympathetic to other characters, and is actually just a big softie. Plus, he's a really good cook, and uses his skills to make others feel happy. That's not really a trait you see in many other shounen protagonists. Even as a child, before he knew he was Satan's son, he was shunned by parents and their kids, and called a "demon child." This has a big role in leading to him being compassionate as a teenager. Rin's aggressive toward those that show him animosity, but around his friends, he tries as hard as he can to be kind.
Since he has Satan's powers, he's the embodiment of the creatures exorcists are supposed to fight, and often has trouble keeping his powers under control around his fellow exorcists-in-training. This can lead to some humorous moments with the whole "I can't let them find out about me" thing.
Rin also has a complicated relationship with his twin brother Yukio. This was another really good choice of character, since siblings in anime are usually either really close or want to kill each other. Yukio finds Rin to blame for some of the stuff that's happened to them, and Rin often loses his temper around Yukio, but the next minute they're laughing and joking together. It's a pretty accurate depiction of real sibling relationships, actually.

As for Yukio, as much as I tried to dislike him for his initial harsh treatment of Rin, I ended up liking him just as much. You can't really blame him for the way he acts sometimes, and he's shown to attempt understanding toward Rin. Like I said, they also display moments of their former closeness on occasion, so it's not all hate.
Yukio's also interesting because he too is the son of Satan, but since he was in too poor of health as a baby to handle Satan's powers, he is basically a normal human being. He doesn't face the same discrimination as Rin, which goes to show how much some blue flames and a tail can affect a person's perception.

There's a lot of interesting characters in this show, so I won't spent time detailing them all, but they are shown to be realistic characters with their own motivations and agendas, and we get backstory on most of them. The surprising depth to these characters really makes you care about them, and it's always exciting to see where they'll go next.
The other characters include Shiemi, the shy and clumsy girl who despite her timid nature has a strong willpower (though I have issues with the implied love triangle between her and the twins); Ryuuji, who's the tryhard classmate with a bone to pick against Rin; Izumo, the bitchy girl that takes advantage of Shiemi's kindness; Shura, who is basically a copycat of Yoko from Gurren Lagann but who is interesting nonetheless; and many others.

However, all of that changes once the show decides to deviate from the manga. The characters are reduced to their basic tropes and a lot of the depth is lost, and combined with the ludicrous narrative, it does not make for a good recipe. The characters were doing so well before then though.

Enjoyment: 8/10
I had a hell of a fun time with the show up until it became, very noticeably, anime-original. It was funny, action-packed, had well-written characters, and there was a lot of depth. As soon as it did deviate from the source material, I didn't enjoy it at all, unless you count that it was laughably bad. Which is why I need to read the manga.
Even despite the cringe-worthy last ten episodes or so, I still powered through the show in four days just because it was initially so addicting.

Overall: 8/10
So, should you watch Blue Exorcist? I say yes, at least until the anime-original story.
It's a strong shounen story that's pretty character-driven, and overcomes the flaws of its genre, only to later fall into the trap of "creative liberties."
Anyway, I feel like I haven't stated this enough: Blue Exorcist was really good until that point. I would have given it a 9 or something if it had kept up. Honestly, the only reason it's still as high as an 8 is BECAUSE it was so good until then, and it's a real shame that it had to change.

Death Parade was a show I picked up after watching the opening and going, "Dang, this is a really good opening, guess I'll watch the show since I've heard so much about it."

Story: 7/10
I watched Death Billiards first, since I knew that it was kind of a precursor to this show. In hindsight though, that may not have been the best decision because when I watched Death Parade I was struck by how different the show was from the movie/special. In Death Parade, they add a lot of stuff that wasn't in the original work and it's nearly completely different, with only the concept of ... morality and the setting remaining the same.
I'll be quite honest, the first three episodes were somewhat of a snooze for me. I kind of regretted watching the show at that point, but I pressed on. The first three episodes were also hard because that was where the differences between the show and the movie were made painfully apparent. Starting with episode 4 and on though, the show started to really make me think about things, like "Who says one person has to get reincarnated and the other sent to the void? What if they both deserve one or the other?" The show started to get interesting from then on out, but then we start moving away from the people being judged to the people judging them. This was a bit hard for me to get used to at first (since I still felt it was being unfaithful to the source material), but it ended up being pretty good despite the shift in focus.
The last episode, though, felt a bit lackluster. I felt that episode 11 (easily the best of the show) was building up to a huge ending that would be really impactful, but episode 12 just kind of ended the show. No more, no less. I won't talk specifics, obviously, but I felt that it wasn't the right ending, especially with what it seemed it had been building up to. It's kind of a feeling of "That's it?"
From the beginning, this show is fraught with inconsistencies, and that is one of the biggest downfalls. These inconsistencies are unfortunately very noticeable, and I spent a good portion of the show wondering why they were breaking their own rules so much. There was also no explanation given for certain story aspects, and I can't say much due to spoilers, but it was really confusing to me.
The rule-breaking is in line with both stuff stated in Death Billiards and the show itself. I'm not sure why they decided to make all these rules and then just blatantly break them. And like I said, it was pretty noticeable when they did it. They did move away from that after the first few episodes, but then just went right back to it in the end.
If you really want to be a stickler, you could ask why everyone in the show that's being judged is Japanese since obviously people die from all around the world, but I think they did that so that we wouldn't have the language disparities going on. The problem with writing this type of show is that if you do end up making an explanation for why everyone is Japanese, you could really write yourself into a corner with it, so I'm fine with them not addressing the issue.

I don't know if they always intended to make a show out of Death Billiards or not, but we ended up with one anyway. So if you do watch the show, it's up to you if you want to watch Death Billiards first or not. It didn't sit well with me when I did, but that's just what I think.

Art: 9/10
Studio Madhouse did a great job with this, as could be expected. The classy high-end bar atmosphere in Quindecim was portrayed really well; and I liked the character animation. A certain scene in episode 11 (if you've seen the show you probably know which one I'm talking about) was extremely well animated and blew me away when I watched it.
The opening is also really well animated, though the sequence is possibly one of the biggest lies ever. It's kind of funny looking back, since the opening was really the first thing I saw of the show besides opinions, and I was like, "Huh, this looks like a happy show." Quite the opposite, as it turned out. The opening shows the various characters dancing around and generally having a good time, when the show itself is about the darker parts of human nature.
A cool thing about the opening was that some scenes from it actually did happen in the show, which isn't as often an occurrence as you'd think. It wasn't one of the partying scenes, I should add.
The only problem I have with the art and animation is that sometimes the facial expressions would get extremely distorted. So much that I could no longer take the scene seriously. Death Note, another Madhouse production, had the same issue, and for the same reason I couldn't take some of its more dramatic scenes seriously.
And on the topic of Death Note, was that Light Yagami I saw in episode 11 or are my eyes playing tricks on me? I have absolutely no idea what he or his dead ringer lookalike was doing in this show, and the show didn't care to enlighten us. There's another thing we have no explanation for. It could just be a joke on the animators' part, or a throwback to Death Note itself since the two shows are somewhat related on the morality grounds, but it was really weird for me to see.

Sound: 8/10
The opening song, Flyers by Bradio, is really upbeat, tying into the happy opening sequence and giving the feeling that this will be a lighthearted show (it lies). It's a really good song and definitely up there in terms of favorite anime openings. Makes you want to put your hands up, as it says in the song.
The ending song, Last Theater by Noisycell, made it onto my personal favorite ending songs list. It's all around a really good song, and despite the fact that it's performed by a Japanese band singing in English, it doesn't sound like Engrish.
And the OST for this show was pretty good. The soundtrack did well to carry the different scenes; and combined with the brilliant animation for the part I mentioned above, it moved me to tears. The soundtrack wasn't anything super special, but it definitely did its job well and was enjoyable to listen to. Like the art, it also captured the classy bar atmosphere really well while being able to shift to cover the dramatic scenes.

Funimation is doing a broadcast dub for this show and while I haven't gotten the chance to check it out yet, it looks like it's pretty good. We have Alex Organ as Decim, Jamie Marchi as the black-haired woman, Jad Saxton as Nona, and quite a lot of recognizable Funimation voice actors doing the one-time characters.
I watched this show subbed since Death Billiards isn't dubbed and I didn't want to have to switch between languages. The Japanese cast did a great job, and I was really impressed by the voice acting in the emotional scenes.
Not much else to say here except that the sub was really good and the dub looks really good too, so it's safe to watch whichever one you're comfortable with.

Character: 8/10
This show is pretty heavily character-driven, which can be either a good or a bad thing depending on how you look at it, since as I said the show gradually shifts its focus from the ones being judged to the arbiters judging them. The one-time characters we see in the first few episodes all have their own backstories, motivations, and flaws, and raise some pretty interesting questions once we get to some of the more morally complicated episodes. I'm actually kind of glad that they did shift the show to the arbiters, since watching episode after episode of the same "people being judged for the afterlife" thing would get easily tiresome and repetitive. However, I do think they should have given more development to the supporting characters, though the main two are pretty well developed.
I'm not sure why they decided to give the characters names in the show (they didn't have names nor need them in the movie), but it makes them easier to talk about rather than relying on physical description.

Decim is one of our main characters, the bartender in charge of Quindecim. Since he's an arbiter, he's supposed to have no emotions, but he does show traces of admiration for the human race from time to time. There's an interesting plot element regarding Decim, but it's never fully explained, so I'm left a bit confused about it.
The black-haired woman, Decim's assistant in some ways, is the other main character and a little more mysterious. Her backstory is very spoilery so I will refrain from talking about her much, but she does provide some interesting perspective to the judgment process due to it.

We also have many supporting characters, from other arbiters to the people being judged to the sort-of god of this world. Nona, a high-level arbiter who seems to be the overseer and showrunner, and the redheaded arbiter Ginti were pretty interesting people, but needed more development to make them shine.
Also Ginti, as an arbiter, is supposed to have no emotions, but he's a pretty angry person. And where I come from, anger is an emotion. There's another example of the show breaking its own rules with no explanation as to why.
There's a few other arbiters showing up from time to time, but they are barely developed and hardly relevant. Even the god of this world really doesn't do much for the show, despite the hints that he would.

And as far as other supporting characters, the people being judged most every episode are all pretty interesting in their own ways. We get instances where both deserve reincarnation (in my eyes), both deserve the void, and some where I had no idea what to think. Since they only appeared once, there was only so much development they could have, but it was pretty well handled.
I would have liked to see less of male vs. female conflicts though, since that happened almost every episode. I get that the lovers' quarrel is more interesting than two people of the same gender, but like the rest of the concepts in this show, it gets old if not used right.

Enjoyment: 8/10
Since I watched Death Billiards first, the beginning of this show was kind of a drag for me since I didn't feel it was sticking much to the original concept. It ended up getting its feet on the ground after that though, and just got better and better from then on out, until we hit the last episode, and even that was pretty good until the ending. I've already said I wasn't satisfied with the ending, but if we did get another season it'd be nearly impossible to make the story as captivating a second time around since they'd have to come up with a new plotline besides the whole "judging dead people for the afterlife" since that can get really old really fast.
I've already said this as well, but I'll say it again. Episode 11 was, for me, by far the best of the show, and if this show had continued along that train of thought, it would have ended up a lot better.

Overall: 8/10
Despite its flaws and shortcomings, Death Parade is a pretty enjoyable watch and can raise some thought-provoking questions about human nature.
Oh, and with all this talk about morality, you'd probably expect the dialogue to be super philosophical and kind of pretentious, but the show does a pretty good job of avoiding that. There are some moments where it does get a little too much into the philosophical discussion thing, but for the most part they let the viewer think about it for themself.
So, all in all, Death Parade is a pretty good yet flawed show that has fantastic audiovisuals and an interesting story to hear. It doesn't accomplish everything it sets out to do, but it was still an enjoyable experience.

Kyoukai no Kanata/Beyond the Boundary was one of my first animes (my fifth to be precise), so I'm probably a bit biased, but here I go anyway.

Story: 6/10
The show starts off in an unexpected way: A girl backflipping over a fence and stabbing our male lead in the heart. Extremely surprising, to say the least. However, he isn't dead. Akihito Kanbara is immortal so needless to say, being stabbed in the chest doesn't kill him.
And here we are introduced to our two main characters. We have Mirai, shunned due to her blood manipulation powers, and Akihito, existing as an immortal half-youmu.
So what's a youmu? Similar ... to Madoka Magica's concept of witches and Noragami's Phantoms, youmu are born out of the ill wishes and curses of people. Spirit World Warriors, of which Mirai is a part, make a living off of hunting them down. Since this isn't the first show to do this, it's not an original concept, but at least in this show if you're a good warrior you can make a lot of money killing these things (whereas in Madoka Magica and Noragami it's more of a charity duty; I know I'm skimming over details, but here is not the place to explain the plots of other shows).
However, Mirai dislikes drawing attention to her abnormal powers (I mean, she uses a sword made out of her own hardened blood. How badass is that?), so while she is a powerful Spirit World Warrior, she lacks experience and is pretty poor too, buying discounted food and struggling to make each month's rent.
Anyway, the story takes a while to get its feet under itself. We bounce around from arc to arc, each segment taking only a couple of episodes apiece, and finally in the last few episodes, we move to our main plot. I think there's two potential areas of improvement here:
1. Making the show longer, so to have each arc give us maximum impact (the Hollow Shadow arc? Ouch).
2. If there was no way to make the show longer, keeping the story focused on its central plot would have kept us from being detracted into side stories (like episode 6) and made the story more cohesive from start to finish.
Don't get me wrong, I liked all the little mini-arcs. But that led to the main plot feeling rushed and squeezed in at the last minute. I would have liked it to be more drawn-out.
We also have the enigma that is episode 6. I'm still not entirely sure what happened in development to lead to that. Still, it's an amusing episode to say the least.
Basically, some youmu that's worth a crazy amount appears on the top of the kids' school rooftop. They try to kill it, but that fails and they have to regroup. Long story short, their overly elaborate plot doesn't work, and the youmu gets away.
The stink that the youmu sprays on them apparently doesn't go away until they defeat it, and since they never do, I suppose the characters just smell really bad for the rest of the show. It's a weird little plot hole, but I enjoyed the episode and the insert song, so whatever.

Episode 6 serves as a nice break before we start moving back into dark fantasy, though this time it gets darker than it did before.
We also move into the main plot, which is somewhat confusing in terms of worldbuilding and leaves you to figure out stuff for yourself. It's weak on the technical side, but everything besides that is better in my opinion.
The ending of the show is controversial, since a lot of people say it was a cop-out and a gaping plot hole. The plot hole part may be true, but as someone who watched the show as it was airing, I can say that I was hoping above all else for that particular ending so I didn't mind when they gave it to us.
Also, we're getting a sequel movie pretty soon so I'm assuming we're at least going to get an explanation for this ending.

Overall, the plot isn't super original and it takes a while for the main story to get itself up and going, but I still liked the ideas the show presented, even if it didn't execute them all that well.

Art: 9/10
This show is done by Kyoto Animation, who normally does drama/slice of life/romance anime, so it's interesting to see them experiment with "dark fantasy," which is what Kyoukai no Kanata is.
The fighting animation is very fluid and nice-looking, and always a pleasure to watch. I didn't like it when I first watched the show, but rewatching it I think my past self was crazy. I also think the reason I didn't like it is because the fight animation only lasts a couple of seconds or less between cuts. So it's a bit jarring, especially after I was used to animes with drawn-out shots of action scenes. However, in between the cuts, the movement is very nice. There's also a lot of small details, from the dust that Mirai kicks up with her legs to the bubbles floating in her sword to the colorful sparks thrown up whenever weapons clash. The Cages made by Spirit World Warriors to contain a certain area also contain lots of colors and look very nice.
Backgrounds are a given. Gorgeous, as can be expected of Kyoani. Especially in the opening scene, a sunset from a rooftop, they are detailed and colorful and very nice to look at.
One thing that stuck out to me when I first watched the show, and one that I continued to notice rewatching it, is that they don't use the same shot for very long before switching. Live-action shows cut camera every time a character speaks, and this show does the same. I think that's because Kyoani has a lot of money and can afford to draw new shots for every second of the show.
Really, the only complaint I have is that sometimes during fights, and at some other seemingly random times, there'd be a lack of shading on the characters. I'm not sure what was up with that, but it was kind of distracting to move from the beautiful lighting and shading to a lack thereof.
The other complaint I have is the two-second shot of Akihito in the ED. The way he's drawn is reminiscent of the train wreck that is episode 9 of Mekakucity Actors. I'm not sure what possessed Kyoani to draw him that way. If you've seen the show, you may remember what I'm talking about.
Aside from that, both the OP and ED have outstanding animation. The OP has gorgeous backgrounds with amazing lighting and raindrops on a window that look realistic, as well as characters fighting and twirling weapons. The ED features textures and colors abound, as well as a lot of symbolism. The characters don't move around much (most of the ED is Mirai with her arm outstretched), but the backgrounds and other details are what make it truly special.

Sound: 8/10
The opening of this show, "Beyond the Boundary," (not the most original title, but whatever) is sung by the voice actor of one of the main characters. The song's beginning and ending are kind of mellow, but the middle part is fast-paced and awesome. It's a good opening all around.
The ending song is called "Daisy," performed by Stereo Dive Foundation. It's also a pretty mellow song, but a very good one. I also love the "I never say goodbye" at the end of it, since I think that especially suits the show.
As far as OST, I really like the soundtrack of this show. It's kind of creepy and spooky, but appropriately bubbly and upbeat during the happier moments. One issue I do have is that they'd often recycle pieces too much. One time, they even finished playing one song and then just started it right over again (and I noticed this because I happen to have this song on my iPod, so I hear it a lot). I have no idea how many songs are in the total soundtrack, but I did notice the lack of variety.
And the insert song performed in episode 6, Future Star, is just as the characters describe it: sickly sweet but actually pretty catchy. It's a cute song.

This show has no dub, and I'm kind of glad since if it did get one it'd likely be an ADV dub and I dislike ADV dubs.
The Japanese cast does a fine job with voices and voice acting. I also found it surprising how Mirai's voice actor, Risa Taneda, voices Saki in Shinsekai Yori since the two sound almost nothing alike. Mirai has a very cute and high-pitched voice, but despite her voice, she portrays the proper negative emotions when it's needed.

Characters: 7/10
What a strange misfit cast of dorks we have in this show.

There's Mirai Kuriyama, our protagonist. She's the moe cuteness obligatory in every Kyoani work. Glasses, skinny body, fluffy hair, high voice, the works. She has the catchphrase "How unpleasant!" which she utters whenever possible. But despite all the cuteness, Mirai is isolated due to her strange powers, and is unwilling to interact with others in the beginning. She also confesses early on that she has killed a person with her own two hands. That's a pretty shocking statement coming from someone like her, who hates killing youmu because of the thought of death.
Mirai is also apparently pretty clumsy, tripping over everything in the first episode, but despite her clumsiness, she is able to perform complicated aerial maneuvers (like backflipping over her school's fence) and fight confidently with her blood sword. It's somewhat contradictory.
And on that note, there's a lot of defying physics in this show without a reason why. But whatever, since a lot of animes defy physics without bothering to explain why.

Next we have Akihito Kanbara, our male lead. As explained, he's half-youmu, and has a powerful youmu consciousness inside his body, though luckily his human mind is in control most of the time. However, when Akihito's life is in peril, the youmu inside him awakes, and he develops a nasty tendency to attack everything around him.
Despite the fact that Mirai kicks off the show by trying to kill him over and over again, Akihito is sympathetic toward her and helps her hunt down youmu, buys her food, and even offers to help cover her rent. He's a pretty sweet guy to be so nice to someone who tried to kill him, but that's just his nature I guess.
We do meet his mother a couple of times, but she's pretty irrelevant and mostly fanservice. I would like to know about his father though, since they don't mention him once in the show. Same for the rest of the parents in this show, actually. We know nothing of Mirai's family or anyone else's.
The one thing I dislike about Akihito's character is his over-the-top glasses fetish. As someone who wears glasses, it made me happy to hear him talking about how pretty girls with glasses are, but his obsession with them borders on unrealistic. He's constantly trying to get the other characters in glasses and he has a weird obsession with Mirai since she wears glasses. Yes, those two are cute, but I think we could do without the fetishes. You can write a cute relationship without one of them obsessing over the other's accessories.

The other two main characters are Mitsuki and Hiromi Nase, siblings from the rich Nase family of Spirit World Warriors. Mitsuki is pretty apathetic most of the time, eating lollipops and calling the guys perverts. She's a Spirit World Warrior who specializes in Cages and has a catlike youmu as a pet. She also refuses to go along with her older brother's strange requests.
Which brings us to Hiromi. His fetish makes Akihito's look almost normal by comparison: He has a little sister complex, and is constantly trying to get Mitsuki to call him "Onii-chan," which she purposely avoids. I'm not sure why Japan loves incestual relationships so much, but there you have it.
To be honest, Hiromi's character would actually be pretty interesting if he wasn't constantly exclaiming how pretty his little sister is. He fights with the scarf he always wears, is a pro at Cages, and has an interesting history with Akihito. But alas, he's pretty much no more than a fetish creep.

As far as minor characters, we have Sakura Inami who I've heard is an anime-only character, but I'm not sure about that. She starts out with a personal vendetta against Mirai for spoilery reasons, but pulls the quickest 180 I've ever seen in a character.
There's also Mitsuki and Hiromi's older sister, Izumi Nase. She's got an interesting plot twist in the last episodes but it's unfortunately never capitalized on. Maybe we can get some more info in the sequel movie, but who knows.
Then there's Miroku, who in some ways is the villan of this story, but he's mostly just an interfering asshole.
There's several other minor characters, but none of them are relevant to the story to be honest. They're mostly just there and don't really have any outstanding characteristics.

Enjoyment: 9/10
As I mentioned, I watched this series back when it was airing. My friends and I had some pretty amusing predictions in hindsight, and there was a lot of yelling and crying whenever a new episode would come out (I'm talking the last few episodes, by the way). The light novels are not fully translated, so we were all at a loss for what would happen next.
So yeah, as someone who watched this and had no idea what would happen next, my enjoyment of this show was quite high. Even rewatching it, when I noticed a lot of problems, I still finished my rewatch in two days and enjoyed every minute of it.

Overall: 7/10
It's not the best show out there, but it has great audiovisuals and a pretty interesting cast of characters despite their shortcomings and fetishes. The story is pretty good too, but I wish it'd gotten to its point sooner.

I think this show is a must-watch, especially for those fond of Kyoani's usual works, to see how different this one is. Though it contains slice of life elements, it's a far cry from their typical works and shows how heartbreaking and ruthless Kyoani can be (That movie preview? Brutal). And if you just like a plain old action anime, that fulfills this desire too, since there's really pretty fighting animation and some interesting concepts, even if said concepts don't get fully capitalized on.

Shinsekai Yori (From the New World in English) was recommended to me with the words "Psychic pansexuals in a dystopian future with rat people and good music and you will cry," which ended up describing the series far better than I thought it would. This anime was definitely one that pulled me in from the get-go, and kept me interested the whole way through.

Story: 9/10
Though this show starts off with a vague beginning, things don't take long to pick up and get good. This story centers around five characters and spans many years, so we get to see the characters grow from mere children to ... independent adults.
Shinsekai Yori features an interesting tale of people who have psychic powers as well as the strange rat people that worship them as gods. Though this show takes place in Japan, the worldbuilding is astounding. This takes place far in the future, yet we get to see exactly how we ended up in this isolated country where utopian/dystopian governments reign. We also get to see the organization of the simpler-minded monster rats (I watched the dub, so I know them as monster rats, but in the Japanese they're called queerats). Though they lead a simple life, the inner workings of their government system impressed me. They're not quite as dumb as the characters think they are.
This show heads along at a fair pace: not too fast and not too slow. It also feels as if it's holding its breath for something larger to happen later on (and happen it does, but I'll avoid talking about it because of spoilers).
One of the things this show really excelled in was the foreshadowing. Early on, it gives you all the keys you need to unlock the plot twists coming later, yet you never notice it until it happens. This show takes on the nature of a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way. It's definitely worth a rewatch (though I haven't rewatched it myself yet), just to see exactly how well the show foretold its own ending.
Another really amazing thing about the show was the suspense factor. This show creates a really interesting atmosphere that draws you into the story and characters, to the point where you almost feel like you're there with them. One especially notable suspense part was when two characters are hiding from something unknown. At this point, all music stops and it goes completely silent, where all the characters can do is simply hold their breath. I found myself holding my breath too, and staring wide-eyed at the screen until the moment passed.
At the end, the show finally releases the suspense it's been holding you in since the beginning and throws out a plot twist that makes the rest of the story pieces suddenly click into place. Once it's revealed, you wonder how you didn't think of this before, since as I said, it was foreshadowed right from the start.
There were some negative aspects of the story, though. It's not perfect by any means, but it's still really darn good.
One of the main things that bothered me was sometimes the show would create suspense for things but not really capitalize on them, or resolve them in a completely different way than what they seemed to be doing.
For example, there was the dystopian government, which I guess didn't really turn out to be dystopian at all. There was talk of punishment, but that didn't really ever happen in a definitive way. There was also one part which made me say "Oh shit" out loud, but didn't end up resulting in anything.
In addition to that, the show has an infodump at one point that didn't result in what they hinted it would, but it was a creatively done infodump, so I'll let it slide.
I felt like the problems were caused by the show getting too involved in other things to properly resolve some confusion in the beginning, but the positives of the story overwhelmingly outshine the negatives.

Shinsekai Yori definitely has a subtle note about the darker side of humanity, and is a fairly simple, linear tale about five kids learning the truth of their world. And one by one, they start to disappear.

Art: 7/10
This show was airing at around the same time as Sword Art Online, another A-1 production, so it missed out on the spotlight and the budget for the most part. The characters lack shading and the eyes are mostly one color, so it may take some time to get used to the flat-color look. In terms of animation, it's above average but not anything spectacular. However, it gets a 7 rather than a 6 because some of the scenery shots were simply gorgeous. A couple that stood out to me were a sky full of stars in one of the early episodes and a sunset backdrop in the second ED, but there were a lot of good background pictures. Sometimes the backgrounds looked a little sloppy and too obviously hastily painted in, but for the most part they were very colorful and detailed.
I also liked the look of the monster rats, who were grotesque creatures with bulging eyes and clawed hands. Even though they weren't pretty to look at, I have to give the show props for creating these ugly creatures because they do look a lot like mutated naked mole rats, the creatures they're based off of.

Sound: 8/10
An interesting thing about Shinsekai Yori is that it doesn't have an opening. The show simply jumps right into the episode and places the opening credits alongside the action. It may be weird to get used to, but I think it suits this anime since I can't really imagine it with a peppy J-rock number as per the norm.
This show does have ending songs though, both of which were good but not legendary.
The OST of this show was good. It wasn't anything super amazing or unique, but in terms of using it effectively, the show rose above and beyond. They also knew when less is more, stopping the music at key parts to let the scene carry itself.
This OST doesn't demand to be noticed. It's there and compliments the scene from behind, adding to the mood and effect without overshadowing the other aspects.

As I mentioned earlier, I watched the dub of this show. This show was dubbed by ADV, and I have a strong dislike for ADV dubs in general, since they range from mediocre to just plain bad (other ADV dubs include Angel Beats, No. 6, and Penguindrum). For this show, I thought the voice acting in general was good and improved later, but I was not a fan of some of the casting choices (though I don't think ADV has a huge range of voice actors to pick anyway, which is why they end up reusing so many).
I think the standout dub voice for me is Squealer, the ambiguous monster rat that keeps appearing throughout the story. He has a nasal, unpleasant-sounding voice that I think perfectly suits the character. It may not be the nicest on the ears, but it's definitely a realistic voice (in my opinion) for this type of creature.
I haven't seen any of the original Japanese of this show, but I'm sure it's better than the dub. I'd recommend watching this show subbed, unless you really, really want to watch it dubbed.

Characters: 8/10
The story revolves around five kids who grow into adults. These five kids all have their own personalities and are interesting in their own ways, but we don't really get to see much of what happened to them before the show started. I would have liked to see a little more of their childhood, since it seems like they've known each other for a while.
There's also the pansexuals aspect, which I didn't have a problem with, though some people may be turned off by it (There's a reason for that, I promise. It doesn't turn into a yaoi/yuri anime and it's not shown in a fetishized way). In the beginning, there's some hinted (boy/girl) relationships between characters, but nothing for certain. Then there's a timeskip, and we suddenly see a lot of boy/boy and girl/girl. That was a rather sudden change for me, but as I said it has a specific reason.
The reason the characters category is getting an 8 out of 10 rather than a 9 is because there wasn't much character development, aside from the main character Saki. She grew and changed a lot during the show, while her four friends were rather sidelined until important things happened to them. Overall though, the characters were very well done and I really enjoyed seeing the growth Saki and her friends underwent.

Enjoyment: 10/10
My enjoyment score is partially based on how quickly I watch a show, and I think I broke some kind of record with this one. The first day I watched the first 14 episodes, and watched the remaining 11 the day after. The show was so addictive that I wanted to know more and more, and before I knew it I was halfway through.
Besides how quickly I watched it, I thoroughly enjoyed the simple, linear, yet unique story, the effective background music, and the genius use of foreshadowing. This was definitely one that captured my interest the whole way through and did not get boring at all.

Overall: 9/10
As I said, some things that the show fell flat on, but by and large an interesting and unique tale about where humanity would go if given a certain power. I definitely recommend watching/rewatching this show, since I loved it, and I think most people will too.

I've said enough now. It's time for you to watch an anime about psychic pansexuals in a dystopian future with rat people and good music and crying.

Ah, Sword Art Online, one of the most controversial anime out there. No surprise that it got a second season, but how good is the second season? Well, let's take a look.

First off, I'm going under the assumption that you've seen the first season (since seriously, who hasn't), so there will be first season spoilers in this.
Secondly, I'm going to be very in-depth so minor spoilers are present. If you absolutely don't want to be spoiled about anything at all, I'd pass on this. If you don't mind small details about the plot, then you'll be fine.
And third, I'm really sorry about the length of ... this review. I had a lot to say.

Story: 5/10
SAO II is comprised of three arcs: Gun Gale Online, which takes up the first 14 episodes; Caliber, which immediately follows GGO and takes only 3 episodes and is basically filler; and Mother/Mother's Rosario, which is the last 7 episodes.
All in all, I thought this season was off to a really good start with the Gun Gale Online arc, which for me was initially intriguing and suspenseful. But similarly to the first season, the show abruptly falls apart once you get to the next arc, as well as gets worse the more you think about it.

So we start the show with Kirito and Asuna out on a date, which for my shipper trash self is cute to see. Then the show skips a bit forward and we're introduced to the conflict: Some guy calling himself Death Gun has killed two players in a VRMMORPG called Gun Gale Online. When he shoots someone's avatar in the game, their real-life counterparts are discovered dead in their apartments. A government agent asks Kirito to convert to a GGO account and find Death Gun's real identity; the agency will handle the rest.
Right away there's an apparent problem. Why is the government sending a teenager to face down a murderer? I guess because he cleared SAO??? Regardless, he's still a teenager and the motive behind this doesn't make sense unless you disregard logic. But there's a lot of that in this season, so I'll let it slide because what's one more logical fallacy.
It actually almost seems like the show is aware that Kirito is protected by impenetrable plot armor: "Hey, this kid can't die. Let's pit him against a murderer since he can't lose!" It's not as if Kirito is the first invincible character in anime though, so I'll let that one slide too.
Then the second episode abruptly shifts its focus to the costar of the GGO arc, a sniper named Sinon. Here we get to see a little bit of how GGO works (and how much of a stud Sinon is), as well as Sinon's backstory, which composes the third episode. Now, I'm gonna be honest. I actually really like Sinon's backstory. It's not the most realistic as far as backstories go, but it's certainly original and not something you'd expect to see.
In the episode after that, Kirito finally logs into Gun Gale Online and receives his avatar, which looks like a girl. I'll admit I was very confused as to who this random girl was that was taking up so much time in the opening, but once I realized it was Kirito I thought it was pretty amusing. Although, his feminine appearance in this game is only used as a convenient plot device for a short while and is pretty much abandoned after that. What else is new.
Anyway, Kirito and Sinon bump into each other and he asks her to help him since he's new to this game, so she guides him to a gun shop. Long story short, Kirito (amazingly) is really good at this game and wins money to buy pretty much any gun. And, of course, he goes with a sword. It's a beam sword like a lightsaber, but a sword nonetheless. Not that there's anything wrong with choosing a weapon you know well, and with a tournament that Death Gun will undoubtedly appear at drawing near (and therefore not much time to practice), but it still would have been nice to see Kirito branching out a little, since after all this game IS called Gun Gale Online.
Fast forwarding a bit more, Kirito and Sinon enter the annual GGO tournament, called Bullet of Bullets. Here the show starts to fall apart. In the midst of the final round, Kirito and Sinon shelter in a cave, invisible from the scanner that tracks players, and Kirito tells her that he is here to find Death Gun's real life identity to prevent him from killing anyone else. Then follows a very long discussion that if I recall correctly takes up two or three episodes and was pretty boring to sit through. Kirito reveals his suspicions that Death Gun is an SAO survivor and talks about killing two people in SAO himself (which came out of nowhere and relied on repeated use of flashbacks to establish that this did, in fact, happen in the first season but we didn't hear about it until now because it was conveniently added). He says he has been affected by this experience, but it rather backfires since (a) they never mentioned these two people he killed until just now, and (b) this never actually affects him in this game. It's almost like they put it there as another convenient plot device and to create sympathy toward Sinon ("I know how you feel, I've been there too"). Oh wait, it was a convenient plot device. These episodes were important to furthering the plot, but I still think the large amount of dialogue was boring and not logical since they're in the middle of a tournament and have stopped to spend nearly an hour just talking. Which they could probably have done before the tournament even started. But whatever.
Also included in this very long conversation is Sinon's backstory, and discussion of how Death Gun could be pulling off his murders. Kirito and Sinon figure this out, brainiacs that they are, and come up with a plan to defeat Death Gun in the tournament before he kills anyone else. This, of course, works, and despite external circumstances (which I will avoid discussing due to spoilers), all seems well. The resolution of BoB made me laugh (because it was funny, not because it was bad), but things pretty much go to hell after that. Spoilery stuff happens, and basically Kirito miraculously saves the day. There was a lot of screaming, distorted facial expressions, and Kirito being a dork: the whole nine yards. Then we finally reach an epilogue of sorts, Sinon meets Kirito's gang of disposable female characters irl (plus Klein and that other guy whose name I can't bother to remember), things happen, tearful moments ensue, and character arcs come to conclusion. And it seems like an ending. So is the show over now? Unfortunately, no.
I honestly think if they had cut back on the dialogue in those episodes I previously discussed, and gone more in depth into GGO since it was an interesting concept, they could have ended this as a 12- or 13-episode season and had a nice conclusion. The show probably would have earned a higher score from me, too. But nope, same as with SAO, they had to drag it through the mud for a further ten episodes.
I was really worried during the first half of this show, since I wondered how GGO could possibly take up 24 episodes, and if not, what they would do after they finished the GGO arc. I was hoping this show wouldn't crash and burn like the first season, but it was too late for that.
Two weeks later, I tuned in again, extremely nervous with what they'd pull (I skipped the recap, which I'm told was a terrible recap anyway). And almost immediately I was disappointed.

[There will be minor to major spoilers from here on out since I recommend skipping the last ten episodes anyway; if you don't want to read them then just skip to the art section]

We immediately start with Kirito and Suguha discussing some place they found in ALO a while back, presumably before he went to GGO. Then they log in to the game and meet up with their friends. Right away, I was cringing. There was absolutely no mention of what had happened in GGO, character development was basically negated, and everything was right back to the way it was at the beginning of the season. Except now there's a new disposable female character in Kirito's gang, and it's (you guessed it) Sinon, now with an ALO account and cat ears to boot. The supposed costar of this season? She has like three lines for the rest of the show and does only one thing that could be considered useful. And it's in the filler arc anyway, which makes its utility debatable.

Honestly, I actually really like the concept of ALO itself (as a video game) and it seems like something I'd like to play. But both of the ALO arcs in SAO have been basically filler. And this time, there wasn't even an overly convenient plot device at play. It's just an abrupt 180 tone shift from fighting for your survival to a slice of life about friends playing an MMO together.

Anyway, we now move into the Caliber arc, which takes only 3 episodes and is easily forgettable and very filler (though I'm told it was basically the same way in the light novels). There's this random quest, which if Kirito and his gang don't complete, will ~delete ALO~ (the horror!). Like, honestly, what kind of programmer are you if you make a game that can generate quests that will make the game delete itself if they go unsolved? This whole arc just screams lazy writing at you and essentially accomplishes nothing except showing you how ALO is when Sinon is part of the gang. And with so many characters in this gang, Sinon is shunted off to the side and doesn't really do anything. I thought it was kinda cool to see her using a bow and arrow since sniper rifles aren't a thing in this game, but it was barely explored.
Long story short, the characters miraculously clear the quest and prevent ALO from deleting itself. Yaaaaay. Kirito also gains Excalibur, spelled Excaliber in this story for some sort of pun that I forgot the meaning of. As if he needs the best sword in the game though.
Which brings us to the conclusion of the Caliber arc. It was really cringe-worthy and really forgettable, and only was filler between GGO and Mother's Rosario. Not gonna lie, these episodes were actually painful to watch. I was yelling in my head about every little flaw in the writing (and there were a lot) and feeling like slamming my head against the wall. But I stuck it out because in some sick way I wanted to see how much worse it could get.

And now it's time for the Mother's Rosario arc, which thankfully concludes this show. I was feeling moderately relieved at the beginning of this arc since right off the bat it's clear that Asuna now gets to be the star. Which is awesome since Asuna was basically a side character in the second half of SAO, and didn't appear much in the GGO arc. And this arc wasn't half bad, but there were just too many errors to ignore. Since basically, this arc continues the slice of life about friends playing an MMO theme, except now this time there's emotional manipulation thrown into the mix.
Asuna hears from one of the disposable female characters in Kirito's gang about some mysterious swordsman who is offering a special 11-hit combo to the one who can defeat them in a duel. This person has even beaten Kirito, though this is marked off as Kirito being sexist and going easy since surprise this swordsman is a girl (because we have to make very sure that Kirito is still unbeatable). For some reason, Asuna decides to challenge her, and almost manages to win. But this girl decides that "she's the one" and grabs her and they fly up into the clouds where this mysterious girl says, "Help us!" We find out next episode this girl is named Yuuki and she and her guild of six members want to beat a floor boss in New Eincrad so they can get their names listed on a wall that has the floor number and the names of the people who beat it, up to a maximum of seven names. Yuuki wants to beat a boss with just her guild so they can all have their names listed, which is basically impossible since as Asuna points out they usually have seven guilds of seven members each (49 players total) to beat a boss. Now, when I first watched this I was like "Why is it so important that they beat a floor boss and why are they all crying over this?" As I watched more, their motive actually makes sense and so does their insane amount of determination. I'll avoid saying why due to spoilers, but once you find out who the Sleeping Knights (the name of Yuuki's guild) really are, a lot more things make sense. So if you're watching this and wondering why they're so into it, pass on judgment until you learn their true nature.
Also in this arc is a conflict between Asuna and her mother, which I think had a lot of relatability for this show's target audience of high schoolers. This conflict is mentioned a few times alongside the other conflict of beating a floor boss, and finally comes to a head when Yuuki gives Asuna advice on how to deal with her mom. The resolution of this conflict isn't exactly realistic, but I still think it's a good life lesson.
Anyway, Asuna discovers who Yuuki really is in an episode I'll admit was pretty depressing. But as I said to a friend, sad backstories and emotional manipulation don't mean much when your last ten episodes have no prior plot relevance. Basically these last few episodes were supposed to make you cry. And honestly, you'll cry over this is if you're so attached to this guild of people whose names you can't remember that by the time you learn their story you're feeling hopelessly anguished. I'm normally a huge baby with shows, but this one didn't make me shed a tear. Sorry, better luck next time.
The ending of this tragic tale I could see a mile away. And so could anyone else with half a brain, but that's what happens when you have this sort of thing in a story anyway. What I did like was how the story came full circle in the end. I thought it was nice but overdone since they're repeating what they did in the end of the first season, trying to paint a mass murderer as a morally ambiguous guy. It doesn't work, people. It's just bad writing.
All in all, the Mother Rosario arc was problematic but still reasonably enjoyable for the last few episodes. There was also the plus of seeing Kirito actually lose some fights for once. But if they ever make a third season (which I hope they don't), I'm sure he'll be invincible again.

Score for episodes 1-14: 7/10 (above average and actually quite good at some times)
Score for episodes 15-24: 4/10 (below average with more bad stuff than good)
Which rounds out to the 5/10 I gave it.

And now we FINALLY move on to the other sections, which I promise will be shorter.

[There will be considerably less spoilers now]

Art: 9/10
Still very nice animation going on. It's fluid with some really nice scenery shots in ALO. I also really liked how they used a dull color palette for GGO which reflects the level on which the game is being taken seriously, contrasted with the bright colors of ALO. One of the best-animated scenes was the duel between Yuuki and Asuna, which actually had me impressed even though my enjoyment levels were at an all-time low at that point. Another point of really good animation was the first ED sequence, which had a soft coloring technique, triangles in various shades of blue and green, and some really fluid animations of Sinon dancing like a ballerina. Actually, all the OP's and ED's were really well animated, but this was the one that stood out to me.
The reason this isn't getting a 10 is because of the overly distorted facial expressions (again), as well as blatant anatomical errors. And no, I'm not talking about the eyes being larger than normal. What I mean by anatomical errors is that Sinon's ass clearly shows from the top of her short shorts in GGO. I don't think these people have ever looked at short shorts, because realistically your butt is not so high up that it'll poke out from the top of your shorts. This may sound like I'm being picky, but I'm really not since the animators also make it a point to have as many butt shots of Sinon as they can. Anyway, enough of that.
One last issue I have is that everyone's ALO avatars are basically the same-looking as their real world selves, with the exception of Suguha because that was a convenient plot point. Like yeah okay maybe these people want to look the same in the game but the animators could at least be a little more creative in designing the characters' avatars.

Sound: 8/10
The OST certainly isn't epic tier, but it's still pretty darn good. And in terms of using the OST well, it does okay in some parts and really well in others.
As for openings and endings, there are two openings and three endings (one ED for each arc), and I'll go more in depth in the next paragraphs.
The first OP, Ignite, is definitely a jam and one of my favorite anime openings. Performed by Eir Aoi, who also did the first Kill la Kill OP, it's just all around an awesome song and never failed to get me pumped up for the episode. Seriously, I wonder how Eir Aoi was able to hit those high notes so flawlessly. If you haven't heard the first OP, I'd definitely look it up. Even if you don't like the show you should still appreciate good music.
The second OP is called Courage, and it's still pretty good though it has more of a mild flavor than the first. I don't think it's anything super special, but that might be because I associate it with the negative emotions I felt in the second half.
The first ED is called Startear (Star tear? Start ear???) and is performed by Haruna Luna. It's a really melancholic song and I like it a lot.
The second ED was only played in three episodes, so I have zero memory of it, except that it was performed by LiSA (I'm pretty sure anyway). The sequence was a bunch of stills of Kirito's gang having fun adventures in ALO, so it didn't really add anything to that since I'm not a huge fan of stills.
The third ED is also really good. It's another LiSA song and carries a nostalgic mood to it. The sequence set to it was another softly colored one of Asuna pressing play on all these happy memories she has recorded on her phone, and I think it goes really well with the song.

On the voice acting end, I thought all the voices were fine. Sinon's Japanese VA also voices Celty Sturluson from Durarara, who happens to be a favorite character of mine, so that's part of the reason I initially liked her.
Other than that, there was some weird screaming at some points, but I'm giving them some slack since that coincided with very distorted facial expressions.

Characters: 4/10
While there are some interesting backstories like Sinon's, there's pretty much a lack of character development except for Sinon, and that gets negated once we move into the second half anyway. As I mentioned earlier, with so many characters now in the cast, the show can't seem to keep up with having them all be well-developed and instead resorts to having one of them share the spotlight at a time.
The villain of the GGO arc, Death Gun, had pretty weak motives. But I thought the reveal of who Death Gun is was well done, since it was foreshadowed and basically unexpected. I only predicted who it was because I was having one of my "Hah, that'd be funny if" moments and ended up being dead on.
And as I mentioned before, they attempted to give Kirito some development by saying "Oh, by the way, Kirito's actually killed two people before. Except we only hastily added it in to this season so there's no impact from it." Besides, he killed those people in defense of his own life (and they were murderers too), so it's not as if he killed two people on the street or whatever. Aside from that, Kirito is still Mr. Perfect who beats everyone and solves everything. He had a couple of close calls in GGO, but it's not as if they haven't done that before. His dialogue is still bland and uninspired for the most part.
I actually really liked Sinon when she first appeared, because of her initial presentation as a strong female character and a good backstory to go along with it, but I eventually realized she doesn't have much of a personality. Her development is caused by Kirito and is concluded because of something Kirito does, so it's very little development on her own. And aside from her backstory, her personality is basically nonexistent and I struggle to come up with words to describe her. At the very least she doesn't fall in love with Kirito. Thank god.
As for Asuna, she wasn't present much until the Mother's Rosario arc, which thankfully restored some personality to her since she went from badass female lead to generic tsundere over a few episodes in the first season. She becomes genuinely sweet and caring, though never loses her determination and stubbornness. Though I will say these episodes did make her even more of a Perfect Waifu and I shudder to think of how her otaku fans will react. I myself have a soft spot for Asuna, though I can at least acknowledge that she isn't a super strong character since so much of her character revolves around Kirito.
And with Yuuki, the first thing I have to say is that they should have been more creative with her name, since Asuna's last name is Yuuki as well. They at least make a joke about this in the show, but it's still an uncreative naming choice. Yuuki herself has an interesting backstory, but what really bothers me is that she is literally defined by it and doesn't have a personality aside from it. Ah, Sword Art Online, continuing to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Enjoyment: 7/10
For the first half of the show, I was actually excited for each new episode, partly because of the continued cliffhangers, and partly because I liked where it was going. However, this quickly deteriorated during the second half of the show and each episode made me angrier and angrier. My enjoyment levels rose some when I learned who Yuuki and her guild were, but it was still a drag for each new episode. I only got satisfaction because I was excited at the prospect of writing a review once the show finished and getting to tear it apart.

And now for the final verdict. Drumroll please?

Overall: 6/10
Above average, but not by much. I do score heavily on enjoyment, and as I explained earlier my enjoyment levels plummeted after episode 14.

So, is Sword Art Online II worth watching?
I'd say yes; the first 14 episodes at least. I recommend dropping it after that though, since there isn't much else unless you like Asuna.

It's kind of a shame since early on I was scoring this as an 8 which then dropped rapidly. I was hoping against hope that it wouldn't crash and burn, but since this is SAO it's not surprising that it did.

Note: I'm writing this review under the assumption that you've seen Labyrinth of Magic (the first season), so if you haven't, I'd suggest watching that first and then reading this review. There will be minor spoilers from the first season. You have been warned.

Story: 9/10
Kingdom of Magic had a better story than Labyrinth of Magic in my opinion. Labyrinth of Magic had an arc-based storyline where it was established by definitive arcs (the order being the beginning arc, separation, Balbadd, Sindria, and Zagan) that had some connection to each other, but were mostly standalone. There was some progression from one to the next (characters and ... character development), but overall there was a disconnect.
Kingdom of Magic, on the other hand, has an overarching story that isn't as clearly defined by arcs, so it's much harder to tell where they end and begin. Or, from the manga standpoint, Kingdom of Magic covers the Magnostadt arc (which is one really long arc) as well as all the mini-arcs leading up to it.
Similarly to Labyrinth of Magic, this show starts off fairly lighthearted, but soon takes a turn for the darker. However, this show got much darker than Labyrinth of Magic did, and I was surprised at the degree to which it did get dark. We're introduced to a corrupt government, the struggle to want to be human, what the concept of humanity really means, and many more ideas.
So when I started Kingdom of Magic, I was expecting the same type of narrative as the first season, but I was pleasantly surprised by how seriously the show took itself and how much worldbuilding was established.

This show also introduced the concept of Djinn Equip (which was only barely introduced in the first season), which essentially lets people with Metal Vessels undergo a magical girl-type transformation where their hair, clothes, and weapons are upgraded for a limited time. I thought that it was awesome to see the characters basically get ubered-up to fight large-scale battles, which actually served more of a purpose in the story than just for the sake of showing the audience epic battle sequences.

The only real problem I have with the story was that, with so many characters, not enough time was given to explain what each of the characters were doing while separated from each other. Aladdin's story was explained in depth, but the same luxury was not given to Alibaba or Morgiana. Alibaba at least got two episodes detailing what he was doing, but I still would've liked to see him studying, fighting, or learning to use his Djinn Equip. And Morgiana? We get about two-thirds of an episode describing her adventures and we're left with a lot of questions about what happened. I was hoping for at least a brief summary, but we get nothing. I was under the assumption that the manga went more into detail, but it unfortunately doesn't. We may never know......
Another minor issue I have with the story is the comic relief. I felt that a lot of times it was rather a moodkiller. It made me rather uncomfortable to be watching a serious part of the show and then suddenly cheap jokes were cracked. It wasn't totally irredeemable (in the manga, the chibis are much funnier), but it wasn't exactly pleasant to watch either.

One of the things I especially liked about the story, however, is that the show opens with a scene from one of the final episodes completely out of context. It leads you to make an assumption about where the characters are going to go, but once you actually get to that scene in order, you realize that you were dead wrong. I think that was a nice choice of placement, since I personally was wondering what was going to come out of that confusing scene for practically the whole show.

Art: 9/10
The colors are bright and lively, the character designs are stunningly detailed, the animation is on point, and there's subtle CGI at a couple of points. Nothing majorly bad happening, though the budget got slashed toward the end, leading to some fights not being as awesome as they could have been.

Sound: 9/10
No complaints here. The OP's were good, and the second one especially is awesome, though both also had amazing sequences.
The ED's are another story though. Not only were the sequences awesome and tear-inducing, the songs themselves were really good. The first ED carried a kind of nostalgic tone to it, amplified by the montage of stills from the first season. The second ED started off echoey and dark, and while I didn't like it as much when it kicked up into a strong beat, it's still my favorite of the ED's.
The only thing I would give as far as an issue is that sometimes the background music was kind of quiet, which is a bit of a shame since it's so awesome, particularly the battle theme, which is my personal favorite.
On the voice acting end, this season had not yet received a dub when I watched it, so I watched it subbed, complete with Netflix's garbage subtitles. I'm not that good a judge of Japanese voice acting, but I didn't notice any big problems going on. I loved Yuki Kaji's performance as Alibaba, and I think he does a great job no matter which character he's voicing, so I think he was the standout for me.
Since I originally wrote this review, I have had a chance to check out the dub of some of the later episodes. While I like the voice acting and casting choices for the most part, I have two big problems with it.
My first big problem with the dub (and something that was in the first season too) is Vic Mignogna and Todd Haberkorn being literally every single background character. This wouldn't be so bad if they both weren't already cast as secondary characters (Ka Kobun and Judar respectively), but on top of that they both have very recognizable voices.
My second big problem is "Teetus." I get that's how they pronounced Titus's name in the Japanese, but honestly, since when do dubs follow the exact pronounciation of every name (Free! dub, I'm looking at "Reen"). And on that note, the same criticism could be applied to the dub's pronounciation of "Magi."

Characters: 9/10
The characters were awesome this season. When the show took a turn for the darker, the characters developed and changed along with it, and I really liked it. There was a lot of development happening (particularly among the new characters) and it was handled well considering the vast amount of characters in Magi.
Aladdin especially changed a lot through the show, and we get to see more of his backstory as well as what's happening to him at the time the show takes place.

One of the problems I did have was that since this season introduced so many new characters, a lot of the characters from Labyrinth of Magic took a backseat. It's a nice thing to hand over the spotlight to some of the newcomers, but I felt kind of underwhelmed since a lot of characters with a large presence (such as Sinbad) didn't appear as much as they should have. Not that I'm particularly mad about it though, since I loved Titus and Sphintus and the other new characters. But this problem is also due to the fact that Magi has a ton of characters interacting and developing simultaneously, so some of the older characters have to step back a bit.

Another problem is that since some of the older characters get less screentime due to the new characters, a lot of development seemingly takes place offscreen. I already mentioned this with Alibaba and Morgiana, and it's even more apparent with Hakuryuu. He isn't present for a large chunk of the show, and when he does reappear, he's changed a lot and it isn't explained. I was left painfully in the dark, so I can only hope this is less vague with the manga.
Once again, the problems are due to the short amount of episodes and are therefore pretty much unavoidable.

Overall I really liked a lot of the new characters, and they made me feel for them, and cry over them when it came to that.

Enjoyment: 10/10
I marathoned this show in two days because Netflix had just put the whole show up, and I had already seen Labyrinth of Magic, so I was able to speed through Kingdom of Magic really quickly. It kept me glued the whole way through, and I definitely shed many tears in the episodes leading up to the ending, as well as the ending itself.
While I did have issues with the moodkilling comic relief moments and the dub, the discomfort it caused me wasn't enough to impact my overall enjoyment.

Overall: 9/10
Some issues and hanging questions, mostly due to the constraint of 25 episodes, but even accounting for those it's a really solid show and impressed me time and time again with the depth of the narrative, the dynamic and varied characters, and the awesome animation.

So if you're still reading this and you haven't seen Labyrinth of Magic, go watch it, and then watch Kingdom of Magic. Magi is overall a really solid and important show that not enough people seem to watch, which is a shame since it's so good. Now all we need is a third season.

Oh Pandora Hearts, how you have let me down.
I'm kicking off this review by saying that I didn't watch this at anyone's request. A friend of mine mentioned watching it in passing and with nothing else to go on I threw myself headfirst into it.
Pandora Hearts had potential which is a downright shame because it wasted it by veering off into "nothing-is-explained land."

Story: 5/10
The initial premise was awesome. Dark, horrific, desperate. A lot of the story elements in Pandora Hearts are drawn from Alice in Wonderland and twisted into darker themes. The basic premise is that Oz Vessalius, a spoiled rich kid, is thrown into ... the Abyss which is basically hell. Oz is forced to make a contract with a Chain called Alice to escape from the Abyss, and is captured by the mysterious organization Pandora upon his return.
Unfortunately, the serious themes mostly stop there. Much of the plot is wasted on comedy which is unsuccessfully placed next to a story attempting to also be serious, leading to the comedy ruining the mood countless times. I cringed so much, because they'd have a great scene going and then wreck it with jokes that usually weren't funny anyway.
There was also great potential in Oz's contract. He has a brand of a clock on his chest and when the hand makes a full rotation, he will die. But this never comes into effect during the show. Pandora Hearts ends with the hand on Oz's clock only having made two moves during the entire show. Since this anime ended up different from the manga in its final episodes, the writers could easily have made the clock move more and more and end with Oz's death or the hand making its final turn. In the beginning of the show, Oz and Gilbert were obsessed with trying to find a way to negate Oz's contract so that he wouldn't die, but this issue is abandoned soon enough and never comes into play again.
Pandora Hearts also wasted too much time developing its characters. Now, this normally isn't a bad thing, but it's detrimental when you have a 25-episode anime with no chance of a second season and you instead spend all the time on characters' backstories, letting the plot take a backseat; because the result is well-developed characters that get an abrupt end. The show almost seems to me as if the makers were following the manga all the way through, then abruptly realized they were at 24 out of 25 episodes and were like "Oh shit guess we better wrap this up." That's pretty lazy writing, especially considering manga doesn't have a set amount of chapters when it starts being made, while anime is only licensed for a certain amount of episodes at a time. The point I'm trying to make here is that the manga could afford to spend a lot of time developing the characters and bring the story back later, while the anime can't really do that. Even if Pandora Hearts had gotten a second season, I know from experience that not as many people watch the second season of a show. So spending all your time on characters and pretty much abandoning the plot is a poor choice.
Another issue I had with the story is that it's chugging along, and then shortly before the ending (episode 20 to be exact), there is an absolutely pointless filler episode where Alice gets drunk and a lot of "comedic" nonsense takes place. I was watching this and fuming that they wasted a whole episode on essentially nothing happening. Filler episodes are marginally more acceptable in the beginning of the show, but certainly not at the end.
Because of this poor choice of pacing, the last episode is a terrible ending. It doesn't even have a "last episode" feel to it. It starts out like a typical episode and there's even more of that mood-ruining comedy. Then the story reaches its (pretty boring) climax and it's over halfway through the episode. The rest of the episode is just the characters doing stuff. They even played the regular opening and ending themes during the last episode, which I have come to be greatly annoyed by because it makes it seem like any other episode. Using the opening theme in the last episode is generally more acceptable to me than using the ending theme.
So many questions that were built up in the early episodes are completely abandoned. At the very least they could have attempted to answer some of them.
The issues with the story basically all boil down to better planning. The story couldn't figure out which way it wanted to go, leading to multiple confusing moments. The character development could have been placed so as to cause minimal slowdown issues. Questions could have been answered effectively if the writers had looked up and realized a wall was right ahead and they were driving into it.
All in all, Pandora Hearts had great potential for a dark show that was wasted time and time again.

Art: 6/10
Pandora Hearts was made by a fairly new studio, so the art and animation aren't too great, but they're not particularly bad either. They were pretty average.
The only issue I had with it was the use of fanservice which I thought was pretty poorly placed and unnecessary (then again, fanservice is rarely necessary. But in this story it didn't seem appropriate at all).

Sound: 10/10
Hot damn do I love the OST of this show. Yuki Kaijura, who also did the soundtrack for Madoka Magica, does not disappoint. The OST is gorgeous and orchestral and really fits the dark theme they were originally trying for. You might say I'm biased because I'm a sucker for minor-key orchestral songs, but the soundtrack of this show is really very good. I especially love the watch's music box-esque theme and how they would play it at the very end of each episode.
The opening theme, Parallel Hearts, is badass as hell (though I do wish they had changed it when they changed the ending song because using the same opening while not changing the ending gets pretty old), and the first ending song, Catcher in the Maze, is really pretty and awesome and I especially love the full version. I didn't really like the second ending though, and in my opinion they should have switched the two ending songs, or just not changed the ending song at all.
I also really love the insert song, "Every Time You Kissed Me," performed by Emily Bindiger, that was played during the final episode. I think it's a really subtle and nice touch that the key of the song and the music for it is built around the watch's theme. I also like how they got an American singer to perform the song, rather than a Japanese person singing in English (I'm looking at you, second Future Diary OP).
As far as voice acting, long story short this anime will never get a dub (aside from fandubs), so I watched it subbed. Even though I don't consider myself to be a good judge of Japanese voice acting, I thought the voices in this show were amazing. Oz's voice actress in particular blew me away because I couldn't make up my mind whether it was a man or a woman until I looked it up and discovered that a woman was voicing him.
Oz's voice was the particular standout, but I thought all around the voice acting was really good.

Characters: 8/10
As I said before, most of the screentime of this show was given to developing the characters and explaining their backstories. I think Gilbert especially got a lot of really good character development going on for him. In addition, once Xerxes Break's backstory is explained, he goes from being the ambiguous, quirky trickster to a really interesting character.
I thought a lot of characters weren't explained, however. The white-haired version of Alice that keeps popping up throughout the show doesn't really get much of an explanation and while I do remember her purpose in the show, it wasn't fulfilled in my opinion. Also, Oz's sister, the Baskervilles, and the students at the academy (one of whom was playing the watch's song on the piano; names escape me) didn't get appropriate screentime to explain themselves.
Also, even though Alice is my favorite character in Pandora Hearts, I do agree with someone else's review: the show didn't explore the potential Alice had to be a dark and crazy creature of the Abyss. Once she leaves the Abyss, her sly nature goes away and she's pretty much reduced to a gluttonous tsundere. And I think that's a downright shame considering she could have turned on Oz and Gilbert, or left them to pursue her own ambitions (Like getting her memories back. Could we have an explanation for why they weren't recovered by the end rather than just "well we haven't had any luck with that oh well").
I do like the hinted romance between Oz and Alice, and how it was left open for the viewer to decide if they wanted anything to happen or not.

Enjoyment: 7/10
I took a break after watching the first seven or eight episodes, but quickly marathoned the rest of the show after reading an announcement that the site I was watching it on was shutting down. I probably would have taken my time with this show if I hadn't been worried about losing access, so even though I watched it fairly quickly, I was pretty reluctant.
And I've already mentioned my gripes with the mistimed comedy that resulted in glaring tone issues compared to the story attempting to be dark. That factors into the enjoyment score.
I also noticed a lot of parallels between this story and Fullmetal Alchemist (the manga and the 03 anime), which didn't help my enjoyment levels, since I enjoy FMA so much more.

Overall: 5/10
It's kind of unfortunate that at one point in the show I was considering scoring it a 9, then it ended up as a 5 ultimately.
The story is pretty shabby and the show leaves a lot of holes and hanging questions, but the characters were overall pretty solid and the music fantastic. So I'd recommend watching Pandora Hearts if you have spare time on your hands. It's not really a priority.