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You know, it's not often that I say an anime is MADE for LOSERS. I will often say that an anime is made BY losers (for example Ninja Slayer), or will say that its fanbase is composed of losers (say One Piece), but it is indeed quite rare to find an anime that was exclusively created to please LOSERS.

The protagonist, Kigata is a 13-14 year old kid, that suddenly one day gets cursed. A newspaper is delivered to him every night that prophecises events of the next day (at the start it was "disasters" but by the 6th episode it was pretty much random ... events). Each time this newspaper is delivered however, he loses a portion of his life that for some bizarre reason hasn't even come close to killing him by the 16th episode where the anime ends. Each episode is pretty much standalone or in chain with another 2 at most, following individual stories that the protagonist is somewhat part of (like kagewani only with much more awful art). Actually a simple parenthesis mention isn't enough here.

THE ART IS ATROCIOUS. I mean, if I didn't know any better (and I don't), I'd say they made the art exclusively with Manga Maker Comipo. No, this is not some subtle advertising, the art style is IDENTICAL. "Well, both Yami Shibai and Kagewani used paper puppets art, and they turned out alright." Yes dearest, but they were both aesthetically pleasing, I assure you that is NOT the case here. But enough about the art, lets get to the real problem of this piece of crap.

Have you ever met a conspiracy theorist? You know, someone who fanatically believes in supernatural phenomena or government secrets and is desperately trying to convince you about them? Well, the general tone of the anime is "You were right conspiracy theorist! We showed them! Good job!". Kigata is usually the said conspiracy theorist, often turning with the "I told you so." look at the end of each episode to the viewer and explaining how the supernatural was hiding beside us all along. The real problem with the anime though is that NOONE IS MAKING FUN OF HIM. The society around him is overly accepting of the bullcrap he's coming up with. and by the end of the series he's even somewhat popular around school (yeah, keep dreaming morons).

My favorite (read "worst") part is by the final episodes, when supposedly aliens are rumored exist and the PHYSICS PROFESSOR takes the class on a night-trip so they can VIEW UFOS. And the class is totally ok with that. Do I even need to describe on how many levels this is stupid and basically the fantasy of a loser? Not to mention that the protagonist befriends a hot alien chick (hahahahahahahahahahah... Yeah right...).

And lastly... You know... An anime that has "fear/horror" in its name... Shouldn't it have some sort of... You know... Horror? Like someone dying, bleeding out, getting decapitated, etc etc? Horror news is 100% kid-friendly through and through, and in all honesty that pisses me off. With the exception of an "evil villain of villainess" (that for some unknown reason the protagonist couldn't fight 3v1), who got axed off-screen by a yeti, noone ends up getting hurt.

Pros:
-...I got nothing.

Cons:
-Awful art.
-The whole anime is a fantasy of a conspiracy theorist.
-No "horror" or "news".
-Convenient plotholes that make no sense here and there.
-The protagonist's "I knew it all along." speeches towards the viewer.
-Illogical and overly accepting world that is nowhere near realistic.

Stay away.

In my opinion, by far the best of all seasons. While the first focused mostly on ghosts and the second on disappointing the viewers, the third season focuses on the horror of inescapable situations, that in my never-humble opinion, scores much higher than ghosts.

There's really not much else to say about it. If you're new to the series I suggest watching the first season, then this (the 3rd) and skipping entirely on the second. Each episode is about 5 minutes long (including opening and surprisingly wacky ending) and each story stands on its own, with the typical hand-puppet Yami Shibai art style, which you ... really start digging after a while.

Pros:
-Better than 1st and 2nd seasons.
-Typical Yami Shibai creepy art style at its finest.
-Good horror that relies less and less on jumpscares.
-That rap at the end.
-Creepy things happening for unknown reasons.

Cons:
-...Creepy things happening for unknown reasons? Mystery is kind of a double-edged knife.

Quite literally my first reaction:

Oh my god! That girl is so cute! I'm really digging the blue-hair! Only, I don't get it, why is she wearing pants and being referred to as "kun"? Wait, it's a boy?!
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I didn't say "stop".

Assassination classroom is a rather classical, cliche story with a bizarre setting, that somehow got my attention despite my usual dislike for such overused storylines. The idea is that a terribly fast octopus monster wants to destroy the earth in a year... But for unexplained reasons insists on teaching a class of high-school kids that are trained as assassins to kill him. So he basically trains ... his own killers, with the students often attempting to murder him mid-class and on various other occasions. But despite this bizarre (as said) setting, deep down it's just a typical story of a teacher bonding with his students and helping them overcome their problems.

Aaaaaand... That's it! The plot doesn't really advance apart from the graduation date (and the deadline for killing their monster teacher) drawing ever closer, and pretty much 90% of the episodes are character development fillers that you wouldn't really miss even if they weren't there. So what does draw us to this anime? Well obviously the cute trap, which as the episodes go on the the animators throw more and more to our face (probably caught on on his popularity), but that wouldn't be enough with that limited amount of fanservice, right?

So I'll just take an educated guess here, and say that the cliche story of a teacher bonding with his students is cliche for a reason and it is well executed here. We've all had that one time in our life when we felt the guidance from our parents was not enough and wanted the help of the people who spent 8 hours of the day watching over us (no, not these ones, the other ones). And when humor is added skillfully to the mix, even an adult can appreciate the notion.

Oh boy! A Date a Live movie. I can't wait to see more Origami in it!
"about a movie later"
Well, someone is getting fired over this.

There are maybe TWO characters we like in the Date a Live series and only ONE we actually care about. The first one we like is the Time-Girl, and the second one of course is ORIGAMI, the white haired human (shut up VN player) girl that's socially awkward, loads of fun and pretty cute in her own way. After them there is CHAOS. A whole bunch of filler characters we could easily do without and who wouldn't be missed if they ... disappeared. So... Whoever had the idea of a movie about the main character going on a date with every girl BESIDES Origami deserves to be fired, simple as that.

It doesn't really go anywhere after that either. There's a small subplot about a new girl (oh who gives a crap about "spoilers") being formed from the pent-up stress of the other spirits, but she only interacts with people for about 5 minutes at the end of the movie and everything else is just filler. The protagonist also has an over-exaggerated response to her disappearing besides barely knowing her that can really push the wrong buttons for you and the movie ends.

Not much to say about it, the 20-30 seconds we got of Origami were fun (actual good humor), the rest was pretty much crap.

After watching the last episode (19) against a built-up boss (like, 4-5 episodes built-up) I can safely say that I'm absolutely disappointed.

And oh boy, reviewing this without referencing the direct antagonist, Arc V will be impossible, so I might as well give up avoiding it right now. Vanguard is a world where a card game has become the number one form on entertainment, with the protagonist (Chrono) and his two friends competing as a three-man team to win tournaments and stop villains from succeeding with their incredibly evil plans...

Aaaand that's where the similarities with yugi stop, to Vanguard's loss I might add. You see ... the thing that made Yugi so popular was the whole hologram and evil magic ideas. Sure they took the anime a few more steps away from the "realism" department, but the fact that your cards actually became huge-a$$ monsters that WERE in fact dangerous brought the excitement levels up. Vanguard, keeping to a relatively more realistic setting, is simply a card game AND NOTHING MORE. There are no holograms, no apparent threats to humanity and all in all NO PRESSURE. If the main character loses he will just... Well... Lose, that's it. In Yugi if the main character loses it is quite literally the end of the world. So the stakes are pretty low.

But having an anime with just people playing a card game and the cards not being visualized in some way would be boring, right? So the anime does provide animated versions of the creatures and monsters... (And take a deep breath here) in the characters' IMAGINATION. Yes, folks, you heard right. The anime's official plot is that people sitting above a table are daydreaming and taking things WAY TOO SERIOUSLY, since, again, there are no actual stakes, which just ends up being ridiculous, especially when tons of people are gasping from the sidelines.

Of course we ain't done. 1)Cliched cliches are too cliche for your anti-cliche tastes. Painful episodes of forced character development that are basically filler abound, and they are both predictable and badly written. And again, I can't help but compare it with Arc V, that simply didn't have such stupidly-written pointless episodes. 2)The anime skips large parts of the game. You see, while Vanguard can really be fun once the board has been set, the setup to that is relatively boring, so the anime quite often cuts down on the start and middle part of the game and jumps right to the final attacks, which gets both confusing and annoying really fast. (and again, comparing with Arc V where the duels are shown from start to end without losing any of the excitement). 3)Token characters are token characters, we wouldn't lose anything if 4/5ths of the cast were removed. 4)The change from needlessly serious over a card game with no stakes to whimsical and light-hearted without a shred of seriousness makes me want to slap the animators. Pick one and stay with it, as ridiculous as it is.

Baaaah, whatever, at least it has good art and relatively good voice acting...

Set in a modern city where World War 2 history did not go as we know it. Shiro is a regular student, enjoying his popularity in the Island-Academy he's attending. But despite his friendliness and well-likedness from everyone, he soon finds himself in trouble, as the cat he used to take care of is suddenly transformed into a human, and Shiro finds himself in the middle of a war between the 7 K (kings), humans with psychic abilities, leading gangs or organizations with the purpose of becoming the absolute rulers... Is what the anime WOULD like you to see, when in reality all you will ... be seeing here are incredibly gay undertones and unexplained plot details that leave a lot of questions unless you have actually read the manga.

"But we are not a yaoi anime! I mean look! We have a naked cat lady right at the start!" Yes K, nice dodge there. Clearly the neko girl victoriously dissolves all my discomforting suspicions that I'm watching a shameless yaoi anime, only to replace them with discomforting suspicions that I'm watching a closet yaoi anime. But while K is shy and mysticistic about its sexual preferences, it is quite honest with its marketing tactics. I know the main purpose of animes is to promote their mangas but there is such a thing as "subtlety" and K seems to constantly miss that. When I watched Akame Ga Kill recently for example, I felt the anime softly petting my head and telling me "Did you like the plot and the characters? If you did, you can always buy the manga to learn a bit more about your favorite heroes!" Thank you Akame Ga Kill, I might indeed do that! When I was watching K however, I felt a gun, cruelly pointing at my balls. "

How are these two characters related anime?" I fearfully ask. "Buy the manga to find out b!tch!" the anime angrily replies. "Can you give me some more information about this completely unexplained setting of a town, anime?" I ask innocently. "Buy the f@cking manga and READ nerd!" the anime replies as it kicks my stomach. "Why are these two supposedly opposed people at kissing distance from each other and rolling on the grass, anime?" I ask. "T-T-That's how serious m-m-men communicate, b-b-baka..." the anime shyly blushes. And you can call me a moron, but I swear to god, from start till finish I had practically no idea what the hell was going on. And saying the plot was all over the place would be one thing, but I couldn't even tell what the "K" in the title stood for either! The anime takes the "multiple interpretations" approach, with various words such as "King" "Killer" etc being possible meanings for K, similar to how "V" could mean "Vendetta", "Vandalism" or "Viagra".

"But that's not all there is to us! Look! We also have incredibly beautiful battles and action!" No anime, you don't. What is indeed beautiful is the quality of the graphics, which, truth be told, blows all antagonism away. But having good graphics and descent animation DOES NOT equal good battles. This was mostly evident when the skater kid tried to take on a SWAT-y strike team with practically break-dancing moves. While other animes could have easily handled this with amazing choreography that could really get out blood pumping, K somehow completely fails to utilize the "magic" of the fight, proving that despite the pretty masks it puts on, K IS deep down a closet yaoi anime that wants nothing to do with action of any kind other than "bed". Oh, and the protagonist turns out in the last second to be a Nazi. And while I can imagine the admins being ready to whine for me not putting a "spoiler" tag, I have the counterargument that saying "Spoilers" would imply that I know what the plot was about and want to reveal it to everyone else, which I can wholeheartedly assure you was NOT the case.

I would have no problem if the anime openly declared itself as a yaoi, but instead I kept having the feeling that anime was trying to pass as "actiony shounen drama", which it clearly was not. What's wrong K? Are you so afraid of the Boku No Pico tag that you're desperately throwing whatever "boyish" things you can think of at us? Sorry, but this doesn't cover you, it insults us. The only thing left for you to do is openly declare yourself to the world, put the rosy frames around the characters and get disowned by your parents as a result. Wait, now that I think about it...

Oh boy, I'm digging my own grave again...

We have all heard of Dragonball (of Z I mean, noone watched the original), it was a huge name in the 90s, that introduced anime to the rest of the world through the only good dub I've seen today and is responsible for inspiring hundreds of other anime and mangas. So why would anyone hate it?

Well, as was mentioned, Dragonball WAS responsible for many of today's mangas, creating (or at least making famous) various stereotypes that lasted though decades. Some examples of the wonderful stereotypes that Dragonball made norm include: 1)Stupid protagonist in shounen. 2)Evil is stupid. 3)Death ... has no meaning. 4)Females are all annoying tsunderes. 5)Overly annoying episode-long training sessions. 6)Abilities explained mid-fight to the opponent (...)7)Transformations (ok that can be done right, but the way dragonball did it, definitely wasn't, with the exception of Buu).7)Overly-Recycled animations.8)Overly predictable plots with the villains smiling evilly and laughing maniacally even when in disguise, reinforcing point 2, but also for some reason actually fooling the "heroes".9)Complete and absolute lack of character development.
I could go on.

As you see, what I truly dislike about Dragonball is the legacy it left behind. Dragonball was an example to be followed by everyone else to be sure, a very, very bad example. Lazy writing, a despicable presentation of females (that finally started to change in shounens thanks to Fairy Tail), brain-dead characters, half-assed animation (I'm looking at you One Piece). Dragonball was in all aspects, definitely something intended for children. "But Dragonball has so much violence!" You don't say. But guess what, freaking Tom and Jerry also has a lot of violence (and with about the same amount of actual deaths as well), yet noone questions Tom and Jerry being a kid's show just because it has violence in it. Violence doesn't make things mature when it has no consequence people. Violence has meaning when it can create PERMANENT damage, physical or emotional. An anime where 2 people make punchbags of each other and 5 minutes later walk it off isn't an anime that should be proud of its violence. If anything it's insulting it.

The funny thing is, now that Dragonball Super is being released, everyone is whining about how bad it is. What really gets me going, is how DB fans complain that it's totally different from what they grew up with. Really? Is that how you feel about it? Because personally, all I see is EXACTLY the same product you grew up with. Now however, you have been exposed to actual "quality", even by accident, and can see DB for what it truly is: Trash.

Dragonball's glory is long gone. With the internet connecting our stupid brains together and forcing us to hear the opinions of others as well, a piece of crap like Dragonball will never reach fame again. Almost all of its descendants have long since surpassed it, learning from the mistakes of their father and not repeating them. Those include Fairy Tail, Bleach and (it saddens me to say it), even Naruto. Today's writers will struggle to produce intelligent plots, intriguing enemies with personalities that go way beyond "bad for the yolo", and actual relationships between the characters, making them sympathetic and memorable. In other words they will do all the things that Dragonball never did, and never will do.

"But then why do I have such fond memories of the original?" For the same reason you have fond memories of Pokemon, Sailor Moon and even Ice T. Because of nostalgia. The number 1 enemy of intelligence and objectivity. Through the spectrum of nostalgia everything seems nice and ideal, since it was a simpler time back then. That's a lie of course. The 90s were just as complex as the 21st century and probably a bit dirtier. YOU however, were younger back then, and as a result STUPIDER, which made you unable to perceive the world correctly. And of course with the years passing and all the bad memories fading away into oblivion, Dragonball, in all its majestic CRAP, becomes in your brain a wonderful sweet memory.

My last review of the anime was a fairly impressed 8/10, back when 47 episodes had been released. After 40 more episodes have been released though, I have to sadly admit that I was wrong and I had misjudged it.
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10/10

To say that Arc V skyrocketed the game's sales after the failure of Zexal would be an understatement. While every yugioh series until now focused on its own mechanic (rituals for original, fusions for gx, synchros for 5ds and exceeds for zexal), Arc V adds its own mechanic, Pendulums, but pays equal attention to ALL the others as well. Quite honestly I never imagined a day ... would come when I could play a deck that rituals/synchros/fuses/xyzes and possibly pendulums at the same time and NOT have balance issues with it. If you had told me something like that back when Zexal came out I would have called you a fool, since most decks back then couldn't even pull of a combination of TWO of these at the same time, let alone all of them together. But now here we are, in a golden, grand age for the game that rewards skilled players with incredible show-offing, that has successfully made me cut down on my food expenses to "barely surviving" so I could afford more cards. Kudos Konami.

But enough about the actual game. The anime takes place at first in Miami City (yes, the ACTUAL Miami, there are even black people in it) and later goes all over the place (literally). Our protagonist, Sakaki Yuya, is the son of the famous missing enternetainer Sakaki Yusho, and tries to become a professional entertainer duelist himself. As an entertainer duelist, he sees it his job and personal philosophy to bring smiles to everyone through his dueling, including the audience and his opponents. He is by all means a pacifist, and therefore a tragic figure in a world where dimensions collide, misusing the duel monsters game that Yuya loves as a weapon. Oh yeah, spoilers.

SPOILERS

And really, that's where the great writing of Arc V truly shines. The same game that Yuya wants to use as a means to bring happiness, is instead continuously used to bring pain and misery and loss of human life, which continuously sends the "clownish" Yuya to depression (he has gone through a lot of those already and we're not nearly halfway through the anime). To bring an end to conflict, Yuya is constantly forced to take part in the conflict himself, LITERALLY becoming consumed by his inner demons as the mayhem continues to intensify.

Apart from Yuya there are plenty of other characters, including the alternate versions of himself and his potential girlfriend Suzu, one pair from each dimension, the rest of the Lancers the "good mastermind" Akaba Reiji has gathered (imagine Kaiba from season one with Urahara leadership and manipulation qualities, simply epic), and then there are the various individuals from the other dimensions, my favourite of which is Sora. In general the character roster in ARC V is pretty impressive, with fairly diverse characters whose loyalties aren't always where they're supposed to be, and who can all get consumed by their own personal conflicts, burdening their individual missions. All in all, great writing for EVERYONE. Yes, I mean EVERYONE. Not just the protagonist and his nymphomaniac girlfriend. EVERYONE.

Now there are some minor issues I have with Arc V, and I mean other than spending too much money on the game. First, wanting to place equal power and interest in the girls to attract female audience, the writers have Yuzu dash off at the start of the series, away from the rest of the cast, essentially playing in her own anime as she goofs off/flirts with Yuya's alter egos from various worlds. It can even be said that she has a reverse harem: The pacifist emo one, the angry driven vengeful one, the goofy cool funny one and even the freaking YANDERE one. Now, I have no problem with the female claiming her own harem, but there does need to be someone for the protagonist to save like a princess... And that someone ended up being Sora, a 10 year old BOY. In fact, in light of Yuzu never being near him, the depressed clown of a protagonist does have a habit of gathering around him and "protecting" waaaaaay underage boys, with Sora obviously being the favourite, which at times raises a few eyebrows.

But that's all water under the bridge. As usual, Yugioh has perfected the art of doing character development through the duels themselves and the cards played in them, and by God, have they succeeded in Arc V. Even ignoring Yuya (whose main deck basically consists of a circus and fun and games when he's trying to be a pacifist and rampaging dragons when he goes all berserk), the vast majority of the characters' decks reflect their personalities, with my favourite, again, being Sora. His deck consists of the cutesy Fluffals that are basically stuffed animals, which reflect the cute kid he was pretending to be at the start of the series. He then combines these cute stuffed animals with saws, scissors, chains etc etc through fusion, creating terrifying 5 Nights at Freddie's monstrosities that reflect the true, twisted-self he was hiding beneath the cute bravado. And again of course, that's just an example. The vast majority of the characters work like that, and it's doing the series WONDERS.

Last but certainly not least, Arc V is doing a FANTASTIC job technically, with very good art, well chosen camera angles, perfectly expressioned faces, and of course, epic sound. In fact the sound department is another of Arc V's highlights, with Yuya's beautifully painful screams, Reiji's wonderfully arrogant voice, Serena's cute tomboyish military-talk (among many, many others) being accompanied by a soundtrack that easily rivals 5ds', which will always get your blood bumping and ready for a duel.

All in all: A fantastic job. First time in a while you get the feeling Konami hired actual script writers instead of marketing advisers and it really shows. Excellent at everything, my only regret is that between arc V and Steam Sales, I will have to survive on campus food for a while (ew).

PROS:
-Everything.

Cons:
-...I guess the slightly yaoish feel when Yuya is near boys, if you're annoyed by that sort of thing.
-HOW?! HOW DID I SPEND SO MUCH MONEY...?!

So. Freaking. cute.\.\.

Seriously there is not much else to say about it. Each episode centers on a different loli who gets to do it softcore with the guy she likes. The girls are both super shy and there is a ton of foreplay before we get to the main course, which is another huge + for me.

The animation and the voice acting are what do the magic though. The character design for the lolis is just TOO cute to ignore, regardless of moral hesitations, and the voice acting just fits perfectly. It is obvious that the animation is low budget, since most movement actually ... consists of repeating the same footage over and over but good god, it's so cute you'll ignore it.

Excellant job.

Like everyone I first saw clips of this on random porn sites, here and there, mostly focusing on the "main girl" Kanae, getting raped. Unfortunately there are many reasons the quotes are needed.

The MC finds himself trapped in a white room along with five girls (+ another one that was finished off before the anime even began). He must choose one of them every time (the route part) and then proceed to another room where it is specified what kind of torture sex they'll be having. The girls are Nemu, the villain/antagonist with a very warped sense of "pleasure", Kanae, the innocent childhood friend, ... the Sensei character (don't remember the name, she is that important), Rika the loli, and Rinne, the mysterious one... The first 4 episodes are all focused on the seperate routes and every episode pretends the others don't exist. It's basically torture porn of various kinds, aiming to satisfy as many tastes as it can...

But, that's where the problems start. From all the girls introduced the only one you'll actually get to like is Nemu, THE VILLAIN. The fact that the fifth episode that was released way later than the others focused only on Nemu as the main girl proves I wasn't the only one that liked only her. However when the only person you find likeable in the cast is the most f@cked up one AND the one with the least amount of screentime (1/4th of the first episode), something has definitely gone wrong. The problem is that the other girls simply aren't interesting OR sympathetic, as much as the anime tries to force Kanae and Rinne as "cute" on us. Hell, for some unexplained reason, you'll come to HATE Kanae, and I mean BEFORE you've even seen the fifth episode.

Even ignoring that, the anime makes a very strange choice. There is practically no anal. At all. You know, for a hentai that focuses on torture sex, one would expect mankind's #1 fetish to play a major role, but nope, it's completely ignored. That said, the fifth episode did try to answer to the audience's demands (hence Nemu as the main character), but it barely touched it as well (though to be fair, the Human Centipede-inspired scene was fun, if a bit brief).

But the biggest problem of all is the main character. He is simply unlikeable and unsympathetic, and that's it. I can understand finding torture porn a bit fun, but the guy is simply psychotic in most cases, and of course, uncaring for the girls, which is a totally ok behavior for dealing with f@cking Kanae, but good god man, at least give the loli a break.

SPOILERS:

The fifth episode does go all-romantic on us, and to be honest I appreciated that a lot. Of course I'd appreciate it a lot more if the protagonist wasn't a jacka$$ all the time, with Nemu being the only one to show emotions, but oh well, you can't have everything. Oh and before I forget:

Dear animators, when you think of "comforting sex for the girl", the first position that comes to mind is cowgirl? Are you serious? Literally the most demanding and responsible position for a woman is your idea of "comforting"? And they don't even do it once like that, they do it a total of THREE times in that position, every time they want to forward the romance (which is completely one-sided by Nemu by the way). Hell, the MC doesn't even try to do a variation, he just stays limp there all the time while Nemu does all the work. A complete disappointment at best.

To sum it up: No, the torture porn can be fun, but other than THE VILLAIN, everyone is hateable at best. And to be honest, I don't see why the girls would ever be romantically interested in a guy that only gets turned on by chocking women and other than that displays no emotion whatsoever. But hey, at least the voice acting is pretty good.