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One of the very few cases where explaining things is a BAD idea.

An anime focusing on comedy, Seitokai Yakuindomo is a highschool story where the straight man Tsuda, one of the first male students of the up-till-then female-only school, is forced to become a part of the student council, since the president (Shino) has decided that she needs a male's opinion in managing the now-both-sexes school. Along with her are the secretary, Aria, and the adorable blonde loli Suzu.

That said, from the start Seitokai shows clearly that it isn't interested in promoting any sort of story and each episode after the first is a ... standalone excuse for hilarity to ensue. The anime hits us with one sex joke and gag after another, with the occasional trolling by the animation team spicing things up (for example fake last episodes, game and movie announcements etc etc). Overall I am totally in for this sort of mindless fun. The gags focus mostly on Suzu's height and all sorts of pervertidness (hell, the only scene where they show the girls naked is just an excuse for another gag.)

The problem is that I quite often caught myself FORCING myself to laugh at the jokes, and when you do this long enough to realise it on your own, something, dear animators, has gone wrong. See the dialogue below from ep 11 and you'll understand:

President:I really hate wearing skirts on windy days.
Sex-crazed secretary:You shouldn't say that indiscriminately...
Sex-crazed secretary (cont): You can legitimately expose yourself!

See the problem with the above dialogue? You read the first 2 lines and leave your imagination to do the work, which in turns leads you to laughter. But when they add an explanation of the joke on the third line it just ruins it. This is the one rule that Seitokai Yakuindomo always fails to realise: NEVER EXPLAIN THE JOKE. Implications are far more hilarious than going to someone and saying: "HERE! THIS IS WHAT I MEANT WITH THAT JOKE! DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW AUDIENCE?" Apart from ruining the mood it also feels like the show is insulting our IQs on purpose.

In the end I can't really hate Seitokai though. With every episode I get the sweet wonderful feeling of my brain cells dying, and recreating its jokes is usefully very successful, provided you know WHEN NOT TO EXPLAIN THINGS.

I don't have a problem with violence. Violence can be fun, most video games can easily prove this. Nor do I have a problem with permanent mental damage and loss of humanity, it makes some of the most interesting plots. But crudeness?

And boy is it crude. First of all, after a while all the focus goes to Japan's endless love for futanari and rediculously large breasts. (spoilers:) In the final scene of the second episode one of the maids stabs the master and herself with a sword to "put an and to all this", which would be ok, except that her breasts were so large ... that the master literally had to go between them to even fit the position. It wasn't even unintentionally funny, it was just ugly. And so were plenty of other scenes. Somewhere under all the clitdicks (that's a word now) there was a story about who the protagonist (redhead) really was, since she suffered from amnesia, but honestly, it just isn't interesting enough.

The story moves on way too fast, the sex is just crude and the flashbacks are really annoying, especially in ep 2. Unless you share Japan's weird love for futanari stay away.

Funny how this season I kept seeing animes that felt like they wasted their own fortes. Fate Kaleid wasted its own Fanservice, Jitsu Wa Watashi wasted countless good comedic moments and Charlotte wasted tons of drama.

The protagonist, Yuu, possesses a unique ability: He can temporarily possess others. He uses this ability to cheat his way to scolarships, girl's hearts, etc etc. In other words from the very start he's a dick, whose only redeeming point is caring for his little sister, Ayumi, who he has to raise alone. Eventually, two people suspicious of his success bust him, including Tomori, the student council president of a ... school for teens with special powers, who blackmails him into joining the student council, after beating him up. There Yuu has to help Tomori apprehend other people with special powers and offer them an ultimatum: Risk getting captured by scientists who want to experiment on them, or join the academy.

Warning: Spoilers:

Along the way we learn that Tomori has trust issues after her brother was sold out by her parents to scientists, who is now continuously sedated in a hospital, in an effort to surpass his dementia. Considering his current state, along with the fact that she frequently gets bullied at school (a subplot that doesn't go anywhere), she is naturally very lonely, and in fact is part of the student council only to feel like she has friends. Eventually, Yuu's sister dies in an accident, and after a brief hospitalization Yuu is left alone, suffering from depression which he releases by abusing his ability to torment ruffians and gangs. In the end Tomori finds him and convinces him to get back to his previous life, which is the start of their romance....

EXCEPT:

We have a girl whose big brother suffers from dementia and is extremely lonely and a guy who just lost his little sister and feels depressed. Can someone explain to me WHY this didn't evolve into a proper complicated/very interesting relationship? Come on people! The s@#t practically writes itself! "Hey! We're having something that resembles a romance but in truth is a substitute for the family love we're lacking, which we intentionally turn a blind eye to but will eventually have to face if we want to move on." And now the audience is crying buckets, WAS THAT HARD? Oh what the hell, it's not like this is the show's only f@ck up, no reason to linger here too long.

Final Ep Spoilers:

Ignoring that it felt incredibly rushed, ignoring that Yuu for some reason didn't go all power-mad (lets be honest, you'd go power-mad, I'd go power-mad, he should go power-mad), ignoring that "courage" as a power is simply retarded, we have an extremely stupid ending of the protagonist waking up suffering from amnesia, which causes Tomori to be sad. First, Tomori quite clearly just offers her body as a prize in the last episode to motivate the protagonist, and in fact seemed turned off by the protagonist confessing to her. Her reaction is understandable, but what isn't understandable is her getting sad over being forgotten upon his return. If she didn't have any feelings for him like the episode implied, shouldn't she actually be happier that she won't have to keep her end of the bargain? Second: So... What sort of relationship did Yuu and his brother have in the end? It's also quite clear that his brother hated him at some point for getting Pooh killed (despite it being Yuu's brother fault...). Three:... Oh what the hell... Hold on...

Better Ending 1: Instead of Tomori Yuu wakes up next to Ayumi who is heart-broken by his memory loss and in fact ends up hating their other sibling for making Yuu go through with his suicide mission. The show ends with tears of joy from the reunion or something like that.

Better Ending 2: Yuu wakes up next to Tomori but instead considers her a threat, Tomori is forced to use the music in the mp3 to save herself and Yuu remembers (either the whole thing or at the very least the melody). That way he is "saved" the same way he "saved" Tomori's brother earlier in the series, passing the message that good deeds do get rewarded.

Better Ending 3: Yuu dies and instead we get shots of "happily ever after" from the rest of the cast (Ayumi with her other brother, the two student council goons with each other, Tomori at the hospital etc etc), while his brother is drowned in guilt.

There, 3 endings that I thought of IN A MINUTE that work way better than the crap they offered us that couldn't decide weather it wanted to be sad or happy.

And of course other than the endings, the show suffers from waaaayyyy too many plotholes along the lines. Just to name a few:
1)Yuu remembers time spent in the lab that never actually happened in his timeline.
2)Yuu clearly plundered the glasses-guy at the first episode, how did he keep his ability all this time?
3)Metal songs used for warm comfy memories.
4)Yuu doesn't heal his right eye because... ... ... ?
5)Goverments not giving a crap about explosions happening all over the world.
6)Why didn't Yuu consider Tomori a threat when he woke up? He was clearly half-crazy.
7)On that note, why didn't he go on a sleep-walk rampage like before?
8)Ayumi is way too accepting of staying underground with people she never met before.
9)Misa is way past the magic age of 16 when the powers are supposed to disappear yet keeps her fire-bending abilities.
10)Yuu blamed for way too much crap that he wasn't in any way responsible for and the show wants us to feel like he was.
11)...Nvm I'm tired.

I can go on of course.

In conclusion: Makes a worthwhile effort to be a drama, but just misses way too many chances and has way too many plotholes to be something truly great and memorable. Still, nice visuals.

Continuing where the original 2Wei left off, an eight card has been discovered beneath the ground, and the girls' mission gets an extension so they can collect it. The problem is that since it's just one card this time, it naturally can't take too much air time to make a season on its own. And that means one thing: fillers.

Normally it wouldn't be bad, I mean the ova episode was actually pretty good, so naturally you would think it wouldn't be too tough for the studio to make a few more of them. But the fillers just felt... Lacking. What was missing? FANSERVICE. Oh... ... What's wrong animation studio? Without mama Manga-chan to back you up you aren't sure what you can get away with? It's Fate Kaleid morons, you got away with 9-year-olds playing very questionable games in the bath, a shot of them in bikinis or underwear won't get you off the air at this point. Others might view it as a minor issue, but I honestly can't get over the fact that we went through AN ENTIRE BEACH EPISODE WITHOUT FANSERVICE. I mean, come on! Are you even trying?!

The annoying part is that in MANY cases throughout the fillers it's clear that they were originally going for fanservice paradise (string bikinis prepared for each of them, Illya's clothes disappearing in the carnival episode etc etc) but at the last moment they backed down. Hell, even Kuro's mana needs were completely ignored during the fillers. And if the entire season went on like that it would be fine, I'd say they turned a new leaf. But right at the first episode we have UNNECESSARY amounts of fanservice, so what the hell?!

Regardless, the animators obviously had to find something else for filler material, so instead we get them hanging around with Illya's classmates whose names you never bothered remembering and whose faces you simply never wanted to see. Especially Tatsuko becomes purely annoying from a point onward, making you sigh in disappointment every time she appears on screen. But hell, even that would be acceptable IF at least the humor was good. But like with the fanservice, all you will see throughout the fillers are wasted chances at things that would actually be really funny, instead replaced by Tatsuko's narcoleptic gags and other uninspired slice-of-life humor.

Luckily the last episodes (main story) save it. Big hard battles, hopeless situations, tear-jerking drama, jaw-dropping animation, etc etc, you know the drill. It's what's Fate Kaleid was and always will be good at. Like a kitten, despite the mess it created earlier, it's hard to stay mad at it when it meowes ever-so-cutely at the last minute. Just keep Tatsuko locked in a box and we'll all be happy again. Preferrably one buried beneath the ground. And with a cross on it.

-Hey, lets make an anime about heroes fighting demons!
-Yeah! Lets do it!
-Ok! Now remove all the demons!
-Yeee... Wait what?

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE it, but it just didn't feel right not to start the review this way.

Adlet Mayer is the "strongest man in the world!" as he-self proclaims 55 times (counted), and along with five other heroes he must defeat the evil demon lord that rises every 300 years or so. My bad, I meant with the other six heroes. No, no wait... I meant seven... EIGHT? What the hell?!

Well, basically what gives the false first impression of a classical fantasy anime focused on ... heroes fighting demons, quickly (ep 3+) turns into a detective game. Instead of 6 heroes gathering, 7(+) have appeared, and one of them is a fake working for the demons, that has trapped everyone, including him/herself, in a mist barrier. If the fake dies the barrier will disappear and the heroes set free to continue their journey. Aaaaaand barely 10 minutes after they discover this the heroes start blaming each other and looking for excuses to kill.

Excellent animation (some people complained but honestly I don't get it, I loved it from start to end), amazing voice acting, a very intimidating story that keeps you guessing until the very end (and actually after the end) and extremely good character development are bound to leave you craving for more.

FROM THIS POINT ON SPOILERS:
Pros:
-The protagonist's fighting style is what you would actually expect from an episodic villain in shounens, kudos engineering.
-First time ever in anime history when the rogue/assassin character KICKS ASS.
-The typical anime female overenthusiastic female lead material gets the shaft and instead the protagonist goes for the emotionless loli route. Kudos.
-Flemie's voice acting when she cracks down in the final episodes. Oscar-worthy, will at the very least make your eyes moisten.
-Everyone, EVERYONE is well written.
-Excellent animation.
-The hate is real for Nachetanya.

Kons:
-I could really do without Flemie turning slightly tsundere in the end.
-The f@cking cow in the final episode. Epitome of bad character design.
-The bromance between Adlet and Hans was fun but in the end it started turning a bit gay.
-Quite a few wasted comedy moments here and there (for example when Adlet wakes up to find Maura above him instead of Flemie).
-So the main problem was that noone clicked the right texture in the point&click section of searching the temple? Come on! That's just disappointing.

Now that I think about it all my Kons are from the final episode... Heh.

Overall: Definitely worth your time!

I won't pretend I understood what it was about, but I will say that I loved it.

I mean, plenty of ideas come in mind, as to what the movie was about or what messages it was trying to pass to us, but writing about them would be pointless since you (the viewer) will arrive to a completely different conclusion. And that's the trick with art, because this is clearly art, everyone views it differently. The setting is a futuristic (I think) world that at times seems abandoned and at times since inhabited by strange machines that... That I have no idea what they're doing. The ... only 2 human characters we ever meet is a small girl carrying what looks like an egg and a young man that frankly looks like Archer from Fate Stay Night. As far as I can remember the biggest dialogue ever exchanged was "Anata, dare?" (Who are you?). Yeah, imagine a movie with only 2 people who are both the typical silent game protagonist. Is that a bad thing? Not really, since there is no society to compare them to, it just adds to the mystery.

The movie can be summed up by Surrealism + Silence + Everythingcanbescreenshotedandusedaswallpaper-ism. The art is simply fantastic. There are probably higher meanings behind most of the scenes but honestly, they are just so amazing and grand to look at that you simply get lost admiring them. Honestly not much to say about it, it can't exactly be described... Just watch it by yourself late at night and take your time to draw out your conclusions.

I'm honestly not against spin-off series, after all my lovely Illya Prisma is just a spin-off of Fate, and so I wasn't against a spin-off focusing on Nagato either. After all practically everyone loved Nagato in the original, almost as much as they hated Haruhi (aka a lot). There are just 2 major problems. 1)The audience came to sympathise with the tortured lonely Nagato of Haruhi's universe, remaking her into a girl whose only characteristic is being clumsy was stupid to begin with. 2)Haruhi didn't have a "just bad" response from the audiences, she practically got kicked out of her own show and the movie ... had no relation to her other than the name. So tell me dear animators, WHY does the b£$%& with Lucy's voice need to come back?! I thought it was clear by now, we HATE her. And of course unlike Nagato who got a total personality liftover Haruhi remains the same annoying overenergetic little f$%& that desperately tries to grab attention but ends up pissing everyone off. Actually make that 3 problems: 3) What the hell is wrong with the blue-hair's eyebrows?!

Anyway as usual the (unbelievably boring) Kyon joins the literature club, with Nagato as a president and her friend Eyebrows as the second member. They practically do nothing all day and it's just Nagato playing games, while slowly (very very slowly) developing a romance... Which is about as interesting as reading the Terms of Agreement in non-EA games, considering Ky-on has zero personality and Nagato is unbearable while Eyebrows is just the onee-chan character. It was tollerable though! Without the b$%^h everything felt much more relaxed than the original and despite this Nagato not being the one we loved it was still watchable... And then of course the b£$%h arrived and everything returned to the original level of s%£t that we were this close to forgetting.

About halfway through, the anime did manage to catch our interest. Haruhi was mysteriously gone for mysterious reasons shrouded in mystery that I suspect were described by "ratings plummeting to the ground" and Nagato returned temporarily to the personality we all loved from the original. Granted Kyon was still as interesting as watching a cabbage grow, and ms Eyebrows was still taking too much screentime for her own good, but the anime became enjoyable at least. The emotionless loli is back biatches! Of course that couldn't last forever and eventually we returned to our beloved swamp of stupid.

Oh and before I forget: 4)What point is there to Asahina's existence? I mean, seriously, it was more common for the characters to mention that "she has work to do" than actually talking to her. 5)Kyon's voice acting... Plain awful, Asahina's voice acting... Unbearable (having to hear her in Wakaba girl is a challenge), Haruhis voice acting... You don't deserve to be Lucy you b£$%h! 6)Graphics were mediocre at best.

So one day a mangaka that has never been seen without sunglasses decided to take his previous creation, Rave, and hardcore it up a notch, while correcting most of his previous mistakes, and also adding plenty of our western mythology instead of the crappy asian one. So in the end we get an anime set in the typical fantasy/medieval world, where magic rules everything, evil warlocks are on the rise and wizards (with practically zero actual physical strength) form guilds and fight for loot and glory. One of those guilds, Fairy Tail, is famous for its specialty, which is destruction and is the guild young ... Lucy Heartfilia wants to join. Welcome to a world of action, romance, comedy, wizards, demons, undead, dragons and all sorts of monsters in a medieval fantasy (kinda) setting!

Where Fairy Tail truly shines is getting you to sympathise with its characters. Do keep in mind that Fairy Tail's PROTAGONIST is Lucy, the female lead, and not Natsu, the male lead. From start to finish it is Lucy's thoughts we hear as the narration and not Natsu's. We also see things from Lucy's perspective. In other words despite Natsu being a powerhouse, the view of the world we get is from a 17 year old very vulnerable girl, for whom we naturally feel more sorry when she gets her a$$ kicked (aka every episode). Do keep in mind that no Shounen has ever had a female protagonist before (even if all the main beating is still handled by the male lead). Naturally other characters attract our attention equally (ok not equally, more like 50% of the feels we get for Lucy), who all must make sacrifices, have tough decisions to think over etc etc.

Say Sakura was in danger. Are we afraid? No, because she's a woman, we already know she's not going to get hurt. Chichi? The same. Nami? Well duh... Rukia? ... Ok she might actually get hurt but she's no female, she's just a male who happens to be more focused on agility than raw strength, Kubo needs to work on that a bit. But when it is Lucy that's about to be hurt (and believe me, that's the rule rather than the exception) we're all hanging from the edge of our sits (specifically I'm hanging from the edge of my 380 dollar leather revolving armchair while you're hanging from your IKEA furniture that your mom bought for your birthday). And since the women in Fairy Tail are in fact subjects to their mortality we actually are worried and feel for them.

And here's another shining moment of Fairy Tail: Constant danger. When Mashima got our awesome mythology he got the whole package, including warlocks, necromancers, dragons, demons and all sorts of other monstrosities. Ignoring how plain AWESOME having these things animated properly is, the villains also usually display the cruelty and ruthlessness you would expect of them, and despite almost everyone having a final goal, you will soon notice that most are in it for the kicks, or are just plain sadists. This is especially true when it comes to women, who usually display the most cruelty (specifically when beating the crap out of Lucy) and to be honest, I'm perfectly ok with that. With the whole plot revolving around wizards known as "Dragonslayers" and the creations of the ancient necromancer/warlock Zeref, you can expect some epic fantasy situations to start hitting the fan almost from the start. Oh and before I forget:

-Dear Asia, I want you to describe what dragons are like.

-They are wise ancient serpents with no wings that symbolise the power of nature, the inner peace of water and the harmonic balance of the universe while their mustaches just add to their natural wisdom.

-Good Asia, now I want you to tell me what you see Fairy Tail doing.

-W-W-Wild r-r-rampaging...

-WILD RAMPAGING BEASTS THAT WANT TO STOMP, BURN AND EAT US ALL, BECAUSE THAT'S HOW YOU MAKE MOTHERF$%^ING DRAGONS! And f$%" your g@! a$$ mustaches!

"Cough" Lets just leave it at "ep 192 was freaking awesome."

And since soundtrack is the Alpha and the Omega in my book, naturally I can't help but say Fairy Tail gets 10/10. With a wide variety that starts from tear-jerking dramatic tracks (usually when something horrible scars Lucy for life) to the techno-beats that play during battles, Fairy Tail knows has an awesome soundtrack that it uses almost perfectly (ok not Bleach levels, but still...). Listening to "Black Wizard's Wicked Heart" and others is one of my favourite ways to get hyped when playing dota or making games (that and drinking Monster Absolute Zero). The voice acting follows right away with the voice actors not-about-to-die "cough, One Piece, cough", and for the most part fitting perfectly. The openings are almost all amazing, with many of the endings deserving applause (especially ending 18: "Don't let me down" and the one right after that, "Chasing" were both 10/10). The visuals naturally follow through, with the style slightly reminding of One Piece only better.

Well, not much to say about it, by far one of the best settings in shounens, amazing soundtrack that gets you hooked up, plenty of things you've against in MMOs in all their deadly glory and touches of romance every now and then to spice things up. Definitely worth its time.

Perhaps the only case of anime where the dub actually did a better job than the original, and we're talking 4kids here.

Set approximately 10 years after the original ended, we meet Jaden, a student who enrolls in the famous Duel Academy, that trains people to becomes pros. Since it's a yugioh anime that's not Arc V (or 5ds) you can already guess that there isn't much in terms of character development, backstory etc etc. Jaden is nothing short of a hyperactive cheerful clown who has the occasional kinda-badass moments, and then we have the background cast of Alexis, Bastian, Chazz, Cyrus and a few others, ... though you will only remember Chazz since he's in almost as many episodes as Jaden (they're rivals... kindof... Usually it's Chazz making a fool of himself and then dueling Jaden for insertstreetfighterlogichere). The villains will settle for nothing less than world domination (minus the 3rd arc villain who... Lets not spoil it, she is pretty unique though), and will stop at nothing to destroy their opponents... That is to say minus the rules of a duel that more ofter than not they have no reason to play. But this is yugioh, all conflict is solved with card games.

Now for the duels themselves, definitely an improvement from the original. Pretty much everyone uses fusions, or otherwise will end up using fusions. The only exceptions are the occasional one-episode villain using a lockdown burn deck, and the final bosses of each arc. The duels are from start to finish intents, starting the long tradition of the yugioh anime (&game) of changing who has the upper hand per turn. Obviously this manages to keeps the tensions up and give you quite a spectacle. And this is where the highlight of the dub comes in, for once 4Kids puns&insults are not AS horrible as you would expect. Surely there are a lot of retarded lines along the way, but certain catchprases like "Game On" will definitely make an impression to you. Another thing that 4kids did right was replace the (mediocre at best) original soundtrack with various techno themes that REALLY get you going (seriously, kudos for that). The voice acting isn't half bad either, with various characters other than Jaden managing to make an impression, especially when it comes to villains. Satorius (the second season's villain) especially had some amazing voice acting done for his part, which is also the reason the second season (Light of Destruction) is bound to be your favourite of the four.

Honestly there is not much to say about GX, I suggest watching the dub as far as it goes, for the awesome music (and kinda barable puns) if not for nothing else, and then continuing to the final season with the original, since 4kids decided not to dub it due to overly diabolical themes (despite the series actually going well in terms of viewers). Game on!

Keep in mind episodes 10& a half through 12 3/4 are not covered in the main part of the review, scroll down for them.

What first got my attention was obviously the art. I didn't even need to look at the production studio to know that this was made by the guys that animated monogatari. Naturally that means that the art is incredibly detailed & a incredibly beautiful to watch. The story centers around Yuuji, a japanese student (a tiny bit older than he should be) who attends a highschool ran strictly to accomodate a select few (that are all rich beyond their wildest dreams). So ... total we have Yuuji + 5 chicks, each with her own backstory and reason for wanting to be sceduled by the rest of society. As each independadly develop a crash for the (rediculously skilled in everything) Yuuji, and he in turn explores their tragic backgrounds.

One thing that will immediatly get your attention is the setting. Apart from a school with 6 student total being awesome, the whole place seems to be a holiday resort, with the time stuck in almost constant sunset throughout the entire series. This, accompanied by the very detailed high-resolution animation gives of a very nice feeling that the viewer quickly learns to appreciate.

Not all is merry&rosy however. For one thing, the viewer quickly loses interest after tha first three to four episodes due to Yuuji simply being too op at everything. He's flawless, which ultimately makes him as uninteresting as it goes. So the focus is on the girls. While they each have a unique personality, none of them manage to make the viewer actually care. In fact when for the first time the viewer develops sympathy for one of them (the little one that calls Yuuji papa) that little s£$t acts in the stupidest way possible, making me instantly hate her.

Lets be honest though, it's tollerable. The art is good enough to support the anime on its own, despite the characters being relatively weak. In fact it is that god damned amazing Monogatari art that makes this show worth watching... Unless of course we're talking about 3 very specific episodes...

Regarding episodes 10-12: None of the above actually reflect them. Through these episodes, the viewers see the backstory of a redhead that belongs to Yuuji's harem. Also let us be clear that while the rest of the anime is action-romance packed, these 3 episodes are pure, hardcore horror. The bus Amane (the redhead) was in, crashed in the middle of nowhere, leaving 12 girls + the driver trapped in the wilderness. None of them has any idea how to get back and food supplies will only last so long. Among those girls is Yuuji's older sister, Kazuki, a completely unsociable brilliant girl. I don't want to spoil anything, but lets just say that lack of food and proper medical care makes for some pretty fun situations. (keep in mind, the pacing in those episodes is unbelievably slow, unlike the rest of the anime that has a relatively fast setting, and this is done on purpose). Seriously, those episodes practically standalone, so go watch them, now.