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Orb most certainly isn't a show for everyone, it has a very specific methodical tone with a heavy emphasis on moral and ethical conflict. This story is not about big brawls and chapter-spanning mind games, though it features both violence and exceptionally smart characters. It is not about a conflict of characters but of ideas, that is what fundamentally lifts it from most anime. Because of this, I would call it closest to Vinland Saga in tone, though while that story still tells its tale and teaches its moral through a single character, the protagonist of Orb is an idea. Heliocentrism, the idea of basing ... our view of the world not on the earth but the sun is fundamentally what this story is about, though through grappling with this concept in a historical context during the 15th century, it becomes so much more than that. This show isn't about astronomy as much as it is about truth. You do not need to be interested in space or physics to understand and love this anime, because its story is about how institutions control reality. How we perceive our world to work and who gets to tell us what is true and what isn't. Orb fundamentally believes in the idea of a moral truth; reality is not evil, thus believing in it is the only moral view of the world. All truths will at some point be found, thus fighting truth through concepts like religion is a war that can only be lost, but that never stopped people from trying. The conflicts that originate from those who seek truth above all else, or rather the conflict that originates from those who try to obscure reality, is what the show is fundamentally about and it tells this story wonderfully.
This is why Orb isn't for everyone, because it isn't as much about characters, as it is about concepts. The anime uses phenomenally well-written characters to tell this story, characters that wonderfully embody the positions in this conflict, but at the end of the day, it isn't about any single person, but the truth they seek. View Orb as the following question:
"How moral is the truth"
If that seems interesting to you, then you have to watch this show, it is outstanding in almost every way. If you want a character drama with a focus on conflict originating from characters, not ideas, then you should still give this anime a try, but it probably isn't for you. I will judge it from the perspective of someone who loves these kinds of moral problems, from someone who watched the show as the thing it is meant to be, and I find it to be utterly fantastic.

Watch the first three episodes, they give you a good look at what you are getting into and each of them presents an interesting new angle to the topic.

[So, a quick disclaimer, I like this show, so if you think that because of that my opinion is invalid, kindly piss off]

If you don’t care about the controversy and are only interested in my simple opinion on the second season alone, you can skip all the way down to THE SIMPLE REVIEW. However, if you do that and still feel like attacking me for some reason, please read the following text first, maybe that already answers your question(s).

It is rare that you find a show to be the centre of as much debate as Mushoku Tensei. No, that wouldn’t be right, you can hardly ... call monkeys flinging sh*t at each other a debate. There are negative aspects that I think are well worth being criticized. But for some reason everyone got so stuck on an overall pretty simple to discuss “flaw”, that they either failed to accept that this show is indeed able to tell a compelling story or were so taken over by that single thing that they can’t even begin to see anything but that.
Look, I am going to make this as simple as possible. If you don’t like this show, that is completely normal, it practically tries to make you hate its main character in an openly disgusting way, and if that puts you off, that is okay. It isn’t just me saying this, I have never even once heard a fan of this show claim that you have to like it or anything. What really gets me, though, are those people that think, that because I watch this show, I am a paedophile or whatever. There are so many things that you can watch this show for, but not once have I actually met someone that deliberately decided to watch this show entirely because the Protagonist is a groomer.

With that out of the way, we can firstly get to the necessary stuff before finally getting to the interesting bit of reviewing season two in the context of the overall narrative.
Do you notice how insane that last sentence sounds? You made me do that, so please, just chill the f*ck out when someone just doesn’t like the same things you do.

The necessary stuff: This should be obvious, if you don’t get this, maybe start reading the subtitles. Rudeus is meant to be as disgusting as he is. I have argued with so many people that just didn’t get that this is intentional. And I am not saying that the “fan service” is intentional, that would be the case with pretty much every Ecchi-Anime, what I am saying is, that it is intentional, that the fan service is uncomfortable and that Rudeus is a weirdo. He is not meant to be a good guy. These are not the depraved fantasies of the author. If you think that something that Rudeus does is detestable, then you are right, because it is not meant to be the right thing. Are you going to call out Attack on Titan for “advocating” genocide? If your answer to that question is yes, please seek help, but if your answer is as expected a clear no, then I have to ask you what your problem with Mushoku is? Well….

The Problem with Mushoku: You remember how I said that there are negative aspects that are well worth being criticized? Well, here we go: Mushoku Tensei has fan service… Yes. That is what we are attacking the show for. Fan service isn’t a new thing, the issue is that the characters that are being sexualized are children and yes, that very much is an issue. I don’t really care, because it is filtered through the perspective of Rudeus and really not as bad as what people make it sound like (Have you seen like any trigger show). BUT, and I must say, that’s a pretty big BUT, you can be offended by that, and if you are, I am not going to judge you for walking away from the show. Hell, I would even defend you, if that was your opinion. It only becomes a problem, when you start blaming the show for not being something you like. This is especially an issue for Mushoku, because it already had it hard to even be taken seriously, that is how much the recent history of Isekai has squandered its appeal. I know that I am repeating myself, but I am going to say it once again, if this show isn’t your thing, nobody is going to attack you for that. The problem here is that habit of needing to justify your opinion, no matter how miniscule it is. I am not going to call you a racist if you don’t wanna date a person with a different skin colour, this only becomes an issue if you start saying that this is an objective problem, because, listen up buddy, it is not. There are objective flaws that can turn you away from a story, but this is not one of them. You wouldn’t call out Breaking Bad because you find it morally wrong that they are dealing with meth, right?

Okay, I think we are finally done with this. If you felt like all of that was unnecessary, you clearly have never had an argument with a certain clown whose name I am not going to mention, simply because they don’t deserve it. Either way, after all that, I can finally give my simple thoughts on Mushoku Tensei's second season, without having all that on the back of my mind.

THE SIMPLE REVIEW:

New setting, new characters, new everything. Is it all as good as season one? Probably not, but it is really quite impressive how diverse this show is in its setting and tone.

Speaking of tone, we have a small step-down in atmosphere and world building. Season two quits the opening format of the first season after three episodes and replaces it with a simple anime opening. To make this clear, the opening is a banger and is amazing when compared to other anime, but then again, this show was exceptional from the start. In short, I miss the old openings, but the new one slaps. I also feel like there is a small step-down when it comes to the overall production value of the show, but it is more so a step-down from season 1 part 2. If season 2 part 2 is going to be awesome again, is something we will have to see, but this is still on the incredibly high production standard of season 1s first part.

Now, the story, this is going to be a bit difficult. The story is incredibly character rich, but it feels a bit directionless after the first three episodes. A lot of the stuff that seems like filler might just be set up for later seasons, either way, I feel like they could have done a better job moving the overall narrative. As it stands right now, season 2 feels incredibly disconnected from what came before it. There are a lot of plot threads that got picked up again and some were even wrapped together, but the mayor stuff has been entirely sidelined. Primarily, the Dead-End party has been entirely removed from the cast for this season and his been replaced with a similarly colourful but, overall, just shallow cast of students. Look, I like most of these guys, well, I would probably hate them if I ever met them, but they are a lot of fun to watch, a bit like Power really. And with that, we get to the big problem. If you don’t like these characters and especially are not interested in the redemption of Rudeus, this season is not only going to not change that, but it will probably bore you to death. This is why I must emphasize that I like this show, a lot actually, but it only really works if you have been immersed throughout the first season to such a degree that you want to see this tale be told.

A great season, but not one that stands out, that is what I am going to call it. I love it, but I am just some guy on the internet, so if you don’t, I’m okay with that. I have heard some crazy things about part 2 and I hope that I can be back in half a year to take every bit of criticism back, because this show truly deservers all the praise it is getting, even if it is fundamentally flawed.

Edit [15.04.2024]: Hi diddly do fellow neighbour, it appears that this is far and beyond, like completely unlike everything else, totally, without doubt, absolutely the most average thing I ever wrote. I just wanted to apologize for the whole debate part, I was having a lot of discussions with people about this stuff at the time, and while I still have the same position, I can't ignore how poor I argued it, a few of the things further up are just straight up bullshit, and I am sorry for underselling an industry-wide problem that we should not just silently accept.

Look, I don’t think this season is terrible, if you like it, you do you. What I do believe, however, is that this season is a tremendous letdown when compared to the first. That is also why this review is marked as [Not Recommended], not because this season is garbage, but just because I wouldn’t recommend it to people who liked the first one, like myself.

Let’s get the good stuff out of the way. The animation is just as good as it was in season 1, the same goes for the direction and music, though there are fewer memorable tracks this time. Voice acting is ... as Chinese as ever, and the OP and ED are both great.

Sadly, that leaves us with the writing, and, oh boy, is there a lot to talk about. I am certain that I missed at least half of the stuff I would usually critique a show for simply because of:

1. Focus. The show flows well from episode to episode, but it doesn’t build anything. This is a problem to such a degree that I thought this was still the opening chapter/arc, both after episode 2 and episode 8. In other words, it is fun to watch, but it doesn’t use its time. The story told in these 12 episodes is a laughably small and incoherent excuse of a show. There is nothing wrong with small-scale narratives, I enjoy personal drama just as much as big-scale action set pieces, which is why a lot of my favourite shows are romances, but Link Click just manages neither. It wants to be this action-packed thrill ride, without using its time to build up an interesting conflict. It wants emotional parts while having no interesting moral or emotional conflict at its heart. Likewise, it has the production to really make you feel something, the music, the direction and animation are all more than good enough to deliver these high points, but the writing just doesn't make that possible. Everything just feels so utterly pointless, if the conflict at hand feels uninteresting on its own and also completely detachable from everything that came before it. Our leads from season one were not designed to make for good emotional drama on their own, they function phenomenally at telling other people's story, but there is just no reason for them to be this deep into a conflict this shallow. The moral conflict here is basically on the level of "I don't want bad things to happen" and then the antagonist goes "Well, that sucks 'cause I'm evil". Everything seemingly is only built to deliver that one shocking moment per episode, it doesn't matter if that moment makes sense, it just needs to be unexpected. If you disagree, then might I ask you one thing:

2. Are cliffhangers really that important? Season one had a lot of the episodes end on a cliffhanger, and while I think that these cliffhangers made, for example, the first episode a lot more engaging, they don’t lead anywhere. We are giving up narrative complexity for popcorn entertainment, and I would be completely okay with that if it didn’t also:

3. The show lies to us. The more I watched season 2, the clearer it became that the writing staff of this show did not preplan a solution for the murder mystery of the first season. If you don't get what I mean by this, might I ask why the pink-haired guy from the second season, who is the killer from the first, killed Emma? He, his name is Tianchen by the way, also didn't even show up once throughout the entire first season, which makes it pretty obvious that they didn't preplan any of this. I wouldn't mind all that if it actually made sense, but Tianchen's craziness runs counter to that of the killer presented in the first 12 episodes, especially when we take into account that he is meant to act tactically under the control of Jin Qian (evil glasses guy). It is much like the cliffhanger, it is about the expectations, not the payoff. Again, if you just want some popcorn entertainment, that’s fine, but I care about this story, I want to take it seriously, and because of that, I am going to judge it like that. If you want me to care, to get emotional like I did watching season 1, to be hyped and frightened to see what happens next, then make a narrative that works. If there is nothing but the production, that I can call good, if there is not a single episode that doesn't completely shatter my immersion through nonsensical storytelling, then I can't enjoy this season. There is so, so much wrong with it, but it really doesn't matter, even though I could count immersion breaking bullsh*t for days, it can't break the show, because its core conflict already did. All this has once again to do with cliffhangers, so if you don’t get why these cliffhangers are so bad, and maybe you don’t understand what I am mad about, let me explain it by saying:

4. Season 2 feels entirely pointless. The arc starts by rewriting the psychopathic serial killer from the first season in such a way that he can actually be compelling. With this, the cliffhanger of the first season’s ending is pointless. If you have already completed the show, you might already know where I am going with this, but if you haven’t, I am just going to say that season two ends with a cliffhanger, and oh boy, is it a good one. If each and every cliffhanger this show has presented me with throughout 20+ episodes was worthless, then why should I care about this one? The writers proved, that they did not know the answers to the mysteries they set up, that they care more about the set-up than the quality of their narrative, so why in god's name should I expect there to be a good answer to this cliffhanger? When the next season comes around, I might be shocked to see that they actually had a compelling answer after all, and that would make me very happy and look kind of dumb, but it doesn't matter. Don't get me wrong, I still want these payoffs to be good, but the fact that the show has conditioned me into believing that they aren't going to be, already speaks more than everything I could write. If a show manages to disappoint you to such a degree that you lose all hope in future instalments, then that is a pretty big f*ck up, and even if they manage to turn it around, if they somehow crawl out of this hole and start writing a competent third season, even then, this one would still be bad enough to disappoint me to such an extent. I don't want this show to be bad, I love its first season and for a good 6 episodes kept telling myself, that this one would be the same, but it wasn't, it is so fundamentally bad in so many ways, it ruined the show's mystery, it doesn't have a compelling plot and at best manages to be fine popcorn entertainment. We are talking about Link Click here, one of, if not the best show of 2021, the fact that I can say these things about this show, the fact that it got so bad is both incredibly disappointing and just sad.

Look, I wanted to like this show. I absolutely loved its first season, and the second didn’t change that. I find it a bit sad to know that the whole murder mystery was pointless, but even then, season 1 is still amazing and well worth your time. Likewise, I cannot ignore the obvious writing flaws, the incoherence, and the fact that the writing staff completely failed to map out the story of their show. If you can ignore all that, if you can still have a good time with this, by all accounts, don’t let me, some guy on the internet, ruin that for you. But even then, I am not going to turn away and ignore how they completely messed up one of the most entertaining pieces of television of the last few years. If I want more Link Click, I’ll rewatch season 1, because this sure as hell isn’t the show it promised to be.

[This review was reworked on 06.09.2024 and by that I mean, I reworded a few things that annoyed me, fixed writing errors and made wording more precise]

[You know, spoilers might be in here, though I think I am subtle enough in using them. You have been warned]
Is Vinland Saga’s second season good? Well, if you were to ask me… yes, most definitely. That being said, the question that I want to answer or at least give my own opinion on is the following: Is Vinland Saga’s second season as good as the first?

Let’s get the one thing out of the way that is at least somewhat objective, the adaptation. Season 2’s adaptation is overall good, as expected from Studio MAPPA, though it is still lacking when you compare it to Season ... 1. I am most definitely overcritical here, as the adaptation is still more than good enough, that you don’t really notice its shortcomings, but it is not nearly as polished as Season 1, and I quite honestly don’t even think this is debatable. The exceptions here by are firstly the voice acting, which is just as stellar as it was in season 1 and the soundtrack, which is good but never was a standout feature in the first place.

Now that we’ve got the adaptation out of the way, it’s time for the hot takes, and before I start this, I just want to say once more that this is just my opinion, you can disagree with me, and I am absolutely fine with you leaving a comment under my profile, but I ask you to at least respect my opinion, even if you don’t agree with it. After all, if you feel like defending the show from me, some guy on an online forum, then I must remind you, “You have no enemies.” (And with that, we got the obligatory reference to prove that I watched the show out of the way)

Let’s start with the most biggest and controversialist take, Season 2’s pacing is too slow.
I 100% get why people are going to disagree with me on this one but hear me out. Slow pacing is great for the more methodical nature that Season 2 is going for, but there are two problems I have with this. The first, and hopefully least controversial is, that the story arc surrounding Arnheid was neither important nor good enough to be left in the show. You would of course need to rewrite a lot of the story for this to work, and I understand why they just adapted it faithfully, though that doesn’t change the fact, that the arc is still unnecessary. Yes, it is a conflict that is, subtly used for the overall message of the show, “You have no enemies”. It shows us what happens when people try to solve their problems with violence, and why doing that is a bad thing. My problem with this is, that we already got an example for just that in the main conflict near the End which I can’t go into detail about, because of spoilers. The other and probably way, and I mean way more controversial part about the pacing is, that the time the viewer is given to think about the show’s message is completely wasted. Why is that? Because it is not interesting enough to be thought about. You know what, I am going to make an entire section about that.

The morality behind Vinland Saga is a great one, and I am not going to critique how moral it is, that is beside the point. The question I want to ask is if the moral is interesting enough to be the central point of a 24-episode-long show, and if anyone actually cares. Now, I can only speak for myself here, and I got no experience with murdering people and that stuff, but I don’t think that you need to tell the viewer, that violence is bad. That is something you can tell a preschooler, but not the target audience of the story. The message is of course a little deeper than that, but I still think it is not nearly as methodical as the show makes it seem. I mean, the show can go ahead and scream “Pacifism is cool” all day long, but my reaction is still just going to be “Okay, I guess so”. Maybe I am just going insane here, but are there really people that stand up and go: “Oh yeah! Pacifism is cool!”. I mean, you would need to be completely new to the concept of pacifism to even find this remotely interesting, right? RIGHT?

But a show isn’t just its morals, so let’s start to look at the other stuff going on. Give me a second, it gotta be here somewhere…wait… Oh yes, I found it, there is the son of the farm’s owner, who wants to become a warrior. This gives us a counter perspective to Thorfinn, which also reflects how much Thorfinn has grown since season 1. And then, the son, becomes a pacifist, oh for goodness’s sake. Look, I don’t want to be too harsh here, but season 2 is about Thorfinn and how he grows. And Thorfinn’s growth is sadly defined by, well, his journey towards pacifism. I am not going to say that it is a negative that the show overall reflects this, it really isn’t because it only underlines the morals and strengthens both Thorfinn’s but also everyone else journey, as they are all bounded in the same struggle of survival and finding a place for themselves. But as should be clear by now, I don’t think all that highly of these morals, so I really don’t care, that the whole show revolves around them. Does it make the show better? Probably, at least, if you are interested in the moral conflict. Does it make the show more entertaining? Maybe if you need an 8-hour Ted-talk on why fighting is bad.

To end this, I am just going to repeat a few small things. Firstly, season 2 is good, it just isn’t as good as season 1. Secondly, the moral conflict is well-made but shallow. Third, the characters are well-written but not as entertaining, because they all feed into the same morals. And lastly, everything I said up till now is just my opinion, which might be different from yours. Leave a comment, if something made you confused, or if you have any other questions about Vinland Saga or anything else I watched. Though I must ask, that if you feel like critiquing me, which is absolutely fine, please enable your comments, because I want to at least be able to respond.

It is honestly astounding to me how much I ended up liking this manga.

I watched the 2018 anime adaptation of this manga around 18 months ago and, well, it was fine. I had an all-right time watching it and I gave it a 7/10. If someone asked me yesterday to recount every show I watched in the last few years, I am certain that this would have been one of the shows I would have forgotten.

Bloom Into You is a Yuri manga that I find to be part of the pinnacle of its genre, that being romance. This is to the point where I ... am actually kind of disappointed that this is a Yuri manga. I personally don’t have anything against this manga being the way it is, the problem I am referring to is more so about what the genre as a whole has become over the years because at least in its current state, I find Yuri as a genre to be about as well respected as Harem. This is a real shame as, as should be obvious by now, there are a lot and I mean a lot of qualities to Bloom Into You that make for an entertaining and thought-provoking read. All that being said, there are elements I want to critique before continuing to praise the manga for the many things it does better than almost everything I have ever read.

The first problem and the one that stuck with me at the beginning was how the situation the three main characters find themselves in is contrived but more importantly below the standard that the rest of the manga reaches. It is not a good sign when the first thing you think of reading something is Citrus. No, to let me clarify this is by far not that bad but “lesbian love triangle” just doesn’t sound like anything worth my time. The fact that their teacher was also lesbian didn’t help either and only made me more concerned that just maybe the entire town might secretly be a “lesbian love panopticon” like in Citrus, fuck Citrus. Luckily this story actually treats its readers with a shred of respect, though that being said we get to our next problem.

The first and especially second arc of the manga are very on the nose about what they are saying, to the point where they literally turn the emotional situation of one of the main characters into a theatre play. This would have been fine with me if I didn’t also just find the play they presented to be even more on the nose, which I can forgive because it’s a play, it needs to be on the nose, but it is also just nonsensically written. What really gets me about this, is that it wasn’t intentional the play was even written by a student everyone always praises for her writing to the point where she literally wins awards for it. Apart from the play dialogue from time to time just doesn’t feel natural to the point where Yuu’s monologue which, while thought-provoking, made Light Yagami look like the main girl from “A Silent Voice”.

Okay, that’s all, now to the good stuff:

The Manga is absolutely beautiful and I am so happy that the scans I read were in high enough quality to take advantage of the amazing artwork. The story is also elevated by creative use of panelling and symbolism which I do not know enough about to go into depth but I noticed them, so that’s a positive. It is also really really cute.

The characters are competently written and what surprised me the most I didn’t hate any of them. I was expecting to hate a certain character, everyone who read the manga will know who I am talking about, but she turned out to be really chill with the most offensive thing she did being, taking time away from the main characters. Out of which one was really enjoyable and the other, well let’s just say she had a lot of problems.

The story is a bit of a slow burner that tries to be a bit too dramatic with a few of its plot beats in the first half but never to the point that it bothered me. There were certain elements that, while I wouldn’t say felt forced, seemed to be implemented to force conflict and nothing else.

This is a last category I would not normally have but I think it is important enough that I need to write this. The next part is about the ending so full spoilers ahead, you have been warned.

If someone asked me 2 years from now, without me having read the last six chapters of this manga, to recount every manga I read in the last few years, I am certain that this would be one of the manga I would have forgotten.

For me at least, almost everything I like this manga for can be credited to its ending. I find it to be cathartic and immensely satisfying for a lot of reasons, but it also has a huge emphasis on closure. I honestly don’t care if someone were to make a point that from an artistic standpoint, it would have more value if Yuu and Touku didn’t get together, sometimes you just need stories that make you feel good, and this is just that for me.

[end of spoilers]

I kind of miss just enjoying something for what it is, something that becomes harder and harder with every show you watch, every story you experience, because as you become a better critic you slowly lose the ability to really immerse yourself in these stories. Constantly having to judge and critique everything, while fun in its own way takes a lot of the entertainment out of the media you consume. I think I haven’t liked something this much since I finished Kaguya-Sama over a year ago, which scares me in a way I can't quite describe. It becomes rarer and rarer that I find something I wholeheartedly love, and this manga does just that for me. It isn’t perfect but I loved it nonetheless. If I were to judge it, I would give it a 9 out of 10 but trying to rate it, it can’t be anything but a 10 out of 10 for me.

[This is as much a review of Season 1 as it is of anything that comes after it, that being said, I am not going to directly spoil any part of the plot]

Dr.Stone might just have one of the greatest premises in fiction. I find this statement to be a bit hyperbolic, but I fully agree with it. Dr.Stone’s premise is as genius as it is simple, sadly the show is a lot simpler.

I am going to start this review by saying that I didn’t really have a good time with this anime, I didn’t hate it (for the most time) but I was quite ... disappointed. To be perfectly honest I still kind of am because I to this day believe that Dr.Stone should have been a Seinen. Maybe it is just the fact that I will always believe that a more mature story is a better one, but I also just enjoy a show way more if I can actually take it seriously, and with that, we get into our first problem.

Every show can use comedy and if done right it will ALWAYS make it better. This is simply because you can’t have a consistently dark show that at the same time makes you deeply care about the characters. Even something like berserk needed comedic moments beforehand to let something like the eclipse hit as hard as it did. That being said, while I do find some of the jokes in this show funny, it completely loses any tension in return, which would be fine, I still had a good time with something like Konosuba and especially Grand Blue (which you should only read and under no circumstances watch) if it didn’t try to have a serious story in the meantime. This is why I find this story so disappointing because if it actually carried through with a more mature and better-developed cast, this show could have been an absolute masterpiece. What I wanted from this show were two rivaling factions trying to out-evolve each other in a technical war spanning multiple generations (that part isn’t as important). And while this is the story I wanted, there are a lot more elements that could have been incorporated like the tribes being dragged into the conflict between the two factions allowing for a third perspective on top of the already quite complex baseline I established in the sentence before. Geography is another element that could have been taken into the story (something they actually kind of start doing in season 3) and building territories and clear borders from the ground up, dividing the at the start close factions, as they form a front line between them and start expending across the rest of Japan, dividing it into something like North and South Korea. But that’s all of lesser importance, the one thing I wanted from this show, if it actually followed through with two factions, was that they would engage in a technological arms race, which finally brings us to the one thing this show does, and I must emphasize this, amazingly well:

The science part of this show is by far its strongest aspect, especially because of how non-science-bullshit-ish it is. Now saying this I feel like I must point out that I am not in any way educated in the fields of chemistry and physics, that being said, while I did notice the show simplifying a lot of the processes required to make certain things, the concepts on which these processes were based on, were logical. This part of the show, which I like to call its Robinson Crusoe aspect, is what sells it and makes it watchable, even with the many flaws the show has. But again, while the processes were close enough to reality, I would have liked it to make these simplified processes, well, more real. I know that a lot of people think this is completely pointless, but I am of the firm belief that it is again that sense of realism that is missing, which would be fatal for a show about science if it hadn’t already lost that with its over the top comedic tone. Though this part is getting too negative again, and I want to end this section by saying, this is good, it could be improved, but the science, it’s fun.

You know what isn’t fun? The story of this show. It is honestly astounding to me how bad this show’s story is, especially after seeing how much the author must have cared for it. I know I just said some mean things about the science aspect but writing all that still must have taken a lot of work, something that can’t be said about the story. You know what, you can hate me for this, but Sword Art Online’s first part had better story writing than this. Now, I do think that a lot of SAO’s mistakes, especially in later arcs are a lot more offensive than anything that ever happens in this show, but that being said, this show has that dumb “I am actually the final boss”-plot twist three times, progressively getting worse with each one. There is a scene in the second season, where a character says something like “We need to do this thing quick, or the big evil dude and his goon are going to show up here” and they do it, there is nothing indicating a failure, but the bad guys are still there, and it is never explained how they noticed them that quickly. Overall, characters just do what they need them to do, but while that is the case, they at least only rarely act out of character. Though while that's true, this show just has a character for everything, like really whenever the show needs something, it just uses the character that is magically good at that thing, need something to power your machine? Here’s a buffed guy. Need something to trick a person into thinking they are hearing their favorite singer (seems oddly specific, btw that song sucked, change my mind)? Here have a mentalist that is also great at card tricks, which he can for some reason use on flowers, and has the magical ability to imitate every voice with ease. Just to clarify, this is a minor problem, most times the characters are fitting, so you don’t really notice it, but that is more so because the characters weren’t designed to adhere to any kind of logic, but to just do the one thing they are good at.

On the topic of characters: I don’t like ‘em. Some are worse than others, with annoying blond girl really taking the cake for the most annoying piece of sh*t (which annoying blond girl I am talking about, I will leave for you to decide). Senku is probably my favorite, the only thing I really can’t stand about him is how the show portrays him as this evil maniacal madman who would do anything for progress, and then all he does is make a car. Maybe Senku was just ahead of his time, but I don’t think that the creator of the car knew what evil scheme they had released up on the world. Chrome is, eh, fine. Gen is fine, probably even one of the better characters, but this show’s cast just doesn’t have any depth. The main antagonist for the first two seasons, who is one of the most complex characters in the show, has probably as much depth as Akihiko Kayaba, to continue using our SAO comparison, but that guy at least felt interesting until the very end, when it was revealed that even the author had no idea what he was doing.

That leaves us with the adaptation, which is, again, fine. I don’t have high expectations when it comes to TMS-Entertainment. They did make shows like Fruits Basket and Takagi-san, but at the same time, they made Rent-a-Girlfriend, which negates all the good things this studio ever produced. The animation is fine, there aren’t any stand-out fights, and the backgrounds aren’t all that great either. It does have a few creative ways in how it depicts the science aspects, especially with the road maps, and the character animation is quite expressive. This however didn’t work for me at all, the expressive animation didn’t feel fluid enough to make me go “This is fun” and the exaggerated reactions only underlined why I didn’t like the characters and only furthered my disappointment with the show, like I already explained. The music is forgettable, I am not sure if it is good, I literally don’t remember a single track, but that also means that the music choices aren’t terrible. Voice acting is something I don’t like to command on as I don’t speak Japanese, but I think the voice actors did a really good job at capturing the absurdist nature of the characters, so naturally I hate them (this is a joke, I do not actually have anything against them, please don't get mad at me). That leaves the openings and endings, I don’t remember a single one of the EDs, but the first OP is pretty good, especially the start where the singer says “Ohayo Sekai!” Japanese for good morning world, after which he sings “good morning world” in English. The second OP is also ok, but I am not that big of a fan of the third one. The fourth one is a lot better but at the same time quite forgettable, in part because it’s the fourth OP and really doesn’t have anything to distinguish it from the other.

In conclusion, I am just going to say that, I really didn’t like this show, it has too many flaws I think too many people are willing to overlook because of its good elements, which are actually quite alright. It does have elements to distinguish itself from all the other shounen titles but fails to really become its own thing like something like Chainsaw Man, which is way more worth your time both manga and anime. I don’t see anything you gain from this and to be honest, find the claim that this will help you in chemistry class as hilarious as it is stupid. If there is any part of you that just enjoys watching videos or documentaries on things that you didn’t know you had an interest in just to go out of it thinking that you are never going to use that knowledge, there might be something here for you. That being said, be aware, I am one of those people and just like me, you might be disappointed by this show’s shortcomings.

(I had a bit of an argument with a friend recently, so I want to make clear that you can like this show, I've got absolutely nothing against people having a good time with it. Don't let me spoil your fun, just be happy that you were able to enjoy it as much as you did, sadly I just didn't, so please accept that.)

*This might contain some minor spoilers, though we are talking about Jojo here, so there really isn't a story to spoil.*
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The first part of this review is solely about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 1: Phantom Blood:

Depending on how you want to look at it, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 1: Phantom Blood is either the worst or the best part of the entire series. Let me explain:
Judging it from a critical perspective Part 1 is almost definitely Jojo’s worst part in all aspects. The art is of course the worst out of the entire series as it is Araki’s first work (in the Jojo series). Likewise, ... the Story is equally crude and nonsensical (a theme that, as will become apparent as you continue watching/reading, carries through all parts). On the other hand, it has one advantage over almost every other part: its length. In other words, if you don’t like Jojo, this part isn’t going to change that, but it is a way better experience than having to watch the agonizingly long part 3. As I personally didn’t really enjoy any Jojo parts except parts 4 and 7, I found this to be surprisingly watchable compared to most other parts. It is also hugely carried by expectations as almost everyone is going to tell you that this is just something you have to get through to get to the good stuff.

The problems really arise if you look at it as an indivual story, which it is. This is just from beginning to end a very crude and poorly developed story, and even the overall quite good production by David Production can’t correct that. Araki is undeniably a great artist but from the very beginning, he had huge problems writing more than individual fight scenes, something that carries through almost every following part. Due to its poor writing, I can’t really recommend this, though that kind of goes for all of Jojo. But even then, it is undeniable that, while I didn’t enjoy Jojo’s bizarre adventure, a lot of people did. So, while I, in all honesty, don’t believe that the series is good and even worth your time the rest of the community clearly disagrees with my sentiment and who am I to tell them that they are wrong in enjoying what they do.

Even if I can’t really recommend it, just by looking at the overall reaction, your chances are quite high that you are going to enjoy this, so go ahead and give it a try if you want. Though if you do, so I think you should skip this and maybe the following two parts along with it. I know that I just made a lot of people angry, but I can 100% promise you that you can start by watching/reading part 4 without having missed anything. There are going to be two characters that appeared before that you will not recognize, but I don’t think that anyone with more than 2 brain cells can’t recognize that and is going to seriously be confused. So as long as you are aware of the fact that you skipped parts, there really isn’t any problem with it, as the structure of Jojo was designed to allow readers to pick it up as it was airing.

In conclusion: This is a terrible story with its length being its only returning quality. I would recommend skipping it but if you really want to watch it, it is at least short enough to not take away all your time.
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The second part of this review is solely about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 2: Battle Tendency:

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 2: Battle Tendency marks the first cross-country adventure in the series, though with little insight into the cultures of those countries with the exception of Nazi-Germany, which they don’t even visit. In the end, the locations visited can only really be distinguished by the weather which is a real shame as at least for me that is one of Jojo’s biggest strengths. This is also something Araki hugely improves on in part three, though I have no clue how accurate the depiction of different cultures really is. But apart from kick-starting the whole adventure aspect and turning “Jojo’s Bizarre Time Dio made Jack the Ripper jump out of a Horse” into the titular “Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure” it is also just as terribly written as part 1.

I know I just made a few people angry with that statement so let me clarify a bit:
Part 2 is definitely more enjoyable than Part 1, but that is not due to the writing, which stayed equally terrible. The improvement over Part 1 can pretty much solely be attributed to Joseph Joester, our new protagonist. He is a lot more fun and creative than Jonathan, he is also a lot goofier but in a good way. Apart from that, we have a new mentor figure and a new sidekick, but they are just as bland as in part 1, so nothing really changed there. The new big evil is an even bigger evil that really makes you question why they spent 48 episodes in part 3 hunting and killing a vampire, something that Joseph does in literally one episode (though to be fair the vampire comes to him, and he doesn’t need to hunt him down as they do in part 3 which takes up around 90% of the show’s runtime, so it isn’t really a fair comparison, but it’s still kinda true).

Sadly Joseph doesn’t solve all the problems the show still has and while a lot of people are able to look over them, I just couldn’t so here are most of my problems:
The antagonists are far from an improvement over the already bland Dio Brando from part 1 and just making them stronger really doesn’t work. The fights while sometimes quite funny (especially the fight against a vampire that shows up at the beginning of the part) can’t impress with their animation, which for me at least was actually their smallest problem. They are not bad fights on their own, but they are way too ludicrous thus removing any sort of strategic element, even if the show is trying to convince you that it was all just strategy (this is one of Jojo’s largest problems and something Araki was never able to fix). I personally find strategy to be the most important element of any fight together with stakes, something Jojo most of the time fails spectacularly with the exception of one fight (you will know when you watch it). Sadly, with fights being Jojo’s central element there really isn’t anything to keep me watching apart from anticipation of how good the next parts are going to be, which is kind of sad as I think a good fight can elevate MOST stories to a whole new level if they are done well enough. For example, just look at what is in my opinion the best fight ever put to film, even if it’s more a battle than a fight, the Shiganshina-arc in the second part of Attack on Titans’ third season. I honestly think it’s hard to find a person with a critical perspective to not agree that this is power escalation done in the best way possible. I’m not going into too much detail as this is still a Jojo review, but no matter how much you like this show you can’t convince me that it presents even a single fight that uses stakes as well as strategy in a way that is intense, believable and actually strategic.

In conclusion, I would say that Battle Tendency is overall enjoyable but has little substance and if you aren’t a fan of Shounen and are in any way interested in actually good story and character writing this show/manga offers little to you, also, don’t even start watching/reading Jojo it really doesn’t offer anything to you apart from some truly amazing art.

Grand Blue might just be the most surprising piece of fiction I have ever read. It is not my favorite and for me at least, it is far from being a masterpiece, but that didn’t stop it from being way better than anything I would have expected.
Grand Blue by Inoue, Kenji and Yoshioka, Kimatake tells the story of Iori Kitahara who moved away from his home to the coast of Shizuoka where he moves in with his uncle, who owns a diving shop, as well as his two daughters. There he meets the diving club of the university he came all the way there to ... attend. After getting wasted together with them, he joins the diving club the next day, after which he gets a lot more wasted a lot more often.

As you might be able to conclude from the plot summary, this is a comedy manga before all else. It is absurdist, though never forgets its own rules. The characters might seem strange, but they always act in character even if that character is an alcoholic bisexual whore*, an alcoholic (ex)otaku with social anxiety or dare I say it, strangest of them all, a non-alcoholic who in addition also has a diving obsession. The colorful cast of the manga bounces off each other in new and creative ways in almost every chapter and the result is comedic tension that could even rival Kaguya-Sama, which I consider to be both the pinnacle of the comedy (and romance) genre as well as one of the best and my favorite manga/anime of all time. The really surprising part about this was, at least to me, that I am not alone in this opinion. The piece of fiction I would call closest to this would be the anime adaptation of Konosuba, which has a quite respectable score of around 8.25. Now, just to make this clear, I think that this is a lot better than Konosuba in almost every way, but it is still a comedy manga with not really anything else to say. This is what makes it so astounding to me that it has a score of above 9 (9.03 as of writing this review).

Part of the reason for it being this beloved is definitely its art, which is I would say perfect. That doesn’t mean that it has the best art, but that the art is just so good that it delivers perfectly in every joke and as long as it is able to do this, I don’t think you can call it anything but perfect, even if it’s not the most beautiful manga of all time. For reverence just look at the anime which is just, and I am sorry to say this, terrible in compression to this. A proper adaption of this manga would need a SpyXFamily-level production and even then, I think it would be hard to match it.

In conclusion, read it for the vibes, for the comedy, for the characters and don’t read it for the plot.

*Hey there pal, it is me, mister edit-man, it is the 23rd of April 2024 right now, gosh, crazy to believe it has already been a year, either way, I am here to say that the word "whore" is a poor and overall pretty sexist description of Azusa (the character I am talking about here) and I, as the pedant that I am can't leave something like this without at least adding my thoughts. The simple solution would be to stop reading my own reviews, but hey, I am a massive narcissist, so that's not gonna happen. To get back on topic, having a healthy sex life is not something to attack someone for yada yada yada, slut-shaming is evil and so on, you know the drill. That's all, sorry for saying a bad thing a year ago, let's just say I've learned that one over the years.

[Tried to keep it spoiler free, though I’m not going to guarantee anything because I did use references from the story to underline what I am saying]

I didn’t get Punpun.

That is at least what I believe, I mean there must be something, right? Something I missed or just didn’t understand. I mean, it’s the 10th highest-rated manga on MAL, so it must be good, right?
If you read this, I want you to give everything I say a critical thought, for I really believe that I’m just too dumb for this. Something this universally beloved can’t be as bad as I make it out to seem. ...

Art:
Punpun is all around beautifully drawn with an attention to detail, especially the backgrounds that you just don’t see in a lot of manga. This was, in my eyes, necessary to deliver the story it tells in a serious and immersive manner. Though, a few of the close-up shots of the faces (of members of the Onodera family) are over the top and don’t represent the mood quite right.

Characters:
I once watched a YouTube video that got recommended to me about some manga by Asano, Inio (the writer and artist behind Punpun) and the only thing I remember from the video was that the guy said “I’m afraid of starting to like characters in mangas by Asano because Punpun made me instinctively think that they are going to die”.
I quite frankly don’t understand this statement.
Firstly, while death does play a role in this story it definitely isn’t something like Game of Thrones or Chainsaw Man, Stories where you seriously don’t know who’s going to die, and in the end, the answer is most of them. This does not fit Punpun, as only a few people out of the main cast die. But this isn’t really the part of the statement that I don’t get, that would be:
Secondly, the cast of Punpun is incredibly unlikable. We will divide this into a few categories really quick:

Background characters:
These characters are purposefully unlikable. They are the society of Japan or the population of the world. They reflect our society and are the most obvious display of Punpuns’ underlying nihilism. This actually works really well, a bit too well even, to the point where I would literally call this manga unreadable. No, that goes a bit too far, it, of course, is readable, as I and around 150 thousand MAL users have read it all the way through. But I personally don’t get why anyone would willingly want to read this if they actually knew what it was. I’ve heard people say that this is depressing and that’s not even all that wrong, but I read this due to an immense lack of communication. You see, this is depressing, like the real deal. Not what everyone says when they watch something like Clannad. That show is sad, but it isn’t going to make you hate your life or anything. There is a huge difference between a sad story and one that is downright depressing. Reading a sad story is a kind of joy that I’m not going to begin to describe, as I’m not fit to do so, to be perfectly honest. But there is no positive in being depressed. It is quite literally the essence of negativity, so there isn’t anything to gain from being depressed.

Side characters:
These are mainly one-off characters and the cult, Characters that are involved in the plot but don’t have any necessary value apart from that one interaction. These one-off characters are fine and there really isn’t anything to talk about here, but the cult is a whole other thing. You know what, I think I’m just going to add a new category for the cult:

The cult:
The cult is a group of reappearing characters that are on their own little “adventure” and only interact with two other characters that are not important to the main events. This cult nearly made me go insane. Really, I just don’t get why this cult was even in the story, the way it appeared every now and then slowly growing in the background with a date set for the world to end was really cool. I thought this is going to be like Oddtaxi where you have these sub-stories that are going to collide and that the cult leader would, for example, win the election and riots would start or something like that. But no, the cult goes nowhere. There is absolutely no point in the story where the events of the cult become important to the main storyline.

The main characters:
I think these characters were meant to be likeable. They were (mostly) not. Punpun, the main-main-character is a whole other deal and will get his own section but when it comes to the other characters I just don’t see why I should care about them. These aren’t badly written characters, so just to make this clear I’m not saying that these characters were “bad”, what I am saying is that I didn’t care about them. There was not a single character in this story that made me think, oh, I wonder what they are up to. But by far the worst they get is when Punpun and Aiko are off on their own, and you get a whole chapter dedicated to what the other guys are doing. The problem was not that they were less interesting than Punpun and Aiko (though they definitely were) but that I still thought that this was going to have some grandiose ending and that they were just detracting from it. But to finally get to my biggest problem with the characters:

The Main-Main-Character:
I can’t stand Punpun, and I don’t understand why you would want a character like him to be the protagonist of your story. Punpun is an aggressively dumb protagonist, and maybe that’s just me overestimating how smart I am, but I don’t see myself ever acting the way he does. So, the most effective thing this character did was to make me fear that I might not know myself as well as I thought and that I might become just as dumb as the people around me. But even if that’s the case, even if that is the thing that the whole story is about, the thing I missed or didn’t get, that is still something I don’t want to be told in a way like this. I just don’t see any joy in screaming at my monitor, "what the hell is this bird doing right now?!"

Story:
This is probably not going to be all that long, since this is a mainly character-driven story, and thus I already said most of the things I wanted to say.
The way I see it there are two types of stories, personal stories (like A Silent Voice, March Comes In Like A Lion or Your Name) and larger-scale epics (like Attack on Titan, Vinland Saga or Kingdom). Out of the two, this is the former, though I was at least partly expecting the latter. Like I already said talking about the cult, I thought that this story would have a way larger scale than it seems, but that didn’t happen. What annoys me even more than that though is that I thought it would go out with a bang, which it also didn’t. I was sure that this was going to have an unexpected big moment in the end, I was thinking of the end of Se7en and Monster, but what I got was… I’m not even really sure, I don’t really know what happened, it just did. Maybe I’m alone or the minority in thinking that the ending was disappointing, but I wanted to have something that was worth all the bullshit I endured until now. I wanted to have something that would disturb me or if the author wanted to be nice which I didn’t believe to be the case, at least something like A Silent Voice. A moment that would make you think, it was all worth it but no, it just ended with an epilogue. This is fine, you can add an epilogue after the climax of your story to resolve its last few plot threads, but then may I ask where was the climax? Did I just happen to skip a chapter, or why didn’t I find it?

In the end, I won’t recommend this story to anyone because while I still think that it can’t be as bad as the thing I just read, that is the correct name on the cover and the characters are the same, so I’m pretty sure I did read the right thing. If you like it that’s fine, I don’t, so please at least respect that. Thanks for reading this mess of a review.
By the way, although I wouldn't recommend it, I couldn't give it less than 6/10, solely because of its technical achievements.

So, everything after this point has been written a whole seven months later. I had a lot of time to think about this story over those months, though saying it like that would probably make it sound more important to me than it really is. The reason why I am not going to delete the things above is simply because they are my true reaction to the work, and I think there is value in that. All that being said, over time I forgot how much I hated it for trying to make me hate my life, and thus I came to understand how well written this story really is. This is an amazing story, I am not going to debate that, that being said, I still don't like it. I am not going to change the score, because I still don't get why anyone would want to be depressed, but then again, there are people that love this, so there are people that seemingly find enjoyment in being depressed, even if I can't understand that. I don't get Punpun, I just don't get it, and that is completely fine. Trying to judge this behemoth of a story, I would probably give it an 8 or 9 out of 10, but I am not even trying to do that because Punpun simply is not the type of narrative to be judged, but one to be experienced. It is an emotional rollercoaster, probably one of the best ever made, but it is not one I will ever come to enjoy.

I love this show, it is one of my favorite shows of all time. So be aware of the fact that this review is a bit biased, I’m trying to keep it as objective as possible, though I cannot promise that this is going to be free from the influence of my opinion.
This review is split into two parts, part 1 is the review of the show itself, showing what it does wrong and right and what in my eyes makes it as great as it is.

Part 1:

Let’s start this with Animation because that’s the one thing everyone cares about.

Animation/Visuals: This is probably one of ... the weakest parts of this show, though that doesn’t mean it’s bad. The show never flexes its animation and to be perfectly honest doesn’t even have a chance to really do so. For a non-Kyoto animation slice-of-life anime, the animation is still good. It won’t blow your mind, but it still looks like a high-quality show all around, with the only thing I could really criticize about it being the CGI crowds, but it didn’t bother me nearly as much as other people. Though what it lacks in animation it makes back in its use of colour. If I wanted to describe this show’s style, I think I would go with inverted Ghibli. We go away from the more traditional warmer pictures that Ghibli uses in their movies to a sharper style which utilizes mainly shades of blue. Though this style never feels cold or dark, which I don’t know how they did that, but it’s brilliant. From what I’ve seen on my rewatch, the main thing they did was overexaggerate the blue and soft orange tones in the backgrounds, which set the mood perfectly (something we will get back to in the second part of the review).

Music/Sound: I won’t be talking about the sound because there is really nothing to talk about. But the music! This is honestly one of the best OSTs to any show I’ve ever watched, which makes it all the sadder that it isn’t on Youtube. I think this show’s score is up there with Made in Abyss, Attack on Titan, and Your Names as one of the best in all of anime. I’m not an expert when it comes to music but from what I can tell the music is composed with a piano, a violin, and a synthesizer. Its style is really unique and throughout all the years of me watching anime, I haven’t heard anything quite like it. It’s extremely comforting and suits the tone not only perfectly but adds on top of it.

Characters: Oh boy, this is going to be complicated, unlike most of the characters. Yes, the characters in this show aren’t all that complex, they all just face one or two problems that at times are painfully relatable. Though when I’m saying that these characters aren’t super complex, that isn’t a criticism of the show. You see, these characters don’t need to be all that complicated, for most people in high school just aren’t. Life sometimes might feel complex but looking in from the outside it really isn’t, and that’s something the show knows. Its second arc is all about showing that part of high school life and how even small things can quickly escalate and ruin a friendship. Though, to get back on topic, these characters are incredibly well written. While they may not have a super complicated backstory, which to be honest would probably only hinder the show’s relatability, they are so entertaining that even just a conversation between them becomes incredibly addicting. My main complaint with the characters would be how the show handles them. Because while the cast is great, there certainly are some characters worse than others. To put it simply: The side characters were stealing too much time from the main characters and their romance, which is also why the first three episodes are by far the best. This is not a problem unique to Bunny Girl Senpai, and it becomes way more apparent when watching shows like Horimiya. Though it was at least for me a way larger one due to how invested I was in the romance, with Mai being my second favorite female character right after Kaguya Shinomia from Love is War and Sakuta being hands down my favorite male character of all time.

Writing: This is going to be a bit shorter because Bunny Girl Senpais’ story is so intertwined with its characters that a lot of what I want to say about the story has already been said in the characters section above. Its story being structured into smaller 3-episode long arcs makes it easily accessible to almost anyone. The first is the best one of the entire show, and also its biggest flaw. By opening the show with such a banger, the viewers will most likely be disappointed by anything following it, and I was certainly one of those people. Though while what followed isn’t as great as the beginning, it still is an amazing show. The biggest criticism I could give it would be that the arcs all have a girl they focus on and sadly Mai is that girl in only one singular arc. I already said this, but what this show lacks is just that in my eyes. You have a colorful cast with people I really like but all you do with them is make them go on adventures with the main character with close to no interaction between the girls outside their respective parts.

Conclusion: If you haven’t watched the show and think that what I said up to now sounds like a good time, go do so. If you already watched the show and liked it thanks for reading until now, I hope you enjoyed it. And if you are someone that watched the show and can’t stop screaming about how much you hated it, the next part is the thing for you (also thanks for reading all this text, that surely must have been hard)

Part 2:

Now the one thing I keep on hearing people criticize about this show: That it’s a cheap knock-off of the Monogatari series which doesn’t bring anything new to the table.

So, I’m going to talk about the two core claims in this piece of criticism. First that it’s a knock-off of the Monogatari series and second that it doesn’t bring anything new to the table.

Is it a knock-off of the Monogatari series?

Well, this kind of depends on what you think a knock-off is but from what I’ve heard the main point of criticism is the following. Sakuta the (male)protagonist helps girls with their unnatural problems. Oh, how could I forget that part of Bunny Girl Senpai, I didn’t mention that once in the review section above. It’s almost like that’s not really what the show is about.
Yes, that is a part of the story and saying something like “that’s not what it is about” without talking to the author is a pretty bold statement. But if you cut out all the stuff with the puberty syndrome, what are you left with? A handful of high school students alone with their problems, with nobody who helps them. Puberty syndrome is a plot device but its main function within Bunny Girl Senpai is to build the connection between our leads and the side characters. Behind all the science bullshit and dumb explanations lies a fear of isolation and a desire to connect. That is what the show is really about, to not be left with your problems, alone in the dark. But to fight them face-on. (or so I think, which kind of demolishes my whole point because I haven’t proven anything and most likely didn’t convince anyone who already hated the show)

Did Bunny Girl Senpai bring anything new to the table?

As you can see by reading the previous section, I already think that Bunny Girl Senpai was its own thing from the start with maybe light inspiration from the Monogatari series. But when it comes to a show like this one, there is a lot more to take into account than what it is at first glance. Though talking glance that is actually quite a good point. These shows are completely different in the fact that they feel different alone. Monogatari is an abstract look at Japanese literature and folklore while bunny Girl Senpai is a deconstruction of students’ fears. This is reflected in how the two shows look, and even if it wasn’t, they still look and feel drastically different. What you are essentially doing by calling them the same is taking a look at two properties with minor as well as major similarities in structure and seeing a connection where there really isn’t one.

If you really think that Bunny Girl Senpai didn’t do anything that Monogatari didn’t do already, you are hugely overestimating what Monogatari did.

In conclusion, rewatch Bunny Girl Senpai, and then Monogatari, maybe the other way around too, they are both amazing franchises that are well worth your attention. Please don’t scream about either of the two because they are both good the way they are.

(edit 01.03.2024 - I lowered the review score from an 10/10 to an 8/10 as it was at least in my eyes not a critical judgement, but one entirely based on personal bias, for me this show is still a 10/10, but as I was unable to properly and reasonably convey why I see it the way I do, I also can't claim this score to be critically sound. Thus instead of trying once again to better argue my position, which I just can't be bothered to do right now, I lowered the score to fit the review, as I find it utterly meaningless if a score is not representiv of the perspective given in a review.)