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Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha MOVIE 2nd A's
Genre: Action, Magical Girl, Drama, Sci-Fi.
Length: 1 movie, 2 hours 40 minutes.

A side note guys - I ADORE the "Mahou Shojou Lyrical Nanoha" series. It's my favourite series. Therefore I may ramble on a bit thoughout this review.

This movie is a retelling of the 2nd series, "A's" ... Most retell movies only have improved animation going for them, truncicating the plot to cram it into a shorter time limit. Nanoha had previously proved an exception to this, as the first movie not only perfectly retold the season, but ADDED details and backstory. It's a bit interesting to note now ... that 2nd movie DOES cut out a rather significant plot point, but I always hated that particular plot point, and never thought it made much sense. It's replaced by some more character development for Adrmial Lindsy and Chrono's father, which is a GOOD thing.

Animation is amazing. It's easily a 10/10. The movie budget does not disapoint, as even the most complext of action sequences do not present a dull in animation.

Action is incredible, it looks amazing and feels amazing. Much of the high impact action is intertwined with some fairly emotional moments (Such as Nanoha fighting down Reinforce while Fate struggles with her identity)

Characters are as likable and fun as ever, with Nanoha and Fate taking center stage in all their glory. Interestingly, the yuri overtones between the two appear more obvious than the series (theres seriously a moment where they hold onto each others hips and stare into each others eyes....) but that's pretty cute. Nano-Fate is a thing. In the actual series, it was a bit more subtle. A non intuitive viewer might've had more trouble picking up their relationship. It's more obvious in this movie. Take it or leave it whether thats good or not. I'm personaly indifferent.

My only disapointment was the end scene: In the series, it shows Nanoha and the rest grown up, in their "adult" forms. This was such an incredible highlight for me, marking the end of an era and the start of something amazing (Nanoha StrikerS). In the movie, only Fate appears SLIGHTLY older (and even then, by about a YEAR at maximum) and the rest are looking the same age. I can only hope that the StrikerS movie appears!

SORRY! I tried to keep this as short as I could, but this IS a movie from my favorite anime series. Anyway, 100% recomended!

Dog Days Season 2
Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Ecchi, Drama (Minor - DESPITE what it tries), Romance (IF you can call it that).
Length: 12 episodes, 24 minutes each.

Dog Days is about a athetic and OVERLY FEMINIE boy being yanked from our world, to fight in the wars of the magical land of Fronyaldo. Only, those wars are more like athetics events, and anyone who "dies", just turns into a cute little ball of fluff for a while.

Season 2 picks up with out hero Shinku (Or Cinque, or Sink, or Shink, Or Cink, or nutty von solo) returning to Fronyalda after the events of Season 1. This ... time he brings along his two best friends, Becky and Nanami.

Without spoiling anything, I will now say this. Dog Days SERRIOUSLY needs to get a grip on what it is. That is to say, a light hearted "fun" series. Thats what the wars are in its world, and it's what the anime itself should be. It always starts out like this, only to skew off toward the end. Unfortunatly, the first series though it could be a darker, demon fighting show, which it failed at. The second series seemed to understand that it wasn't that, but tried to focus on "Character development" and Ecchi. I'm not complaining too much about the ecchi (Although its downright redicolous that people who are "defeated" are suposed to turn into little fluff balls, but instead, just seem to loose their clothes now), but the "character development" is crap. It focuses too much on the girls carrying on about how they love Shinku, and not enough on anything else. Sorry Ladies, but I choose to believe (And I swear to god this is true) that Shinku is gay.

Add to that the whole introduction of two awesome characters who don't do a bloody thing, and you've got a mess of average battles and below average plot. The only redeeming quality. Beautiful artwork and some fanservice.

I'm not being kind to Dog Days because I believe it fucked up something that could've been awesome fun. I recomend this series only because of its sheer "non-seriousness". Watch it inbetween anime series, like you'd chew gum between meals.

Shukufuku no Campanella
Genre: Slice of Life, Comedy Magic, Drama, action (minor), Ecchi (Minor)
Length: 12 episodes - 24 minutes each.

I'd had Shukufuku in my "To-Watch" list for a while. I'd downloaded the Blue-Ray versions, so I knew I was going to be getting an HQ expereince.

The first thing I wanna say about Shukufuku is it SCREAMS "RPG game". It's EXACTLY like an old style RPG or MMO game. You've got the character classes (Engineer, Mage, Swordsman, Pupeteer, Berserker etc), a fantasy world, standard monsters and a big boss fight at the end. Know this before you get into it, because it stands SO faithfully to that ... trope. Which, in my opinion, was a GOOD thing.

Shukufuku is about a guild in the land of Ert'Aria called "Clan Oasis". It's headed up by the pretty mage Carina, and includes the bishounen (and very feminie) main character Leicester (Which is pronouced "Lester" by the way). When a huge burst of magic activates a VERY human like automaton named Minette, who calls Leiceter "Papa", the Clan takes her in.

Now, without giving away any plot details, I can tell you that Shukufuku is a very relaxing anime. The quests the guild goes on involve taking on some monsters now and then (so yes, theres action), and then a mildly darker plot involving Minette pans out at episode 7.

Now down to the review.

Shukufuku is a really fascintating watch. I've never watched anythign that adheres so typicaly to the old RPG style before. Swordsman (Or swordsWOMAN in this case), Pupeteer, engeneer and Mage are all present. 90% of them are female by the way. In fact, only Leicester and the main antagonist are men. Oh and theres "Nick" a Berserker warrior in the guild who's so unmemorable it took me 5 episodes to remember his name, and everytime he showed up I had to remind myself he existed.

Shukufuku takes it slow. VERY slow. Theres next-to-no "plot" for 7 episodes. Well there IS plot but its simple quests and adventures that involve taking on low level monsters. In a way, its a very "realistic" aproach to a fantasy world. If you lived in a magical land, it's NOT going to be monsters, villians and save-the-world adventure everyday like "Fairy Tail" would have you believe. In fact, it'd probebly be quite peaceful, which is what Shukufuku is. For this reason, Shukufuku is more like a "slice-of-life" anime than anything else.

Shukufuku has a beautiful art style thats soft and uses light colour shades. It's really well done and definently one of the most appealing parts of the anime.

Shukufuku moves at a relaxing pace right up until the final episode, which features a host of awesome, high impact action scenes. Unfortunatly, this feels a bit rushed. I really wished they'd had a few more episodes. Hell could have been a 24 episode anime and had a bit more time to develop the final lead in. I was pretty disapointed with the last part of the fight, where for no reason, a holy sword appears infront of the swordsman with no lead in.

Characters is where Shukufuku shines! Leicester, the male lead, is really likable as a guy. He's not really like other male protagonist. He's geninuly a good guy who does his job. He isn't very strong or overpowered, he's just inteligent. He's of the "engeneer" class, he makes things. His weapon is a cool gunblade he made himself. I really like that they made an engenner the main character instead of the swordsman. He's very relatable. Handsome too, as almost every girl in the series is after him. But thats a given.

Carina, the cute mage girl and female lead was my personal favorite. Like Leicester, she's relatable. It's not like she's the ultimate mage who excelles at all spells. She's just a strong spellcaster. That's about it as well. In terms of physical strength, she's weak.
She's the type of character who's mature and calm about everything. Even when in the fight of her life, she remains calm enough to focus her spells.The only time she ever gets worked up is in a comedic way when another girl gets close to Leicester.

Of notable mention here are the twin girls Salsa and Ritos. They are a hillerious duo of guild workers who use a stone-mech Golum. Salsa tries her best to do the right thing, but Ritos is detirmed to troll her at every point. It's so funny, with Salsa getting worked up over Ritos sheer "I don't give a shit" attitude.

Sound and music matches the art style fairly well. It's calming and soft most of the time. It's not really notable. I barely remember it, so I wouldn't call it fantastic.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. Shukufuku is adapted from a hentai eroge, like fate/stay night. It retains a little ecchiness because of this. In reality, it probebly would have worked just to leave the few hentai scenes in. Theres one scene that's blatently a lead in to a H-scene but is obviously removed.

Ecchi is limited to a few full-nudity shots in a bathroom or changing-clothes enviroment. It's good because it feals really "natrual". Ecchi anime often feature clothes being toarn apart in battle so characters are fighting naked. This doesn't happen in Shukufuku. (The characters DO take clothing damage, but its not like "oh no, my entire clothes have been destroyed showing off my boobs". More like "damn, tore my skirt"). It's not actualy fair to call it an ecchi.

Overall, Shukufuku no Campanella is enjoyable, but not that memorable. It's going to stick with me mostly for its chracters and adherence to the RPG style. It's not an amazing anime, BUT it's worth a watch. Check this one out if you have some spare time and it sounds like your type of thing. Just know that its going to be a fairly basic ride without a lot of thrills and only simple action.