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This is trash, but in an oddly enjoyable sense.

At first glance, this anime may seem like a discarded candy wrapper in the vast dumpster of anime offerings.
But like that unexpected and unopened candy bar found underneath a dumpster, it's either a guilty pleasure waiting to be indulged, or something to chuck into the garbage can, it really depends on the person looking at it to give it a chance.

Let's address the elephant in the room: this anime isn't winning any awards for originality or depth. It's the kind of series that wears its clichés proudly, serving them up with all the subtlety of a ... sledgehammer. But weirdly enough, that's part of its charm. It's like the guilty pleasure of ecchi or the frustration-fueled fun of video games like Rainbow Six Siege. You know exactly what you're getting into, and yet, you keep coming back for more.

That said, predictability is the name of the game here. If you're hoping for a mind-bending mystery or a plot twist, you'll be sorely disappointed. But if you're willing to deal with the predictability and watch, you'll find a certain comfort in knowing exactly where the story is headed from the get-go, because its story has so many context clues on where the story is going, that it's kinda ridiculous.

Yeah, it's not groundbreaking, but it doesn't pretend to be. What it lacks in originality, it makes up for in its trashy consistency. From the first episode to the latest episode at my time of watching (4th episode), it maintains a steady level of enjoyment, never veering too far from its established tone and style.

So, what's the verdict? In my eyes, it's a 6/10.
It's not breaking any new ground, but it's holding steady in its lane. And sometimes, that's exactly what you need from a series—a reliable, if somewhat predictable and trashy, source of entertainment.
That being said, it's up to you to choose to take a chance on this anime or let it pass you by, the decision ultimately rests with you. But who knows? You might just find unexpected enjoyment in watching this.

🗿 6/10, It's predictable and trashy, but it's fine 🗿

An excellent anime with a lot of add-on problems which are annoying.

Firstly, this anime is qualitatively very good, and is an 8/10 in my opinion. But that doesn't detract from the many issues that keep this anime from being a masterpiece.

These issues would roughly come down to three problems; 1-Characters, 2-Pacing, 3-The Ending.

1. Characters:
The characters are really well done when they are on-screen, the problem arises when you actually see the amount of characters that are main characters that maybe get 40 minutes combined for all MCs that are not Rose and Usato for the entire season. This is probably an issue of this anime ... only being 13 episodes long, and not 24–26 episodes long.
This is probably one of the most annoying issues with the anime, because Usato over the span of the season becomes way less interesting as a character, while every character shown on screen besides him has a much more interesting personality, for the most part. This isn't a very big issue, as this anime is probably meant to have a second season to expand the characters and locations, but this does become very much a problem for pacing (get back to it later).
Next would be the characters that cause some issues with the plot, or are somewhat annoying or useless & are used almost entirely as a plot device; The biggest offender of that is Blurin, it isn't the fact that he is not a decent character, actually they are good at points, the problem with him is that he is an overused "comic character", meaning he interjects with many scenes when plot happens. This isn't a bad thing for a good deal of anime, but when a character like this is overused and gets repetitive because their entire purpose is to interject themselves into scenes to stop conversations that extend the plot, it really makes a good character become annoying, plus makes them disposable for comic relief, which is what Blurin becomes, he only interjects in serious scenes to draw away from the plot, which is really repetitive and upsetting. Another character which has issues is Kazuki, he has almost no story the entire season, and you do not see his advancement of techniques like you do with Suzune, he basically sits on the sidelines more than side characters like Blurin. Kazuki makes almost no impact on the story this season, and is almost as rememberable as the guards at the castle, which means, he is not very memorable.

2. Pacing:
The pacing for this anime is all over the pace, the first portion of the show really pushes the story forward, then after the first half the story really starts to slow down quite a lot, which wouldn't be a problem if it didn't seem to artificially extend itself, but it tends to make episodes that really could've been combined with another episode. Episode 13 is one that could've been part of episode 12 if episode 12 had a faster pacing that didn't extend battle scenes to be 15 minutes of the episode, this could've been compacted into 13 easily if the pacing was more uniform across the series. This also isn't too much of an issue, all things considered, but it is a bit weird how the producers set up the episodes, where it needs to force itself off of conversations using Blurin or another character as a plot device when the producers realize they used too much time on one scene.

3. Ending:
It ends on a sharp cliffhanger, which means that you will have to wait a very long time for another section of this anime to be adapted from the light novel. This is probably the worst aspect that a show can force out on a finale, especially when it seems like it wasn't exactly where the plot would've gone to and ended where they could get away with it. This is by far the worst part of this anime.

Conclusion:
This anime is definitely worth a watch if you can stomach a cliffhanger of an ending, if you cannot then this might be a very underwhelming series for you, but I still would recommend giving it a try before you might give it up.

🗿 8/10, Absolutely Bussin ONG 🗿

"Villainess Level 99" should've been a masterpiece, but it turned out to be good instead.

Honestly, this series was really disappointing, and not in the way that it is overall bad, but it just felt like it had much more potential than what it concluded with...

What I mean is: Characters don't really have very much characterization, and the plot feels a bit skewed.

1. Characters don't really have very much characterization:
The entire plot tries to focus around the next hero's party, which makes sense why they would work towards that because the plot proclaims that the demon king will attack. The problem with this isn't the ... fact that the characters do stupid nonsensical stuff, the issue is that the story doesn't actually focus around the main character "Yumiella Dolkness" for a decent portion of the series, especially after episode 6.
This is a problem since most of the "hero's party" are somewhat useless characters that don't make a difference to the plot. The only characters that actually somewhat matter to the story are; Yumiella, Alicia, and maybe Edwin. The other hero party members, William and Oswald, are basically all meant to draw a fake romantic conflict between Alicia and Edwin. That being said, there simply isn't enough time for you to get enough development to like these side characters to actually get to really liking them, plus it actively destroys the MC's own character development and likability since there is less development and screen time actually showing these characters gain traits.

2. The plot feels a bit skewed:
This almost entirely only comes into effect at the end of the season, the finale with the demon king was very uneventful for an ending, and didn't come across as all of what it should've been. The last episode felt rushed, while the rest of the series felt very slow, possibly due to the amount of time the anime focused onto side characters, as I said in #1, but it also doesn't help that the characters were pushed out to fight a character that the viewer has no knowledge of, and the anime didn't make a good impression with the demon king.

This isn't to say that this show was any bit unwatchable, it's actually pretty good. The lack of distinct focus on the plot and narrative really just hits this show right in the guts, making it feel much less worthwhile than contemporaries.

Overall, this is a good anime though, it just has some issues, and had a lot of potential.

🗿 7.5/10 🗿

A Decent story, held down by generic adventurers and oversights.
A few episodes are well-made, but there are also a lot of episodes that are boring and have obvious oversights. Sometimes watching cable news might be preferable to watching some of the episodes.

These more mediocre episodes start at episode 6 and grow to be even more mediocre until episode 8. Of course there are decent scenes in these episodes, but that's it, there really isn't much outside of these fight scenes that drive the viewer to watch this anime. Thus, this causes people to drop it before coming to better managed episodes like episode 9. ... Episode 9 entirely kept itself interesting throughout most of the episode, only becoming more stale when there are long scenes with lots of chatting.
But then it gets even worse, after episode ten in feels like it's drawing the story out just to waste time. It's not fun if a few episodes are mediocre. But, when it gets to be boring, it gets worse than when it's mediocre and full of oversights, it actively makes you not want to watch the next episode.

(Small Tangent on this Anime's Oversights):
In episode 11 there are people who can raise stone barricades/defenses from the ground to protect their town, doing so they raise the stone barricades within the town's walls.... AND The wall is made out of wood..... do you see what I'm getting at? Why wouldn't they make stone walls to defend the town using these mages?
I know it is small, but when I noticed it, it bugged me. Makes you wonder if the writers or producers took the 20 seconds to think this through. I think it tells the overall quality of the whole anime from this scene. [Maybe I'm being too harsh?]
(End of Tangent)

This gets into another big complaint; The absolute amount of time taken up by conversations.
Ever hear of the phrase "Show, Don't Tell?", this is something this anime should've focused on, there's so much chatter about going into the dungeons, that the producers could've just shown a quick plan between the party and saved a lot of time each episode wasting time explaining the obvious.

Lastly, the ending is just bad. Has final fight has zero thought put into it, and the boss is incredibly forgettable, and some of the scenes feel cringy and quite generic.

Overall, this is kinda mediocre. So, this probably isn't worth watching over the good deal of other anime that have much better production and story, like Frieren.
But I wouldn't say that there are a lot of issues besides the oversights and boring scenes. This anime just isn't captivating (especially after the sixth episode).

🗿 5/10 It's Mid 🗿

Top-notch story telling + Amazingly well constructed characters + Great visuals + A smooth flowing episodic story leading into a bigger central narrative = An Undeniable Masterpiece.

At this point, everyone who has watched Frieren knows how well the story flows. The way it keeps itself on topic with an interesting plot each episode is a testament to how well done this story is done. Nothing that you watch here ever feels like you're drudging through the episode to complete it, as such it ends up making that 20 minutes each episode, feel like 10.

The characters have an amazing dichotomy where they all have weaknesses where ... the other party members will have to take up the other's weaknesses and use their abilities to help the party. The characters are not from something like an "OP Level 100 main character anime" where the MC's have zero flaws. Far from it, Frieren's characters passively gain abilities and constantly improve themselves as the story goes on.
That being said, Frieren's characters have a captivating personality, that are not just a blank slate, they actually have a lot of relatability that doesn't come across as forced or shoved onto the viewers face within the first few episodes. It actually shows every character's individual growth and personality changes throughout the series, and not just the main cast, but side characters too. And with their personality, comes their fighting style, which comes across in each fight the characters get into.


The two worst parts about this entire anime is that when you binge-watch all of it on a day off, you'll have no time left for anything else for the day. Not to mention the fact that we will have to wait for a second season to (Hopefully/Eventually) come out.

🗿 10/10 Anime of the year & it's a “MUST WATCH” 🗿

This is an anime that easily could've been a 7/10, but due to it's horribly made antagonists and abysmal pacing, it makes this an obvious 5.5/10 due to it being so immensely bland that it isn't worth your time.

Then you may say "why did you mark this as a not recommended, instead of a mixed feelings?", this is simple to answer.
The answer is, it's bland and is cookie cutter levels of basic, with no real personality, but doesn't do anything inherently bad or good enough to be positive. As such, it just ends up to be immensely frustrating for how much potential it has ... but doesn't do anything with it, causing this to be utter trash.

- More precise reasons why this isn't good, and some positives down below -

Reasons why this absolutely sucks:
1. Way too many characters in the harem, which I mean it has 4 extra members that it really could do without. Being more specific, Kanade and Tania are good enough for this series, they have enough energy and comic relief, that this anime would be just fine with them only. When you get past these two members of the harem, it vastly decreases their screen time, and these two characters are by far the least annoying of all of the other MCs.
It would be interesting if the MC "Rein" could combine his beast followers, so they could get a mix of the personalities and character of these beasts that he adds to his harem. I say this because it could get rid of the many characters in the harem that feel like a baseless add-ons, and makes the characters be more interesting with more unusual skills. Alas, this story doesn't do anything interesting like that, and just makes a lot of side MCs that follow the MC around like Pokemon to it's trainer.
2. The episodes (especially late season) have horrid pacing. This entire season, could've been put into 9 well organized episodes because most of these episodes have useless stuff that happens and takes away a lot of time that can be put towards actually improving the story and characters.
3. The personalities of the MC is so generic, that you cannot even see any reason why the harem characters would even like him. He is the equivalent of a side character in any other anime, yet here he is portrayed as an MC, when he has zero personality. Not to mention, he is so unrealistically positive every moment something negative happens, that it makes him more generic and more dislikable.
4. The antagonist hero's party is so unbelievably stupidly crafted, it's a wonder how they once stood on their own merits. This anime went with the most generic way of making an antagonist just unrelentingly hate the MC for having some skill, and doing so, it actively makes the anime much worse. A case with this can be the fact that we never even see the party actually get anything done, as such, how is the hero's party even supposed to have any notoriety, or have a semblance of helpfulness, to have these reputations. If the viewer could see a sensible reason why the MC can be disliked by the antagonists, it improves the story massively, and can show some personality for both sides.

Reasons this has very good parts, and the reasons it doesn't help enough, plus what it misses:
1. The MCs Kanade and Tania are really well done, probably the best in this anime, the problem with this is the fact that no other characters get the same level of characterization, even Rein. This ends up just make you start to feel the rush of the show pushing more characters in your face every other episode that do not have the same interesting personalities that the first two beasts had. This makes it become more frustrating as the series goes on, and there is no progression for the MC and his original two beasts that he had tamed.
2. The way this anime flows should've had a more "Spice & Wolf" esque story, where the MC just completely leaves his old party behind, and meets two beasts that he tames, then travels across the lands. This would fix 70% of the issues with this anime, like personalities, they would just get expanded on as the show progresses and the MCs would gain likability. For characters, they would be shortened down to the two main MC beasts and Rein, which would fix the issue of having far too many characters crowding up the story.
3. The potential for this anime is immense. These issues I have pointed out, can easily be fixed in another season, though I doubt they would cut down the number of beasts, and get a more defined focus. However, this is not to say that most of the pacing issues and characterization issues cannot be easily fixed in another season, these wouldn't take much to clean up the story by far. If another season came out, I would probably have low hopes, but I would still recommend giving it a try if a future season ended up above a 7.1+ rating on MAL, then this season might be more worthwhile to watch through.

All in all, this is mid. I wouldn't ever re-watch this, and probably wouldn't watch a future season unless it got good reviews and a 7.1+ rating.
🗿 Kinda Mid, 5.5/10 🗿

Worse than the first season by far.

I liked the first season of "Banished From The Hero's Party", I am not disliking this because I just hate the series, I actually liked season 1, but the second season just became stagnant with no real cohesive narrative holding it together that it becomes flat out boring.
This is mainly because it lacks a decent antagonist that drags decent drama, like how the antagonistic mage "Ares Srowa" pushed the story along for the first season, season 2 doesn't have a clear cut antagonist and it is on episode 4 which is ridiculous.
Moreover, season 2 lacks that drive ... and focus that the first season had, like it cannot get itself back to the narrative that it once had and get to it's main focal points that make the show enjoyable, such as Red and Rit's progressive relationship, or small potion sales in Red's shop.
Season 2 (shortening to S2 from now on), tries to reinvent the wheel, and doing so it for some reason focuses more on ecchi shots from the female characters naked in the bath than continuing its story and making it cohesive.
It tries to play into incest with Ruti and her brother Red for some reason, even though it never needed to be brought up, then overall shows a full 10 minutes of actual story if you combine parts of the first 4 episodes.

Overall, this all is really upsetting, mainly because it has lost it's uniqueness within S2, and become a non-ecchi labeled title, that obviously is an ecchi and tries to force naked bath scenes each episode (I think I saw 3 bath scenes in episode 4 for reference).
It could be good too, but it gives the viewer any no actual story to what the major plot points should be focused on, since it doesn't bring up the plot and try to make it cohesive. I suspect the studio was rushed to push this out due to the huge disparity and change in the quality of production between S1 & S2 and the way it is directed is just not nearly the same as S1.

S1 was good, S2 is a bunch of ecchi "gooning" material (Who would watch this mid fake ecchi, when there is hentai?).

Unironically this is disappointing, maybe finish it if you wanna get the series off your list, or want a bit of generic bath ecchi with something that can barely be considered a plot. Me personally, I recommend staying away from this to most people, or to drop it because it doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon story wise.

🗿 5/10 🗿; Now made for the goon squad. (5/10 is optimistic)
[Thanks for reading]

A show that is so amazingly good, only held down by it's lack of well made drama, that comes off as bland and milquetoast-esque, and it's very slow development throughout it's 12 episode run.

First off, this is not a bad anime, it just does some things very poorly, which can lead to the viewer feeling pissed off by it's lack of focus on the central romance plot. Secondly, I rated this a 7, so it wasn't bad, but it is very annoying and frustrating how it has the potential to be a 10/10 show, but doesn't make use of nearly any of it's potential.

All of ... the show's problems leads down to 5 major points.
1. The romance between Kobeni and Hakuya progresses extremely slowly, which it feels like it doesn't progress enough to lead to the conclusion of this series. This is by far the most frustrating part of the show because when progress is made, it is undoubtedly very well done, but it happens at such an undeniably slow pace that it gets really frustrating to watch, since it feels like the romance actually progresses once every 4 episodes.
2. Lots of filler content gets to be hard to bare. This kinda coincides with #1, since the filler content feels like 60% of the series, where no progress is made, partially leading to the slow progress for the romance between the two MCs.
3. Dumb & annoying characters that are there just to disrupt scenes. I am directly stating Benio, Mashiro and Konoha for this, they all take the stage for 70% of every episode, with very little focus actually being on the main point that Kobeni and Hakuya are engaged. Now they are meant to be this way, to be comic relief, but they take up far too much time in each episode that it doesn't allow the engaged couple to get closer to each other emotionally.
4. The engaged couple maybe gets ~15 minutes of alone time in the whole 12 episode run. This ties into all other complaints here, in the fact that it's so unrealistic for their love to be deepened when they get almost no alone time to actually chat and learn each other in all of these episodes.
5. The ending is so stale with tension that shouldn't exist, thus it makes much of the show feel mute, like nothing was gained and ruined some of the development that happened previously.

All together though it really is a good/decent anime, one that I can overall recommend, but cannot say that it is altogether something that I can recommend to everyone.
If any two of the points I pointed out makes you not want to watch then I wouldn't, this anime takes a lot of patience to push through for something that is overall good, and if you do not have the patience then you will be upset and it will likely make you frustrated.

🗿 7/10 🗿

You ever watch something you think is going to wind you in, but it just doesn't?
You ever watch something you believe you should really like but it fails at showing you anything that would intrigue you?

This is the epitome of "Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable!", it never goes the extra mile to actually get the watcher to fully care for the characters, besides basically showing the viewer women that are the most beautiful ones in class and having them fall for the MC like a harem, without actually giving them a full personality.
What I mean is that they do have a personality, but it ... feels undeveloped to the point that it's questionable to why they would fall for the MC. Not in the way that you do not get why the characters like the MC, but to the point that it feels forced and rushed onto the viewer, like it should take itself slower and not push itself through plot points.
Next, this show takes itself too seriously most of the time, it plays like it wants to be a serious romance anime, when it should focus more on it's comedy, which is lighthearted comedy and doesn't always play off of it to what it could, plus it's a bit repetitive since most of it is "Oh no by boobs brushed against you!!!" or "Oh no you fell on top of me very suggestively..." kinda playing itself like an ecchi.

This doesn't mean that this anime is bad, it just rushes it's pace to an abnormal degree, and has a somewhat repetitive lighthearted comedy, plus it is a bit of a harem in some ways. That being said, if you dislike harem type anime, you may get annoyed with this anime, but if not then you will probably enjoy it.

🗿 6.5/10 🗿

An interesting, but very basic CGDCT anime, that is entirely made to be a time-waster.

Is this anything special?
Well... Not really, It actually doesn't have much to talk about, since it feels like every other basic CGDCT anime for the most part. BUT, it has Mahjong, and it is the only thing stopping this show from being entirely obscure.
That being said, I think the producers kinda expect people who already go to watch this to have knowledge on the mahjong, since not a lot of it is really explained, so you the viewer will be somewhat confused on what anything means, or at least if ... you are like me (a poor visual learner, who cannot decipher basic mahjong tactics with the tiles).
All that out of the way, mahjong really is the only defining point of this anime, I personally cannot sense anything special for the characters here since they are very forgettable.
Other than that, I have found problems with this anime's art, that being the side shots of characters sometimes look very mediocre and makes a very obvious quality changes within scenes, which is very noticeable if you pay any attention to the screen.

Other then the fact it has mahjong, I really do not see anything different from any other typical basic CGDCT, like having chats while eating, etc. But it's still early and I cannot fully judge a show on it's first three episodes entirely, but it really doesn't give off the vibe of being a surprise 10/10 sleeper anime this season, so this in no way will be the next anime that can compete with K-On for being an amazing CGDCT.

Probably would recommend it though if you like slow CGDCT and have a basic understanding of Mahjong.
To anyone else though, its kinda generic and bland to some degree and probably will not be too intriguing, unless you like generic CGDCT animes or wanna be shown mahjong every few episodes.
🗿 6/10 🗿