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Tesla Note, the second coming of Ex-arm... Is it that bad? Kind of yes, but mostly for different reasons.

Don't get me wrong, this show is ugly. 3D is half-baked at best, constantly supplemented with bottom-tier 2D (outside of nice backgrounds), inconsistently animated (sometimes quite well, sometimes atrociously when the team rushed important scenes and patchworked stuff together in the most jarring ways). It's not as broken as Ex-arm and not as hideous as Gibiate, but that's basically the only positive thing you can say about Tesla Note's looks. At least the inappropriately-high-quality voice cast does their absolute best to bring the over-the-top characters and cringy ... comedy to life, giving the show some kind of charm...

However, it all can't distract you from how stupid it all is. Not the weird-anime-shit kind of way, more like something written entirely by a not-very-talented grade schooler. The plot is nonsense, the pseudo-science is insultingly dumb whenever it even tries to explain anything, and all of that is already bad... But the character motivations and everyone's behaviour in life-threatening situations are just unforgivable. Nothing makes sense here and the longer the show goes, the less it comes together. And it's not like it gives up on telling a story, it tries to have both comedic and serious moments, comic relief characters and people we should care about... But it's just so shallow and fails so hard to follow any kind of logic. I don't think I've seen anything this poorly-written since Skelter+Heaven and I'm willing to believe 90% of it is s***-tier source material. Why did anyone bother to adapt this into anime? I can't begin to imagine.

Do not watch, unless morbidly curious.

I wouldn't dare to say that Conception is good, because that's obviously not the case. It is, however, quite misunderstood and hated way beyond what it deserved.

Conception is, plain and simple, an over-the-top and absurd parody of harem fiction. It nearly never treats itself seriously and simply does not function if you're looking for ecchi, romance or even traditional comedy. It's funny through absurdity, cringe, misplaced popcultural references and deeply uncomfortable plot developments that together made you question how anyone was insane enough to write it down, and especially to make it into an anime. If you ever expect it to follow some kind of ... logic, unironically strive for cohesive storytelling, or even deliver some sexy times without inserting some deeply unsettling elements, you'll be beyond disappointed. But if you embrace the insanity, it can actually be a very fun and unusual experience. Clunky, obnoxious and pervy in all the off-putting ways, but just too outlandish to not leave you with some kind of strong impression. You'll either love it, or hate it with a burning passion – and I'm personally firmly in the "love" department.

So, are you ready to make some magical children through way-less-sexy-than-they-sound "love rituals"? You should probably either way – in my adventure with anime, I haven't seen a show this unjustly vilified, so keep an open mind and give it a try.

While advancing at a breakneck speed for most of the runtime, this series is a lovely romance story that does the isekai formula better than any other with a female lead I've seen. Primarily because Aileen herself is a fantastic main character – smart, driven, charismatic and not overpowered in a way that would take away from any of her achievements. To save herself from a bad ending she has to use her wit and willpower above anything else, with memories from her past live serving as clues rather than ready-made solutions. This keeps the plot (which can get intense despite the overall lighthearted & ... humorous tone) engaging, and make you root for her deeply despite her hardly being a saint, spending most of her life ruthlessly navigating the world of nobility and fighting for her position with pretty much all available means.

Above all that, there's really nice romantic chemistry between Ileen and the demon lord, her aggressive attitude contrasting with his reserved and brooding nature in both hilarious and charming ways. You can also easily understand how what is initially an alliance of convenience quickly turns into genuine affection that blossoms more and more during the season.

The somewhat rushed plot (the first arc, concluding in episode 4, would probably be enough for a full season if they took it slow) and average production quality are definitely visible and keep me from giving this series a higher rating than 8... But speaking purely from personal enjoyment and satisfaction, I loved it. It's pretty much everything I ever wanted from an otome isekai, and I'd very much like to see more female leads like Aileen. Not a masterpiece, but highly recommended.

I wasn't super into Toaru specials when in their early iterations, as they were a bit too reliant on references to other shows, some of which I'm barely familiar with catching up on the series years after its initial release... Then they switched to specific seasons spoofing the hell out of themselves and the voice cast mercilessly parodying their own character. This special also focuses on self-parody, taking Accelerator's "villain" persona to some absolutely hilarious places. It's arguably the most fun thing about the whole Accelerator spin-off, besides some Last Order and Misaka clone scenes, and I didn't exactly hate the whole show, just found ... it very inconsistent...

Hard to say much more about something this tiny, but I had a few very good laughs from it, so that's worth something.

A lot have been said about King's Game since its release and as you can imagine from my 1/10 rating, I won't be arguing against the general consensus. However, I still wanted to express my utter disgust with not the edgy nonsense that constitutes the main content of the show, the utterly dogs**** writing and structure of it all.

The cringy attempts at exploitation horror story are at least something that will appeal to some and give laughing material to others, even with the crappy gore and dozens of dumb characters you can't possibly care about. However, most aspects of the story, if you pay ... any attention, are unforgivably, almost uniquely bad. The present action and flashbacks from protagonist's previous King's Game are intertwined in the most confusing and pacing-killing ways, to the point that I often wasn't sure which characters are from which period. Also, the anime immediately makes it clear that nearly everyone will end up dead, so there's no real tension or emotional involvement – particularly with how many dumb, generic teenagers we're meant to follow, how little we know about them and how quickly they all die. Also, whenever it seems that the series will do anything interesting, it immediately falls back to the same, stale formula – particularly with the few non-lethal punishment for failing's tasks, as all of those people quickly end up being dead anyway. Even the mystery plot and the few reveals we get are mostly nonsensical and pointless... Including the ending, which sets up a somewhat interesting moral dilemma for the surviving characters and than makes it completely meaningless with the clunky sequel bait.

This is not a horrible show when it goes to production quality, but when it goes to substance, it reached lows I haven't experienced since watching Mars of Destruction. It might even, and I'm not exaggerating, be the worst anime I've watched in my entire life. Approach at your own risk.

Putting the obvious foot fetish on either the mangaka's or anime staffs' side, Akebi's Sailor Uniform is an unusual-feeling take on slice-of-life. The formula itself is extremely simple, just daily live of some middle schoolers in an all-girl school... But if I had to somehow describe the feel and aesthetic of it all, it would be "yuri without romance". Instead of your typical moe blob, you have a group of genuine-feeling young girls portrayed with an insanely-refined artstyle, including utterly beautiful vistas and obscenely-detailed stills of characters that are used for crucial scenes. It's this kind of highly-feminine, but not vulgar aestheticisation that immediately ... sets it apart from most "cute girls doing cute things" media.

The core content though is pure saccharine in the most glorious form. Akebi herself is basically the perfect idol material: cute, smart, friendly, driven and incredibly energetic. While having very little contact with kids her age in primary school, because of living in a somewhat remote location, she deeply wishes to make friends and basically the whole show is just her overwhelming positive energy consistently breaking the ice with anyone she meets and inspiring others to follow their passions. It's optimistic and pleasant to the extreme, with little to no drama or problems that can't be quickly overcome by the sheer power of will that Akebi inspires in others. This also means the actual "story" of the show is extremely limited – it's just vibes and the relatively slow rhythm of school life, presented to you for the very explicit goals of relaxation and eye candy. And if that's what you're looking for, and if you don't get spooked by the somewhat frequent feet closeups, you really can't go wrong with Akebi's Sailor Uniform.

A somewhat flawed introduction to a great slice-of-life series.

Aria is a pretty unique anime, as it creates a rather high-concept sci-fi setting and uses it for pure slice-of-life, nostalgia-driven storytelling. The episodic, usually low-stakes stories are tailor-made for you to relax to, taking in the beautiful vistas of terraformed Mars and observing the amusing interaction between the Neo-Venezia's gondoliers-in-training. Obviously its all accompanied by equally pleasant and fairly memorable music - the show really knows what it's going for and adjusts every aspect to strengthen those chill vibes.

Why I started with "flawed" then? While the later seasons of Aria really polished the formula into a ... very consistent and mystical experience, the introductory work laid out here not always hits the mark. This is particularly true for episode concepts, which sometimes devolve into long sections of pseudo-philosophical drivel instead of delivering a sense of wonder and showing us meaningful parts of the alien-but-familiar world. Also, the exploitable gags are slightly overdone, the animation can be clunky... The first season does a good job at introducing the main characters and setting up the general tone, but all the slight adjustments done later down the line simply make the series become a much greater experience.

All of this makes Aria the Animation something of a stepping stone – far from an unenjoyable anime in general, but one that you might sometimes get slightly bored by and is worth going through above all because of the higher-quality content it leads to. When the season 2 kicks in, you're quite used to the formula and the quirks of the whole series (like the protagonist's Marsian cat and its constantly-present weird noises) and can fully appreciate the highs it consistently reaches from this point on. Thus, despite my own experience being very slightly ambivalent, I highly recommend giving this series a chance and offering it a tiny but of patience while it spreads its wings.

Kaguya-sama might not be the best anime ever, despite it's near-perfect rankings, but by the third season it definitely is peak romcom and I can hardly imagine a show doing this formula much better.

I mean, I can't say I even like romcom manga and anime, both harem and not. They are usually extremely meandering, overstretched affairs that never get to the point because that would resolve the plot and kill the cash cow. For proper enjoyment, they need to be either fairly short and the-the-point (which is very rare in this format) or so well-written and funny that you don't mind the painfully slow progression ... and lack of closure. Kaguya-sama is clearly in the second camp, as the structure with relatively short skits and the top-tier comedic writing keep it fresh for a long time. However, it'd still get annoying if not all the subtle plot progression and character development in late season 2 and season 3. The relationship between Kaguya and Miyuki looks very different by the end of this season than it did at the beginning, but also all the student council members show some forms of growth and treat each other with more honestly and appreciation. Despite the formula staying very similar, this is not a never-ending loop of exploitable jokes, but a proper, slow-burn romance story that kind of happens in the background of constant gags, always managing to end a season on a satisfying note and transform itself in subtle ways.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that the production quality and voice acting are just legendary. This elevates the creative episode concepts and witty gags to a whole new level, basically making the perfect use of the strength of anime as a medium. Like I've said before, I can hardly imagine romcom being done better and unless you utterly loathe the genre as a whole, Kaguya-sama is a must watch. Without a doubt, 10/10.

While I'll try to not go over the top, I still have to wholeheartedly agree with people disgusted with parts of this OVA. The fanservice scenes it opens with, basically 90% of its first half, are completely detached from the tone of the show and honestly quite distasteful even by the average fanservice episode standards. Particularly because you don't get just fanservice happening in some typical setting like a beach of a swimming pool, but the male part of the Student Council imagining it while browsing magazines, which just goes directly against their characters. If this was some very brief skit that immediately let to ... some karmic retribution against them, I wouldn't complain much, but it also drags for an uncomfortable amounts of time and offers no real punchline.

Honestly, if the second half of the episode didn't bring the very wholesome and relatively fun cook-off skit, I'd be tempted to give it all a 1 or 2. There's just nothing witty or fun about the whole porn arc – it clashes horribly with what the show is about usually and isn't even good fanservice by any measure. If you watch this OVA, just skip to around the 13 minute mark immediately and enjoy the funny parts.

Ah, "Adachi's Gay Panic the Anime", falsely titled as "Adachi and Shimamura"... It's a lot better than I expected.

To be fair, I completely understand why a lot of people are not too hot about this brand of cliched, slow burn romance, but I think Adachi and Shimamura has a lot more redeeming qualities than people are willing to acknowledge. I find the way the actual romance is portrayed, with Adachi being unreasonably infatuated and awkward, and Shimamura kind of just going along with it without much thought is not that unrealistic or over the top. Adachi's relative isolation and lack of social skills, along ... with slow realisation of her homosexuality would be a very anxiety-inducing mix for anyone. With no experience on dealing with such intense emotion, she becomes a bit of a tropy disaster-lesbian, but again, there's nothing in her behaviour I couldn't imagine a real person doing – it might not be particularly healthy how Shimamura dominates her thoughts, but that's just something for the story to work through.

Shimamura, on the other hand, is a kind of person that was once very active and outgoing, and still manages to hold some friendships and blend in, but deep down is quite apathetic and aimless. She mostly goes with the flow, without much drive to put more than lowest necessary effort into things (and sometimes can't be bothered to even do that, which leads to her skipping classes and meeting Adachi). She accepts Adachi's attention without giving it much thought at first, and somewhat passively tolerates her awkward behaviour... But there's more to their interactions than that. The show very much shows that while Shimamura is slow to truly appreciate her friendship with Adachi and even slower to realize it can grow into something more (also because she doesn't think of herself highly enough to identify Adachi's clumsily-masked feelings), the girls draw out the best out of each other. It particularly applies to Adachi, who had literally nothing to look forward to in school and was just drowning in isolation, but they both receive something to work towards in this new relationship. It's a warm and hopeful story that goes beyond romantic cliches, but shows how people need each other to thrive.

The show is also gorgeous and soothing, offering exactly what you'd expect from an adaptation of such a high-profile yuri property. It also has some great attention to detail, like Shimamura's natural hair colour gradually showing up, or one of the friends getting tanned during summer vacation and being drawn with darker skin tone for a short while... Things you usually don't see in anime. Its main problems, apart from not everyone being into this kind of story, is likely the pacing and short nature of the adaptation. It would just need a few more episodes to keep the romance progression more balanced and deliver a more satisfying conclusion. As the show didn't exactly conquer the world, I don't think we'll see more anime from this franchise either... Still, I think both for yuri fans, and fans of cute romance stories in general, it's very much worth it.

Edit: Oh, and the secondary yuri couple, who are the old friends of Shimamura, is really cute. Always a nice bonus.