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I watched Yoru wa Mijikashi Aruke yo Otome, also known as The Night is Short, Walk on Girl. Here are my thoughts:

This movie is the spiritual sequel to The Tatami Galaxy (Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei), and I enjoyed this movie much more because it didn't have the awful whiny MC that made me dislike The Tatami Galaxy so much, although other familiar characters are present, such as Higuchi and Hanuki. The art style is also quite similar to The Tatami Galaxy – I appreciated it. The visuals are creative, unique, dynamic, and entertaining to admire; it is a nice satisfying visual feast. Overall this is a ... very 'artsy' movie that would be enjoyed by those who like avant-garde abstract experimental stuff. That said, the OST and voice acting are nothing special, in my opinion.

There isn't much of a coherent story and I never felt interested in the plot. The dialogue in some scenes is kind of neat, but the overall storyline just isn't engaging at all. Superficially, this movie basically just feels like a series of absurdist scenes mashed together. It seems like a veiled allegory for the brevity of life, or something of that nature. It's up to your interpretation, but there's definitely a deeper message lurking in here. It's not just a series of random mashed-together scenes; there's clearly artistic intent here, but it's up to you to unravel it however you wish. There are numerous scenes focused on alcohol consumption, which I enjoyed. Drinking is a prominent theme in this movie, although ironically it's well suited for being viewed under the influence of cannabis.


My overall rating: 6/10
Yoru wa Mijikashi Aruke yo Otome is quite visually interesting but lacking a substantial concrete storyline. It is abstract in both artistic form and its writing. I found some parts mildly boring but in general this is an entertaining movie if you calibrate your expectations correctly.

Those who enjoyed The Tatami Galaxy would definitely like this, and even those who didn't may find this movie superior or at least redeemable. In my opinion, it lacks many of the flaws that plagued The Tatami Galaxy. Although hardly perfect, this movie occupies a niche unsatisfied by most anime; it is certainly unique.

I watched Ballroom e Youkoso, also known as Welcome to the Ballroom. Here are my thoughts:

First of all, let's get one thing out of the way: SENGOKU IS INSANELY WILDLY SMOKING HOT.
...*ahem*
Okay so yeah by the way in other news this anime is an absolute masterpiece.
And uummm
*checks notes*
HYOUDOU IS FINE AS HELL.
I mean, uuhhmmm, actually this is one of the finest works of art ever made.

... Seriously though, Ballroom e Youkoso is spectacularly mindblowingly terrific.

This anime is about a teenage boy's journey into the world of competitive formal dance. In some ways it feels like a sports shounen, but also has far vaster appeal than the typical audience for that. The dance scenes are phenomenally captivating. They are so dynamic and well choreographed, with excellent cinematography and screenplay; they are joyfully entertaining and I couldn't help but rewind them over and over. There is an impressive level of detail paid to the technical aspects of dance – you can tell that the author cares deeply for the activity and is knowledgable of it. I appreciated this level of authenticity – it is one reason among many why Ballroom e Youkoso is actually a fantastic sports anime.

The character designs are enthralling. The facial expressions are exceptionally well done. The overall level of attention to detail in the character animation is way beyond what I'd expect from typical anime. The characters in this consistently look fantastic and the character animation is excellent. Conversely, the animation of the backgrounds and setting could have been done better, but this aspect of the visuals is certainly adequate, and the focus is rightfully on the characters anyway. Lighting effects are used well during the dance scenes and take advantage of the point-source nature of the dancefloor lighting. The animation quality of the scenes unrelated to dance is solid but the real spectacle is on the dancefloor. Also, there's lots of dazzling jewelry and so many gorgeous ballroom dresses it's heavenly, OMG!!

Ballroom e Youkoso is one of the best-directed shows I have ever seen. Every episode is packed with emotion, to the point that I could not avert my gaze if I tried. The thrilling excitement of the dancefloor is joyfully contagious. The script is well written and oozes passion and emotion. The cast has a wide variety of unique interesting characters – I found myself wishing that the supporting cast got more attention.

I have mixed feelings about the MC (Tatara). He isn't a bad MC by anime standards, but some of his qualities irked me. At times, I did not like his voice acting. He sounds a little too meek and childlike, although I suppose it fits his character. He often sounds whiny as well. He's just kind of unpleasant to listen to, especially because the show is frequently narrated by his internal monologue. He uses this wimpy tone of voice all the time and it becomes grating to hear after a while. I thought all the other main male voice actors were solid though. The female VAs are a mixed bag but none of them impressed me.

The OST is decent but it could be much better. I definitely felt some squandered potential in this regard. As you can probably imagine, a show focused so much on dancing would certainly benefit from a better OST. The music of this show, although still solid, didn't realize its full potential. I usually wouldn't be this harsh, but a show exclusively focused on dancing should have a strong music component, and it didn't quite rise to the occasion in this respect. Perhaps some of the classical music is iconic and expected for this activity, but I wouldn't know.

Although the entire series is delightful, I enjoyed the first cour more than the second, primarily because the second cour involves the introduction of a new female lead character who is a textbook tsundere, which resulted in a lot of generic cliche character dynamics that I found tiresome and predictable. As much as I adore this anime, I will concede that Chinatsu is sometimes quite annoying; I liked the MC's other dance partners far more than her. However, I do understand why the author added Chinatsu to the story – she is an effective foil to the MC, and they have weirdly compatible chemistry, like opposite magnets attract. Chinatsu's childhood friend (Akira) is also annoying, and I found her entire story arc generic, tedious and predictable. Both those insufferable angsty bitches need to go catch a dick, shut up and relax.

This might sound counterintuitive, but I think there's a significant possibility that your typical shounen fan would enjoy this show. I say that because there are a lot of 'hype moments' and, even though the theme is ballroom dance, the excitement and adrenaline is reminiscent of more-traditional sports anime that are often celebrated by their target audience. I would urge a potential viewer of Ballroom e Youkoso to give it a chance even if the dance theme is something they ordinarily wouldn't seek out. Fundamentally, this is an excellent sports show, and it follows that your average sports anime fan is likely to enjoy it.


My overall rating: 10/10
This is what the anime medium was made for. I absolutely LOVED it. Ballroom e Youkoso is like a dream come true. I got an immense amount of enjoyment out of this anime; no other medium could have done it better. My only significant criticisms pertain to the excessive bitchfight drama during the second cour, mainly revolving around Chinatsu, as well as the weak annoying voice acting for the MC. Otherwise, this anime is truly phenomenal and does a spectacularly mesmerizing job of showing the viewer the world of competitive formal dance.

I watched Seiren. Here are my thoughts:

Seiren is the spiritual sequel to Amagami SS. The stories of the two series are apparently unrelated aside from some character cameos. I can't verify this because I've never seen Amagami SS, but I enjoyed Seiren enough to consider picking Amagami up.

Seiren is an anime original but it very much feels like a VN adaptation. The 12-episode series is split into thirds, each of which is devoted to one story arc. These story arcs each involve the male MC making a romantic connection with one of the girls in his highschool. Seiren is a romance show and the vast ... majority of its runtime is devoted to that purpose.

The MC is your typical meek spineless loser – this is particularly annoying in this context because he never initiates anything and it's nearly always the actions of the girl that move the scene/plot along. It's hard to get into the romance when the MC has the pickup game of a limp noodle (probably not the only area he doesn't perform in). The writing quality of this anime has prominent highs and lows – there are moments when the show really shines, but also some unnatural awkward-feeling scenes. It can be cringe-inducingly corny. Some of the drama in this is totally banal; entire scenes are devoted to insignificant highschool gossip. The story is sometimes convoluted, hamfisted and dumb. However, I enjoyed the romantic scenarios themselves – they felt natural and organic, as if they were a fond memory of your adolescence.

At first glance, Seiren seems like an utterly forgettable garbage anime; my expectations coming in were very low. What surprised me is that the scriptwriting is often exceptionally well done. Although there isn't much explicit nudity, this is a sexually charged show. However, most of that manifests itself through the dialogue. I appreciated that this anime creates eros through the power of suggestion, dialogue and context, rather than lazily relying on sexual visuals like so many other trash anime. In this sense, it is a well-crafted show.

Seiren's greatest strength is the way it sets up romantic tension. It doesn't really deliver the goods in terms of romantic climax, but it does an excellent job of teasing you. It does this with minimal use of fanservice and sexual visuals – it's all in the story and dialogue, which is actually quite impressive. The girls are usually wearing these hideous conservative school uniforms, yet the sexual tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife – this speaks to the impressive scriptwriting and direction quality of the series. The romantic scenarios are lifelike and believable – I've found that's fairly rare in anime, so this is noteworthy.

To be clear, eros is not the only selling point here – Seiren is also sweet, wholesome and innocent in some ways. I often felt like this anime was cuter moreso than romantic; it has a borderline 'puppy love' feeling. Similarly, Seiren never really delivers romantic climax; it just sets up romantic tension but doesn't follow through. This is hardly uncommon in romance anime, but even so, the lack of satisfaction is palpable for most story arcs, and some viewers may find this disappointing.

The visuals in general are low quality. The character animation is pretty bad, and I often felt like the facial expressions lacked detail. However, the character designs are more realistic than typical anime, which I appreciated in this context, although those atrocious pale-yellow sweater vests belong in a tire fire. Similarly, I found the soundtrack to be mediocre and low quality. None of the voice actors impressed me, although some of the character songs are not bad.


My overall rating: 7/10
Seiren has many flaws: an annoyingly meek impotent MC, corny dumb storylines, and overall low production quality. Regardless, there are many exceptional romance scenes in here with excellent scriptwriting and tons of intimate tension. Seiren delivers the 'girl-next-door experience' and feels quite lifelike and believable; it is a great adolescent romance simulator.

I watched ID-0. Here are my thoughts:

ID-0 is about a naive astrogeologist girl and a group of space bandits, some of whom are minds trapped inside robot bodies, who engage in illegal space mining. Things go wrong during one of their illicit excavations and the plot spirals from there. All the characters have unique personalities and I enjoyed the chemistry of this motley crew working together.

This show is actual genuine science fiction and frequently invokes intriguing sci-fi concepts such as digital consciousness, robotics and cloning. The story is interesting and engaging; it incorporates mystery elements well and does a good job of 'peeling back the ... onion' as the plot progresses. As a whole, ID-0 is quite creative and unique; it feels like a hobby project moreso than a commercial anime.

ID-0 also seems to have a budget as low as a hobby project. All of the character animation is CGI, but it doesn't look completely awful and I didn't find the faces to be uncanny or unsettling in ways I've experienced with CGI animation in the past. A lot of the celestial landscapes are cool and the show looks best when it is depicting spaceships, planets and things of that nature. Although they are infrequent, the action scenes in this, especially the space battles, are actually quite entertaining; the CGI looks nice and dynamic. There are also lots of awesome spaceships, and the celestial environment is a nice backdrop. I couldn't help but laugh at the space motorbikes with the decorative-flames paintjobs – they fit the mood of the anime well. In some ways, ID-0 is metal as fuck but also doesn't take itself too seriously; it's a really fun ride overall.

The soundtrack is somewhat unconventional but fits the atmosphere of the show. The OP/ED songs are endearingly cheesy. I liked the voice acting for Grayman and Rick.


My overall rating: 7/10
ID-0 is an endearing passion project with a unique intriguing story, fun likeable cast, and lots of cool creative sci-fi stuff mainly relating to space, robotics, consciousness, physics and the like. If you can overlook its janky visuals, ID-0 is a great sci-fi show.

If you're a fan of actual science fiction (i.e. not space romcoms) then you would likely appreciate this show. I enjoyed it way more than I expected.

I watched both seasons of Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e, also known as Classroom of the Elite. At the time of writing the third season has not yet aired. Here are my thoughts:

This anime is about classes of exceptional students who compete with one another for ranking and currency within their school system. The story feels like it was created in the mind of a teenager, but it is watchable and does create suspense. The plot is sometimes impressively intricate and does a good job of weaving together the actions of many independent parties in a competitive environment. That's essentially what Classroom of ... the Elite is about – the behaviour of people in a competitive situation. There are some interesting strategic dilemmas with regard to the point system used by the school. In fact the elaborate strategic thinking that is effectively presented in this show is its best feature.

Classroom of the Elite is an extremely juvenile show even by anime standards; the target audience is clearly teenage boys. A lot of screentime gets occupied by dreadful childish comedy that is usually crudely sexual in nature – it's barely a step above toddler-tier toilet humour. This anime is quite corny and often hard to take seriously. As you might expect, there is some crude sexualization in this, mainly in the form of tits and ass prominently featured. Most of the female characters have huge bolt-on gattling-gun tits that are borderline comical. Also, I know this is an unreasonable complaint given the title and premise of the show, but I found the focus on exams and academics to be tiresome, mainly because I've seen it done so many times in anime. I find it difficult to care about trivial schoolyard drama.

Everything about this anime feels dated to me – the OST, the art style and character designs, even the plotline feels like a 2000s anime. The second season is overall more modern and well produced than the first season, although neither has impressive production value. Similarly, Classroom of the Elite has some of the ugliest school uniforms I have ever seen in anime, and that's a high bar to clear. The colour choices are just absolutely hideous, good heavens. Yikes honey, like OMG. I thought they were parking-valet elves at the Ritz during the holidays. At least the voice acting is overall decent, albeit sometimes cheesy. The voicework for most of the lead characters is solid and everyone suits their roles. The soundtrack isn't terrible but it does sound dated to me, and not in a charming way.

Despite the large time gap between when the first and second season aired, there is a lot of plot continuity between the seasons. The first episode of Season 2 basically feels like Episode 13 of Season 1 – the story picks up immediately where Season 1 ended. Of the two seasons, I liked the first slightly more. The story of Season 2 just wasn't as compelling as the first. I appreciated the deserted-island story arc in Season 1 – that was the pinnacle of the series in my opinion.

I enjoyed the interactions between Horikita and the MC – they have weirdly good tsundere chemistry and feel very natural together. They are an entertaining duo. Horikita is a good character – I enjoyed her stoic practical approach to the challenges she encountered.


My personal ratings are as follows:
Season 1: 5/10
Season 2: 4/10
Classroom of the Elite has a complex yet well-written story, and the episodes pass quickly. It does an okay job at creating suspense, and the strategic aspects are somewhat interesting, but good lord it is often so absurdly juvenile it's borderline intolerable.

If you're looking for a psychological thriller-type show, Classroom of the Elite isn't a terrible choice. If I were a 14-year-old boy, I would probably enjoy this anime way more. I'd recommend this to teenagers, but someone older than that might have trouble enjoying this anime due to how juvenile it is.

This review probably sounds conceited but I think others can relate to feeling exasperated by the immaturity of shounen-oriented works like this. I know it comes with the territory but I am just being transparent about my viewing experience.

I watched Gamers. Here are my thoughts:

Gamers has a serious branding issue, in the sense that the content doesn't match its marketing. This show is like 90% relationship drama, and gaming hobbies are just an excuse to facilitate that. If you go into this expecting gaming-related content, you will be disappointed. On the other hand, if you like highschool romance and relationship drama, you may be pleasantly surprised by this show. I, very selectively, can enjoy these things, and so my initial pessimism about this anime was pleasantly defied. However, people looking for a show about the gaming hobby will likely have the opposite viewing ... experience (and consequently give it a low rating). I should clarify that when I say 'relationship drama' I'm including the many platonic relationships featured in the show as well. Gamers is a show about relationships, not gaming. Of course there are a lot of gaming-related jokes, but what I'm trying to convey is that gaming is not the central focus here – it's just a theme or canvas upon which the actual story is illustrated.

The writing of all the various relationships and the ways they intersect is surprisingly intricate and well thought out. However, it takes a while to build the foundation for this, and the writing doesn't start to reveal its true potential in this regard until around midway through the series. The story of Gamers takes a while to really start to deliver, but when it does it's really great. This anime is fairly well directed, and does a good job of exploring and fleshing out each character's perspective. The relationship drama in this is quite well done, regardless of the juvenile mechanics it sometimes involves. Similarly, the characters and their interactions are terrific. The plot and character interaction in this feels very down to earth, lifelike and real. Gamers is an excellent 'highschool social-life simulator'. The entire cast is likeable as well, including the MC who is a super-cute boy – he is so adorable!

Character animation in this is sometimes quite sloppy. In fact the visuals in general are lackluster and feel budget-constrained. However, some of the character designs are cute, like the boyish MC, and Aguri with her pink hair and cute accessories, and Chiaki with her tomboyish charm and kelpy hair.

The OST is not bad – it enhanced some scenes. There are some cute 8-bit retro-gaming-style tracks. I like the ED song too – it's ultra cute and has a nice melody that was stuck in my head for weeks. I also appreciated the variety among the voice actors in the main cast; every VA sounded distinct and suited their character well.

Just FYI, although the penultimate episode was easily one of the best, I found the finale to be a disappointing weaker episode. Also, as expected of an LN adaptation like this, there isn't any closure or finality in terms of relationships.


My overall rating: 7/10
Although the visual production quality is rough, I really enjoyed Gamers. The character interaction is so real and lifelike. The writing weaves numerous relationships together in an elaborate way, yet the story is coherent and well directed. The entire main cast is cute and likeable, as are their relations with one another. Gamers is a show about relationships and it does a great job of it. It really tickled my emotions. This anime is so cute!

If you're interested in a show about gaming, you should watch something else. However, if you like cute relationship drama you should consider watching this. As I said, Gamers is seriously misbranded. On a related counterintuitive note, I actually think a female audience would enjoy this anime, for reasons you can probably infer.

I also want to take this opportunity to say that, despite my low expectations for a new studio, with poor animation quality to boot, I am quite impressed with the direction quality of Pine Jam, at least for these 2017 shows – especially in terms of romance. Both Gamers and Just Because completely smoked my (admittedly low) expectations. I see a ton of potential in this studio and look forward to future works. Even though it looks sloppy, it does a great job at what really matters. This studio has induced the butterflies-in-stomach feeling within me multiple times already, and I really want more.

I somehow watched Eromanga Sensei to completion, including the OVA. Here are my thoughts:

Basically, this anime has a ton of sexualization and not much else. If you want ecchi cumbrain garbage, here's your jerk material. There's no other major selling point here.

Most of the main characters in this are writers or content creators in some form – I thought this might be an interesting dimension to explore. Unfortunately, this show does not deliver any kind of interesting story whatsoever. The supporting cast, despite being composed of artists, are mostly treated as sex objects, and the scriptwriting reflects this accordingly. I was initially hopeful for the ... content-creator perspective of this story, but they never really provided anything substantial in this regard. The male MC is a writer, but otherwise he is a spineless idiot with zero personality, as usual. In fact the entire cast is unlikeable for various reasons, as well as lacking character development in general.

Eromanga Sensei has very little entertainment value besides arousing your poor abused weary foul fap-blistered septic basement-dweller chode. When people say they hate anime, this kind of show is what they are thinking of. Frankly, it's the textbook definition of garbage. It has plenty of lewd content though, so it may be able to assist in draining your sweaty hairy sensitive delicious lustful intoxicating voluminous nutritious testicles, which perhaps is an advantage depending on your perspective. There's not much else of value here. Of course, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that; boys will be boys ;)

Seriously though, there are some funny moments, but I wouldn't recommend watching this unless your primary motivation is sexual in nature. This anime really is shameless cumbrain material. Some of the (usually sexual) comedy did get some laughs out of me. Also, if you're one of those people obsessed with shipping and who wins the MC's affections, or someone who sees love triangles as a glorified horse race to place bets, then you might personally find this show entertaining. There are multiple female candidates vying for the male MC's attention. The OVAs in particular focus on this aspect of the story.

I can see why this show spawned so many memes. Unlike the characters themselves, the meme material is quite fertile. There are also a lot of screencap-worthy facial expressions. In some ways, this anime feels engineered to be shitpost material.

Although the soundtrack is nothing special (aside from maybe the OP/ED tracks), the voice acting in this is not bad – I thought all the female leads were distinctive and performed their roles well.


My personal overall rating: 3/10
Eromanga Sensei is utter garbage but it did occasionally get some laughs out of me. Above all else, this is a highly sexualized anime meant to arouse the viewer – if you're into this material then feel free to shamelessly enjoy; I'm not judging anyone. There is also loads of sexual humour in here, which some people may find appealing as well. Furthermore, this show has a lot of fertile meme material and this is probably a major reason for its infamy; all publicity is good publicity I suppose.

I watched both the Haikara-san ga Tooru movies, also known as Here Comes Miss Modern. Here are my thoughts:

This anime is about a tomboy who is pressured into an arranged marriage with a half-jap soldier in the Japan army. The story takes place during the first couple decades of the 20th century and has a socio-historic flavour that some viewers may find appealing. It involves a lot of social issues in Taisho-era Japan, mainly involving female gender roles. It is somewhat interesting from a sociological perspective, although the plot velocity and runtime constraints limit the depth to which these themes could be explored. Even so, ... someone interested in historical Japanese society might appreciate this anime. These movies also incorporate the political nature of marriage in the writing – I found this to be refreshing, as the typically overly romanticized nature of marriage in fiction often doesn't reflect reality. I appreciated this lifelike treatment of marriage, and it meshed well with the other social themes. That said, romance is still a dominant motif in this anime, as is the relationship drama that comes along with it.

This feels like a shoujo-demographic anime, albeit not exclusively so. As you might assume from the title, the story focuses very much on the female MC. The primary male love interest lacks character depth – he's really underdeveloped. In fact the entire cast is tropey in characterization, but I don't think that could have been avoided given the runtime. The story actually reminded me of theatrical works like Shakespeare in the sense that it involved themes such as love and loss, love polygons, tragedy and reunification; it was all quite reminiscent of theatrical writing. Haikara-san ga Tooru feels like it could be a stage play instead of movie anime. Ironically however, I found the scriptwriting itself poor – many scenes in this could have been enhanced by a better script.

Similarly to theatrical writing, the story of Haikara-san ga Tooru demands a lot of suspension of disbelief. It is filled with convenient coincidences used to move the plot along and it felt crude and hamfisted as a result. The second movie in particular is quite bad in this regard and I enjoyed it less than the first. I also found the pacing of the first movie better calibrated than the second.

There are a lot of scenes in which the boorish tomboy MC is placed into situations where elegance and sophistication are expected of her – these scenes are funny and I enjoyed watching them. The sidekick ruffian henchman character (Ushigorou) also has some funny moments. Unfortunately the other sidekick character (Ranmaru), a feminine-boy childhood friend, is kind of annoying.

The visual art style and animation quality are rather lackluster. The visuals are on par with what I'd expect from a modest-budget TV anime – they're nothing special. The character designs are mildly retro shoujo-manga-like. In fact, overall this anime feels retro – if you told me it were 15 years older than its actual production year, I might have believed you. Regardless, the visuals overall feel low quality and fairly amateurish. However, the soundtrack does have some nice orchestral music. Conversely, the voice acting is consistently mediocre for the entire cast, in my opinion.


My ratings for the Haikara-san ga Tooru movies are as follows:
Movie 1 (Benio, Hana no 17-sai): 5/10
Movie 2 (Hana no Tokyo Dai Roman): 4/10

The writing of the second movie is worse than the first, mainly due to forced coincidences in the storyline. Furthermore, many scenes in these movies suffer from weak scriptwriting coupled with underwhelming voice acting. The visuals are lacking the quality I'd expect from movies made in the late 2010s, however the soundtrack is decent and worth checking out if you like classical/orchestral-type stuff. Some viewers may appreciate the socio-historic themes of these movies.

I think that in general a female audience is more likely to enjoy these movies; they kind of felt like Taisho chick flicks.

For the record, I have never seen the original anime adaptation released in the 70s.

These movies reminded me of Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni, in that they are set in a similar time period and deal with similar social themes (i.e. female gender roles in historical militaristic Japan).

I watched Minami Kamakura Koukou Joshi Jitensha-bu (including the Taiwan special), also known as Minami Kamakura High School Girls Cycling Club. Here are my thoughts:

The title of this anime accurately describes the content. There's minimal 'filler' material in here – the screentime is nearly always focused on cycling in some way. I appreciate anime that consistently stick to their theme, unlike so many other highschool anime which devolve into formulaic episodes unrelated to the show's main selling point. Minami Kamakura Jitensha-bu could be described as formulaic as well, in the sense that the storyboard is what you'd expect for a show about novice cyclists, but ... at least you won't have to suffer through a culture-festival episode or a typical beach episode. I was apprehensive about the highschool setting but thankfully there's barely any classroom screentime in this. As you might expect, various landmarks in the Kamakura region are featured throughout the cycling activities. It does sometimes feel like a thinly veiled tourism advertisement, albeit not overly so and my enjoyment was never impeded by this.

I liked the brief live-action segments that play at the end of each episode. They mostly consist of various cycling-related conversations in a bike shop. These live-action segments are both informative and cute and I enjoyed them, especially because they seemed endearingly loosely scripted. This anime is fairly educational for cycling – although I already knew much of what is explained regarding bicycles, it was still entertaining to see things rehashed. This show does a good job of teaching the viewer about cycling while still being entertaining. This could serve as a kids' show. There's minimal sexualization, and the character interaction is very simplistic and straightforward such that a child could understand it easily. This anime's characters are quite tropey and there's barely any character development.

Minami Kamakura Jitensha-bu comes up short in the production-value department – it could pass as being 15 years older than its actual production year. The character designs are retro, and CGI is sometimes used to animate the cycling scenes. The landscape and setting do sometimes look nice though. I found the voice acting mediocre and was also disappointed by the crummy low-budget soundtrack.


My overall rating: 5/10
If I didn't like cycling, I would have dropped this. This anime really doesn't have any selling points aside from the bicycle theme, which it does focus on consistently. This show does the bicycle theme well and is filled with lots of cycling scenes in various contexts, and also informs the viewer about some technical aspects of the activity. The characters and their interactions are tropey and simplistic. Production quality is lacking in many ways, however the Japanese outdoors do sometimes look decent.

People who like cycling might enjoy this anime. It's also suitable for a child audience while still being entertaining for a viewer of any age. I liked Long Riders slightly more than this anime – you should give Long Riders a try first if you're looking for a cycling-themed show.

I watched Youjo Senki, also known as Saga of Tanya the Evil. I watched the first season, the OVA, and the movie. At the time of writing, Season 2 has not yet aired. Here are my thoughts:

This anime is about a salaryman who gets reincarnated in pseudo-WW1 Europe as a young orphan girl (Tanya) while retaining their original personality. Tanya has an aptitude for magic and joins the military as an officer in the mage unit. Tanya is sort of an 'anti-hero' main character in the sense that they are highly self-interested and morally ambiguous.

The action scenes in Youjo Senki look good and have detailed ... fight choreography along with nice sound effects. The audio production quality of this is what I'd expect from a movie – it's pretty nice. In fact, Youjo Senki overall has movie-like production quality. The visuals are a strong point – the setting in particular looks fantastic. The European landscape often looks amazing. Furthermore, the architecture and interior decor feels authentic for the time period and is consistently meticulous and vividly detailed. I could tell there was a lot of attention to detail put into how the setting is depicted. One of my favourite things about this anime was admiring the intricate interior design of each room, and the cinematography does a good job of displaying it! Additionally, the character animation is fluid and well done too, including facial expressions. There is also lots of variety among the character designs, making each member of the large cast distinctive and easy to discern. The visuals of Youjo Senki are excellent.

Although the premise of this show is neat, I found the actual episode-by-episode story underwhelming and very predictable. Speaking more generally, although I found Youjo Senki entertaining, I never found it suspenseful or exciting, which seems like a shortcoming for a violent action-heavy show set in a war zone. The protagonist plot armour is blatantly indestructible, and the stakes never feel high as a result. It is a fun easy-to-watch show though. Despite the war theme, this anime feels best suited for casual viewing – it never feels all that serious. This isn't Saving Private Ryan; it's just a silly isekai anime and you should set your expectations accordingly.

Tanya's VA does an excellent job and is very unique and memorable. Her voicework really enhances this show and deserves a lot of praise. The voices for the various military officers fit their roles well too. The OST seems well produced – it is mostly military themed; it could have had a little more personality I think. Conversely, the ED song sung by Tanya's VA oozes personality (Aoi Yuuki is super talented).


My overall rating: 7/10
Youjo Senki is fun and entertaining, but it is also predictable and lacks suspense. I didn't find the story interesting or engaging at all. However, the production quality is consistently movie-like and the action scenes are well done. The early-20th-century European setting often looks excellent and quite detailed, both indoors and outdoors. Tanya's VA does a memorably terrific job and adds a lot of personality to the anime. The audiovisuals of Youjo Senki are great in many respects.

For anyone fond of the early-1900s European setting, Youjo Senki is worth checking out. Even if you don't like how silly the story is, the setting really does look terrific. I would also recommend this to action fans because the fight scenes are quite captivating. If you're looking for a solid cinematic experience, Youjo Senki can provide that.

Youjo Senki reminded me a lot of Shuumatsu no Izetta, which is another anime that involves flying magic users fighting in WW-era Europe. I liked both these anime but for different reasons; Youjo Senki is more playful and has better visuals and action scenes, whereas Shuumatsu no Izetta is more dramatic and has lots of cute memorable yuri romance.