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I can't believe it's not Doga Kobo! (TM)

I've always been a fan of director Ohta and his crew. They make some of the best comedies out there from Mitsudomoe to the legendary Sabagebu. But the team is most well known for their work on Doga Kobo's comedies such as Yuru Yuri and Uzamaid. While recently we haven't seen much output from them apart from the dreadful Abilities Average show, imagine my surprise when they're doing a kids show (like an actual kids show with the time shown on the top left and such) with stunt cast idols as the MCs. So how does this fare compared to the team's other works?

First off, the MCs don't sound particularly well. As it usually goes for characters not voiced by regular seiyuu, everyone sounds off. This is especially jarring since they are surrounded by a plethora of professional seiyuu, making their amateur performances all the more glaring and noticeable. But, I have to admit, after several episodes of being with them, you get used to them and actually start to like them well enough. Yellow's is still off after all is said and done though.

Secondly, since this is a kids show, a lot of the raunchy humor or more crude stuff has been totally sand down. What you get is a very sanitized Ohta show. This does have the side effect of erasing some of the humor, but good direction and writing still sees the show having some good laughs here and there. Plus its 12 minute run time ensures nothing gets dragged on for too long.

Even animation-wise this show is more reminiscent of Doga Kobo's comedies than Wit Studio. Very bright vivid colors (but not too bright) and relatively simple, but appropriate and pleasant to look at. Seems to be a recurring theme this season, shows by different studios resembling shows from other studios. And the EDs are just amazing, quite possibly some of my favorites this whole season.

All in all, the show is pretty funny for the most part and does not become too repetitive with its jokes. Some segments do feel like its trying too hard to be funny to kids, and the show often references material kids won't even know, but it's still a very enjoyable show throughout, even if it isn't as strong of Ohta's previous works.

7/10

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Don't think this means you've won, JC Staff!

If you've known me, you know I've been very, very vocal on my dislike of the first season. So seeing me give this show such a high score must have been quite a shock, but believe me when I say that the second season of Machikado has been a remarkable improvement over the first.

The improvements are obvious once you start the first episode. Oh my God, I can actually follow through the show. The biggest, and by far the most important change is the pacing of the show. It's actually at regular speed now. Now, I do love me some fast paced anime (Kotobuki is one of my all time favorites), but my God first season was downright incomprehensible at times at how fast it went. Thank goodness the team finally came to their senses and made Machikado S2 actually understandable when played regularly.

My second biggest gripe with the series, namely Momo, has also seen some significant improvement. In fact, she went from my least favorite character to up there with my most favorite right after Lico, Mikan, Shamiko, Tenchou, Lilith, Ryo, Joshua, Seiko, Ogura, Anri and Uga. (Hey I liked her more than Sakura) Actually going through some character development and transforming from an otherwise really dull stoic character into more of a tsundere with some obsessive tendencies does wonders in making her all that much more interesting. She does have some funny moments (at last in a comedy series) and is just fun to follow through.

Of course, as I always say, CGDCT shows are carried by its characters. Now at last, characters who were introduced far too late or had too little screentime in S1 (namely Mikan) finally have their time to shine and they do bring a lot to the previously stale Momo-Shamiko only dynamic. New characters like Lico and Tenchou also make their appearances relatively early into S2, bringing all that much more into everyday SoL scenes with the whole gang. All in all, without invoking cast bloat, Machikado's rich cast easily elevates the show, in my eyes, compared to the otherwise dull two-man show from S1.

Although, what's most fascinating about Machikado is its overarching plot. While S1 featured some aspects of it, over there it felt more of an unnecessary intrusion and detracted heavily from the SoL aspects of the show. Now, it is woven in naturally and does not detract, nay, is vital to the whole experience. Instead of just having a flashback to Shamiko in the hospital, you actually get to see how it affects her and the people around her, as well as how she handles these situations. It's great stuff and it's a testament to both Ito's stronger grasp on the whole series as the manga went on over the years, and JC Staff's commitment to realizing her vision.

If there is any major gripe I have, it's that at times the anime feels too faithful to the original manga. A lot of jokes especially are taken straight from the manga and they aren't adapted to fit the anime medium better. Things like a panel breaking to show water leakage, or oversized speech bubbles and sound effects all feel clumsy in the anime. Faithfulness to the source material is one thing, but the inflexibility the staff shows when adapting it for TV does lessen the impact these jokes otherwise had in manga form.

Still, Machikado S2 has got to be the biggest improvement between successive seasons I have seen. It is an incredibly well made CGDCT show that successfully differentiates itself from other Kiraras with its surprisingly grim overarching plot that is ever so fun to follow week after week.

Ganbare Shamiko! Work hard for that coveted third season!

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Goddammit Sunrise (You're still Sunrise to me, BN Pictures). After what seems like eons being trapped in the Gundam and Love Live salt mines, finally do they come up with another wacky original. I thought, man, it's just Golf, quite possibly the most boring sport in the whole world, how could they pull it off. And boy oh boy how glad I was to be proven wrong.

First off, the gritty noir faux-European setting one would associate more with Bee Train than Sunrise didn't clue you in, then the fact that half the series takes place in Nafrece would let you know all you need to know. This show, like Bee Train's "Girl With Guns" trilogy, is written by none other than Kuroda Yousuke, although with a lot less angst (think somewhere in between Valkyrie Drive and Madlax).

And wouldn't you know it, our main character Eve, sprouts out nothing but gun metaphors when she golfs. Oh sorry, "golfs". There is very little connecting this to the actual sport of hitting a ball with a club. Sure the characters talk about finesse and technique, but in practice it's no different to Donkey Kong swinging his club in Mario Golf or whatever. And it is glorious. Just absolutely glorious to behold. The show is very confident and proud of its stupidity and wears it like a badge of pride throughout. And the best part is, it (mostly) takes itself seriously. All that gritty noir mafia business, they all tie into a silly underground shifting mecha randomizer golf game! Apparently in this universe everything important ties back to golf somehow. The owner of the biggest conglomerate in Japan is Golf. The Nafrece Mafia is Golf. Eve "sells herself"(?) with Golf. Golf Terrorism? You bet! And don't forget Golf Lesbians. God, and even when the show finally calms down from its wacky yet serious mafia adventures as Eve settles down in a Japanese high school, somehow everyone she faces has Golf-related superpowers. It's absolute madness.

And I love every second of it.

That season 2 better come soon. I need my Golfing Mechas on a Space Colony.

8/10

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What I didn't know going into Kono Healer Mendokusai (henceforth Karla's show) was that it wasn't your typical anime. Each episode consists of our two mains playing off of each other in verbal wordplay while being joined by the guest of the episode. In short, it's Manzai.

While I'm not as familiar with Manzai as I was back about a decade ago when I used to watch a lot of it, I can still tell what good or bad comedy is. Karla's show is very hit and miss for the most part, oftentimes within minutes of each other in the same episode. A lot of jokes have this predictable routine where Karla does something stupid only for Alvin to very loudly and angrily rebut her, which works early on each episode but gets tiring near the end. Honestly with the way each episode is set up, the ideal way (which was what I used to watch most episodes) was to watch until the eyecatch, take a break and do something else, then continue until the next eyecatch/end. That way the repetitiveness of the jokes doesn't get too prevalent as the episodes go on.

To the show's credit, at least most of the jokes aren't too reliant on language puns or Japanese sociocultural references, so they do translate well into English for the most part.

But, as my score indicates, the show hits more than it misses. Most jokes are fine enough, they can land a smile or two here and there, but very few jokes did make me laugh out loud. Few as they are, they are still there and they're good enough to warrant a watch of the show. Sure, different people perceive comedy differently, but the show does get better and funnier as the episodes go on. Or maybe it's just the Stockholm Syndrome kicking in. With Karla on the reins, that may very well be the case.

I'm a bit of a seiyuu fan, and part of the main draw of this show is all the big name (some small ones too) that they cast as the guest of the week. Some pretty high profile ones you don't see very often nowadays too (when was the last time Fuchigami Mai was in anything that isn't GuP). They all turn in fairly decent performances, but I think Sugita was phoning it in with his episodes.

The last episode is probably the only one I really didn't like out of the bunch. It tries to go for a more (relatively) serious approach which leads to minimal Manzai moments and the overall story/narrative really isn't that great to begin with. I mean, the whole show literally is fantasy-based Manzai, the "Story" is just an excuse to get the gang into various different situations to comment on.

Manzai shows are a rare breed in anime. The only other show I watched that comes close is Maesetsu which was dreadfully unfunny, so at the very least Karla's show has something going for it. I definitely had laughs here and there, but 20 minutes is seriously too long for each episode.

6/10

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I'm a very simple person. Big Witch Hat = Good Show. And wouldn't you know it, like Elaina and Azusa, the MC in RPG Fudousan has a big witch hat.

I kid (not really), RPG Fudousan has got to be the most refreshing Kirara show I've watched in years. As much as I love the comfort and familiarity of Cute Girls Doing Cute Things with some weak gimmick attached to them, they all start to feel very samey after a few dozen. RPG Fudousan, on the other hand, while also having a weak gimmick attached to it, somehow feels very novel by virtue of its setting, its characters, and its slow burning but ever present plot (which unfortunately is nowhere near resolved by the end of the anime, but one which has a good jumping point to the manga proper).

RPG Fudousan is gorgeous, full stop. I just adore the character designs, the world and how beautiful everything looks and how comfy everything is. Gone are the utilitarian streets of modern day Japan as many CGDCT shows feature and what's here is a lush setting that is just so pleasing to experience. Doga Kobo may have half-assed this show by a country mile (all in favor of some mediocre romcom no one will remember in a week), but the strength of RPG Fudousan's own source material in terms of design still manages show itself even in this adaptation.

There isn't a single weak link in the main cast, and everyone has a memorable and distinctive role they play in the series. Sure one of the girls is basically a ripoff of Rize from Gochiusa (who is funnily enough voiced by Fuyu from the same series), but the characters still have a strong chemistry with each other and the world around them.

As I alluded to earlier, the central gimmick of the main girls operating a real estate company is weak. It's real estate on a very surface level where the girls help their customers find a place to live every episode or so without going into the actual real estate stuff like financing or mortgages. It's mainly there to serve as a vehicle for good jokes and to progress the overarching plot ever so slowly, but hey, it certainly is a more memorable gimmick than "4 Schoolmates Hanging Out" like many other CGDCT shows are.

CGDCT shows largely live and die on their characters, but RPG Fudousan has the additional merit of featuring an intriguing plot as well. For that, as well as its gorgeous visuals, I have this as one of my personal favorite CGDCT shows in a long time, and I greatly long for a second season for the show to tackle some really interesting plotlines the manga eventually goes into.

And the big hat. Don't forget about the big hat.

8/10

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Healer Girl is a show with an interesting premise that doesn't do nearly enough to capitalize on its unique premise, leading to a fine, but otherwise forgettable Slice of Life/CGDCT show.

The initial premise of songs having these fantastical properties to heal would make for a wonderfully original show, and yet the girls hardly do any healing outside of a handful of episodes. The majority of the runtime is spent doing typical CGDCT stuff like school festivals or summer vacation stuff. i.e. going through the motions without doing anything special. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but when you're me and you've watched a ton of the stuff, it all ends up blending together and the one thing that would have otherwise made this show stand out just doesn't do enough.

So, what? The girls do end up singing a lot, but most of the healing is delegated to emotional healing, i.e. singing songs to make people feel better, as opposed to actual healing, which as I said only happens a handful of times throughout the whole show. There are plenty of other shows where the main cast also sing to make other people feel better in one-off episodes, so already the defining feature, the very core of the whole show is rendered moot.

Then again, maybe I'm being too harsh. I really like the MCs and the songs are really well done, particularly the OP. But at the end of the day Healer Girl is an unremarkable, if nothing-wrong show that never tries to exceed expectations or to stand out in a genre swamped with many other similar shows. But hey, they'll sing a song and make you a bit happier, and isn't that all that matters?

No. No it doesn't.

6/10

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Despite being an Isekai, you gotta give credit to Shokei Shoujo for its originality. Having what seems to be a standard Isekai suddenly turn into a yuri romance-adventure tale not 10 minutes into the first episode certainly is surprising...that is if you didn't read the description, watched any of the trailers, or even took a look at the key visual. But I am getting ahead of myself. Shokei Shoujo is still ultimately a fine show, and that much I am willing to say, but I wished it was much more than this.

Part of this stems from being an incomplete adaptation of an ongoing light novel. The difference between a good LN adaptation and a bad one is knowing where to stop. I understand it's rare for a complete adaptation of something several volumes long, but Shokei Shoujo just ends on a sequel hook that left a sour note on my viewing experience once all is said and done. All these plot points they brought up certainly were interesting, but the show went nowhere close to resolving either of them nor is the final episode a good enough cap off to the series. I suppose as an ad for the LN it did work, I went ahead and bought the damn books so I can continue reading more on Menou and Akari's yuri adventures.

As an adaptation it does its job. JC really needs to stop taking so many projects per season. Shokei Shoujo is mostly dialogue so the animation quality is mostly fine, but the action scenes are all fairly flaccid with a few exceptions here and there, most notably Momo punching that monster somewhere in the middle of the series. One would think most of their budget/manpower went to Shamiko's show instead. Credit where credit is due though, the anime's interpretation of the spell casting sequence from the LNs is presented incredibly well; it's just so slick and it really made me wish the same attention was paid for the main bulk of the action sequences as well.

Really everything else about this anime is just that. Fine. The music is fine, I love the OP and ED, and the OST does use some rare instruments here and there to spice things up, but all in all it's there and it's just fine. The characters are fine, Akari and Momo are really fun to follow, but Menou is a tad too dull for my tastes. And then there is the story. For all of its successes in building a believable, original world, the ultimate story that is conveyed in the anime is "Menou brings Akari somewhere to kill her". Nothing too important happens outside of the main duo, and the viewer, learning more about the world and themselves. And again, there are interesting elements being teased, but at this point it's just like dangling a shiny object in front of the viewers when the payoff is all in the LNs.

For a time in my life I generally avoided LN adaptations because I don't like the feeling of watching an incomplete story only for the outcome to be in a novel in a language I don't understand, but these days I've started to enjoy quite a few of them, but the ones I do enjoy generally have low stakes plot that are fine without a total and complete resolution. Not so in this case. After the end of the series I just feel empty inside, and I'm not sure if that's a problem with the modern climate these shows are made in, where it's a struggle to even get more than a single cour, or the way the show was structured in the first place. In any case, perhaps it's time for me to start reading Shokei Shoujo. At least the translations seem to be relatively punctual...

6/10

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I had always been a fan of RoTK ever since I was a kid, and having consumed so much media related to RoTK over the years, everything from live action dramas to games to anime, you get the sense that the stories and its characters are all overdone, and that there is nothing new to explore with regards to the series. So, believe me when I was Paripi Koumei is the freshest take I've seen on RoTK in a long long while that doesn't stray too far from RoTK while being a uniquely original experience.

Paripi Koumei is practically a reverse Isekai (or pretty much entirely is one considering how much of RoTK is Shu Propaganda/fiction), with Koumei himself (funnily enough voiced by the same guy who did Sima Yi in Dynasty Warriors) being a music producer in modern day Shibuya. After the obligatory Isekai Culture Shock gags, the show quickly and surprisingly gets into a comfortable groove with Koumei being this suave and savvy music producer to the real MC, Eiko.

Eiko is just so adorable, and, in a season with so many great MCs, stands out as the cutest of them all. You can really get a sense that even the animation staff had fun animating her as even the in-between frames show a lot of effort being put into making her just so squishy and adorable, what with the exaggerated expressions and heart mouths and all. Koumei himself is no slouch either, though his genius does occasionally veer too close into "reading the script" territory. A lot of his strategems are based off of the famous sequences from the original RoTK, reinterpreted in a modern day sense. And it's usually fun to see how the series reinterprets these moments to fit in within the setting.

However, as fun it is to see Koumei work his way through these situations with his unimaginable intellect/script-knowledge, his relevance becomes surprisingly minor come the second half once the Summer Sonia arc starts. And his (relative) absence is sorely felt as nearly every episode in the second half I find myself saying "Where's Koumei?".

To be honest I'm not all that into the music, especially not that awful rap. The OP and ED are incredible and some of the best this season, but the insert songs just don't grab my attention like they should, despite Eiko and Nanamin supposedly being these wonderful divas, their songs are somewhere in the realm of mediocrity for the most part. And oh speaking of rap, why oh why does Kabetaijin get so much prominence in this. He's easily the weakest link of the bunch and his raps are just terrible.

Paripi Koumei has been a fun show, though it is definitely much stronger whenever Koumei is onscreen. While Eiko's journey to the top is certainly nothing new or special, Eiko being such a lovable character definitely made the show for me, even if her songs ultimately never won me over as they did for Koumei.

7/10

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My favorite genre is the "Cute Girls do Cool Things" genre, which usually has a predominantly female cast engaged in badass and over-the-top action scenarios with little to no regard for melodrama, and every season I would search high and low for a show that meets that criteria. Usually 3Hz would deliver in that regard, but while expecting a show titled "Healer Girl" to have guns-blazing action is an exercise in futility, I somehow stumbled upon Estab Life, that has absolutely everything I wanted, and then some.

Estab Life is what you would call a "multi media franchise", or in less flattering but more accurate terms, a "made for mobage" show. And in my experience, usually failure or high likelihood of failure mobage would generate some of the best original anime out there (see Kotobuki, Akanesasu Shoujo, and of course Kemono Friends). Estab Life is no different. Right out of the bat it is supremely confidant on its premise and themes, and is wildly imaginative in its depiction of the Tokyo clusters. I'm actually reminded quite a lot of Rolling Girls, though more restricted to a single location and with less drama.

And by imaginative, I mean, wow. Communist Penguins, Mahou Shoujo Yakuza, No-pan Theocracy, Prison Horse Races, and much more are featured in this show. And bizzarely they all make sense given the context they are set in (Fucho is famous for its prison and horse races, for example). It never feels jarring nor is there any whiplash when going from episode to episode, part of the joy is seeing what crazy situation the girls will end up in.

Equa-senpai is quite possibly my favorite MC of the season. Most of these Cute Girls do Cool Things shows would usually cast either a genki-baka type or a cool-but-silent type as their protagonists, and, while fine enough, are overly played out. Equa's personality in being a kind and easy-going onee-san type is wildly out of place, yet a very fresh take for a genre like this, and her interactions with the cast and everyone, as well as having actual shortcomings, makes her an endearing character to follow. The rest of the main cast are pretty good too, though I would have liked if each of them had their own spotlight episodes.

It's not just fun wacky comedy either, out of all the shows this season, this is the last show I'd expect to have actual heart in it, but goddammit it does, and the superb direction and music all make you feel emotional in ways I never really got for a show of this type of genre.

Special mention to the music. Fujisawa's OST, while very similar to most of his own previous works, all complement each moment so effectively and can really make you feel emotional for a scene that is otherwise farcical. Like, it's a testament to the entire soundtrack when it can make you feel genuinely sad for one of the characters despite that one predictable tragic event that you know happens actually happen.

The whole show has been a wild and fun ride, and I will eagerly await the film (I don't know why or how, but thank you Square Enix for funding weirdo projects like these) once it releases stateside.

You were the first and last friends I've ever made!

8/10

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First things first, I'm not a fujo, so normally I wouldn't gravitate towards shows like these, but upon discovering the director for this was also responsible for Symphogear G, GX, and XV (and ...AXZ...), I simply had to give the show a shot. And honestly, this is just Symphogear with guys. Hell the first episode even begins with a Kirika/Shirabe esque moment with the 2 Buster Bros "sneaking" around like idiots.

The show is simply stylish. Similar to Ono Katsumi's work on Symphogear, the act of singing, or rapping in this case, is given such a bombastic and over-the-top flair that it becomes so engaging you wouldn't want to take your eyes out of the action even for a second. While the action is generally intense, ironically the main draw of the series, the rap battles, which only happen at the end I might add, are the weakest point where each team just takes turns rapping in place without much of the creativity that can be seen in the earlier episodes.

Quite possibly the most amazing thing about this show is how it manages to avoid cast bloat despite featuring 12 main characters. The same season this aired, I watched Assault Lily which only had 9 characters but I can only recall about 3 from it as I was watching. In Hypnosis Mic, despite its short run time, the show manages to make the most of it by giving each character a distinct personality that differentiates themselves even within the same group, making each character immensely likable is also no small feat.

Unfortunately I wasn't too big on the actual music, apart from the OP, some songs by Buster Bros, and that one song by Secret Aliens. Kudos to the translators for making the english lyrics rhyme though.

For me, the show has always shined brightest during the slice of life scenes that predate the actual rap battle near the end, and the moments where you follow each group in their daily lives is ultimately much more endearing and memorable than the mangled weird plot they have that doesn't even have the courtesy to have a proper conclusion at the very end.

Ultimately, if you're after some dumb but fun action that's confident in its stupidity and embraces it with much passion, you can't go wrong with this show. It's a fun romp with a great cast, but don't expect much from its story.

7/10

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