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I’m just going to be blunt and get to the point: Sakurasou is a really great show. Within the first minute of the first episode I was hooked and I knew I would be in for something I’d really enjoy.

Story(9)

Sakurasou is about a boy named Yanda who goes to a special school that has an art department for gifted students as well as dormitories for the students to sleep in. Yanda used to live in these dormitories like any other student, but gets in trouble for keeping a stray cat he found on the street. Problem students at this school get sent to Sakurasou, ... a dormitory home specifically just for them to live in in a home-like atmosphere. Though Yanda doesn't like it at all, he agrees to live in Sakurasou, but only until he finds an owner for the cat so he can leave. However, as Yanda finds more stray cats, the more he can’t help but bring them in and give himself even less a chance of ever leaving. Yanda feels like he’s the only normal person in the dormitory and wants to leave as soon as possible.

Eventually, Yanda gets handed the duty of taking care of the guardian’s niece, Shiina who while may be a very talented and famous artist, doesn’t understand how to anything else but paint. Because of this Yanda has to take care of her, almost as if she is a pet.

The writing in this show is probably its strongest point. Every minute of this show was entertaining to me and I never really got bored are uninterested. I was hooked from the start and remained hooked throughout the whole experience. The story is very entertaining. There’s a lot twists here and there and over all everything always just went together nicely.

The show to me feels a lot like a blend of “Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!” and “Nagi no Asukara” which is a good thing for me because I love those two shows. It has a lot of the same sort of humor as Chuunibyou and a lot of the deep emotions as Nagi no Asukara. What you're left with is a show that’s not only funny, but also very emotional. While this is a romantic comedy and there is definitely a lot of comedy here, there’s also a lot of romance and deep feelings here as well that are handled extremely well.

There is one thing I will note though that isn't necessarily a bad thing, but just something that I found a little strange, and that’s the pacing. Well not specifically, over all the pacing is great, but I there are many episodes in the middle of the series that feel very, if not too climatic, like a last episode sort of deal. More in particular, there’s one of these that comes within the first 3 or 4 episodes of the show and it just felt kind of weird to me. Again, they are still written great and it’s not necessarily a bad thing, just something that kind of threw me off a bit at first and feels like it comes a little too soon.

Overall, the writing is fantastic and as previously mentioned, probably the strongest point of the show.

Art(9)

The art of Sakurasou is very good. It’s a very bright, colorful, and cute style that was very nice to look at. The animation was also very well done. Though I suppose the character designs aren't anything completely unique, they’re still very solid.


Sound(8)

The sound department is overall pretty good. While I wasn’t that into the first and second opening or even the second ending, the first ending song is amazing and beautiful and I watch it everytime it comes up. In terms of background music, is pretty solid as well. Lots of fitting songs, lots of good emotional music. The voice acting is also solid as well, providing a lot especially in emotional scenes.

Characters(9)

Characters is another thing that Sakurasou just does so well. All the main characters are extremely likable and entertaining as well as very deep and human.

Enjoyment(9)

I loved this show the whole way through. This is probably the fastest I've ever finished a 25-ish episode series. Though I would have liked a bit more romance with certain characters, I still loved almost every minute of this show.

Overall(9)

Outstanding. High ratings in every category. I highly recommend giving this show a shot. I don’t think you’ll regret it.

The title "Soul Eater NOT!" should give you a warning if you're coming to this show expecting an action shonen like Soul Eater. It's exactly as it says it is, for the most part, its NOT Soul Eater. But does it NOT being Soul Eater make it automatically bad? Not at all. This is a fun experience and definitely a worthy prequel to Soul Eater, even if its not quite the same.

Story(7)

If you didn't already know, the whole concept of Soul Eater is about these kids that to go a school where they learn to basically fight witches and other evil. Every living person ... has a soul and depending on your connection with your soul, determines how good a fighter you are, essentially. Certain people have the ability to transform into weapons. Other students wield these weapons and they partner up to fight evil.

Where as the original Soul Eater focused on pro students at the school that go on missions and leave the school quite frequently, Soul Eater Not focuses more on the newcomers of the NOT class. The story revolves around 3 cute girls that go to the school. Tsugumi is a weapon. Meme and Anya are misters and they both want to partner up with Tsugumi. The only problem is, you're only supposed to have ONE mister at a time, not two for one weapon. Nonetheless, the group befriend each other and leave that problem for later.

Now most people are very quick to judge this show for its complete change of style, both visually and genre wise. The whole first half of the show if not longer, other than the lore, its essentially nothing like Soul Eater at all and takes on the more "Moe Slice of Life" role similar to shows K-ON! or Yuru Yuri rather than an action show like Soul Eater. The show is even categorized as an Ecchi, though the fanservice here is relatively minimal to non existent at all. The show at first definitely isn't Soul Eater, but again, its not trying to be.

While it is very similar to other Slice of Life Moe shows does that mean its quite as good as them? I'd say no. The slice of life portions here are fine but shows like K-ON handle this genre much better. However, what's here I don't think is bad and I really do appreciate because they help show what Soul Eater didn't: how one BECOMES one of the higher class students and what life is like BEFORE they go out adventuring. In many ways, I feel like this show introduced the whole concept of a series nicely, (though it has some what of my same problems I had with the original where they hardly showed them doing any actual school activities at all.)

Near the end of the series, the story starts to pick up and it feels a lot more like Soul Eater. It transitions a lot more into an action show. Not only that, it also has a few connections to the original series that I think make this a nice prequel overall.

Art(6)

One of the primary knee-jerk reactions to this show was how much the art style had changed from the original show. The original show had a very unique and funky art sort of art style to it. This one, while still remaining somewhat different to a lot of anime, is mostly a very generic, cute art style.

Now many people see this as a negative, and to some degree I agree, but after a while I noticed that the original art style doesn't really suit this type of show, the same way this new one wouldn't suit the original. They're 2 different shows. While the old style was definitely better, this one works for this type of show and it's nice to see something a little different.

Sound(7)

I like the opening and ending while the main BGM wasn't that memorable to me. Voice acting seems solid enough to me and I'm pretty sure most of the characters from the original cast have the same voice actors.

Characters(7)

As for the new characters here, they aren't as good or fleshed out as the ones from the original series, and while many would complain that they're very simple, I still enjoyed them I found them over all to be likable and fun.

As for the returning characters, their cameos are probably a lot of the appeal to fans of the original series, though certain characters get a lot more appearances than others.

Enjoyment(8)

Overall it kind of had a slow start but as a fan of both Soul Eater and Moe Slice of Life I enjoyed this series a decent amount, especially near the end.

Overall(7)

Many people label this show as a shameless attempt to cash in on the moe fanbase. Whether or not that statement is true, I personally still enjoyed this show.

If you're a fan of the original Soul Eater and also like or don't mind a moe slice of life type show, I'd say give it a shot.

However if you're a fan of the original series and are looking for a more action oriented show and can't stand a cute premise like this, this show probably isn't for you.

But also if you haven't seen Soul Eater and are interested in watching it, I think this is a nice way to introduce you to the series as by the end, it does transition into a more action type show and answer a few questions of how things happened in the original series. But again, that's only if you're into a moe type of show as well. If you are only interested in Soul Eater, skip this and just watch that. You won't be missing anything TOO important at all.

Black Bullet is, as many people have said before, similar to Attack on Titan in a way. Though instead of titans you have these huge bug like creatures called Gastrea, and its set in the future in Japan rather than an older style civilization. However the biggest difference between the 2 shows is that Attack on Titan is actually very good, where as this is just...eh.

Story (6)

The story as I mentioned before is, on paper, pretty similar to Attack on Titan. Humanity at the brink of extinction. Huge monsters that killed someone in the protagonist's family. A city inside of a barrier. But that's ... mainly where most of the blatant similarities stop. The main character, Rentaro is apparently half robot as well...also there's these lolis that are infected by the Gastrea or something and they like partner up with people like Rentaro and fight because now they have powers?...Also there's this villain that kinda fucks around inside the barrier and there's also other places other than Japan or something?

I don't know, the plot of this show I feel jumps around waaay to much and there's just too much going on at once, not the mention the pacing is basically terrible. There's a climatic episode like halfway through the season and it just really feels out of place and weird. I feel like the story lacked a lot of focus. The Gastrea were interesting but you hardly ever even see them until later on. They come off as barely having to do with the plot. Where as, with Attack on Titan, you're always reminded of them, and they are shown quite often. Hell, even the name of the show has barely anything to do with it. Rentaro shot his gun with "black bullets" like once in the whole show and that was in the first episode. Same with the whole him being a robot, I even forgot about that later on. I feel like there was a lot of lack of focus and proper pacing here.

Not to mention, there's a lot of brutal deaths is this show, mainly of little girls which I find very disturbing. I guess its not automatically a bad thing but I feel like every death, especially of little girls just felt very sudden and uncalled for. A lot of them where just forgotten quickly after so it didn't even feel like that really mattered.

Overall, it got more interesting by the end, but even the last episode had some pacing issues if you ask me.

Art (7)

The art is good. Not much to say here. Weird CGI that seems somewhat out of place but that's how most CGI is.

Sound (8)

The music and voice acting is over all pretty solid. The voice actor of Eren from Attack on Titan also voices Rentaro, and he does a pretty good job. The opening is very good as well as the ending, (though halfway through they changed the opening while keeping the song and the new opening wasn't quite as good). I'm also a fan of a lot of the background music as well.

Characters (6)

The characters are fine I guess. My favorite would have to be the villain, though he's not shown that often after the first few episodes. Nobody else really stood out to me though.

Enjoyment (6)

I never really felt like watching this show most of the time and I just kind of forced myself to watch it when it came on just because I wanted to finish it. It had it's moments but over all its probably my least favorite show I watched this season.

Overall (6)

It's alright and has it's moments, but there's really nothing that great here in terms of story in my opinion. If it really sounds like something you'd like, I'd say give it a shot, otherwise, I'd say just skip it.