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-- The review contains spoilers--


So in “One Piece” we got dudes who wanna become pirates right? In “Naruto” we got dudes who want to become respected ninjas. Cool world settings, they’re simple but effective descriptions that can help drive a story forward.

In “Hunter X Hunter’ we got dudes who want to be able to do whatever the fuck they please. That’s about as accurate as it gets with this world setting. A “Hunter” as described in the beginning of this anime as someone who has a license that grants him complete freedom to travel where he pleases, and kill whoever he pleases. People become hunters ... because they want to pursue something, for example exotic monsters or jewellery.  Now the anime becomes bat-shit crazy when the obstacles that are portrayed in this fictional universe are just straight up unforgiving. 

The fictional universe here is just extremely dangerous and every pursuit by a hunter always involves death and suffering.

Want a rare trading card? Sorry, you’re going to have to win a game of dodge ball against a team of steroid-abusing super-humans who can kill you in-game by the way.

Want to stamp on an ant? Sorry, you’re going to have to use a special nuclear missile that poisons those who manage to survive the explosion. Either that or you have to beat the ant in a game of three-dimensional chess.

Note: These are actual events in the anime and haven’t been over-exaggerated in any way.

The story, at-least as long as the anime aired centred around a 10 year old boy looking for his father, who in the process ends up becoming a hunter, creating beef with a family of assassins, clearing a video game that kills you in real-life if you die in game and also killing an ant cat-girl. It doesn’t get better than this folks.

On a more serious note, this anime is a fighting anime that is basically a lesson to every other fighting anime in existence on how to do it right. The super-natural powers and martial art technique shown in the anime immerse you in fights that are over-whelming yet not over-exaggerated. The anime achieves this by simply explaining the world it’s set in with a degree of rationality a scientist would describe the world we live in with. Nothing feels unreal if you can explain it. This also leads to a dark atmosphere being set out throughout the anime accompanied by parts that make you feel the anime is just another easy-going show.

The heavy technical side of the anime unfortunately ends up reducing the pacing significantly, and also killing the humanity in the plot. But it really is compensated by how good everything else is.

“Bakuman” is a window into the life of someone who rose from the bottom to the top and is inspiring more than anything else. The story is centred around a novice artist who decides to draw manga with the help of his friend and his growth as a human being and an artist is what makes this really intriguing for me. There’s also a stupid side-plot about him and a girl agreeing to get married if they accomplish their dreams but I mean, fuck that shit.

The story has bits of comedy, bits of emotional drama, segments where the author explains to the readers how the ... manga / anime industry functions in Japan; I mean to be honest this is probably my guidebook to manga and anime in terms of being able to recognize good and bad art, stories, et cetera. 

The more interesting parts of the manga are the face-offs between different artists and manga authors AKA “Mangakas” with the protagonist with this constant competition for who wins the most awards, gets highest ratings and all that. And on paper it sounds really boring, to read a manga about dudes drawing manga while also being explained to about how they’re drawing the manga; but “Bakuman” just makes it work at the end of the day.

Did I also mention that this manga has the same author and artist as “Deathnote”?

To put it roughly “Stein;s Gate” is about a man being driven mad by having to choose between saving his friends, the love of his life and the world using time-travel. If the premise isn’t good enough to put you onto this show, then you’d be hooked either way because everything else about it is just so masterfully made; by that I mean the characters, the animation, the story progression and most importantly the screenplay.

This anime is a fine cocktail of traits, that on paper don’t seem to mix well together but still end up blowing the viewers away. There are characters that feel generic ... and kiddish contrasted by characters that you wanna strangle to death because they’re just plain flawed human beings. There are segments of this story that are as light-hearted as a hot spring arc in a slice of life anime contrasted by brutally honest segments that make you hyperventilate.

What I’ve grown to admire the most is the screenplay. The events that transpire in Stein;s Gate have a gargantuan presence in the world. They make or break the future of 7 billion people, yet the anime is paced in a way that it feels as though what happens to the world is secondary to what the main character perceives. The protagonist’s personal interests seem to be of focus despite them in the grander scheme of things not being significant yet this doesn’t come off as a flaw in the show but the key element in what makes it soo god-damn relatable.

Your Lie In April” is about healing past traumas in the toughest circumstances. The protagonist who happens to be a victim of domestic abuse gave up playing the piano after the death of his mother. A secret admirer of his after being diagnosed with a fatal illness, takes it upon herself to use the last few months she has to live to bring the protagonist out of his slump by making him play the piano once more. “Your Lie In April” is NOT a pointless John Greene story that lacks depth, substance and diversity. When a drama / romance story is written in a way ... that the death of a main character is inevitable from the start of the story it limits the options of the writer. 

The author can choose to either jerk off the hearts of 16 year old girls with an extremely cheesy cast of characters that follow a typical romance story plot-line; with a tragic ending being the only thing different. Such authors are fucking sell-outs who lack the skill to make a meaningful and entertaining story.  That means you too Nicholas Sparks.

The other direction an author could take with the exact same setting of an evidently terminal main character introduced in the very beginning of the series; is to simply not build a story around the fact that the MC will die but instead to use it to build upon another more interesting story.

YLIA is not about a romantic relationship between an ill girl and a traumatized MC, it is about a guy who overcomes his weaknesses with the help of a terminally ill girl. The main focus of this anime isn’t even on the relationships between the characters but the musical score that acts as a centre-piece in most episodes. If I had to rank which anime had the best soundtrack soo far, YLIA would win a flawless victory. 

With breath-taking animations, bitter-sweet comedy, incredible segments where the characters do nothing but play instruments and most importantly an important lesson to take away in the end; “Your Lie In April” takes top prize as my favourite rom-com anime.