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Jun 29, 2025
I'm someone who generally doesn't understand the appeal of ecchi anime. Now don't get me wrong, I'm definitely a degen myself but I've always found them to exist solely for the fan service part because they usually just toss the actual plot out the window and at that point I'd rather just go browse some actual full-blown adult works. And I'm also not very familiar with Yuri anime. So needless to say I felt a bit frisky checking this out.
MahoAko is a story about girls' self-discovery, but not the kind you would normally expect in the medium of anime. This show is straight up a
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degenerate fantasy where the writers wanted to see how much they can get away with on TV and I'm very much surprised this ever even got to air. It is fully shameless and self-aware. The entire thing felt like a straight up hentai doujinshi.
As I expected the plot is straight up trash. It only exists for the sexual themes. And speaking of which, we have a full on pokedex of fetishes on this one. There's a lot of tame stuff but some kinkier ones too so everyone can probably find something that works for them, or something that completely turns them off on the flipside.
Besides the degen stuff, the characters are the other main focus of the show. Utena is certainly a main character that will get a lot of mixed feelings from people I'm sure. Personally, I feel like if you are watching a show that's as blatantly messed up as MahoAko, you shouldn't be too surprised in the first place. Outside of her sexual self-discovery, she even goes through some actual character development too, much to my surprise.
In addition to Utena we have the other villains of Enormita and of course the Tres Magia magical girls aka the good guys. The show definitely didn't try to hide the fact that even the magical girls are absolute perverts. I think the cast overall is fine and works for what the show wants to be. Still not sure how I feel about Korisu though. They toned down the stuff with her but I still feel like I'm going to end up on a list after finishing this.
I honestly struggled with rating this show. The story is bad so it all basically comes down to how much enjoyment you get out of the lewdness. Considering how impressive this feat was to get this on TV and I'll admit, opening my eyes more to the genre and some fetishes, I overall still liked it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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May 13, 2025
I was already sold after episode one. I immediately got sucked into this tiny, adorable fantasy world. Everything from the aesthetic, sound and character designs were just so cute and warm.
The two main characters of Hakumei and Mikochi are a perfect pair. Their chemistry is so fluffy and friendly. They also feel like a married couple even if the series doesn't fully acknowledge what the extent of their relationship truly is. Which is fine. They live in their tiny house in the tree and live their tiny lives doing fun, tiny things.
The notable side characters that make multiple appearances are also great. The pub manager,
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Iwashi the carpenter, Sen the necromancer and Konju the songstress just to name a few all have lively personalities that really immerse you into this beautiful world even further. Oh and Koharu my beloved. I'm someone who normally is terrified of most insects but this series made me fall in love with the cutest beetle I've ever seen. Just wish we had more of her if anything.
On the topic of the world, while the series is short, we still get quite a lot of subtle worldbuilding. I'm a big fan of them having the tiny humanoid creatures but also full on talking animal/insect characters too. It just makes the whole foresty vibe that much better. During the Ending songs they also include small tidbits about characters, events and factions for a nice bit of bonus exposition.
The score by Evan Call ties everything nicely together. I've already heard him compose fantasy having seen Sousou no Frieren before this so I knew I wasn't going to be let down. And the Ending songs being sung by the two characters of the show that actually do singing is a great touch.
The only thing that I can call a gripe is that sometimes there were some moments of conflict going on. Even if they got some nice resolutions, I prefer my healing shows fully in the healing department for max comfy. I'm looking at you episode 7.
Hakumei to Mikochi is an underappreciated show in the Iyashikei genre. It definitely succeeded in making me feel warm and cozy inside.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Apr 15, 2025
Hidamari no Ki, also translated to A Tree in the Sun, is one of the many stories written by the Japanese legend Tezuka Osamu. In the story we see the povs of a doctor and a samurai in the mid 1850s Japan when the times were changing rapidly to bring western ideologies to Japan via the Meiji Restoration, also known as the end of the Shogunate and the samurai era.
I've always loved historical dramas when it comes to anime. This series, like many other great ones, still takes liberties for the sake of a better flowing narrative, but it still has a high amount of
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respect for actual events and it doesn't try to glorify or apologize for the bad stuff either. This gives it a new layer of authenticity that enhances the immersion and makes it believable.
Regarding our main duo, Ryouan the doctor and Manjirou the samurai. They have two very different paths and personalities but their destines are ultimately intertwined. Ryouan is a womanizing lecher but still takes pride in his work in trying to bring the western medicine to Japan in an era where the foreigners were deemed mostly barbaric. And Manjirou is a traditional warrior through and through. Extremely loyal to his retainers and the shogunate, he would toss his life aside from the common good. But most importantly, both of them value their family above all.
While the series had a lot of characters and to tell you the truth, most of them are forgettable, I still very much enjoyed our protagonists. Something about them having some very apparent flaws while clearly still being good people made it easy to root for them. There are times when they are separated from each other quite a bit but whenever they interact I got this warm feeling of brotherly love between them.
And a small gripe regarding the big cast. Most of the girls had very similar designs because of apparel/hairstyles back in that era so sometimes I found myself confused as to who was on the screen until a name was hopefully dropped to make it clear. The men mostly wore the same stuff too but they had much more distinct facial features so this issue didn't exist with them for me.
Now, I have to address my biggest issue with the show that I cannot easily overlook. There is a lot of sexual abuse in the story. And a lot of it is shown too. Obviously women were not all treated very well back then so I would say there is a level of accuracy to it, but I feel like we did not need to see as much of it as we did.
Next I'm going to just fawn over the good stuff for a bit. The politics are amazing. The main interest of conflict in the series is the adaptation of western culture to Japan. We constantly see people from both ends, either opposing or supporting the movement. We also get a pandemic arc that expertly showcases how brutal something like that was back in that time. The battles are mostly smaller scale but whether it was small or big, they were directed well and felt realistic without plot armor.
Speaking of the above, I was very surprised to find out how well the show has aged visually. Madhouse showing once again that they were the kings of early 2000s anime. No cheap stills, ugly CGI, reused footage or panning shots to give you illusion of fake movement. It's all real and raw.
I also wanna talk about the music on the aesthetics topic. It's fully orchestral and incredibly beautiful. Relaxing, thrilling, eerie, tragic are just some of the words I'd use to describe the wide range of emotions it conveys. The piano work is masterfully present. But outside of the OST, the fully instrumental Opening is eerily haunting but the two rock songs we get for the Endings were a terrible fit for the show tonally and this is coming from a rock fan.
At this point, hopefully it was obvious that I adored this show. I find the term pretty cringy but I would truly call it a hidden gem. A show that is criminally underwatched or not known about in general. It sits at just above 5,000 members in MAL at the time of writing this. If this review convinced even a few people to watch it, then my job is done.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 18, 2025
A girl arrives in Akihabara with big dreams of becoming the cutest and greatest maid in the business. But what if in reality, all the maid cafes were run by organized crime all looking to seize control or eliminate the others? Welcome to the real or not so real history of 1999 Akiba.
Akiba Maid War is an absolutely unhinged yakuza parody that isn't afraid to do whatever it wants with its story. Maid massacres combined with cutesy idol performances? The menu covers it all. Mostly comprised of morbid comedy, it kept me entertained on that front, I wouldn't say there was a single bad episode.
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However, the series actually eventually got its real drama moments too and at first I had mixed feelings about it because I had gotten used to just having a fun time with the show but later on I started appreciating the serious moments too as they came out well written and not leaving any things unresolved.
The one thing I really liked about the show is its surprising feel of realism. Well, besides the expected anime craziness hyperbole scenes at least. It's the most apparent in how remorseless it is when it comes to killing off characters. In this show, no one is off limits for this treatment and it keeps you on your toes and makes the tense scenes actually feel impactful as you truly don't know what is going to happen. It also helps capture the brutal side of the yakuza underworld.
We mostly see events through the eyes of the Ton Tokoton cafe girls, but there are a good amount of memorable side characters too with their respective scenes and even interesting backstories. The VA cast is also insanely stacked, more or less chock full of A-list talent. Anime veterans will definitely hear a lot of familiar voices.
The show somehow manages to capture a good balance of whacky fun and emotional drama, something that normally don't mesh too well together in my experience. I would say it's best enjoyed taking it half-seriously and going with the flow of whatever it wants to present to you at any given point. One of the better original anime surprises to come out of the past few years.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 21, 2025
The ending of the series felt like a fairly good conclusion to me so I wasn't exactly sold on the idea of a sequel movie but after watching it, wakarimasu.
The revues are back better than ever before thanks to a movie budget, symbolism is cranked to 11, references are thrown at your face at every corner and we get focus on the whole cast. Needless to say the whole movie is a big love letter to the fans.
The movie is there to answer the question of what's next for the stage girls, to resolve lingering issues between characters and to even include more much needed
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backstory. As someone who wasn't entirely sold on Karen from the series, I now see her differently after this.
I'm very happy that the tone from the better half of the series is present from the very beginning. Tragedy is a key theme once again. Fate is another huge theme present and the way it's presented was one of the better things about the movie, the Penguindrum vibes were not even subtle and I was all about it.
I don't think the movie is without its issues though. The structure is pure fan service, meaning we jump from revue to revue in a fairly breakneck speed, closing out page after page in character resolutions while sprinkling the backstories in between. While I adored the revues this time around and the choreographies were beautiful to behold, I do wish there were other ways to storytelling shown too.
The whole thing is one of those things that didn't need to necessarily exist, but everyone who watched it are surely glad it does.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 21, 2025
Everyone has probably had those dreams of making it big and becoming a big star on stage. Most people however don't ever even try to pursue this dream. But in Revue Starlight, we follow an ensemble cast of high school girls and their daily lives in a highly prestigious theater academy, honing their love for the medium and reaching for the title of the top star.
The show starts out very straightforward but very quickly establishes an element deeper than the surface may have initially suggested; the revues. Sing, dance and battle. Who has the highest desire? As a mysterious giraffe observes, the girls go head
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to head. But only one can come out on top and reach the stage of their quite literal dreams.
While the show has an ensemble cast, it mostly focused on the pairing of Hikari and Karen. All of the girls get featured in revues but personally I found many of them a hit or miss. Sometimes because the revues themselves were too underwhelming, short or just done off screen because of the cast size restricting the appearances. Other times I also felt that there was a bit too much melodrama for my liking or that resolutions to some of the discord were sudden and too easy.
The first half mostly deals with what I just discussed, which is by far the weakest side of the series. It's a real shame though because I have a feeling a lot of people drop the series early on but things do actually get way more interesting and polished after the halfway point. That is, because we have Episode 7. Now without going into spoilers, it certainly made me see the series in a new, good light. While the reveal wasn't the most original thing, something liked it needed to happen.
However, I felt a bit disappointed at how the development of that aforementioned Episode 7 was handled later, making the focused character from it seem like a plot device for Hikari and Karen to have their grand spotlight.
Another thing I want to touch on is the music, it's a big theme in the show after all. All the revues have their own designated songs performed by the girls acting in the scenes. They absolutely elevated the revues but as someone who isn't a huge fan of musical stuff, the songs themselves were mostly a miss for me.
While the series had a good amount of cinematography, some of the choreographies in the revues could have been better. Quite a lot of still shots and static camera going on.
My nitpicks aside I was still pleasantly surprised to see that the show had some real depth to offer and it kept me interested all the way to the end after the halfway point.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 16, 2024
Saishuu Heiki Kanojo, abbreviated to SaiKano is a tragic tale of love in a world on the brink of collapse. An innocent and full of life young girl named Chise just wants to live a normal life and experience true love with her boyfriend Shuuji but unfortunately for them, happiness was never on the menu in this universe. Shuuji finds out the truth about the body of his beloved and the story begins.
So if it wasn't obvious already, SaiKano is a sad and dark series that barely shows any glimpses of happiness, far from your typical romance anime. The show begins with a fantastic opener
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episode that immediately sets the tone and lets the viewer know what they signed up for.
However, I found the series to not always hold the quality parts of the tragic plotline, especially around the middle. Some episodes are just fully focused on trashy behavior and dialogue from characters, both main and support cast. Another issue I had is that the series has a lot of tragic events throughout but for most them I didn't really couldn't feel for because most of the side cast didn't receive enough screen time and or development.
And by far my biggest gripe with the series is the horniness. My god, the amount of lewd scenes and dialogue made it feel like the thing was written by a boy in puberty just discovering intercourse for the first time. And to wrap up my grievances, Shuuji's voice actor is a seemingly random dude with no other credited roles and it shows. His performance for the most part was just bad.
The best parts about the series to me was the emotional struggle of the characters wanting to continue living their normal lives and hoping for the best in a very obviously horrible situation. Chise in particular goes through so much turmoil you can't help but get your emotions all riled up.
The storytelling makes decent use of the show, don't tell style too. We don't get to see a lot of the conflict parts but everything is still somehow presented in a way that at least personally I wasn't bothered by the lack of information but rather, found myself actually more interested in everything specifically because we were lacking the information. Although worth mentioning the 2 episode OVA series is a fantastic supplementary work to the series which opens your eyes even more after the series. I highly recommend those after you are finished with the show.
And finally I have point out the OST. It can be a hit or miss depending on the person but I personally loved all the pieces using electric guitars. They significantly boosted the emotions going on in many scenes to a new level.
SaiKano overall worked for me. As I mentioned I definitely had some issues with it but found myself invested regardless. It's like one of those horrible accidents you just can't look away from.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Nov 12, 2024
I consider myself somewhat of a sports anime enjoyer however I don't have a particular interest in the martial art of judo. Yet I found myself binging all of Mou Ippon! in a single day, so that should be a testament in and of itself.
Don't get me wrong. The sport, judo, was definitely portrayed well and some matches could definitely be put up there next to some more well respected sports anime battles. But in my opinion where the show really shines the best is not that. It's the characters. And more specifically, the interactions between the characters.
I wouldn't say a single girl of our
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main cast from Aoba West high school stand out on their own but together, it makes all the difference. I had a very fun time just watching them get to know each other better, coming from different background and levels of age, judo and friendships. And most importantly, it felt organic. The show is believable and that's why I really enjoyed it.
You don't need a masterclass in writing or a plot that is deep if the story you are telling feels good to experience. Even the matches felt real and they weren't throwing around deus ex machina for the sake of making stakes higher. The show is mostly comfy and a feel good experience but it's not afraid to get serious too and it manages to handle the tones for both well.
The animation also pleasantly surprised me. It was mostly very fluid with great uses of camera angles to add that extra oomph. But while I enjoyed the judo matches after getting used to it more, I still wish they would have expanded more on the actual workings of it. Lots of terms such as points and technique names are dropped constantly but never do we actually get proper explanations for anything.
Drama in the series was pretty elementary and some of it felt a little forced but it wasn't bothering me too much overall. And the ending of the show feels almost like only a prologue finishing so I definitely was left wanting more. Hopefully it gets another season some day but as is, it's still a fairly self-contained fun show that just works.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 13, 2024
I went into this blind and thought I was in for a cozy travelling show so I was surprised pleasantly to learn that Kino's Journey is something much deeper than that.
The show follows the titular character and her motorcycle Hermes as they travel a fictional world and its various countries, experiencing their culture, history and ways of living. The show is very episodic, featuring only a single double parter, otherwise always changing the tone each episode.
Kino and Hermes are supposed to act as the observers. Because of this, the show feels more like a collection of short stories rather than an actual adventure of the
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main characters. Although sometimes Kino ends up taking a very proactive approach to a place she visits, which in my opinion is when the show actually gets less interesting. I didn't really care too much for the action side.
Personally, I love the show when an episode gets full on philosophical and thought-provoking. It's not afraid to give you grim, reality checks. In fact, most of the show probably feels very familiar to the viewer, handling commonly explored dystopian themes, especially those that reflect our real world. However, I still found the philosophy a hit or miss. When it's good it's amazing, but sometimes I felt like it missed the mark and it was like someone's first attempt at writing this kind of material.
I loved the eerie vibe the show has going on, feeling almost like a horror series sometimes. This is paired beautifully (pun intended) by the haunting OST. There are no happy tracks in the music whatsoever, but not overly gloomy either. A perfect fit. The show also has this odd CRT like filter on it which I have mixed feelings on. It's good for the vibe but sometimes a bit jarring to look at.
Even though I still preferred a more passive approach from Kino herself regarding the different countries, I still wish we got to see more of her story too. We get a backstory of how she got started but that's about it. Would have loved to have learned more about her Master and all the time between her childhood and current situation.
The world building feels slightly off, since we don't get to see Kino really move between the countries a lot, everything just ends up feeling very disconnected from each other, which is a shame since it's a fictional world and I think there was a lot of room for some greatness in this aspect.
While the show is short, I wouldn't recommend binging it all in one go. I think it's better to let the message of the episodes sink in for a while and actually take it in. Scoring this was hard since it's far from perfect but there were times I loved the show and overall it's still a quality piece of anime that deserves its status as a classic.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 11, 2024
Sora yori mo tooi basho is a very surface level show about self-discovery, wrapped in a fun adventure. But even though a story can be simple, it can still grasp the audience if executed well.
A small group of high school girls from Japan take on the most ambitious task of their short lives while learning more about each other and most importantly, themselves. Along the way, we encounter moments of sadness but the show ultimately feels very hopeful. It doesn't have twists and turns but rather, provides some much needed emotional catharsis that peaks towards the end.
The direction and pacing both feel good. The show
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establishes itself adequately in the first three episodes and rides the expectations well until the end. It doesn't overstay its welcome and is a fairly comfortable binge.
I can't think of many things to complain or nitpick about. Aesthetically the show is passable, nothing too out of the ordinary for better or worse. Music does the job, although personally I found them overusing the same insert songs a bit too much.
If anything the one thing I felt missing was exploring the main cast more. We get the bare minimum about them but I really wanted to get to know them better as they seemed fun but outside of Shirase, we don't see a ton sadly. Oh and speaking of the characters, the voice acting cast at least is very stacked.
There were moments where I felt the drama became a bit too melodramatic for my own tastes but most of the time it felt real in a positive way. I definitely felt emotional during several scenes but also experienced things like comfy vibes during the more adventurous parts.
While the show wasn't an instant hit for me, I can see why it became such an original hit. It's a short and tight, well written original package that doesn't require a crazy amount of thinking to understand the message of.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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