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DanMachi is a show that doesn't try to be much of anything other than a decently entertaining watch to pass the time (and to drum up light novel sales, but that's another story).

The story is nothing to write home about. To try and make it seem like DanMachi is doing something original with the players getting trapped in a video game premise, because for all intents and purposes, the real world IS the video game. Granted, it is fairly interesting seeing simple gaming terms such as leveling up and skills being name dropped in a setting that isn't actually a video game, but it ... still doesn't make it any more original. I really do like the setting though. It isn't that much more special than your typical anime fantasy setting, but it coincides well with other plot points such as the gods and goddesses.

The actual plot is about as simple as you can get. Our main character, Bell Cranel, wants to become a hero and get stronger so a girl who was much stronger than him at ep 1 will respect and fall in love with him. No seriously, that's it. You really can't get much more of a paper thin plot than that.

The characters are actually worse off than the story if you can believe it. Bell Cranel has many noticeable character flaws, but to his credit, there are some things done to alleviate a few of his problems. Even though he is extremely overpowered after a while, and a bunch of stupid powerful skills and weapons get asspulled out of nowhere to make him ever more powerful, the simple fact that he starts off with basically nothing makes him a little better off. He and his goddess, Hestia, have little to nothing, and his determination to get off the ground and get stronger makes the whole "become a hero" plot thing have more humility and humbleness. Unfortunately, there isn't really anything to alleviate his massive case of harem syndrome, where almost every single female (keep in mind most of the cast is female, probably to drive home this sole fact) has at least a crush on him. It's silly and unrealistic, but there isn't much you can do with a harem to begin with, so I won't harp on it too much.

Hestia was the talk of the town in the anime community for a while with her character design. Apparently combining big boobs with the loli stature and a boob ribbon makes for a riveting character. She does get some decent development early on with her earnest dedication to help Bell as much as she can, but loses lots of screentime after the halfway point, making her character feel fairly insignificant as time goes on.

Other than that, there is an incredibly large cast of characters, and many of them have little to nothing other than their standard sole character trait, but I'll quickly explain my thoughts on some of the more prominent ones.

I think they went too far with Lili to the point where I couldn't reason with her actions even though they were explained. I get her lack of trust, but it doesn't make sense to me that she would still try to actively hurt Bell after how honest Bell was (Bell was stupid about the situation too, but it kind of comes with the territory with characters of his nature).

Welf's whole thing with magic weapons didn't really make sense.

Quiet characters can make some of the best characters if written well, and Aiz wasn't interesting. She was just plain boring. Ryu was a little better off, but not by much.

For the most part, the art looks like typical J.C. Staff fare. That's not really a bad thing, it just has that very soft and faint look that a lot of there shows have. The animation definitely has it's high points though. There weren't many, but there were a couple of fight scenes were really well choreographed with great use of camera work. Bell's fight with a minotaur was easily the best part of the whole series because it not only utilized those elements well, it also created perfect tension. I mean, you know Bell is gonna win, but it certainly doesn't hinder your show to give him a losing perspective from time to time, now does it?

Even though the show doesn't try to do much, and also has a great deal of flaws, I still managed to enjoy it for what it was. Even though the story and characters were weak, the simple fact of it being set in a fantasy world with game mechanics and some good fight scenes makes even the most mediocre of shows such as this still bearable. Call me a pleb if you must, but sometimes I just can't help myself. I still wouldn't really recommend this to most people unless you are like me and just like the idea of RPG anime.

I can't really think of anything to start off this review, so I'll just get right into what I think of Basilisk: Kouga Ninpou Chou.

The show started off strong, with various characters being introduced with strange but interesting powers. Put in a Romeo and Juliet like love story in between two warring villages, and you have yourself Basilisk: Kouga Ninpou Chou.

However, after everything was established, I quickly got disinterested with the whole story. This is due to almost all the characters having no depth or worthwhile personality attached to them. Many of them only had cool powers and an unexplained hatred for the other clan. ... This is one of the most crucial things to making a decent anime, and Basilisk gets it completely wrong. When characters start dying left and right, how am I supposed to feel bad for them if I barely know anything about them? A lot of them don't even have decent character relationships with one another.

This leads to a story that gets increasingly repetitive, which ultimately reduces tension and increases predictability. If you ask me, a show that showcases two clans fighting to the death should create a good amount of tension to get you invested in what is being shown to you. I can't get invested into the story if all I am seeing are these meaningless characters getting killed. If Basilisk focused more on these various side characters, it would have been much better off.

There are a few instances where the anime tries to make us care for these characters, sure, but many of them are not well-integrated into the story at all. Even these few backstories and flashbacks shown don't give us much to grieve upon with these characters, just a bunch of simple stuff that we have seen a million times and done better.

The Romeo and Juliet storyline between Oboro and Gennosuke is handled decently enough. However, it's a Romeo and Juliet storyline, it pretty hard to make a bad Romeo and Juliet storyline considering how many times it has been done before. Hell, two years after this was released, Gonzo produced an actual Romeo and Juliet anime called Romeo x Juliet.

Oboro herself is a pretty okay character. She has well justified reasons for her actions, and has a strong sense of compassion to make up for her lack of physical abilities. I don't favour Gennosuke as much though. He makes pretty confusing decisions, and other than that, he is a stoic character that doesn't talk much, which is pretty run of the mill if you ask me.

I'll talk about one last character before I move on, and that is Yakushiji Tenzen. He is by far the best character in the anime. Talking about him in depth would bring about too many spoilers, but he is very interesting to say the least.

The fight scenes in the anime are pretty entertaining to watch, and the animation holds up during these scenes. My problem with this is the amount and length of these scenes. Given the studio we are dealing with, this was probably the best course of action to have good looking fights but have them scattered around, but I guess I'm a little too greedy and would have liked just a little more. The artstyle is easy enough to look at, and the character designs were also well-done.

As for sound, the only thing really worth mentioning is the OP, which is my favourite part of the show (which when you think about it, doesn't say much about the quality of Basilisk as a whole). I watched the show in sub, and the voice acting wasn't bad, but it wasn't up to par with many of the other things I have heard.

Basilisk is a show that could have been so much more. I really only have one problem with it, which is the characters, but they are handled so poorly that it stems to many other parts of the show, including its story, making it a dis-interesting and borderline edgy mess. I get that the show was moreso trying to focus on the depravity of people when pushed into a situation such as this, but that message gets buried underneath the mountain of underdeveloped characters. I can't recommend this show to anyone really, but if it still piques your curiosity, maybe you will find that you like it a lot more than I did.

Gainax is, or was, the proprietor of many anime that perplexed and intrigued the anime fanbase. They have basically created a particular brand of crazy that they have infused into many of their anime, whether it be psychological crazy, see Evangelion, or balls to the walls crazy a la Gurren Lagann, FLCL, or Panty and Stocking. However, if you go past all their big name anime, you will come across this more or less forgotten show that seems to forego a lot of this.

Regardless of where it came from, Mahoromatic is pretty much just another rom-com with ecchi strewn about. The thing that tries ... to differentiate itself from others in it's genre is that Mahoro, our main protagonist (trust me, it definitely IS NOT Suguru) is a battle android constructed to fight against an alien race known as Saint.

The problem with this, however, is that it fails to expand on many aspects of this plot point that should feel a lot more important that it actually is. This is especially noticeable when talking about Saint. We know little to nothing about them than the very basics of where they came from. This, combined with the fact that many plot holes arised because of this, ended up straining my experience of this show as a whole.

However, I realized that this was not 100% superfluous, as it does give birth to the best part of the show by a longshot, and that is Mahoro myself. Aside from a couple of those plot holes that went in tandem with her character, she was a well written character in an otherwise sea of mediocrity. She certainly isn't the deepest character ever conceived, but as far as this show is concerned, she might as well be. The best parts of her character stem from her past as a battle android catching up to her as she tries to live a daily life as a human for the rest of her days. This creates a simple but effective internal conflict of what is more important, her duties as a battle android and protecting Suguru, or having fun with Suguru and his friends for her remaining lifespan. The second best thing of her character is the debt she feels she owes to Suguru. I won't spoil what that debt is (even though it is explained in episode 3), but I will say it is something Suguru is unaware of. It hasn't been fully explored yet, but I feel it will be in the coming second season which I have yet to watch. She also very briefly talks about the whole "sacrifice few to save many" thing, but that is focused on very little. Watch Fate/Zero if you want more on that topic.

Also, she has a fun personality, during the comedy heavy scenes, and is the driving force of said comedy, because it certainly isn't the slutty teacher, Ms. Shikijo. Ms. Shikijo is not just annoying, but almost incomprehensible. I mean, what arguably hot teacher in her mid 20's falls for and wants to have sex with a 14 year old megane boring twat? Nothing she says is funny, and she is definitely a character I could have done without.

Suguru, the apparent main protagonist, really isn't the protagonist at all. Sure, he does have some moments here and there, but the majority of, well, everything, is focused on Mahoro (which is a plus in my books). Out of all harem protagonists, he is certainly better than most. He is kind to Mahoro, and wants to protect her even though he is just a human, because of the loss of his parents at a young age. This once again creates a simple but effective mechanic between him and Mahoro, which it easier to forget that Suguru isn't that interesting other than his relationship with Mahoro.

I could talk about the other characters, but they aren't much to talk about. Instead, lets talk about the ecchi. Back in 2001, ecchi was nowhere near as graphic as it is today, with shows such as Highschool of the Dead and Highschool DxD. However, Mahoromatic makes up for this with showing basic cable nudity in the form of fully exposed boobies. As someone who isn't much into ecchi, I actually got used to it eventually. It is, after all, labeled as an ecchi show, so I can't be mad at it for that, even when it sometimes get's in the way of the more serious scenes, but this is thankfully few and far between. The one thing I will mention in detail that made me cringe a little was in the first episode, where they actually showed the exposed boobs of Suguru's dead mother in a flashback. There's a certain line you have to cross, and that crossed it for me, but I'm grateful nothing that extreme happened again in the series.

The production values are fairly mediocre. The battle scenes at the end were truly well done, but other than that, the animation and art was pretty generic and bland. And other than the OP, which I love to death now, the actual OST wasn't memorable in the slightest.

I watched the dub for this show, and I thought it wasn't bad. I'd probably recommend the Japanese audio anyways as that is still better, but as someone who likes listening to stuff in their native language from time to time, I thought it did the job just fine. As far as dubs go, it's got a good cast. Wendee Lee, Steve Blum, Michelle Ruff, J. Michael Tatum, etc. Bridges Hoffman does a good job as Mahoro, but she does flop from time to time.

If it wasn't for Mahoro, this show would be unrecommendable. The major plot point is not expanded upon, the other characters aren't much of anything, and the comedy is not up to par with some of the better shows of this genre. However, because of Mahoro, it is certainly worth the time to check this show out if you have nothing better to do, as she singlehandedly carries this show with her pinkie finger. Even with all it's flaws, it still managed to keep me enjoyed and clicking to the next episode, and I'm excited to check out the second season. Of course, I have a great love and/or tolerance for the romance genre, so I might handle this show better than most, so try it with a grain of salt.

As a side note, this show is completely unrecommendable if you are a diehard feminazi. A show containing a cute battle android turned house maid for a hormone-crazed 14 year old going through puberty with fanservice galore will not appeal to that crowd, and would cause an uproar if this show was well known to the masses. (Yes, I am joking with this statement, for the most part at least :P). However, I would argue that this show is not the least bit sexist, as Mahoro is the best, most well-written part of the show, and the fanservice is handled as tactfully as fanservice goes as far as I am concerned.

Can't wait for the hate for this one.

At the start of watching Lovely Complex, I was certain that I was going to love this show, being a fan of shoujo romance. I can't say that I dislike it, but rather I was heavily dissapointed by it.

Throughout the first half, I really enjoyed what it brought to the table. The start was a little rough, but it was a nice twist to an unoriginal genre (I say this way too much with romance anime, but so be it). Otani and Risa are a pairing that are so much fun to watch. The back and forth ... between them was well handled early on. Not only that, but it did extremely well with the themes of unrequited love and beauty is only skin deep.

The thing is, as the anime trotted along, I realized that this was the ONLY thing it did. It kept beating the theme of unrequited love so much that it lost a lot of it's impact. There wasn't a lot of anything else that the characters talked about other than Otani and Risa's relationship until the very end of the series. The saying goes that variety is the spice of life, and the lack of this in Lovely Complex grated on my patience.

This also bears a problem when talking about side characters. The four best friends of Otani and Risa (aside from Nobu who I will get to in a minute) have barely anything to them. They are left sidelined till the last couple episodes, just so the anime could say that they developed them. Hell, the one defining character trait of Chiharu established in episode one, which was she feared men, was not brought back up until episode the second to last episode.

Nobu is the only other character besides the main leads that gets much screen-time at all. All her character is is her yelling at either Otani or Risa to either do something about their relationship, or yelling at them because they did something wrong. I didn't dislike her character, but I just felt I should mention how one note she felt for the majority of the series.

As for the rest of the side characters, most of them are just plot devices to cause tension between Otani and Risa.

Otani and Risa themselves, while frustrating at times, were the best part of the series. Risa is a girl who tries very hard to achieve her goals. Even though she cries a lot, which did get annoying sometimes, it was hard not to get behind her whenever she fails or succeeds. I also liked how Otani dealt with the whole unrequited love thing. I won't spoil it, but he handled it in a way that was frustrating but very believable, which I appreciated a great deal. They aren't the best couple I've seen, as they suffered a lot from the lack of buildup of their relationship due to the stretched out nature of the middle section of the show, but they were an extremely fun couple, for the most part.

The art and animation was not fantastic. While I liked the colour palette they used, and the character designs were well done, and my god the facial expressions were amazing, but it still felt a little flat to me. The animation was stiff as well.

The soundtrack was extremely memorable. Normally romance soundtracks don't have much of an impact on me, but there were a few songs in this one that were fantastically put together. Some stand outs would be World's End, Risa, DUNK SHOOT, Deep Past, and Theme of LoveCom. Complex is also noteworthy, but only because the first 18 seconds are more or less a complete copy of the chorus of The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby". Seriously, go listen to them both.

The voice acting is also memorable in how everyone has a kansai dialect. The voices of Risa and Otani are very good as far as I'm concerned. There were technically some bad voice actors here and there, Chiharu and Suzuki for example, but there voices were so different that I loved their voices regardless.

Lovely Complex is a show that seems to focus on very specific things, which ended up hurting many other aspects of the show that could of been interesting. And while yes, these things that were so heavily focused on were well done, I was spoon fed so much of the same thing that it left me grasping for something else. It doesn't help when all your characters talk about is Otani and Risa's love life, and basically nothing else until the very end of the series, and that the drama felt very forced, especially towards the end. That being said, the end did leave off on strong note, with everything wrapping up very nicely, even if the drama was forced. Overall, Lovely Complex was a fun show to watch, with some great cutesy moments and comedy moments, but it isn't a show I would highly recommend. Of course, I think I'm in the minority here, so if you watch it and end up loving it, more power to you.

There are shows out there that many will experience where even though there are so many flaws in a show that you can point out, you can't help but love the show regardless. In my experience of watching anime, these shows are fairly rare, since normally my enjoyment correlates with how many or little flaws there are. Special A is one of these shows. Special A is one of those rare cases.

One thing I really enjoyed about this show was it's pacing. Although it is probably the cause of some of the rushed parts of the show, the fast pacing never left me bored, ... and is probably the reason that it alleviates so many of this show's flaws for me.

The multiple settings are also a big part in keeping the show fresh. Even though we are following a bunch of high school kids once again, the convenience of having most all of them be filthy stinking rich keeps them moving from place to place. When they aren't having a conversation in their conservatory at school, they could be at a private island, someone's mansion, etc. Hell, they even go to both London and Hawaii. Although it would've been nice to have the characters explore those settings much more than they did, it was a nice change of pace than having a rom-com set in a high school for the ten-billionth time.

The last thing I'll mention about the story is how it tries to make light of some of the actual problems that higher class students may face. For example, having pre-arranged marriages to keep the family business afloat, people pretending to be your friends so they can have the taste of luxury, etc. These problems help the main cast (aside from Hikari, since she is from a working class family) from feeling like snobby rich kids, and this in turn makes them much more relatable.

As of now, I've been giving this show nothing but praise when I said there were a multitude of problems with it. This show does genuinely get some things right, as previously mentioned, but it also get's many things wrong as well, the latter more likely outweighing the former at points.

First of all, the dialogue. Almost half the dialogue is exposition, sometimes for scenes we have already seen. This isn't just annoying, but it makes it feel like the staff isn't taking it's source material or the viewer seriously. A lot of the other dialogue encompasses either the romantic/comedic parts of the show. While the comedy does have some brilliant moments here and there, a lot of it is just silly character quirks being played for laughs that are repeated over and over again. And while those brilliant moments of comedy are indeed hilarious at the time of viewing, I find myself hard-pressed to remember a lot of these scenes because they lack memorability.

Excluding the main two leads, Hikari and Kei, the other five members of SA each consist of a few character traits, to the point that they just don't feel like real people. Granted, they do try put at least some focus on them, and sometimes it does work. Akira's backstory does feel melodramatic at times, but still managed to elevate her character enough so she wasn't just the really annoying tsundere, and her relationship with Tadashi is actually pretty compelling as far as secondary romances go. Ryu only really gets one episode focused on him, but that one episode was handled well enough to the point where I am content with it.

Yahiro, who serves as an antagonist (yes, a rom-com actually has some sort of main antagonist, even if it doesn't last) was one of things that this show handles exceptionally well. He is an absolute scoundrel at the beginning of the show, but throughout the entire runtime of this anime, he slowly becomes more and more acceptable (for lack of a better word) to the point where he becomes a likeable character and love interest for one of the main characters without feeling forced or rushed. His motives for his actions in the beginning make sense as well. He wasn't much of a villain in the end, but he was one of the only characters in this show to actually feel like a person.

Hikari and Kei, the main characters, were also good characters. Hikari herself is a very outgoing individual who always tries her hardest to make things right, or as Akira describes her, "straightforward and pure". She is incredibly dense, however, to Kei's feelings toward her, and while that didn't annoy me as much as it should have, I can see this as being really annoying for others. Her relationship with Kei was also very well handled as well. It was compelling, and there was a multitude of nice romantic scenes here and there.

I guess I'll talk about Jun's backstory as well briefly. It's fucking stupid. I can't say what it is because it doesn't happen to well into the second half of the series, but it just plain doesn't make sense. I know a lot of this show breaks a lot of logic boundaries, what with Kei's godlike physical capabilities and whatnot, but I can handle that as it adds to the dynamic between Kei and Hikari, but Jun's backstory just feels like something they just randomly added in to give him some sort of depth, because other than that, Jun has no real personality. His romantic subplot was subpar as well because of how rushed it felt.

Now, lets talk about what seems to be a hot topic when it comes to this show. The character designs. At first, I hated them. They looked like a shitty ripoff of CLAMP designs, take that as you will. I didn't understand why they looked so lanky, when a fairly major plot point early on was that both Kei and Hikari's dads were into pro wrestling. They are both extremely athletic and strong, so shouldn't that mean their bodies shouldn't look like sticks? That being said, I felt it was a jarring move when in the middle of the series, they decided to tweak the designs to look a little better. And while they did look technically better, I got used to those earlier designs, to changing them halfway through just didn't make sense to me.

Nothing else about the art or animation is that great, either. From the colour palette to the backgrounds to the movement of characters, everything about it was just average. There wasn't a particularly good looking scene ever in this anime, but there wasn't any bad ones either. Well, except when they did those really awful CGI panning shots that made everything look like you were seeing through a fish eye lens. There were only two of those in the whole series, so it's a minor complaint. Well, if you expect much from studio Gonzo anyways in terms of art and animation, most of the time you are gonna be shit out of luck.

Lastly, the sound. When it comes to any sort of romance anime, I normally say that the music fit the show but it wasn't memorable. This time, I can't even say that. There was very little variety to the soundtrack, and there wasn't even a memorable piece in that soundtrack. Hell, a lot of the sound effects where just cheap sound bytes you've heard used a million times before.

I normally never talk about Japanese voice acting in my reviews, mainly because I know nothing about it and I generally accept it as good all the time. I'm only talking about it now because both opening and ending themes were sung by each member of the main cast. Two of the songs were sung by the males, and the other two by the females. They were the only good parts about the sound in my opinion. It does sound like karaoke at times, but they for the most part they did a good part in those songs. And while I'm at it, they all did a very good job in their roles, with my standout performances being the voices of Kei, Tadashi, and Akira.

Contrary to it's title, Special A really isn't all that special. It does have some changes in it's setting to make it a little different from most, but when it comes to it, it is just another rom-com. But for some reason, I enjoyed almost every bit of it immensely. There are flaws littered throughout this show, but I just don't care. I can't recommend this show fully in good conscience because of these flaws, because I doubt many others will find it as enjoyable as I did because of them. However, if you are looking for a decently funny show with great romances (except for Jun's), and can look past the negatives I mentioned, give it a try.

Before I go, I have to mention one thing. The ending. There are some stupid things that happen in this show, but the very last scene of the last episode takes the cake. If you watched the show, you will know what I am talking about. It tries to make this really nice romantic scene which probably would have worked if they didn't do what they did. I know it sounds weird to people who haven't watched the show, but I want to avoid spoilers :P

Quick Disclaimer. I have a ton to say about Jojo's, so this review will be very long, which is saying a lot since my other reviews are crazy long to begin with, so read with your own discretion.

Battle shounen have a bad rap in the anime community, and in my opinion, it is mainly for good reason. They are overly repetitive, extremely long in running time, and have extremely archetypal characters that develop very slowly because of said running time. However, this is only because the shows of the genre that are like this are by far the most popular (The Big 3, Fairy Tail, ... etc.). This creates a stigma that says that all battle shounen are shit, which I believe isn't true. Don't get me wrong, most of them are very bad, but there are a select few that rise above the failings that plague most battle shounen, and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is one of them, even if it still isn't perfect (I hear Hunter x Hunter 2011 is a good example as well, but I haven't watched it yet :P).

Since this show is split into two parts (the first 9 episodes adapts the first part of the manga series, Phantom Blood, whilst the remaining episodes adapt the second, Battle Tendency), I will talk about some things that help and hinder the show across both parts, and then delve into the pros and cons that concern each respective part after that.

The main way this show decides to stray away from it's other battle shounen brethren is basically be as stupid as possible. There are so many logic flaws and asspulls littered throughout Jojo's Bizzare Adventure that you can find yourself facepalming at some points. On the other hand, however, the show wouldn't be nearly as fun without some of the silly shit it pulls. What it lacks in logic it makes up for with extreme passion and energy, and it's hard not to get caught up in the spectacle of it all.

However, there was one thing that appeared readily throughout the runtime of the series that really tried to hamper the fun atmosphere it's sheer stupidity had set up. Every time a character tries to pull any sort of move or tactic, accompanying dialogue is there to spell it out for us. Granted, some explanation is needed for some of the more complicated plots the characters pull off, but it goes too far when a character screams something along the line of "I'm going to deliver a Hamon Kick straight to your face!". It's like the show assumes the audience is just as stupid as it is, and this dialogue can really take you out of the experience at times with it's excessive amounts of hand-holding.

The last thing I will talk about with this show as a whole (except for art and sound, which will come later) is how much the spotlight is put on the two main characters of each respective parts. It really seems like the main characters are the only ones capable of moving the plot forward in this show. This doesn't mean that there aren't any other good characters in the show besides the mains, because there are. Hell, one of the mains is actually very bland. There are some very interesting and extremely likeable characters, but most of them have very little power with the plot, especially during fight scenes, where the main leads are always the ones to beat the bad guys, even when some characters are clearly stronger than them to begin with.

Now let's talk about the two arcs separately, starting with Phantom Blood. For me, Phantom Blood is easily the weakest of the two parts, and it's easy to see why. With only 9 episodes dedicated to it, many elements of the plot feel extremely rushed, and we have no time to form bonds with most of the characters because of this. There are a decent number of characters for 9 episodes, and other than 3, none of them really get proper time to flesh out.

The main character for this part, Jonathan Joestar, is the bland MC I was talking about earlier. There isn't much to him other than very basic motivations. He doesn't even have much of a personality to him. The only good thing about his character was his relation to the antagonist, Dio Brando, who is by far the best part of Phantom Blood, and possibly the only thing Phantom Blood does better than Battle Tendency. While yes, Dio's motivations are as cliche as they come (basically just become more powerful), it's the immense amount of pressure and pain he puts on Jonathan throughout Phantom Blood's length. He becomes such a menacing presence because he is with JoJo for all of his adolescence and young adult years, and we witness the physical and psychological torture he puts on JoJo.

As for any other characters, the only character that I even sort of liked would be JoJo's mentor, Will. A. Zeppeli. He was very cool and a pretty decent mentor character, but he failed to really captivate me. Robert E. O. Speedwagon, Jojo's travelling companion, was basically just a commentator for this part, saying what happens during a fight, which as you already know, I very much disliked, so it goes without saying that I also dislike this character. Erina and Straizo are better in the second part, but fail to make much of an impact in this one, due to lack of focus mainly.

If Phantom Blood was the only thing to this anime, I would leave this show with mediocre memories of JoJo as a whole. However, Battle Tendency had so much more to offer. Since there was many more episodes for Battle Tendency to make use of, everything benefited as a result. The plot, while probably more silly than the last, is a lot more fleshed out. Also, Jonathans grandson, Joseph Joestar, is a way better protagonist. While he comes off annoying and cocky at times, his energy and his tactics in battle make him much more of an interesting character. He embodies what makes JoJo's Bizzare Adventure good, and that is it's wacky yet passionate tone it takes.

As for other characters, whilst they don't have much effect on the plot as said, they have such better personalities and backstories than Phantom Blood could ever dream of. Ceasar Zeppeli, Will's grandson, was a good foil to Joseph, with his more gentlemanly and suave personality initially clashing with Joseph's more brash attitude, and he also had a great backstory. The same can be said about the mentor character this time around, Lisa Lisa. With a show that is teeming with overly muscular men, it is nice to see a woman who is just as, if not more powerful than most of the other characters. I just think the show didn't really respect her as much as they should've. She get's used for fanservice purposes quite a lot, and whilst most other characters get this as well, she almost immediately gets sidelined for Joseph in fights. Still, she gets enough respect still be a good addition to the show.

The villains of the show, save for Kars, are the weakest part of Battle Tendency for me. Whilst Kars is shown to be a very menacing presence much like Dio is, the other three, Santana, Esidisi, and Wamuu failed to capture that. Wamuu was the best out of those three, since he strayed a lot from the villain formula used mainly in this show. Although he was an antagonist, he was very honorable in comparison to his brethren, which was a nice breath of fresh air, even though he was fairly weak. Santana and Esidisi, however, didn't do much for me.

Before going into art and sound, I saved my favourite character in this entire show for last. Rudol Von Stroheim, a militaristic and proud Nazi Commander, is the last guy you would think as the best character in an anime. He was just so badass and surprisingly selfless whenever he was on screen, and although there is a lot of screaming in Jojo's, his screams are the ones that are the most impactful to me. God he is just so awesome.

The art and animation in Jojo's certainly isn't the best there is to offer when talking about newer anime. This isn't really surprising considering that the production studio, David Production, was founded by the former head of Gonzo, which is pretty notorious for less than stellar animation quality. However, unlike Gonzo, Jojo's is very consistent with it's artstyle, even if it the quality isn't the best. It is still effective when it comes to fightscenes, and is flashy and flamboyant enough when it needs to be, which is almost necessary for a show such as this one. The character designs are fantastic though.

The sound is a bit of a mixed bag. The OST has some decent tracks, but many are filled to the brim with extremely out of place dubstep, which really can hamper the mood of the show, especially when you realize the show is set in the late 1800's to early 1900's. However, the two OP's and ED are fantastic for the show. With a show that has classic rock references everywhere, it is only fitting to have the ending theme be Roundabout by Yes, a classic rock single from 1972. Lastly, we have the voice acting. It's just so good. The screams are just so great. I can't get enough of them. SEKAI ICHI!

Whilst Jojo's Bizzare Adventure (2012) is by no means a perfect entry into the battle shounen genre (not like there really is ever, but still), it manages to break away from the many tropes that hinder many of it's counterparts to give us a show with so much energy that you can't help but love it, even with so many flaws. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is enjoyment in the purest sense of the word. It's something you can watch to just have a good time and not think about anything. Hell, it's probably better that way, or else you would probably end up hating it! If you want to watch something that is just mindless fun with a couple heartfelt moments sprinkled in, there isn't much of a better recommendation. It certainly looks like Jojo's is going to become one of those long running shounen, but this is one I can get behind.

The romance genre is one of my favourites of this medium. Even though it's hard to come up with an original story or setting in this genre, I find it is the one of, if not the best way to explore characters, their relationships, and get some decent development out of them. Kimi ni Todoke is no exception, for the most part anyways.

To pay homage to the innocence and optimism this show radiates, I'll get the most and pretty much only big negative I have out of the way first. The last little bit of the second arc focusing on "the main antagonist" (AKA secondary ... love interest that has no chance in hell) was very jarring. They tried to justify this characters extremely mean-spirited and plentiful actions to no real effect. To have a character that tries to cause so much damage only to try and justify it all feels pointless. Also, Sawako's (the MC) innocence at the climax of this arc was too much for me to handle. It makes sense in the context of her character, but I felt they blew it a little out of proportion.

Other than that, there isn't much negative to say about Kimi ni Todoke. It used the right amount of drama to create some interesting character interactions and character development, but never to the point where it feels melodramatic.

That's the best part of Kimi ni Todoke as a whole really. Nothing ever outstays it's welcome. It gets it's point across in a timely and effective fashion, and then moves away so that the next big point has it's time to shine. This keeps everything fresh.

The last thing I will say about the story is the love triangles. While I normally don't like love triangles in romance anime (which is sad for me since most anime have them), this show handles it almost perfectly. This because of two things. First off, it goes off the thing I said earlier in that it doesn't outstay it's welcome. Secondly, the love triangles never include 3 main characters. It is always 2 mains and 1 supporting. With these things in place, the love triangles add to the drama quite nicely, and then they fade away after that arc they are in is finished.

But of course, none of these things matter if you don't have good characters and good bonds between said characters, which is especially important for romance anime. Kimi ni Todoke delivers this, with all the main characters being very likeable and not distinctly falling into archetypes.

Kuronuma Sawako is a very good lead (except for the part I mentioned earlier). Her optimism and positive attitude to almost everything makes it hard not to like her, and her development early on was very well done. Whenever she's happy or tries to make others happy, you can't help but be happy for her. Also, her relationship with the main love interest, Kazehaya Shouta, was handled well. Each had something to gain from their relationship. It just felt very balanced, as one never outshadowed the other.
Also, she's like the cutest thing ever.

The secondary romance between Sanada Ryu and Yoshida Chizu was great as well. The anime spent a decent chunk of episodes developing them, making their relationship a lot more 3-dimensional than most secondary romances. The two characters by themselves were nice too. Chizu brought a great energy to every scene she was in, and Ryu's honest and "lazy" take on everything was a breath of fresh air. Their contrasting personalities is what made them stand up to the primary romance in my opinion.

Lastly we Ayane Yano. Although we didn't get a proper arc with her this season, she was no less of a presence throughout the entire show. She brought a lot with her perceptive eye. She is always the character that knows what's actually going on, and does her best to help her friends get to the desired conclusion. When her and Chizu got introduced in the first episode, you get the feeling that they are going to be a thorn in Sawako's side, but I was pleasantly surprised when they both turned out to be amazing friends and characters.

The side characters are no less interesting. Pin brings a lot to the comedy, and Kurumizawa is a character you love to hate. I also really like how Ryuu's older brother looks like a delinquent, but is actually a very nice guy.

Speaking of, this show looks extremely shoujo, which is not a bad thing. It looks very nice, it's easy to look at, and it fits the overall tone of the show well. The animation is fairly limited, but you come to expect that with these types of anime.

This soundtrack stood out to me far more than most in the genre do. It fits the tone well, and it's something I feel I could listen to outside of the show. There is just this nice calm feel to a lot of the soundtrack, and the one track that is played in the dramatically intensified parts of the show is brilliant. The OP was also fantastic. The ED slightly less so.

While Kimi ni Todoke doesn't really break the mold of it's genre, it elevates what it is given a great deal. Each arc tackled something different, which made it easy to just keep watching without stopping. Save for the last bit of the second arc, I thoroughly enjoyed all of Kimi ni Todoke. It has what I like in a shoujo romance anime. A great main lead and romance, heartfelt dramatic moments, comedy that doesn't feel out of place, and most of all, extremely cheesy and cute moments that you can't help but go "awww!" every time one of them pops up. I highly recommend Kimi ni Todoke to any fans of romance anime, especially if you like shoujo romance.

Comedy anime, in my opinion, are both some of the easiest and most difficult shows to write and make a successful series out of. On one hand, you don't have to have characters with a compelling backstory, or even really interesting personalities (sometimes), and you don't need a complex plot either, just a basic setting to put your characters so they can have funny interactions and whatnot. However, writing comedy that appeals to a wide audience can be a difficult feat, since comedy is one of the most subjective things out there. The dialogue, interactions between characters, the various scenarios these characters get in for ... comedic value, etc. have work in harmony to get a laugh out of the viewer.

That all being said, Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou (Daily Lives of High School Boys) excels at that with flying colours. How this anime takes it's approach to comedy is simple: take things that Highschool boys (and girls) do, and twist those situations to make them absurd and over the top, without breaking the line between realism and impossibility. By taking these fairly mundane situations and making them way different than how we think they should've turned out is brilliant, and makes for many laughs. Of course, there will be times where the jokes just miss, but that's near impossible to clear up anyways, and thankfully, at least for me, it's kept to a minimum.

Another good thing about this anime is the overall format of each episode. Since each episode is divided into multiple parts (each a few minutes long), it is able to cover a wide variety of topics, put the joke they want to make in there, and quickly move onto the next part. With this, it keeps each scene fresh as well as keeping the viewer interested.

Of course, the driving force between any comedy anime are the characters. Now, the characters of Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou aren't completely distinct in personality. However, even though they don't have enriched personalities, there wasn't one character that didn't get a laugh out of me at some point, since the interactions and dialogue were so on point. I'm not going to go into detail for all of them, just the ones that stood out to me personally.

First you have Hidinori, one of the three main characters. He has WAAAAAY
more screentime than the other two, to the point where you could say he is the only main character. He overreacts and overthinks the situations he gets himself into, and this is shown by his intense monologue scenes. The best of which are with another favourite of mine, Literary Girl (Yassan). Every part she was in had me laughing continuously. There are many others, but I won't dawdle on for too long here.

At first glance, you would think the animation is kind of lackluster, and you aren't wrong. The art and animation are extremely simple, to further emphasize what Tadakuni, another one of the main characters, says in the first episode. "I live a normal life, attending a normal school in a normal town." The simplicity of the art makes it extremely easy on the eyes, so you focus more on the comedy more, which I think is much better than having a bright colour palette.

There really isn't much to the soundtrack, which is fine in Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou's case. It's incredibly simple, which makes it easy to accompany the scenes it is paired with nicely. It adds to the experience of the show without overpowering it, even if the soundtrack becomes unmemorable in the process.

Both the OP and ED were great, but I thought the ED was a step above. The over the top vocals, along with the wacky stage play that goes along with it was undeniably engrossing.

There is only one true goal to a comedy anime, and that is to make you laugh. If it doesn't make you laugh, it has failed. Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou is not a failure because of how many constant laughs it has provided me while watching it. Sure, some of the jokes missed, but those were very few and far between. Also, even though this show pertains to a fairly selective audience, that being the typical shounen demographic, I would recommend this to almost anybody: girls, young adults, etc. The show doesn't go so far as to pander solely to that demographic to the point where many others would be dissuaded by it (and by that I mean having every woman in the show have D cups), so I think most people would enjoy this show. I know I did.

Adapting a video game story into any sort of media outlet is much, much harder than adapting, lets say, a manga into an anime. Video games are the most immersive medium of entertainment I feel, because for all intents and purposes, you ARE the main protagonist, and you are living out the story and setting the creators have given you. That being said, the tools used to create these immersive settings for the player, the game mechanics especially, are extremely hard to translate into any other medium, since you are not interacting with the world, just observing.

Quick disclaimer. I have played the game through ... once, and went straight into the anime after finishing it, so I apologize if it influences my review of the anime. I am under the belief that an adaptation doesn't have to be faithful to the source material in order for it to be good, so I will try to view it as it's own seperate entity.

The first thing I would like to talk about is the overall flow and pacing of the show. Translating 80+ hours of gameplay into 13 or so hours of anime means things are going to be tweaked around a bunch. That being said, the anime does a very good job of keeping the story in characters intact with such a limited timespace. However, the whole show feels very disjointed as a result. After revealing a certain plot point that is relevant to the story, the anime loves to timeskip to other days that are also important to the plot, creating this awkward pacing that sometimes skips through multiple days making it too fast, and sometimes having one episode be focused entirely within the timespan of a couple days, making it too slow.

However, there are some moments that I believe actually surpass the original source material. The biggest factor in this would certainly be the comedy. You'd think that the episodes focusing on comic relief would be kind of bad, but I enjoyed these more than the actual mystery parts of the show.
The actual mystery of the show is fairly weak, so that's probably the reason why.

A big part of this show is the main characters of the show getting kidnapped and thrown into this "TV World" where they meet their shadows. These shadows are pretty much the repressed feelings of that characters inner self; something inside of them that they want to forget about. Each main "party member" (except for the MC) gets these shadows, and they have to accept them, and when they do, they become personas. It's a pretty half baked explanation I know.

This setup creates some of the easiest character development possible. There wasn't as much as a focus on this as in the game, because of time restraints, but there was enough to create characters that are fairly layered. Other than that, the main bunch are extremely likeable, and add a lot to the enjoyment of the show, my personal favourite being Chie Satonaka. The side characters are less than spectacular for sure, since they are sidelined for the mystery, the main characters, among other things. Like, there is an episode where they try to develop 6 characters at once, that doesn't really work out at all.

The main protagonist, Yu Narukami, is pretty much a blank slate. This is one of those things that works much better in a game since you basically build his personality to your liking, but in anime, he is only seen as boring, and at times, without a personality. Granted, there are times where does genuinely have some great moments, particularly at the end of the show. That, and he is a surprising factor to the comedic aspects of the show (mainly because of the dub, but we will get to that later).

I won't spoil the main villain for you, but let's just say you probably won't expect it. The way they hide who the villain really is is one of the better aspects of the mystery. As for the villain itself, you might find him a bit of a turn off since his main motivation is "because I'm bored", but he is still an okay villain by the end of it.

The art stays pretty faithful to the game, which is nice. Everything looks very detailed, and the character designs are well done. The music is mainly just copy and pasted stuff from the game, which is fine since I like the music from the game. The standouts for OP's and ED's for me would have to be the second OP and ED (which aren't copy pasted).

The animation is a weird thing to talk about. I'm not an expert on this, so I apologize if I am wrong, but it feels a lot like how a poorly shot western action movie is filmed. With those movies, the action is filmed with quite a bit of shaky cam and lots of edited shots that last only a couple seconds to indicate that stuff is actually happening. This is used mainly to mask bad directing. This is kind of how the fight sequences in Persona 4: The Animation look. Multiple quick camera shots are used with a very heavy motion blur to make it seem like the animation is high quality, but in reality, it isn't. Granted, there aren't many fight scenes to begin with, but that is just something I felt needed to be adressed. Other than that, the animation is standard fare.

Finally, I'll talk about the dub. Since I played the game in English, it only made sense to watch the dub, since most of the people were voice actors for the game reprised their roles in this anime (except for Chie's VA, which made me very sad for a while). I feel they did a fantastic job, moreso than their performances in the game, but I have to mention two performances.

The first being Johnny Yong Bosch. In the game, he is the VA for the main character and Adachi, a rookie police detective. Since the MC barely talked at all, he only had to do various grunts and stuff mainly, and only had to do the VA for Adachi. However, in the anime, he still plays both roles, but Yu Narukami (the MC) gets much more talking roles, which meant he had to try and make two people with decent amounts of dialogue sound different from each other, and for the most part, he pulls it off, which I applaud him for. Not only that, but he is a big part in Yu actually having some emotions, along with his delivery of some of the comedic lines he says.

Secondly, we have Mary Elizabeth McGlynn for her performance of Naoto Shirogane. She plays the part of a male detective character very well to the point where she actually does sound like a guy, which is an impressive feat.


I want to say that the biggest problem with P4: The Animation is that it is too short, but that isn't really it's problem. With more episodes, even if things would be fleshed out more, it would be very hard to keep the viewers interest. This is exactly why game adaptations are very hard to make. That being said, it is probably one of, if not the greatest game adaptations for anime. It's shoddy pacing, lackluster side characters(except for a couple) and Yu Narukami, and average mystery/plot didn't really kill the enjoyment for me, as I still enjoyed the series wholeheartedly. Whilst not at the level of the game, I was invested into the characters, and the dub and comedy was a large selling point for me as well. If you don't want to spend 80+ hours on the game (which I would recommend as the game is quite fantastic), Persona 4: the Animation is actually a decent alternative.

This story is heavily laced in spoilers, so if you want to discuss it with me further, give me a shout on my profile. You can do the same if you want to discuss the game this anime was adapted from.

Demographics can be tricky thing to talk about when talking about anime. They aren't specific genres, but are more used for targeting specific groups of people. However, just because they are targeting a certain age group and/or gender doesn't mean those shows are limited to that group of people alone. But in Ookami Shoujo's case, I firmly believe it the vast majority of people who enjoy this show will be in the shoujo demographic, which is primarily why I found this show mediocre at best.

The shows first problem for me was came right off the bat. The basic premise of the show is Erika trying ... to remain friends with two students by lying that she has a boyfriend, because that her two "friends" basically only talk about their boyfriends. The thing is, those friends are absolute assholes, and even tried to sabotage her "relationship" with Kyoya early on. If Erika was completely friendless, I could, at the very least, understand why she would want to be fake friends with them, but she already has a really good friend in Ayumi to begin with, so one of the major drawing points of the entire show just feels pointless and redundant to me. However, I can only help but feel like I can't understand Erika's plight simply because of the whole shoujo demographic thing, and that the whole premise might be much more relatable to actual teenage girls than to me.

But lets get into the real problem I have with this show. The whole relationship between Kyouya and Erika is more or less completely baseless, and it feels like the actions that led up to the end result made no sense. Kyoya treated Erika like trash, but for some reason, Erika falls in love with him. Kyoya did maybe 5 good things to Erika MAXIMUM throughout months and months of treating her like a dog, and Erika focused solely on those 5 good things that Kyoya did for her, and felt compelled to start an actual relationship with him. The only real reason Erika and Kyoya got together was because the writers made it so. There was no rhyme or reason for it, no emotional connection, no nothing. Hell, Erika had a chance with this really nice kid, Kusakabe, who actually treated her like a human being, but she turned him down anyways because fuck logic.

But for all the bashing I have for this show, I'll give credit where credit is due. For once, an anime showcases a relationship that goes beyond the kiss scene, and shows Erika and Kyoya as a couple. Very few romance anime actually do this, and I did end up enjoying the last few episodes because of this. This doesn't make up for the fact that their relationship is based off of nothing, but I thought Erika and Kyoya were kind of cute together after they officially became a couple. Sure, this development kind of came out of nowhere, and Kyoya changed drastically personality wise (which is a big plus for his character, but didn't make much sense to me), but it at least made those last few episodes much more tolerable.

And then, we have the supporting cast, which really didn't do much for me. Most of the supporting cast were either nice people, or just plain assholes, with the exception of maybe Nozomi. All the supporting: nice characters, assholes, , were pretty much one note archetypes, even if some of them are different than what we are normally used to. You have your lovable idiot, your playboy, your level-headed best friend, etc. Most of them were more fun to watch than Erika and Kyoya were (which isn't saying much), but they weren't much more than that.

Animation and sound wise, there isn't much to say. The art is dull and uninspired, with not much detail throughout. The animation is choppy and framey. Hell, I could even point out some key frames that were left unfinished on the final episode, although that is just nitpicking.

I can say the same thing about the sound that I can about the art, it was dull and uninspired. I don't even remember beat, any melody, or even if there were any insert songs because it was just that forgettable. The opening is notable only because it sounds like an Avril Lavigne pop song, but that's about it.

It's clear that I didn't like this show, but I can't say that it is necessarily bad, because the show wasn't made for teenage guys like me in mind. That being said, I don't know if I would recommend this show to a teenage girl either based on my experiences. Take this review with a grain of salt, because I bet there are some who would find the shit that I didn't like about the show actually compelling. As for me, I'm glad that this show is forever out of my mind, and I can go back to watching some more Monster or something.