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There is a reason animes do not try to throw ALL the tropes into one show. It creates a giant mess. While there are some interesting character designs, what really counts, characters and story, are poorly done, ruining whatever this show had to offer.

To give you an idea of what I mean by all the tropes here's the synopsis: a couple of happy go lucky androids from a fantasy kingdom team up with an immortal outlaw who owns a giant Pink Cadillac that can transform into a giant Minotaur Robot. Their goal, to reach the prince that one of the androids was programmed to ... the best friend of. Oh, and said android is one of those chosen one stereotypes. Add in a crazy team of assassins chasing them, and even a drunken master, and you get the point. The writer simply wanted to put ALL the things he liked about anime into one work.

When the show is at it's best is when it just goes nuts. All these crazy characters could run around doing god only knows what, and it can work. This lends itself to a more episodic format, which I wish they could have committed to. Unfortunately, the story is only kind of episodic, with a very week through story woven within it. The tone is not consistent, being wacky one episode, and then dealing with darker themes the next. The entire prince arc is a drag. Just a total mess of a narrative that has a rather weak conclusion, most likely because I could care less about any of the characters.

This show is going for over the top, I get it. That means damn near all the characters are going to be one note, hyper flat cliches. This works fine in something like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure because they do a good job of making the good guys awesome, and the bad guys dicks. Here, I didn't like a single character that we're supposed to be rooting for. Sam and Casey are very annoying, and Philly is a selfish prick. The prince is a spoiled brat. The rest of the cast are totally forgettable. The bad guys, well, they're pretty much just bad for the sake of being bad guys. The big bad has a little backstory, but a very cliche one. Buy the time it gets to the final battle, there are side fights between characters you really know very little about, and have zero investment into.

Technically, this show was competently executed. The animation and sound are executed to the point where they didn't detract, nor elevate the show. While some to the character designs look like rip offs, (Philly is way too reminiscent of Spike) some to the character designs are pretty cool. Especially the team of assassins that we barely get to know. I'll give them points for that.

Cannon Busters was never going to be some deep show that we'd talk about years later, but it had the potential to be a fun romp with crazy characters. Unfortunately the weak story, and poor unlikable characters leave this one as a miss. Basically a show to fall asleep to, little more.

There are the bones of an interesting tale here, and when the show focuses on the story elements, it's at it's best, but there are some identity and pacing issues. There are also often unnecessary fan service that break the tone of this show quite a bit. Everything else about it is completely average.

So the tale surrounds a high school boy who inherits an ancient device that allows him to manipulate time and travel across dimensions. Imagine kind of Stein's Gate plus isekai elements. If that sounds interesting, it really is. Unfortunately there is a bit of a pacing issue, which admittedly, is pretty ... common in early episodes of visual novel adaptations. There is a chance this can be rectified as the show progresses. That is if this show can pick an identity and stick with it. Is it a sci-fi time travel tale, or a mystery, or a fantasy show, or an ecchi? When a show tries to be too many things, it ends up doing none of them well.

When art and sound are done well, it can draw the viewer in with ease. When art and sound are done poorly, it can push the viewer away. When art and sound are done just fine, then they end up doing nothing for the show. None of the character designs, backgrounds or music in this anime are in any way memorable. They're not bad, they're just kind of there.

And now I must address the fan service. I'm all for fan service if it is appropriate for the anime you're making. However, it's really misplaced for this particular show, but they throw it in there way more than this story really needs. Half the suggestive scenes in this show do literally nothing to advance the plot. If they were more scarce I wouldn't care, but every episode expect a pg-13 scene in there and most of them feel forced.

There's enough of a story to keep my somewhat interested, so I'm not dropping the show just yet, but it's barely hanging on to my view list.

So, I appreciate what this show is trying to do. War is bad. I get it. The idea of showing all the horrible things we would do to make those we care about happy, only to make them cry in the end is a good thought to explore. The problem here is the execution.

Let's start with the strength of this anime, which is it's willingness to not hold back. Things happen to characters that you wouldn't expect, and characters act in manners you wouldn't expect in most anime. Unfortunately that's about the only strength the story had. The world building is simplistic to the point ... of not being all that believable. I never felt an ounce of attachment to any of the characters, even the two MCs. And while showing story lines from both sides of the war is a good literary mechanic, cramming two story lines into twelve episodes is tough to do, especially when you have numerous action sequences to add in. This would explain the poor characterization and world building. Still there was enough in the story to make me want to continue, if the technical side of the anime was up to snuff.

Unfortunately, that's just not the case. The best animation would be the CG dominated mecha fights, and even those have their problems like over the top camera moves and over cutting the fights making them come across herky jerky and at times hard to follow. But like I said, that's the good animation. When not in combat, you can see every animation shortcut in the book, sometimes to jarring effect. Cars basically being smoothly moved across the screen without creating the sense of motion to them. Bland, low detail backgrounds that look like an after thought, and every character design seemed like a rehash of something I've already seen in another show. Camera pans of static characters. Many character movements you can see the separate stills instead of fluid motion.

Sound is perfectly fine. The OST is serviceable at best and certainly not memorable. However, the voice acting does it's job pretty well, and sound effects are executed well enough to never jar you out of the anime like some of the animation does.

All in all, this is a slightly below average anime to me. While I praise the narrative risks this story takes, lack luster setting and characters, plus below average production value keep me from wanting to continue on with this series. I might binge the rest at the end of the season when there's less to watch, but right now, no thanks.

There's little reason for me to enjoy this show, but I did. The concept is simple. Replace James Bond with a team of cute anime girls that can hulk out eating spices. That's exactly what you're getting here. However the show really embraced it's concept and ran with it, giving you a fun ride.

So, the story for this anime is wrought with spy tropes. You see everything coming from a mile away, but the point of the story for this series was clearly to get you from set piece to set piece. The humor is prevalent but rarely more than just okay. ... The characters pretty much all have a single dominant personality trait that defines them, with little else going on. With exception to the villain. The villain doesn't even have one personality trait. I swear, if she had a mustache, she would have twirled it.

Yet still, I had fun with this show. The animation of the action sequences were pretty good. The girls were certainly cute but still bad ass. I knew I was not watching something brilliant, but none of the missteps in the writer's room were jarring. They didn't do anything so stupid it could take you out of a show that is presenting itself as good dumb fun.

To me, that's the saving grace of Release the Spyce. They knew they were never going to have a masterpiece here, so they had fun with what was there. Is this a must watch? Not in the slightest. Still, it's fun enough to where you will not feel like you wasted four to five hours of your life.

Steampunk vampire series. Need I say more? I'm in! Unfortunately there's some problems with execution in the process that hindered the fun of this show.

The good, style! I loved the character designs. The environments they get to play in are varied and interesting. There are lots of cool fights. Everything you'd want is there, so where's the unfortunate part?

This show has a serious pacing issue. It moves a mile a minute, never taking the proper time to set up conflicts and build the stakes. By the time you get to the climax, you don't really know what will happen if the bad guy wins, ... you just know it will bad, and that is supposed to be enough.

They flesh out a handful of the key players and the rest of the not that massive cast of heroes and villains are lucky if they a couple minutes of backstory to flesh them out. So when there's a scene where two of these characters are in a bad situation, I feel zero tension because I don't really know these folks beyond being bad ass.

The problem here is they were telling an origin story, unfortunately that origin story clearly had at least two major story arcs in the manga, and the studio decided to jam them together and trimmed too much fat. The style and action are great, but I was having trouble caring as I was not very invested in the characters or world.

This anime is getting a lot of love, and for good reason. It's kind of a twilight zone for teen drama. In this anime, a rather socially apathetic protagonist (Sakuta) helps five girls deal with some difficult buried emotions that thanks to a phenomenon called puberty syndrome, manifest themselves in extreme supernatural ways. For example, a girl is being bullied online, and all the sudden cuts just start magically appearing on her body.

Let's get the problems with the anime out of the way. The attempt to explain why these incidents are happening is so horrid, it would have been way better not to ... even trying explaining it. The fact that only girls seem to need the protagonist's help is rather groan worthy only saved by the fact that only two of them have any romantic interest in the Sakuta, and Sakuta himself is insanely loyal to his hard earned girlfriend.

So, to appreciate this show, I think it's important to understand this statement. This show is not really about Sakuta, it's about the five girls. Any and all plot in this anime is centered around a girl, not Sakuta. Sakuta ceratainly helps every girl get through the issues they are dealing with, but ultimately, the girls all have to deal with their issues. (except maybe Mai) These girls save themselves. Each journey is a worthwhile one.

The advantage of the puberty syndrome gimmick is it's extreme nature makes characterization a breeze. Each girl gets basically three episodes, yet in such a short time, you get a satisfying full story arc, and the character feels fleshed out.

A fun aspect is Sakuta's aloof personality bouncing off everyone he encounters. In particular, every conversation with Mai is pure gold. Those two together is always a joy to watch. In fact all the character chemistry is really good throughout the show. Everything feels natural despite the crazy things going on around them.

So, in the end I have to admit I really enjoyed this anime. If you go into knowing you're not really get one big story for Sakuta, but five completely contained tales about the girls themselves, I think you'll enjoy it a lot more. Its not perfect, but a strong recommendation from me.

If you've ever worked retail, you will totally relate to this one. The animation is choppy, and other than the characters, the art is super basic. The humor is spot on, although if you've never worked retail, it might not hit so hard. Being set in a manga store all the show to have work and otaku humor meet, which is fun.

Keep in mind, these are humorous vignettes that do not tell an over arching story. I binged it one afternoon, and the jokes start flattening out after a bit. Since there's no pressing need to see what happens next, I'd recommend watching ... the no more that 2-3 episodes at a time. Keeps the humor fresh.

New season, same problems.

I'm going to get the good out of the way as quickly as possible. On a technical standpoint, the show looks and sounds good. the action scenes err of the side of over dramatic, but are still pretty solid all in all. If they had a decent story to work with, this could be great.

However, as usual with this series, all the mistakes have been made in the writer's room. They have a real opportunity to power down Kirito and make him vulnerable. Do they? Of course not! So is there ever any real tension for any of the fights? ... Nope! Lord god Kirito will save the day with his trump card power, deus ex machina! Asuna is a badass, so lets stick her in the control room out of the way. Can they make it a whole season without sexually assaulting a female character? Nah! They decide to go two for one this time. They do a poor job developing new characters. The world building is messy at best. The crap that goes on in the real world is barely more realistic than what goes on in the MMO. This is a lazy, disjointed mess of a story.

I realize the screenwriters are trying to be true to the source material. However, this source material is bad. SAO, as a whole, is a perfect example of doing everything you can to try to elevate bad material, and still failing because no matter how pretty it is presented, a bad story is a bad story. People see through this shine and see all muck and mire beneath it.

If you want to be able to follow the online bashing another season will get, go ahead an watch it. But at this point, I seriously doubt anything could change.

Tae is best girl!

With that out of the way, Zombieland Saga, despite it's name, is not a horror anime. It is a Idol Anime. That's right, cute girls dancing and singing. That's what you're getting from a show named Zombieland Saga.

So this show starts off as kind of a tear down of idol culture. The manager is a necromancer for brought former idols, child stars, a biker gang leader, an oiran, and Tae (she's really her own thing) back from the dead so they can save the town of Saga with their idol music. That's right, he can't work these girls to death, ... because they are already dead. There is a reason the concept of why he did this is so silly, but you'll have to watch the anime to find out.

So yeah, early on the show lampoons being in an idol band, but it quickly turns around and becomes a straight up idol show, with Zombie gags thrown in. You get to know and appreciate all the girls as the show moves along. In fact, most of the girls get their own episode dealing with their back story. Almost monster of the week style. Except the monsters are cute girls.

The designs of the girls are of course cute, but it's really funny watching these cute designs turn ugly for Zombie scare shots. My only issue is the CG dance numbers during concerts feature some jarring animation. While this is common in idol anime, it's still a problem. Especially for a show like this which can serve as a gateway to the genre.

All in all, this is a fun concept, that turns into a more typical idol show. There is a little more depth to what's going on here as opposed to your average idol show, but you end up with the exact same beats you'd expect if the show was named Idol Saga instead. Still for what it is, it is for the most part executed really well, with a lot of humor. Give it a try.

This is darn near impossible to review without spoiling, but challenges are fun. So, on it's surface, SSSS.Gridman is a giant robot vs kaiju of the week show. The combat scenes are done in a manner that accurately depicts what a fight like this would look like if you were filming men in rubber suits, and this was done for a very specific reason.

The villain in this show is my choice for villain of the year. They are deeply layered and interesting. The remaining cast, at least at first was really two dimensional at first. Gorgeous best friend next door. Nerdy buddy. Generic ... love interest for the villain. This, once again, was done for a very specific reason. However down the road, some of the rest of the cast grow into much deeper characters.

The setting of the show, is beautiful in it's emptiness and kaiju clouds in the background, which was done for a very specific reason.

Look, SSSS.Gridman on it's surface is a fun giant monster/mecha anime, but there is a lot going on under the surface here. This takes a fun show, and elevates it to brilliance. For you to totally know why, you'll have to give it a watch. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.

P.S. If you're still mad at Trigger for the end of Darling and the Franxx, they redeem themselves here.

Now go watch this show!