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Oh, P.A., you have suprised me once more.

P.A. are known for its slice-of-life drama animes so when it came to Charlotte, a show that is specialised in the mystery genre, I was concern of whether P.A. would suceed or not. Luckily, in my opinion, P.A. did suceed and brought us another great piece of work.

Story: 8/10

The story is simple, a group of high-schoolers with special powers grouped up and was finding other teenagers with special powers. The plot was so boring that for the first half of the season it is literally the same thing repeated over and over again. And this is the ... point where I was worrying that P.A. might not have pulled this off. UNTILL the second half of the season came along. Where things decides to take a sharp turn to what P.A. is most comfortable with : Drama. The second half of the season was so dramatic that within a few episodes, the anime has already taken my breath away, and even though I was watching the anime while it was airing, each episode still felt intact with the previous ones and I was blown away. The sudden switch between the slice-of-life and the mystery drama served the anime very well, as I was not expecting a giant mood swing to hit me in the face.

Art: 10/10

Unless you haven't noticed yet, I am a big sucker of P.A., I loved all of their work, let it be Hanasaku Iroha, Tari Tari or Nagi no Asukara. P.A. have the art style that this anime needed, a giant contrast between the warm colors and the cold colors. We already know that P.A. can do such things with the previously said three animes and the Charlotte was no exception. The art style is a typical P.A. art style but with a clear theme between 'light' and 'dark'. With 'light' consisting of warm colors and 'dark' containing cold colors.

Sound: 8/10

The sound track was well made. And Charlotte's op is amazing, not due to it being a catchy song or any famous singer who sang it. It was because the op fitted the anime so well. Started plain and progressive into the bridge where it showed the flashbacks and the memories of the main character, Yu,until the strong chorus hit and we were greeted with the main characters and the drama hits the scene. Oh, did I mention that P.A. was showing off its skill during the OP? So not only does it sound amazing, it looked amazing as well.

Character 9/10

The idea of supernatural powers are not one that has not been exploited before, in fact, it is probably on of the most used features in anime because it gives each character a reason to be 'original'. So what's different from Charlotte's character and other anime's character? It is what the characters decides to do with their superpowers. For example, Yu, who has the power to take control of anybody for 5 seconds. So he uses to cheat tests, or make a girl fall in love with him. It is what a person WOULD do if they had the power. But in most other supernatural animes, the MC decides to 'conceal' the superpower because it is too dangerous or it is not fair. And that is what differs between Charlotte and other anime's characters: in Charlotte, you are not interested about the superpowers but how will the characters grow with their superpowers.

Enjoyments: 9/10

Oh boy, I really am glad that I watched Charlotte untill the end. I knew that I can believe in P.A. and their art style. If anyone asks me what I would recommend for summer 2015, one of them would definitely be Charlotte.

Overall: 9/10

It's a P.A. work's work. I would whole-heartedly recommend you to watch this anime, along with any other P.A. work's work that you've not watched yet. But you can only fully enjoy this anime if you manage to convince yourself to watch the first half of the season without dropping it. Trust me, the suffering is worth it.

Rest in Peace : the fourth wall.

Normally you would have a 'dense' male character in some harem anime but Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata (Saekano for short) is an anime that is ironic to itself so much that you can call this whole show 'dense'.

It is original and yet cliché and I felt that this show had more potential if it wasn't rushed. I thoroughly enjoyed this show and I was watching it while it was airing. Every week I was excited for another episode of Saekano and I was staffed with every episode.

Story:8/10

This anime's story is realistic, light yet humorous. I liked the ... fact that they make reference to other shows but in moderation so the show does not feel like a Parody anime, it made me feel like that somewhere, in Japan, the event is happening as I am watching it. It all seemed achievable.

However, we then have the cliché side of Saekano, the one where at the beginning of the episode you can already guess the end kind, the paper cut-out character personalities and the dense yet loved protagonist.But this is where it shines, as you see, Saekano is about a group of otakus and fujoshis trying to make the 'best game ever'.

And this is when they starts to break the fourth wall, shatter it, crush it, destroy it, mash it and completely decimate it.

This show makes a lot of reference to itself and the otaku culture in real life whilst not being aware of themselves falling in to the same category (The blond, twin-tailed, tsundere; the cool and composed senpai or The love rivalry from the protagonist's childhood friend.) as it seems at first. But the developers intended to make reference to itself with it not being aware to create this sense of humour, this sense of realism and make the show relatable. Ask yourself, 'How many times have you think of your own life and think that it is very cliché?'

None?

Okay...Anyway, this anime turned out to be an anime about a group of otakus making references to other anime whilst being in an anime themselves. It is very cleverly approached and I would love to have more episodes of this fourth-wall goodness.

But as always, a show always have to come to an end (unless you are called One Piece) and Saekano's ending was very rushed or brief. It did not give us a decent conclusion of the story and left me surprised that the last episode was already gone.

Which made me happy about the coming of second season.

Art:9/10

Apart from the realism that the story tries to give, this anime also sets it apart from our mundane world by using the more anime-looking art style instead of taking a more realistic approach. This is to tell the watchers that although the story may seem realistic, at the end of the day, this is still just an anime. Which is good as if the anime was overly detailed and made realistic, I would probably go watch some Japanese television series instead.

The graphics are well rendered and I personally did not see any flaws in animation when I was watching the anime.

Sound:7/10

Saekano's sound is not unique or catching to me. It adds to the 'Cliché' feel of a romance comedy to the anime instead. And just as I was saying, I believe it is enough for the story to become realistic, there is no need for any other aspect to try and compete for originality.This isn't to say that the sound is bad though, as I have certainly seen worse and I wouldn't mind if they made a second season with the same style of music as this season.

The background track blends in well with the dialogue and the V.As are definitely giving their best here.

Character: 8/10

How funny that an anime about making the 'best game' have characters that is so cliché that I would use this show as a guideline to tell people how different type of characters would act. But we have a more realistic side to the character, the one that cannot be found anywhere else.

I am going to split the character into cliché and original so you can see what I mean by them having 'another side' to them:

Main male protagonist: Tomoya Aki

Cliché:
He is a harem protagonist so he is dense about his surroundings.
Had a 'fateful encounter'

Original:
He is an otaku who appears to have a dream of creating the 'best game' and he does not like 3D girls,in oppose to many other harem protagonists.

Utaha Kasumigaoka

Cliché:
She's is the mature,cool and perfect senpai kind.

Original:
She is a famous light-novel writer and Tomoya is a great fan of her novels.

Eriri Spencer Sawamura

Cliché:
Blonde, twin-tail, tsundere, childhood friend, half Japanese, half British,genius.

Original:
She's is secretly a doujinshi artist and often shows the fujoshi side of her.

Cliché? Definitely. Original? Most certainly. It is a puzzle how the maker of Saekano manages to balance these all at once, but it did work and we were given the character of Saekano to enjoy.

Overall: 8/10

I would recommend this show to any people who have decent knowledge of the otaku culture as this show breaks all expectations as otakus meanwhile keeping them as generic cardboard characters.

Sometimes, a little originality is a good aspect for an anime as it catches the watcher's attention and add a hint of unique to the anime. But if originality is used poorly, it could lead to a failure of a masterpiece. Aku no Hana,unluckily, is one of those who did not manage to use its originality well.

Story:4/10

The story of Aku no Hana is one that most people can relate to: it is about a person who committed a sin and living with it for the rest of his life. This,however, does not say that Aku no Hana is relatable. The sin that the main character ... committed is stealing his crush's gym clothes and the regretting it. This already make it hard to relate to. And what more, throughout the show, we were constantly reminded that the main character is a 'deviant' or 'pervert' and that puts us off the thought of relating us to him as we do not want to be called a 'deviant' or a 'hentai' whether we are one or not.

The anime also loses its intention of being a dark anime to a more romance-centic anime, but it would be fine if they forgot the dark theme altogether, but they didn't, throughout the romance scenes, you would still have this uncomfortableness and sinisterness around you, even when it is totally unnecessary and ruins the mood.

The general plot goes like this:

Our main male character, the one who committed the sin, was blackmailed by a girl who saw him committing the sin. And the male protagonist hate her for blackmailing him and resents her, wanting a way out of her torment.

Okay, so far so good, everything feels dark and sinister.

*MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT*

Then the male protagonist starts to develop feelings for the sadistic girl who was making him do all sorts of perverted actions and verbally abusing not only him, but his crush as well. The male protagonist then realises that he need to abandon his crush for the sadistic girl and admits all the verbal abuse such as 'deviant' or 'pervert' and starts to live with it. Accepting it as a part of his life.

...What...The...F.....

So the plot is about a guy who gets released from his sin by accepting his personality as a masochist, enjoying being tormented and bullied.

This is why originality should be contained.


Art: 4/10

This is where the originality also failed. After seeing the rotoscoping used in this anime, I thought to myself 'Could they have just used a normal anime style?'. The answer that came to me was 'No'. But that is not to say that rotoscoping is allowed. Normal anime style does not mix with the dark tone that the director tried to express. However, they turned to rotoscope, a time-consuming technique, for a anime series that lasted for 13 episode. There are many places that the art style just felt out of place and blurry and chaotic when it shouldn't be. And when it should be chaotic with fluid movement, due to the limitations of rotoscopes and time, the animation seems to be frozen or 'lagging'.

The art did intrigue me for the first two episodes but without a good plot, the art seems to fail as well.

Sound:8/10

This is the only place where Aku no Hana deserve a praise, its opening is catchy and I often find myself humming it and the ending is genuinely creepy and sinister- just like the show intended to be. When the ending came up in the first episode, it immediately had me crawling in to a ball. Because it just have that same dark tone and evil sound to it as the scene that the anime was trying to cover. But then due to the anime lacking consistency in its romance and dark plots, some episodes the song ruins the romance mood or the song just loses its purpose at all.

Character: 3/10

*Yet another spoiler alert*

Let me make a tick list of the characters and their personalities:

A masochistic male who abandons his love for a person who will abuse him for the rest of his life? Check.

A anti-social, sadistic female who acts like a thug but says philosophical things that only the male protagonist understands? Check.

An all-good female who had her sports bag stolen from her by a person who had a crush on her. But then comes to terms to love him and forgive him ONLY to be ditched in the last second by some thug that treats your boyfriend badly? Check.

The show does not follow the common logic at all. The male protagonist could have escaped the chains of torment that the sadist girl had on him on several places but instead, he succumbs to the torture and abandons the crush.

Overall:4/10

Don't get me wrong, although some people praise this as a masterpiece for its originality, I just think that people shouldn't over look other things and let originality cloud their judgement.

As I am reading the reviews for Tari Tari, I can't help but notice that many people think that this show is just another 'Moe' anime. Although I can see the basis of these comments (*Cough *Cough Konatsu) but what Tari Tari differs from the rest is within its characters and story.

Story:10/10

The main story of Tari Tari is a simple one: it is about the members of a choir club working all together in hope for the final competition. It is nothing out of the norm, but from the daily lives of the members, we have the sub-plots of the members from the choir club. ... The anime isn't structured arc-to-arc and everything happens simultaneously, so one character could be developed in the first half of the episode and another character could be developed in the second half. But the show somehow manages to holds itself cohesively together and make us understand what is happening. This gives a more real life feel to the anime and it makes the characters more realistic.

The stories themselves are well written. Although some are cliché but because the show created a realistic environment through its structures, it would make you think that these cliché scenes are actually achievable.

Art:9/10

One would expect a great visual experience when it comes to P.A. (the same animator for Angel Beats). And Tari Tari is no difference. The visual is well-done, everything seem so colourful and it really made me feel like I was there watching everything unfold.

Sound:8/10

As a show about a choir club that specialises in singing, the sound in Tari Tari isn't the most memorable, you would expect some great ear-cateching singings from the characters but they barely do any singing. Not to say the sound is bad because it is definitely not. But it could do with a lot more improvement.

Character: 10/10

Now THIS is where the show shines, in Tari Tari, the characters all have their own problems that they have to overcome, but everyone goes at their own problems in their own ways. But the characters all support each other in the times of need. It is from these interactions that we find out how every character behaves or thinks.

The character development is wonderful, it secretly develops the character through their every day lives without you noticing. But after you noticed the character development, it is already too late, you already feel whole-heartedly about them. This is going back the the structure of the plot. Everything happens simultaneously, you are not given a fixed camera on one person, instead , you get to see a bit of everyone. You don't get to see all the details with the character developing this way but you were given to see what the animator want you to see, and you feel how the animator want you to feel, with no additions from any unnecessary plots.

Overall:10/10

Tari Tari is being treated as another 'Moe' anime because of its art style and its bland story, but there might be a little bit more about this anime that just cute girls and music. Because of its plot and characters, Tari Tari don't deserve to be called a moe anime, and I think everyone should at least give it a try and then come back and tell me how blatantly wrong I am. But before that, Tari Tari is definitely a 10/10 in my list.