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When I first saw this, I thought that it would be another Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo (shudders). Thank god it wasn't. I would place Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou in the top 5 anime of 2014.

Story [7/10]

Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou is a typical romantic comedy. Most of it is set in a boarding house. You have the main character, Usa, a seemingly normal male, surrounded by "weirdos". Shiro the masochist, Mayumi the woman with crappy taste in men, Sayaka the bitch (lul jk i love her), and the main character's love interest, Ritsu. All in all, it seems to be a rather overused setup. Yet, ... every week I found myself excited to watch the next episode that aired.

What sets Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou from other dorm life animes is how the story is executed. It's casual. It's relaxed. Everything flows so smoothly that it seems almost natural. It doesn't try hard to force the viewer to sympathize with the characters. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Sakurasou. It's a lighthearted anime that anyone looking to relax for half an hour can enjoy.

Art [8/10]

My first thought when I saw the artwork was "shiny". Kawaisou enjoys exaggerating the lighted areas of scenery and hair. Which isn't a bad thing. The brightness worked well with the mood of the anime. The scenery was stunning and the character art was pretty nice.

Ritsu's lips were sometimes too shiny for me, though.

Sound [10/10]

Outstanding OP and ED. I usually don't listen to OPs and almost never listen to EDs but dang, they just made me feel so happy.

Character [9/10]

Although the characters are somewhat stereotypes of typical weirdos, they show signs of having more than one dimension of personality. I might have been a bit biased because I love Ritsu's character. She's a great example of a normal, everyday introvert. Her character's not done in an extreme way, where she's either some cold, heartless bitch or a supershy book reading nerd. She's normal. And that's what I think is the best part of Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou. Very well done.

Ritsu's laugh is also super cute.

Overall [8/10]

I loved this anime. It was one of the few series that I looked forward to each and every week. Watching it was a very relaxing and enjoyable experience

I don't know what I was doing in 2009 that prevented me from watching Canaan when it aired. But as it is, I watched it about a month ago and I was blown away by how great it was. It captured my attention from the beginning, an art that some series could work on.

Story [7/10]

"Soldiers who're born within destruction take hatred as their weapon. Listen, Canaan. You must not counter hatred with hatred...ever".

I just want to say that Canaan has one of the best intros ever. The combination of Siam's solemn voice and the sad, haunting violin music in the background just sent chills down ... my spine.

The story is quite simple. It's not completely original, but it does have its own uniqueness. Basically, an organization called Snake performed an experiment on a small village, exposing its inhabitants to an infection known as the Ua-virus. The reasons for why this happened is explained later in the anime, so I won't go too deep into that. The story focuses on the survivors of the experiment. However, what truly makes Canaan stand out from all the other dark war stories is the twisted relationship between Canaan (the protagonist) and Alphard (the antagonist). Alphard believes that hate is her source of power and that by conquering and controlling it, she is unbelievably strong. She tries to prove this to Canaan (and also corrupt her) through tests and trials. I must say that Alphard is the coolest antagonist ever. Her raison d'etre is badass as hell. She and Canaan have an backstory that I wished the anime would have gone deeper into.

Art [8/10]

Canaan aired in 2009. I almost couldn't believe that when I found it. It's art is well above the quality of the other series that existed in 2009. It's good enough that I could believe it was a 2012 anime if someone told me that. While the character design is awesome, the background/scenery could use a bit of work. The fight scenes are great. THE GREATEST. The animation quality of the fight scenes is definitely top notch.

Sound [10/10]

Canaan has some of the most exquisite violin music I've ever heard. It works perfectly with the mood of the anime. It induces a strong feeling of nostalgia and regret that just makes you appreciate relationship between Canaan and Alphard even more. I love the melody that Canaan, Siam, and Alphard hum.

Also, as a Shanghainese speaker, the Shanghainese was pretty darn good. It's an amazing feeling to listen to a sub and be like woah, I understand that. I didn't look into the voice actors for some of the very very minor characters, but I could believe that they imported some Shanghainese people to voice stuff.

Character [10/10]

The relationship between Canaan and Alphard is amazing, the more we learn about it. Canaan means "the promised land". It symbolizes pureness of heart, which is made more interesting by the fact that Alphard's old name used to be Canaan. Added on to this is the cute, heart pounding relationship between Canaan and Maria. The relationships between Santana and Hakko, Cummings and Liang Qi, and Liang Qi and Alphard are also great.

All the characters in Canaan have a purpose, excluding the truly minor background characters. There's nothing I hate more than a side character who contributes nothing to the flow of the plot. They all develop. Well, a large majority of them. In this sense, Canaan is one of the most complete and satisfying anime I've seen so far.

Enjoyment [8/10]

Despite all the awesome things I've mentioned before, Canaan falls a bit short in developing the background between some characters, namely Maria and Canaan. There's an unanswered question at the end that I'm still confused about and it drives me a bit insane sometimes. Also, the pace drops a bit around episode 8 or 9, where I almost dropped it but thank god I didn't.

But overall, watching Canaan is a wonderful and thrilling experience that'll leave you with a lot of feels.

Caution: There will be spoilers.

I began watching Shinsekai Yori because of the frequent urging of my friend. I dropped it at 3 episodes (because it failed to instill any sort of interest in me as to the outcome of the plot), then picked it up again a few months later because I saw it recommended by a fairly large amount of people who claimed that it was a "classic" and "the best story ever". I felt that I should at least watch the entire 25 episodes before passing judgement on what was seemingly a masterpiece. I did not make it. At 18/25 episodes, the series ... has so far failed to impress me with any sort of shocking revelation, and I would rather not waste a further 2 hours of my life to watch the rest.

Edit: I have since watched the complete series.

Story [5/10]

Ah, the story. Where to begin with this. The story was quite creative. A dystopian society set in the future with psychokinesis users and subhuman creatures. Cool. However, I consider pacing to be vital to the enjoyment of the overall story, and boy I have a lot of shit to say about it. The pacing was, without a doubt, the most atrociously inconsistent I have encountered so far. I was sorely tempted numerous times to drop this anime at ep. 3, 11, and 16.

The first three minutes of the first episode were probably the highlight of my viewing experience. After that began an inconsistent downward spiral into mediocrity. There is a definite lack of subtlety in the way the anime presents the issues it wishes to discuss. It is forced at the viewer, as if the producers were trying to make us to feel a certain way. Terror, I suppose. Each emotion Saki experiences is overdramatic to the point of absurdity. Certain scenes are revealed, then seemingly discarded or forgotten, leaving the viewer to wonder about the point behind it, or whether it mattered at all. It seems that for each arc (I'm guessing one every timeskip), the protagonists seek the answer to the current arc's mystery:

Arc 1: Civilization
Arc 2: Fiends/Cantus
Arc 3: Queerats

This division would be perfectly fine if not for the way the answers were revealed. The arc drags its dead body slowly and painfully across the storyline for about 4-5 episodes before an all knowing person decides to bestow their wisdom upon them. Examples: false minoshiro, Shun, Head of Ethics, Squealer. It's done in such an obvious and convenient fashion that the few episodes before the end of an arc seem pointless. The producers' failure to create a decently cohesive adaptation of the manga makes the story seem like a dumb animal spasming erratically as it tries to reach the finish line. If you've ever tried to played Clop, this was what watching this anime felt like.

A particular episode I had qualms with was ep. 8. No, it was not because of the homosexuality. I was fine with that. Saki x Maria forever. The problem was with the abrupt development of these relationships as well as the adults' obliviousness to these 14-year olds' overly sexual acts. Added to that was the fact that the anime didn't even attempt to explain it.

Again, I must point out the terrible pacing of the story. I'd venture that the episodes before the last arc were completely unbearable to watch. Sure, things were revealed, but they were revealed in such a vague and disconnected way that it honestly didn't matter until the final arc.


Art [6/10]

The art was nice, with a few absolutely disgusting lapses here and there.

Sound [9/10]

The music was the one redeeming factor of this anime. It was the perfect tone for the solemn and tense mood that dominated the story.

Character [3/10]

The characters were bland and uninteresting, with the exception of perhaps Shun and Squealer. The main character, Saki, was extremely hard to sympathize with. Her overreaction to everything was forced and off-putting. She had moments of revelation and even more moments of terrible stupidity (again, for the convenience of the plot, I suppose). The necessity of some characters other than plot devices is rather dubious.

Overall, Shinsekai Yori is an anime that tries too hard to be something that it's not. The political drama and philosophical issues it tries to bring up are embarassingly and painfully forced. It tries to juggle four different topics at once. Throughout the series, it's hard to tell what it actually wants to focus on. Is it the development of the current utopia? Is it Fiends/Karma Demons and the effects of Cantus? Is it the political factions between Queerats? Is it the weirdly depicted racism towards Queerats?

I judged this anime quite harshly because in my mind, I'd already condemned it as an overrated series. Therefore, I would not recommend this anime to anyone coming in with high expectations.

I discovered this work of Shinkai's after being impressed by his latest film, Kotonoha no Niwa. Sadly, I was rather disappointed by this one.

"Do you know? The speed at which cherry blossoms fall...five centimeters per second" is probably the film defining quote.

Perhaps it was Shinkai's intention to make the viewer feel this slow passage of time through the incredibly, incredibly slow progression of events in the film. This movie was terribly paced to the point where it was unbearable.

The beginning was set up well, but the middle was just a long and aggravatingly drawn out depiction of scenes that honestly contributed nothing to the ... plot. One would think that sitting through the full length of this movie would merit a well thought out ending, but the ending was just as frustrating as the rest of the film.

The characters, especially Takaki, are not very well developed. They are quite flat. Takaki is the Hamlet of the movie, constantly brooding, melancholy, and very prone to inaction. He does nothing but feel sorry for himself. Akari is the typical anime girl. What else is there to say? Disappointing.

The scenery was very nice. The character art was not. There was a very stark contrast between the quality of the background and that of the characters. It was very strange and the amount of work that was put into developing the realism of the scenery made the lack of work put into the character art more apparent.

Overall, I think many people overrate this simply based on the good quality of the animation and a tendency to be drawn to easily relatable themes like two people slowly drifting apart, long distance relationships, and that whole love stuff.