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Rakshasa Street is a Chinese anime that many will consider to be a Shonen and is about a street that serves as a place of residence for spirits of the dead. Each street is protected from evil spirits by a human General that has the power to summon spirit general guardians from Chinese history.

Story: The show is actually split into two parts: Yin and Yang. Yang describes the journey of female protagonist Xia Ling as she discovers Rakshasa Street and finds her spirit guardian with the help of current General Cao Yanbing. The Yin part portrays the backstory of the Cao brothers. The two ... parts alternate with one another so sometimes the transition can be a bit disruptive. The Yin part does a better job in terms of pacing while the Yang half suffers from repeated dialogue and filler comedy. However, the later episodes does a good job at piecing the two parts together. Unfortunately, because each episode is only around 10 minutes, the show sometimes does not have room to fully flesh out the story. For example, I would have liked to learn more about the world and the backstories of the spirit guardians. Given that there is a second season, it's possible these may be explored more then. Nevertheless, the show is hard to put down due to the excellent character development.

Art: Word on the street is that the show had a relatively small budget and this can sometimes be evident. The animation is not always fluid and there is a good bit of scene recycling or stills. However, there were a few scenes where the animation was superb and shows how much Chinese animation has come along. The 3D fight scenes look a bit out of place and do not mesh well with the usual 2D scenes. The 3D by itself can be bad (sometimes to the point that it's funny) and the transition can be fairly jarring. Character designs, unfortunately, were a bit of a letdown especially when it came to the enemies. While the main characters have distinct enough designs, the enemy minions / evil spirits all share the same design so it's often difficult to tell them apart.

Sound: The soundtrack has a a good number of memorable pieces and the pieces, in general, are very well done. I've really enjoyed the opening piece where flames rampage through the streets to form the title of the show. The background music does a good job of setting the mood for the scene but it does only that. It's not synchronized that well with the scenes so while it's there to amplify the mood, it's not completely one with the scene.

On the other hand, the voice-acting is decent. For the most part, the voices fit the characters. I think Xia Ling's voice is the only one that doesn't quite fit. Sometimes the pitch of her voice fluctuates so you think she's being voiced by multiple people instead. On the other hand, a shoutout needs to be given to the voice actor for Xu Chu, who I think has had the best performance.

Characters: All of the characters undergo a decent amount of character development. Xia Ling goes from someone that always relies on others to someone that can now work towards her goals independently. Meanwhile, Yanbing realizes that his current world is too small and needs to start his journey as well. Everyone is able to recognize their own and each other's flaws and overcome them in their own way.

Overall: The best part of the show is it's attention to detail. Without revealing too much, the show sets itself up for a decent plot twist near the end. However, viewers should be able to figure out the twist if they pay attention to the various hints dropped throughout the show, from the voice acting to the art, and I've enjoyed the thought the writers have put into this. Overall, this show has proved to be an enjoyable ride and I'll be looking forward to the next season.

Yuri!!! on ICE is a sports anime that provides a glimpse into the world of competitive male figure skating. As someone that enjoys watching figure skating, this anime was something I naturally wanted to check out.

Story: I liked that the story focused on pro athletes as opposed to amateur ones. It shows that even pros have their struggles and lessens the cliche of novice athletes who suddenly finds themselves to be masters at the sport. However, I wished that the story focused a bit more on the training portions of the athletes to better show their struggles and improvement. In this aspect the show ... did more telling than showing. In addition, I found the premise of Victor acting as Yuri's coach was a bit unrealistic (despite the show later revealing the reason) and the ending felt more like it done by the creators just to spite fans and create the opportunity for a second season.

Art and Animation: In keeping with the nature of the show, the male characters in here are pretty boys. The costumes are pretty though it was a bit disappointing to see Yuri use Victor's costumes than have his own set. The initial animation was stunning and smooth but there was a noticeable drop in quality as the show continued. There were a lot of recycled animations both from a skating performance perspective and flashbacks. I would have enjoyed the show more if each of the skaters used a different set of movements for their short programs and free skate events at each cup and at the grand prix.

Sound: I was never a fan of the opening theme but I did enjoy some of the music used by the skaters during their performances, especially Eros. Other than that, the background music is nothing stellar to characterize memorable moments and the same songs are used in each performance. I watched a bit of the English dub as well. I've found that the dub tries to build in more accents while the Japanese voice actors are much more serious. While the accents are sometimes funny to hear, they make it much more difficult to comprehend what was said.

Characters: The show features a wide variety of characters from different countries. However, development was only really placed on a few of the main characters. It was interesting to see Yuri becoming more confident of his skating, Victor trying to be a better coach, and Yurio beginning to develop more friendships. The relationship between Victor and Yuri, while strongly suggested and cute at times, was sometimes a bit awkward. It felt more like the relationship occurred because the two are the main characters as opposed to there being a more natural chemistry. However, Victor's personality was also something that surprised me the most as he has both a serious side and an extremely silly one. The other characters only really got monologues during their skating routines to give some insights into their motives and backstories but you don't see them actually changing. The character development was also a little choppy and hurried which could have been due to the show only have 12 episodes. Perhaps if there had been 24 episodes the development would have been a bit smoother.

Overall Enjoyment: Despite its flaws, I really enjoyed watching the skating performances of the show and would look forward to a second season.