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I want my review to be suitable as both a recommendation for those undecided, as well as a point of view for those who have seen it to consider. So this is the most important question to answer right off the bat is:

"Should you watch Evangelion 3.0+1.0?"
If you're a casual viewer just looking for something to enjoy, or maybe you've never seen Eva before and want to check out the Rebuilds because this release completes the series, then my answer is a hard NO. I would only recommend watching Thrice Upon a Time (I will be referring to it as TUaT for the rest ... of this review) if you're a fan of Eva, and are familiar with the original series, its legacy and impact on anime culture, and the story behind its creation and its creator, Hideaki Anno.

TUaT is exceptionally meta, to the point that it would be virtually inaccessible to anyone not already well versed in the story of Evangelion as a franchise. The in-universe narrative is laden with cavernous gaps that are simply ignored. Just about any questions that you might have brought with you from 3.0 go unanswered, piles of nonsensical jargon get thrown into the mix, and yet not one character seems to bat an eye.

It's difficult to avoid comparing TUaT to the End of Evangelion, as they both act as the conclusions to their respective series, and thus share many elements (such as being the ultimate conclusion to the arcs of the protagonists), not to mention the fact that it makes many overt nods and callbacks to EoE. However, TUaT falls short in comparison, as EoE managed to do everything that TUaT did in the meta-sense, while still having a coherent and compelling narrative. The logic and sense of the world it had constructed was not sacrificed for the sake of Anno getting his message across.

Fortunately for TUaT, there are several upsides. As someone who loves the original series, seeing the change in how Anno viewed the world through his creation was very interesting. The difference in tone between TUaT and EoE is very apparent, with the former taking a much more positive and lighter approach. There are moments of warmth and levity scattered throughout that were almost entirely absent in EoE.

Another positive is the art. It channels the likes of Studio Ghibli and CoMix Waves in the serene scenes in the village, while also mixing in the surreal and apocalyptic imagery that mesmerized in EoE. On a visual level, the film is often gorgeous, particularly when it comes to these backdrops. The action sequences are very slick and stylish, but you don't feel the human struggle behind them. As a result, they're rather forgettable, and don't hold up to the tension and excitement of the more notable battles in NGE/EoE. There is a fair amount of fan-service and nudity in TUaT, with as much as an extended close-up shot of Mari's bare buttocks and partially visible breasts. Far more than any other entry in the series. Oddly enough however, there is little in the way of sexual overtones compared to the original series. This is another marked difference in the direction taken between the Rebuild series and the original.

The meat of the film lies in the characters, which has always been the heart of the series. The new characters introduced in the Rebuild series feel very weak and don't really have any development or depth to speak of. If you're going into this movie, you're really in it to see the characters you've become attached to from the original series. If you care enough about the series to see this movie, I'll let you judge for yourself how the characters were handled in this iteration. The same goes for the ending of course, probably the most consistently polarizing aspect of the franchise besides the waifu wars.

The tagline "Bye-bye all of Evangelion" is very fitting. To a fan like myself, it is an imperfect, but heartfelt sendoff to the franchise they love. And for all of TUaT's faults, I was glad to see these characters end their stories with a smile on their faces. To those unfamiliar, its about as meaningful as saying goodbye to a stranger.

In short, it's like Black Lagoon, but more gratuitous in terms of violence and sexuality. It's also notably worse in just about every way other than art, which is up to personal taste (I'll get into that later).

It's very edgy, following a set of immoral, unsavory characters on their short, episodic adventures of hyper violence. I'm four volumes in, and there has been almost no real continuity from one short arc (up to 3 chapters each) to the next, with the only carryover being one character's developing attraction to another. Just about every arc is just them getting in some predicament with various organized criminal ... groups that you'll never see again, and killing them. The main characters are all superpowered and you never really feel that they're in any danger. I also found them rather unlikeable. There's also this running "gag" where they attempt top subvert your expectations by setting up a showdown with a big bad at the end of an arc, only to have said big bad be defeated in a single panel. Gets real tired real fast. Writing: shallow and disposable, just like the random goons in the manga.

The way characters are drawn is very stylized and with extremely exaggerated proportions at times (like characters hands hanging below their knees). The continuity of character art is also poor, with characters seemingly going from 6.5 to 9 feet tall from one panel to the next. The objective quality such as linework and shading is good, and the backgrounds are consistently nice.

If this sounds somewhat interesting, check out a couple of chapters. Pretty much nothing changes and it doesn't get any better as it goes on, so you'll figure out pretty quickly whether or not it's for you.

Machikado Mazoku is a very light and cute ongoing 4Koma (this is written as of 63 chapters released). I began reading it after enjoying the anime, and it is very similar in terms of tone.

The story initially concerns our MC, Yuko, a high school who has suddenly awakened her dark clan powers and desires to best the neighbourhood magical girl to drain her blood and break the curse upon her family. However, this plot, and many of the subsequent conflicts, is resolved rather quickly. In fact, some problems that the characters encounter are introduced and finished within the span of a few chapters. There is ... an overarching plot that is introduced later on, but it often takes backseat to whatever immediate short term drama is happening.

The art is incredibly cute, but can be rather simple, and the characters all seem to have near-identical faces. Fortunately, they are individuated by distinct motifs in their clothing and hair. The 4Koma format is rather limiting as all panels are necessarily the same size, so you don't get any dynamic spreads or large panels that focus on particular detail or action.

The main characters are rather likable, and they are given interesting backgrounds of varying depth. But the series does a good job of introducing them and feeding the reader info as you get to know the characters instead of just exposition dumping.

The series is a comedy, and a lot of the humor is derived from exaggerated character traits (Yuko is weak and dumb, Mikan is obsessed with citrus, Momo is strong and deadpan, etc.) as well as silly facial expressions and bizarre situations. There are serious moments and some melodrama, but it never gets stuck in it and always finds a comedic exit. I found it rather funny and enjoyable, just don't expect any sharp or biting wit.

Overall, it's a very light read with cute art, likable characters, and silly humor. Very easy to pick up and put down, and I found it quite enjoyable.

I'm going to divide this review into two parts, a short, spoiler-free recommendation (or non if it's bad) and a more detailed analysis which requires spoilers as some story points will affect my given score. With that out of the way, let's commence!


SHORT/SUMMARY:
It's a well put together action film which ticks all of the necessary boxes. While solid in all core regards and particularly nice direction in terms of action, its core story is quite predictable (but still perfectly adequate) but stumbles with its handling of some periphery elements which could have added some more depth, keeping it in the realm of good rather than ... great.

If you're after a solid actioner, you can't go wrong with Sword of the Stranger, but its not a must-watch.

7/10

DETAILED REVIEW (SPOILERS):

Sword of the Stranger is a film built on very safe and solid foundations but introduces some minor story/character elements that fail to pay off in satisfying or meaningful ways.

Its core story is set in feudal Japan and revolves around a young boy being hunted by a group of Chinese soldiers who intend to use him in a ritual to grant the Chinese emperor immortality. The boy is rescued and accompanied by a ronin as they try to evade their pursuers.

Its pretty predictable stuff with few surprises, but a side plot involving a power hungry former-samurai contesting against the Chinese does well to add a bit more to an already perfectly serviceable story without feeling tacked on.

The protagonist Nanashi shares a few too many similarities to a certain Rurouni Kenshin that I just couldn't ignore and feels like a bit of a clone (red hair, elite soldier who went into hiding after becoming disillusioned with war, has a gimmick to make his sword less lethal). The boy, Kotarou is a typical stubborn and self sufficient pre-teen with a bit of an attitude. The antagonists are also fairly typical, with little character development and the central one being a stoic battle-hungry swordsman who lives to encounter a worthy opponent. Nothing special here. Oddly enough, the most interesting character is actually a secondary one; a former samurai who served beside our protagonist, now training commoners in martial arts with grand ambitions of waging a revolution and becoming a lord himself.

The art is good with fluid animation and dynamic action sequences, with the agile characters and the 'camera' often sweeping and moving to showcase the scene. The climactic battle is frenetic and carries a real sense of scale with it. As far as the action sequences go, Sword scores full marks. There is some CGI that sticks out, most notably the massive ritual altar constructed by the Chinese, but it isn't seen frequently and doesn't intrude on anything.

I'll avoid talking about the sound as I watched most of the film on a plane, so I didn't have the clearest audio experience.

Unfortunately, some of the little details that are introduced aren't handled as well as the core story and fail to be narratively satisfying. Unfortunately, it wouldn't have required many changes or much additional work to have given these elements proper payoffs, making it all the more disappointing. And this is where we get into spoiler territory...

Nanashi is shown collect some nuts/seeds and carry them around in a tube. It is later revealed that he uses them to dye black his naturally red hair as he was picked on and considered a barbarian when he was younger. This is a parallel to the main antagonist, who happens to be blonde (a fact that is noted by another character). They pay-off for this development? Well, there isn't one. Nanashi uses the nuts to trip over an enemy at the end...and that's it. In fact, other than the brief moment that you find out he has red hair, Nanashi's hair is black for the whole film, including the climactic duel, the perfect opportunity to bring the parallel to light and tie it in with the rest of the movie.

Another failed element is the sword gimmick, except instead of a setup with no payoff, it's the reverse. Nanashi has talisman (essentially a piece of fabric) that binds his sword to its scabbard, preventing him from drawing it. It's heavily implied that he does this to prevent himself from being able to kill others, a form of atonement for killing defenseless civilians in the past. What would have been a great payoff of him breaking the seal to draw his sword at the end, this time to protect the defenseless, is ruined by the fact that he killed people earlier in the film with the talisman still on his sword anyway. So what was the point of having it in the first place?

There are also quite a few gaps in the story (as far as details go) that could have really helped to flesh out and tie up the whole story that would elevate it from being a stock decent action movie into something truly intricate and well thought out (I'm tempted to write a long rant for that too). Instead, its wonderful action sequences are let down by wasted and missed opportunities.

While certainly not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, its a slightly overrated film that only has its dazzling action set-pieces to help it stand out from the rest.

With the new Berserk series airing, I felt that it would be appropriate to write this. That, and the fact that I only finished this series today.

Berserk is based on the manga of the same name and mainly covers the Golden Age arc (around volumes 3-13). I will compare to the manga where appropriate, but there are parts not portrayed in the anime to save time.

There is a reason why the source manga is one of the most highly regarded dark fantasy series to ever come into existence. It's carried by a dark and atmospheric world filled by creepy and beautifully drawn demons and fleshed ... out characters.

The story follows Guts, a warrior, and his time with a mercenary group called the Band of the Hawk, mainly focusing on his interactions and relationship with Griffith; the charismatic leader and Casca; a female squad commander of the mercenary band. While Guts is clearly the main character of the manga, the Golden Age (the arc shown in the anime) has a heavy focus on Griffith, and I quickly found myself caring far more about him than Guts.
Guts, the Black Swordsman, is a towering man (think an ever-so-slightly leaner Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan) who wields a massive sword and possesses godlike skills in battle. Unfortunately, he doesn't have much in terms of character as he spends the Golden Age 'finding himself' and seeking a purpose or goal, leading to him, well, not doing a whole lot beyond cutting down countless foes.
Griffith is a clever portrayal of the classic white-knight, a symbol of purity and nobility and a juxtaposition to Guts. And while Griffith certainly has the looks (flowing white hair, white armor and steed, compared to Guts' short black hair and darker armor) and the smooth tongue, his character runs far deeper than that. His character is also opposite to Guts in terms of personality. While Guts seems to wander aimlessly, Griffith has his dream of glory explored as well as his values and morality. His conviction to his dream is a major part of his character and the lengths he is willing to go to in order to advance it is explored greatly. His intelligence, cunning and personal beliefs are put on display and he frequently takes the spotlight whenever he appears, his elegant words and striking appearance snatching your attention. I would go so far as to say that the anime is more about him and his journey to achieve glory than it is about Guts.
The only other character I'll cover is a side character named Adon Coborlwitz. He isn't particularly notable in terms of story, but I'm including him because he sticks out like a sore thumb. He frequently bears much of the comic relief in the show. He has a very typical 'dumb bad guy' personality, loaded with arrogance and melodrama, and he just seems out of place, often taking away from the immersion in such a serious world.

The story is interesting, particularly as Griffith nears his goal through pitched battles and manipulation of those around him. His clever plays are great to watch and are a highlight of the show, aside from the vicious deaths of course. The themes of destiny, belonging and ambition are all well explored through the story and characters. While there is a bit of a lull in the middle of the show over a couple of episodes which slow down the pace, the story is great overall.

Unfortunately, the art fails to bring the wonderfully freakish demons from the manga to life. In fact, the art and animation is Berserk's greatest weakness. The most immediately noticeable flaw is the mediocre art. While the age is obvious (the grainy look of lower resolution production in the 90s), this isn't a problem for me, but can be for others. However, it is undeniable that the art is often pretty low quality, with characters often looking roughly drawn or lacking detail. While close-ups are usually pretty good, characters in the mid or background often look very samey or bland. Many lines also look poor, with lines creating muscles looking unnatural, almost like a draft. The flaws in animation are most prevalent in pitched battle scenes. While it having a constantly moving battle scene would be very expensive to animate, it is noticeable that while two characters in the foreground face off, the characters supposedly involved in their own tussles do not move at all. This is made all the worse when it's a mid-shot of the characters at the forefront, leaving a quite clear view of the would-be chaos around them, with sounds of battle cries and clashing swords, except that nobody moves at all. On the plus side, the panning views of scenery look like paintings, similar to Ghibli films, but much less concerned with raw detail, and more concerned with a very artistic feel. It looks very different from the art style throughout the other scenes, but I didn't find it a problem. The lack of quality in the art also means that the visceral detail in the violence and gore that you see in the manga is lacking in the anime. While the violence is certainly there, don't expect to see any gore besides splatters or sprinkler sprays of blood. No intestines, not severed limbs being paraded around. The backgrounds are usually quite good, especially at the very end during the Eclipse scene. The main characters are all very distinguishable, while the nobodies and cannon-fodder are indistinct, seems kind of odd, seeing as the differences can be attributed to the main cast being a band of mercenaries and not an official outfit, but then the rest of the unnamed mercs look exactly the same. But, they look pretty good, so its not much of a complaint, and the other military battalions each look different in accordance to their namesake (such as the White Tiger knights having a distinct stripe pattern over their armor, the Purple Rhino knights having helmets in the shape of a rhinoceros head, etc.). Another minor complaint is the inconsistency in the size of both people and objects. Mainly, Guts' sword seems to change size, from being similar height to himself, to significantly greater, and the height of certain characters in relation to each other seems to shift occasionally. Fortunately, many of the fights, mainly those involving Guts are well fairly well animated (at least Guts and his opponent(s)) and quite exciting (at least if you enjoy watching a lone man mow down dozens of enemies).

The voice acting seemed pretty good, with the exception of one character (Adon Coborlwitz) who sounds very exaggerated and comical (while this is intentional to fit his character, his character itself seems almost jarringly out of place in the show). The opening theme has a poor sounding guitar that seems out of tune. In fact the opening sounds a lot more lighthearted than the dark and brutal world of Berserk, but the song eventually grew on me, and I can't say that I dislike it. The other themes used in the show are pretty great, ranging from being poignant to stirring and fitting within the atmosphere and world created by the show, with Guts' main theme being particularly good. The battle sounds aren't particularly special, but they're appropriate and certainly don't fail in any regard. However, certain sound effects are poorly synched with the animation occurring on the screen. There are a few scenes where a character is walking with a wooden crutch, but the sound effect of the crutch hitting the ground is off from how he appears to be walking. There is also a scene where the main character charges into battle with a savage war cry...except his mouth is closed. Fortunately, these moments are pretty rare and aren't that big a deal.

Overall, if you can get past the lacking visuals, Berserk is an absolute must for those seeking a dark and violent fantasy world with great characters and story. Griffith is one of the best written characters I've come across and is mesmerizing in his persona. How much he carries this show cannot be understated. The one-on-one fights are nice and exhilarating and the soundtrack is commendable. If you haven't read the manga/ watched the movies and don't know what happens, I recommend skipping the first episode ad watching it last as it kind of spoils what happens at the end.

Ibitsu, for the most part, is a slasher/stalker film in manga form and comes with two extra shorts. All three stories (both Ibistu's main and bonus ones) are centred around urban legends. This is the only thing linking them together.

The main story is interesting enough (though 2 other shorts are included. I'll go over those later) and develops at a decent pace. Without going into details, there are questions that you will have that the story will seemingly answer, only to bring about more questions. However, through a twist toward the end, all these revelations are reversed, closing up the new questions and reopening the ... new ones.
This does close up a plot hole that would otherwise have remained had the final twist not occurred, but it seemed rather sudden and left me somewhat confused as the why so much effort was put into the plot development, only for it to be swept away in the last few pages.

I've taken a liking to horror media lately, getting into movies and books. Now I don't know how popular slasher films are over in Japan, but as a westerner, I've had quite a bit of exposure with the popularity of stuff such as Friday the 13th and Halloween, etc. As I stated before, Ibitsu is at its core a slasher story. Unfortunately, slashers have very well-known set-ups and tropes. As a result, much of Ibitsu's set-ups into what would be shocks and surprises, are instead very predictable and lose much of their effect. Without going into detail, you'll see what I mean (even just by comparing to some generic slasher films). However, some of the smaller details as well as general atmosphere manage to keep up an aura of general suspense, preventing this manga from falling flat in the scares department.

The art is very clean and looks quite nice and the backgrounds and settings are of decent quality too. The characters are distinguishable from one another and the design for the antagonist is pulled off well to create an unsettling character. So this was pretty good.

Due to the short length of the series (only 2 volumes) not much character development can occur, but the characters are fleshed out enough that none of them seem particularly wooden, although most fit into certain basic archetypes (such as the friendly and caring younger sister and the goofy and relaxed friend).

Onto the two bundled shorts: as they depart from Ibitsu's story, they also leave the slasher style behind. This allows freedom from the predictability of the well-known slasher set-ups and so have more potential to scare, or in the case of the second one, just creep you out. The same good quality of art is present in both, and story-wise both are interesting enough (the first being a typical venture into an abandoned building that and the second is basically Bakuman: the Misery edition). They're alright, but nothing special.

CONCLUSION/TL;DR
For me, the biggest issue i had was the predictability of so many of the situations presented in Ibitsu. If you haven't had much exposure to common horror tropes (and I find this unlikely if you've gown up watching Western TV. Even non-horror media will borrow some of these ideas), then it will be a better experience for you. But for me it borrowed too heavily on very well known and generic horror situations and was only saved by a creepiness created by the overall menace in the atmosphere and some nice art. Not a must read, but its decent enough, even if you can see most of it coming.

Just finished K-On! less than a week ago, so I'm writing this with it still pretty fresh in my brain.

STORY: 5
K-On! follows the light-music club of Sakura High as the four (later five) members form a band with dreams of national success. That's the overarching plot, and, due to the episodic nature of the series, isn't really much else. I was pretty disappointed with the series coming into it as I expected it to be a music oriented show, but I quickly came to realise that the cast spend the vast majority of their time messing around, drinking tea and eating cake rather than doing ... anything musical. However, after I accepted the fact that this show was truly about tea-and-cake, I began to ignore the simplicity and predictability of the story and just went with it. This allowed me to get into it a lot than I otherwise would have (I'm more used to a structured plot as I don't often watch slice-of-life anime).
Each episode is really simple with its story and you'll find no real surprises, plus there are no multi-episode arcs, instead every episode has its own story that starts and finishes within the 20 minute time-frame, so you won't out on a whole lot by skipping an episode (although you may miss out on the one or two new characters introduced). Overall, the story is nothing special, and it isn't really the focus of the show, so don't expect anything particularly gripping or solid.

ART: 6
K-On!'s art and animation is generally pretty decent. The backgrounds are alright and the characters are distinguishable from one other (though their face look similarly moe). But, when the camera is sitting at a mid to wide angle, the character art seems to drop in quality, with characters' feet becoming little more than stumps at a certain distance, making the art seem kinda lazy. There are other times when character proportions, particularly hands, are poorly drawn and look very strange. Though, for mid to close range shots, characters are drawn fine. All the characters have the general moe characteristics, sporting big eyes and small...pretty much everything else, but generally the art quality is decent. Nothing to write home about, but you won't feel like ripping out your own eyes or anything.

CHARACTERS: 4
The characters are all pretty flat and (forgive the pun) one-dimensional. You've got:
Yui- The main girl and guitarist who seems to have a case of ADD. Silly, lazy and forgetful with little to no attention span.

Mio-Intelligent and reliable bassist, but far too easily scared (and reduced to a catatonic state of shock). Frequently trolled by her friends who take pleasure messing with her anxiety, though by the end of the show, she's probably got the heart of an eighty year-old smoker.

Mugi-The wealthy and kind keyboardist who seems to have a never-ending supply of tea and snacks for the club to eat instead of actually practicing music. Air-headed and enjoys the simple lives of her commoner friends.

Ritsu-The drummer and probably the most normal one of the group. Mio's best friend, energetic and lazy at the same time. Hates work and loves stuffing around.

And that's about it with the characters. They're likable enough, but you'll see pretty much no development throughout the entire series. Sure another couple of characters are brought in, but they're also pretty shallow. Simple, and once you've met them, you already know them.

SOUND: 4
Now we get to the most important part of the show: sound. For a music show there's not a whole lot of music going on. The modern pop-style opening and closing themes are pretty decent, but the high-pitched singing of Yui's voice actress can get pretty irritating. Mio's VA also does some singing and her voice is a bit nicer to listen to. As for the songs featured in the actual show...well they were pretty disappointing. Featuring great hits such as "Fluffy Time", "My love is a Stapler" and "Brush Pen, Ballpoint Pen", the lyrics put out by the band are quite stupid ('my heart is fluffy like a marshmallow', are you kidding me?). Fluffy Time, the band's go-to anthem for performances starts out like an old-punk rock song (it really reminded me of the Ramones as soon as it started), but then it quickly becomes a stream of inane lyrics spurted out in Yui's high pitched voice. Seriously, she's not a good singer.
At least the show seems pretty self-aware about the poor-quality of its songs, with a few characters thinking the lyrics stupid when first shown them (even Mio, the songwriter thought they were too embarrassingly bad to sing).

ENJOYMENT: 7?!
Despite my low rating for everything else about this show, I did have some fun watching it. Once I got past the non-existent story and simple characters, I began to enjoy some of the comedy presented. It made me laugh a few times and brought a couple of smiles to my face, and I'm pretty sure that's all K-On was really trying to do, just get a few laughs.

Overall, if you want something to watch something after a long, tedious day that will help you chill out and relax a bit, you could do far worse than K-On. Its easy to get into, and you won't be left feeling sad or with a cliffhanger. Any comments/criticism/feedback of my review would be greatly appreciated, so feel free to message me.

Now onto K-On season 2!! (Don't judge me, the cake and tea is pretty addictive).

On the surface, Eiken appears to be some hideous monstrosity of anime sexualization gone overboard. And it is, just not in the way that you expect.

When you first watch this, you will see a poorly written anime, with poor animation and poorly thought out character with poor voice acting who are drawn with disgustingly large breasts. I certainly did. But then, if you think about it, you realize that this OVA a satire and criticism taken to the extreme.

Eiken criticizes the anime industry's over-sexualization of female characters, particularly in the chest region, the sexualization of younger characters, and how some series will have a lazily-written, ... senseless story and bad characters, and try to bury these flaws under layers of fan-service. Eiken addresses these problems in arguably the best (or worst) way possible; by taking these ideas and ramping it up to the extreme, before cramming it all into two half-hour episodes.

The story and characters (both design and personality) are purposefully bad, so much so that it can distract you from the message they are trying to convey.
Unfortunately, this confusion is only worsened by terrible voice-acting (I watched one of the episodes in English, and it is vomit-inducing) and some strange things that happen for reasons that I still cannot imagine (i.e; random guy in a bear costume).

Overall, beneath the surface, Eiken is far more than some cheap piece of fanservice thought up by weirdos (who were probably on crack, given the final product). Unfortunately its critical message is too easily lost under it over-the-top approach, which WILL undoubtedly put many people off.

Would I recommend Eiken? If you're willing to sit through a very unpleasant experience to see what would be one of the most in-your-face hyperboles, and are willing to forgive, or accept the disgusting portrayal of women, then yes, I do recommend it. If, however, you want to watch an anime made with any attempt ar quality, then I suggest not touching Eiken with a ten-foot pole.

How do you like your boobs? Bare? Ample? Frequent?
If you answered yes to any or all of the above, Freezing is perfect for you!
If not, weeeell, you're not going to have such a great time.

I had to mention the boobs at the start because the one of the first thing you'll notice is how much fan-service there is in the show. There is not one single episode where a girl doesn't get her breasts out. Seriously. Not even one. They'll come out during fights after they take a hit on the chest, even if its a punch. I'm not sure how punching somebody makes their ... clothes explode, but that's what happens. This, and the frequent panty-shots take you out from the experience. While they would be fine if they were littered about occasionally (gotta keep the viewership interested), the sheer volume of them is just too much, not to mention the timing. There will be numerous serious moments which will be broken because you can see a bunch of panties, or a girl has her boobs hanging out, and this just breaks the atmosphere.

The show also throws in some shower scenes for no real reason other than to show off some more skin. And they even change a story sequence from the manga (which it's adapted from) so that they can show off some more boobs, and the intermissions/half-way points in episodes just display the profiles female characters, while showing them off in skimpy-ass clothing. Because, why not?

The show has a pretty interesting premise (read the synopsis), though it can't exactly be called exactly original. I would therefore have scored this higher, except it doesn't even get onto dealing with the alien Nova until episode 9 (out of 12). That's 3 quarters already into the series. Until then, the Nova are only shown in a couple of flashbacks, and the show just deals with in-school drama, which is far less compelling compared to facing off against towering unknown invaders. Fortunately, when it finally does get to the characters encountering the Nova, Freezing really picks up the pace and it starts to really feel like its going somewhere. The action gets more intense and you finally start to take an interest.
One small gripe about the show is how some important information is revealed by one character just talking to themselves in order to explain and reveal some plot details. While this does a fine job at explaining what's going on and providing a bit more backstory, it doesn't make much sense in terms of why the character is saying that to nobody.

For the most part, the art is pretty good. The characters look good, although the main character's breasts just seemed a couple cup-sizes too large. And while the designs aren't unique or anything, they are well drawn. However, the art does suffer when compared to the manga, especially in the design of the 'Pandora Mode' that some characters can go into. In the manga, their outfit changes almost completely, and they have a more sci-fi/battle-suit look to them, but in the anime, the characters just have this white glow around them, without changing the way they look at all. This just seems lazy.
The Nova look great. They look smooth and elegant, and appropriately alien, while also carrying this sense of power. However, their body parts don't move (although this is probably to create an atmosphere of strangeness around them) and they just hover about. The overall animation for the show is mostly smooth, with only a few occurrences when things look a bit choppy.

The characters were a big weak point in the series for me, and there just weren't any mains who I liked. Kazuya is annoying and needy, Satellizer is just not likeable due to her personality and Arthur (really a side character later on) is one of the one sycophantic anime characters I have ever seen. I initially like Rana, until she turned out to be very petty. In fact, the only characters who I did like (or at least, not hate) only appeared a couple times throughout the series, and even then, only for a few minutes.

Personally, I didn't like the music, but that's just my taste (I generally don't like anime music). I felt that the voice acting in Japanese was good, fitting for most of the characters, and I would have given the sound a higher rank, but then I watched the English dub. Many of the voices didn't fit their characters, and at times, the acting wasn't very good and were hard to take seriously. The English dub is pretty horrible. If you're going to watch it, watch it in Japanese.

Overall, Freezing has pretty good art and animation, but wasn't as good as it's manga source, and an interesting, albeit unoriginal, premise. Unfortunately, the story just didn't get interesting until three quarters into series, and this was too late to completely salvage it. The characters were a weak point as they weren't very likable and while the Japanese language version is fine, the English dub suffers from poor voice-work. The show is brought down from a 6.5, to a 5 because of slow story, poor characters and the overload of fan-service, sometimes even breaking the atmosphere and seriousness of some situations.

Story:5 Art:7 Sound:6 Character:4 Enjoyment:5
Overall:5

I just finished watching this at the time of writing this review (literally several minutes), so its pretty fresh in my mind.

The first thing that you'll notice about this series is the art. It has a strange color scheme, giving it a very fantasy-style vibe, but also gives it the air of a dream sequence. The colours are bright and smooth, and quite unique. You might be put off by this, by I felt that it was a nice attempt at something different.
The set pieces are quite nice, with huge chess pieces in the background and vast kingdoms and buildings. On a smaller scale, however, ... the designs for all the characters are quite bland and unoriginal. The art and animation is good quality, but they aren't really special, and Shiro's mouth shape just seems weird to me.
Another thing is how most of the women happen to have very large breasts (one character's breasts appear to grow after she removes her top). There are plenty of bath-scenes, and although the nudity isn't that graphic, I would not recommend watching this series in front of anybody who respects you.

I felt that the characters were a big pitfall in this series. The two MCs that are introduced at the start come off as arrogant, and unbelievable. They go on about how all games they participate in are 'won before they even begin.' They are then spruced up with Shiro being superhumanly intelligent (being able to perform ridiculous physics calculations in seconds, and learning a new language without instruction through reading a book that she picked up), and even Sora being insanely intelligent.
At the other end of the scale is Stephanie, another leading character, who seems to be unbelievably stupid. She is stated to be very intelligent, yet she falls for obvious tricks, even after deep analysis.
Throughout the entire series, there was only one character who I did not dislike/hate.

My one big gripe about the story is how everything has to be so convoluted. Its not very difficult to follow, its just so unnecessarily complex. Imagine Death Note, but without the back-and-forth plays between Light and L, instead just having one side going 'I'm a genius! Check out how I planned everything! I'm better than you!!' That's pretty much what happens in every conflict, with the MCs essentially giving out that speech every time. This problem is only made worse when you (very quickly) realise that all that deep thought and master-planning wasn't actually necessary, and could have been achieved far quicker, or that the losers lost because that were just too stupid to (fairly easily) not fall into the trap, or just too arrogant to win quickly and simply. Not only that, but a lot of the seemingly deep planning is actually really predictable an d obvious. Honestly, the show just tried too hard to seem smart.

In terms of sound, I thought the voice acting was okay, but I'm just not really a fan of that cheery pop-music (which happens to be in most anime). If you like that music, you won't have a problem with this.

Personally, the problems with the characters and the plot, and the resolution of every single conflict made this a drag for me to sit through.

Art: 7
Sound: 7
Story: 4
Characters: 5
Enjoyment: 4
Overall: 5