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Jun 28, 2025
MKR's second season answered my wishes for a better, more expansive view at the world of Cephiro; and at this, it succeeded, but at the cost of everything else.
MKR's art is its best quality, hands down. Beautiful, fluid fight animation that in a shoujo anime would be unheard of today. Not to mention spectacular art direction and character design from CLAMP--the whole world just oozes charm. With the introduction of new kingdoms comes new cultures--some definitely more stereotypical than others!-- we see more variety in character dress and character designs, our personal favorite (the owner of this account and the person I watched this with)
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being Autozam.
Unfortunately for Rayearth, it cannot survive for 29 episodes off just visuals.
Everything besides some worldbuilding suffers in season 2. The entire supporting cast (including Feiro, who was The Boy last season) is sidelined, as well as Umi and Fuu, the literal other two protagonists. Instead of the supporting casts doing literally anything, they spend the series mostly watching the girls have cool mech fights in the sky, with Ascot intermittently remembering that he has cool friends who can fly and help the girls. The entire supporting cast is replaced with Lantis and Eagle, two newcomers who I’ll get to in a bit. As for Umi and Fuu, while Hikaru does a soul-searching/love triangle quest, they’re stuck dealing with the new, deeply underdeveloped antagonists, who exist pretty much only to give the other two girls something to do while Hikaru stakes half of her character development on a gay man. Clef is more there than he was last season, but its mostly in a mentor role. Sometimes, the show remembers Lafarga exists, and sometimes, they even remember Caldena is there too. Poor Feiro gets the worst treatment out of the bunch, completely stripped of his rowdy personality in favor of being in love with Fuu. Congrats on CLAMP for failing the male equivalent of the Bechdel test, somehow. Lantis takes center stage as The Dude, and boy I sure wish he didn’t. Lantis doesn’t have a personality outside of being nice to children and aurafarming. He is emo, he doesn’t talk, and he wants to make sure the tragedy of season 1 doesn’t happen again, somehow. He does not care for Hikaru, no matter how much the show tries to convince me he does. He is not more caring towards her, or really talks to her, or hangs out with her beyond their immediate duties of trying to prevent the continent from crumbling into dust. He just is not charming at all as a second male lead, beyond some of his moments with Eagle.
Cephiro is a deeply frictionless world, the bad guys turned good don’t have much conflict at all with the rest of the cast, and the girls still don’t have much of a dynamic between each other besides being best friends, they’re all extremely mature and supporting of Hikaru all the time, and that is just absurd for a group of teenage girls. Which leaves the most interesting dynamics in the show be the ones that DO have some conflict, and unfortunately, it’s between men.
Eagle Vision, a man with one of the dumbest names I’ve ever heard, is unfortunately one of the only characters in the entire show. Leader of Autozam, the only invading nation not depicted in an orientalist lense, Eagle is also one of the few characters with agency--someone who moves the plot forward, instead of reacting to the events happening around them. I feel completely terrible for preferring a man over the trio of female protagonists, but fuck man, those girls just aren’t very interesting. They feel grief over what happened with Emmeraude and they react to that grief mostly by being sad about it, save for Hikaru, who does react much more strongly but not in a way I think is very well executed. Being solely reactive to problems isn’t the real fault with our heroes--they’re stuck defending a nation that’s being invaded on three different fronts, and there’s not much to do in that situation except react. But when everyone’s all hunky dory with each other, when there’s no real friction within the palace despite the absolute dire straits--that reactive nature is infinitely less interesting. The only sources of conflict are two distractions, Eagle, and the actual bad guys who are pulling the strings and also there I guess. Eagle pursues actual goals. Eagle has motivations and flaws and relationships beyond his two sidekicks. One of those is with Lantis, but like at least it's something. The rest of Eagle’s deal enters spoiler territory, so I’ll leave it there for now--at the very least, Eagle has really good yaoibait.
Nova, who apparently is an anime original, steals the show a lot of the time. She has a striking design, very good VAs and actually poses something beyond a physical challenge for Hikaru, allowing her to ruminate on some more complex emotions. Unfortunately, Hikaru is a very simple person who keeps reacting to the shit Nova pulls in the exact same way, making their conflict feel dragged out during the 29 episode run.
Speaking on Nova and the overarching villains more, they are definitely there and that’s about it. They’re not very fleshed out, and while their existence technically makes sense, I feel like the citizens of Cephiro should know way more about this “mysterious threat” than they actually do considering some facts that are unfortunately spoilers. The final confrontation feels somehow rushed after everything felt super dragged out for the whole series. Cephiro is a land of the will but they could not have willed for better pacing in the end.
Rayearth is an iconic piece of CLAMP’s stories and unfortunately my favorite character is a man who isn’t even a main protagonist. I can’t in good faith recommend this to anyone who isn’t a CLAMP or shoujo superfan that wants to learn more about the genre. What kills Cephiro is its lack of narrative friction, bloated and sidelined supporting cast, and character arcs that lack spunk.
P.S. I hope that fucking fairy goes into a mosquito lamp and gets electrocuted to death
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jun 24, 2025
Gundam GquuuuuuX keeps the modern Gundam franchise tradition alive of not being very good to its female characters and suffocating under the weight of its own legacy. I don't usually do spoiler reviews for shows, but I cannot hold myself back for GquuuuuuX.
Start with the good: Stellar animation. Just stellar. Stellar designs for characters, environment, and especially mecha desgins. I know not everyone is fond of this studio's takes on gundam mecha suits, but I love me some weird looking suits. This show has the most beautiful depictions of newtype connection, wonderfully animated.
Music is fine. Some of the worst needle drops of all
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time in this series, though.I agree in bringing back playing the OP during an anime's critical moments, but it was not done well here.
Everything else.... everything else...
I'll start with what everyone is saying; this show badly needed more episodes. Studio Khara might've felt they could've pulled this off in 12 episodes or less, and they very much could not have. Clan battles? Irrelevant after episode 6. Neo Titans? One episode wonders. Cybernewtypes? Bye. Spy drama and zeon faction in fighting? Like an episode and a half. Literally anything for Comoli to do? What do you take us as, feminists?
Speaking of feminism. Holy fuck.
I wanted badly to believe that Nyaan and Machu's crush on Shuji was not the fullest extent they were going to go with their characters. And I do genuinely believe some action was taken in that direction; Nyaan is a young girl looking for a home and Machu wishes to run from her own. There is--or was, something there; Machu's privileged contrasted against Nyaan's real lived experience, Nyaan's learned cutthroat nature versus Machu's bull in a china shop arrogance. But, all of that is lost under the weight of everything Khara wants to do with this story. Machu and Nyaan desperately needed more time to explore their characters, and that's lost. Kycilla gets a moment to shine, but her last seconds on screen are about her fantasizing about becoming a mother. And in their last moments, Nyaan and Machu discuss Shuji. This show cannot imagine women as anything but mothers or lovers. Annqi, who could've been neither, was shafted after episode 5, even if she does symbolizes a turning point for Machu.
Nyaan and Machu aren't the victims hit the hardest, though--that would be Lalah. When you have an opportunity to explore Lalah, the ultimate fridged Gundam girl, in a universe where she survived the war, and the only thing she's about is Char--that's fucked up. Lalah wasn't allowed to be her own person, and perhaps that's metaphorical for this being the universe where she just wants Char to live--I still find that severely disappointing, especially when the story renders her as another brown exploited sex worker who chooses to go to her fate.
I'm not a very elegant writer, so I'm not sure where I'm going with all this, besides using it as an excuse to vent my disappointment. Honestly? I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on, especially in the last episode. The people who made this show love Gundam, love it to death, but in loving the original UC Gundam, there's no room for new cast to grow. Challia gets some spotlight, and does have an arc that's relatively interesting, but it's really just him--and even then, I would've loved to see him mentor Machu more, to see him challenged, to see him interacting with his crew. But UC nostalgia bait leaves no time for that--even in a series with scarcely any cameos. But we get plenty of Grandpa Gundam and Char aura-farming for no reason. There's not even cameo-itis, it's just so much jacking off of the source material. It's very obvious how much was cut in favor of whatever vision the studio had, as point a, which is supposed to connect to point c, cannot because point b no longer exists---all in favor of Char Aznable's magical girl transformation, probably. (And from a red comet girlie--Char Aznable is reportedly out of character and his dynamic with Lalah leaves much to be desired, as I discussed up a few paragraphs. Seriously, how did we get even MORE ORIGIN TIMELINE AURA FARMING AND WE STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK SHUJI IS.)
Gundam GquuuuuuuX, for all it's innovations with character design and playing around with different formulas, ultimately fumbled under the weight of its own love for the source material. It cannot be the pathway for Gundam's future. It simply cannot.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jun 19, 2025
Either this show isn't for me, or the battle shounen genre as a whole isn't for me.
I didn't really like the first two parts of Jojo, but oh my god, was this one a drag. The animation is serviceable, though the OP is one of the best of all time without a doubt. Music is okay I guess. Everything else was not great.
Never before has a series exhausted be so much by being so boring. Every episode. Fight. Every episode. Jotaro aura farms. Every episode. Only Polnareff is allowed to experience emotions. The characters are allergic to hanging out with each other besides
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forming strategeies for whatever horrible mercnary just got thrown at them, save for Polnareff and Avdol. That's a lie, there is some camrederie between the group--Jotaro and Joseph as a grandson/grandpa duo, Jotaro and Kakyoin for going to school.... I'm sure there are more... but its not enough to not feel endless bored. Every episode follows the same formula, usually solved by someone thinking of a clever way to resolve it (that person is usually Jotaro), but the way this show solves problems doesn't translate into the cast learning and growing together. They get smarter and stronger, but it feels more individualist, rather than a unified group I'm supposed to be rooting for. I just didn't feel a connection between the group at all, and that made the show move at a snails pace.
I don't like Jotaro. I like him more than Joseph, who was annoying, but I don't like him more than Johnathan, who at least had a personality. He is just cool and aura farms all the time. Nothing else much too him in season one, besides he cares I guess about the women in his family and is sometimes respectful. Poor Polnareff is pulling double time for him in terms of moving the plot forward.
Polnareff appears to be the fan favorite, probably because he's the only one allowed to experience emotions. In any other anime he would've been kind of annoying, but here, he's the glue keeping the show together as the only character I care about on an emotional level.
In an episodic show, the core cast has to be the glue holding it together, and that is just not here. I have no idea how anyone rates this an 8. The fights aren't even that interesting.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Jun 16, 2025
This manga is cute, and that's about it. That doesn't mean it's not worth the read.
Trigger warnings for this manga include depiction of eating disorders and death.
Kitchen Princess does not break the mold, nor is it genre-defining, but it has a lot of heart. It's quick pacing is one of the series strongest elements, as it allows itself to indulge in shoujo tropes like miscommunication, arguing, etc., but problems are wrapped up quickly, before they have time to wear on the reader. The cast is cute, the art is cute, and the romance is cute. It actually managed to keep me on my
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toes in terms of guessing who the "Flan Prince" was, though maybe that's my inexperience as a shoujo fan showing.
The story did delve into pretty serious topics like eating disorders, but as everything moves pretty quickly and the story is focused on the romance, we don't spend too much time with anything serious except death. The supporting cast doesn't get as much detail as I would've liked--Akane and others--but it really isn't the end of the world.
I found that the integration of the series main subject, cooking/mainly baking, was fine. There were a couple eyebrow-raisy moments, but everything's still cute and fun.
It's a short, cute read.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jun 6, 2025
This is a really petty reason for dropping a series, but when the Isekai blue menu box of doom showed up, I logged out. Sorry, but I just was not into a cute child raising manhwa having any kind of power fantasy elements. I don't want Protag-shi to isekai power fantasy his way through friendships with children, i want a child to throw up on him and then six episodes later he's lovingly cradling them in his arms. I may be the #1 reader of nuclear family/child raising slop, but even I have standards.
Also, the series didn't really do anything to really grab me,
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I was just waiting for the tropes until the blue boxes slammed into me.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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May 31, 2025
Magic Knight Rayearth is a fun magical girl romp and most assuredly crack cocaine for any girl under the age of 13--but it leaves a bit to be desired.
The animation is beautiful, with CLAMP's iconic character design shining proudly. Rayearth is incredible at showing the beauty of animation, even in small scenes like environment details or impact frames. The team clearly had some great direction, as everything *moves,* especially in the action scenes. It's a far cry from what shoujo fans get today in terms of animation quality. The soundtrack is serviceable, with some of the tracks having english editions via the dub, if
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that's you're cup of tea.
The main trio, Hikari, Umi, and Fuu, are serviceable as protagonists. They're charming, have distinct personalities, and serve as great role models for young girls. The lessons they learn throughout the series, while simple, are good for the age demographic the writers are aiming at. This is a great anime for young girls, if you're looking for recommendations for a daughter, niece, or sister.
The trio starts to suffer from their lack of suffering; the girls don't really butt heads or argue with each other, and get along very well from the outset. While this may be music to the ears of someone sick of shoujo bickering, I found that it hindered a lot of my investment in the girls' relationships. Yes, they very rarely made stupid decisions or fell to misunderstandings, but the lack of growing pains made the power of friendship feel all to easy.
That lack of conflict is often brought in by the show's monster of the week formula, which it does well. The monsters tend to blur together, but as I said earlier, the problems brought upon by the monsters force the girls to think on their feet and grow. The rouge's gallery the girls face are probably the best parts of the show--they all have great designs, they're all incredibly charming, and most importantly, they have flaws that cause conflict which results (usually) in growth. They're campy, evil, and really flashy. My one grip is that the supporting cast basically is the rouge's gallery, minus Feiro, who shows up every once in a while. The girls are mostly on their own, so you end up with no one for them to bounce off of, because they don't really bounce off of each other. Feiro is nice, but he becomes friends with the girls really quickly, and while there's no immature drama--there's no drama period.
The show really gets interesting lore wise in like, it's final episode--while the environment is beautiful and there are some notes here and there of a deeper story, the lack of a true supporting cast (as the members of the rouge's gallery tend to vanish after their three or four episodes) hinders Cephiro's believability as a world. I'm one episode into the second season, which seems to start to remedy this, but that's the second season of Rayearth--not the first.
To speak on problematic themes, the show's older female cast were basically all villianized/sexualized, which isn't the most progressive thing in the world. A very young girl has a romance with a much older man towards the end, and while its a bit vague of what her actual age is, or what parts of her are an adult, it's still there, it's still offputting, and it may be a reason for you not to enjoy the show.
I would still recommend the show to shoujo fans, and I thoroughly enjoyed it myself, and will be tuning in to its second season. Despite it's flaws, Magic Knight Rayearth is incredibly charismatic, and a cute watch through with your friends.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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May 24, 2025
Really really good. Super full of style, beautiful animation, stellar dub cast. Momo is undboutedly the main protagonist of this story, which is super cool to see from a shounen. I didn’t love all the sexual violence she faces—while I understand that appears to be a key element of the show, sometimes it felt a bit gratuitous. To put my tinfoil hat on, I believe it’s because the mangaka thinks sexual violence is the greatest foe Momo can face. While I can’t argue against that viewpoint, I just wish Momo was naked less overall.
The relationship between Okarun and Momo is so cute. Again,
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I love how Momo is more of a protagonist of the two, and how Okarun is the object of affection. I love how sweet he is, and how they bicker and banter amongst each other. They make each other feel cared for in a way neither of them haven’t been before, which I think is so sweet. The miscommunication between them gets old a bit quickly though, and I’m hoping it lets up as we move through the series.
Again, the animation is stellar, like oh my god, so beautiful. Science Saru did a fantastic job. The flat colors work really well, the action scenes are beautiful, etc.
I did like the plot of yokai versus aliens, I thought that was really cool. The monster design is awesome, and I’m excited to see more creatures down the line. I like a lot of the themes going on here—aliens representing sexual violence/growing up, while yokai are more tradition/what you know/love? I’m still figuring out Dandadan myself, so my thoughts are messy. Something about manufactured consent to be exploited.
Because of some of Momo’s scenes, I can’t recommend this to a first time anime watcher who isn’t completely familiar with how horny the medium can be. But for everyone else, it’s a must watch, weird, and refreshing take on the Shonen battle formula.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 5, 2025
It's been a while since I completed this, so my thoughts are a bit unorganized.
LOGH is not all that. Another reviewer said that it's overrated on this site, and I agree wholeheartedly--but also like that same reviewer said, that doesn't mean it's not fantastic. Art's great---beautiful ships in space, and I like the character designs, explosions, and occasional gore. The use of classical music is also really great, and it sets the tone of battles, as well as matching the general theming of this show being a war epic.
The battles are the best part. The war strategy is much easier to follow than
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other shows, and I could physically see *why* characters are smarter than others, instead of just "he blew that ship up pretty good." LOGH takes into detail everything---rations, placements on the field, personality, morale---and the battles are so much more interesting for it, something LOGH needs when you're mostly looking at people talking in rooms and ships firing at each other in space.
Speaking of people talking to each other in rooms, the casts pretty great. While I had a hard time remembering who people were at times (looking at the three minor yet still important red-haired empire admirals) I see from a narrative perspective why they were all there, and what purposed they served. No one was a trope, and everyone felt really real, and grounded. The politicking is super engaging, and feels really realistic, just as the characters do. LOGH is scarily relevant today, and I cannot recommend it enough for it's politics alone.
This show has rampart misogyny, to the point where I was dreading the appearance of certain characters. Particularly was not a fan of Cazelnu trying to marry off his daughter to Julian, who was *physically* and *literally* several years older than his daughter, who is portrayed as a small child. This killed a lot my investment in Frederica and Yang's relationship as well, as Frederica *also* met him as a young child, and for most of the series was kind of sidelined as his assistant. Comparing her to Hilda, who serves a similar role but actually speaks up and has considerably more agency, it's not even a contest. It doesn't render the show unwatchable by any stretch of the imagination, but I figured I'd warn any first timer.
Politically, LOGH fascinates me--it's got a hard boner for liberal democracy, but readily and ably points out its many flaws. And yet, like most leftists, the artist cannot imagine a world beyond capitalism. Measuring a good autocracy versus a bad democracy really makes the audience think, as we see the ugliest and most beautiful sides of both systems. What I wanted more of was the civilian perspective---we had no real figurehead for them except Jessica, and I'm not really counting Phezzan, which is its own weird thing. Also, the terraists sucked. They just were comically evil and pissed me off.
LOGH is a good watch, maybe not a masterpiece watch, but a good watch.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 5, 2025
A great classic, the first BL ever made. Kaze to Ki no Uta is fine. The animation's pretty good for how old it is, and the music is nice. Witnessing Gilbert and Serge's journey is sweet, even if it's cut short by it's 50 minute runtime. It's a perfectly acceptable BL OVA. I watched this a while ago, so my memory's a bit foggy, but I did enjoy it. A bit slow going, but nothing really that terrible. I watched this with a friend, and we both realized that it seemed to treat its racier elements with more respect than other BLs---Gilbert's desire for sex
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is painted as self harm, not sexy. Not for everyone, but for any BL fan, it's worth the visit to know your history.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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May 5, 2025
This show gets a lot better if you just pretend this is all Casval's diary.
Origin is not a good introduction to UC Gundam. It's not even a good introduction to Char. This entire review is just going to be me being a pain in the ass otaku, but in an age where anime is practically mainstream, mecha fans are the last bastion of truly annoying weeaboos.
Animation is stunning. Music is also stunning. Origin captures Yoshikazu Yasuhiko art wonderfully. I am particularly a fan of the facial expressions and how hair moves in this. Everyone is beautifully expressive, and I love it. Mobile suit
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animation is also pretty good. Most complain about CGI mech suits, and while 2D animation is gorgeous, it's not like CGI isn't. Explosions in this one also look really good. Music is great, not a fan of the Beyond the Time rendition in particular, but either than that, the vocal songs are fine. .
Casval "I've never betrayed anyone" Deikum is supposed to be the star of the show but I honestly think he's one of it's weakest aspects. He is just too cool. Casval is lame, I'm sorry! He's a lame guy desperately searching for approval from ghosts. He is *nineteen,* not a sigma male. Because he was too cool I found it really hard to take him seriously. He barely showed any emotion that wasn't scheming or being a sigma male. I like my Casvals mentally unstable, thank you very much. It is very funny that he never stood of chance of being normal though, even if his dad had lived and he'd stayed a prince. Sayla was the favorite and Casval knew it, and his father was completely bananas.
Everyone else in the show is.... shockingly great? Particularly the Zabis. Kycillia, Gihren, and the Sasano were fine, but Garma, Dozle, and Degwin were awesome. Dozle is funny, and it's great at the end watching him do the mental gymnastics of justifiying his family's fascisim and war after the birth of Mineva. Garma is fantastic, and I loved this take on him in particular--spoiled, brainwashed prince who could've been a better person had it not been for the circumstances of his birth. I liked his camaraderie with Casval, I liked how much he squirmed under all the pressure he was under, so much that he did not flinch into fascism, unlike Dozle. (I do have a great weakness for male himederes, so perhaps I am biased.) Degwin was mostly funny--I love how Garma's straight up the only kid he likes on account of being a marginally better person (until the war) like the rest of his family.
Sayla, Hamon, and Ramba Ral were real good in this---particularly the power couple. I appreciate them aura farming, because unlike Char, they actually get the shit kicked out of them (particularity Ral.) Hamon being a badass action hero works because her actions have consequences--she's arrested and Ral gets demoted.
The stuff for the side 7 kids is okay---I don't terribly mind anyone's portrayal save for Ryu (who just got the shit kicked out of him for no reason) and Kai, who I just have personal gripes about because he's one of my favorite UC characters.
Despite all that I say, this is still a really good show---it was clear how much love was put into it, and I absolutely adored hearing all the little details about UC before the war. I'd recommend it as a watch for any Gundam fan, but definitely not as an entry point.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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