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Comedies often start off great, but then try to take a more serious note and subsequently fail miserably. Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! is one of those shows that showed great promise, but in the attempt to get more serious lost most of its previous charm.

Our story begins with Yuuta, who has suffered a great deal on behalf of his eight grade syndrome personality “The Dark Flame Master”. He is starting anew in high-school trying to forget his embarrassing past, but on his first day Rikka, a girl in his class, who herself is still suffering from the syndrome, sees him descend back into his ... previous embarrassing self. She quickly starts making contact with him as he is capable of understanding her behaviour and she also lives one flat below her and soon they sort o become friends. She wants to organise a school club to her delusions and gets Yuuta to join. They also manage to get a few more people into the club and they start having different fun adventures together.

While the story is nothing to original the comedy is just so well done as are the character interactions that it is easy to forgive all the shortcomings. Things start to go seriously downhill at the halfway point as the show wants to complicate things and change more into a drama. While in theory there is nothing wrong with that, here it just manages to make everything unbelievably boring, so much so that I was seriously thinking of dropping the show around episode nine, but luckily I hadn't as the story managed to improve substantially in the last few episodes, but fails to match the greatness of the first half. The ending itself is pretty great and gives us a nice starting point for the next season, which I am still not sure as to watch it or not.

The characters are all a lot of fun and Yuuta and especially Rikka have nicely developed backstories. The character dynamics are fabulous as well as they each compliment each other perfectly and the whole group of characters surrounding our leads is a whole lot of fun and has this great diversity. Still there are a few problems as many characters are not in the least original and the backstories of the other main characters are left unexplored.

The art is nice if not particularly original. I especially liked Rikka but her similarity with Misaki Mei from Another is just too uncanny. The thing I have to point out are the imaginary battle sequences as they are beautifully animated and the way the view sometimes changes to the one of the spectators is just brilliant. The opening is great and it includes the cutest sequence I have seen since the scene of Bell and Hestia brushing their teeth in the ending of Dan Machi. The soundtrack is nothing to write home about, but it is serviceable.

All in all Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! is a greatly flawed anime, but even so the first part is just so good that I am unable to give it a lower score than a 7. I have to say that the first part would have warranted a 10, but the following episodes ruined the good first impression. This is not an anime I am able to wholeheartedly recommend to anyone as it is the closest I have ever been to dropping an anime, but the beginning is exceptional and it might be worth watching it only for the first few episodes.
Feel free to leave a comment or read some of my other reviews.

Picking manga at random is interesting as you can stumble upon some very interesting reading material. Reading through the short summary I did not think this was going to be any good as reading a romance manga involving vampires seemed like a chore but after reading a few chapters I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at just how good of a read this was.

In contemporary Korean society vampires are living among normal people having found pig’s blood is a adequate replacement for human blood, but the people are still harbouring hatred towards them, so they have to hide their identity. We are introduced ... to Ma Ri Baek a cute high school girl who has just moved to a new environment with her family, after the people in the town where they lived before, found out they were vampires and had to run away. Because of her painful memories of rejection she is afraid to make friends and so she quietly sits by herself trying not throw any attention onto herself. One day while being hungry on her way back from school she completely zones-out and starts sucking on the neck of a boy from her school.

The premise itself is nothing special in itself, but the way the story unravels is just great. The way she wants to avoid him at first, to her slowly acquiring feelings for him but not willing to open up for the sake of not getting hurt, it is all put into writing perfectly. It is not all about love we can also see her slowly getting friendlier with her surroundings and slowly breaking down the wall she has built around herself. The execution is the thing that makes this manga stand out from the crowd as it manages to create this unbelievably calming atmosphere that was able to transfer me to this “happy place” while reading it and that in itself is something few other manga have accomplished. The story itself includes all the characteristics associated with the shoujo genre but the storytelling is done so well it rarely bothered me.

The characters are all great a bit stereotypical and are still believable if not overly realistic, but that is expected from a manga like this. Our main character is really withdrawn because of the rejection she faced after some of her friends found out she is a vampire. She keeps to herself longing for time to pass so she could leave this school and the people in it. After she is made to join the music club she slowly starts opening up and start making friends. What is a shoujo manga without a male protagonist, in our case that is Jung Jae Min, the boy whose neck Ma Ri sucks on. He has some serious issues with women and tries to avoid contact with them, but after the incident he completely falls for Ma Ri, but she, afraid of him finding out her secret, rejects him, but for us to have a story, he is very persistent and does not try to quit his endeavours of conquering her heart. We also have two female friends Ma Ri manages to make in the music club, another boy who falls for Ma Ri and a few less important classmates, but all of them manage to fit into the story seamlessly an each of them brings something unique to the table.

The art is the thing that drew me in and I have to say that it is exceptional and manages to stand out even among the Korean webtoon crowd. The characters look amazing, the background are detailed, the colours pop and all of this just pulls you in and doesn’t let you go. The presentation is beautiful as well, if not as breathtaking as Annarasumanara, and makes Orange Marmalade an easy read.

All in all Orange Marmalade is very good piece of work, that has decent characters, exquisite storytelling and beautiful art, it also manages to avoid many of the pitfalls of the genre. It still is has its fair share of problems and so it deserves the score of a high eight. I would recommend this manga to anyone interested in a bit of romance and to all of those who can just admire the art.
This is actually my first manga review (more of them are coming soon) and so would appreciate some feedback so that later reviews can be improved.

Action comedies are a popular genre but they rarely manage to hit the right balance between the action and comedy parts. Noragami is special as it manages to make a incredibly smooth transition from an all out comedy into an action packed drama.

In the beginning we are introduced to Iki Hiyori who, while searching for a stray cat, jumps in front of a car trying to save our other hero, the tracksuit clad god Yato. While she sustains no serious injuries her spirit sometimes escapes her body and can move around independently. While she is still in the hospital she catches Yato checking up on ... her, who then explains to her that he is a barely known god without a shrine and does work for anyone prepared to give him a contribution towards building a shrine. They hit it off quite well and she hires Yato to help her stop escaping her body.

The story itself starts of in a unbelievably lighthearted manner, it just oozes this positive energy. Then we witness the gradual descent into darkness as the story becomes darker and darker, but manages to transition so seamless that I managed to forget that this was ever a comedy until the very end. This transition is not uncommon in anime but the transitions are rapid and normally seem forced because of that like in Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica, while it was a great show I never managed to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Noragami. There are some problems in the story and a few questions go unanswered, the ending could be executed better but overall the storytelling is exceptional.

The characters are positively awesome. First tracksuit wearing god Yato, who has to be one of the most original and funniest characters I have seen. His shameless upfront personality, his reactions on the ridicule of others and his extreme enthusiasm for doing meaningless jobs. I just cannot forget him spray-painting his adverts for his “divine” assistance. This is how he is in the beginning but later on the story starts to slowly get darker and darker and he changes appropriately and some of his dark secrets start coming out. Hiyori is this average playful high school girl without a care in the world before meeting up with Yato. Her personality would be best described by that of a young cat and even the animation emphasises that as her spirit form features this nice tail. Through the anime her personality remains the most static, but we can get to know her caring side while she is worrying about Yato and Yuki. This brings us to Yuki, Yato’s divine instrument. He is a untainted spirit who Yato can make transform into a sword with which he can use to fight evil spirits. Yuki is a young boy who is extremely stubborn and selfish in the begging but later on changes into a respectable character. We also have several other side characters all of which are at leas interesting if not amazing, my favourites have to be the god of poverty Kofuku and her divine instrument Daikoku. She has the form of a young girl while he is this gruff middle-aged man who is completely devoted to her.

Noragami also deserves praise in the art department as the animation is just beautiful if not particularly original. The characters look great and feel distinct, the animation is smooth and the backdrops detailed and lively, the fights beautifully choreographed, so all in all I have to say I was really impressed by the look of the anime. I would have to point out just how beautiful eyes the individual characters have and that manages to make Noragami stand out of the crowd. I haven't even noticed the soundtrack, which is in my opinion great, as that means that there was never a moment where it felt out off place. The opening was exceptional and quickly made it’s way into my iTunes library while the ending is pretty great as well.

Noragami is not perfect but it manages to get pretty darn close, the balance of seriousness and comedy is about as close to perfection as you can get and while there were a few problems and a mediocre ending it still deserves a 9 out of 10. I can wholeheartedly recommend this to everyone and I am already waiting for the second season to come out.

The first season was a diamond in the rough, great ideas but bad execution, now we are presented another season. Did it manage to overcome the previous problems or did it manage to create brand new ones, read on and find out.

The story continues right where the previous left off and our heroes are still on the quest to find the remains of Chaika’s father, even tough she is now facing some serious existential questions as she now knows she was just a pawn her father’s scheme.
After the loss of their captain Gillette’s squad is back to their usual business, tracking down Chaika ... and her companions. Well not all is the same as Mimi has turned into a half Chaika (how we never get to know) after the loss of her beloved Gillette.
The red Chaika has a more serious role now as they are also trying to get back the remains before the others do and we can se quite the rivalry between the two teams.

The main selling point for the previous season was the interesting story and while here the story is not bad, it loses almost all the uniqueness it had before. Now it is just a regular action anime where different teams are after some treasure and then later they have to fight together to defeat an evil villain. The next great thing about the first season was its portrayal of the peaceful world as a dull and boring place and seeing people longing for the excitement of battle and killing, here we go back to the black and white portrayal of war is bad, not that I disagree with the statement, but it was one of the most original things about the first season and now everyone, other than the villains, want to stop fighting. On the positive note they do manage to explain many of the things they forgotten in the first season, but some explanations are still left out. The pacing has also improved significantly and the whole structure of the anime was really well thought out and it managed not feel rushed even with its ten episode runtime. The ending is also well done if a bit to cliche for my liking.

The characters have also gotten worse than they were before. Chaika has in my opinion, lost most of her charm as she lacks any kind of progression. Tooru seems to have gotten the most development as he faces his teacher in battle and has a few tough decisions to make. His sister Akari has managed to change from a perfectly fun character into an even more annoying version of Mikasa from Attack on Titan, which I did not believe was even possible. The side characters have not changed all that much from the previous season and are still perfectly fine, but they do not stand out. As for the antagonists this time, they are uninteresting and seriously unoriginal.

The art is once again completely on par with other similar anime, but nothing exceptional. The soundtrack itself is adequate but the opening and ending themes were nowhere near as good as in the previous season and got skipped after having heard them them three or four times.

I said in the review of the first season that it showed promise but never managed to get quite there and in the beginning I thought that this was, what the first season should have been, but soon it managed to loose all its previous charm and become this generic action anime, which is in my opinion just sad as it showed so much potential. I am going to give it the score of a high 6 as it still managed to entertain me but it had so much more potential. I am not sure if I can recommend this to the people who watched the first season as it is significantly worse, but on the other hand it still explains some of the opened questions from the first season so it might be worth watching the first few episodes and them maybe skip the ending.
Feel free to leave me some feedback and if you liked this review you should check out my growing collection of reviews.

Once in a while you come across an anime that shows great promise, the basic ideas are great and the story is intriguing. Shows like that often develop into masterpieces but others veer off-course and descend into mediocrity.

In a land where wars are no more, after the overthrowing of the old emperor, we are introduced to a veteran who has no place in this world, as all he can do well is fight. While hunting he stumbles upon a white-haired girl carrying a casket, and they are then immediately attacked by an unicorn. Together they manage to escape the beast and he finds out that ... she, Chaika, is the daughter of the late emperor. She tells him she is looking for the remains of her father so she can then bury him, and asks him if he could help her steal one of the remains in the possession of a local nobleman. Longing for a purpose he jumps at the opportunity and together with his sister he joins the search for the remains of Chaika’s father.

Interestingly for an anime it starts off exploring the subject of veterans as what is a solider to do in a world where wars are over. Even more interesting is the fact that throughout the show we se people longing for war, wether they are normal soldiers, civilians or even royalty. But all of this is not for the sake of personal gain but solely for the excitement and the feeling of belonging somewhere.
The story as a whole keeps evolving and manages to be surprisingly original in its plot-twists. One problem with all of these different directions is that many of the themes are explored not explored nearly enough and seem to be just forgotten or ignored. The twelve episode format is not helping with this at all as something so packed with events is hard to stuff into such a short duration. To add insult to injury we are also following the story of their pursuers which seemed absolutely unnecessary. The series has a very unique view in magic as it is portrayed in the form of guns. The whole thing runs on memories of once living beings, such as different fossils, well actually they can also use their own memories but then loose those memories they use, but this is not expanded nearly enough so we do not get any details.

The main character is Chaika, she is in my opinion one of the most memorable female characters I have seen in anime. She has the memory of her childhood, but knows nothing about the time of the fall of her father. The only thing she knows is that she is to gather her fathers remains and give him a proper burial. She is very trusting an has non existent social skills, she can’t even normally talk as she spouts out only words, not whole sentences. Next we have Tooru and his sister Akari, both are saboteurs, trained from their early childhood to fight as mercenaries and have been aimlessly wandering around since the end of the war not knowing what to do. They aren't the most exciting characters, but they are perfectly fine. They have this typical brother sister dynamic, as they are portrayed as sort of rivals, always trying to be better than the other, but at the same time deeply devoted to one another. Then we have a team that is trying to track our main trio down and stop Chaika from gathering the remains. They are a group of fairly capable fighters but they are facing the dilemma of hunting down a girl only looking to bury her father. Later on we are introduced to some other moderately important characters which are mostly great and really help the story flow along.

In the visual department I have no complaints, everything looks nice even if some 3d models look a bit out of place but considering the small budget it is all good. The soundtrack is nice as well and I especially liked the opening theme.

All in all Hitsugi no Chaika has so many great ideas and moments of brilliance, that are brought down by rather poor execution,but still it never falls into mediocrity as so may other anime do. So the show gets a nice 8 from me and a recommendation for everyone. Im am already looking forward to seeing the second season.
If you enjoyed this review feel free to check out my other reviews or leave a comment

Watching an anime about monster girl harem seemed to be a horrifying prospect as I sat down to try to watch this, only to be able to say how horridly stupid it was. But wow how positively surprised I was, as this was actually unbelievably funny and i hadn't had such a good laugh for ages.

The story is quite simple, there is a new program implemented that allows fantasy beings to come to our world as some sort of exchange students. Our main character agrees to take in Mia, a lamia, that means she is half human half snake. She immediately falls in ... love with him but the problem is that sexual relationships between humans and monsters are forbidden. Then slowly he gets to care for many more beautiful monsters that fight over him. Anyway the story is nighter original nor particularly interesting, but the comedy is done so well that it is easy to ignore the lack of a good story. The ending episode was in my opinion a bit weak as there was no meaningful conclusion, but at the same time that hints towards a second season, which I am looking forward to.

The character are great, our main character is this average Joe, a bit dense but he has a very good heart. He wants to help his guests in any way he can and is also one of the only people in the show that sees them as normal people and not as monsters. His guests are all great, everyone is not only a great deal of fun, but they all have distinct personalities that make for some great interactions. There is only one other important character in the anime and that is agent Smith. She is the cultural exchange coordinator that is responsible for our main character getting all these girls and also for keeping an eye on him. She is shown as very manipulative and is always in control of the situation, whatever it may be.

The visuals are great, the girl, look distinctive and very cute, even if some of their body proportions are a bit exaggerated and some of the fan service does cross the line of good taste a few times. The backdrops are detailed and the animation is silky smooth. As the show contains nudity I have to say the censored version I saw was censored so well I would not have noticed it, had I not read about it somewhere. There are a few fabulously funny effects that fit in perfectly. I especially liked our main characters eyes that appear completely white or most of the time and that gives him a distinct clueless look the fits in perfectly with the anime, but when serious moments arise he gets his normal look back. The soundtrack is decent if not especially good and the opening and ending are both very listenable if a bit boring after a few listens.

My final score for Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou is a low 8, which might be a bit high but it is such a great deal of fun. I have to say that out of all of the anime I was watching as they were airing, this has to be the one I was looking forward to watching it the most. Would I recommend it to everyone? Of course not, but if you are looking for a good laugh and are not going to mind a bunch of fan-service.

It was the last day of our spring break, the weather was depressing and I was mindlessly looking at 9gag, smirking at the posts. Not much was going on as I saw a post showing a black clad swordsman and a brightly dressed woman. I was intrigued, so I looked it up and found SAO,at that moment my journey into the world of anime begun and now almost half a year later I am here writing this review.

You all know what the story is about but lets look at it again. In the near future they manage to create a full virtual reality MMORPG in ... which a bunch of people get trapped. To get out they have to complete the game, but if they die in-game they really die in real life. We are presented the main character Kirito who is one of the people trapped in this game, he is in a better position than the majority as he was part of the beta testers. He becomes very good, joins the lead group, falls in love with Yuuki Asuna, makes a lot of friends and a personal harem,…

Well the story itself is quite interesting, but the problem is that it tries to tackle too much in it’s two story arcs of the first season. The first arc depicts the time of about two years and so we only get to see a very small fraction of that time. Because of that we encounter huge leaps in time in which we have little to no insight. I goes to show it is an adaptation of a extensive light novel. The anime also seems like it wants to tackle several different genres and jumps around from one to another. This lac of direction means that there is precious time spent on things that could have been left out. On the other hand this brings a sense of uniqueness to SAO as I have yet to see an anime that includes such diversity in subjects. That might be one of the reasons for SAOs popularity as most people can enjoy at least one of these segments in the story. The game aspect of the anime was in my opinion very well done, but I am not a big fan of MMORPG’s so I am not qualified to judge that aspect.
That brings us to the second arc in the first season which many claim is much worse than the first one and I have to partially agree, as did not find is as entertaining as the first. The story focuses more on relationships between characters and the aftermaths of the first arc and in my opinion occasionally moves a little to slowly. All in all I found the story interesting, and while I stand more on the side of the fans defending SAO I can understand why some people might dislike it.

Our main character Kirito is just your stereotypical hero, strong, brave, honourable and good looking. I have heard some people criticise this, but I don’t mind it, because even if he is a bit one-dimensional, he still manages to be memorable and he still gets his fair share of development throughout the sereies. Next we have his soulmate Yuuki Asuna who is portrayed as a very skilled and independent woman. We can see her and Kirito slowly fall in love through the first couple of episodes and I have to say I found this pretty darn beautiful if a bit rushed. Her attitude changes severely in the second half, but her position was changed as well so I have to say I did not mind it. The second part introduces another important character, KIrito’s sister Suguha, not to spoil the second half I will only say that she is a decent character, but with her comes one of the worst aspects of the anime, wannabe incest. There are plenty of peasant side character that bring a bit of diversity into the story and brig several memorable moments to the show. The antagonists are both disappointing, as the first one while interesting never gets explored enough for us to know his motives, while the second one is just pitiful.

The visuals are just superb, the backdrops look beautiful and the characters are instantly recognisable and relatively unique. The battle sequences have this flow that really makes it look as if it was a video game and that greatly helps establishing the feeling that we are watching people trapped in a virtual reality game. The visuals in the second part only improve and I would have to say that this anime features one of the best animations I have ever seen.The soundtrack to the show is masterfully done and fits it perfectly. The openings and endings are all great, even if I prefer the ones from the second season to these, but they did not bother me and I have to say I never felt the urge to skip them as I was watching.

I don’t understand why people bash SAO so much, I admit it is no masterpiece, but it is very easily accessible, caters to a large audience and actually manages to please most of its viewers. As for my score I have to say that it realistically deserves an eight, but as the anime that started it all for me, I believe it deserves an extra point. I think this is a great anime to get a friend into anime as it is quite easy for them to find something they like and they have a it is easy for them to pick a theme they like and then look up more anime of that genre.

As I am still new to reviewing all feedback is greatly appreciated.

Fun with guns! After several dark and depressing shows including guns this seemed like a breath of fresh air, as it is based around people playing survival games that means shooting each other with toy guns.

The story tells us the tale of Hotaru Tachibana a girl with a serious sense for justice and possibly mild super-strength, who just happens to look like a boy. One day while trying to help out a friend she makes a complete mess in a club and as compensation has to join the club host’s survival game team. He thinks she is a boy as his team does not allow ... girls to participate and so she has to pretend to be a boy. Later on she finds out that he has some deep emotional scaring regarding another team and Hotaru is determined to make him get over it, by helping him win a tournament against that team.

Well the premise seemed fun especially as in the beginning it really looked as the characters are taking this whole survival game thing way to serious. Later on the story really evolved but at the same time became much more boring and not nearly as fun as in the beginning. The more serious the show tries to be the lousier it gets, but when it tries to be funny it can make lough out loud.

The biggest problem with the anime is the main character as she is really annoying and not interesting at all. As I had said before she has this extreme sense for justice and when she thinks some injustice is going on she gets this almost superpowers to try to stop the injustice from happening or to punish the ones that caused it. This makes her annoying as she freaks out over practically everything. The final nail in the coffin is that she has this obnoxious voice so that I felt the urge to punch her every time she opened her mouth. To balance her out the other characters are all a lot of fun, especially the third team member Tooru Yukimura who is this creepy adult manga artist, who is always being called a pervert. The ”villain” is interesting as he looks like this nice guy but when he enters the battlefield he becomes this extremely cruel sadist and he even has his henchman/admirer.

The sound is adequate, but at no point was I actually impressed by the soundtrack. The opening was awesome but as a counterweight I really disliked the ending so all in all it evens out. The art is much better especially the action scenes which can easily be compared to the best in class. The background are detailed and the people are well designed and recognisable, which is great for keeping track of the characters.

All in all Aoharu x Kikanjuu is an all-round pleasing anime but it is nothing to be really excited about so it deserves the rating of a high 6 out of 10. It started out very promising but the way they tried to make everything so serious made the show more of a chore to watch then not. Still it is not all bad and you might not regret checking it out. Check out my other reviews and feel free to leave some feedback so I can improve my future reviews.

One of the first anime I have ever seen and one I remember most fondly. Why? Read on and find out.

The story starts off with Kirika who wakes up one morning somewhere in Japan without any memories, she can only remember the name Noir and has with her, a pocket watch that plays a melody when opened. She gets into contact with Mireille who operates as an assassin under the name Noir. They arrange a meeting where they are attacked by an unknown organisation but manage to escape because Kirika discovers that she is also a skilled assassin. Kirika explains her situation to Mireille who ... is at firs reluctant to help but when she hears the melody coming out of Kirika’s pocket watch that brings back the memories of the night when her parents were shot dead by an unknown assassin, she agrees to help her. And so they start working together as hitmen for hire under the name Noir and slowly start to unravel the truth about their pasts.

That is interesting if not particularly original premise and I have to say that the story evolves to become one of the best I have had the pleasure to see. The problem comes with the shows pacing which is truly glacial at the beginning of the anime, as nothing majorly relevant happens during the first ten or so episodes. Each one includes a contract they have to kill and each episode they uncover a new piece of the puzzle regarding their past. This would not be a problem if these episodes were not of extremely varying in quality, one regarding a retired KGB agent is in my opinion one of the best anime episodes I have ever seen, but some of the others are excruciatingly boring, and would be unwatchable if not for the exceptional soundtrack. Later on the pace picks up and moves away from the episodic format to focus more on the story. I also have to say here that the ending is perfectly satisfying and leaves few open threads which is quite rare nowadays.

The main characters are exceptionally well developed and show constant growth throughout the anime. The pasts of the main characters are slowly unraveled before our eyes as the story progresses through the use of flashbacks that reveal more every time you see them. We also have a great view into the world of professional assassins as we follow them on their path and see what kind of dilemmas they have to face. Besides Mireille and Kirika there are only two more characters that have any serious significance in the story and they only show up in the second half of the show, so as to not spoil anything, I will only say that they are also well fleshed out. There still is a thing I cannot understand an that is why do they chose names for the characters that the voice actors are unable to pronounce correctly, but that is not a problem exclusively in this series but for every anime that features foreigners.

The soundtrack has to be the best I have heard in a anime up until now. It manages to capture the happening on screen and helps us get through the slower portions of the anime. Even if you do not watch the show I would strongly recommend that you look it up and give it a listen. The opening is in my opinion the worse music in the whole anime and even then it is not particularly bad, it is just that I am not a fan of ALI Project and their style of music.The ending I found much better, it is a calm, quiet song by Arai Akino and while not fitting the anime itself is nice for calming you down after a turbulent episode. Also if you like the ending Arai Akino has several albums that are surely worth a listen. I am a bit divided on the visuals as I really disliked the character art at first, but later I got used to them and they did not bother me at all. You can clearly see they had a relatively small budget as the animation is really static at times with little to no movement, but such points are again salvaged by the sountrack. The backgrounds and scenery are done masterfully and there are more then a few moments where I was really taken aback by the vistas. Also the art manages to convey the location which is very important in a series that is happening all over the world. One thing I have to say is that the anime features no blood at all and on a few occasions that is quite distracting and confusing.

All in all Noir is a fabulous anime, but it has it’s fair share of shortcomings so it deserves an 8 in my opinion, but it could get an even higher score had the pacing been a bit better and there would have not be so many filler episodes. So if you are looking for an anime with a good story and soundtrack but the slow pace is not a problem then Noir is the anime for you.

The Claymore are an organisation of female half human half monster warriors that protect humans from monsters called Yoma. In the beginning we are shown a town where a monster had been killing people and they had to call for a Claymore. When she comes to town everyone is afraid of her but a boy named Raki who becomes the target of the monster, but is saved by the Claymore Clare. After she leaves he is exiled because of his exposure to the monster. Outside the city walls he almost dies but is saved by Clare, who at first wants him to leave but later ... allows him to join her on her travels. And so their adventure together begins.

Let’s start with the story, while interesting it was not especially memorable as two weeks after finishing watching I already had trouble remembering the details. The first few episodes are extremely well done with great pacing and character development but then start the unreasonably long fights that can last for entire episodes and while decently animated and choreographed just start to drag. After watching the series I was interested how the manga was and I have to say that it was better in this aspect. Up until now I have been only complaining but I have to say that the story was otherwise really interesting and the ending was pretty well done considering the final few episodes are anime original but they do not allow for another season, at least one that follows the manga.

The main characters are both really well fleshed out and explored in the show especially Clare who has two or three episodes dedicated only to her back story. The character development is also extremely well done and there is hardly an episode where nothing happens that would influence either Raki or Clare. The show has plenty of other characters and they are also interesting, the only problem being in the number of Claymore and their familiar appearances, because of that it is quite hard to know who is who. I had a few problems with the villains because we never get to know truly why they are doing what they are doing. Also the power levels of the characters are a bit inconsistent especially Clare.

The sound and animation is decent but I personally did not like the art style. The monsters rarely seem terrifying and the people look boring. I find there is a lot o variance in the look of the Claymores which at times look beautiful but otherwise look just strange. The fight scenes are very well done but for the length of some of those and I especially like the delayed blood flow effects. Here I have to say that there is a lot of blood in this anime so if you have problems with that this might not be the anime for you. The sound is nothing special but it always complements the happening onscreen well enough. The opening and ending are both good enough to be worth a listen but after twenty or so episodes it gets a little annoying.

Overall Claymore is a decent anime worthy of a high 7 and it could have gotten an even higher score if not for the art and the exaggerated length of the fights. After you finish watching this I highly recommend the reading of the manga because there a lot of the lose ends are explained. You can start from the beginning or continue at around chapter 50. Anyways I am new to reviewing and am always looking for feedback so fell free to leave a comment or check out my other reviews.