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This review is largely spoiler free, but will contain generalized statement about plot direction and mentions the events of the first episode.

Let's get this out of the way right away: this show is not Steins;Gate, Madoka, or Mirai Nikki. It is much closer to something like AnoHana. It is not a sci-fi, time travel paradox, edge of your seat thriller. It's a feel good, "power of friendship" show. I mean that very literally, the takeaway of the show, the message it sends at the end is power of friendship.

Lets get the good out of the way first: the animation, art and sound of ... the show are pleasant and well done. The show is easy to look at and easy to listen to. While I didn't find the intro or outro particularly catchy, they fit the theme of the show and the sountrack/music in the episodes is good. There's not a ton here to go nuts about, but aesthetically the show is pretty spot on.

Now to the bad:
Story: To put simply the story is predictable and trite. Despite having a time travel gimmick, the show is strictly focused on character interaction (more on that later) and being a mystery. Unfortunately by episode 5/6 the show completely writes itself into a corner where the reveal is painfully obvious. Due to the bad characterization, the story positions itself such that the mysterious bad guy is literally the only other person. Without giving any spoilers, there are 3 characters that it could be and the other 2 are disqualified. Furthermore, the story chooses to focus on the the "POWER OF FRIENDSHIP" theme rather than anything else, including time travel, the main character's peculiar situation, etc. Basically the resolution of the events is in the style of regular anime bullshit where trusting some middle schoolers is a solid plan. The ending to the show is pretty satisfying. Once you accept that it will be the power of friendship,trust and heroism, the ending delivers on that cliche well and honestly makes you go aww.

Characters: Are paper thin. That's basically it. The children of the show are generic anime children, and the adults are completely retarded. Parents let their kids stay out LITERALLY from 6am to 10pm, don't ask what they're doing and are divested completely of the ongoings of the child world. Meanwhile the main character a 29 year old in the body of an 11 year old doesn't use his mental faculties at all. Essentially nothing of a 29 year old's intelligence is carried over and the character behaves much in a way than an 11 year old boy would, with a slightly elevated thinking. The "evil" characters are just that. They have very little motivation for evil and very little characterization. The best character is probably one who gets about half an episode and is ultimately irrelevant to the plot of the show, but actually has great personality.

Closing thoughts: Don't come here looking for a gripping game of mind chess, or time travel paradoxes. Don't come here expecting a deep psychological discovery or thematic nuance. Do come here for middle schoolers doing middle school things, Power of friendship and trust, and a somewhat satisfying ending.

This is a spoiler free review of Tokyo Ghoul.

This show was marketed to me as similar to Parasyte, and as taking a while to develop. That being said, it is NOT a good show, and markedly different from Parasyte with the exception that there are humans and non humans. So lets get right into it:

Characters: The main characters of the show suck, plain and simple. The main character Kaneki is a whiny, clueless anime protagonist. He's pacifistic, sucks at everything he does and is oblivious. The secondary character Touka is bitchy, angsty, violent teenage tsundere.There is an older type mentor, a little girl that has ... no survival instinct, a clueless best friend. All hallmarks of a perfectly average anime. However, one of the only positive things about the show is also here: one of the antagonists is a very good character. The investigator who is introduced in episode 2/3 is methodical, intelligent, obsessed and flawed. I mainly continued to watch the show due to his presence.

Audio/Visual: The intro/outro songs are pretty good. Audio cues are solid and silences don't feel awkward. Unfortunately the show has shit pacing so you're stuck listening to the audio try to fill empty spaces. The visual are good also. Action scenes are well animated and characters have good readability. (You won't be confusing one character with another)

Story: Weak and simple. It basically comes down to an us vs them story of humans and ghouls and the world not being enough for the both of them. Any twists are either painfully obvious or nonexistent. The story is let down by the cast of "standard anime characters" that decide to do stupid shit for no reason, act recklessly, have crazy motivations and just do random anime bullshit. (Minor spoiler here:) There is a showdown in a church between a few characters that is equal parts nonsensical and overblown.

Overall: The show simply did not do much to hold the attention. Good visuals did nothing to distract from the garbage main character or the cliche side characters. Unless you're really hurting for some mediocre magical fighting skip this show.

This is a spoiler free broad strokes review. Other reviewers have hashed out just how terrible the plot is, this is here to tell you DTB season 2 might as well be called anther show.

Following Darker than Black season 1 my reaction to this show was "what the **** did I just walk into?" The first season of the show established a paranormal world with a gritty undercurrent of syndicates, corporations and political alliances. There were assassins and undercover operations and some wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. Okay, that's cool. But primarily the first season of the show was SERIOUS.

DTB season 2 is NOT ... SERIOUS. There is a magical girl transformation scene that is in the first episode. The animation studio spent a budget on this and decided that hot damn they were going to make use of this underage bait fanservice, and proceeded to use the FULL transformation sequence every single time the main character decides to use her ability. Other contractors blatantly yell out their powers like they're in a half baked shounen show. This is so far removed from what the first season did, it's entirely like just firing up a completely different anime.

The characterization is dreadful. Returning characters from season 1 are either unfaithful to themselves or are just inconsistent messes. The new characters are boring and hard to take seriously because of magical bullshit.

Can't really complain about the art or sound, but it's obviously not improved from the first season. Oh but the transformation sequence is baller though. They blew their load on animating the **** out of that, and then didn't do any other touch ups to the art style.

Overall this show feels like the mother of season 1 ran off with Sailor Moon and Naruto, got impregnated by them, and came back and had season 2. They may share a surname, but from the first look (episode 1) you can tell they're not really related.

Avoid if you like DTB season 1 at all.

I am assuming that you are here because someone somewhere told you this show is like Madoka Magica and you like that show. If this is the case you are unfortunately going to have a bad time with this show because it is NOT like Madoka Magica and you will be expecting it to be. While the show does offer some interesting parallels to serving in armed forces and PTSD it ultimately falls flat and neuters itself with a very bad ending. This review will have very generalized story descriptions with minimal spoilers. Still, if you would prefer to go into it with you eyes ... closed.... skip to the end of the review for an overall section.

So lets get to it: On the surface Yuuki Yuuna is a pretty standard magical girls show about middle school girls doing middle school things. The girls are part of the Hero club, and become magical girls that fight evil for the guardian spirit of the Earth. The show has a tremendously long wind up (for a 12 episoder) as episodes 1-6 are basic monster of the week/ cute girls doing cute things style of anime. Again if you watched Madoka Magica and someone told you to make sure to watch to episode 3, I guess in this show it would be watch to episode 7, more than halfway through the show.

Episode 7 is where "$hit gets real" and the real themes of the show come out. For what it's worth, episodes 7-10 are quite good and deal very interestingly with PTSD, regret, shell-shock, and survivor guilt. As the story unfold you learn about the less nice aspect of the girls' powers and the toll it takes on them. As with many anime, Yuuki Yuuna focuses heavily on the theme of indomitable fighting spirit and power of friendship, which begins to ring hollow.

The ending is where the story completely falls apart. Instead of sticking with a strong and poignant story that episodes 7 onward set up, the show throws up its arms, calls on the power of friendship and undoes all of the difficult decisions and character moments leading up to it. The ending is ABSURD especially considering what is said by one of the plot relevant characters as a part of the "oh shit" moments. But everyone loves a happy ending right? /s. The outcome of the ending is also inconsistent in terms of the world of the show.

The characters in the show range anywhere from MAIN CHARACTER WITH HEART to moderate chuunibyou to "I'm too good for this shit anyways" fighter character. While the character tropes are pretty standard, they're well fleshed out, each one filling a niche. Again here the comparison to armed forces service comes in very well. You have the guy who joined to serve his country, the guy who was in who recruited the others, the younger brother who follows his big bro in, the guy who thinks he can't hack it but does it for his comrades, the guy who's been training his whole life for this moment, etc.

The art in the show is quite good with beautiful visuals during fights, and solid animation otherwise. Each of the girls has a good design and a somewhat memorable look. The sound is solid with good music, a good dub and nice sound effects. During the end quarter of the show, theres a good bit more yelling, but it's done decently.

The overall enjoyment of the show is crippled by a very long lead-up before any interesting thing happens. For 6 episodes this show is the most mediocre magical girl show I can think of. For 3-4 episodes it is a fascimile of Madoka Magica. And for the last 1-2 episodes its Dragonball Z with the power of friendship, blissfully undoing any parts of Madoka Magica that may have been lingering around.

It was a chore to reach an interesting and watchable point in the show, and it was over too soon. The ending left a horrible taste in my mouth and I wouldn't recommend it. I would suggest reading a plot synopsis on a per episode basis to get some of the thematic elements if you're into that. Skip the ending altogether unless you enjoy hackneyed bullshit.