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May 14, 2025
Turn A Gundam (Anime) add
Turn A Gundam is a series of good episodes (When it isn't being Turn A Gundam) in a sea of mediocre to bad episodes (When it is being Turn A Gundam). By MAL standards, this anime is not very popular, which creates the effect that most reviews of it are popular because they come from a sampled bias of Gundam fans.

While it starts with a very good first episode, showcasing the late XIXth century to early XXth century setting, the reality is that most of the anime is comprised not of this, but of pointless mecha fights in green prairies without any personal stakes involved. ...
May 13, 2025
Mixed Feelings
"Context" is a key word.
Galaxy Fraulein Yuna was made in the context of promoting it's two Adventure Games for the PC-Engine (And later it's third one). A lot of it is fanservice to such games.
If you're on MAL, however, chances are that you actually watched it because of one of two different contexts:
1: The fact that it came to the west on DVD and was even dubbed, meaning you learned from it wither first-hand or via someone which did (e.g. an anime blog)
2: The fact that it had the name "Shinbou Akiyuki" in it (He only made the storyboards for episode one here, though he ...
May 8, 2025
Lazarus (Anime) add
Preliminary (5/13 eps)
In 2015, JAM Project made the Opening theme for the anime "One Punch Man", "THE HERO !!". They probably received a list of specifications and made that Opening. In 2019, the same JAM Project made the similar, but worse "Seijaku no Apostle" for it's second season. That second Opening feels less of an original idea and more of trying to re-hash it's first opening.
That's Lazarus from it, Adult Swim trying to re-hash Watanabe Shinichirou's works without knowing why they worked, and ending up with something that borders self-parody made by ChatGPT.

Lazarus works on the structure that, at any point, they can finish the story in ...
May 5, 2025
Preliminary (6/? eps)
I decided what I would watch in the Spring 2025 season by watching the PV of every anime in it. At first, I didn't have much higher expectations, so I decided to lower my bar... then the PV for Kijin Gentoushou came like a blast and made me realize that good anime is good anime, no bar-lowering needed.

Kijin Gentoushou is an ambitious story, and I don't say that solely from it coming from a premise of being a very LONG-running story spanning a LONG time-frame, but from the fact that, similar to other anime nowadays such as Oshi no Ko, Re:Zero Season 3 and Frieren, ...
May 2, 2025
Teogonia (Anime) add
Preliminary (4/? eps)
I often joke that "Isekai is when an author is too lazy to write fantasy", coming from the fact isekai stories forego having to write a character's backstory and how they relate to that world — "they just came there, have superpowers and are the chosen one, now let's jump to the actions scenes!".
Of course, good isekai will go out of it's way to write not only backstories for their characters, but also spend a lot of time having them acclimate to and become a part of that world rather than simply being an outside force which is there to change it.

The mere possibility that ...
Apr 26, 2025
Mixed Feelings
Preliminary (4/12 eps)
"The Illusion of Choice"
There's a term I coined called "The Valley of Mediocrity", it stems from the fact that a lot of webnovel stories are born from one very interesting idea, but once that idea gets exhausted (Sometimes it's after it's first volume, sometimes after it's third-fourth... sometimes after it's first chapter) it essentially becomes a boring and generic story... until the author has a second idea (Which in normal situations would've been another webnovel), though that's not guaranteed to happen 100% of the time.

Katainaka no Ossan, Kensei ni Naru is like that: Sure, the flashback sequences for each of the characters are interesting, we're ...
Apr 19, 2025
Mixed Feelings
Preliminary (3/13 eps)
It's quite likely that this will become a "Recommended" when it finishes, but so far I have to go with "Mixed Feelings", but my 7/10 is a recognition of it's potential.
This anime has a pretty nice first episode, some nice energy to it, the music jam scenes really feel like something that would come from an experimental short trying to convey a single emotion. Not the top spot for best CGI of the season since that spot was taken by "Katainaka no Ossan, Kensei ni Naru", but it's likely right after it.

My complaints are from the somewhat unwise use of it's time: At list 2/3's ...
Apr 8, 2025
Princess Tutu (Anime) add
Princess Tutu is a 2002 anime starring (At the time) fairly new seiyuu, some who would eventually become fairly big in the industry. It existed in the context of the post-1997 anime industry which, due to the massive success of Evangelion, began to bet more into shorter (One to two cour) anime with more experimental stories while also embracing the innovations of digital animation - and in that regard, Princess Tutu's artstyle wouldn't feel out of place were it released five or even ten years later.

This anime is WESTERN, but not western in the sense of "Anime largely based on western cinema ans sensibilities" as ...
Mar 28, 2025
Despite the fact that, at the time of this review, Shin Cutie Honey only has positive or mixed reviews here, I've mostly seen negative opinions about it everywhere else. I do not understand them, however.

Shin Cutie Honey is a soft-sequel of the original, 1973 series, though in a way it makes more sense to refer to it as the "Turn A Gundam" of Cutie Honey, as it is set in a distant, dystopic future with different versions of characters from Nagai Go's star system.
It adds a lot to the original by having characters with more fleshed out personalities and episodes with more of a story ...
Mar 18, 2025
Cutie Honey (Anime) add
Mixed Feelings
Cutie Honey is an anomaly, and in a good sense.
Preceding Sailor Moon by nearly two decades on the idea of a female henshin-hero anime and preceding Minky Momo by one decade with having the idea of it's protagonist transforming into a new profession every week, Cutie Honey works as a parody of super-hero stories typically associated with Ishinomori Shoutarou: An android/cyborg/mutant fighting an evil organization with villain-of-the-week androids/cyborgs/mutants as well as their goons. This time, however, with a "female" motif and an erotic-comedy spin to it (Though the ecchi is very mild by modern standards).

Episodic shows live or die depending on how good it's episodic ...


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