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Most of us have learned that something that is too perfect is something that cannot exist, or it’s because of some kind of witchcraft that made something perfect. Such is the case with Lilith, which according to the suspicion of the young Yuri, is too much of a perfect maid who stayed with him after so such suffering, he doesn’t understand why she’s doing that, or even why she’s so perfect according to him. The most mystifying thing is that this anime has been negatively received and not well appreciate it, because of its basic structure, nothing otherworldly. Since I’ll serve you some spoilers, I ... suggest you proceed with caution.

Story (8/10):
The premise of this story is that a young Lord inherited his domains because some tragic circumstances called Yuri has a seemingly innocuous, but allegedly perfect maid called Lilith. She has proven to be loyal to the juvenile Yuri, helping him to overcome his parent’s death in a very graceful and perfect manner; Yuri, in order to counter her perfect behaviour and learn about her real intentions, starts to tease Lilith with even more overt romantic comments.

Despite his slow opening indoors, he’s still closed to the outdoors; Tsukasa, a classmate of him, starts suspecting about an alleged secret relationship between Yuri and Lilith, and whose maid, Fujisaki is a former friend of Lilith. Yuri starts feeling more and more attached to her when she’s not with him or when he has to go to an open school day, thankfully to him, Lilith proved yet again her witchcraft to console and help her Lord in most of the situations arisen.

Small growths of confidence between both start to develop in a crypto romantic relationship, such as Yuri starting to talk about Lilith in a more partner-like way, and she begins to worry too much when she doesn’t feel she’s up to the level of Yuri. She later discarded a strange letter directed to her in order to calm Yuri’s worries.

Now Yuri cannot stop thinking about Lilith, so he asks to help to Tsukasa, who calmly told him that he’s in love with her and tries to help him with light novels, with no avail due to Fujisaki’s interference. He starts to act in a perfectionist mood when trying to draw his beloved Lilith, and despite his final negative interpretation of the drawing, she feels satisfied by the efforts of her Master. And with now Fujisaki helping Lilith to understand Yuri’s and her own feelings, begins to feel even more close to him, then him proceeding to openly confess to her.

A new maid appears by the name of Natsume, who demands that Lilith must go “back home with her” and openly criticizes her for serving a not worthy Master, unbeknown to Natsume, she’s in love with Yuri’s maid, too, and doesn’t know how to be a proper maid. Tsukasa, happy to hear Natsume’s love to Lilith, starts fantasizing and plans a Christmas party for all five, but Yuri has another plan to make Lilith happy alone by giving woolen mittens knit with the help of the very same Lilith.

A Master appears to allegedly bring back Lilith and Natsume, but after remembering all the suffering that happened to Lilith before she ended as Yuri’s maid, and Yuri’s intervention, the Master confesses that he’s only there to take back Natsume. Finally, Yuri and Lilith have a date and end up going to the cemetery to pay respect to Yuri’s parents and former Masters of Lilith.

Art and animation (7/10):
Silver Link, as in many other anime before, opted to a very colourful palette in the design of the characters, with a notably well-designed Lilith, highlighting her tanned skin in a way that made her even more attractive to the viewer with an ample wardrobe; Yuri’s, Tsukasa’s and Natsume’s designs were mostly spot on, but with an incredibly low clothing variety for the rest of the characters.

The animation is very simple with the occasional weird face here and there; it wasn’t required to have very complex movements due to the more static moments. The backgrounds have a very rustic design, despite their modern outlook, and in contrast to the characters, it’s got a dark colour palette that takes too much of the background and sometimes highlights way too much the characters.

Sound (9/10):
The line-up for Saikin Yatotta is strong and mostly carry the show for some moments. The great Saori Hayami giving the voice of the young Lord Yuri, while Rie Takahashi puts a seductive performance with Lilith. The legendary Yui Horie as Tsukasa who hasn’t lost her very high-pitched voice at all, Mikako Komatsu calming the ambiance with Fujisaki and impatient talent Miyu Tomita voices the also impatient Natsume.

Background sounds are barely noticeable, but are well used in the most critical moments, such as remembering Yuri’s past. The opening Su, Suki Janai by not equal ME is a very upbeat song, meanwhile, Himitsu no Niwa no Futari sang by the great Yui Horie closes elegantly the anime.

Characters (8/10):
The characters are serviceable, and each has their purpose defined within the show, so I’ll only talk about Yuri, Lilith, Tsukasa, Fujisaki, and Natsume.

Yuri is a very young master who has lost his parents at a very young age and is surprised that his maid Lilith is perfect at everything and thinks she’s a witch ready to bewitch him, luckily for both, he slowly opened his heart to her and starts loving her.

Lilith is the seemingly perfect maid that serves Yuri, who apparently cannot do wrong and tries to tease her master with flirtatious comments, only to fall victim of even more flirtatious comments, and then falling in love with her Master. She had a sad past and is always loyal to the Yuri Domain.

Tsukasa is a schoolmate of Yuri who is by some reason obsessed with Yuri’s and Lilith’s relationship, she is a little wild in some things, but never malicious at all. She always gets reprimanded by her maid Fujisaki.

Fujisaki is the very correct maid of Tsukasa who doesn’t like too much chaos in live, only serves the purpose of correcting her young Lady and helping her continue in the good life path.

Natsume is the annoying jealous maid that feels betrayed by Lilith because she left her, she tried to out-maid Lilith by challenging her to do chores, only to fail miserably. Later is discovered that she is in love with Lilith, and begrudgingly accepts the love that her and her master have for each other.

Enjoyment (8/10):
For a long time, relationships between a Lord and a maid had been critically evaluated as the enforcement of dominion of the man over the woman, but how can you consider this anime where the maid is the one who’s actively trying to impress her Master. And even worse for the critical people, is that Yuri, despite his initial difficulties and suspicion on Lilith, managed to open his heart to her, and develop a nice relationship.

Other morally rigid people will point out that there’s a marked age difference between Yuri and Lilith; but oh yeah, there’s a marked age difference between Yuri and Lilith, but in no moment at all, neither his nor her get over the board on suggesting even a single kiss. So, the only one that suggest having a forbidden relationship is a third person (Tsukasa), incredible.

So why should I enjoy this quite simple and sometimes “questionable” anime? Simple, because its only purpose is to give me a comfortable relationship with the occasional teasing from each side to the other, a-la-Takagi. Saikin Yatotta doesn’t pretend to be a Shinigami Bocchan nor a Takagi-san, it only wants to be a Saikin Yatotta, and that’s enough for me.

Final Score: 8/10.

You can argue that Ore Dake is yet another generic fantasy anime with an ecchi harem plot, and you’ll be right, because it never pretends to be something else than a generic fantasy anime with an ecchi harem plot. Ore Dake Haireru Kakushi Dungeon centres on Noir Starga, who is an ostracized noble because of his low peerage; however, Noir has the unique power of consulting a Sage to help him in varied circumstances, but severely draining his energy as an after effect. One day, after wandering about in the land, he got lost in a dungeon and met a young immobile woman called Olivia, ... who only communicates by mental waves, and gives him new powers to survive. And with the help of de facto girlfriend Emma, sensual receptionist Lola and eccentric half-elf Luna, Noir will try to become a Hero and your average merchant.

Please take in account that entering this dungeon review will show you spoilers.

Story (8/10):
Noir Starga is a low level noble who has the access to unlimited knowledge to a sage, only to drain his life for using it, so he uses on restricted occasions to avoid fatal consequences. He only has a normal dream of becoming a librarian, along with his childhood friend and arguably girlfriend Emma Brightness.

The same Noir, while exploring the land, gets into a mysterious dungeon where he enters a secret chamber only to meet a vegetative girl bound by chains called Olivia Servant; this young woman offers rare powers to the young adventurer by telematics. After acquiring those new abilities, Noir returned to the town, and then he decided, against the wishes of his family, to enter the Hero Academy, along with Emma.

In order to enter the academy, Noir and Emma need to do certain things to reach a passing grade, this in spite of the massive hate he receives from the students with higher peerages because of Noir’s baronet peerage. Despite their entire negative comments during the gradings, both easily passed the admission test in the first place.

Much to the chagrin of Emma, Noir starts getting along with the academy girls by using his charms and the creative powers he keeps acquiring, specially the frail Maria, and even his main teacher, and this not only applies to the school. That’s when they go to the adventure guild to earn some coins, they meet Lola, a pretty girl who is the receptionist, and clearly falls in love with Noir, even considering his total inexperience on adventuring. Maria’s ever worsening health prompts all three to reach Lola’s healer best friend, the half-elf Luna.

Initially, Luna totally rejects the job due to her also ever decreasing lifespan due to habitual healing and Maria’s extremely demanding curse; then Noir intervenes to overwrite her attributes to neutralize the curse with a reducing wealth instead of a reducing lifespan, forcing the three to enter a contest to get a harem. Finally, after earning so much geld to amortize possible debts, Luna finally cures Maria.

With the worst already behind, Noir and his harem, decided to start focusing in creating a shop about rare items they’ve gotten during their adventures. Alongside, Noir and Emma keep getting closer and closer, to the point that the Brightness family invited him to be Emma’s guardian to prevent her for being kidnapped; their close physical contact and kissing became a constant, evolving from only kissing Noir to alleviate his draining, to being a sign of mutual trust.

Their increasing relationship pushes Emma and Noir to travel the hidden dungeon to search for Olivia in order to save her, only to be attacked by an Olivia clone that was bound to Death Chains and severely hurting Noir in the way. No matter how much the Starga primogenitor tried to attack Death Chained Olivia while sacrificing almost all his acquired powers, she always one upped him, even with the help of his harem, Emma, Lola, Luna and Lelia. Noir, reaching a breaking point and sacrificing almost all his creative powers, finally destroys the Death Chains and saves Olivia without killing her.

Art and animation (7/10):
The animation seem too standard and nothing inventive, the characters look distinguishable and well-drawn, highlighting Emma Brightness (yes, I do like big breasted blonde girls, and I’m not ashamed at all) and the sensei Elna; however, the studio Oku Noboru is completely new, and Ore Dake is one of its first forages onto TV anime, the next one will be another generic fantasy anime with an ecchi harem plot, Isekai Maou.

Backgrounds seem decent, relatively well detailed; the colour panels are pretty colourful, but never getting too oversaturated like in fellow Winter 2021 anime Wonder Egg Priority.

Sound (9/10):
The sound is pretty tranquil and happy, the seiyuus are pretty serviceable, but already established, Ryouta Osaka has already got experience on harem leads like Nariyuki Yuiga (Bokuben), Miyu Tomita voicing Gabriel White (Gabriel Dropout), Rumi Okubo in doing annoying girls like Chinatsu Yoshikawa (Yuru Yuri); and the more well-known voice actress like Akari Kitou doing Luna, Sora Amamiya as Master Elna and Yui Horie hanekawazing Olivia Servant.

The opening Pyramid Dai Gyakuten, sung by Spira Spice is quite upbeat, who also sang in the controversial anime Okaasan Online; Coala Mode sings the more depressive Nemophila. The background music is well written, never too loud and never too quiet.

Characters (8/10):
The characters are pretty generic, but all of them serve a determined purpose, I’ll only talk about Noir, Emma, Lola and Luna:

Noir Starga is your typical generic adventure hero, gets all the girls without any effort at all, but I would highlight that he doesn’t shy away of girls and he’s very protective of them, and has a very positive relationship with Emma, even considering the initial kissing motives.

Emma Brightness is the classical childhood friend who becomes too well endowed and gets all eyes put on her, but breaking the traditional and always negative ending of osananajimis, by finally being the de facto girlfriend and much needed companion of Noir.

Lola is clearly the traditional oneesan-like receptionist who after questioning heavily Noir abilities gets too infatuated on him. Competitive by nature, she always tries to get Noir to her side without withholding any barrels, and trying to be the best receptionist of her guild.

Luna is the all too well-known half-elf who is helpful with anybody by curing their aliments, even putting her life in risk, a master on healing, she too became enamoured on Noir, but gives him the right space and doesn’t pressure him.

Enjoyment (10/10):
How can I enjoy an anime that is way too generic and doesn’t add anything new to the genre? It’s simple, the simplicity and the amicable character of the anime, never going too overboard on fanservice, maintaining all the tropes that characterize the generic fantasy anime with ecchi harem plot.

The show is no magnum opus, nor nothing highly venerable, it just works well within the limitations of the genre, only trying to break the mold of the osananajimi finally getting the ultimate prize (if she didn’t already got it).

Those who see nothing valuable in Ore Dake are the same overly purist to never like something generic or unimpressive, I do find valuable Hidden Dungeon for the sole purpose of entertaining and giving us a nice big breasted blonde girl who can stand up on her own. And yes, I’m partial to Emma.

Final Score: 9/10.

A back-to-basics Doga Kobo cute-girls-doing-cute-things anime has the pleasure to show us the wonders of the universe, precisely asteroids, along with a healthy small dose of the wonders of geology, and in classical Doga Kobo, a small quantity of yuri subtext (English name is Asteroid in Love). Your astrological chart says that you'll read spoilers, so you're warned.

When a little girl called Mira Konohata meets little boy Ao Manaka, they promised each other to discover a new asteroid when older. In the present, teenage Mira joints the Astronomy Club, where she meets teenage Ao, who is actually a girl, and along with Mai Inose, ... Mikage Sakurai and Mari Morino, they start their adventures exploring the wonders of the Earth and the Universe.

Story (9/10):
Mira Konohata is a passionate girl on the universe, astronomy, and specially, asteroids; such is her fanatism on asteroids that she made a promise in a camp with a young person with short hair called Ao Manaka that they'll do anything to discover together a new asteroid in a foreseeable future. A few years later, Mira enters high school and wants to join the Astronomy Club, but it was merged with the Geology Club to form the Earth Sciences Club, there she meets a purple haired girl named Ao Manaka, much to the surprise of the asteroid.

We can't also forget our ample cast of girls, the calm Mai Inose, or Ino-senpai; the elegant president Mari Morino, or Monroe-senpai; and the playful vicepres Mikage Sakurai, Sakura-senpai. Since their specialties are varied and their clubs forced merging put them into a difficult position to get funds, the chemistry between the girls help them overcome it.

Maintaining the traditional structure of Doga Kobo cute-girls-doing-cute-things anime like beach episodes, school festivals, the most remarkable aspect of Asteroid in Love is the soft talk to explain very complicated themes like the parts of a telescope, the celestial sphere, identification of planets by the naked eye, and sometimes the types of rocks, boring, core sampling, strata analysis, ironically, one of the themes that I majored.

This is in contrast of the hard-hitting content of RikeKoi, whose themes are much more complicated and are explained very technically that can repel the less educated, while Science-Types fell in love with extreme theoretical jargon. Asteroid is in love with a much more forgiving detail telling to our minds.

Later in the show, new girls appear after the graduation of Monroe and Sakura, Mikage's sister Chikage, or Chika-chan, who shares her geology love with her sister, but also can read the fortunes of the girls with rocks, called geomancy; and the rough second year Yuu Nanami, or Nana-chan, whose theme is not astronomy nor geology, rather meteorology, a science that is rarely interesting for the normal people, but she's not normal, so she likes it.

Mira and Ao's relationship began normally and started evolving so much that Manaka, after a deep-searching discussion with her family, went to live with her fellow asteroid lover in order to fulfill their dream together. Their common dream made them write an essay about asteroids in order to qualify to an event to actually watch asteroids, in which only Mira qualifies to the final course. Of course Doga Kobo, using all its vast experience on inserting yuri subtext on CGDCT anime, tell us that Ao is indeed in love with the Asteroid girl.

The Shining Star Challenge consisted in analyzing live-time the asteroids in Okinawa as in the actual proceeding in actual telescopes, Ao found a way to covertly accompany her darling to the event. Both girls get to experiment how the technical aspects on how to watch asteroids, which they knew a couple of, are the key to fulfill their dream, and while not getting to the promised land at the end, Ao and Mira get even more determined to discover a new asteroid.

Art (10/10):
Doga Kobo's sweet and very colourful art is always a pleasure to the eyes, the girls are extremely cute and adorable, and especially the design of Monroe-senpai is the finest out there. No weird animations were showed, there's a lot of fluid animation on the movements.

The backgrounds and especially the ones with starry skies are a luxury to watch, since I don't know much more about astronomy nor the astronomical sky, I'll say that most of the better known northern sky constellations are spot on (I can just watch the Cruz del Sur rather than the Ursa Major), also the strata of the core samplings and the rocks were very well drawn and actually made me smile because of the correct details.

Sound (8/10):
The "least" noticeable aspect that goes hiding is the sound; as in many Doga Kobo animes, relatively new seiyuus get the main characters, with Megumi Yamaguchi (Hifumi Takimoto in New Game!) doing Ao, and Tomoyo Takayanagi (Hana Shirosaki in Wataten) as Mira. The more established Nao Touyama (Karen Kujou in Kiniro Mosaic) and Sumire Uesaka (Sanae Dekomori in Chuunibyou) get to voice Sakura-senpai and Monroe-senpai, respectively.

The opening is pretty average for someone of the stature of Touyama, and the ending is also very average, but both can be very serviceable due to the extremely mild ambiance of Asteroid. The background sounds give small touches to the relaxing nature of the anime, nothing too loud or too opaque, just there to support the show.

Characters (9/10):
In Doga Kobo animes, the characters are the stars that shine the most. Each one of the girls has a defined personality and never gets overly aggressive or raunchy, which gives a sweeter calm for the viewer, their relationships are pure and cute, sometimes yuri-esque. I’ll only talk about the Earth Science Club members.

Mira Konohata is an energetic girl who has a fascination on astronomy, principally in asteroids, she’ll do anything to help her friends, be it in the astronomy section or not. Her close relationship with Ao is the driving force of the plot.

Ao Manaka is a very serious girl, who rarely expresses emotion, acting rationally while investigating the intricate details of the universe, but hides her deep crush on Mira that it wasn’t born the day they reencountered, rather from the very first time they meet. However, in contrast to the more hostile silent girls of other anime, Ao is very friendly with her colleagues.

Mai Inose is the least visible girl out there, but her presence is fundamental to maintain the order of the things in the Earth Science Club after the graduation of Monroe and Sakura. Geology and cartography are her specialties, which makes her a little distant toward Ao and Mira.

President Mari Morino is elegant and graceful, but has a very playful side that appears in the most critical situations; Monroe-senpai is well versed on astronomy and wants to be an astronaut. Vice-president Mikage Sakurai is rough, but never violent, rather playful, always willing to explore the wonders of the lithosphere; Sakura-senpai is always available to help the club.

Chikage Sakurai, like her sister, is literate on geology, but also on geomancy, only differing with Mikage in being energetic. Yuu Nanami is a sullen short haired girl which has a somber past due to natural disasters, so she now studies meteorology to help people take correct decisions concerning weather catastrophes.

Enjoyment (10/10):
When I was a student quite a few years ago, learning about the outer space, the stars and the celestial bodies bored me to death, ironically, Asteroid in Love made me feel some love for the universe that is mostly based on the surgical combination of something more close to my major, which is geology. The girls and the very digestible theoretical explanations of the secrets of the asteroids and the lithosphere gave me a weekly dose of educational science cuteness.

In the common denominator of modern cute-girls-doing-cute-things anime, the yuri subtext has become a staple in the plot, which in many cases, had become the central aspect of many recent shows, Koisuru Asteroid is not the exception. Stories about finding love when sharing a common hobby have existed since the beginning of history (or possibly prehistory), Ao’s repressed feelings for Mina because they want to discover an asteroid together forced the former to live with the latter, and that’s the absolute demonstration of passionate love.

Moreover, the outer space subjects the lithosphere and the atmosphere to being second fiddle in size and importance, and despite the sometimes unreachable universe to the human technological progress, Asteroid in Love bridges the gap between the hard theory and the average mind of an anime fan, between the coldness of the space vacuum and the warmth of the cute girls, and between the distance of asteroids and the sweet girls enjoying their school life studying them.

Final score: 9/10.

Sword Art Online has been the most maligned anime that the world has ever seen, sometimes criticized with reason, sometimes being criticized by the sake of criticizing it, sometimes criticizing it just to follow the current. But in the Alicization, most of the critique is surprisingly more subdued due to the significant upgrades of the problems that affected the earlier arcs. I will include some spoilers, so go with caution.

Story (10/10):
For the first time since ever, Kirito is a mere mortal, he shows that he's a mortal human after all; no more destroying bullets at a 5 meter range. The fact that he gets almost ... assassinated in the real world proves that. Now into a strange world, much different to the classic MMORPG Kirito used to play, he meets a young Eugeo and a young Alice in a remote village, and both saw how Alice violated the Taboo Index and gets kidnapped by the Integrity Knights.

Also for a very first time in SAO, Kirito's main companion is a boy, Eugeo, which significantly alters the concept of the "Kirito's harem" plot and the Kirito OP thought, both guys devise plans to progress in the seemingly perfect Realm of the Humanity, never overstepping into each other, rather complementing each other.

The latter inclusion of Alice is an anti-thesis of the classic Kirito girl, somehow strong girl, but always dependant on Kirito, She shows that she can stand up to Kirito, even helping him, showing his errors, and entangling a very similar chemistry like the Kirisuna duo. This rare trio between Kirito, Eugeo and Alice is by far the biggest selling point in the anime, because each other complements so well the other two.

Asuna is almost barred from the story after the Ocean Turtle part, save a few cameos in the final part, but this is not needed at all due to the extremely strong story and characters that gives SAO Alicization its earned praise. This is in spite of my personal valoration that Asuna is the biggest reason that SAO managed to be a very popular and decent anime.

Also worth mentioning that the Alicization departs from the traditional SAO rule of high violence, zero blood, the Underworld shows the extreme closeness that it has with the real world, depicting blood as a normal.

The background concepts are the most insightful parts of the Alicization arc, an almost perfect world created by the Interior Ministry of Japan, philosophical elements like war morals, regulation of morals, social cohesion, secret government projects, etc. are entangled in our psyche and how questioning or not can make a difference depending on your own set of ethical codes.

That's what the Underworld's nature shows, the blending created in order to establish a never questioned totally hierarchical order explains in how authoritarianism executes its evilness, better explained in the philosophical dialogues of the Administrator in how she should be above everything and because he loves so much their subjects and the peace, she enforces a crypto-tyranny to do so. Does she reminds you to someone who has usurped the presidency in an oil country in the Americas?

In fact, SAO Alicization is not only a big leap for the classic SAO concept of Kirito saving every girl in danger, it's the quasi-questioning of the entire concept of the social relationships, enforcement of moral values, and societal structures that currently rule our real world.

Art (9/10):
SAO Alicization takes the animation of Ordinal Scale, which was the finest of the finest of A-1 Pictures, but it was basically unsustainable over the course of 2 cours (580 mins worth of the OS animation), this shows midway the course with weird models and weird falls. That of course reflected on the decision to split the cours in order to not continue degrading the animation. In spite of that, the Alicization animation is generally consistent and of the highest order.

The characters are pretty well made, and also the shades and tones are completely detailed, better shown in the rampant bleedings in several scenes. Liked how Eugeo and Alice have the more typical European phenotypes and Kirito has the more Japanese ones. The backgrounds are otherworldly, with a very high level of details to the point of watching each one of the tree leafs moving smoothly, also a big improvement from the first 2 seasons.

Sound (10/10):
You know that SAO wouldn't be SAO without a Lisa song, Adamas is the classic Lisa song that opens the new world of the Alicization, Eir Aoi's Iris is a much more relaxed tune that calms you after the constant latent tension of the Beginning, Running and Turning of SAO Alicization. Asca's Resister is much darker than the usual SAO openings and consisten with the darker parts of what is the Rising, Dividing and Uniting arc, Forget-me-not from ReoNa is also more relaxing, but with darker overtones.

The background sounds are of course of the highest quality, Yuki Kajiura is still one of the finest composers in modern anime, aging like the wine, she always complements the mood and never oversteps nor overshadows the scenes, rather gives the tunes a superb significance in each of the movements made by the story.

The seiyuus are perfectly in synchro with each other, the inclusion of Ai Kayano as Alice follows a tried and tested formula with Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Kirito) of the cold and closed girl with the charming and open boy, like the Mashiro Shiina-Sorata Kanda in Pet na Kanojo, Utaha Kasumigaoka-Tomoya Aki of Saekano, Shiro-Sora in No Game no Life.

Nobunaga Shimazaki as Eugeo is completely on song to the personality, which blends perfectly his performance of the seemingly cold Shidou Itsuka of Date a Live with the specifications required of Eugeo. Of the other performances, Sakura Tange (Sakura-chan of Cardcaptor Sakura) changes massively her cute voice to seiyuu Cardinal, Maaya Sakamoyo who also worked on CCS performs the seductive evil Quinella.

Characters (10/10):
By many detractors, the SAO characters were one of the weakest points, but in Alicization, they're now one of the strongest parts. I'll only mention Kirito, Eugeo, Alice, Cardinal and Quinella.

Kirito is not anymore the OP character that gets all the chicks, now he gets all the boys (Eugeo). Jokes asides, now Kirito's mortality is on play, now he cannot get through due to his MC powers, he feels that he needs help and he just does that. Putting all his adquired knowledge over the time to solve the problems are now his motto, displaying a constant maturity and seriousness required in almost all the circumstances, long gone are the classical Kirito playfulness.

Eugeo is the biggest reason that the Alicization is without doubt the best arc of SAO, he is not an inferior to Kirito, rather his equal, always loyal to him until latter into the season, and there is where his mental vulnerability is shown magnificiently in falling to the temptation of the Pontifex. His interactions with Kirito is the classic one between a fluid and a rigid person, is also legendary.

Alice is not your typical SAO girl who act tough but is always in constant need to be saved by Kirito. Instead, she can stand up to him, helping him to get over simple tasks like cooking dumplings or using her head to climb to the top of the Tower. Alice is also very closed-minded due to her upbringing as a Integrity Knight, but also sees in Kirito what she couldn't do. Her importance is vaguely mentioned at the very end of this arc.

Quinella, or the very hot Administrator who is always naked, is the prototypical tyrant who doesn't display any sort of overt cruelty to their subjects unless forced, like a small-country dictator, she also wants to punch over her weight to challenge their masters that can erase her with just a click.

Cardinal is the rival of the Administrator, who after a fight she had to recluse herself in the Library of the Underworld in order to devise a plan to defeat her, after a long struggle, she managed to find Kirito and Eugeo, and latter Alice to finish that mission.

Enjoyment (10/10):
To the SAO haters, the Alicization arc won't change any mind, and this review is not targeted to them. I personally had struggled to defend the many decisions that Sword Art took in earlier seasons, but SAO Alicization made that more easy for me.

The leaps from a very popular MMO anime with a charismatic MC, to a more deeply moral and psychological anime still rooted on his origins raised my enjoyment to the highest levels, in not only as they've corrected many of the earlier faults, but it's an always evolving anime that keeps generating green paper to A-1 and Reki Kawahara, despite the constant and at this point tiring and annoying hate.

Not only that, SAO Alicization perfected the morals and philosophical questions presented with the classic flair of Aincrad that included several battles with swords, this time without Asuna, but with Eugeo and Alice. So Sword Art Online Alicization has clearly remembered and insisted that it's an anime about, well, Sword Arts.

In my book, SAO Alicization won't be into my Top-25 of favourites, but will be up there in animes that significantly progressed over their courses. That itself is my biggest satisfaction and pleasure, and it truly earned the rating I'm giving to it.

Final score: 10/10.

I was one of the very few who actually defended season 1 for being cliche. This time 3D Kanojo really upped its game a lot, gave more depth to the characters and presented a rare excellent closure to a relatively decent romance anime. As I'll include some spoilers, I suggest you to read with caution.

Story (10/10):
It started where it has left, but this time, Real Girl clearly demonstrated that in this occasion the problems to solve will be of higher stakes, beginning with the school festival, where now Tsutsun will have to go out of his comfort zone to organize his class for the festival.

And ... that was only the start, touching rare themes like divorces, finally solving the Itou-Ayado and Ishino-Takanashi puzzles, talking about the forbidden act in a pretty normal matter, debates about young love, etc.

But the most important subplot not touched heavily in earlier moments, the key revelation of Iroha's reason to go away after the 6 months deadline exemplified perfectly in how Tsutsun and Iroha got so close to each other, despite their not so high initial chemistry. It clearly shows how Hikari was so affected by the issue before and after the revelation in how his life and grades crumbled even worse than Venezuela's socialist government. In this case, Tsutsun being Tsutsun, saves his crisis at the last moment.

In the future, 7 years after the graduation, Tsutsun is an established salaryman who hasn't changed mentally and is still affected by Iroha's departue. She makes a surprising appearance late with short hair not remembering nothing, proving clearly that a brain tumour is the most dangerous thing (this is what I suppose Iroha had from the basis of her comments) to memories, as a successful tumour extraction can destroy your memories.

The other 3 characters have also progressed since the graduation, now Ishino and Takanashi had settled and also had a baby, and Itou is a very well respected designer in the anime industry.

Since this is anime, Real Girl has to give us a happy ending, and that's we got, Iroha getting her memories back and finally getting back with Tsutsun. While the ending was maybe predictable, it proves yet again that a happy and predictable ending if it's well made, you just can't help but shed a couple of tears for their ending.

Art (7/10):
Hoods Entertainment improved most of the big problems of the S1, which was very close to having a fugly animation, there's less off models, the colour pallete is more varied, and the using of dark colours in Iroha's revelation and Tsutsun's reaction was the best example of the improvement, which didn't collapsed.

The backgrounds were good, but not great, slightly better than S1. The chara designs were pretty spot on most of the time, whenever in their teenage age or adult version. Ayado's adult design was so great and hot as the highlight.

Sound (9/10):
The OST is still decent, but the inclusion of darker tunes raises the sound rating a couple of extra points. The OP and ED truly expressed in the best way the darker tone of the second season, if you have the chance to read both lyrics, you'll understand me.

The seiyuus were still great, Yu Serizawa (Iroha) has clearly showed again that she's one of the biggest promises of the seiyuu world. Teppei Uenishi (Tsutsun) diversified his emotional repertory for the better, but still needs more experience.

Characters (10/10):
Our dear characters in 3D Kanojo 2 changed from being the typical cliche characters of RG1 to reveal more and different angles of each other, and that was the best experience of watching Real Girl 2. The characters were very extremely importart to the point to even taking out one of them would have destroyed the perfect thread of the plot.

Now Tsutsun is not the classical neet otaku, clearly inmersed into his relationship with Iroha, showing a different angle. Such was his compromise with her that almost affected his life, with some degree of reason. His maturing along these 12 episodes was the best part of the series.

Iroha has her fair share of problems derivated for their disease, but neverthless showed that she is very into Tsutsun and demonstrating that she'll do everything to protect and defend him, challengind the notion of the typical annoying popular girl, however her growth stopped for obvious reasons.

The biggest surprises were Ishino and Takanashi, who stopped being the typical critics of everything and started getting closer onto each other in such a subtle manner, and the rest of the cast. The point of having critical voices in a cast is to expose better the imperfections of the character.

Itou's lingering crush with Ayado was solved swiftly and showed that both are still fragile imperfect characters and needed some degree of care and love. While cheesy, it's very normal for people who are late bloomers in the love department to be more clingy. I personally wished to see more of Ayado after the revelations of the final episode.

The Tsutsui family also got a higher relevance, not only with Kaoru and his juvenile crush and later relationship with Anzu-chan, but also developing much more Kaoru and Tsutsun's mother and putting her more on the forefront and finally presenting their father along the way, touching a very obscure theme that is divorce.

Enjoyment (10/10):
You may be surprised that after giving very good opinions of 3D Kanojo, I haven't given a 10 to the anime, it's because MAL still forces me to evaluate Art and Sound which were a bit less consistent than the rest of this season and I still use a strict arithmetic mean. So if you want, consider this review as a de facto 10, and a de jure 9.

Since one of my weakness has been cheesy romantic animes, I really enjoyed the full course of Real Girl, and correcting a lot of the mistakes done in S1, makes the pleasure of watching this even higher.

Very rarely, romantic animes develop after the key confession or the stabilization of the relationship, 3D Kanojo goes even further in showing the established couple doing what normal couples do, moreover, touching very undeveloped themes in anime like divorce, breaking up, reencounters, post-relationships depressions, etc. So I give Real Girl his very deserved recognition for evolving from a very cliche romance story to a very solid romance story.

Final score: 9/10.

I came to watch Goblin Slayer after the big fallout that the first episode provoked in most of the left wing faction of the anime fandom, only to be disappointed most of the time that I watched an episode of this anime. Some spoilers ahead, you are warned.

Story (6/10):
Simple, a young Priestess goes in a quest to defeat some goblins with an inexperienced party, but reality came to them when the rest of her party is killed and raped, and she's only saved by a mysterious armored man who comes by the name of Goblin Slayer. This single episode is what attracted a lot of ... negativity from the left, criticizing the rape scenes as in we haven't seen it before, let me remind you that a couple of weeks later, SAO Alicization had rape scenes and nobody screamed like a retard and behaved like a snowflake.

This episode alone and the wasteland that left is what attracted me in order to offer a right-wing counterbalance point of view and to try to defend the show, just to keep me disappointing more and more, because since watching Ep-1, I expected an edgy anime which revolved on gross scenes just for the sake of it and not some generic D&D adventures that was, well, more than 50% of the series. And CR even dared to put a "trigger warning" for having "disturbing scenes", they should have put a trigger warning cautioning the viewer to not get bored. (Note: I condemn every single act of rape that this show or other ones have, be it fiction or IRL, for the ones who will try to accuse me as a "rape glorifier")

While Goblin Slayer has its moment of intense gore scenes, like in the city's sewers arc and the final arc with all the adventurers. GS was for the most part a boring anime with no sense of direction nor a high development of the characters' personalities, which I could forgive in an anime without sense of direction, like Lucky Star.

Art (7/10):
White Fox is a good studio and worked relatively well with the animation and the design of the characters, the Dwarf and the Lizard are very well designed, so is the Priestess and the High Elf who are very cute and attractive. My only complaint here is the constant use of CG to Goblin Slayer's movement, it feels completely out of sorts and actually hinders the fluid motions of the other characters.

Sound (5/10):
The OP is very mediocre, boring and uninteresting, it doesn't give you the emotions of an Adamas (SAO Alicization), or the false sense of security of Surprise (Asobi Asobase), it's completely forgetable. The ED is slighly better, but it's no Wish me Luck (Harukana Receive) or Koko Kara (Sora Yori).

The OST is also mediocre, inexistant and doesn't complement the very few interesting scenes that Goblin Slayer had. The seiyuus did a serviceable job to express the mediocrity of the series, Nao Touyama voicing the High Elf was spot on and the way she says Orcbolg is so cute and funny.

Characters (5/10):
Goblin Slayer is a determined man who only specializes on killing goblins, and he does a quite efficient job of it, however, his personality is quite twisted and ridiculous. While I'll mostly defend a person if he chooses to do a job not done by the other people, I won't with GS because he's full of vengeance, while understandable, it's a weak excuse.

The girls are the Priestess who is a very young girl who works with magic spells and healing spells, she's mostly shy and quiet and mostly goes through the motions, but there's some improvement, not too much to say. The Elf is the only acceptable character as she provides the funny moments, which somehow helped me to not getting more bored than I was, but she is literally a Shino Asada-wannabe (SAO); I won't lie if I say I didn't like when she said "Orcbolg"

The other guys are the Dwarf and the Lizard, both are quite competent when doing the quests and are very helpful of Goblin Slayer, they're not charismatic to earn some praise apart of their efficiency. The rest of the secondary characters are even worse in this point.

Enjoyment (6/10):
When I give a note below 7 in something is because there are severe deficiencies in a certain aspect of something. The enjoyment of Goblin Slayer is low if you're coming to see some dark fantasy and constant gore scenes, I for one, who is very sensible to high amounts of blood, feel very disappointed in the way this anime turn out to be.

I joked in a website that Goblin Slayer is the new Darling in the Franxx who is not Darling in the Franxx; the latter had at least some direction, high development in the characters' personalities and had the conservative flair, while the former is boring and repetitive without the hardness and crudeness of DarliFra.

A final parting message is that if Goblin Slayer comes back as the final scene suggests, I hope it's not a repetition of the direction this season had.

Final score: 6/10.

When you read the synopsis of the anime, you’ll surely think that this is a lolicon anime, and the show doesn’t even try to hide it, because they even confirmed it in the first episode and repeated it for the rest of it. At that point, there’s no way back and your mind will be forever tainted by this. However, if you give Uchi no Maid a better chance or if you don’t mind the pedophilic nature, you can find some things that are very funny and some of them have a certain depth.

As a fan of Doga Kobo and its classics like New Game ... and Himouto Umaru-chan, I expected some good laughs and of course yuri, despite the big elephant in the room called the questionable interaction of the maid and the Russian loli. I’ll put some spoilers from now on, so go with caution.

Story (8/10):
The premise is simple; a former JSDF member called Tsubame Kamoi tries to reinsert herself into civil society by being a maid, so in a snowy day, she passes by a house of a family of Russians, in where she sees a young white girl called Misha Takanashi playing in the snow with her Russian mother, Tsubame gets instantly in love with the little girl. A few years later, Misha is alone with his “father” Yasuhiro after the death of her mother and is known for driving out the maids from her house; enter Tsubame who gets hired to take care of Misha and the house. The now 8 years old girl is determined to drive out another maid to protect her feud, but Tsubame is skilled enough to keep her pursuit of little Misha while taking care of the house.

In one of the most disgusting moments of the anime comes early is when Tsubame starts talking about why she’s in love with Misha, and in a flashback, she confesses that she prefers “girls who haven’t menstruated”; but for the rest of the series, it’s more focused on the interactions of the former JSDF member with the Russian girl, with the occasional stalking from the maid to the girl in the most outrageously funny ways possible, like climbing an electricity pole, or putting CCTV cameras everywhere.

Unsurprisingly, it touches sensitive issues like why Misha doesn’t go to school, explaining that she gets all the attention because of her blonde hair and she feels “ashamed” of it, Tsubame explains to her in a Martin Luther King way that she shouldn’t be worried of her hair color, because sooner or later, they’ll judge Misha by the content of her character, showing a small transition from lolicon maid to lolicon maid with motherly attitudes.

After Misha gets back to school, she meets Mimika Washizaki (Washiwashi from now on) who’ll be her best friend, and supposed rival Yui Morikawa who only cares about beating Misha. The group will now be entangled with the misadventures of Misha with Tsubame, who the girls have a great appreciation due to her modals and great efficiency in doing the job done.

In latter episodes, another former JSDF member who goes by the name of Midori Ukai is trying to find her former comrade and crush Tsubame, Misha then finds Midorin in the dumps after doing some weird things in the neighborhood, and sensing an opportunity to finally get rid of her maid, attempts to hire Midorin, much to the chagrin of Tsubame. Despite the consistent efficiency of Midorin in all things concerning to house cleaning, she has terrifying cooking skills due to her consistent masochist tendencies.

Misha, feeling now missing Tsubame’s cooking talent, attempts to rehire her by sacking Midorin, but the latter informs her that firing someone has to be done with 1 month of anticipation according to Japan’s labor laws. And in typical Uchi no Maid fashion, Misha confesses that she prefers Tsubame’s food, and the recently rehired maid records the scene for posterity.

Entering the final quarter of the show, we start getting more insight on Misha and why she constantly protects the room where her late mother used to draw, and also why she acts like that with Yasuhiro, her dad. She feels alone, and when she was in her mother’s death bed, she receives a ferret who called Kumagoro as a parting gift from her mother. She also wants to have her dad constantly around her as she feels alone and explaining why she went full hikikomori after the disappearance of her mother, considering that Yasuhiro is actually self-conscious about it.

Tsubame in fact, despite her hardcore lolicon tendencies towards Misha, she appreciates her a lot, sometimes taking a symbolic position as Misha’s mother by giving some advices and helping her in the most dire situations when she saver her from a bear in Hokkaido.

In the final two episodes, we start to see the high chemistry between the 3 lolis, Misha, Washiwashi and Morikawa, in which the first invites the other two to a pajama party with the help of Tsubame and Midorin. However, in typical Uchi no Maid fashion, it has several chaotic moments like when they were in the bathroom, or eating, or basically every moment the three girls and the two maids are in the house. In contrast to other episodes, Washiwashi and Morikawa entered the holy grail of Misha by accident, her late mother’s studio, and Misha discovers that and gets extremely angry, so in order to provide cover to the two girls, Tsubame assumes the guilt.

By “assuming” the guilt, Tsubame is trying to maintain the equilibrium that Misha has made since she came and by taking a step too far like finally explaining that her late mother is not there and won’t come back; she immediately becomes like Misha’s de facto mother. And while the maid has her owns doubts because of the semblance of her infancy, Midorin opens again Tsubame’s eyes to have that final dialogue with Her Lady. By explaining the situation, Misha confesses that she had the fear of forgetting her mother, but started to move on from that when she asks her maid to clean the former holy grail of the house.

Art (9/10):
What I expected from Doga Kobo, very fine details and making very cute and accurate characters. For example, Misha is drawn with the typical phenotypes of a Russian girl, very pale skin, very blond hair and with turquoise eyes; Tsubame has a more bulky type best shown with her amazing set of abs, which is unique in modern anime, but also with a rose on her right eye which doesn’t explain what happened there; Washiwashi and Morikawa keep the cute designs seen in other classic Doga Kobo animes.

The animation is extremely consistent, due to the high standards of quality of the studio, it has the occasional weird frame here and there, but it’s minimal; the bright color pallet enhance the characters and the backgrounds with seemingly no effort. The animation is fluid and never stalls, with some nice detailed backgrounds, specially the house of Misha.

Sound (9/10):
The sound is typical Doga Kobo, very cute with the occasional variant of more dark scores, nothing too impressive, but serviceable for Uchi no Maid, loved especially the Russian tunes in several moments which they complement very smoothly the calmness of the anime. Some background sounds magnifies the comedic and stalker ambiance nature of this show.

The opening and ending are sung by Misha’s and Tsubame’s seiyuus, Haruka Shiraishi and Manami Nukamura and exemplify the comedy aspects of the anime; the ending in particular is the better. Nukamura is clearly the highlight of the voice actress with acting roles in Overlord, Shirobako, Aikatsu and fellow Fall 2018 anime Release the Spyce, she proves her talent by changing smoothly between the funny and stalkish voice of the maid and the more ceremonial and serious tone that personify Tsubame easily. There’s also the talent of MAO while voice acting Midorin and getting the best of the masochist tendencies of her.

Characters (10/10):
There are just 6 characters overall and all of them is important in the plot of Uchi no Maid, this is in my opinion the strength of the anime:
Misha Takanashi is an 8 years old girl who is a shut in since the death of her mother, she doesn’t express correctly her emotions, but in the inside, she feels lonely and wants her father Yasuhiro to be with him most of the time. Misha is also a tsundere with Tsubame, somehow justified by the questionable actions of the maid, but she also prefers to have Tsubame around, especially when it’s about cooking.

Tsubame Kamoi is a 28 years old former member of the JSDF who explicitly said even when younger that she prefers “girls who haven’t menstruated”, which clearly indicates that she is a lolicon and has an obsessive crush on Misha, to the point of telling she’ll keep loving her even after having her first period. In surprising fashion, she’s very efficient in doing house chores like cleaning, washing, cooking and maintains an aura of formality and respect to hierarchy when addressing to other people. Tsubame, with her obsessiveness with little Misha, she begins to close on her to help her with problems like loneliness, extreme introversion, like her late mother did a few years ago.

Midori Ukai is also a former member of the JSDF who is in love with her former comrade, Tsubame, and because the latter rejects Midorin, she enjoys being treated badly by her. In spite of this, she is also very skilled in survival due to her more than intense training in the forces, giving some interesting and funny moments on how she hates comfort and prefers the hard way.

Yasuhiro is Misha’s dad and was married to her mom; he is a hard worker and doesn’t have time to be with her daughter, so he hires maids to take care of her until Misha drives the maid out of their house. He also has problems in being considered Misha’s father and he wants to have the honor.

The other 2 characters are Washiwashi, Misha’s best friend and a compliment towards Misha’s cool and direct attitude, and Yui Morikawa, who is the self-proclaimed best girl in the class and Misha’s rival, but in a one-sided way. While not very well written as the other four, they clearly play a huge role in the final 2 episodes.

Enjoyment (8/10):
I have to take out a point from here because of the obvious reason that there’s lolicon inserted in the anime, and it’s clearly explicit in the way that is presented. However, it’s clear that I have enjoyed this anime a lot, the wacky and chaotic comedy moments were extremely well made, even in the moments of higher tension, the comedy is still on point to dilute the mood a bit, even by considering the constant repetition of the lolicon “joke”, and the characters are very consistent and realistic inside this somehow unrealistic crazy comedy.

If you pay attention closely to the intricate and tsundere interaction of Misha and Tsubame, you’ll start seeing it more as a mother and daughter-lite interactions which for me makes the show earn its coins despite the big problem mentioned constantly above. As a final parting word, a second season could do justice if they can manage to touch things not mentioned at all in the anime like why Morikawa acts like that, how Yasuhiro came to meet Misha and her mother, etc.

Final Score: 9/10.

Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san is your typical ecchi harem romance that airs ocasionally in your typical anime season. Except that fails in the third component of the "ecchi harem romance" and especially in the supernatural segments. Go with caution as there'll be some spoilers.

Story (4/10):
Fuyuzora Kogarashi is a spirit medium that got broke and found a mysterious dorm called the Yuragi-sou (Yuragi Inn) where it says it's haunted by the ghost of a girl named Yuuna Yunohana. There is also a bunch of strange inhabitants like the ninja Sagiri Ameno, innkeeper Chitose Nakai that can manipulate one's fortune, Nonko Aharabaki, an ultra drunk well endowed mangaka, ... and much more.

The plot is to help Ms. Yuuna Yunohara to find her personal lingering regret with the help of our main character Fuyuzora Kogarashi (read with Sagiri Ameno's voice), except that everything happens but the actual finding of Yuuna's lingering regret.

Normally, in an ecchi harem romance anime, I usually expect a bunch of "accidental" boob grabbing, nice panties shots, funny deredere reactions from the girls and the harem male lead, and some intimate moments. In the last part is where Yuragi-sou fails a lot, very few moments of romantic moments, except the punctual situations of the Yuuna-Fuyuzora Kogarashi date in a hot spring and the Sagiri love poisoned segment.

The two "arcs" that have a certain relevance with the supernatural beings are the Black Dragon God arc where Fuyuzora Kogarashi with Sagiri and Koyuzu go on a mission to rescue Yuuna; and the final arc of the season where there is a couple in torment because of an accident of the boyfriend, wihich Fuyuzora Kogarashi and Yuuna help them to leave this world in peace.

The worst part is that we have very few of the "supernatural" parts which I think they could have made wonders for Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san, rather it's much more focused on the comedy aspect with a blend with slice-of-boob-life moments. I don't expect a High School DxD or a Zero no Tsukaima every season, but if you don't wanna consider the supernatural element of here, please make this anime more slice-of-lifey.

While I suggest you to wait for the uncensored version as you'll enjoy better this ecchi harem romance anime in its full "glory", you should also go here with the mentality to just watch tits and ass and boob grabbings, nothing else.

Art (6/10):
Nothing too much impressive for a low budget ecchi harem romance anime, all girls check my expectations for a ecchi harem romance series with all the physical attractiveness possible forms, from the very well endowed Nonko to the lolis Koyuzu and Chitose, not forgetting the middle of the roads Sagiri, Yuuna and Chisaki.

Animation looks quite acceptable and the backgrounds are relatively decent to not put you off in any moment.

Sound (5/10):
The soundtrack is nothing otherworldly, but nothing disappointing, it compliments the relative mediocrity of Yuragi-sou. The OP and ED are quite unremarkable and never entertaining to the point to not google it to hear the full version, which I generally do with at least one of the themes.

Characters (7/10):
Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs has a very amicable and nice cast that surprised me why the rest of the series doesn't give more supernatural feelings, considering the nature of a 70% of the characters featured here:

Our main character Fuyuzora Kogarashi is a very strong medium that has helped several ghost in pain to ascend to Heaven. Now wanting to enjoy a normal life, changes school struck with Yuuna, he plateaus quite a lot and starts to enjoy the life in the Yuragi Inn, which is quite understandable with the all hot bishis there.

Yuuna Yunohara is the ghost of a bound girl who was found dead in the Yuragi-sou, her poltergeist talent is quite strongs that activaces mainly because Fuyuzora Kogarashi keeps touching her unconsciously and then she throws her to the water. Yuuna never knows what happened before her dead and has amnesia.

Sagiri Ameno is a cold blooded ninja that trains consistently and in typical tsundere fashion, she occults all her feelings to Fuyuzora Kogarashi, even when love-poisoned, she manages to keep some of her cool aura around her.

Chisaki Miyazawa is classical hottest girl in high school that doesn't believe in spiritual things, but by encountering Fuyuzora Kogarashi, she starts to feel something for him and gets to know better the rest of the girls of the Yuragi-sou, even the unseen Yuuna.

Of the rest of the cast, the most importants are the well endowed drunkie Nonko Aharabaki, the feline Yaya Fugishiro, the lolis Chitose Nakai and Koyuzu Shigaraki, and the ex servant of the Black Dragon Lord Oboro Shintou, who in classical Xenovia fashion, she wants the genes of Fuyozora Kogarashi.

Enjoyment (5/10):
Of course as a man of culture who appreciates their ecchi harem romance anime will sure enjoy quite a lot of the series as they tick all the necessary ingredients to enjoy this kind of series. However, don't expect much more in here, as the supernatural part here is quite mediocre and the romance is reduced to minimal situations.

As a final comment, I'll be surely waiting the uncensored version to have better pleasant visuals of the hot bishis of here, and a possible new season, hoping that in there we can have much more supernatural elements to enhace this cute ecchi harem romance anime.

Final Score: 5/10. It's very improvable show, but was quite bad executed.

This is not a review per se, rather a conservative essay masked as a review about the series. There are spoilers ahead.
What is conservatism? Is it the worship of the ashes or the preservation of the fire?
What is Darling in the FRANXX? Is it a glorified mecha or a cheap romance anime?

And now, what does conservatism have to do with Darling in the FRANXX? It’s exactly the dystopian future where the fire has not been preserved and there are barely ashes to even be worshipped. A world ruled by an elite whose actual faces are not even seen at all, pulling the strings from a ... podium ordering what should be done and what should not.

So it’s no coincidence that in 2018, conservatism is having its finest year since a few decades, and also one of the finest anime of the season, both have absolutely awed the world with their simple, but blunt and clear way to show their worlds and why it’s more needed than ever.

-Story (10/10):
Children are made to fight mechas called Franxxs to protect the plantations from klaxosaurs, which are a species of reptiles who live under the Earth, one of those children is called Hiro, a once promising parasite waiting his turn to finally pilot a Franxx, can’t connect at all with a female in order to pilot it. His fate changes when he meets a controversial pilot by the name of Zero Two, who is believed to killing her partners after a few rides in her favorite Franxx, the Strelizia. Somehow, Hiro knows Zero Two from earlier times, and vice versa.

When Hiro gets tired of waiting, goes to pilot with this controversial pilot Zero Two, and surprisingly, he makes connection with her, but starts to have the same problems and conditions that former Zero Two partners endured before dying. Not to be deterred, he keeps insisting it is fake and just by pure willpower, manages to break that curse from him, accepting unconditionally Zero Two and vowing to never let her alone and “be one with her”.

Zero Two is invited to live with Hiro in an old house reminiscent of the old 19th century mansions in the place referred as the Garden, here she is met with skepticism by the other parasites, namely Ichigo, the leader of the squad, who herself has something with Hiro. The first episodes consist on mostly fights with the mechas against the klaxosaurs, and of course the mandatory beach episode. And it’s ironically that in the fan-service-ish episode where one the most important, yet secondary arcs of the anime is started.

Cheap romance drama happens all the time, crushes are widespread between all the cast, some broken hearts and some not, typical for people in their puberty/adolescence, volatile mood swings, so very typical, but in this dystopian world, it’s forbidden to have emotions! The parasites are treated as numbers (Ichigo: 015, Goro: 056, Kokoro: 556, Hiro: 016, Zero Two: 002), confined to renounce their individuality and being forced to swear loyalty to Papa (the elites who control the entire world), even not caring about their humanity as it was the case when they’re left alone in the Garden for several days until their protectors Hachi and Nana (also named by their codes) intervene.

The soul searching of Zero Two is quite magnificent, as she wants to be more like a human, several fights with her fellow parasites, especially Ichigo, finally breaks that hard shell she had, opens herself to Hiro and co. and enjoying fighting with his Darling. All of this happens while a sweet girl named Kokoro finds a rare book about taking care of a baby, a forgotten art in the dystopian world; soon, Kokoro will go deeper in this strange book, while trying to sort out her feelings towards Mitsuru, something that upsets the sturdy Futoshi who is also in love with Kokoro.

One of the bigger reasons that this happens is that all the parasites are having higher mood swings due to entering their adolescence and trying to understand their bodies, no wonder when they now see each other naked, they get very ashamed and vehemently oppose the other sex watch them, exemplified of the volatile duo of Miku and Zorome, always the most loud and obnoxious members of the Garden and the most representatives of the nature of a growing woman and a growing man, respectively.

The higher peak of the middle part happens when finally Kokoro and Mitsuru open themselves to love and climaxing in Kokoro’s bedroom and sleeping with each other. The parasites later plan their wedding just to be stopped by the more Papa loyal Nines, who in before find the real state that the Squad 13 are currently and what they are really planning, the Nines being similar to the classical soviet spies who doesn’t express anything, but are astute in detecting dissidence; and of course in typical soviet style, Kokoro and Mitsuru are sent to some kind of “rehabilitation” which forces them forget what happened those last days.

In one of the most confusing parts of the series, happens a lot of strange cases, why Papa conquered the world and what’s its real nature, why adults are immortal and why parasites never reach adulthood (something that Zorome thinks a lot) and what happens when the parasites doesn’t die, what happened to real klaxosaurs, Ikuno finally confessing to her dear Ichigo. These parts without doubt generated a huge negative reaction (somewhat justified) and if they were written correctly and with more clarity, I’m pretty sure we could be talking as this series as part of the far side of the anime Heaven.

And finally, before the final fights with the Franxx start, it’s when we know that what really happened in that night where Kokoro and Mitsuru were alone, they created new life, a baby ready to make understand everybody there what it’s needed to recover their old world (and also the reason that both have to stay), the extinguished fire lost a lot of decades ago. Ichigo finally accepts the relationships of Zero Two and Hiro and also Goro’s love, and now she’s ready to move on. The old world is trying to be reseeded and replant with the old ways of their ancestors after many years of unlimited magma extraction, and of course, that current Earth doesn’t have the same fertile soil of its olde years.

Hiro has to departure to complete the saving of the world with Zero Two and tells that they’ll come someday; the now former parasites and adults try to reconstruct the world left with what both taught and left them. Kokoro gives birth to her baby girl, who unsurprisingly puts the name of Ai (love), and settles in her new life with Mitsuru and her children, Ikuno became the scholar of the new world and settles with Naomi, a former parasite-in-training who was isolated because she never had the “conditions” to be a parasite, Goro travels the world to finally settle with Ichigo, Zorome and Miku became teachers of the new children being born, Futoshi moves on and is the new chef, with all of them trying to repopulate that new world, all while their old leaders Hachi and Nana give them the keys of that new world and become something like the guarantors of it.

After Hiro’s and Zero Two’s ascent to the outer space to protect the new world, all of the former parasites still on Earth pray for their wellbeing and hoping their sacrifice is not in vain, while at the same time thanking both for re-enlightening them, giving new reasons for being helpful with their new others, and wishing and preparing for their second coming.

A true story of how the young parasites overthrew their old soviet liberal establishment, all of them understanding why the old ways are still timeless and why we should never surrender our liberties and humanity just to play and be God.

-Art and sound (9/10):
Nothing much to add here (and also don’t want to), animation is pretty fluid, what you most expect from Trigger and A-1 Pictures, but there’s a little decay when Trigger stops animating it in the third quarter. No weird frames or weird animation, all characters are well drawn and have very natural proportions.

The opening Kiss of Death is an underrated 2018 masterpiece opening, and the endings, while not keeping up to the OP; they mostly entertain you, good singing by the unit of the five parasite girls. All the voices are clearly on song with their respective characters, higher praise to Miku and Zorome seiyuus who made the characters much more entertaining (and/or annoying) for me.

-Characters (10/10):
When you see that they are 10 main characters, you may say that this show is actually bad or it’s some kind of error, but quite the opposite is actually. No character here will make you feel indifferent towards he/she, all of them serve a purpose and while having or not a mini-arc dedicated towards one of them, taking just one of them out of the picture and Darling in the Franxx will not feel the same at all; and in contrast of other anime who have heavy focus on just the characters, DitF balances extremely well the story, the execution, the characters and the conservative moral of the show.

Zero Two is the best character by far, changing from an isolated girl whose only focus is beating klaxosaurs towards a more caring person, not only to Hiro, but for the rest of the parasites who had heavy suspicions of her, when she calls Hiro “Darling”, she truly means it and it’s actually committed to him. Hiro comes from the leader of the current Squad 13 to outcast to the spiritual leader of the group, clearly committed towards Zero Two, and understood the true reality of the group and the Garden, just to suffer a small cruel fate of defying the almighty Papa world.

Ichigo is the actual leader of the Squad 13 and has a laser focus to keep order over all the parasites and fighting in the Franxxs; she admired Hiro from standing up to the soviet-esque establishment to the point to accuse unfairly Zero Two for taking him from her, always fighting for what she considers right. Goro is the most “normal” guy who, like her partner and love interest Ichigo, has a laser focus when riding the Franxx and is mostly jealous of Hiro, but he also serves as a species of masculine role model and also a guarantor of sanity for the other boys.

Zorome and Miku are exactly carbon copies of each other, loud and obnoxious who consider the other one as the rival to beat and somehow still having the time to care for each other. Zorome is the typical boy who lauds the current system as the most perfect system ever made by man and tries to become part of that system, only to become the biggest opponent of the Papa’s world once he knows the harsh realities that intrusive governments have not only on economies, but also on the social life aspect. Miku also understand what’s going on and also becomes one of the highest dissenters of it, also keeping her feminine personality and also being totally against to being the object of the lecherousness of the men, attracting the other girls towards her position. No coincidence that this wild couple (if I can say that) represents the true nature of why a man (Zorome) should be masculine, that it’s not only bad, but also natural and necessary, and also why a woman (Miku) should be feminine as such.

Kokoro and Mitsuru are arguably the finest couple of the series, from “different” upbringings and sufferings; they manage to connect each other really well in the latter parts of the series. Mitsuru is the biggest examples to how to stand up when you are thrown to the floor to suffer, that there’s no reason that somebody should stay in the same state forever and a proof of will is power; like Zero Two, he was tortured and “rehabilitated” many times to be just one more of the system, also embraces Kokoro warmly and manages to forgive Hiro for “forgetting” his promise, and on the last episode, supporting Kokoro and their offspring,. Kokoro is a shy girl who is somewhat resigned to her parasite life without any aspiration, but after the finding of a mysterious book about taking care of a baby, she starts to discover this strange old way of living and caring; decided to be loved by Mitsuru, she plans to take care of him even on the most tiny moments, once in love, she, like most of the parasites, has a laser focus, this time on trying to have a baby, and after succeeding, she suffers the same fate to the people who manage to defy the system and gets “rehabilitated”, this didn’t manage to break her will even after getting pregnant and remaining confident in delivering, despite “warnings”.

Futoshi is that guy who always gets the worst scenario of the many possible on the series; this doesn’t deter him for trying to overcome an infinite and a half of problems that the system and the luck give him. That means suffering the change of his partner and love interest Kokoro, having eating problems who make him heavier and being always the butt of a joke; this clearly shows up when himself officiated the wedding between Kokoro and Mitsuru, and of course after the final moments, he clearly looks at peace with himself and managed to move on from Kokoro and forming his own family. Ikuno is a very underrated characters who doesn’t like to shine on her own, the system makes her resigned and upset to the point to forcing the changing of partners after breaking up the chemistry with Mitsuru, unbeknownst to everyone is that her interests are on her side, actually Ichigo; she suffers of not having her and having many boys around her makes her jealous, and after confessing her, she clearly felt more alleviated, moved on and began a relationship with a rejuvenated Naomi, and accepted her fate of aging faster than the rest by overexerting the last remnants of energy she had, to the point of still caring for Ichigo and her future baby (from Goro) with the same care and dedication she devoted to the establishment and scholarly of the new world.

Even the outer characters, Hachi and original Nana mostly show a cold and distant nature towards the parasites, but deep into them, they care for them a lot, and also for each other, the new world made by the old parasites has the guidance of them. New Nana is colder towards the parasites, but eventually helps her other Nana and Hachi to give the needed advice to the future of the world, the former parasites.

The other group, the Nines, also fight against the klaxosaurs, but their upbringing made them cold and distant to everybody, and in some occasions, they serve as the secret service of Papa, trying to monitor the lives of the parasites. Interestingly enough, as they are abandoned by their bosses, they become crazy and later help the former parasites to their last battle to fade into the time and give them space for the new world.

-Enjoyment (10/10):
What hasn’t been said about Darling in the Franxx yet? It’s all resumed in what you think and you may be right or not, opinions are subjective and should be treated as such. For what I considered above may be wrong in the mind of a certain person is equally valid as if other person were to support my thesis made about the series.

Many have said that Darling has been based on the old mechas like Gurren Lagann or similar, however, I’m not the one to make such comments because I haven’t watched it any of the other old mechas mentioned, so this essay-review is just being made from what I thought about Darling in the Franxx when I was watching it.

As this review is published, seeing the current score of 7.80 and the top reviews is not only disappointing, but rather criminal and dangerous where we criticize what the anime establishment imposes as a way to think. Sure, Darling in the Franxx has a quite big quality dip in the middle part to somehow justify lowering the average score over and of course things could (and should) have been done better, however, this doesn’t affect my writing of this essay masked as a review; in comparison, there are many anime whose real score is way higher that it should be, an example is Charlotte, whose rating is an unfairly high 7.93.

Maybe if I made a more neutral and colder review of the anime, could I have penalized it to a 9 or an 8? It could have been a yes as I could have been a no, but since the middle of the series is when I truly saw what was really behind this series and I decided to review by that way. So maybe taking 3 weeks to finally complete this review seen with conservative lenses was the best idea as I think this is the correct way to watch Darling in the Franxx. Could Darling have a better outlook if it was aired in 2008 or earlier, rather than 2018 in an era where true conservatism has all but disappeared, and somehow it’s having its best months in a very long time? We'll never know, or it’s just maybe my higher than average paranoia tricking my mind.

To say that I enjoyed could be appropriate, as I enjoyed a good bunch of adolescents trying to understand their world and each other, and why it’s like that and why they have to suffer, while at the same time, discovering each other and doing what our human nature mandate us, it was funny as hell most of the time. But my highest emotion on the latter half was mostly of fear, tremor and anxiety, and it’s not because the confusing part of, well, a good chunk of episodes, but rather the very normal things that we do right now are in great danger to be destroyed by an elite whose only wish is to obliterate our current lives and existence as we know it.

So this conservative critic asks this question: Are we on the point of no return where we are monitored by the state and like Orwell, war is peace? No, and by a long shot actually. In spite of that, this doesn’t mean we don’t have to rest on our laurels, rather keep fighting for conservative values until the end of the world.

So for many, Darling in the Franxx is an overrated mecha, for others is the greatest thing since sliced bread, for others is a wasted potential, for others it’s just a mug anime who only fills in the season. For me is the glorification of true conservatism, where the family, community and environment are given their spaces to live in peace with each other; moreover, the central piece that makes love and later family is the much needed remedy to a great quantity of ills that we currently. All in all, Darling in the Franxx’s objective is not only glorifying our classic normal ways to live, rather serves a warning about a possible collapse of our current system that took us millennia to create and could be destroyed in mere weeks.

Final score: 10/10.

Real Girl can't be more cliche and stereotypical, but it's where the show really shines, in being cliche and stereotypical. Beware of some spoilers.

Story (8/10):
Hikaru Tsutsui is your typical otaku who watches anime for long hours and is a big fan of Ezomichi (a magical girl anime) who even talks with her, but this changes when he meets Iroha Igarashi, a wild beautiful 3D girl who had many relationships with men and somehow got infatuated with Tsutsui. Iroha clearly mentions that the relationship will only last 6 months as she has to move.

New adventures will come with this eccentric couple, with many difficulties encountering the ... way and Hikaru trying to understand, not only why Iroha chose him, but how real girls are. This sounds very cliche, but the execution is basically flawless, it doesn't resorts to cheap panty shots, unnatural female proportions and cheap drama, only focuses on the story and the love and drama of the cast.

Art (7/10):
Not great, but not bad, just good. Clearly Hoods Entertainment have to put much more effort after the fallout of Märchen Mädchen, and it clearly paid off here, a better-than-average art and animation which clearly express the true nature of the cast.

Sound (7/10):
A more than acceptable soundtrack and theme songs, which I clearly highlight the ED as the best part of the series, its lyrics are very common, but still powerful and endearing. The character voice acting was mostly on song with the tone of the anime, not quite good, but not bad.

Characters (8/10):
Very cliche characters, you have your typical male otaku MC who somehow get entangled in a relationship with the hottest girl of the school, Tsutsui actually improves along the way, and while having big self-confidence issues, he mostly manages to understand his girlfriend Iroha. Igarashi is a very stereotypical beautiful girl with behaviour problems who falls in love with the otaku Tsutsui, she, like Hikari, has doubts with herself about how his boyfriend operates and if he really cares about her.

Yuuto Itou is very typical of the sidekick of the MC, and as all the cast, he clearly grows in the series, even falling in love. Arisa Ishino is very blunt and sometimes hurtful, but mellows downs while recognizing the reality of her closest confidents. Mitsuya Takanashi is the classical enemy of the MC who opposes the relationships, Sumie Ayado is the stereotypical female otaku who fantasizes with Tsutsui for being considerate towards her.

As you can see, all of the characters are cliche, stereotypes of something, but with this flaw, all of them recognizes their pros and cons and the growth of all the cast makes this a strong point.

Enjoyment (9/10):
A romance anime lover like me will truly appreciate this anime, even taking out the problems of being cliche and stereotypical, you'll find a very interesting anime who shines in actually being stereotypical and the realness of their characters. And with the second season incoming next year, we'll be surely to get the final resolution of this series.

Final Score: 8/10.