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Even with a short runtime (12 mins per ep) and a lack of promotion, for lovers of stupid senseless "switch off your brain" comedies, Cheating Craft is easily a barrel of laughs and jaw dropping goodness.

Story: 10

China brings you a new generic shonen battle / gag series to add to the pile of generic shonen battle series we already have in Japan. WITH EXAMS!!!

Cheating Craft takes place in a world where CHEATING IS SERIOUS BUSINESS!!! There are those who can learn and there are those who can cheat. Everything's fair in love, war and exams. From pen tranquiliser guns to X-ray glasses; from making origami ... weapons to training an insect army, the otherworldly cheating kung fu skills elevate the premise to higher realms of fun campy silliness. JUST STUDY DAMMIT!!!

There's no real storyline and the show follows the Gag of the Week format. My jaw dropped at least once or twice per episode at how the writers manage to pull off increasingly silly random fun stuff every week.

As at the final episode: I still stand my ground that studying is still much easier than training these cheating techniques.

Art: 7

Standard colourful shonen art. Nothing to complain about.

Sounds: 10

Great work by Sakabe Go. They even have orchestral pieces to match the epicness of the show. It makes you want to buy the OST from episode 1.

Characters: 10

Standard shonen battle characters. Hot blooded male MC- check. Rivals with colourful hair- check. Cute girls to trigger shipping wars - double check. Also nothing to complain about.

What stands out about the characters is that their VAs really sound like they're having fun throughout the whole series. From the squealing of a fujoshi fangirl to flying sharks to the yelling out of shonen attacks in the middle of exams, it's a total ham fest for people who love ham.

Enjoyment and Overall: 10

Cheating Craft is a show which surpasses the sum of its generic looking parts. In terms of pure enjoyment and fun, it's a perfect TEN in my books.

In 4 words: Great concept; poor execution.

Story - 5

Izetta's writing was done by Hiroyuki Yoshino, the guy who also wrote Guilty Crown. The concept of bringing a witch into a ww2 setting and making her curbstomp Nazis was satisfying for the first few episodes. And then we watch complacency set in as the good guys make blunder after blunder,(sometimes with fanservice, sometimes without) episode after episode, while the Nazis get closer and closer to finding a final solution for eliminating the witch.

Characters - 1

The good guys have the witch, and she's wiping out Nazis just as easily as moving her fingers. How does the show ... balance the power scale? Simple, give her a supporting cast who blunder their way through the whole thing, like discussing her sole weakness out in an open forest. That's not all. They also give the Nazis an ultimate genius who manages to decipher the weakness just by watching her fight for 5 minutes.

There's an Oberstein-lite helping out the good guys, but he's the only guy smart enough to cover all his bases, and even his most valiant efforts are hampered by incompetent subordinates and colleagues. Other than Oberstein-lite, the 2 characters I liked best are two lovers who only met each other 24 hours ago. The main characters are that meh.

Art & Sound - 9

Pretty. Really pretty. The final fight scene is one of the best I've seen. It's so good it's the only thing preventing me from giving the show a 3 or 4. A shame really. Izetta has many faults, but the art is not one of them. Same goes for the sound.

Enjoyment - 5

Izetta starts out really strong and interesting. But with an overpowered witch, the whole show couldn't balance it well enough to maintain any tension until the last few episodes. It feels like a game where the developer's solution to unbalanced powers is to badly nerf one side and power up the other side, only to find out that it got even more unbalanced the other way, and they had to power up the losing side now.

91 Days is a pointless revenge story which leaves an aftermath of pointless deaths in the end. I love it.

Story: 9

This is basically the story of Angelo plotting his revenge against the local mafia family for killing his parents and brother. He takes up a false name and infiltrates the family in order to bring his revenge to fruition. You can easily see it in the OP that it will result in a final duel between Nero and Angelo. From the summary, is a good ending expected? Hahahahaha. No. That's the point which the shows hammers in from the start. Revenge is pointless and leaves ... both parties worse off than when they started.

Art: 6

Fair, considering their low budget. Wonky character models here and there. Distracting, but overall, not unwatchable.

Sound: 8

Great background music. Jazzy. Sometimes silly. Very post-WW2.

Character: 9

During moments when he's not obsessed with revenge, Angelo starts seeing things from the other end. His family was killed not because of anything personal, but it's just business. The gang he hates so much are pretty much just regular guys. Eating normal food. Discussing normal stuff. Fighting normal turf wars. They're not the abominations Angelo thought they were when he started.

The story is intertwined with mob wars and intra-family conflict. You're already fighting off a rival gang who wants your territory, and now there's a large outsider gang joining in as well. Do you fight or do you negotiate for peace? Everyone in the family has their own opinion on this issue and they're really vocal people. That guy who's warming up to the rival gang. Is he a cowardly traitor or does he think peace is a good option? The other guy who wants to fight. Is he a warmonger traitor or does he think that nothing good comes from conceding to rivals? Everyone thinks about the family's "good", but what is "good" to begin with? Just because you're family, it doesn't mean you're safe. What you think is good for the family, another thinks it's cancer.

The pressure both from without and within can be seen on the character's faces. The more stressed out characters get black sleepless rings around their eyes.

Enjoyment and Overall: 9

Great story hampered only by art and money. It's very good and worth watching. Could've been a masterpiece with a greater budget. But it's an A+ effort from a small studio.

As someone who watched LOTGH (Legend of the Galactic Heroes), within one or two episodes of this show, the thought which formed in my mind is that the MC (Ikta) is basically Yang Wenli. Unfair as it sounds, it's going to draw comparisons to LOTGH on my part.


Story: 7

My biggest criticism is in episode 1. Episode 1 was basically a large info dump which turned me off. Without revealing too much, it's just standard military-political fare. Corrupt nation. Ungrateful nobles. Incompetent commanding officers screwing over relatively competent main characters. Worldbuilding wise - It's there. Nothing too amazing. That's all I can say about it. It's ... a light novel adaptation. Do not expect too much from it.


Art: 8

Nothing to complain about. Standard Madhouse quality. Yatori is hot. Yatori's hotness turns this from a 7 to an 8.

Sound: 6

Sound is average. Nothing stands out in a good or bad way.


Character: 8

Alderamin's pretty much a tale of Ikta and Yatori's friendship with other supporting characters drifting in here and there with limited roles and purposes. The relationship between both characters is the shining point of the show.


Ikta & Yatori: 10

Ikta is the lazy smart guy while Yatori is the overpowered swordswoman. Ikta gives orders. Yatori executes them. Ikta prefers thinking to moving. Yatori prefers moving to thinking. As the show develops, you'll start seeing how on one hand, they ultimately complement each other like square pegs and square holes. There's the unspoken understanding between them - "I keep you physically safe. You keep me mentally sane."

On the other hand, there's also how their viewpoints are utterly irreconcilable, and the only thing bonding them is their love for one another. ("I care about the empire and you, in that order." vs "I don't care about the empire. I care about you."). Knowing each other well, neither of them explicitly criticises each other's viewpoint, but they just leave it at "That's just the way he/she is", with foreshadowing pointing out that while life together is alright now, everything will eventually boil over to a point where they may actually need to kill one another. It's a far cry from the usual "Two conflicting viewpoints among friends. Eventually, one is proved wrong and they both reconcile" formula.

Is it a romantic relationship? No. The relationship is ambiguous. On one hand, it's currently platonic for both sides. On the other hand, they're so comfortable with each other that it could easily swing to romantic at any moment. And the fandom will rejoice the moment that happens, and quietly hope that the day when they'll have to kill one another may never arrive.


Supporting characters (Not much to say about them): 7

Matthew's the Watson to Ikta's Sherlock, asking him the questions we're asking and getting Ikta to explain his philosophies. Torway's a long range gunner, and is basically Julian Mintz only he's not as close to Ikta. The princess is there for exposition on keeping Ikta updated on national politics. Haro's just there for Ikta to flirt with because Yatori's not entertaining him.

Enemies (Biggest gripe): 5

For a rival in the season finale, they give us Jean, who is very obviously Reinhard-lite. Ikta is close enough to Yang Wenli, but Jean is a far cry from Reinhard. Reinhard had his tantrums and panic moments, but Jean is just plain narrow minded and arrogant. Currently, for all his hype, he's just "some dude to defeat" rather than "the eternal rival".

And if I'm gonna compare this to LOTGH, it's greatest weakness is that it just touches a little on the enemies. Just barely enough to give lipservice to the standard of applying a simple layer of "the other point of view", while LOTGH immerses you completely in the cultures, the perspectives and the failings of both sides. Alderamin doesn't do that.

Enjoyment and overall: 8

Much as it's falls short of the masterpiece - LOTGH, it's good enough to stand on its two feet as a light novel adaptation. I pretty much enjoyed it. It's an 8 in my books.

History of physics - the anime. An edutainment show through and through on magnetism and electricity.

Story - 7

Girl's father went missing. Girl discovers father's time travel machine and goes back in time to find her father with the help of her neighbours. Evil organisation is hunting down her father as well. Not the most original plot, but it's a mere device to explore the history of science in every episode, with a real life explanation of how the theory works at the end of the episode after the credits.

The writer made it as close to history as possible, and kept the small details (Things ... you never knew you never knew) like Michael Faraday forgetting to credit Davy and Wollaston for his thesis, Ben Franklin arguing with the local pastor over installing lightning rods on churches, and Thomas Edison marketing the first commercial toaster as CEO of GE. I'm giving the writer props just for the research alone.

That said. This isn't just science. This is history AND science. There are some parts which only adults will understand and make little sense for modern kids like Mari, like the existence of uneducated black slaves in 1800s America, and the suppression of heretical scientific discoveries by the Pope before the Enlightenment era.

Art, Sound - 6 (Fair)

Standard fare. Nothing particularly good or bad stands out.

Character - 7

Nothing too annoying in the beginning considering the main characters are just children. Over the series, they learn the value of hard work for different motives altogether, and how hard work applies to everything in life. MC starts to like science but she's bad at science. The message is clear. If you start loving something but you're bad at it, just start learning and you'll get good at it.

Another kid likes football but his grades are bad, and he got banned from football until his grades pick up. After some whining, he picks himself up, studies hard to improve his grades and learns how awesome it is to play all the football he wants without adults breathing down his neck over bad grades.


Overall - 7

I'm giving it an solid "7" just for this breath of fresh air in the anime industry which lacks educational shows like Time Travel Shoujo. I'm hoping this show will encourage more anime studios to start developing more educational shows in the future.

It's a passable family-friendly show to watch with your children if you've studied physics in high school and want to show them how science can be fun too. In fact, after every show, you should go to the local store, buy the same stuff they used and conduct an experiment at home and watch your kids go "Woah. Science." It'll make the world a better place for science.

As someone who read the manga, the anime covers the manga until chapter 32-33. I'm writing this review for the manga readers who are wondering if they should watch the anime.

Story wise, plot is the same with the anime skipping some parts here and there. But the anime gives the impression that the director read the manga and went,"Screw this. Let's just wing it, have fun and go full camp with this."

It's overall more mindless fun, more edgy-ness, more glorious sunlight, more random Rin death scenes, more heartwarming, more outright incest, more campy saxy (Yes, it's so sexy it becomes saxy) jazzy soundtracks, more ... Eiji x Rin, more defiance of basic laws of physics, more innuendo, more smile inducing and more jaw dropping (Edgy-sama. I'm pregnant). And they take the time to draw food- lots of food. Considering the source material, it's B-movie anime gold in its finest form, on par with the works by veteran studios such as Ghibli, feel, White Fox, Madhouse and ufotable.

The anime is not a mere adaptation of a manga about Edgy-sama trying to save his beloved non-blood related imouto. It's a Gilgamesh and Homer level epic about a small studio's rebellious warcry against the gods who sneer and mock at them while tossing their endless divine arsenal of bad source material, flat characters, deus ex machinas and illogical plot twists upon humanity, just as Zeus chucks lightning bolts against any mere mortal who dares to defy him and scale Mount Olympus.

On a serious note, it's not "Anime of the year" material, but it's a strong contender for the "Considering the budget and source material, you gave it your best" category if it exists. It's so bad it goes full circle to awesome. It makes you want a season 2 just to see how the studio is going to save the final post-chapter 32-33 arc.

Nijiiro Days is like a cone of overly frozen vanilla ice cream. It's sweet. You enjoy it. But at some point, you get tired because it takes too long to consume.

The plot starts out with Natsuki (the male MC) falling in love with Anna at first sight. He has his set of wingmen friends who encourage him to go for it and pull out as many stops as possible to get them together. It ends with the girl acknowledging that she likes him too. The end. It's as vanilla as you get.

The MC's friends are an interesting bunch with their own quirks and personalities. Some ... experience character development. Others remain static and didn't need much development to begin with.

The first half of the show is an overall fun ride with a mix of laughs and some character development. By the third quarter, the characters develop further and becoming slightly better people than when they started, but you sense that the plot is beginning to slow down.

By the time the fourth quarter rolls in and it's time to end the story (i.e. Anna realising that she likes Natsuki too), the writers seem to have already milked as much development as they could from the entire cast and are now forced to spread the entire arc real thinly and slowly over a whole 6 episodes.

Overall, this is a fairly average SOL with pacing issues towards the end. Sweet and likeable. Nothing less. Nothing more.

Terrible ending and scumbag characters ruin an otherwise average slice of life series.

Story: It's about a cute village miko who wants to experience city life. Unfortunately, she has crippling social anxiety which prevents her from interacting with strangers. Fair enough. That's an alright premise to go with. 6/10

Art & Sound: The art was good. The visuals were colourful and the choice of shamanistic BGM was unorthodox but fitting with the show. The studio did some good work in terms of audio and visuals. You can appreciate their high production values and the work they placed in the show. 7/10

Character: Machi's social anxiety gets increasingly worse ... as the show progresses. Social anxiety does that to you, and she needs help and loving support to overcome it. My bone to pick is with the supporting cast who aggravate it further with their insensitivity and selfishness.

Her cousin is a static scumbag to the end and accelerates her regression by continuously forcing her to become the village idol despite her protests. The bear (Her sole remaining pillar of support) eventually also regresses from a parental figure who gives her tough love to become increasingly clingy, emotionally manipulative and wanting to maintain Machi's social anxiety and the status quo (I get that this regression is anime exclusive but it still leaves a bad taste in the mouth). 1/10

Overall: This show's dark humour is mostly derived from Machi's ignorance of technology, social anxiety and the many ways her panic attacks sabotage otherwise normal everyday situations. It's a mix of funny and cringe until a certain threshold. Some reach their threshold after a few episodes. Others reach it at the last episode (I reached it at the last episode).

I'm giving it a 3/10 just out of sympathy for the studio people who tried their best to make it work. Otherwise, it's a plain 1/10 based on the characters alone.