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I won’t beat around the bush, this is a generic anime with a generic plot and generic characters that are irritating at best and downright unbearable at worst, with a storyline that’s all over the place, lacking consistency, and a low-level, unbelievable world-building. Despite its generic nature, the anime doesn’t do anything particularly terrible. To make an analogy, this anime is like a tasteless soup that fills your stomach but does nothing else.
The initial premise is already ridiculous in itself and contradicts itself almost immediately. The premise is that there’s a guy so strong that he can’t make any friends because no one can approach ... him because he evidently has an unintentionally intimidating aura…this is simply false, but I’ll only explain why shortly, for now, I’ll tell the second part of the premise…which is in the title of the anime itself, namely that this guy has the brilliant idea (I’m being sarcastic), to reincarnate as a random guy to live a normal life and make friends; However, things don’t go as planned at all, because for starters the parents he is born from are not nobodies but are both local heroes, something that is emphasized several times during the anime, moreover the guy seems to have retained all his original powers, so in other words he reincarnated because he couldn’t make friends because according to him it was because he was too strong, so he reincarnated but inherited his original powers…if what I just said doesn’t make sense well, you’re right, it doesn’t make sense, reincarnation simply serves as a change of identity, not a real new beginning, ah, I forgot to say that the guy retains the memories of his past life so the only aspect of reincarnation this whole process has is the fact that he is reborn in a young body and relives childhood and adolescence…for the rest he is in fact the same person as before. Now, the question arises: If this reincarnation is nothing more than a simple change of identity, why didn’t the guy, who is in fact for all intents and purposes the greatest wizard in that world, instead use some magic to permanently change his physical appearance? maybe he could even become a woman to better hide his original identity, it would have been much simpler and quicker than reincarnating and waiting practically 10 years before being able to undertake a minimum of social life…but evidently either the thing was not possible even for the best wizard in the world or, more likely, the guy is simply an idiot - and after having seen the entire anime I would say that the second is the most probable. But there’s one thing I skipped, remember when I said that the premise was simply false? I’m referring to the fact that the guy made all this mess because he couldn’t make friends because according to him he was too strong and therefore was unintentionally intimidating towards others…well, I’m referring to this part of the premise that is false, and why is it false? because as it is soon revealed, after reincarnating the guy shows an incredible clumsiness and ineptitude in approaching other people, which reveals the real reason why he couldn’t make friends, it had nothing to do with his supposed intimidating aura, he was simply inept, that’s all, the entire premise on which the anime is based is fallacious…It is said that the best part of a narrative must be at the beginning in order to capture the viewer/reader, and if the very premise of the anime is already so poor, it is easy to imagine how poor the rest of the anime will be.
The anime proceeds with a plot as said above all over the place, it goes from a somewhat slice of life section in a magic school where the protagonist guy tries not to attract attention but obviously fails at every possible opportunity, then moves on to a section where a guy wants to kill him for some reason, only to be eliminated in an anti-climactic way, ending his brief narrative arc in a pathetic way as was the rest of his part. In the last part of the anime the guy and his two only friends are brought back in time where the guy will try to save a girl who is dead and who he was in love with only to realize that the aforementioned girl instead wants to accept her own fate and doesn’t care about other people’s feelings…this girl is perhaps the least interesting protagonist of the anime, what the guy found in her I don’t know, but then again I guess it’s normal when the average level of the characters is so low that they attract each other; Anyway, the big problem I have with this girl is that on more than one occasion she sexually harasses one of the guy’s friends, and the thing is passed off as fanservice obviously, something not to be taken seriously, if it had been a male though he would have been immediately the final antagonist of the anime, but since she is a woman and her victim is also a woman who cares. When I talk about sexual harassment for the record I’m not talking about anything extreme, but still something that in America could land you in jail.
But perhaps the thing that makes me angrier in this anime as well as in many other stories, is the fact that there are characters who theoretically are over 1000 years old but who despite everything behave…more or less like twenty-year-olds, if not outright teenagers…I hate this trope especially when it is absolutely not necessary, the fact that writers have so little respect…no, what am I saying?, absolutely none, zero, nada, respect for what could be the mentality of someone who has lived for several centuries if not millennia is simply…simply infuriating, it would be a bit like writing the character of a 5-year-old child but giving him the mental characteristics of a 60-year-old man…more or less that’s the level of dissonance, and yet it doesn’t seem that anyone cares when these characters with crazy age but zero effects on their mentality are used…
Anyway, I’ve already written too much and probably thought more than the author who wrote this mediocre anime did, what I think of this anime I said in the first paragraph - mediocre anime.

(Contains spoilers)

So,where do I start with this?

I don't normally use words such as "Trainwreck" or "Dumpster Fire" but yeah,I think this anime deserves those two adjectives.
The anime's plot,to put it simply(Not that it's much more complicated),and short,is that a supernatural world-ending event is destined to hit the earth and to prevent(?),that a secret supernatural organization of masked people give away magic wands(Objects that grants a specific supernatural ability to someone),to "Unfortunate" girls(Which they will be referred as "Magical Girls"),so they can collect dark energy because that would somehow helps against the said supernatural world-ending event(Which is referred as the "Tempest" in the anime).
Things aren't exactly ... as I laid out,but things appear like this for most of the anime until the very end when it's revealed more about the nature of the "Tempest" and what's the "Real" purpose of the magical girls(Which isn't anything nice if it wasn't clear already).

While this premise isn't exactly super intriguing it's not even that horrible,it's the whole story that's built on these fundamentals that it is horrible.

It wouldn't be too exaggerated to say that the whole anime it's just pain / violence porn,with the term "Porn" it's used to describe something that's "Shoved in" without a real presentation,or to put it differently "Have things happen because they need to happen",just like in porn where nobody expects a story,people shouldn't really expect a compelling story out of this show,because it's clearly built around showing as much pain as possible,well,almost,let's not forget the beach episode which probably wins the non-existing prize of the most out of place episode of every anime ever.

The story starts exactly how most stories I don't like start:By throwing as much shock value at the viewer as possible to hook it for the rest of the show;This is already a very bad sign as it shows poor confidence in the production to hook an audience for the entire duration of the show.
This is clearly show even in the comments section of MyAnimeList site where the first episode by the time I'm writing this has 387 comments,second one has 139 comments,third one has 151 comments,then 111,113,128,last three episodes have 10,12 and 40 comments,that's quite the bad sign,it's almost as if most of the audience left the boat,I wonder why?
Anyway,back to the "Story";The story starts by showing one of the most miserable lives of a girl living in Japan at this time and age can have,the girl(Called Aya,which is the main character),not only gets relentlessly bullied in school,but at also at home by her psychopathic brother that punches her in the stomach and strangle her for fun...later in the episode the bullies at school even girl Aya's cat by throwing it under a train because why not,and then having an upperclassman assault her because why not #2.Things don't go as expected as by the time why not #1 and why not #2 Aya gets delivered a magic wand,which has the form of an heart-shaped pistol that has the power to teletransport whatever it hits to whatever location the user is thinking of,this tool gets used in extremis by Aya to transport both the upperclassman and one of the nearby bullies in front of a moving train and blessing the rest of the world of the removal of their presence;Note that Aya wasn't even aware of the powers of that weirdly shaped pistol when she used it,it will be another girl,Yatsumura,that explains things to her after saving her from yet another bullying attempt by stopping time with her time-stopping magic wand and injuring the bully's neck in the process(The bully will be later become a more relevant character,her name is Sarina).

This is pretty much the first episode and as I said earlier it pulls all the stops to try to shock the viewer with as much tragedy as possible,oh yeah I also forgot at the start of the episode Aya is thinking of throwing herself in front of a moving train,yep,she is suicidal and will later say that she thinks of dying every day.Aya it's also extremely shy and passive,so she is the ideal punching bag for a story that wants to throw tragedy and pain at the viewer for easy shock value.

Things get however a lot milder for most of the anime compared to the first episode,another girl gets introduced,called Rina,this one is the first to have discovered that the "Tempest" is coming and so she goes around collecting other girls magic wands because...yes,apparently you can simply steal someone else's magic wand and use it no problem...I said "Steal" and if you were a normal person you'd think "Robbery" but that's not tragic enough you see,Rina instead decides to murder several other magical girls to get their wands,the "Murder" part was completely unnecessary as a magical girl without her magic wand has no powers whatsoever,but again,evil things must happen because why not.Rina is a psychopath,much like most of the cast of this show,and the worst part is that after Aya and Yatsumura capture her,she will later become one of the...err..."Good guys" I guess,despite what she has done;Would you sympathize with a psychopath that needlessly kills other people? I would not,and that's the reason why she is the first of a long list of characters that I wouldn't care if they live or die,which is quite a BIG problem when your whole show relies on the fact that the viewer has to care for its characters,doesn't it?

Due to a "Side effect" of using their magic wands and the fact that Rina went overboard by using many of them,she ends up in a coma at the hospital.
Apparently all Magical Girls have a non-replenishment amount of mana points,the more they use a magic wand(Any magic wand,not just theirs),the more their lifespan gets shortened,which could be used as a justification plot-wise to not just abuse their powers left and right but as it will turns out later,all characters are too dumb to use their powers intelligently so it wasn't even necessary anyway.

Anyway,thanks to Rina's notebook,Aya and Yatsumura manages to locate another Magical Girl(It's not clear HOW Rina figured out who were the other magical girls),and since they're now aware of the "Tempest",they're trying to gather allies,so they go after her.
This other magical girl is called Nijimi,which is an idol whose magic wand's power is to mind control people with voice commands,in other words,every command she issue with her voice will be enacted by whoever hears it,it's like the Geass power in Code Geass but without restrictions saved the limited mana points like the rest of the girls.

Nijimi's magic wand is probably the most peculiar as it's literally a pair of panties,eh,whatever.Turns out that this Nijimi is...yet another psychopath,not Rina's level psychopath,but somewhat in her range.She had her best friend killed by Rina because she wanted to get her magic wand,so she is looking to get her revenge by killing her...and she is obsessed about it.Since Aya and Yatsumura wants to get more information from Rina,which is still in coma,they decide not to tell Nijimi about the girl's whereabouts.
Oh yeah I said that Nijimi is a psychopath but haven't explained why;Aside from her anger issues that are literally called as it is in the anime,she has several of her fans enslaved in her home using her wand's power.You known.The girl which is nationwide-famous which probably has enough money to hire at least a couple of butlers,instead use her wand to enslave people to work for free,yeah,very sane,and yet another character which I don't care if she lives or dies;I may be a broken clock by repeating this but one of the fundamentals for a good anime is caring,if the viewer doesn't care about the characters,how can he like the rest of the show?

Anyway,it will be irrelevant but it's worth mentioning because "Irrelevant" doesn't mean "Not annoying" and thus worth reporting,there's a background character,a fan of Nijimi,rather,a mind-crazed fan of Nijimi,that stalks her and that be later killed in a future episode,his whole existence in the anime made next to no difference wasn't for Aya casually witnessing its murder(Will talk about this later),but besides that,such an useless character that only waste the viewer's time.

Later in the episode(3),Sarina returns into the scene and now she is been offered a magic wand by a site admin(I forgot to mention,the girls first gets in contact with this supernatural organization by a "Magical Girl Site",that's controlled by various site admins),for the reason you may expect:Revenge,of course,because Sarina suspects that Aya was responsible for the death of the other 2 bullies even tho she hadn't witness it.

Episode 4 is pretty uneventful,Nijimi gets into the same school of Aya and Yatsumura,meanwhile it's revealed how Aya's bullying started,with Aya basically failing to say "Thank you" to Sarina since she was a little bit kind to her at the beginning,yeah,sure,whatever,she would have been eventually a target sooner or later anyway,that was just an excuse to trigger the bullying.
Anyway,Nijimi becomes sort of friends with Aya and Yatsumura,which they still kept the fact they know of Nijimi's friend's assassin a secret(It's Rina,the one still in coma at the hospital),meanwhile Sarina eavesdrop a conversation between Aya and Yatsumura about Rina and of course,goes straight to inform Nijimi,while preparing an ambush at Yatsumura's home,because she is mad at her for injuring her neck,so the natural and sane reaction is that she needs to die too.

Episode 5 is mostly Sarina fighting with Aya as Yatsumura got an early KO due to a surprise attack;Sarina's magic wand it's basically a yo-yo that can cut stuff,uhm,not exactly the most overpowered thing she could have get but whatever.
Aya is still as a crybaby as in the first episode and refuses to fight back Sarina,even after she threatened not only her life,but her friend's too.
Oh yeah,while we're at this,let's reveal Yatsumura's secret:She kept prisoner the murder of her parents in her home so she could torture him;Of all the psychopaths in this show Yatsumura is the most relatable one,becuase yeah,the guy deserves it.
Unfortunately for Yatsumura,she doesn't get her revenge to the guy since Sarina decides to kill him because why not,it's not like Sarina had a grudge towards the guy nor she knew what he had done,but remember this is an evil anime so evil things have to happen so the guy dies,whatever.
The entire apartment complex get demolished by Sarina's attacks,but just moments before the whole thing collapse on the girl's head,Aya saves Sarina by teleporting her away,while she protects herself and Yatsumura with one of the wands Rina collected,one that is capable to generate a force field of sort,that protects both girls.
It will be later mentioned that several other people died in the building collapse,so add that to the list of killed people by Sarina,in case somehow you found her relatable.

Anyway,now basically everyone but Sarina is at the hospital,and yet another magical girl shows up...
In episode 6,Nijimi shows at Aya's house and immediately falls in love with Aya's piece of trash brother,which has been suspecting about Aya and her friend and even finds traces in the internet history of her sister about the Magical Girl Site thing...so word after word,he finds out what's going on.
Meanwhile at the hospital,the new girl is called Kosame,a girl that for some reason is the second in terms of user favorities after Aya in the MyAnimeList site,no idea why,maybe because she is not a psychopath like the rest?,anyway,her wand is a paper cutter,and it's power is healing,but unlike the other wands,on top of the usual mana consumption,this wand also requires the user blood to be swallowed by the target to take effect(It doesn't replenish the mana by the way),which is very convenient considering Kosame used to cut herself anyway.So,Kosame heals up everyone and tells the other girls what she knows about the whole story.
Apparently,there's another group of Magical Girls that has found out about the "Tempest",the Magical Girl Site,and the Site Admins that apparently go out and kill the girls who try to investigate the matter.In this episode there's also the biggest "Mask off" moment of the anime.
Apparently,the tempest's arrival is inevitable,but there's one way to survive:To feed the King's hunger(Whoever is the King);The King feeds on humanity's negative energy,and offering that to him will allow the girl to avoid death during the Tempest.The negative energy is stored in the magic sticks and it's collect by,you guessed,doing evil stuff.
So basically the anime admits that it has build its whole premise around doing evil stuff for evil's sake,because doing evil stuff is necessary to gather negative energy which is necessary to survive the Tempest,and it's necessary because...of course,because the anime says so.And that's why I called it at the start just violence porn,things have to happen because it decided that have to happen,the plot it's just an excuse.
Anyway,Kosame offers the girls to ally with the rest of the group to fight the real villains - the site admins,which as already said,go around killing the magical girls for investigating too much.
Now one question someone logical would ask is:If these site admins can just go around killing stuff on their own,why not collect the negative energy themselves?,and what's the point of killing the magical girls anyway? What happens after they investigate?,they refuse to continue the collecting thing?,is that even a problem considering they have apparently no issues replacing them?,maybe they have some headquarters that can be tracked down?,who knows,but it feels way too insecure and over cautions for beings that appear to be so all-mighty.
There's also a few very short scenes of other magical girls getting killed because why tell when you can show evil am I right?

Episode 7,now there's a bunch of other girls I don't even wanna bother talking too much about those,there's one with super physical abilities,the one that read minds,the one that flies on a broom,the one with a sword and...did I forget anyone?,oh yeah,there's also a crossdresser,why not,I guess being female isn't a requisite.Anyway,Rina ALSO joins the school with Aya and Yastsumura,while Nijimi is in class and guess what?,she immediately snaps and almost orders her to kill herself but Aya and Yatsumura manages to tackle her and Aya even removes her magic wand...whatever.
Later that day,after the manage to calm down Nijimi,they convince her to cooperate with the rest of the group,their current goal is to kidnap a site admin to extract information from it...sounds a bit crazy but whatever;Oh,also Yatsumura instead of using Nijimi's magic wand,she just hide it somewhere,ugh,she could have used it to ensure Nijimi would behave or something,I'm not saying making her slave but at least hold her grudge against Rina,which is,by the way,a very justified grudge since as far as I know Nijimi's friend did nothing wrong to deserve being killed by that psychopath.Anyway,all the magical girls have a talk and decide to ally together bla bla there's no real plan yet,but it's a start I guess.
Meanwhile Sarina manages to recover all the wands who were lost during that building collapse,I forgot to mention that none of girls have their magic wands(Expect for the newcomers);You would think that,if you were Yatsumura and had lost her magic wand,she would use Nijimi's,just in case,but nope,instead she and Aya go around completely unarmed while hiding the second strongest magic wand in the anime after Yatsumura's time-stopping one,okay,very stupid.

Episode 8 beach time wtf?,sure the logic is to have the girls share a happy memory since they all realized that they won't ever get into adulthood,but still just like most of the anime,it feels somewhat forced.
Anyway,half of an episode later Yatsumura finds out that Nijimi's magic wand disappeared from her locker,good job! and you will never guess who stole it - Aya's psychopath brother,who had been in contact with Nijimi who told her that they stole her magic wand and he offered to find it back - obviously Nijimi is too enraptured by...what was his name again I need to check...right,Kaname,Aya's piece of trash brother...anyway,Kaname,which is dumb but still a lot smarter than Yasumura,puts on Nijimi's wand which I remember is a girl's panties,if the idea is already repulsive don't worry,the anime will make sure to show Kaname wearing them.
Now once you're done puking let's get back to what is happening in this dumb episode,remember that background character,that Nijimi's fan that stalked her?,he saw Kaname talking to her so he is now stalking him and wants to kill him because of course,psychopathic fan think Nijimi shouldn't be in a relationship with anyone so Kaname has to die - or so he wish,because Kaname,using the magic wand,easily disposes of him by simply telling him to kill himself...that's the extent of the presence of that character,what a waste of time.
Anyway,turns out SOMEHOW Aya has seen the entire scene,this despite the beach and the street being separated by an huge wall;There's a shot in the scene where you see Aya crouching next to the wall which clearly appears taller than her even considering she is crouching...yet for some reason Aya was on top of the wall,watching it happened,yeah,get your facts straight anime.

Episode 9 and here things start to get not only dumb,but also completely nonsensical.Remember when I said there was a magical girl capable of reading minds?,yeah,she reads Aya's mind discovering who stole Nijimi's magic wand(Aya didn't want to tell the others of course,she must protect that nice and good brother of her right),so this magical girl called Suirenji,the crossdresser which is biologically speaking a boy but whatever let's call it a she anyway since it doesn't really matter.So Suirenji whose name I need to copy-paste because it's too complicated to type goes after Aya's brother with two other girls:The one that can fly with a broom and the one with enhanced physical capabilities and...at first it seems like the girl(Named Asahi),manages to knock down Kaname(Which remember,still is wearing the magic mind-control panties),but instead of finishing him off or taking away its magic wand SUPER IMMEDIATELY like any non braindead person would do against someone who only needs a couple of seconds to tell you to kill yourself she waste time and gets ambushed by Nijimi who has been previously mind controlled by Kaname to protect him and guess what - the second most absurd scene in the anime happens,the girl with supposed enhanced strenght gets immobilized by Nijimi,which is even smaller than her,that strangles her,yep,makes as much sense as it sound(That's it,it doesn't).Anyway Kaname orders Asahi to go kill whoever is controlling her(Because this whole time Asahi was mind controlled by Suirenji TOO MANY NAMES TO REMEMBER DAMN IT),and she immediately runs out to stab Suirenji with her arm(This time not wasting time like a total moron like she did earlier),and immediately snaps back to sanity after that...the girl that can fly on a broom(Named Mikari,good thing this one is easy to type),brings the injured girl back to the main group where the one that can heal(Kosame),is.
Remember Kaname's order?,to kill whoever was controlling Asahi?,yeah turns out the magic wand's power is not that precise since Suirenji is still alive but somehow Asahi didn't finish her...another plot hole?,the writer being dumb?,both?,who knows.

Anyway,still episode 9 here,the other girls are all located at a mansion where the girl with the sword lives(Named Sayuki),this one has an entire security service made of dozen armed men which is laughable against frigging magic...and guess what?,just as expected the men gets slaughtered easily by Kaname,just like that,who could have imagined?,I mean,beside anyone with half a brain...not to mention that the so-called "Genius" brother(He says so himself),could have used his power to turns those armed men into his personal army or just tell them to go away but remember me calling this anime violence porn?,yeah,bad things have to happen no matter what,who cares about logic?
Kaname gets into the room where all the girls(Including the one injured by Asahi),are located and immediately immobilize everyone by simply saying "Sit",and just like that a room full of magical girls it's child's play apparently.Good thing Kaname for some reason brought with him Nijimi,still mind controlled,because dozen of big armed men are useless to mind control but a little frail girl definitely worth bringing her over,yeah,sure;Anyway,turns out Suirenji who has been partially healed by Kosame barely manages to override Kaname's mind control and free Nijimi(Yeah she can apparently both read the mind AND control it),which in a fit of rage lunges as Kaname which reacts fast enough by slicing her with Sayuki's sword.
Nijimi falls to the ground but somehow manages to pull enough strenght to get up,break a glass bottle and stab Kaname in the throat,the same guy who 10 seconds ago reacted fast enough against a much healthier Nijimi who lunged at him yet somehow was caught of guard by a 90% dead girl the second time,okay,sure.
Kaname tries to heal himself with Kosame's magic wand but a mysterious invisible entity stops him.
When the other girls return to their senses Kaname disappeared and Nijimi is dead.

Episode 10,not much going on in this episode besides Sarina reappearing and joining with Aya against the site admins,seems like after discovering how they treated the magical girls that she had a change of heart and now she is one of the good guys,never mind what she has done to Aya or the people she has killed in the building collapse nahh forget about that it's all good now.There's Nijimi's funeral going on and all the magical girls attend to it,however the site admin has decided to get rid of all of them by making the whole place explode,which ultimately doesn't accomplish anything because Sarina had informed Aya of what was going to happen and also brought back the lost magic wands,including Aya's that allows her to teleport everyone away just before the explosion.
Oh,forgot to mention that Rina also tells Nijimi(At her funeral),that she is sorry for having killed her friend,yeah,a bit too late now to apologize with Nijimi being dead and stuff,not to mention the real victim is Nijimi's friend,Erika,but whatever,dead people don't complain anymore so,moving on.
Sarina have a talk with the rest of the magical girls and after Aya's proposal of basically taking on all site admins by herself with Sarina being denied because it was something so dumb even the characters of this anime could tell,they ultimately decide to do the smart thing and ally together.

Episode 11 more dumb stuff,this time the girls try to ambush one of the site admins but for some reason they let only Rina fight for most of the time with her original magic wand which is just...an hammer,yeah,an hammer,who doesn't really appear to be anything special other than maybe being lightweight and still striking like a "Normal" heavy hammer...nothing magic about it in other words,yet for SOME reason they decide that she is the one to fight against a site admin,with Aya and Yatsumura watching her just a few dozen meters away,you know,by now Yatsumura has her wand back,she could easily stop the time and kill anyone,but nope,because conveniently she has almost no mana left,Aya tries her best to not let her do anything...forget about the fact that anyone can use anyone else's wand,let's just leave the strongest wand in the anime to the girl that won't use it because she is out of mana,yeah,right,how more dumb this anime can get?,ohh,just you wait,it gets even dumber very soon.
Meanwhile,another group of magical girls that for some reason weren't with the others to ambush the site admin,rush to the place where the others are but gets stopped by another site admin,and a fight ensues.
Meanwhile,the main group,which also has Sarina I forgot to mention,finally starts to join the fight instead of watching Rina almost getting killed for no reason,and they quickly take down the site admin,which appears not to be an human as it doesn't bleed nor it feels pain,yet when it dies its outer shell breaks and it appears as if it's a young girl...okay,whatever,another site admin shows up and quickly injures Sarina,putting her out of the fight,and now...Yatsumura does the most stupid thing the universe of anime ever witness,she take her wand,you known,the strongest one in the anime,the one that can stop time,and she just points it at the site admin,instead of,you know,use it?,nahh!,let's just point it at the site admin which promptly hit the wand with a long distance attack(The same that had incapacitated Sarina moments before and that Yatsumura saw),and destroys it.

There are not words to describe just how baffled I am,the sheer,utter,gigantic stupidity of this anime is mind blowing,I'd ask "What were you thinking you hyper moron??" but I don't think Yatsumura had a reason to do it,she just did because the writer couldn't come up with anything intelligent to counter a time-stopping machine so he simply had it destroyed...great.
Yatsumura,which had hold herself back from using wands due to her low mana left,uses the other wand that creates a force field to protect Aya,Sarina and Rina,while she dies after running out of mana,why she didn't cast the force field so she was inside too? no idea!,not like it was important anyway,she would die anyway immediately after...whatever!

Anyway last episode...won't bother actually telling much of this one since it's a bunch of nonsense,the other group manages to kill the site admin;Yatsumura gets revived after the head of the site admins decides to make her a site admin,and she tries to kill Aya after her original time-stopping wand gets restored,somehow.Oh,her magic-stopping wand now doesn't stop time anymore,it just shoots energy projectiles which are incredible ineffective since they can't seem to severely damage an undefended Aya,makes sense!
Yatsumura "Somehow" snaps out of her trance and regains her personality,immediately facing against the site admin...Aya manages to kill the site admin by teleporting her in front of a moving train...right,how did she knows there was a train in that place in that exact same moment?,who knows! coincidence I guess? Anyway,as I said I don't want to talk much about this episode because it's...bah,there's tons of things hinting at a second season but I'm really not interested in watching anymore of this stuff...

To finish this review:This anime tries too hard at making the viewer care for incredibly psychopathic characters in incredibly twisted and messed up circumstances but tries so hard to it disconnects so much from reality and relatability that it's really hard to feel anything for the characters,making this excuse of a plot totally ineffective to convey a meaningful experience.

If you like seeing girls suffering and lots of senseless death while keeping your brain off, go have a look at this anime,otherwise stay away from this.

3 out 10

Well well...not well.

One thing I've learned recently that usually,anime whose plot is summarized in the title aren't really that good;My previous experience with another one called "Saikin Yatotta Maid ga Ayashii" really lighten up my conviction and this one really has established it as a rule of thumb now.

Komi-san can't Communicate or to put it short KCC is an attempt to mix water with oil,two liquids that simply don't mix,comedy and seriousness;KCC wants to be a comedy anime with a serious message about a certain psychological issue that prevents some people from speaking,making it a clear point at the beginning of each and every of ... the 12 episodes,in case the viewer forget or something - but just like water and oil,it simply fails at both,and here's why.

Komi,the main character,is supposed to be some sort of representative of people with social anxiety that struggle to make friends because they can't properly communicate...however,to put it bluntly and simply,she is simply absurd - if she wasn't for her struggle to speak she would be a Mary Sue from top to bottom,a perfect character that's literally worshiped by most...no,almost all of her classmates because she is simply visually beautiful to the point that nobody can resist her charm...very typical of anxiety-ridden people,have you identified with Komi yet? no? why? aren't you a Goddess-like beauty whose admired and supported by everyone:Classmates,friends and with a loving family? no? you mean your life isn't almost perfect? eh!...
...right,this is the main issue:They want to portrait Komi's issue as something she struggles with,but aside showing how she trembles when she tries to speak or she is nervous(And the visualization of her trembling appears more comical rather than serious),she doesn't really appear to be struggling at all in the anime,as said before,she is supported by literally everyone,nobody bullies her,she has no enemies,she literally have ONE problem and she doesn't appear she even try to overcome it - it's like she accepted that her illness,her clinical anxiety is her own very being and overcoming it meaning she won't be herself anymore...and thus she doesn't really try to fight it.
Surely if she can't speak her head is full of monologuing,right?,nope,the anime never gets into her mind;The viewer never knows if she is actually thinking or anything,she is mute both with her mounth and with her mind apparently...why? It could have been a way to show that Komi actually struggles,that actually thinks about her impact on other people,but no,she is presented like she would be in real life - we simply don't have access to her thoughts,assuming she has any.Even when she is alone she doesn't speak,you think someone who tries to overcome her anxiety would try speaking to a mirror or speaking at all,but nope,she trembles,she writes down when she really needs to communicate,and that's as far as her effort goes.

Now the characters...let's go one by one,starting with the supposedly main male character...

Tadano Hitohito
Tadano is...one of the most blank,bland and generic anime character I've seen in a while,it's the classic submissive no-personality guy who is only there to support the real main character;Tadano is not really worth talking because it's overall insignificant,even in the anime there's a scene where another character says that Tadano has almost no presence anyway,it's like he is not even there.

Komi Shouko
The star of the show,I think I already talked enough about her above so I don't really have much else to add...well personally I don't really like her design visually speaking,but that's really the least of my problem with this character,next...

Najimi Osana
Secondary character
I think he/she whatever this person is,IS the only decent character in the show,the only one that actually tries to push Komi outside her comfort zone by putting her in not ideal situations for her condition...although I think he goes too far sometimes it's clearly helping Komi 100 times more than the useless main male character whose name I already forget does.
Najimi is also the polar opposite of Komi,he is literally a walking social bomb,capable of making friends with everyone and it's super-duper energetic and charismatic,he should have been the main character,not the main guy,not the Mary Sue with anxiety,but him.

Ren Yamai
A yandere crazy girl that even kidnaps the main male character to get Komi's attention,she is...did I already say crazy?,yeah,she is a bit psychopathic and not even a funny one,really don't want spend more time talking about her because she is just annoying,heck,in a certain anime site she has less likes than Komi's mom for God's sake,that's just how unlikeable she is...

Himiko Agari
Support character
One of Komi's worshipers,some sort of clumsy masochist that's have a similar social anxiety but since she is not the main character, who cares about her anxiety? she is a walking joke and not really a funny one.

Omoharu Nakanaka
Support character
Some weirdo girl obsessed with role playing fantasy characters or something I don't even remember a scene-oh wait,I remember now a single scene with her and it's not really worth talking about as it's pretty bland,not as bad as Himiko still.

Meh,there are many other supporting characters that appear seldomly there and there but that have barely any screentime so,let's not waste time mentioning them.

To wrap it up,this anime simply fails at whatever it's trying to do,it's bland as a comedy and it's social message is really badly handed by a character that if wasn't for her physical beauty would probably get next to no attention and wouldn't get anywhere without the constant support and literal worship(Yes,her classmates literally refers her as "God"),she is a parody,and not a funny one.

If you take away the social message of this anime and you watch it solely for it's Slice of Life / Comedy value then the anime is...meh,it's bland,not particularly funny,but it has his moments from time to time...and that's it.

Imagine for a moment this story: A pre-teen girl lives alone in a large house/villa, one day a butler shows up and offers to work there for free - the girl accepts. The butler diligently works as a butler in the house in the following days, however, all the time he will throw winks and intrigued looks at the girl, often making allusions (albeit very veiled), of a romantic nature... done? Well, how did you find the idea of this story? Horrible? Inappropriate? Vulgar? I understand, now reverse the genders and imagine that the girl is instead a boy while the butler is a maid ... dressed in a uniform that exposes much of her chest and you have this anime.

This anime simply does not work, it tries to combine two genres (Ecchi and Slice of life), failing to work in either case. It’s not an ecchi because the allusions are too veiled and there are no accompanying visuals that can suggest more explicit themes; It’s not even a slice of life because... well yes maybe it’s a slice of life, but slice of life usually must have at least one of these characteristics:

- Have interesting characters
- Have a certain dose of comedy elements
- Have a very nice style and/or setting

Unfortunately, the anime has none of these elements; The comic elements are rare and weak, there was not a single scene that made me smile, let alone laugh; The setting is not nice especially for the generic graphics and for the design of the Maid more focused on a sexy vibe than a cutesy one... and as for interesting characters the maid could be the only vaguely interesting character since she holds a minimum of mystery about her relationship with the main character and why she offered to work for free at his house... however you can guess most of her motivations(if not all), well before the final episode which simply confirms all suspicions already widely provided up to then and therefore... adds nothing relevant in the end.

In the last episodes, a second maid is also added who however adds nothing new to the story and is present for too few episodes to build any relevance within the story that I forgot to say that it is practically almost non-existent or rather... has almost no development (which is however consistent with a slice of life).

The thing I don’t like is that despite everything, the basic idea could have actually work: A young woman who to show her gratitude goes to do housework for the son of her adoptive parents (deceased), and establishes an almost maternal relationship with said pre-adolescent son... this premise could work! ...if it weren’t for the fact that said maid throws continuous winks and double entendres with romantic vibes towards said boy and it’s simply... how to say... remember at the beginning what I said?, try to imagine that the boy was a girl receiving attention from a guy at least 8-10 years older than her and tell me if it seems appropriate... no, it just doesn’t work; The formula of this anime could work by completely removing the useless ecchi elements which are too weak to have any weight anyway, dress up the Maid with less provocative clothes and focus on a story of a master - maid relationship that slowly turns into something more akin of a parent-child relationship and... it could have been a nice story... instead no, instead there is this monstrosity that at its best is boringly passable but overall is simply plain and lukewarm.

Thinking about it, there is a secondary character who almost made me smile, a classmate of the protagonist who is completely taken in her head by the romantic stories she reads and who imagines who knows what crazy scenarios between the protagonist and his maid and... and it’s a character so absurd that it’s almost funny... this character, unlike the story of this anime, does not seek a compromise that can never work, but embraces the madness of an almost crazy character who imagines things so ridiculous that they almost make you laugh...

Oh, by the way, the title of this anime is practically the plot of 3/4 of the show: The maid I recently hired is suspicious... in fact, practically 80% of the jokes and situations are based on this premise, while the rest are based on the fact that the young protagonist practically doesn’t know what embarrassment is and therefore when he speaks he says things as he thinks them, making the maid feel embarrassed every time, who despite after 10 episodes, is still surprised by what comes out of the boy's mouth, as if by now she should know him more than well!.. moreover, the fact that she gets embarrassed by the words of a boy who is a little more than half of her age is quite pathetic... any vaguely adult person would not give too much weight to the words of a boy of the age and maturity of the character of this anime.

...for the rest there is no particular positive aspect in this anime, my advice is, if you are looking for a slice of life look elsewhere, if you are looking for an ecchi, look elsewhere, this is neither one nor the other, it’s simply a failed story that should have remained in some drawer somewhere.

“Many ideas, many confused ideas”

This review contains spoilers.

This sentence summarizes well what it was like for me to watch this short 6-episode anime that practically has the duration of a 90-minute movie.

Iriya is one of those stories where the “Mystery” component is handled in the worst way, not leaving the viewer unable to understand the mystery behind what they see, but instead taking away 30 IQ points from all participating characters, so that no one asks sensible questions or decides to spend 2 minutes investigating a bit how things are, that kind of fast food mystery, a kind of mystery with very precarious foundations, which ... only stands because everyone is stupid. However, the element of mystery is perhaps the best element of the entire anime, yes because the rest is even worse. This anime tries to forcibly insert too many subplots within its only 6 episodes available, which makes everything a mess, a continuous confusion, an alternation of scenes, actions for which there is no build-up and sometimes not even an after-scene, so you get the impression of seeing a series of almost disconnected scenes from each other.

But there is also worse in this anime, even wanting to ignore all the useless things that do not lead to any conclusion or development and focus exclusively on what in the last 2 episodes is understood to be the central point of the plot, one is still amazed by the incredibly poor execution with which everything happens. The most glaring thing and what annoyed me the most (and something I often notice in other anime), is how characters are theoretically extremely important (In this case, it seems that Iriya is so important that the fate of humanity literally depends on her), but at the same time extremely neglected or treated badly. Yes, Iriya has an undercover staff keeping an eye on her but... a staff that keeps an eye on what could be the salvation of humanity, but who gets tricked by a stupid teenager who manages to escape with the girl for a few days and lose their tracks, ok, fine, no, actually, not fine at all.

As practically always happens in these anime, those who should be the “Adults”, the guardians, those who should guide/help the teenagers, behave like teenagers themselves and do not seem to have a behavioral discipline worthy of mature people.

Iriya then has clear mental problems that are also perfectly understandable given her situation, but she also has several physical problems, episodes of random bleeding that it is not clear what they are due to or what caused them, which give more weight to the impression that this girl with the fate of the world on her shoulders is practically left to herself, alone with a teenager to live her adolescence despite all her problems.

There is a mini cast of secondary characters who practically do nothing useful in advancing the main plot, which is normally not a problem in a longer anime since it is still something that helps with world building, but when you only have 6 episodes you can’t afford the luxury of wasting time with secondary plots that don’t lead anywhere.

The main (male) character then is not even worth mentioning, he is the classic very bland character with almost no personality, with a predisposition tending towards the positive/generous without any particular facets.

Only during the last episode are some clarifications made in the plot, it is explained what one of the initial scenes was, what the intentions of the team that supervised (with poor skills) Iriya were, but it is not exactly clear what happens to Iriya herself in the end, it is known that she went to fight in the “Final Battle” and that (presumably) she won in the end, whether she survived or not is not clear, however.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention the entire sub-plot of the fight against the aliens and the war that is often mentioned in the anime but never takes center stage in the story, it remains a vital thing in the plot but remains in the background - you never see what happens on the battlefield or exactly what is being fought, not that this would have been particularly necessary, indeed it would have only weighed down the already confusing plot, however something so important should have remained more in the background and been less prevalent in the plot, because then it seems like you want to tempt the audience with a possible action scene but it is never shown.

Like many other anime, this is an anime that potentially could have been a nice experience but for various reasons, including its duration, direction and even its characters themselves make it a mediocre viewing to be avoided...

One of the few anime that I saw following a very positive brief mention about it, highly awarded by independent critics with an average score of 8.52 on MyAnimeList… however, my opinion is not as stellar about it.

This anime… in a way a better version of Violet Evergarden, that is an anime that relies heavily on feelings and sensations to compensate for substance and story, however unlike Evergarden this anime at least has a more consistent structure instead of going in all directions.

The main problem, as in many other anime (but this one in particular), is that a genre of narrative that requires so much ... emotional involvement from the viewer necessarily needs its time to cultivate… something that 13 episodes of 20 minutes cannot do; As intense as they can be, there is not enough time to build the four characters and develop a sense of attachment / involvement.

The premise of the story is very promising: Reaching the South Pole (or to be more precise: Antarctica), where the mother of one of the 4 main characters lost her life several years before, getting lost in a snowstorm in the middle of the Antarctic… to do this, a high school girl will do everything she can to accumulate both the money and the connections to be able to enlist in a civilian research expedition headed to Antarctica (an expedition of which many members were present in the expedition where the protagonist’s mother lost her life)… something that is obviously not taken for granted (but given the entire premise of the plot it was understood that in the end she would succeed).

In my opinion, however, the anime takes too much time to “take off”, with the actual expedition, so much so that only in episode 7 (of 13), the most “relevant” part of the journey begins, and only at the end of episode 9 do the protagonists finally arrive in the land of ice… basically, what should be the climax of the anime are just the last 4 episodes… 3 and a half if we remove half of the last one.

I understand that as in many cases it is not important the destination but the journey but… in this case the anime does not hold back from strongly anticipating the destination and not the journey… so you are a bit perplexed when, apart from one scene, nothing particularly relevant happens / occurs when finally the protagonists have arrived at their destination.

This anime, for its premise, should have been much longer, at least 25-30 episodes, this curse of having to box an anime into only 12-13 episodes is really ruining the animation adaptation of great stories that are reduced to a quick summary…

Despite these intrinsic weaknesses, this anime still manages to represent a nice story, albeit short; But devoid of a strong emotional impact, which being the backbone of the story, makes the final result well below its potential, what a pity…

[This review refers to the episodes only,since I haven't seen the movie / OVA yet]
[This contains spoilers]

"Missing opportunity" are the two keywords here.

Violet Evergarden(Abbreviated henceforth as "VE"),is the story of a war orphan girl that takes place right after the war ended;A war where said orphan was used as soldier(Often she specifically was referred as a"Tool",a term never used for all other soldiers for some reason),and in which she lost both of her arms in the last battle she was in before the end of the war.

From the very start,it's clear that the girl,named Violet,is in love with her Major(Her military captain),which even reveals to ... love her as well before the last explosion that supposedly kills him and sends Violet unconscious for a long period.

There's a myriad of problems already,the kind of problems that I wouldn't even bother pointing out if this anime wouldn't take itself so seriously.

Let's start with Violet herself and how she was "Found" in some raided village at the age of ... 6? 8? maybe 10? she looks fairly young,it's not specified her age however so it's just guesswork.

[Problem]It was never explained how Violet got labeled as "Tool" so early in the story,literally as soon as she was introduced as a child the other guy who sent her called her a "Tool" and nothing else,barely acknowledging her humanity.
It was never explained,so the viewer is just bound to assume that any war orphan is automatically taken as some sort of special soldier who gets to be trained in the art of combat and warfare,even if it's a very young girl,if that makes sense to you.

[Problem]Violet doesn't have a name
Violet was named so by the major who took her,despite clearly not being a toddler,despite she should be already capable of speaking her language(Whatever her original language she was),apparently she either got amnesia(How convenient),or in her culture people aren't assigned names until later in life(Again,very convenient).Why don't just let the girl's name just be "Violet" from the start?,what's with this weird "I'm giving you a name at the age 10 since obviously your parents never bothered"? doesn't make much sense.

[Problem / Missed Opportunity]There's no subtlety in the love between Violet and the Major
Since the very start,it's quite clear that Violet is head over heels for the major,despite him being more a father figure since he literally adopted and raised her,whatever,that's not the main issue here;The main issue is how something potentially more interesting,narratively speaking,was instead laid out from the start without subtlety.
It could have been more interesting,in my opinion as a writer myself,if it was only hinted at first and revealed later that Violet had feelings for the major,one of the appeal of a gift or a present is the mystery,the unpacking,here one of key component of the plot is just laid bare in your face,okay,next problem:

[Problem]Technological inconsistency
While the anime looks like taking place in a earth-like world on a technological level of past the first world war,Violet gets mechanical prosthetic arms,so good of a prosthetic that she will later use them as natural as her own original arms,well,at the very least the anime shows Violet having some troubles adapting at first.
The problem is,in case it's not obvious,we don't get so advanced mechanical prosthetic arms in 2022,yet Violet has post world war 1,a level of technology that is unmatched in the rest of the anime,it's never shown something that gets even just close to the technological level Violet carries around.
Other than these arms being very precise and very natural to use,they also appear to be stronger than human arms,as Violet is showns in a few feats that no normal human can do,granted that she was a special soldier and everything,but pretty sure that she lost all her arm's muscles when she lost...the arms;And right on this note,let's move to the next problem,which is also related to her arms...

[Problem]How do you even...???
How does someone gets her arms both blown out by a gun / rifle,gets no medical treatment,falls unconscious for a whole night AND still survive?
Is Violet some sort of super human? It's shown in the first episode but more in details in a later episode how Violet had her arms exploded off her body by gunshots,yet she doesn't....die of blood loss....how??? Is she Wolverine?

[Problem]The weirdest decision ever
So turns out that Violet,after her miraculous recovery,does indeed look like a tool,a soulless one.Violet appears to have almost no personality and her modus operandi is to just follow orders from her superiors,especially her beloved major,who revealed to her that he is indeed also in love with her(One of his last words were literally "I love you").
The problem? Violet doesn't really understand what "I Love You" means,so she goes on a discovery journey where she offers herself to work as an "Auto Memory Doll",which is basically a scribe for those who can't write or who needs to write elaborated letters to someone(In most cases her loved ones).
While I just said these "Dolls" are basically scribe,they do have an intense work of "Interpreting" whatever the client is saying and put it in a very nice,elegant way,a metaphorical ribbon on top if you prefer....turns out that at first Violet is completely uncompetent at her job,who would have imaged that the girl that grew in a military environment as an orphan with almost no concept of feelings who picks a job that requires put feelings into words would suck? Yeah,it makes no sense,her justification? She wants to learn what the words "I love you" means...which is like if I didn't know how to drive a car,and I wanted to learn,the first thing I would do is to enlist myself as formula pilot and have me sent to a race,does that makes remotely any sense to you? it doesn't to me.

[Problem]A crammed story?
The first 4-5 episodes I realized that to flesh out a proper story about the girl slowly reclaiming her humanity lost in the war,there should be a proper timing,it's not something you can rush,it needs a slow development,and the anime is only 14 episodes long.
Little did I know that the narrative isn't exactly as I expected,its rather a collection of separate small stories regarding various side characters(During the first episodes),and completely one-time characters in the others(I'm going to talk more about this in another paragraph).
So the story...is not really cramped at all,you could easily remove 2-3 episodes and someone who doesn't know the anime wouldn't notice.
Furthermore,one could say that 90% of the story literally is already well exposed in the first 2 episodes,and doesn't get anywhere from there,it barely goes forward around episode 8-9 with one small revelation(To Violet,not the viewer),gets stuck for an episode,and then goes as normal for the remaining 2 episodes very small development.

[Problem / Missed Opportunity]The Major's (most probably) death
So at the start of the anime is revealed that the only person that Violet ever cared for,the major of her military unit,dies(Or at least it's believed so),and she doesn't get the news as the only people who know it doesn't have the courage to tell her as she acts like the Major is the center of her world,as he probably is/was.
This is yet another missed opportunity since you could have made so even the viewer was kept in the dark about the Major's fate,maybe just hinting very subtlety that he was in fact dead,this...would have help keeping the viewer more engaged to the story,to give the viewer some suspense,some mystery,but nope;Just like how it's never kept hidden the love of Violet towards the Major,so it's never kept hidden the fact that he is dead,at least to the viewer,so...the viewer is fully aware of something that could have been a surprising "Big Revealing",but nah,we leave the strong emotions to the character Violet,the viewer only gets to see,not experience anything - it's like when you go watch a movie where everyone already spoiled you all the plot,that's how's like watching Violet Evergaren(VE).

[Problem]The pacing is all over the place
Normally,you would think that a story has a natural progression that goes from start to finish,and has a clear narrative structure...not so much here.
The anime starts as a very clear-cut narrative of a girl recovering her humanity using the job of a "Doll",a scribe that writes letters for other people...instead,this narrative quickly shift from Violet to pretty much everyone else under the sun,every episode after 2 is just someone else's story and problems but Violet,and after some more episodes it's not even Violet co-workers anymore,it's random people requesting Violet's services as Doll.The narrative finally gets back into focus Violet for a couple of episodes and then again goes telling other people's stories,the last episode feels like a filler episode with barely anything relevant to the main plot.
So it's not very clear what the narrative is,if it's really about Violet or if she is just a silent witness(Like the viewer),of other people's stories...overall,the focus on her is very limited.

[Problem]A sudden narrative jump
As expected,Violet is pretty incompetent at writing letters at first,she does seem to only be able to write "As it is" whatever people tell her,without any transformative effort,however,in the span of literally a couple of episodes,she goes from incompetent to being summoned by the princess of a Kingdom for a very delicate international affair,because apparently Violet become so good in the span of 2 episodes that's now a world-wide famous Doll,a baffling developement that left me confused about "Did I miss a couple hundred of episodes? oh it came to this all of the sudden??".

[Problem]You don't really need feelings to convey feelings apparently
You would think that by now,since Violet has become such a world-wide famous Doll,she finally recover her humanity and she has a deep understanding of humans emotions and all the other good stuff,but you'd be wrong - on that camp,Violet has still made almost no progress whatsoever,still being an (un)emotional girl who can't even smile or emotionally react to anything,yet,apparently,she is able to write love letters,and very good ones at that.
It's like the author didn't really want to bother to give the whole "Doll development" a proper narrative so he skipped a dozen of steps there while still keep Violet the person she is.

[Problem]There's just gratuitous sadness
As already mentioned,most of VE is about other people's stories and problems rather than violet.These side stories are most of the times sad if not full on tragedies.The problem with tragedy is that they rely on the viewer's empathy and attachment to whoever the tragedy is affecting - this is very hard to do in VE where all these characters only existing within one episode and then just disappear;As a viewer,you're supposed to get attached to these character in the span of an half episode,and then spend the other half grieving about them - that's just too cheap and personally never worked once.
In case it wasn't clear enough:The anime relies way too much on these short one-off stories where you're supposed to feel anything towards these nobodies in which you had no time to even remotely gets attached to:The anime spoon-feed to you these stories and you're just supposed to shut up and enjoy it - that only works for hentai and porn in general,if you wanna write an emotional story,you need to get the viewer attached to the protagonists,such super short stories simply don't work unless you're a very emotional and easy to manipulate person.

[Problem]Violet isn't a super soldier as everyone treats her
It has been pretty clear since episode one that Violet,while lethal in close range,it's just a very agile girl that can deal with anyone as long as it's in close range...she is as vulnerable to bullets as everyone else.
There's a scene on episode 11 where a group of soldiers simply give up fighting her and turn around and go away after their captain realizes who Violet is - this is utterly ridiculous as anyone of those soldiers could around and shot her from the distance with a rifle - ironically,this is exactly what happened just a scene earlier in the episode,where this group of soldiers hunts down an enemy soldier by shooting him to death by afar using a sniper rifle - why they couldn't do the same with Violet is anyone's guess.
The thing about Violet being much less of a monster becomes super clear on Episode 13 where a single man with a pistol almost destroy her arms - with a simple gun;The same man and a group of soldiers couldn't take down Violet an episode earlier because the galaxy brains,while fully armed with rifles decide to go in melee range to hit Violet instead of using their goddamn rifles and just shoot her - that was too hard wasn't it?

[Problem]Probably the most ridiculous scene
I just want to remind you that the problem with this anime is that it takes itself too seriously,that's why it cannot afford such absurdity as the one I'll be mentioning now.
On episode 13,one of Violet's co-workers and barely a secondary character at that(Since he doesn't have a dedicated episode like other two female co-workers),is being alerted that there are two bombs on a rail bridge(He is on a moving train with other characters),that are about to explode;While Violet goes detach one bomb from the bridge,this other man,which is basically a postman,not a soldier like Violet or some athlete,runs down the train(Which is stopping as someone pulled the emergency brakes),runs down the bridge,jumps down the bridge(Yes you read that right),kicks the bomb that's attached on one of the bridge's pillars,in mid air(Yes you also read that right),and then stops himselfs by grabbing on one of the many metal bars,in mid air,with ONE hand(Yes you keep reading it right),easily climbs back up,then goes grabbing Violet just in time before she falls of the bridge,yes that's actually a scene,you'd expect to see that in some crazy action movie but no,you see it on a super serious anime.

[The one semi original episode]
Episode 10 is probably the best one(Even if the bar is not that high to begin with);In this episode the epilogue is semi original and for once the viewer isn't immediately informed of what was going on during this episode,leaving him with some sense of surprise(Finally,should have do this in every episode),so when the epilogue what all those letters were about and how they were gonna be delivered,it was a nice closure.
Despite the good epilogue,this episode 10 like others is way too filled with highly emotionally charged moments that try too hard to make the viewer cry.

[Not really going forward]
After finally Violet finds out that the Major is "Missing in action" and pretty much declared dead,she doesn't really get over her grief,instead,a few episodes later it's revealed that she thinks that the Major is still alive somewhere,this because his body was never recovered so,there's the slightest hope that it may true;However,it feels more like despite all the supposed growing that Violet has gone thru,there hasn't been a real evolution about her,as by the end of the anime she still clings on the memory of the man she loved(Although she doesn't know what love means after all this time for some reason).

[Episode 14's voice actor was something else]
The singing scene(Not the first one,the one near the end of the episode),was clearly performed by a professional,it was well above the average voice actor.

[The visuals]
The anime has quite beautiful artworks,especially when it comes to the scenery,very good stuff;The animation is okay,not on par with the visuals but acceptable.Don't know about the sound unless it's exceptional I don't even notice it's there,so I'm guessing that's okay too.

The only good thing about the story was the whole twist of Azalie not being the damsel in distress but a borderline antagonist until the every end when she is persuaded to switch to the "good side" again.

Aside from that very specific core of the plot, everything else was bad, bad bad and bad.

The characters first of all are mostly rubbish:

Orphen is the generic MC with mostly no flaws aside from some teenager crisis there and there

Cleao is useless, totally, completely, utterly useless of a character, she does nothing except making the situation worse in some episodes even.

Majic... the only good thing about Majic that ... makes him slightly better than Cleao is that at the very least he carries Orphen's bags, so at least he tries to be useful.

Lekki is useless, she is just there to sell merchandises and making annoying noises.

Childman is the classic "Good person that sucks at explaining himself", if he had be more direct and tell Orphen everything from the start things would have been 300% easier, but then the whole plot wouldn't happen so...make your character act like an idiot because you cannot write a natural way to make the plot happen.

Azalie is a horrible person that made a huge mess and then got angry when she thought Childman was trying to kill her; I'm sorry, but Azalie aka Bloody August at the beginning of the show was attacking random villagers, does ANYBODY remember that? How many people did she kill? How many lives did she ruin? she well deserved to be killed, such a stupid entitled brat.

The two dwarves - if there was such a thing as cancer characters in a story - these two are just that, they're the annoyance incarnate, their only role in the story is to just cause troubles and be utterly insufferable, I simply hate them.

The sound is generic and repetitive - there is a sound effect of a dragon's cry that is used like 30 to 40 times throughout the anime, always the same effect repeated, so frigging annoying, considering it takes so little work to alter the same sound effect just a little so not make it sound exactly the same shows just how crappy was the sound director here,shame on him/her.
The only good thing about the sound is the ending music "Last Kiss" which is the only thing I remembered of this anime when I watched it in the late 90's

The art direction is awful, God knows just how much I hate stereotypical ambience to try to improve the pathos of emotions in a scene - why the stupid damn moon is always full when it's needed to be in the shot? why in that episode there are like 30 thunder sounds in 30 seconds just to accommodate the drama of the moment? why Orphen in that episode have to walk all the way to the end of a cliff to stare at the sunset? Because otherwise it won't be the stereotypical scene of the character pondering in the distance like, can you be any more stereotypical than this?

Overall, super boring anime, hard pass.

This review contains spoilers

As other people have already noted, this anime has a good idea for a premise, a decent setup... and that's the end of good things going for it.
Okay that was a bit of an exaggeration but yeah, the anime fails miserably into capitalizing into his own idea.
There are many problems in this anime;First of all is the number of characters,which is a problem for a 22 episode anime since you simply don't have enough time to build each character - and that's exactly what it happens,most of the characters ended up feel generic and dull,even the main female character(Selesia),feels like she have ... a personality made in an assembly line - the only two characters that have an almost decent err "Character build" are the magical girl one and the chaotic neutral one whose power is in her talking,apparently,both have relatively short screentime,one of them even leaves the show before the first half,leaving me with no interesting character for the whole second half.

Another thing that it's plain bad about this anime is just how much it fails to live to it's own hype,it's own lore;Most of the characters are quite annoyed that their battles and suffering was all for entertainment's sake,yet the anime itself have no problem glorifying battles and stuff them even when there could be easy way around.
Then there are all the plot holes that the anime fills in the most lazy and blatant way by literally making stuff at the moment,making things happen out of thin hair - and even tries to make it sound less bad by stating that you can't make things up without an audience that accepts it yet every single time the audience accepts it like a bunch of NPCs...right.

There's an incredible lack of self-awareness generally,at one point one of the secondary characters dies and the villain says pretty much"Too bad you're not a main character you never stand a chance",and I was like"Yeah thank you for telling me you didn't even try to subvert my expectations"...
...the main antagonist is the embodiment of making stuff up,she has virtually unlimited powers and comes up with stuff on the stop,making her getting out of any predicament just like that - it's just lazy writing at its finest.

The only one time I was mildly surprised was when one of the main characters died...but I was kinda glad it happened since it made the story more bearable,not because I had something against that character in particular,but only because it made the story less bloated than it already was.

The dialogues are atrocious,they're just exposition monologues and they're endless,during the fights,there's the "Fight and talk" cliché happening all the time (e.g. 1 attack then talk,1 another attack then more talking,etc.) - there's even an episode that feels like a company meeting to plan next year strategy it's laid down in the most un-compelling way possible it made the show so hard to watch.

The finale is just as bad as the rest of the anime,again using the "Making stuff up" card by literally bringing back from the dead a real life human as a creation...rightttt,and despite the antagonist going full well that she is just an imitation,not the real person,she...goes along with it and all ends well!...lol,really,sure,whatever,make stuff up,terrible plot.

(Contains minor spoilers)

KonoSuba was quite the surprise to me, having jumped on this without even knowing what I was getting into.
This anime is a fantasy / comedy with lots of nonsensical-type gags that may be not everyone's type of humor but of which I found it very funny more times than not; Although the gags are nothing too original and a certain character (Darkness) is too repetitive (Literally has one single characteristic that defines her as a whole) it's overall a pretty laid back no-tension type with some random adventure elements mixed it and a pretty generic and not-really-important background story that seems to be ... just a pretext for just stuff to have an end goal.

The anime has quite some eccentric moments and the overall pace is quite off as you don't ever get a sense if this is more of an adventure-type, a slice-of-life of some sort, or some "Random crazy things happens" genre like Nichijou - one episode the characters just go out for a random quest while the next episode they're fighting one of the generals of the generic evil final boss that's never show in Season 1 or 2 or in the movie - he is only mentioned... which would normally give its character an element of mistery but in this case it's gonna be probably some random weirdo; One of the things that this anime lack is any sort of thrill as not even death is permanent so you never really care about the character's safety during the "Adventure-type" scenes / episodes - it's overall just goofy action scenes or gags, probably more effective for a younger audience than a more mature one.

The graphic is decent, nothing special, not bad nor good; The sound is meh, the fact that I can't remember a single tune from this anime probably means it was so generic it never stuck on me; The story is meh, not really important, forget about the story, you just sit and try to enjoy the humor if it works, great, if not, you won't find much else in this anime.

The movie is one hour and an half long episode that pretty faithful with the other 2 anime seasons and does an overall good job with giving you more of the same, which is good in this case.

Overall it is a great anime to watch with your brain shut off, expect a moderate to high amount of ecchi jokes and gags towards the end of the first season and there and there in the second and in the movie; It doesn't really pick up the pace until half of the first season as not all 4 main characters are introduced until then, but from there onward it's pretty much the same overall quality and tone.