Jeoffrey

So there is a magical school, big CGI beasts threatening humanity, girls with special abilities and powers, and a single boy among them. To top it all off, a "transfer student" arrives and claims to be the main male protagonist's fiancée. There are just too many tropes in this show for my taste, so I was not so much into it. Moreover, there are badly designed dragons. For example, White Leviathan looked like a turtle and a narwhal mating product, so he looked more comical than scary to me. Plus, when I saw Basilisk with his "Catastrophe”, I had to laugh out loud. I thought Iris, Tear, and Mitsuki were good. The main male protagonist is quite bland, and the only thing I like about him is that he is nice to the girls. A certain part of me that likes cute anime girls would like to give this some nice ratings. However, all the other parts of my personality prevent it. My brain tells me something about the plot being superficial crap full of various tropes; my eyes tell me that the "dragons" are unwatchable, except maybe my ears are quite satisfied because the soundtrack is quite good. Furthermore, even pride is not going to let me give this show more than a better two stars this time. However, I must also add that I will watch the next season if it comes out because the other part of me wants to know how it turns out with the cute Tear and some other equally cute girls.

Death Parade is totally awesome. It has an interesting theme, good atmosphere, it is imaginative (and I really enjoyed reading reviews and speculations of other reviewers about how it actually turned out and why it was so). In the third episode, the anime’s creators are obviously no strangers to making shows touching and moving. I thought it was an awesome show due to the charismatic Decim and the way they gradually reveal the backstory of the mysterious brunette who assists him. Even the ending is good, in my opinion, and I liked it a lot. What is also awesome, in my view, and I have to give it a shout out, even though others have done it, is the opening, which, while it suits the overall feel of this anime series about as well as a laugh at a funeral, has a very nice piece of music. In conclusion, if I take all the anime series from this winter’s releases and subtract all the follow-ups (sequels, season two, etc.), then I can safely say that of the new anime series, Death Parade is clearly the best, in my opinion. So I will award it a well-deserved 9/10.

Silly old me, I thought that otaku people were usually on the fringes of society. Yet, in this show, I was presented with a male protagonist who considers himself an outsider and only interested in his otaku world. However, he is supposedly a celebrity in his school. He is lusted after by the prettiest girls in the whole school too. Though one can understand that since both girls are somewhat close to being otaku too, they know the protagonist well. It is all the more interesting to watch Tomoya Aki’s interactions with Megumi, who again is far from being an otaku, plus she is extremely dispassionate. She can be described as boring to a certain extent. It gave me a pretty interesting insight into otaku culture and brought out some rather charming characters. In my view, this is not a bad show, and it got better as it went on (and I was about to drop it after episode 0, which could be compared to a not-so-good and rather cliched OVA). However, it did not grab me enough to award more than a better three stars.

Initially, this show seemed interesting, and it seemed to have a decent narrative, with some interesting characters. However, I got bored with it quite quickly as it went on. It was becoming more and more predictable and uninteresting. The ecchi aspect, which I had previously thought was very good, quickly got old. It seemed they needed to force something erotic in at any cost. They are quite inappropriate too and crop up at the wrong moment. So within a couple of episodes, I thought this anime series dropped from a strong three stars to a weak two stars. Fortunately, the ending was not bad, and I might give the second season this October a go after all. 4/10.

Miritari! is pretty mad and stars little girls with army weapons and equipment. I thought it was quite cute. Occasionally I even got a slight chuckle out of something and since the running time of one episode is only four minutes, it does not bother me. However, it did not give me anything other than the above, and this is not satisfying enough to make it at least an average show, so it is only worth two stars.

I agree that the main male protagonist and the plot, in general, are a very boring retread of things we have seen a million times before. Likewise, I can subscribe to the statement that the animation is nothing spectacular, albeit inoffensive. I think the soundtrack is also pretty much flawless, and the opening is pretty good. However, as for the terrible dubbing, I did not notice that with my good hearing, and I thought the dialogues were OK. And so I cannot even agree with the final rating as BOO! because I believe it is still watchable with the caveat that I think it is boring. Because it is nothing new, I think it deserves one star although I will award it two; I guess you want to know why? Well, it is because of Julia. Characters who are strange, somehow emotionless, and give the impression that someone has to take care of them, so the viewer has sympathy for them, manage to wrap me around their finger and keep me intrigued. Plus, I found her endearing "Yā“ and "Nai" quite charming as well. Of course, once again, it is nothing new, and there have been a huge number of such twisted clueless little girls in anime series. The creators of Shiro from No Game No Life and Mashiro from The Pet Girl of Sakurasou perfected this type of character. However, I have not gotten over these little girls yet. So I will award this show two stars, even if they are very weak.

I like fantasy adventure, which is action-packed. However, this anime series is not very good. There is one trope on top of another. The main male protagonist is just another generic jerk who the girls around him do whatever they want, and he does not care. He has ideals and is determined at the right moment. I could probably tolerate a lot of the nonsense and craziness in this show (it is a fantasy adventure, after all), although I would like to shoot the people who wrote the dialogues and chose the music, and hide their bodies. Some of the dialogues are insane, and some of the interactions are awful. When one of the supporting characters said to Moroha's line "But there has to be a catch" something like, "So you are not just strong, but smart too," I thought of Chuck Norris and his Total Gym commercial (and his famous lines "You must be a big tough guy" and "Yeah, the biggest, trust me") and despaired. As far as the soundtrack is concerned, there are many things wrong with that too; I would not bother with the crazy and awful opening; it can be skipped. The music itself, which is meant to support the plot, is often completely inappropriate and disturbing. The worst part for me is when Satsuki does something supposedly funny, accompanied by music that sounds like something from a very old Super Mario Bros game, and my ears hurt. I agree with the argument about the one nice theme from episode three onwards in the romantic scenes with Shizuna and Moroha (and later almost every other emotional scene). However, I still only found one musical theme out of about five good, which is not enough. Oh, and while I am listing things I could not give a damn about, I have to throw in Satsuki herself. I like girls who are ready for action and maybe even hyperactive, although I have a hard time with hysterics, and let's face it, Satsuki is a hysterical show-off. So to not just criticize, I will mention some tolerable and maybe even good things, justifying the one star. The animation is OK for the most part, and while it does have WTF moments like, for example, the Russian assassin "Maneater," I wondered about her right eye, which is on her hair (I mean, the eye covers her hair). I liked the dragon, and I would like to print it and go and beat the illustrators who designed the dragons at Unlimited Fafnir to death with a picture of it. Occasionally there is a good musical bit (cf. above), and as far as the characters are concerned, the likes of Shizuno and the way she knocks out Satsuki is OK too. Moroha himself has moments here and there where I did not find him very funny. I do not mean the ones where he "remembers," or when he beats his opponent with a snap of his fingers, but rather when some girl says something like "honey, come on." and he calmly replies, "why not?" or when he kidnaps a princess through a window. In conclusion, every once in a while, something shines in the pile of garbage, and for myself, I would say it is one weak star, especially for Shizuno. 2/10.

I thought this was a great show. The perfect combination of comedy and cuteness is not boring for a moment. You realize the characters are great after a few episodes. I have to highlight the adorable Chiyo, "Osaka", who is very strange and cute in her way, Tomo who is completely insane, and the similarly wacky teacher Yukari, and finally, Sakaki, who likes animals (especially cats) even though they do not like her. Also worth mentioning is the opening, as the music captures the character of this anime series, and I have not heard something so weirdly wacky yet interesting in a long time. I am totally satisfied. 10/10

Look for cuteness and nothing but cuteness in this anime series. It is simply a story about young girls who "even though they were used to speaking a different language and had slightly different habits, they could still be friends if they spoke and listened with their hearts." Sometimes cuteness is enough, and a show can touch my heart; unfortunately, that did not happen here. Also, I rarely found it funny. I think it was because this anime series was trying to be as cute as possible all the time, and so the cuteness was just too much in the end. So, while it maintained its attractive and pleasant feel, it did not hit me very deeply emotionally. Plus, there was some rather childish simplistic humor that sometimes works, although, in this show, it only made me smile sometimes. The girls were nice and sweet, but none of them managed to impress me. To sum it up, it was an enjoyable anime series, but it did not leave any deeper impression.

Because I played basketball in high school and enjoyed it back then, I enjoyed the third season of Kuroko’s Basketball. Sure once again, we get new players with superhuman talent that even the NBA gentlemen probably dream of, and their fights and gimmicks are again the main drivers of the show’s plot; however, it has a good vibe, the characters and their interactions are still interesting, and I found myself regularly coming back to the feeling, while watching, that basketball is actually a great game, so definitely a great show for me, and Kuroko’s Basketball is my favorite sports anime series along with Haikyu!! (because I also played volleyball in high school).