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What makes a hero ?

Kenji Nakamura, known for his iconic works like Mononoke and Tsuritama, and Tatsunoko Productions packed this and some other questions into a new original story loosely based on the old Gatchaman series way back in the 70s. The delivered product transcends that and provides a fresh story appropriate to our current timeline and technological advance. The first episode of this series could determine whether you'll be packed by the sheer amount and intensity of the conversations or irritated by the whole concept and drop it. Be sure you'll miss something if dropping, but this anime isn't made for everybody. In fact ... it's a glimpse into an impossible future, another dimension to mankind.

The story and premise look very common. A show featuring main characters who're able to transform themselves into super heroes with special suits and then fighting evil objects threatening the citizens of Tachikawa City and even the city ifself. This foundation is the only common thing, because something rather new is created on many other levels. The story starts with the selection of the main heroine Hajime as a Gatchaman. She brings up a new wind into the existing team with her extraordinary personality and different perspectives, but later more on that. Before she joined Leader Paiman and his crew, they were much more one-sided and executed every step by the rules. It seems like they never thought about what it actually means to have the responsibility of being such an entity.

After Hajime joined, the story begins to unfold and question many main aspects of society and cooperation between human beings. In this world a program called GALAX exists and it connects people from all over the city and world via internet on their smartphones. Its main use consists of helping people in need by providing support from plain citizens like you and me. At first it might seem random and fetched, but you'll have to delve into the course of action to understand the way the characters think and act. Inevitably you'll start to question those aspects, to question your way of living and to question the concept of society itself. This story brings a lot with it and one can only profit from watching as well as understanding the plot.

I'll jump right to the characters to make this more more fluid. To start right off the bat, Hajime's a really controversial protagonist. She's one of the most genki-themed characters ever made and this is one of the main reasons you'll either like or dislike her and the whole anime. There're enough people that agree that no one needs a protagonist who is happy 24/7 is a pain in the ass. The crazy thing is it still works out on the base of the story, because Hajime is not acting inconsiderate or rash, but thinks about the situation and tries to change it to the better in her own way. The insane I'll throw rainbow unicorns into your face way. Still the liking'll stand or fall depending on the light Hajime is seen in.

Every other member of the gatchaman crew possesses a unique personality to contribute to the advance and pace of the story. Especially the thoughts of the sweet pandaman leader Paiman're emphasised throughout the course. Likewise the more supporting characters like O.D. or Utsutsu share their contribution and determination to help fight the bad guys. One interesting point is the question whether those guys or things are really bad and evil. Initially those are fought, but Hajime trys to convince them of other ways of fighting. Every character undergoes his and her own development regarding the real purpose of gatchaman. Something like this is amazing on different levels.

The animation and art has a nice and clean quality and the character designs are lovely to watch. Personally I really like the hair designs, because this provides the extra eye candy and highlights of the faces. Each gatchaman battle suit has its own design and acts singular in comparison to the others. The action scenes're well animated and various passages with a calm or tense feel evoke that exact emotion. The colours're vibrant and always nice to look at. An anime worth watching on that level.

Nearly the best thing about this show's the sound, though. The OP and ED songs're iconic which makes up for a great start. My bias side says that the OST in this series's extremely awesome. A mix of opera and new vibes of dubstep merged together. How cool is that ? Always resounding at the right time and place. All along the atmosphere changes with the music and you may find yourself sympathizing with the happenings just because of the tone of the music. Along with the music, the voice acting's tremendously memorable and the actors're killing the performance. Special props to Mamoru Miyano. Nearly everyone's giving their everything to portray the characters so realistically so you would most likely get lost in this superior magnificence.

Gatchaman Crowds is an anime to love and to hate. The enjoyment is based on how much the characters are appealing to the audience and to what extent they find the story either motivating and interesting. Plenty of matters're attempted to work out. And it works. Some of these matters may remain unsolved and are left to decide for the viewer, but maybe this could be too much mystery so don't expect everything to be chewed and answered for you. Make up your mind and think for yourself. You don't have a brain for nothing. After you've finished watching you'll probably either love or hate it, or even both at the same time. Gatchaman Crowds remains memorable and clearly recognisable for the perseverance of telling this kind of a story. Even if you come to dislike it, you'll have been thinking enough to come to this conclusion. Mission achieved.

This is a story about books.

Dog & Scissors starts somewhat promising on its own terms. Nowadays you don't happen to see a story like this unfold and there might be a good reason for this, because it's condemned to be an unsuccessful attempt at creating something unique.

There's acutally a story given to this series. The writer Akiyama Shinobu's trying to finish the last book of the collection of The Seven Deadly Sins. On the other hand the bookworm Kazuhito has a passion for every book and writer in the world, especially for Shinobu and he wants to read this last book badly. So badly, that ... the day he dies in a robbery where he protects a woman, he doesn't accept death and is resurrected as a dachshund dog. After coincidences occur he happens to live together with his favourite writer. The problem of the plot is that it's not going anywhere from that point on. Strange things happen and are resolved even stranger. The promise of an absurd and random comedy wasn't exaggerated, but it's just too random.

The first three episodes always introduce new things and aspects. Jokes, characters and a random diversion of the story. After this the anime goes on repeat and all these things don't change a lot. This might feel like an infinite loop of repetition that finishes after 12 episodes. So the only thing to expect in the next episode is how they repeated old jokes again.

Rarely the animation feels a little bit off, but overall the quality's good and fluent. At times there're even references to other animes and they're built in pretty well. The spectrum embraces cute illustrations with serious animation. Nothing more to say about the art here.

Even less to say about the sound. The best thing about this anime is Marina Inoue and her performance, even though it's often forced at times that doesn't justify she's bad. She's awesome and a pleasure to hear. The OP song might be sinister, but I like to hear it and it's one of my favourites this season. Altogether the sound in the show's nothing special, though.

The shiniest aspects of Dog & Scissors are the characters and there're quite a few really singular personalities. But just because an anime has distinguishable characters won't make them any good or even likeable. So Akiyama Shinobu is revealed as Kirihime Natsuno, a 20 year old best selling author who lives alone and has a foible to torture other people with her scissors. Kazuhito ends up as a dog living in her apartment and even though he's a dog Natsume can read his mind. Why ? Because speaking dogs are terrifying, but however. There's about none character development ongoing and everyone seems to finish off as they were in the beginning. At last there's a really strange love story happening between them. I want to say see for yourself, but really don't.

From episode to episode more characters join the story of those two. They truly differ as everyone has an unique personality, but most of this personality stays the same for everyone and is always the same in every single episode. It's like noone even wanted to give them proper development and thought this was a good idea. It was not. It's tremendously bad.

You can compare the enjoyment of this anime to your enjoyment of eating really hot wasabi. It's a really small pleasure to watch this weekly in a season, but if I imagine to watch more than one episode at a time I'd rather take the wasabi. This story was about books, but after watching it I don't feel any smarter or more educated about books. It's the opposite. I feel like I've forgotten books I read because of the plain stupidity. If you enjoy bad repetitive jokes, strange and awkward characters, a story with no plot and/or love between humans and dogs this might be something to watch for you.

Overall Dog & Scissors's a bad example of a comedy in the big ocean of comedies. The strangest thing about it is the episodic structure like you find it in regular shows, but with an attempt to bring an ongoing story in it. So it's an episodic non-episodic anime and this could be good in a parallel universe where the issues of the story happen to be solved or revealed. In this one they aren't and there's a lot more better animes than this. Go watch them and don't bother with this failed experiment. If you already watched everything, you should rewatch Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu. Still better than watching a grown woman wanting the children of a dachshund dog.

Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Co-- bless you. Pardon, Oregairu takes things straight to the edge and even judging from the synopsis there's something different to expect for the RomCom School setting, even though every show that wants to be different has to take usual patterns and make them unusual, but later more on that aspect.

The anticipation of being in highschool's a big deal in nearly every country of the world. In such a school buildung exists it's own environment consisting of almost any type of people, the un/popular, un/sporting etc. and every here and now you encounter, from the perspective of the rest, the ... absolute weird and all-time negative loner people. Meet Hikigaya Hachiman ( or 8man, 'hachi' => 8 ), the protagonist of this anime and the reason its worth to watch the story unfold. As for others who have dreams and aspirations of becoming someone in life Hachiman just wants to be nothing and let his existence pass by the couse of time. As this fact's public to the rest of his class and his often bad test results his teacher "punishes" him by forcing him to join a club, The Volunteer Service Club.

Now back to the usual patterns; the club named The Volunteer Service Club is about helping people out with requests so that he has to work and do something while being in school. Strike one. The club president is Yukino Yukinoshita, easily considered the most beautiful girl in the school and now the loner has to deal with the lovely girl. Stirke two. In a little progress another girl named Yui Yuigahama joins the club making the obvious love triangle complete. Strike three and we're out. But the setting and characters won't behave like it's that simple. Yukino's a cold hearted and serious character with no sympathies for Hachiman as she teases him most of the time. A lot of great sarcastic humour resides in the conversations of these two. Yui's a lighthearted spirit and likes everybody, but it's not that everybody will like her back just because of that reason. Also there're several side characters contributing to the overall ambiance with different and fresh personalities.

The story's neither too far away, nor too easy to catch. Oregairu takes place in school, but it's not based on episodics. Slowly parts of the past're revealed while the characters interact with each other and gradually connect to a bigger puzzle. The atmosphere and pacing turns like a tide in the middle of the storytelling, but it's so smooth and unpredictable hence the viewer'll experience a change of his emotions and that's whats makes this anime pretty different from the rest, in a good way. The methods used by the characters and their conversations're one of a kind, because they won't always do the obvious thing and think outside the box. A real inspiration.

Don't expect a typical shining MC in Oregairu and don't expect a savior helping everyone out with their problems. Especially Hachiman has his own problems to deal with and doesn't even want to be dealt with by other people. Though in the course of action he takes a lot of effort to do something only he can do, something to change other people, because he's the hero this school desevers, but not the one it needs right now. So they'll hurt him, because he can take it. Because he's not their hero. He's a silent Loner. A watchful Student. A Hachiman.
In the core he doesn't even want to fall in love with anyone and get out of highschool as fast as possible. What happens, when someone else falls for him and his unique personality ? Exactly this and so many other aspects make Oregairu an overall nice watch. If you can't relate to sarcastic humor you shouldn't pick this up, otherwise everyone else can happily begin to watch this. What are you waiting for ?