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Imagine if you crossed Higurashi with Erased and dialed up the production values by several points, you would essentially get Summertime Render. I went into this anime without any real expectations, the source material was not one I had previously read, and I assumed this was going to be another poorly made horror anime given the description. However, I was pleasantly surprised, while not original in concept, STR is one of the most well executed psychological thriller anime produced to date, with a great cast and stellar production. This review will expand on why I personally thought this series was excellent and will attempt to ... provide an answer as to why this anime is overall worth watching along with explanations on the aspects at which it excelled and what it overall lacked.

The single most important aspect of a psych thriller is the execution of the story, as far as storytelling goes, STR handles a fast paced action oriented plot quite well. The first episode starts with a very calm but somber summer atmosphere as Shinpei visits the island he grew up on to attend the funeral of a childhood friend. There are a number of comedic moments like Shinpei diving headfirst into a pair of breasts and another childhood friend getting into a minor bike accident which led to her flashing the main character with her panties and getting soaked in the ocean. Despite how ridiculous this stuff sounds, bear with the show, these events actually end up plot relevant in an interesting way down the line, although I won’t go into it here.

The day progresses and he goes to the funeral, and this is where the atmosphere starts getting a bit tense, Shinpei realizes that Ushio might have been murdered instead of dying in an accident and also learns a bit about supposed fantasy creatures called shadows. Out of nowhere near the end of the episode, Shinpei comes across a shadow, basically a clone of Mio who proceeds to murder Mio and then him. The story would have ended there if not for the fact that there is a time loop going on and the entire plot from this point on becomes a story on Shinpei retrying the same timeline over and over until he wins or is permanently killed. Sound familiar? While this premise is definitely not unique in the slightest, I do have to praise the actual execution. A lot of these time loop anime don’t truly explore the potentials and the pitfalls of time travel that effectively, they downplay the absurd advantage time travel provides by dumbing down the protagonist or they cheapen losses and any drawbacks through the nature of endless repeats.

STR manages to avoid these pitfalls by doing the following, first Shinpei is actually an intelligent protagonist, after his first 2 loops he is already aware that he is in a loop without any doubts, and he starts immediately using it to his advantage. In addition, STR manages to create a threatening atmosphere by limiting the time loop such that every loop he goes through has a shorter time window due the loop starting a little bit later. This means that after a certain point death will be permanent for side characters, Shinpei will run out of tries and there is an upper limit to the time he has to save people and potentially the time he has to remain alive himself. By adding these limits to the time travel, along with making Shinpei intelligent enough to use the time travel properly, there is an effective tense atmosphere where the stakes feel real, and the mysteries are interesting. Of course, there is one other key element that makes STR stand out in terms of execution, the antagonists themselves fight in an intelligent manner and the shadow duplication mechanic carrying over the Shinpei’s memories to his clone give his opponents a way to mitigate the advantage of him repeating the timeline. There are some other additions to these mechanics and abilities each side possesses later on, but these are the core abilities, and they allow for the series to have an actual threat to the protagonist without dumbing the protagonist down in a very annoying way. There are definitely some flaws to the story telling, especially the one instance during the festival where the main antagonist spent a lot of time flexing their win over Shinpei and ended up allowing him to repeat the timeline, this was a real low point for the writing and possibly my least favorite moment in the series. However even considering drawbacks like the occasional plot convenience where the antagonist suddenly starts acting very dumb or out of character, STR ultimately had an excellent execution for a time loop mystery story that stayed interesting from start to finish, the actual explanations for the mysteries and the ending were satisfying as well.

Moving onto production, this anime is absolutely gorgeous, from the first moment I saw the animation for the sauce rolling over the katsu dish at the diner in episode 1 I already knew this show was going to be great in terms of visuals. The backgrounds, objects, camera work, animation, character designs are all so well done. We have a beautiful island environment with thoroughly designed vegetation, caves, and a realistic looking small island town. The food, weapons, cars, and even regular household items like kitchen tools and phones are all drawn in a very realistic manner with minimal to no use of CGI whatsoever. The camera work involves a lot of scenes where there are minimal cuts and instead the camera follows the scene in its entirety, this usually leads to a lot of still scenes in many other anime, but STR remains dynamic which is a testament to how good the camera work is. The angles for the camera are also pretty great, although there are a lot of fanservice angles I can let it pass due to just how well choreographed so many scenes are. As for actual fight scenes, there are multiple fight scenes that are on par with top tier action anime and various well known animators such as the guy who did the beast titan fight in Attack on Titan worked on the combat scenes in STR. The fights with the shadows are especially impactful and they always feel very thrilling due to how the anime conveys a bunch of dangerous scenes and how they represent body damage, for example a character getting injured on a specific part of their body leads them to slowing down visibly or not using that body part and getting hit to the face has real consequences like impacts to vision or balance. Every character also has a nice striking character design, the girls are all very attractive despite having relatively realistic body types and the guys all have traits that make them distinctive without it being ridiculous.

The OPs and the second ED were fairly memorable, while the first season had a pretty subdued OP which reflected the somber mystery atmosphere early in the series, the second season went for a more upbeat battle Shonen OP which conveys that the characters are finally united and found ways to fight back. Both of these openings effectively communicate the atmosphere of the series and the transition that occurs over time. In terms of sound direction overall, STR generally excels in using intense sound effects to rattle the viewer and add weight to scenes, the sound effects of the gunshots and the weapons used are especially good. Background music is also solid, it complements most scenes really well, although none of the tracks are so good you would want to listen to them stand alone, the tracks accompany scenes within STR perfectly. The tracks during the final fight in the last few episodes was especially great for how well they fit the scene and the sound design for the planes and bombing run felt incredibly immersive which brought up the soundtrack to another level.

In terms of characters, Shinpei has a few solid points that put him above the average time travel anime main character, the first being that he’s actually intelligent and not in some unrealistic super genius way but in a more reasonable believable way where he analyzes situations and makes decisions that don’t annoy the viewer. Essentially, Shinpei makes decisions that the viewer would expect someone to do if they were in a time loop with clone enemies, he takes videos to prove to people that these clones exist, and he quickly figures out in a few loops on how to tell them apart. He doesn’t make rash decisions and does not let the shadows manipulate him emotionally, he always considers the best moves he can make in his situation and what the most effective way of beating the shadows and protecting his friends would be. Outside of this it is nice to have a main character who understands sacrifices might need to be made, while he hesitates a bit, he is willing to kill shadows that act like humans, and he understands that his victory would lead to the loss of shadow Ushio and accepts this outcome quickly. Shinpei is the sort of realistic and smart MC I have always wanted to see approach a psych thriller series, he isn’t an absurd super genius or unrealistically edgy guy, he’s a normal person with intelligence who can calmly make difficult decisions, this is what is appealing about him and makes him compelling as the protagonist.

The other main cast members have a decent amount of depth to them, they all have their own motivations and goals, some of them are a bit more comedic than others like that cop who just wants to pick up girls but still overall I would say the main cast has depth. I especially like Ushio due to both her awesome character design and her straightforward and open manner of speaking, she does what she wants when she wants and is a true partner to Shinpei at every step. There couldn’t be a better partner for Shinpei, and she covers for his weak points, if he struggles with fights she can help or if there is a challenge, he can’t overcome, then it might fall under one of her strengths, she complements him well and makes for an excellent teammate. I also love her island girl accent, it’s such a cute way of speaking and makes her sound like she is emphasizing everything she says, the voice acting for her was done very well.

Haine and Shide made for great antagonists all things considered, as did the shadow versions of the main characters, while I would have liked to see more shadow Shinpei in the middle of the anime they did make good use out of an alternate version of Shinpei early on and at the end. I specifically enjoyed that the antagonists weren’t dumb, they noticed all the weaknesses that Shinpei had that the viewers would have also noticed and found ways to consistently beat him despite time loops, they also had compelling motivations for their goals even if these motivations would not necessarily apply to humans. Overall, the mind games between the protagonists and antagonists, the realistic portrayal of these characters, and how much depth was available for a number of cast members made the cast stand out strongly and kept the viewer engaged with the series.

In consideration of all the different factors such as solid story, great visual production, decent sound, and great cast, along with how much personal enjoyment I got out of this anime I would have to give it a 9 overall. It is definitely one of the most under watched series of 2022 and its way to bad that this series couldn’t have been streamed on a better platform.

This is probably the first anime I watched solely due to the voice acting I saw in the trailers, I did not go in without any other reference, just that all the girls seemed very cute, the voice acting was exceptionally good and that it appeared to be a slice of life anime set in a cafe. I later learned this was an anime original series and that it was actually an action thriller with some cute moments. Now usually most anime originals fall into one of 2 categories, they are either aiming to be groundbreaking passion projects or moderate to high production value merch ... sales series.

Lycoris Recoil is a little bit of both where it is obvious that the producers are selling the audience on a well-cast, beautifully drawn, line up of best girls who will undoubtedly have a lot of related merch for sale but at the same time the anime was clearly made with a lot of effort and had a story that went well beyond the bare minimum. This review will focus on what stood out and what fell short in Lycoris Recoil in terms of story, art, sound and other elements, there will be an overall assessment of the series as well.

Something to mention right away, Lycoris Recoil isn’t an anime where you should take the plot very seriously. After all, an assassination agency that only uses high school aged girls as their field operatives is obviously ridiculous and that alone should tell you that anything else about the story is going to be a bit out there. There is no fantasy element either that really justifies it like a magical girl series where the only available fighters are going to be teen girls, it is also not like Princess Principal where the girls are only used for specific missions where teenage girls would be inconspicuous and the organization has plenty of operatives of all ages and backgrounds.

All of this is ok, plenty of series tell fun stories without them being realistic, even if the subject matter happens to be serious in theme the world building doesn’t necessarily have to be, what matters is the execution and if the story comes across as being engaging.

As for the story itself, essentially there are 2 aspects to the plot, the first is Chisato bonding with Takina a new girl who joined the smaller team due to supposedly messing up back at HQ and now is going on missions with Chisato. The second aspect of the plot is a terrorist antagonist who shows up after a few episodes pass and is fixated on causing enormous destruction to the city for various reasons. The story isn’t bad, especially the first part since Chisato and Takina have great chemistry even though I normally dislike this specific character type Takina falls under, due to how fast she warms up and because she’s not overly dramatic it’s pretty tolerable, and the 2 bond very well over a number of slice of life episodes and a few interesting missions. The terrorist plot on the other hand and the overall story about the organization got a bit too packed for its own good, the story tried to cover a lot more material than there were episodes available to properly execute it. Like most anime originals, the ending for Lycoris Recoil isn’t spectacular and it’s clear that the story was likely a bit rushed halfway through and maybe adjusted in terms of plot as well. Still the story is better than expected for a series about cute girls doing counter terrorism stuff, so there aren’t that many complaints, one thing I did dislike however was how absurd some of the decisions the girls make were, for example in the episode where they try to protect the old man from an assassin why did they let the assassin go? Even if the assassin wasn’t involved in killing that person’s family, the entire episode they tried to kill an old guy for money and could have killed Chisato during their fight, someone like that definitely at least belongs in jail, right? Some of the writing definitely makes the viewer really have to suspend their sense of disbelief otherwise this series becomes a bit over the top and there are a lot of moments where characters make ridiculous decisions that are hard to follow.

In terms of art the production values are incredible, we got beautifully drawn and highly detailed girls moving around in a full range of motion in incredibly dynamic combat scenes, realistic gun recoil and ammo usage, great looking food and background art for the city and solid aerial camera work with the drone scenes. The girl’s outfits are also really nice, they fit the girls well and not just their school uniforms but their casual wear, their gym clothes, and even the fan service type scenes really comes across as looking well-dressed instead of trashy due to how carefully designed the character are. I especially liked the testing scene where the girls were dressed in sportswear and running on the treadmill, it’s rare to see fanservice type clothing not look overly tight or form fitting yet still deliver a nice scene.

There are a few notable flaws however that detract a bit from the art, specifically while the combat effects were excellent the choreography was not. There’s one scene around episode 3 or so where Chisato is shown off dodging machine gun fire by just walking side to side, now if she were aim dodging a regular handgun this would be cool but when someone is in a narrow hallway and the other person has a machine gun spraying it the scene looks more like terrible aim than an impressive display of dodging skill. This is further exemplified in the scene when Chisato literally walks straight forward at the guy and all the bullets are still missing her in a narrow hallway at close range while he is shooting directly at her. There are good ways to hype up the skills of your characters, using impressive superhuman dodges that still make sense like moving so fast that they can walk between the bullets or for example sensing a sniper round coming at them from a distance and dodging at the last second, these are methods that show off superhuman skill in a believable manner. Lycoris Recoil does do this in some instances, but in others Chisato’s dodging skills look more like is aided by her opponents being terrible at aiming more than anything else, the dodges she makes feel less like they are driven by her skill and more by their lack of aim.

Besides the combat choreography issues with Chisato, Lycoris Recoil also is a bit weak in terms of providing combat scenes that make sense, for example Takina in several scenes tries doing return fire while her opponents are still shooting and there isn’t any need to. Her opponents would run out of bullets and need to reload the way they are shooting but the show has her shooting them while bullets are flying at her and somehow there is never a sense of danger, this sort of combat direction completely kills a sense of suspense despite this being an action thriller where lots of people die in shootouts. Still despite the combat choreography sometimes not living up to expectations, the production is very good and if you’re not super focused on narrow details than you will probably be impressed by how fluid everything is.

In terms of sound design the OP is quite solid and there are no complaints, both the song and the accompanying visuals fit the series well and covered what Lycoris Recoil is about thematically. The ED is actually the highlight though, the song is incredibly catchy and well performed, ending each episode with this ED made me watch each episode through the credits just for it, definitely the second best ED of the season. Sound effects for the weapons were handled well, the background music also fit most scenes in terms of atmosphere, overall, the sound design can be considered competent with a nice ED.

The characters are probably the biggest highlight point of the series, well specifically Chisato is the highlight of Lycoris Recoil and is essentially carrying the show. A lot of the times the overly energetic happy upbeat girl can be annoying to watch in anime but in the case of Chisato her unbelievably well done voice acting makes her happiness and fun loving attitude come across as genuine, on top of this she is smart, good at decision making and effective in her role in the series living up to being a top class Lycoris. Chisato avoids many of the pitfalls normally seen with genki girls who lack any character depth besides behaving like overly hyper children who can’t get serious when it’s necessary or come across as unrealistically positive. Essentially Chisato is definitely a fun loving energetic girl, who would have come across as being hard to buy if not for the master class voice acting that gave all her behavior weight, her laughter feels so warm and genuine and her joking makes her feel like a relatable funny friend you know in person who carries conversations, she isn’t lifeless and the effort her VA put into making this possible is central to why Chisato’s character works.

As for the other main character, while I normally wouldn’t like Takina due to her over done personality type, but the execution here was pretty solid because they made her actually likable and warm up to Chisato in a reasonable manner. A lot of times this specific type of tsundere comes across as being very annoying because they start a lot of drama, stay overly cold even towards people acting exceptionally nice and accommodating to them and they take the entire series to even show a bit of that warmth back. Takina however quickly got the message that Chisato is good at her job, that she is genuinely a kind person, and she went along with it and opened herself up. This dynamic between Chisato and Takina created a degree of chemistry that isn’t seen in the dozens of similar character interactions in other series where there is a black hair tsundere who is closed off emotionally interacting with a positive friendly person.

For the other members of the cast, they are ok, I don’t particularly like the antagonist and don’t find them very compelling, the people at the organization are similar since it’s hard to really take their motivations seriously and they aren’t likable or deeply written. The other members of the LycoReco team all fall under specific character types, we got the haughty loli girl wearing an adorable ribbon who has elite skills in some technical field, the heavy drinking onee san type girl, along with a respectable team leader and sensei type figure. There’s also the other Lycoris girls who don’t get much screen time outside of assassinations, being killed by terrorists or that one training focused episode.

Overall, I think that Lycoris Recoil is a pretty good series because it hits all the right categories, it has a wild but still mostly well handled story, excellent production, some of the best voice acting I have come across in anime and well developed main leads. It’s not an exceptionally great anime, but if you enjoy the cute girls and action in the same anime, Lycoris Recoil should entertain you pretty well.

“But this is no tragedy, your hope and subsequent despair allow us to extend the universe’s lifespan”

Magia Records has finally come to an end and unfortunately outside of the beautiful visuals, it simply does not live up as a successor to the original series. But I am sure everyone expected that right? Madoka Magica was a masterpiece and there is no way some soulless gacha cash grab was ever going to reach the same heights and it would be ridiculous to even make the assumption that this was likely or possible. This review will instead focus more on Magia Records as a stand-alone series with ... limited references or comparisons to the original series, essentially I will consider Magia Records on its own merits. In case you’re wondering why this review has a relatively alright score, my final explanation is at the bottom, you can skip to it if you like as it summarizes the overall review.

The story finally concludes on the previous seasons and most of what we wanted to know are largely revealed, explanations on what happened to UI, what the magical girl salvation system was and why everything about the city diverged so much from the original plot of the series. While the conclusion does not generally resolve every potential loose end, certainly not to my satisfaction at least, it does at the very least finally reveal most of what is going on. Essentially 2 girls who really looked up to iroha decided to make a special magical girl region where they would intentionally create and mass farm witches for their grief seeds such that the average magical girl will not have to worry about becoming a witch ever as long as they have a doppel. The drawbacks of this system, as Iroha points out, are obvious, the system sacrifices a massive number of innocent humans who are basically being put into the equivalent of chicken farms to be turned into fodder for witches to be raised and consumed by magical girls. This effectively destroys the entire reason for magical girls to exist, at least from the point of view of Iroha who wanted to save innocent people. I think this explanation is alright and for a spin off series it’s a satisfactory plotline. I actually liked who the final antagonist ended up being, even if it was obvious, it fits that a completely insane person took over and was responsible for most of their problems, a divergence from the overly rational Kyubey. If the incubators were utilitarian to a fault, enough that their ridiculous plans that imposed a great deal of suffering to a small number of sentient lives could be justified, insane magical girls are the opposite, they deal immense suffering on a widescale just so a few of them can live free.

While the execution could have been better in prior seasons and this specific season could have had a more thorough conclusion, it does fit the series to have the magical girl’s heroic deeds die in the background without anyone ever acknowledging them. Ultimately the story like the original is about hope in a situation of overwhelming despair and uncertainty, it can stand on its own feet and is generally watchable, I wouldn’t consider this story exceptional but stand-alone it’s at least a 7 out of 10. My single largest complaints would be the lack of properly cleaning up the ending and the very jarring flashback information dump transition between the ending of the prior season and the start the current one. I assume that they were trying to do an episode 10 from the original Madoka Magica, but this did not work very well due to the time gap between seasons and where the previous episode ended. In addition, I did not like that the entire battle with Walpurgis Night was basically skipped over, that Kuroe as a character was basically pointless, and while the final antagonist made sense, they got beat so quickly that it makes your head spin on how fast the pacing was. This finale really could have used just 1 or 2 more episodes to cover Alina and Walpurgis Night more thoroughly.

In terms of visuals, its similar in quality to the previous season with fewer over the top well animated scenes, there are some very stand out moments of animation but nothing to the level of Sayaka fighting Patricia or the team fight against the guard in the witch farm in the previous season. Shaft still makes very interesting visuals, some of the most unique out of any anime, I love these character designs and the futuristic look of the city along with all these interesting new witch designs and very graphic depictions of combat. In addition, the faces of despair with Iroha at the start were amazing, I loved characters reacting when they were confronted by each other and learning about what was really going on and the emotional struggles that were occurring. As for the witch designs, as previously mentioned they were interesting, I loved how exceptionally imposing this version of Walpurgis night looked with the approaching storm clouds at ground level, it perfectly captured the immense threat level they posed compared to every other witch. Some particularly beautiful scenes that stood out included the galactic rail reference with Yachiyo finally coming to terms with what happened with her friends, the backgrounds and the train flying through space were just so pretty to look at. Overall, in terms of visuals this anime was as expected and thankfully demonstrates that Shaft can still deliver beautiful and unique anime, overall, an 8 out of 10 for art and animation.

For sound, this season did not rely much on recycling the original series soundtrack which I thought was a nice touch. While yes, the current soundtrack does not come close to the masterpiece that Madoka Magica is known for, on its own it’s not really bad. The music adds appropriate emotional weight to scenes, especially scenes like the one where Iroha connects all the magical girls and the scene where they fight Walpurgis Night, ultimately the uplifting and epic moments alongside the intense combat moments are properly complemented. The sound effects for combat and the effects for magic use are solid, the ED at the end of the series is absolutely perfect to end the series with as well, I cannot complain about the sound design and while it’s not exceptionally good it works just well for Magia Records and was fairly original. I would give it a 7 out of 10, close to an 8 but not quite there.

For characters, I think there isn’t much to write about here, most of the main characters had their loose ends tied up and they had their final growth moments or explanations on their motivations, I do feel like Touka and Nemu were a bit unrealistically smart for preteens but given how much information they had access to it fits that they figured out Kyubey in advance. I think if you enjoyed the characters from the previous seasons, there isn’t any particular out of character behavior that would turn you off at this point. Some things I really enjoyed was Yachiyo finding closure, the reveal of UI and understanding why the original Wings of Magius leadership went through with their plan. Additionally at the start of the finale episode I thought it was hilarious how Iroha wasn’t a marshmallow like Madoka and just repeatedly popped Kyubey when she realized what the incubators were using magical girls for. Though I do wonder what exactly happened with the main cast after their appearance, feels like a good portion of their appearance from the previous season was skipped over which was a bit disappointing, seems like the implication is that this timeline is a dead end as well since Homura would have to reset it.

Overall, I think this spin off was a solid 7, this might come as a surprise to the reader if you made it this far given my introduction at the start, however I would like to explain my reasoning as follows. My enjoyment for it Magia Records was fairly high due to the good production, satisfying, even if rushed, tying up of the plot and enjoyable side characters. I did state this series is a cash grab gacha game adapt that won’t ever match the original. however, it’s important to remember that THIS IS NOT THE ORIGINAL and that you should not hold it to the same standard as Madoka Magica. If you try and compare this series to Madoka Magica, you will always be disappointed because Madoka Magica is a masterpiece that stands above the vast majority of all anime ever made. If you keep your expectations in line and watch this series as a stand alone piece that has references to the original, then it’s a fun series with a weak first season that gradually got better over time and comes with some excellent visuals and nice new side characters. Essentially Magia Records will never match the original and if you had such expectations, you will be in despair, but it’s a fun enough watch otherwise unless you have very high standards.

Akebi revolves around a teenage girl making a sailor uniform, wearing it to school and having her first experience with classmates since she grew up in a small rural area where she was the only student.

It really is amazing how anime can make an interesting spectacle out of such a boring premise, Akebi delights the audience with excellent visuals and heart warming character interactions. This review will cover everything that Akebi did well and some of its failings, in terms of story, sound, animation, and character writing.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

In terms of story, Akebi’s Sailor Uniform is primarily a slice of life anime where ... the audience gets an intimate view on Akebi meeting new people each episode at her school and befriending them while having interesting new experiences, the anime goes in a lot of depth in providing immersive point of views for the characters, especially Akebi herself. There aren’t really any significant stakes, and the episodes are mostly self contained, although the story is still linear in that prior episodes are referenced, and the story moves along a timeline. At the start of the show Akebi is planning on getting a sailor uniform and is very excited because she will finally go to a school where there will be other classmates her age, because she grew up in a rural area, until now she has never made friends her own age. She puts in a lot of effort alongside with her mother in order get her uniform specifically made for herself, however on the first day of school she learns that sailor uniforms no longer are part of the uniform at the school, instead blazers are. Akebi feels defeated at first, however, through the power of anime and an impassioned plea to the principal, Akebi gets an exception to wear her sailor uniform. This is about it in terms of actual stakes in the series, with the exception of a swim race event, everything after this point becomes comfy slice of life.

Akebi comes across as a totally energetic goofy girl who loves following her favorite idol and is extremely motivated in terms of making friends, to the point she cold approaches strangers all the time and has made detailed notes on all her classmates. She manages to embarrass herself often, for example flashing the entire classroom during her self-introduction, yet she ends up being pretty popular due to her cuteness and relentless optimism. The story manages to be heart warming with a lot of touching bonding scenes between the cast members, be it at school with the new friends Akebi is meeting or at home with her adorable little sister Kao, Akebi consistently delivers scenes full of warmth and friendship development. Story wise, the series is a solid 7/10 in that most of the story is effectively executed, and the slice of life elements are well handled, however given the episodic nature and because a number of episodes were either lacking in execution or were filled with pointless or repetitive dialogue, the story wasn’t as impactful as it could have been.

In terms of production, Akebi has a very interesting caricature art style that will either sit well with the viewer or be hated. The style leads to over sized heads on a lot of the characters and fairly weird looking jaws and very large eyes, whether or not this bothers you will greatly impact whether or not the art is enjoyable and well received. This art style was very good for allowing for seamless animation and incredible motion fluidity, the lack of overly detailed characters worked in the favor of the show when it came to motion work and every single character is gorgeously animated. From excellent realistic fishing lines to top tier hair and skirt physics, Akebi is definitely one of the best animated shows of the season, so much that its only competitors are action series this season animated by Wit Studio or Ufotable. Outside of the animation, even many still frames are absolutely gorgeous with incredible detail and photorealism for birds, fish, insects, water, plants, and general background art, this is on top of many well saturated and intense character still images that are presented in each episode.

Outside of the character art style there might be one other thing the viewer may find unappealing, it’s the camera work. While Akebi’s camera work in technical terms is definitely excellent, with amazing cinematography that complements the fluid motion in the series, the focus of the camera a lot of the times may feel dirty. While there is nothing overtly sexual in Akebi’s Sailor Uniform, there are a lot of scenes where Akebi undresses, where she bathes, where she swims, a very detailed shot of a classmate’s first lewd personal photograph, shots of akebi’s butt in tight and overly small shorts and of course people’s feet. The amount of attention to feet in this anime is clearly indicating a fetish in the author. If this bothers you then this anime may not be for you, for some viewers this is very easy to ignore, personally I wasn’t bothered much at all since nothing was overtly sexual and anything we saw was fairly natural outside of the feet focus, however I can definitely see this not being appealing or tolerable to other people. One thing that I will say is that Akebi does execute these scenes well enough that one can overlook any dirty undertone, fundamentally there is something about akebi's presentation that makes moments that would be creepy in most other series tolerable here. For example, there is a scene where Akebi’s little sister Kao says that her favorite thing about her older sister is the sound her butt makes when she smacks it, this sort of scene definitely would be gross in a lot of other anime. However, akebi's execution effectively makes it benign, innocent, and downright comedic.

In terms of sound, between the warm and upbeat OP and the effective complementary background sound effects, Akebi definitely delivered a solid performance. In particular the effects for wind, rain, footsteps, lip smacks, butt slaps and other sound effects that accompanied scenes were exceptionally well done. Even scenes like Akebi walking in the pond sounded so much more realistic due to how well the sound effect was integrated with the animation during the fishing scene, or how impactful the strokes and splashes were during the swimming contest. Although the music itself outside of the OP was generally forgettable, the actual sound effects and how they added depth throughout the anime in terms of realism and immersion were very well done. Akebi gets at least a 7.5 on sound due to its stellar background sound effects and solid OP song.

The characters in Akebi are mostly all likable, every girl Akebi interacts with and befriends has a whole episode dedicated to their point of view and how they see Akebi and how their interaction with Akebi lead to them finding out something about themselves. Each self contained narrative in rich in characterization and motivations that feel all to relatable, be it self-confidence issues, struggling to learn a skill such as playing an instrument or making friends when you are the type to go home straight after school. Akebi barges into the lives of these girls and with sparkling eyes she brings out their best aspects and drives them to do things outside their comfort zone. The other classmates overall strong contribute to the quality of the cast. Another thing Akebi does well in terms of characters is her family, all to often in anime are parents absent from their kids lives and siblings present only for fanservice material. This anime however showcases and warm family life where Akebi genuinely gets along with her mom and dad in multiple scenes with realistic interactions and a reasonable amount of dialogue, in addition Kao, Akebi’s adorable little sister, is given significant screen time and constantly has her own moments that are focused on in the show. Due to the presentation of such a likable cast and the rare genuinely warm family that gets a lot of focus, the characters in Akebi get at least an 8.5 out of 10, Akebi definitely has the best cast out of all the series in the season it aired.

There is just something that is overwhelmingly relatable about this series, Akebi’s sailor uniform genuinely makes you feel like you’re in middle school again with relentless optimism and energy, the anime also conveys the natural atmosphere of school much better than most other anime typically do with their rose tinted views of the idealized school life or a self insert protagonist. Akebi specifically manages to capture this realistic school atmosphere despite being an over all happy and uplifting series, without any violence, notable drama, or harassment present in its school, it’s a testament to good character and setting writing. These aspects combined with top tier visuals, excellent sound effects accompanying every scene, and a variety of interesting episodes outside of the class lead to Akebi being a top notch SOL anime, definitely the best of all the SOL anime that aired in its season. Given this placement, a rating of 8 is fair, its not on the level of a truly exceptional SOL anime but it will definitely be one of the best of this year.

Well, every now and then there’s going to be an overly well animated ecchi series that grabs audiences by the penis and drags them to watch a show for the “plot”. Recently we had tan girl bullying pathetic boy the anime and this is essentially just another series along the same vein, except instead of being bullied you’re fantasizing dating the hottest girl in school. Don’t let the pretty visuals, focus on an otaku hobby, and obviously well designed soundtrack fool you, this is basically just lowbrow softcore pornography in animated form.

Enter our main character, self-insert *cough* I mean Gojou kun. Gojou is supposedly your ... everyday guy, totally normal and relatable, except for some reason he has no friends, has never managed to make friends in his entire life and is obsessed with dolls. Of course, his social standing makes him the perfect self-insert for the audience, after all if he had anything resembling a personality, one could not easily pretend that they are him. This man, who is devoid of any real personality, so shy and reserved that a glance from the opposite sex makes him break out sweating, somehow grabs the interest of the hottest girl in class because it turns out she’s a mega weeb and this ultra simp can make cosplay outfits. Functionally this is the premise of the show, hot gyaru weeb dream fantasy girl literally falls into the lap of boring black haired borderline hentai protagonist except he’s shy and timid. There really isn’t any more actual depth to the story, there is a thin veneer of pretense that this guy is overcoming some trauma because a 7 year old girl said something mean to him many years ago and he just never got over it, exceptionally contrived but hey at least the anime pretends there is something deeper going on? Overall, a 4/10 storyline, truly bereft of any genuine substance.

In addition to the lackluster storyline, the script commits one of my least favorite actions, it disrespects and insults the intelligence of the audience. One particularly blatant example was the photoshoot that takes place in a love hotel. Due to a mishap while reserving a location, Marin manages to book a love hotel for their photoshoot, dresses up in what is essentially a stripper outfit, gets on top of gojou for “better angles” and oh no they are now in a sex position in the dark, don’t worry though, it never gets to heated because phone kun saves the day. This sort of contrived writing is frankly even more idiotic than pornography scripts and I have no tolerance for any anime that acts like that their viewers can't see this blatant setting manipulation designed to make it plausible that the characters got to feel each other up by sheer coincidence. A series of ridiculous events leading to a horny scene is so tired as a trope, at this point I rather characters just say they are into each other and go at it, much better than this lazy method of creating sexual tension between the main cast.

In terms of audiovisual production, I won’t deny that Sono Bisque Doll is very well produced. From excellently crafted character designs to exceptional body and hair physics, this anime genuinely looks great. However, I would like to point out that the anime generally wastes a lot of this high end production on frankly completely gross and unnecessary aspects of fan service. Now I am not some sort of age cuck who doesn’t get that these are just drawings, I watched multiple seasons of Monogatari and liked it. However, there is something so tasteless about doing a rear view close up shot of a middle schooler’s, overdetailed, and contoured ass in panties which specifically outlines her genitals that just fundamentally turns me off. Inui Shinju specifically comes across in the anime as a genuine middle school girl in terms of both personality and behavior, given this, the level of sexualization she got is frankly unsettling. This isn’t an anime that can pretend that the situations that are taking place are innocent or not overtly sexual. The camera angles present throughout Bisque Doll and main character’s flustered reactions to the girls always shatters that illusion and reminds the viewer that yes, this anime was made for people to get off to, and as such I cannot give it leeway with such crude fanservice.

In terms of fanservice for Marin, this is more tolerable since the character is in high school, has a relatively salacious personality, and genuinely looks and behaves like a young adult anyway. if you’re into this type of fan service then yes you will enjoy the anime greatly. Personally, if I was just watching something for tits and ass I would watch hentai, contrived character interactions and a fake story generally detract from the main focus in a series like this. Still, I’ll give credit where its due, the production values were still very well done, due to various disgusting uses of the production values, I will consider it to be a 7/10 or so, if you are not bothered by this stuff then it would probably be an 8.5/10 to you realistically.

I wish I could say the characters were likable, I really wish I could, but self-insert ecchi series never really escape their roots regardless of how much polishing they get. Gojou Wakana has the charisma of a paper bag, a monumental pussy who practically passes out due to sexual tension from seeing a girl in underwear, another stupid anime trope that really needs to die. Seriously, nobody in real life is remotely like this, I am sure every single person reading this review up to this point has gone to a beach in their teens and seen 100s of attractive girls in bikinis without fainting. For some reason, despite this tired trope undermining Gojou’s character, he is also presented to the audience as the ultimate nice guy who totally gets women’s needs and wins them over with his hard work and steadfast dedication to his craft. This message would totally have been believable if not for the fact that this guy literally made no friends in the first 15 years of his whole life, when the character’s entire backstory and life are directly opposed to their positive traits, it’s hard to believe their positive traits are actually that strong or outweigh their initial flaws, especially enough that multiple popular girls end up swooning all over him. Marin on the other hand is fairly fun and likable, however fundamentally she is just waifubait for people who are self-inserting into Gojou to enjoy, her characterization and fascination with Gojou make no sense to the point that this anime might as well fall under the absurdist comedy or parody genres. Seriously, there is no way any girl is so airheaded that they think waltzing around a man half naked in revealing outfits is totally normal and that the guy is having no reaction to it. I understand this is played for comedy at first, but this same joke is reused about 15 times throughout the show to the point where it simply shatters any suspension of disbelief. It’s also just impossible to believe someone who is so lively and has so much going for them would actually fall in love with the class loner just because he makes outfits for her.

In terms of cosplaying hobby stuff, I do think this show does go into depth pretty well into camera work, lighting, explaining makeup and how cosplayers select materials or clothing articles for their outfits. This part of the series was probably the best in terms of actual substance and effective execution, and it was great to learn more about how cosplayers go about their hobby. If I were someone who was more into cosplay this might have even salvaged my overall verdict for this series, but I am not so it did not have that effect, if you are very much interested in this topic then this series is probably worth watching despite all the garbage writing and over the top fan service.

Overall, I would have to give bisque doll a solid 6/10, it lacks so much in terms of good writing, characterization, and even general decency that I cannot give it a higher score. This might be compounded by the fact that as I have gotten older, I cannot really enjoy fanservice heavy anime as much as I used to in my teens, my sex drive has simply fallen down a cliff. If you’re still a teenager, and you simply want to self-insert as Gojou and enjoy Marin’s ass and tits, go for it, I am sure this anime will be enjoyable for you, but do not pretend that Bisque Doll is some sort of peak romcom when it isn’t, in fact without its exceptional production I wouldn’t even call it a mid-romcom. For people who expect at least some degree of character writing or believable storyline, don’t bother.

Growing up I used to watch Inuyasha on TV, every day after school I would look forward to watching my favorite male tsundere BTFO some demons and have amusing interactions with Kagome. Throw in the rest of the cast and you got a fairly well rounded series that stayed fresh for over 150 episodes. When I was told that there would be a spin off series involving Inuyasha and Kagome’s children I was ecstatic, a chance to finally see what happened to one of my favorite couples years after the end of their story and watch their kids in action. Sadly, yashahime is a trite ... and boring mockery of the original series lacking in every distinctive quality that made the original enjoyable. This review will expand on why this is a horrible spin off and why I regret even bothering to have watched it.

First of all, the story is absolutely disjointed and irreconcilably poorly written, this isn’t a situation of “things will be explained just keep watching” or “it gets better”, no after watching the anime through 2 seasons it has actually gotten even more disorienting and confusing with little explanation. Motivations for the villains don’t make sense, antagonists change their mind like 15 min into an episode because they had a change of heart that makes no sense, random villains show up with 0 foreshadowing or explanation on why they are even there. The direction of the storyboarding was clearly done by people who had little to no care about writing anything cohesive, I am not sure if the mangaka themselves lost their touch as I have not actually read the source material for this. All I have to say without any major spoilers is that the story literally makes no sense, its incredibly contrived with no motivations for the characters who take part in the story, no logic in terms of power scaling for major battles or creating a sense of tension and horrible pacing where characters throw in whole motivational speeches mid fight.

In terms of art, Yashahime is a powerpoint presentation with repetitive combat choreography that involves throwing a few attacks between fights before one of the half demon girls gives a speech and one-shots their opponent with a surprise power up. The amount of terrible backgrounds, horrible in-betweens, and awful jarring camera work screams low budget and a rushed schedule.

The Opening is nice for music, otherwise utterly unremarkable soundtrack.
The characters involve a bunch of bratty girls who fall into 3 common tropes, the original series characters getting limited screen time and acting out of character half the time they are on screen, and a bunch of incomprehensible antagonists who never maintain consistent motivations. Truly poor writing, there is nothing redeeming about the characters in this series.

Overall, this is one of the worst spin offs I have ever seen, I am thoroughly disappointed this anime failed on so many levels, between bad writing, bad characters, unremarkable sound design and outright lazy art, yashahime is a definite skip and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the original series.

As a fisher who still occasionally fishes and given that some of my fondest memories growing up were fishing trips with my family and friends, I had surprisingly high expectations for what initially appeared as a generic CGDCT and SOL anime. Slow Loop managed to not only match my expectations but genuinely surpass them in terms of how well researched the series is and how effectively they covered the hobby. This review will provide a quick summary on why I enjoyed Slow Loop and what aspects were covered well.

In terms of story, Slow Loop is fairly basic, similar to most CGDCT anime, 2 girls, had ... single parents that got remarried together, which turned them into sisters. It turns out one of the girls enjoys fishing and the other girl gets into it through her. Functionally this is the story, there are some other aspects but most of it falls under characterization that is developed during fishing trips and general bonding through living together. As long as the characters mesh well, then the story is typically good enough for this type of series. Still since I do try to be objective in reviews, the most this story can get is a 6/10 since its very bare bones and even the execution feels rather basic and overly simplified half the time.

In terms of art, the character designs really remind me of Is the Order a Rabbit? Everyone, including the adults, look a bit underdeveloped and flat, but this low detail art suits a SOL series fairly well. Overall, the girls do have a nice cutesy look, although the animation and background art leaves a lot to be desired. I do enjoy how the fish are handled and how preparing fish kept all the blood and made it the process look more realistic with the organs and such, definitely some plus points for accuracy.

What really appeals about this anime is the accuracy in terms of fishing as a hobby, the show properly explains fly fishing including the various styles and techniques, this was all researched very well. The segments where Hiyori explains to Koharu how certain techniques are exercised are very good, the instruction quality is the same as you would receive in real life and the beginner mistakes are conveyed accurately. In addition, the cooking segments were nice as well, from preparing the fish after catching to properly cleaning them out and seasoning them, Slow Loop actually goes into detail on this topic beyond a superficial lens like many other hobbyist anime do.

Overall, I would give Slow Loop a 7 out of 10, its story is a bit weak and art style a bit basic, frankly the audio isn’t even worth discussing, however the characters mesh well and the actual hobby they focus on is very well researched and explained in an interesting and effective manner. This anime is definitely one that is unlikely to be worth watching outside of the season it aired in, unless you really like fishing, but it’s not bad to watch on a weekly basis.

All good things come to an end, and what an absolutely beautiful ending this was, this OVA concludes almost all the remaining adaptable material for Non Non Biyori and delivers an excellent stand alone episode for this series. While I do hope this series gets more content one day, I am pretty satisfied with everything we got.

The pristine and photorealistic art is in full display, possibly even better than the main series, really bringing to life the amazing Japanese country side in all its splendor. Animation quality was also quite solid, the badminton scene had surprisingly fluid animation, reminded me of the movie.

Sound design is ... still quite enjoyable with a very tranquil and immersive entrance and consistently effective background sound effects that bring the countryside to life. The splatter of rain and the light whistle of the wind, the sliding doors in the school, the footsteps in the class, all of it are just so wonderfully done and perfectly complement the scenes they accompany.

Getting to see our favorite cast one last time was excellent as well, quite happy Shiori was included and Renge is always a joy to watch. Every main girl got some screen time and at least a single highlight moment.

Overall this OVA concludes the series in a happy and mundane way, true to the rest of the series and fits perfectly with the general theme of a wistful country side life, solid 8 out of 10 and I would highly recommend it.

Similar to the setting of the main series, this short film is Set a few years after the grail war, the story specifically focuses a bit more on Waver's college years and his reunion with an old classmate.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

Story: 7

I would say the mystery in this short film was actually better than any in the main series as the mystery was entirely solvable by the audience with the clues given. The mystery itself was based on why Waver suddenly became younger and aged back to his late teen years which was fairly amusing to watch.

Most of the focus in the story after ... this revolves around Waver meeting some of his old classmates and specifically one guy who he wasn't on good terms with and a girl who liked him but he never caught onto her feelings. The girl was involved in an incident that wrecked her ability to be a mage and due to that she never really got to be with Waver after the holy grail war, she decided that she wanted to relive those days with Waver and used an advanced spell that would stick all her old classmates and him back in time during their school days. Watching waver unravel the mystery was fairly fun and there was enough information given to the audience so they could solve it, a noticeable improvement over the main series, overall a solid 7 out of 10.

The visuals and music were also as good as expected, with a decent enough fight scene even if it ended very quickly, and there is another popular Fate series character who appears that fans of the Fate franchise will appreciate. This short film is worth a watch if you enjoyed the original series and wanted some extra story and more background on Waver and his teen years.

In the modern era it would be unthinkable that people could just buy themselves a cute wife, and in most of the world today its outright illegal, however historically people being able to buy others was a sad but very real situation. Taisho Otome tells us a story of a physically disabled boy finding love and a reason to live after his dad buys him a wife who also acts as his caretaker. For an anime about a girl who got sold to a rich boy, this show was shockingly sweet and heartwarming, that is if you can get past the premise.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

Fundamentally ... the story is a drama and slice of life series with a romantic undertone between Tamahiko, a disabled boy, and Yuzuki, a girl who was sold by her indebted parents. Now this sort of set up is normally befitting of a tragedy, one where the girl has to overcome the terrible lot in life she was given, however it actually ends up being a fairly relaxed series and almost comedic show at various moments. The reason behind this is that Tamahiko is largely a decent kid, he is in a lot of despair because his family has written him off after his crippling injury, but he isn’t really an abusive person. He was mainly treating Yuzuki like a live in maid, which she functionally was at the start of the series, over time he grows to like her and in turn she grows to like him. It should be noted that while there is a significant age and social status difference between the 2 characters, the power disparity is never really brought up, the romance feels organic and not like a situation where Tamahiko is manipulating Yuzuki or abusing his power over her. Most of the story is about the 2 living a married life together, meeting interesting new people in the town, going shopping and eventually its focused on Tamahiko integrating back into society and becoming a livelier person. There is also a bit of a more dramatic arc near the end which acts as moment for Tamahiko to show how far he has grown.

While I am sure a lot of people watching this will find a lot of this stuff to be problematic, if you cannot overlook the power difference between the characters and the situation Yuzuki is stuck in, then you probably will not enjoy the show. In my case, as the characters are sweet and the atmosphere is light, I can ignore what the setting is and largely not notice that the relationship may have a degree of coercion in it. Overall, as far as slice of life goes, the show is interesting and the romance between the 2 leads is very sweet and enjoyable, the story is around a 7 out of 10 and its not particularly great but its not bad and if you’re looking for a romance themed drama and slice of life series then you may enjoy this.

In the case of art quality, the show meets the bare minimum, the audience doesn’t expect high quality animation from a slice of life drama series and its generally not expected that there be exceptional choreography or artwork. If there is a major complaint it would be that, sometimes the backgrounds looked really light relative to the characters, almost like a movie set. However, for a series focused on drama and character interactions, the only things that matter are that the characters are expressive and that character designs are interesting to look at and consistent when animated. Both of these were achieved and so the production values for art are at least a 7 out of 10.

In terms of music, the opening is fairly catchy however nothing else is particularly memorable or original in this show, it works well enough between sound effects and background music, the sound production is at best a 6 as there isn’t really anything going for it outside of the opening. Later on through the show there are a pair of siblings, who are musicians and they do perform a few times at least, but this isn’t really a music themed anime and the music performances aren’t really good enough to raise the score.

The extended cast all start off fairly weak, but they are given a few episodes to get developed and they usually end up quite likable, the only one I find hard to forgive is the girl who robbed Tamahiko and then got away with almost successfully sabotaging his relationship with Yuzuki. Tamahiko’s sister, the additional children and the 2 musicians however become more interesting and add to the show’s warm atmosphere over time, they also help create some drama and conflict when necessary to keep things interesting. The cast isn’t exceptional, and one character is especially hard to like, but overall it’s a solid 7.

Considering everything together and personal enjoyment had while watching this, Taisho Otome is a fairly solid show, yeah, the art isn’t that great but it works for the show and the music is alright, the story might be a bit questionable but its executed in a way that feels relaxed and achieves its goals in presenting a Taisho era drama and romance. This show gets a 7 out of 10 and is a decent watch if you’re interested in romance stories from this particular era and just want to watch something sweet and relaxed.