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Aggretsuko is a surprisingly charming show that breaks some barriers in the short comedy genre: every episode has less than 15 minutes of plot but the pacing is good and the jokes are delivered at the right moment. The anime's strongest points are by far the characters, each one's design being unique and non-stereotypical, despite the very simplistic (and often passable at most) animation.

The show is made for young adult to mature women and it shows, Retsuko being some sort of charismatic feminist character with issues easy to relate to for the female public, who finds herself in situations which could barely happen outside of ... a girls' locker room - however the humour is quite honest and universal.

It is way better than what I could've ever expected from Sanrio - I doubt there would ever canonically be swearing and portrayals of misogyny in Hello Kitty!

[Warning: very mild spoilers.]

I was recommended this anime by a friend, who said it was great. I thought so until about ten minutes into it: while still being very enjoyable, 5 Centimeters per Second is everything that's wrong with the portrayal of romance in anime, featuring a heap of clichés, confusional writing and some attempts at overly evident symbolism.
Divided in three parts, the film follows the childhood, teenhood and early adult life of Takaki Tōno, a boy whose intentions, thoughts and understanding of other people's feelings are either absent or completely incomprehensible, as if they were written to sound good or deep rather than being ... actually genuine and passionate, something he isn't towards his love interests.
The progression of 5 Centimeters is sometimes extremely predictable and overly academic, like its shots and script. The first chapter sees the development of Takaki's relationship with his main lover, Akari, abruptly ended by a school transfer, then restarted by a heroic - (not so) - train ride. However, the final result is still in vain.
Suddenly, the protagonist of the second part is Kanae, another girl met by Takaki in his new school, whose struggles are depicted on screen, just to disappear from the ending without any explanation or acquired knowledge for the viewer. Oh, also, rocket and more space-related treacly drivel, a substitute for actual romantic content.
And so, Takaki, now an adult, sees a vision of his past lover which recalls everything that happened not even sixty minutes ago on the notes of a pretty bad song, realizing he wasted every opportunity he had on high school-tier philosophy, text messaging and how communication is worse than... communication itself?

"It's just like in the movies"...

Space Patrol Luluco is incredibly flashy and weird (in a japanese fashion), yet somehow it feels uninteresting and average, almost boring.
From its cute and immediate presentation to the almost hip-hop montage during its peak moments, I've never felt so disarmed by an anime: everything on the screen stays for about five seconds before dying, moving, or screaming. All goes faster, then slower - because there's a character we need to introduce, so here's the camera pan from the bottom to the top and a shiny sound effect - before going crazy again. All of this in seven minutes per episode, which, at one point, becomes ... unbearable.
It's understandable that Trigger may have went for a crazy approach with the series: "Luluco's a tame girl in a town. But there's aliens, so that changes everything, and it's funny!", filling the market with some other content, some other merchandise, something meaningless on which people will talk and thrive on about. The introduction is average, the music is average, the characters are... there. They do stuff. They look pretty. Something weird happens. They look even prettier when they move, and that's all.
Space Patrol Luluco is the fast food equivalent of anime: get a fix of quirky content, chew onto something, but not for the quality, just for sake of it.

Trigger says "style over substance", I say it's time to stop.

The ending of Evangelion's original series, originally butchered because of studio quarrels, was finally given justice with The End of Evangelion, one of the most mature anime of the last decades.
Since every aspect of the production is nearly perfect, it can be safely said it excels beyond the norm in each one: between the fast battle scenes, the symbolic content or the unexpected, everything delivers.
With this installment we also get to see Anno's true skills in direction and editing, which would eventually culminate in the following live-action film Love & Pop: his use of perspective, screen ratio and space are masterful.

Very intimate and enjoyable. It ... will leave many questions.

Three years after Wolf Children, Hosoda comes back with a new epic featuring more drama based around the animal side of man: unfortunately, it's not as good as any of his past work, not because of the stagnant themes but for the sheer mediocrity of it.
MADHOUSE has had their own problems in the last years because of budget and staff cuts, however none of them compare to what has been going on in the writing and directing department.
The pacing problems found within Summer Wars make an unexpected comeback, between the uninteresting, CGI-ridden visuals, rotoscopied backgrounds and lame characters that are trying way too hard to ... copy that Miyazaki feel.
Boredom aside, the soundtrack and mastering are great.

I'm now glad I forgot to see it at the cinema when it was showing.

Wolf Children struck many notes with me when I first saw it, since I could relate to some of the characters a lot, and it still does today.
Hosoda's magnum opus is an ode to single mothers and coming of age struggles. It ditches all of the usual anime clichés to be something greater than the sum of its parts. While the writing and drawing appear shallow, the real value is found in its backstage, between the finely crafter characters and their development, throughout various places, feelings and situations.
All of the above is accompanied by some of the greatest music ever heard in an animation, such ... as the Kito Kito theme.

Show it to your children (but don't watch it with them).

Hosoda's second post-Digimon and One Piece film, Summer Wars, follows the chaotic style of its predecessor in a more down-to-earth and relaxed setting... however, things get crazy not only to story level, but also on a quality one.
While this is MADHOUSE's best work to date, with delightful animation, attention to detail and possibly some of the best backgrounds ever seen in an anime, it feels like the team blew all of their budget just over that, because nothing else really feels special.
There are lots of characters, a meaty runtime and an admirable concept behind it all, but barely any of that feels interesting. Nobody in ... the movie really develops, perhaps because of the "family" feeling they are supposed to give: there's the loud children, the cool uncle, the wise grandmother, and so on. The way we see all of the residence's rooms, but not all of the characters' minds, is quite disappointing. You feel overwhelmed with things you want to care about, but really can't.
But that's not all: at eighty minutes in, I was begging for this thing to end. With an incredibly average "Save the world" story premise that sounds like it's from a JRPG (which I guess is fitting?), the film feels overlong at a certain point, and becomes sloppy near the end.
The thing that really angers me about Summer Wars, though, is the soundtrack. It's not music, more like background electronical noise. And when you need it the most, there's no music at all. Oh, the mastering is also pretty bland, which is strange considering the usual care MADHOUSE puts into it.

If everything was as good as the animation, this could've been perfect. A pen can sometimes draw, but not write.

[Since this is my first time on MAL, I'd like to introduce myself by reviewing all of Hosoda's newer animations, starting with this one.]

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is probably Hosoda's best work, [personally] tied with Wolf Children: very few anime have such quality work in all of their fields, or a story that, while relying - like the original work - on plot twists, isn't hugely realisable from the very beginning and makes it all come off as a neat surprise, except maybe for something I won't spoil.
I've enjoyed myself throughout the film, since there weren't any pacing issues and the characters felt ... pleasant, realistic and likeable. The visuals were also very well done, and for the few CGI that was present, it was great.
My only gripes with it are how some of the scenes (the usual fixed perspective shots, which are already too common in japanese cinema, and almost always present here) look cheap, and the music in general... there's some awful bleeps and a bit of classical music in the dramatic moments.

Overall a very good movie: future classic (I'm calling it).