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Feb 27, 2025
I've been following One Piece for over 15 years now. Sure, I've been on and off, but unlike many long-running series like Attack on Titan and Naruto, which lost their appeal for me over time, One Piece has at least stayed consistently good.
However, the fact that it's only consistently good—but not great—is why it went from potentially being my favorite battle shonen and a top 10 anime to just a very solid but overall exhausting series. I can't watch more than a batch at a time before needing a long break, especially post-time skip.
I know One Piece is often compared to Dragon Ball, but for
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me, the comparison is even stronger when it comes to favorite anime. Despite Dragon Ball being my fan-favorite battle shonen since I was a kid, there was a point in the early 2010s when I actually liked One Piece more. However, later One Piece arcs, along with Dragon Ball Super and Daima airing, have definitely shifted things back toward Dragon Ball for me.
Despite both series being the most popular shonen in Japan, it's funny how different they are in execution. Akira Toriyama is known for keeping things open-ended, allowing him to add lore whenever he wants. This keeps things exciting and the pacing generally good, but it also leads to a lot of retcons and potential plot holes.
Conversely, One Piece by Eiichiro Oda is much more thoughtfully planned out, consistently adding lore that remains important to the series while still being open-ended enough to allow each arc to take the crew to different islands. This structured approach is why One Piece is so beloved. Even though Oda stretched the series far beyond his original intent, he didn’t take Toriyama’s route of keeping things vague for cool twists. Instead, he expanded the story in a way that made past lore more coherent rather than contradicting it.
One of One Piece's biggest strengths—something I sometimes undersell—is how well it keeps its main cast, the Straw Hat Pirates, relevant. Unlike most battle shonen where characters are purely defined by their fighting ability, One Piece ensures even weaker characters have a strong role. The world is designed so that even the strongest fighters have weaknesses—devil fruit users are always vulnerable to seawater, which helps keep power creep in check.
Great battle shonen mix emotional moments with cool fights, and few would argue that One Piece isn’t top-tier in terms of emotional storytelling. Every Straw Hat gets emotional development or a backstory at some point, and even one-off characters sometimes have surprisingly memorable arcs. Oda’s ability to balance fights, emotional storytelling, and well-thought-out world-building is impressive.
Unfortunately, Oda’s willingness to detail everything contributes to the series' biggest flaws: scope creep, length, and especially pacing.
Many criticize the anime for slowing down just before the time skip, but even in the manga, the paneling has become way too busy. There are too many text bubbles per page explaining things. I get that Oda wants his world to be fully realized, but sometimes it bogs down the pacing.
I enjoy well-placed flashbacks, especially in the earlier arcs, but the later ones became way too long. What used to be one- to three-episode flashbacks turned into mini-arcs spanning five to ten episodes. While they’re usually good, they could easily be cut in half and still get the same point across.
Unlike many battle shonen with mediocre time skips, One Piece has kept most of its quality post-time skip. But that came at a cost.
One thing Toriyama does well is keeping arc climaxes unpredictable—Goku doesn’t always get the final blow. Sometimes his son does, sometimes an ally, and sometimes the villain escapes. One Piece, on the other hand, has a predictable arc formula: Luffy finds a way to beat—but not kill—the main villain, leading to a bounty increase, while the rest of the crew gets their “fitting” fights. This was cool for half the series, but even in the latest arcs, it’s getting tiresome.
The length of arcs compounds this issue. Yes, the worlds are cool, the fights are fun, and there are great side characters, but the arcs have become so formulaic and bloated that even when Oda creates unique settings, the structure remains repetitive. After Water 7, the arcs became hit-or-miss, making it a gamble whether a new arc would be great or just okay.
Overall, there's no doubt One Piece has left its mark. When it's good, it's really good—emotional moments, great fights, world-building that rarely contradicts itself, and a cast that stays relevant beyond the protagonist.
But there's a reason people hesitate to recommend it to newcomers. It's just too long for its own good. Even as a long-time fan, I’ve felt burnt out trying to keep up, especially as its formula has become more predictable.
If Oda actually lets Luffy find the One Piece in the 2020s, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. But the longer the series drags on, the more my burnout and slight frustration grow—even though I still genuinely like it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 26, 2025
The controversy surrounding the recent Higurashi GouSotsu series was amusing to watch because I purposefully chose not to watch them. I’ve always felt that Higurashi is the type of series that shouldn’t have had any side stories or direct sequels that take place after the last episode—because of how conclusive it was.
For those who don’t know, Higurashi Rei was the first set of side stories following the main story of Higurashi and Kai. Episodes 1–8 of the Higurashi visual novel and their anime adaptations (Higurashi Season 1 and Kai, or Season 2) were overall great psychological murder mysteries with a Groundhog Day-like scenario, and the
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way things built up toward the end was excellent—even if the pacing was a bit slow at times.
Higurashi Rei was clearly the first of many attempts to cash in on Higurashi's legacy and squeeze more money out of the franchise. Unfortunately, for the most part, I wasn’t really a fan of these OVAs.
The best way to describe them is that they’re half slice-of-life fan service and half a brand-new side story that focuses on Rika once again.
The slice-of-life segments are more or less what you’d expect from Higurashi—a lot of characters playing games and trolling each other. But this OVA leans more into generic fan service, with some harem teasing for the main male character, Keiichi. These moments are mostly inoffensive, but since I was never super into the slice-of-life aspects of Higurashi, I just found them whatever.
The main selling point of Rei, or its "serious" story arc, is Saikoroshi-hen (Dice Killing Chapter).
Without getting into spoilers, this is a direct sequel to the serious events of Higurashi Kai, where Rika is put in a situation that forces her to reconsider the choices she made regarding fate and everything that was built up in the first two seasons. Essentially, she is given a chance to live in a supposedly "perfect" world—one without all the drama, murder, and suffering. However, this comes at the cost of losing all the camaraderie, sacrifice, and character growth she and the others went through. Rika herself would also be a stranger to many of the people she once knew.
In theory, I like this idea. But in execution, it just felt like a cheap way to bring back drama. Higurashi Kai had a perfect ending for the serious parts of the story, and this side story felt unnecessary—arguably even insulting—by forcing Rika through melodrama again. The entire point of Seasons 1 and 2 was for her to develop beyond this struggle, yet this arc drags her back into it. The fact that the "serious" part of Rei happens because of a convenient mistake on Rika’s part makes it feel like an even bigger slap in the face.
Overall, the plot of Higurashi Rei isn’t a terrible idea—just something that honestly didn’t need to exist in a standalone entry like this. Given how bad nearly every Higurashi spinoff has been, I highly recommend sticking to Higurashi Seasons 1 and 2 by DEEN and/or the main eight chapters of the visual novel. Don’t bother with the spin-offs—unless you want to lose some brain cells.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 26, 2025
The Tales series is probably still my overall favorite JRPG series. I love its mix of action-based combat and surprisingly deep character development. That said, the series has had an interesting history of anime adaptations—from Eternia’s anime-original story to Symphonia just covering its main story beats, Abyss being a mostly solid adaptation, Vesperia acting as a prequel, and Zestiria being a weird mix of adaptation and anime-original content.
Before all the modern adaptations, there was a four-episode OVA of the original Tales game, Phantasia.
The best way I can describe this OVA is… quick fan service. The fight animations are solid, and for the most part, it
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does a decent job of conveying the personalities of the five main characters while providing a general idea of the setting and plot.
The scenes that are included stay faithful to the game, and there are some nice, wholesome character interactions that are fun to see fully voiced and animated—something you wouldn’t get from the original game, which was originally a Super Nintendo title that has only been ported as 2D sprite-based versions and never received a full remake.
You get an idea of what sets Cless and Chester’s journey in motion, some ship-tease moments between Cless and Mint, as well as Chester and Arche, and Klaus being a decent enough "old man" support character. Suzu, though… it’s disappointing that she never got fully recruited in this OVA.
Unfortunately, that’s about all the praise I can give. If you're looking for even a half-decent adaptation of Tales of Phantasia’s story, you won’t find it here.
The episodes jump around so much that unless you’ve already played the game, you’ll probably be confused about how characters get from one event to another. There are massive gaps in the story, and character development happens off-screen between episodes, making it feel disjointed.
For example, every single character recruitment scene for the main party is completely skipped. These moments are crucial for building emotional connections with the characters and understanding why they join the quest, but the OVA doesn’t bother to include them at all.
That said, it’s still cool to see the world in anime form and get a glimpse of Dhaos, the main villain, who helped start the trend of Tales antagonists having "greater good" motives that clash with the heroes. But even then, Dhaos isn’t given nearly as much development or buildup as he had in the game.
At best, this OVA might serve as a teaser to make you want to play Tales of Phantasia. But if you’re hoping for a complete or even decent retelling of the story, you’re out of luck—unless you just want to see some cool fantasy action.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Feb 25, 2025
In my Rewrite Season 1 review, I mentioned how it was a decent way for the anime to settle on an original ending that, surprisingly, still fit within the universe due to the rewrite setting. Season 2 not only explains why that ending makes sense, but in a way, it also aligns thematically with the main ending of the original Rewrite visual novel.
It's hard to talk about this season—or the series as a whole—without spoilers, but I'll do my best.
If you jump into Rewrite Season 2 (Moon & Terra) right after watching Season 1, you might be confused. There are random flashbacks to events that
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weren’t shown in Season 1. That’s because Season 2 is trying to provide fan service to visual novel players by briefly showcasing key moments that couldn’t be fully adapted from the heroines' routes. It’s more of a highlight reel than a full adaptation, giving some quick context for what Season 2 is about.
That said, even if you're watching Season 2 without reading the visual novel, I think there’s enough context to eventually piece things together.
Despite being developed by Key, the Rewrite series doesn’t have the typical romance melodrama of other Key anime like Clannad, Angel Beats!, or Little Busters!. Instead, it leans more into fantasy-action—what visual novel fans would call “chuuni.” The story also features a strong environmentalist theme, which becomes especially prominent toward the end.
Season 2 focuses much more on the main character, Kotarou, and Rewrite’s canon love interest, Kagari. If you go straight from Season 1 to Season 2, you can at least see why he’s interested in her, as Kagari was given more personality and focus toward the end of Season 1. She goes from being just a plot device to a character you can actually care about.
Without getting into spoilers, Season 2 follows Kotarou as he tries to help Kagari while also playing a role in saving the world. But this isn’t your typical lighthearted shounen "save everyone" story—in fact, it’s almost the opposite. Later in the series, Kotarou makes some morally questionable choices, including potentially harming people who may not deserve it.
Some viewers may complain that Kotarou’s personality shift in Season 2 feels inconsistent with how he was in Season 1 and early on in this season. However, the series actually provides a reasonable explanation for this—let’s just say magic and flashbacks are involved.
Another common complaint is that the main heroines from Season 1 stop mattering after the first few episodes. And yeah, that is kind of frustrating. Why build them up if almost none of them are relevant to the final climactic story? But given the scale of the story and how deeply it explores its supernatural world—especially compared to other Key works, like those written by Jun Maeda, which barely explain anything—I think it was an interesting experiment. I’m glad they went all-in rather than trying to force the heroines into a plot where they wouldn’t fit.
The animation and fights aren’t the most stunning. That said, I’m admittedly biased as someone who read the visual novel. A lot of Rewrite's original scenes were text-heavy with little visual representation, so seeing these big climactic moments fully animated was pretty cool. It was also a treat to see characters who originally didn’t have sprites or voices come to life in anime form. Personally, I now prefer watching the true route this way over reading it in the visual novel.
While I think Season 2’s overall story is solid, I wouldn’t call it amazing. It’s far from the best dark, psychological, environmentalist, shounen-action series. Some character development is strong, but the pacing jumps around, and certain characters feel underutilized or underdeveloped—even beyond the sidelined heroines from Season 1. There are also a few leaps in logic, and some might argue Kotarou’s devotion to Kagari, even with Season 1’s context, feels a bit excessive given how little buildup there actually was.
That said, the uniqueness of the concept and the fact that it’s mostly executed well makes Rewrite Season 2 (Moon & Terra) pretty enjoyable. It’s not one of my favorite visual novels, nor one of my favorite visual novel adaptations, but I’m glad it was attempted at least once.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 24, 2025
I suppose I should get my biases out of the way as soon as possible. Despite being a huge fan of visual novels, I’m far from one of those typical haters who claim that most visual novel-to-anime adaptations suck. Quite frankly, I don’t expect modern anime budgets or modern viewers to have the time to sit through a 50+ episode anime that fully adapts a 50+ hour visual novel. Even if they're watching weekly, that’s a huge commitment. The only exception most people make is Clannad + After Story, and that’s only because people simp for Kyoto Animation. When JC Staff adapted Little Busters!—which had
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similar writing quality and structure to Clannad—people ignored it just because it wasn’t KyoAni.
That said, Rewrite, despite being a visual novel by Key (the same developers of Clannad and Little Busters!), has a much different writing style and genre. While it features a similar male protagonist and five-heroine harem setup, it’s not a romance-heavy series at all. It leans more into fantasy action or, as visual novel fans call it, "chuuni." It also focuses on environmentalism, but in the original visual novel, this aspect was a plot twist and genre shift—one I doubt modern audiences would have the patience to wait for in an anime adaptation.
Since Rewrite isn’t a romance-heavy slice-of-life series like Clannad or Little Busters!, and since each heroine’s route goes in drastically different directions, adapting it faithfully would be nearly impossible. The only real way would have been using the omnibus format like Amagami SS, which most companies refuse to do for some reason. Rewrite would have needed at least 30–40 episodes just to cover all the route content, including the lengthy common route.
With that in mind, I think Rewrite Season 1 opting for an anime-original ending doesn’t get enough credit. Many of the original visual novel fans were upset that their favorite heroine routes weren’t adapted, but I don’t think it was possible. Instead, this original arc was the best way to tease the visual novel while providing an ending that actually makes sense within the universe—especially with Season 2, which serves as the true ending and is a much more faithful adaptation.
Now, conceptually, an anime-original ending isn’t a bad idea—but what about the execution? I think it’s decent but definitely flawed, though nowhere near as bad as people claim.
The decision to spend a few early episodes focusing on slice-of-life comedy before diving into serious plot elements was a good call. A fully faithful adaptation would have required 5–10 episodes of pure slice-of-life, which would bore many anime watchers. Even in the visual novel, I thought the buildup to the fantasy action took too long.
Minor visual novel spoilers: there isn’t a single non-true route where all the main heroines stick together after the common route due to serious drama reasons. This means that Rewrite Season 1 actually provides an anime-original ending that allows the club members to stay together, making for a relatively cathartic conclusion to the slice-of-life camaraderie. Could it have been executed better emotionally? Sure. But the wholesome character interactions were handled well.
The anime tries to tease backstories for the heroines without fully developing them as in the visual novel. If Rewrite Season 1 had at least 26 episodes, it might have been possible to flesh out the heroines better, but with a typical 13-episode budget, they did what they could—even if the pacing was all over the place.
A lot of people take issue with Kagari’s personality change for the anime-original ending, but I actually don’t mind it. It better sets up Season 2, where she becomes the proper main heroine. In the visual novel, she often felt like a plot device, and Kotarou’s romantic feelings for her didn’t make much sense. The anime gives her more presence, which I appreciate.
That said, the season still has flaws that hold me back from loving it as much as I wish I could. While the comedy was generally good, I was disappointed that some of the funniest moments from the visual novel’s common route didn’t make it in—like Kotori’s famous “Shake it now, baby now” Engrish. Some anime-original jokes were hit-or-miss, such as Kotori’s repeated “Fushidara NG” (localized as “Keep it PG”), which was used only a couple of times in the visual novel but four or five times in the anime.
The way character backstories were handled was messy. Shizuru, for example, gets a serious episode but is then largely ignored. Lucia seems like she’s starting character development, but it’s immediately regressed because it wouldn’t fit with the rest of the plot. I liked the idea of making viewers care about the heroines more quickly than in the visual novel, but the execution felt sporadic and could have been much cleaner.
Overall, Rewrite Season 1 serves as a decent teaser to see if you care about the world and characters. If you do, I highly recommend checking out the original visual novel to get the full story (you can buy it on Steam as: Rewrite+), some routes are pretty important for Season 2. As a standalone product, Season 1 is a fun time, but it’s not the first fantasy-action title I’d recommend unless a particular character interests you or you’re curious about the visual novel.
Alternatively, if you were a fan of the original visual novel and just want to see certain scenes and characters animated, this could work. But if you’re someone who gets angry about incomplete adaptations, you might want to reconsider watching—because your favorite route likely won’t be there.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 24, 2025
Ever since Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series by LittleKuriboh came out, it seems like every semi-popular anime has to get an abridged series eventually. Unfortunately, I think Dragon Ball Z Abridged laid out a really cringe, loud, unfunny, tryhard humor style template that basically every abridged series since has followed.
I will always maintain that LittleKuriboh’s wit and dry British humor is the whole reason abridged series even work. Making fun of the silly stuff that happens in the show he’s abridging works because the actual show is hard to watch—especially these days.
In theory, this Yu-Gi-Oh! anime is supposed to advertise the cards so Konami can jip
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people out of their money while hopefully having good characters and a solid story.
Well… they did succeed in making the cards look cool when they’re on the field. There’s a reason that, despite all the meta changes, people always find a way to casually play Dark Magician or Blue-Eyes White Dragon decks, and they continue to get a ton of support from Konami in both the trading card game and the anime.
For better or worse, Yu-Gi-Oh! is a kids’ show that gets surprisingly dark at times. People who grew up with the 4Kids English dub will make fun of things like the Shadow Realm, especially because of the abridged series, but anybody with a brain knows this whole story is literally about people willing to kill others through Egyptian artifacts and a card game. That just creates a hilarious secondary layer of ironic entertainment, after the cool trading card monsters of course.
As the abridged series has consistently pointed out, there’s a lot of cheesy power-of-friendship stuff, which isn’t unexpected from a shounen. But in the original show, some of it does kind of hit emotionally, since there are a few cases of actual interesting character development—mostly related to Joey/Jonouchi and Mai.
Unfortunately, this Yu-Gi-Oh! series fumbles in a lot of important ways, which makes it hard for me to recommend in its original form, whether that’s the Japanese version or the English dub.
Since the anime was meant to sell the trading card game, you’d think it would actually follow the rules—but instead, the characters constantly do things that you can’t do in the real game.
The first arc, Duelist Kingdom, is the worst about this. It had some weird beta version of the rules where you could just summon any monster at any time, you apparently couldn’t attack life points directly, and the characters just randomly making up monster rules on the spot. It created a lot of hilarious scenarios, but none that reflect what you can actually do in the trading card game.
The second arc, Battle City, finally lets the series use a sort of version of the official rules, but even then, some abilities are way more overpowered in the show—like everything related to the Egyptian Gods and the Seal of Orichalcos. But given this was before broken mechanics like Synchros existed, the way characters got powerful monsters on the field was just way too convenient. So many characters also just used straight-up bad cards that it’s really hard to watch.
While I mentioned that a few characters like Joey and Mai get decent development, the vast majority of the cast just isn’t that interesting. Yugi/Yami Yugi is your typical overpowered shounen protagonist, Téa/Anzu and Honda/Tristan are literally just boring cheerleaders, and Kaiba and Yami Bakura are funny mostly because they’re cheesy over-the-top antagonists. Everyone else is either forgettable or annoying when you strip away their Abridged personalities.
The show is over 200 episodes, which is rare. Only a few long-running series stay consistently entertaining—stuff like DBZ and One Piece.
Meanwhile, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters Season 1 is not consistently entertaining. Sure, there are some hype duels, usually in the climatic ones in each major arc, but so many side duels are either pointless or focus on antagonists or side characters no one cares about. Plus, there’s way too much filler slice-of-life episodes, weird side plots, or even entire filler arcs (Noah Kaiba’s arc was especially egregious since it literally interrupted the Battle City finals, one of the few consistently good arcs in the series).
I’m all for series not taking themselves too seriously, but Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters Season 1 constantly mixes serious psychological character development with cheesy friendship speeches and crazy magic… all for a trading card game. It’s really hard to take seriously, especially with how ridiculously slow-paced some episodes and arcs are.
LittleKuriboh’s Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged didn’t help, but these days, it’s hard to unironically enjoy the original show. It’s so slow, has too many boring characters, and the novelty of recognizing certain cards and cool attacks only goes so far.
At best, this is a series for hardcore Yu-Gi-Oh! fans only. Casuals would probably have a better time with later Yu-Gi-Oh! series that actually follow the game’s rules and have faster-paced, more interesting stories.
If you just want to see how ridiculous the plot and characters get, just watch LittleKuriboh’s Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged on YouTube. He somehow still hasn’t finished it as of 2025, and at this rate, he probably won’t finish the entire series until the 2030s. But it’s a much quicker and much more entertaining way to enjoy the trading card game monsters aspect of this show.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Feb 23, 2025
The original Planetarian visual novel by Key was one of the first I ever read in my 15+ years of being into visual novels. I've gone on record saying that while I like Key in general, their stories can get pretty predictable with their endings and often feel bloated in terms of length. Planetarian, in a way, is the complete opposite—it's a very short story, not even written by Jun Maeda, yet it still feels distinctly like a Key work.
I thought the original visual novel was just okay. There was a bit too much text, and the visuals didn’t really convey the planetarium aspect it
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was going for. It also didn’t help that there were only two main characters, and we never really got to see the protagonist, Junker. Thankfully, the anime fixes this issue, with great animation that makes up for the visual novel’s dated look.
Planetarian is a short story, and for me, it’s always been difficult to get fully invested in something with very few characters. In this case, there are literally only two speaking characters for most of the series. However, seeing the dystopian world in motion in the anime helps with immersion before Junker eventually hides out in the planetarium.
In both the visual novel and especially the anime, the true star of the show is easily the robot girl, Yumemi Hoshino. I’ve seen my fair share of emotional short stories about tragic robot girls, so they tend to feel predictable—meaning they have to stand out in some way for me to care. Planetarian manages to do that, and even after all these years, I still think Yumemi is one of the most genuinely likable robot heroines, not just in visual novels but even in anime.
She has this innocent yet sincere way of wanting to show as many "customers" as possible the beauty of the stars. The way the anime presents the constellations alongside her bright commentary really enhances the experience, creating a great contrast to the dystopian world outside—one she doesn’t seem fully aware of. These moments, combined with Yumemi’s warm personality contrasting with Junker’s hardened pessimism, make their character development more impactful throughout the story.
I think a roughly two-hour movie was the perfect length to pace out this story. In addition to adapting the already emotional (if a bit predictable) story of the original visual novel, the anime also includes side story sequel content. In my opinion, this addition was absolutely necessary for the kind of emotional catharsis Key is known for.
Unlike many other Key stories, which rely on silly deus ex machina happy endings that tend to sour my opinion of the rest of the work, Planetarian—in any medium—never takes that approach. In fact, the sequel content in the Hoshi no Hito ending improves on the original visual novel’s conclusion, which felt a little too predictable and anti-climactic. The added material in the movie gives proper emotional weight to what happens after the main events, making this, at least for me, the absolute best way to experience the story.
If you want a short, emotional drama set in a dystopian world—one that finds beauty in an otherwise bleak setting—this is a great movie to check out.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 23, 2025
Back when I was still relatively new to anime in the early 2010s and active in various online communities, there was this popular show that everyone was hyping up: Bakemonogatari. People especially seemed to love this tsundere/kuudere purple-haired girl. Naturally, since a lot of my online friends were into it, I figured I should at least give it a try. While the anime had its moments, I can't help but feel that not only is the show itself way overhyped, but the main heroine… I just do not get the love for her at all.
Hitagi Senjougahara is the first major heroine you meet at the
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start of the show, and honestly? She’s an annoying bitch who never got better for me. The only positive I can give her is that she and the main character get together quickly, which is cool and all, but… all of her dialogue just feels like it's pandering to masochists who enjoy being verbally talked down to by an “attractive” girl. Look, I can enjoy my quirky anime girls, but someone who's a consistent bitch for no reason—especially when other heroines have deeper issues—just never sat right with me. I never understood why people love this girl so much beyond the fact that they like getting talked down to.
It’s a shame because I think the rest of the show is generally fine, though I still have issues with it.
I don’t think the main character, Araragi, is anything special. In fact, he’s pretty cringe a lot of the time, though he does have his moments. And honestly, with his personality, I can kind of see why he’d be part of the target audience that enjoys Senjougahara’s bitchy attitude. So I guess, at least from that perspective, their pairing makes sense?
What doesn’t make sense is how the Monogatari series ends up becoming this weird pseudo-harem where he keeps helping other girls with their problems despite having a girlfriend super early on. Sure, his relationship with Senjougahara is clearly dysfunctional with how much of a bitch she is to him, but the way he just keeps getting involved with other girls while she barely factors into it never made sense to me. And all the abuse he gets? Just why?
As for the other heroines introduced in this first season, they’re… alright, I guess. Hachikuji is kind of a funny loli at times, Kanbaru is a somewhat likable lesbian tomboy, Hanekawa is the most sane and likable (if a bit boring at times), and Nadeko… okay, basically everything about her arc is uncomfortable to me.
Speaking of uncomfortable, I’m no weird anti-perverted Puritan—I’ve watched my fair share of dumb ecchi “slop.” But with Bakemonogatari, even as early as season one, I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be a dumb perverted quirky show with Shaft-style animation and head tilts, a story where the main character tries to legitimately solve girls' personal issues (sometimes with magic action), or some weird pseudo-psychological show where characters attempt to be witty and poetic with how much they talk.
I’m all for mixing genres, but this just never made sense to me for Bakemonogatari. I can’t help but feel like the series is trying to do too much and ends up kind of a mess—but people love it because they love the characters.
But yeah, as you might already tell, I think the show in concept and sort of in execution is just okay. I don’t mind a story where a guy helps out a girl, with some goofy, quirky humor, occasional dumb perverted moments, and some legitimately interesting psychological stuff.
Unfortunately, I just think whatever positives this series has are heavily brought down by the (lack of) likability of a lot of the cast. Sure, they get the job done, but for every likable interaction or interesting psychological development, there’s something cringe holding it back—like Kanbaru beating up Araragi, Nadeko’s middle school craziness, Araragi’s sexual harassment comments, etc. With more charismatic characters, maybe these moments could have been funnier, but I just think almost every joke fell flat.
And as I mentioned at the start of this review, I think Hitagi Senjougahara is, at least in my opinion, the most overrated popular anime heroine of all time. I can at least get the appeal of other popular anime heroines like Kurisu from Steins;Gate, Zero Two from Darling in the Franxx, Holo from Spice and Wolf, Taiga from Toradora, or Yuno from Future Diary, even if none of them are in my personal favorites.
But Senjougahara? She’s just an unlikable sadist bitch in every scene she’s in. Anytime she showed up, I visibly groaned, and she alone heavily brought down my enjoyment of the show. I seriously can’t shake the feeling that her dialogue is just pandering to masochist weebs. If she were removed from the show, my enjoyment—especially in this season, where she’s the most prominent—would go up quite a bit. Thankfully, future seasons heavily limit her screen time.
Even then, I just don’t think Bakemonogatari is all that great, even with Senjougahara removed. It has some interesting ideas—solving girls’ psychological issues with Araragi’s sacrificial attitude at times—but I just don’t think any of the characters are particularly great, so I couldn’t get into any of the arcs as much as I wanted to.
Bakemonogatari clearly appeals to a lot of people online. It has a very high rating, but I know there are others in the same boat as me—people who just don’t like Senjougahara and, in general, don’t think the flow of the series is all that great. And I’m here to represent why some people may feel that way.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Feb 21, 2025
I like Little Busters. I like its emphasis on friendship, I think the humor is generally funny enough, and I think it balances comedy and dark drama fairly well. You know what I don't like about Little Busters? The fact that it continues the Jun Maeda and KEY trend of having a deus ex machina ending—but also how its supposed friendship theme is kind of a half-lie.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Despite that angry first paragraph, I’d still say I overall like Little Busters: Refrain. The core of the series is still there—a friendship-focused story with some surprisingly dark melodrama at times.
However, gone is
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basically all the lighthearted slice-of-life comedy from Season 1. This 13-episode season is all about reaching the conclusion and finally revealing the very heavily foreshadowed “secret of the world,” which has been teased since the first few episodes of Season 1.
Because of this, Season 2 focuses much more on the childhood friend group, especially main character Riki and main heroine Rin. Due to how the secret of the world works, these two need to go through some pretty notable character development—some of which they already got in Season 1, but there's still more to go through before they can reach the proper conclusion.
There is that small side story about Kurugaya that was kind of interesting and vaguely ties into the main ending, but ultimately it just felt like a forgettable side quest, similar to most of the main heroine drama from Season 1.
Thankfully, I’d say the emotional drama is a huge upgrade over Season 1. As I mentioned earlier, Season 2 is much more focused on the original five childhood friends, and their bond is extremely important to the secret of the world. A lot of character development and backstory for these five are put front and center. This season really tests how close they are and what they’re willing to go through to get to the "true ending."
Some of these moments are more emotional than others, but I think the major points for each of the main five are generally well done, well-developed, and fitting for their characters—which is more than I can say for the weird drama that happens in the other heroines' stories from Season 1.
Sadly, one of my biggest pet peeves with Little Busters: Refrain is how the other heroines who joined the friend group in Season 1 basically stop mattering by the second half of this season. I thought this was supposed to be a story about the power of friendship, but when the non-childhood friends get completely sidelined and don’t directly contribute to the journey to the best ending, it just feels like a slap in the face to fans of those characters. It also makes you wonder why they were introduced in the first place if they were just going to be irrelevant to the friendship theme. It’s like Maeda suddenly decided that only childhood friends were allowed to be important to the plot.
But that pet peeve has nothing on my biggest complaint of this season—what is arguably my least favorite deus ex machina plot twist in any Key work. A common trope Key and Jun Maeda love to use is vaguely hinting at some supernatural subplot while focusing mostly on resolving the heroines’ personal drama. The supernatural stuff is only mildly hinted at early on, just enough for the writers to claim there was proper buildup before the big reveal in the main ending.
Sadly, Maeda and Key repeat this exact same trick in almost all their long titles, with only a few exceptions (Rewrite and Angel Beats). The supernatural elements are never explained well enough, especially early on, to justify their existence in an otherwise down-to-earth setting. It doesn’t help that the supernatural is usually there just to create intense drama—only for that same supernatural element to then magically ensure that everyone gets a happy ending.
Look, I’m all for happy endings after tough journeys, and to be fair, the characters do put in effort to reach at least a decent conclusion. The problem is that the supernatural elements always end up negating any real sacrifices. And in Little Busters: Refrain, it’s easily the least justified "everyone gets a happy ending" twist, especially considering the way the supernatural setup ties into the start of the series.
I just can't stand how Key fans keep falling for these deus ex machina tricks over and over again. I thought the point of magic tricks was that they lose their impact after a few times, but I guess for Key fans, as long as MUH THEMES hit hard enough, they'll accept anything as long as it leads to a happy ending they find "worthy"—even if it’s not properly explained.
I still like the characters in Little Busters. I still like some of the personal drama. Heck, I think a lot of the struggles the characters go through are pretty relatable, and I wish stories like this were more common in anime and visual novels. I’m just really sick of Key and Jun Maeda falling into the exact same tropes—resolving drama in the most convenient, unexplained way possible while fans continue to eat it up.
When Little Busters Refrain is good, it's really good. It just fumbles at incredibly important moments, souring my overall opinion of this second season.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 20, 2025
With how much love the Clannad anime by Kyoto Animation gets, I’m surprised the Little Busters! adaptation by J.C. Staff doesn’t receive similar appreciation, despite doing almost the exact same thing Clannad did. Both took on the Herculean task of adapting visual novels with over 50 hours of content, both developed by Key and written by Jun Maeda. In some ways, Little Busters! is even more impressive because it actually manages to adapt all the routes instead of just most of them, even if J.C. Staff had to use OVA specials for the Ecstasy routes.
Structurally, Little Busters! Season 1 follows Clannad’s approach almost exactly—mixing common
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route content with main heroine drama in between. Does it always work cleanly? Not really. But for the most part, it balances the tone well enough so you're not stuck in endless friendship-focused slice-of-life scenes, waiting forever for the actual drama to kick in.
Comparing it to Clannad, I’d even argue that Little Busters! Season 1 is better than Clannad's first season. I’ve always liked the concept of Little Busters! just a bit more, even though both are great. It puts a stronger emphasis on group friendship. The Clannad anime tried to create a strong friend group dynamic, but in the original visual novel, many characters rarely interacted with each other. Little Busters! fixes this by making sure the main cast of ten characters is consistently interacting from the start. Many visual novels and anime struggle to make ensemble casts feel both memorable and dynamic, but Little Busters! nails it.
While Clannad is all about family and growing up, Little Busters! goes all in on the power of friendship—but not in a cheesy, over-the-top shounen way. The series does an amazing job of slowly growing its core group from five childhood friends to a much larger circle. Watching these characters genuinely enjoy spending time together, while still having their own interests, feels relatable in a way that many anime, manga, and visual novels struggle to capture. The series does this extremely well, with the characters doing goofy things together like cafeteria competitions, hanging out in dorms, and most importantly, playing baseball.
Sure, some of these scenes get a little repetitive with the same gags, but that’s outweighed by how genuine and sincere the friendships feel. It’s the kind of show where you actually want to be part of the friend group because of how fun, goofy, and wholesome they are.
The cast itself is a huge part of what makes the series work. The five childhood friends have a solid dynamic on their own, but when they bring in five more girls, it livens up the group even more. Not only do we get a lot of fun, sincere slice-of-life moments, but we also get to explore the new characters’ personalities and deep insecurities.
That said, as much as I love the character interactions and group dynamic, Little Busters! has one unfortunate issue—the main heroine drama stories themselves... aren’t that great.
Since Little Busters! is a Key and Jun Maeda work, it's expected to me at least the non-true heroine stories tend to be hit-or-miss. But even when they aren’t as strong, they usually at least have an emotional core that feels grounded and can pull at the heartstrings. The problem here is that, aside from maybe Haruka’s arc, the heroine stories lean too much into supernatural elements, which feels out of place in an otherwise down-to-earth setting. They get a little too over-the-top, and while it's nice to take a break from the slice-of-life segments to explore the characters’ pasts, the execution doesn’t always work. If they had toned down the supernatural aspects and avoided introducing random plot twists out of nowhere, the melodrama would have felt more sincere, instead of clearly trying too hard to get an emotional reaction from the audience.
Haruka’s arc is the one I kind of liked because it focuses on family drama without relying on supernatural elements. Even then, it wasn’t amazing compared to other Key and Maeda stories, but it was definitely an improvement over the others.
Thankfully, the first season ends with the baseball rivalry that had been slowly built up over the course of the season, and that climax is handled really well. I’m glad they mixed in the weaker heroine arcs alongside the more lighthearted baseball conflict, because that part was much stronger and made for a better ending.
Overall, Little Busters! Season 1 is a solid but not amazing show. I think it’s on par with, if not better than, Clannad's first season. The only reason people seem to skip it is because it wasn’t animated by Kyoto Animation. Sure, J.C. Staff doesn’t have the same polished animation or attention to detail as KyoAni, but to me, that’s not a good enough reason to ignore a story that’s just as good—if not better—than Clannad or even other Key works that KyoAni adapted.
Little Busters! Season 1 has a really fun cast with some decent (if flawed) melodrama, and it’s a shame that people overlook it just because they’re obsessed with specific animation studios.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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