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Holy FUCK I did not expect it to be THIS good!

I had a bit of a rough week going on that messed up my sleep-schedule a bit and last night I decided to browse for a few manga to read to pull an all-nighter on. I think I couldn't have been any happier than to stumble upon this gem while doing so.

Having said that, in light of the fact that there's no review for this one yet, I decided that this is asbolutely one that deserves to have one and have resolved to fill in that role because I want this underrated masterpiece to get ... even a little more recognition.

Without further ado, let's start this one (TL,DR at the end), there will be very few spoilers and a few comparisons to other manga such as Bloom Into You, but they will be marked as such or hidden away.


STORY (9 - 9.5/10):
This is already an aspect where it stands out in comparison to other yuri manga. While a lot of other manga in this genre focus more on the cute and wholesome side of the characters' relationship without trying to tell much of a story and end up as just ok - good, this one, much like Bloom Into You, manages to tell a story outside of just the romantic relationship of the two main characters and presents it in an outstanding way.

The story is about high school girl Ito Hinata who admires the up-and-coming model and actress Sumika. As fate may have it, one day per complete coincidence she gets to meet said actress randomly on the street and, while getting invited to play an extra in the drama she's filming, realizes that she isn't that ideal person she has admired all this time. What this entails exactly is something I wanna go into in the character portion.
While this isn't exactly an original story I cannot really find any real flaws in it that would deter me from thinking this is perfect, in that manner too it is similar to Bloom Into You.
9 - 9.5/10


CHARACTERS (10/10):
The characters in this story all feel like actual people with real struggles, hardships and development they go through rather than just your typical run-of-the-mill romance anime and manga characters. They are incredibly relatable and their dialogue and relationships just feel natural.

While anything I could say probably wouldn't do justice to how good they actually are, I wanna go into a bit more detail about the few important characters. Next to the usual stuff that their respective role in society has to deal with, all of them also have to deal with a good amount of their own personal struggles that make everyone unique and distinct from another and gives them their own personality.

Ito Hinata:
Our main protagonist is high-school girl Ito and immediately at the beginning of the manga she gets presented a question by her friend Tomoyo about what she would do if the person she admired turned out different from her ideal version of them and she answers she'd probably try to distance herself from them.

When she is presented with that EXACT situation though, she doesn't really get a chance to do so and instead ends up getting pulled into the life of her idol Sumika. Because of a past trauma involving a person she looked up to like a sister being different from what she thought, she lost all her confidence in herself and is now at a complete loss of what she's going to do, especially because after a few meetings Sumika suddenly declares she loves her and she now has to deal with these newfound feelings inside her that she doesn't quite understand how to process.

In the short time this manga had to tell its story, Ito is the thing I'm most impressed about. The reason for that is the fact that the author managed to make her so relatable that you could easily picture yourself being her and that through the development she goes through cuz of meeting Sumika and the other characters in the story turns from this timid girl with no self-confidence into someone who actively takes action and fights for the ones she loves without it ever feeling rushed or not warranted in any way. She's also smart enough to know EXACTLY who to ask which questions and what she should tell others and what not.
IF she actually had a character tag here on MAL, I'd have put her in my favorites immediately after finishing it.

Next we have our idol
Sumika:
She's an actress and model that's been in showbizz for almost her entire life, courtesy of her familial situation, and has to put up a front whenever she's working or interacting with fans. Besides the usual problems that arise in her line of work like the general problems of the showbizz scene and more and more false rumours turning up because of her increasing popularity, she also has to deal with her own personal situation that her mother abandoned her at a very young age, leaving her in the care of her uncle Kazu, and no one in the business looks at her actual self instead of the ideal version of her they conjured up in her head.
When she happens upon Ito, that completely changes and they soon develop a bond which makes her gradually show more and more of her real self to her and they start to support each other in their own personal struggles. Seeing how this all feels incredibly natural and they take their time to flesh out the feelings of each of these two girls, they might actually be among my favorite manga couples yet.

Kazu:
Kazu is the brother of Sumika's mother and after she left has taken in Sumika to live with him and has thus supported her behind the scenes from the time she was a little girl. He's just overall a really nice dude she can rely on and always ask for advice. There's not much else to say than that except for the fact that there's also a nice little surprise in the later chapters about him

Tomoyo and Tatsuki:
Tomoyo and Tatsuki are both school friends of Ito and like to hang out together to talk all kinds of stuff. They're also people that see Ito for who she really is and always support and give her advice and help her out in her daily school life, and they both just have great chemistry between each other and between them and Ito. And I'm sooooo glad they're not reduced to being just a background ship.

Miyana:
Miyana, or as she is lovingly called by her fans "Mya-na", is a coworker in the same agency as Sumika that quit her carrier as a singer in an idol band to become an actress and has to deal with the fact that she stands in Sumika's shadow. I don't want to go much into her, but I do wanna just say this:
I get it, you know, I understand why she is the way she is and why she does what she does, but FUCK HER. I hate her. But for a story like this, she is an absolutely neccessary character and the drama involving her did not feel forced and the way they resolved their issue was really nicely done

As this is my favorite aspect of the manga, I think I got a bit carried away with this portion, so I'll leave to the next ones with a perfect
10/10


ART (9/10):
While obviously not being the best I've seen in manga, not even for its own genre, the art itself is extremely beautiful, especially in the shots where the characters are smiling brightly or otherwise conveying powerful emotions. You always know exactly what the characters are feeling and the way they're brought to life through how they're drawn is quite honestly amazing. Oh and I love the sparkles in the background every time they smile or do something lovey-dovey like kissing.
9/10

ENDING/CONCLUSION (9.5/10):
I am someone that thinks that the conclusion to the story matters just as much as the journey itself, sometimes more sometimes less, and an ending that doesn't fit would ruin an otherwise incredible story.
BOY am I glad that I got just what I wanted with this one.
The ending perfectly resolves the issues at hand that the story presented over the course of its run and leaves you with a sweet and satisfying expression. Personally, and I already mentioned this in my Bloom Into You review (read that one too, I'm quite proud of that), I am a sucker for stories dedicating an entire chapter just for an epilogue to show what the characters are up to after the main story ends. And with this one, we get not only one but TWO entire chapters of just our two main characters' afterstory. Well, granted, one is a bonus chapter and thus decidedly shorter than the rest of the chapters. I don't think I could've been any happier with how this story presented its ending, though unlike BIY I did not quite expect that [REDACTED] would be the one on top, but it does make sense given their personaltities.
9.5/10

ENJOYMENT/EMOTIONAL IMPACT (9.5/10):
A big factor on how I rate stories is how they impact me emotionally and the connection they make me feel to them. This is one that excells in this aspect. Personally, I think Ito is one of the most relatable characters I've seen in a long time. Given that I am an unusually emotional person, I knew that there were probably gonna be a few scenes that would make me tear up, but I didn't quite expect there to be this many, both in terms of happiness and sadness, so that was certainly a really nice surprise. I could easily feel all the things the characters went through and what they felt while doing so, and for that alone, this will always have a special place in my heart.
9.5/10

Overall / TL,DR (9.5/10):
This is the perfect Yuri manga. I honestly wish every Yuri manga would be like this. It's a perfect drama with amazing dialogue and a carefully well-handled relationship between perfectly relatable characters. Probably one of my favorite manga couples ever. It is in a way a spiritual successor to my favorite romance manga, which you can probably already guess from the review is Bloom Into You, given both its themes and the fact that it manages to tell a rather unoriginal tale in such an outstanding manner that it just completely sucks you in without letting you go.
So, if you like Bloom Into You and want to read something similar, or if you just want to fill up that deep, gaping hole it left you with after you finished it, this manga is the one to go with. You won't regret it, and if you do, you can just blame it on me for making you waste your time then, I'll be happy to get roasted for it if it means this manga gets more recognition.

Oh and if you haven't read Bloom Into You yet, I have a question for you:
What the F are you even doing with your life? Go and read it NOW!

Disclaimer: Might be reworked or edited later if I find stuff I've missed talking about. There are close to no spoilers in here but if there are I'll mark them as such.

Ever since I finished reading Pandora Hearts at the beginning of last year, I've asked myself if I'll ever find something that captivates me as much, something that resonates with me as much, and something that just blows me away as much as it did.
Now, I MIGHT be leaning myself a bit far out of the window, BUT I think I just found it. Is this really the one? Have I found ... it? After all this time?

Having said this, let's not waste any more time and get straight to the review (TL,DR at the end this time)


THE CONTENT:


STORY:
Tsubasa Reservoir chronicle takes the concept from Cardcaptor Sakura of "something worse than the world splitting in two" as its base premise: Forgetting everything about the one you care about the most.
At the beginning, it's a story about a guy and his companions travelling the multiverse to find and collect the memories of his most beloved, even if she will never remember him, while the mysterious villain watches over their steps from the background. (So basically, a lot like the inital first half of Pandora Hearts, but with a little more teen angst thrown into it)
But it's SO MUCH more than that. From the moment the journey starts we are accompanying our group of 5 into a plethora of wonderfully intriguing and captivating different worlds where in each one they are put in a particular situation they have to worm their way out of, finding a feather and getting to the next one. I am a bit surprised at how lighthearted it starts out tbh.
Every single arc and world, even if it initially doesn't seem all too interesting, manages to be incredibly well crafted and pulls a twist on you at the end that makes it absolutely worthwhile.

At around 90-100 chapters in, it begins to reveal certain characters' pasts, their motivations and what shaped them into who they are now, and for some time you'll ask yourself "am I still reading the same story?" because the further it goes on the more twisted and dark it gets with each arc, yet always with that small ray of hope still shining on, never to the point of the story becoming too bleak.

Ultimately, this is a story about choices and decisions. "What is it that I want to choose?" "How will my decision affect my future and the future of others around me?" "Am I willing to go so far to make this choice even if it might hurt others, even my friends and loved ones?" "Was the choice I made right or wrong?" "Is there even such a thing as a right choice?"
I believe CLAMP did an excellent job at getting through to the reader how heavy of a burden you carry, or how much of a toll certain decisions you made can be on you.

The story is twisted, dark, messed up, captivating and all in all just mindblowing in the best way possible, but yet it sill manages to carry out a romance plot that is so engaging that you just cannot help to root for it to come to fruition even if the initial base line for it is incredibly painful
Therefore from me, it gets a full score of
10/10


CHARACTERS:
Now, on to the heart and soul of this story: Its characters.

This is genuinely one of the most amazing ensemble cast I've seen in everything I've read. Period.

Every single character is incredibly well defined, has their own style and personality, goes through their own struggles and develops over the course of the story on their own, but also through the influence of the other characters around them.
MY GOD, Sakura's development alone is some of the best I've seen in the medium.

What impresses me the most, personally, is the fact that you can put any combination of 2 or more characters in the same scene toghether and still just KNOW it will be an amazing dynamic and conversation. Every single character has a unique relationship with each of their companions and they help each other develop and overcome their struggles.

After that, the next point on the menu of mindblowingness is each individual character's backstory.
Just when you think "I don't think anything this manga does next can top that guy's backstory", they pull out the uno reverse card and be like "HA, you thought, but how about you take THIS kind of pain next!?" and reveal another character's past that just completely recontextualizes every event prior to this point in the story.
All I can say to that is: The parents are Gigachads.

One last thing to look at, a thing that I usually don't really talk about a lot, or not at all, when it comes to characters is their design.
Now, the character design itself may not be the most special or unqiue thing and if you're like me you've probably seen a shit-ton of similar looking characters in other stories you've watched or read, BUT what stands out in this (as well as most other CLAMP manga from what I've seen) is the characters costumes and clothes.
If there's anything CLAMP knows how to do, it's FASHION. And if there's anyone in the industry knowing how to give every single character an incredible flair and style, then it is CLAMP. Just watch and read Cardcaptor Sakura to see that for yourself.

I've mentioned Pandora Hearts being my favorite story at the beginning and I wanna talk about a point in which these two are pretty similar. The main villain:
Both of these manga share a particular kind of villain, one of my personal favorite kind of villains, as their main antagonist: The one who manipulates everything and everyone from behind the scenes and makes themselves comfortable in it.
Initially I did not like Fei-Wang Reed that much as a character for this kind of thing but in the end when it was revealed, or rather theorized what he ACTUALLY was, I began to see him in a much different light than what I thought before. Just like he said to Syaoran "He's the same". But I'll say a bit more to that in my personal section later.

For now, I'll leave this off and also grant TRC for its characters a perfect score of
10/10

Kind of bummed out that that one girl that's shown in every single world running (or sometimes flying) with bread in her mouth didn't turn out to be something bigger than just a fun background easter egg for people who inspect the details to look for every clue they'll get like me.

CONCLUSION/ENDING:

I am keeping this section the shortest because I do not want to spoil anything and I will go into it a bit more in the "personal section" later, but this manga hurts me right where it matters with its conclusion because it is a kind of ending I will ALWAYS absolutely adore: A bitter-sweet open ending leaving you with just enough to theorize on what is going to happen to our beloved characters next. (Well, putting the sequel Tsubasa World Chronicle aside for now)
9.5/10


THE TECHNICAL ASPECT:


ART:
The art is phenomenal. CLAMP have their own somewhat unique style of drawing their characters but I think they make it work out the best in this story compared to some of their other works (looking at you, xxxHolic and Code Geass).
It's not the best art I've seen around, by far not the best actually, but it has a certain magic that just completely pulls you into it and never lets you go until you've either finished it entirely or are too exhausted to even keep going. (Just me? Ok then, I guess)
If you've seen my reviews for Umineko (part 4 and 7) you'll know what I'm talking about when I say this.
The backgrounds are beautiful and manage to bring life into every single place they go to and make this whole manga just a beautiful sight to experience.

SLIGHT SPOILERS from here:

I gotta subtract half a point though because at some points it is very hard to tell what's going on in a fight scene. I have some problems with that kind of stuff anyway but then you throw in a fight where multiple version of the same character fight against each other while looking (almost) EXACTLY the same and I'm just like "uhm, wtf is happening guys?"

SPOILERS END

9.5/10

SIDENOTE: While reading I listened to the soundtrack of the anime adaptation for this (combined with a 10 hour loop of just Cicada sounds, please don't ask why) which just further proofs the point I've been trying to make ever since Madoka Magica that Yuki Kajiura is a literal goddess. 10/10 anime soundtrack. Right now, day 4 of writing this, I'm listening to the xxxHolic soundtrack, also very solid, OPs and EDs have no business slapping that hard.

So, finally we're coming to the most important part of this review

THE PERSONAL SECTION/EMOTIONAL IMPACT:

I've been planning on reading this ever since I've started watching anime and reading manga back in summer 2018-ish, MUCH longer before I even knew Pandora Hearts which is now my favorite story existed in the first place. So now with finally having been able to read it all I am just so excited that it turned out as good as it was.

Coming from the high of just having finished my previous CLAMP manga Cardcaptor Sakura (which, btw is also one of my personal favorites) I was IMMEDIATELY 100% attached to the main characters of the story Sakura and Syaoran. I know that it's not the same characters and just different versions of them out in the multiverse but that still didn't stop me.
Starting right at the beginning, emotional scene after emotional scene, no matter how small, got to me and put another dent in my already fragile heart. Even the supposedly wholesome scenes of the characters supporting each other were hard to read because of the messed-up-ness of the situation of Sakura not remembering who Syaoran is (not a spoiler, that's literally the premise of the story as I talked about earlier) and him just laughing off the pain.
As the story continued to go on, even in the parts or worlds that initially didn't seem that interesting, I could always hold on to the in-depth characterization everyone got and about halfway through I just KNEW that unless it managed to mess up big time this would become one of my favorites. And like I mentioned a bit earlier even those parts managed to make me completely love it by some kind of twist at the end of the arc. I can't really think of an arc that I do not like in this, and that is kind of rare, even for some of my favorites.

Every time the characters felt pain, I felt it too; every time they celebrated a success and could be happy (and very drunk lots of times), I felt their happiness too. It was just an incredibly engaging and captivating experience going through this whole thing chapter after chapter after chapter.
It got to the point where I had to literally watch a cute-girls-do-cute-things show right after to calm my feelings down a bit ("Is the order a rabbit?", surprisingly a REALLY fun show so far, shameless pandering to the kind of weeb who's a little too into CGDCT-stuff for comfort, so basically to me.)

One of the big things I wanna adress is the fact that people often talk about how confusing and hard to follow this story is, but to be honest I do find it quite easy to follow, not predictable (they always pull some kind of unexpected twist on you that you never could've guessed in a lifetime) and didn't have any real problem with how much of a "mind-fuck" this manga is.
IS WHAT I WOULD'VE SAID IF THE LAST TWO VOLUMES DIDN'T EXIST, because oh boy does it get complicated and twisted.
I was having zero problem following the events as they unfolded and as twist after twist came shooting at me until a certain point in the second to last volume revealed the mangas main plot twist to me: The meaning of the very first pages of the very first chapter. That was the point where my brain just decided to turn itself into emergency mode, and I had to quite literally read every chapter that followed at least twice to get everything that I was seeing. I had no problem seeing what happened, but taking it all in is where the hard part set in and my brain just noped out entirely.
That said, in the end, everything managed to make sense and wrap up nicely for the aforementioned bitter-sweet open ending which just left me with a feeling of complete emptyness that I haven't felt in a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time, the last time being after finishing "Hibike Euphonium" at the beginning of 2020. So this story managed to do something none other, not even my favorite story ever, has managed to do in the last two years.
And that fact alone makes it a worthy contender to stand on the same heights as the aforementioned favorite Pandora Hearts.

I briefly talked about the similarity between Fei-Wang Reed in this as a main antagonist and the main villain of Pandora Hearts, but the reason Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle falls juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust a little short of actually managing to reach the same height as Pandora Hearts in my book is because the latter handles its plot and development around the main villain in a MUCH MUCH better way. That is not to say that Tsubasa doesn't handle it well, it does, really well actually, or that Fei-Wang Reed is a bad antagonist because quite frankly, the concept alone of what he is if he actually is what our characters theorize at the end is incredibly intriguing and opens up tons of possibilities, it is just that the main villain in PH was handled so well that every other villain almost pales in comparison to them and they're what I consider one of the best written fictional characters ever.

I've found a guide online and have been reading this in tandem with the xxxHolic manga because the two are connected and I definitely think you should check out xxxHolic too if just to see another side of the events transpiring in this manga, and to get more of that sweet Sakura character development. And to know what's been going on with Watanuki (the main protagonist of xxxHolic) because he shows up in Tsubasa a lot later on.
I've been somewhat put on a mission by my brain halfway through this story to read EVERYTHING CLAMP wrote that has any kind of connection with Tsubasa, no matter how small it is, and even if it's just a version of a single character from another story. So far I've figured out that "X", "xxxHolic" (obviously) and "Chobits" definitely belong to the ones I should read.

Now letting one of my longest reviews yet (among the ones I wrote on here and just for myself too) come to a close I'll just leave it with a small fun fact about something I said not too long ago:
About two months ago I messaged a friend that 86 (aside from Pandora Hearts and Shinreigari) was the best thing I've watched and read this year, last year, and probably for the next 2 years too. Welp, guess I was wrong because THIS, right here, is peak fiction. I'm actually kind of floored by just HOW good this is. It's been a long time since I gave something a full full 10 points. I'll be giving this a re-read soon after finishing some other CLAMP mangas just to find more details and see if it actually manages to catch up to Pandora Hearts.

This review is now 7 days in the making and finally finished.

TL,DR: This, right here is peak fiction. If you want an engaging and captivating tragic tale with loveable yet deeply complex characters, great fantasy and world building with a fantastic conclusion, completed by a well-developed and well-realized romance subplot, all while building/keeping up and developing a mindblowing mystery in the background, then here you are exactly right. Seriously, read it, it's a masterpiece. If you want more reasons, read the essay above. Here, you'll find a Sakura that is not useless, the very opposite of useless in fact. This is actually a shounen where the word "unique" is quite fitting.

So, it's been a hot minute since I've made a review and after reading this I was kinda in the mood to do it again.

I've had this manga in my plan to read for an eternity but held off on reading it until, suddenly, there is an anime adaptation. So I watched up to episode 3 and was like "Aight, that's it, I'mma read the manga now" and tried to cram it inbetween everything going on right now.

I'M trying to keep this as spoiler-free as possible but I will leave a warning if there's gonna be one after all

And now, to not waste ... any more time, let's start the actual review:

TL,DR: An exciting action thriller with some nice underlying supernatural mystery about a guy time-traveling/looping that gets elevated by its rather logical and rational thinking cast and a great protagnist-antagonist-dynamic, that at times tends to be a bit too dramatic I guess. Definitely a recommended read and so far anime looks great too

Now, the long version

STORY:
Summer Time Rendering is a timeloop manga with a much similar premise to Re-Zero or Madoka Magica. Contrary to those two shows, this one focuses a lot more on the logical and practical way of solving the problems presented instead of the characters' personal psychological struggles and the emotional side of it all (though there is some of that in here too). It's a pretty neatly done, yet very fast paced story but at times it can get a bit tiring and a bit too dramatic. Personally though, I'd consider this more of an action thriller than an actual mystery story. And unlike some other shounen manga getting praised for its uniqueness *cough cough* not mentioning any names *cough cough*, this one manages to deliver exactly that, uniqueness, despite having such a similar premise to a lot of other works.
7/10

CHARACTERS:
As I mentioned before, the characters in this are much more rational and logical, trying to look at their situation objectively and solve their problems in the best way they can. Shinpei is such a nice breath of fresh air as a protagonist for this genre and his chemistry with the other characters makes for a great reading experience, especially with Ushio, who is a delight to watch go through her shenanigans and badass-ness all the time.
Everyone of the characters gets a chance to shine and proper develop into what they are at the end of the story and there's not one that is unlikable, well except for Totsumura cuz he's just useless (kinda wish my prediction that he'd make the kill shot would come true but alas you can't have everything I guess). And it's not only on the protagonist side that the characters get to show what they're capable of.
Which makes me come to the most impressive part of this manga for me: The dynamic between the protagonist and the villains. The concept of the villain "what if the 2D character becomes aware of the 3D world and tries to actively pull the plug from it" itself is a neat concept but the way they are going about it just sometimes leaves me in awe. Both protagonists and antagonists are actively using both the others' weaknesses AND strengths' against them in the smartest way they can always leaving the other party to try and figure out a way to rework their plans. And their motivations and actions I can actually get behind and understand why they are doing what they are doing. At some points, when it still was just a bit more mysterious what their end goal was, I actually found myself rooting for the villains to just make Shinpei's quest as hard as possible, and sure as hell they really did.

Definitely the best part of the manga and the story and I know I'm probably not the only one in thinking so.
8,5/10

ART:
The art is very nice and you can follow most of what is happening quite easily, even in the fights (that's sometimes a big problem I have when reading manga). Not the best I've seen but still just really nice to look at.
Having said that, I think I might have just found my personal favorite manga panel of all time in the colored two-page spread in the final chapter. YOU KNOW WHICH ONE. Cuz TTHAT, was beautiful.

ENDING/CONCLUSION:
So, before reading this I've been hearing a lot about it having a disappointing ending but to be quite honest: I don't see it. It managed to tie up everything neatly, left nothing really unresolved and gave a satisfying conclusion to pretty much every character's arc. The complain I hear the most is that it is "rushed" but imo if you think that this has a rushed ending then you haven't been paying much attention to how fast paced the story was in the first place, because it was always like this from the beginning. Or maybe that is just because I basically read this in like 5 days.....
8/10

ENJOYMENT / EMOTIONAL IMPACT:
I am a very huge fan of the time travel / time loop story-trope. That gets pretty obvious when you look at my lists and favorites. But that also means that I tend to be overly critical about stories that try to handle this topic because it is a topic you have to handle extremely carefully otherwise you'll write yourself into a corner. Thankfully, I didn't have that problem because it manages to just tie up everything quite neatly.
The biggest problem I had was that, again, this manga tends to get a little bit overdramatic at times and in these moments such a fast pace like this one has is a big disadvantage in getting the scene across right. Although I do have to say that there are some emotional scenes that still managed to deliver a gut-punch to me and made me tear up a bit.
Overall aside from a few gripes I had a very good time reading this and would recommend every fan of supernatural mystery-thrillers to give this one a go. And I'm especially excited to see what the author has in store for the anime since he is working with the animation staff on trying to improve upon things he felt he made a mistake.

This gets a whooping score of 7.5 - 8 / 10 from me.

PEACE OUT! xD

So after a short break of 2 months after finishing the question arc and doing my review for Episode 4, aka Alliance of the Golden Witch, I just finished this part saw that there are no reviews and thought "why not just do one myself?" because again as you can see from my score this was one of my favorite parts of the story, so without further ado:


STORY:

There's not that much to say about the story here aside from the fact that it is a carefully crafted and exceptionally well presented reveal of the "Who-Dunit", "How-Dunit" and "Why-Dunit" of our culprit, the real identity of ... the person behind Beatrice the Golden Witch, in the 7th game overall which is divided into 3 parts that are easy to follow yet eye-openingly mindblowing as they go on and on giving you the answer to the questions that have plagued you from the very beginning of the story (or at least should at the latest have done so after Episode 3). The way the story is presented is so uniquely Umineko that it at times left me speechless about how this particular way of revealing your main mystery hasn't been done to this extent before, but to that I will have to say more in the character portion. Alliance still remains my favorite part of this story so far cuz of the emotional connection with Ange I made through it but this one is definitely a close second, so this one also quite easily gets a
10/10


CHARACTERS:

Now one small aspect of Umineko that I am not particularly fond of is the fact that with every part there is always a plethora of new characters added to the already big cast we had prior to said part. With Requiem being no exception from this fact, I rather had my doubts about it before starting and wished it would focus less on new characters and give more proper screen time to the ones that were there from the beginning.
BOY WAS I WRONG ABOUT THAT!
The character writing was, by far and without a single shred of doubt in my mind, the best thing about this part of the story.
Through the newly added characters Will and Lion we slowly learn about the main mysteries this story has presented us with over the course of its run:

1) Kinzou and Beatrice's first meeting as well as the backstory of the Ushiromiya Gold and all it brings with it.
And with this story comes my utmost respect for Kinzou, the head of the Ushiromiya household and the mad man constantly rambling on about the occult and Beatrice the Witch, as a character. Seeing his backstory about what happened long long before this story starts presented in such a grounded way was something I never thought I would enjoy as much as I did but here we are with this being one of my favorite parts of the entire manga.

2) The identity of the person behind Beatrice the Golden(/Endless) Witch and how her in canon story became what it is now.
Through the above mentioned carefully crafted backstory of our culprit we get one of the most graceful and respectful ways to reveal and resolve a mystery ever, both to the readers as well as to the characters in the story while giving so much focus to JUST the one character and her connections to the "magic world". The way they were put to rest through the battle with Will (man I like Battler but I wish we had more of Will in the previous parts too) with them going through all the games played and reveal each and every answer to how it all was done is probably my absolute favorite thing all of the parts up to here have done so far, and I've come to love a few of the characters, especially the servants much more than I did before.

3) The Truth about the incident on Rokkenjima of October 4th and 5th 1986.
Well, we got this one mostly through Ange and Lion put at the end of Requiem and the only thing I gotta say is: Damn, how can the part that is probably the most grounded in reality and the calmest also be the most f'ed up of the whole thing with the tea party chapters at the end there.

Now to not have this portion end up too long, the last thing I'd like to say about the characters, that is in general and not limited to this part, is that I wish that not all the parents or parent figures would be such over the top a-holes or kinda just bad parents, like how F'ed up is it that the best parent figure (aside from the servant Kumasawa) is the guy who banged and had a child with his own daughter. Think about that for a moment; and with a please never change, Japan, never change I also bestow a score of
10/10 for the characters in this part, simple because it managed to absolutely deliver on everyone it focused on.


ART:

The art is still my good and precious Umineko art and now, unlike Part 4, I get to have my magical black and "golden" background whenever the scenes outside of the gameboard play again so I am rather happy about that. Without much else to say, it is not the best art I've seen in manga but it is pretty high up
9/10

To stay in the technical aspect I also listened to the OSTs for this part too which is surprisingly amazing, yet much much calmer than its predecessors and I had a great time reading while listening to it, obviously not to the right track for every corresponding scene but hey, still.

ENDING/CONCLUSION:

Now one of the things I always take into my rating of anything I watch and read is the ending, or the conclusion, of the story being presented to me. Despite this not being the actual ending of the entirity of the story I feel like this did an incredibly good job answering most of the questions that have been set up over the course of all of the previous parts and with the ending we got with Battler coming back in again for Ange, I am very curious on what Episode 8 is gonna be, because I have literally zero clue as to what I should expect, also given that it is many readers' favorite part. So with me gushing on about this for basically all this review, I'll give the conclusion to this one a
9/10
though I personally still can't wrap my head around why so many people love Bernkastel, maybe I'll know by the end of part 8.

ENJOYMENT/EMOTIONAL IMPACT

I think by now you all now that I absolutely love this manga, and as much as I want to give this aspect a full score, because I simply cannot connect in any way with a lot of the parents characters and especially not with Bernkastel the Witch of Miracles I have to subtract at least a few points for this here.

Overall my score for Requiem of the Golden Witch comes down to a 9.5/10, given that it is far better than most of the previou parts and only topped by Alliance which I overall also gave a 9.5.

I am very curious to see what awaits me in Episode 8 and how this whole thing ends, but until then (which will probably be in the next 2 days given I read this one in the span of a bit less than 3 days) I bid you adieu and wish you all a belated happy new year 2022

So this will be the first time I review a show I’ve been following weekly but there’s really something I got to tell the world about this show. As always following my usual review style with a quick little TL Dr at the start. Quick disclaimer but there will be a few minor spoilers here. Also this is I think my longest review.

TL,DR: do not let the rather „low“ score of this turn you off the show because I’d still recommend to watch this if you like proper slice of life anime, especially if you are interested in the inner workings of an aquarium ... because this show is well researched. You just gotta get through an incredibly annoying main character.


Now let’s start the review:

STORY:

Aquatope on white sand, or Shiroi Suna no Aquatope, is a story about an ex idol that does a spur of the moment decision and runs away from home and finds a place she belongs to at Gama Gama Aquarium in Okinawa and the people there.

At least I WISH it was because with Fuuka, our runaway idol, as the primary protagonist this show would’ve been ten times better.

Now don’t get me wrong, there’s still a good amount of focus on her story but the main focus is about the current situation of the Gamma Gamma which is about to close down because it isn’t doing so well and the path of the characters while it goes down and after.

It’s a proper slice of life story that is split into two parts. The first half aböut gamma gamma, the second aböut what happens after. It’s got a slow pace to build up its story properly and doesn’t skip over things too fast and never gets boring. If you like or are at least interested in Aquariums, this show is for you because it is actually well researched. The story to me seems like P.A. Works spiritual successor to Hanasaku Iroha which, if you haven’t seen it already, I can only recommend if you like good slice of lifes to relax to. The story gets a 7/10 from me.


CHARACTERS:

Now this is both the strongest as well as the worst part about this show. Given the slow pacing it takes its time to properly build up and develop every single character in a way that’s natural and makes sense given their personalities. Most of the decisions the characters make sense, sometimes only after their backstory or other circumstances are revealed, sometimes from the start.

We’ve got everything the heart desires in the wise grandpa, the introvert that’s afraid of women (hey for a good reason mind you), the best supporting female friend and big-sister figure anime has seen in 2021, the back-pain suffering middle aged man, the never smiling superior only assigned to give the main character a hard time at work (<- seriously that guy is the best addition to the cast in the second half and he has the least dialogue in the show) the single mom who’s trying to make it at work, and a ton of more colorful characters that all add to the cast equally well.

And THEN we have Kukuru, or as the assistant director refers to her and I’ll further use for this review: „Plankton“. Plankton is our high school aged main character and the current acting director for gamma gamma aquarium in place of her grandfather (who’s coined as the Legendary Aquarium Director in every other aquarium they go to). She’s the type of character that always jumps into the direction of the very first emotion she feels at the current situation she’s in without thinking even a single step ahead, which in turn gets her into quite an amount of trouble multiple times. I usually don’t have a problem with emotional characters, just look at my profile‘s lists for confirmation of that, but there’s a point where you should stop and think to yourself: „you know, after all these times she acted so emotionally and got into trouble, she kinda should’ve learned by now to at least try to think rationally about the situation first“ but NOPE right back to square one.

A good example of what I’m talking about is in the second half of the show:

One of the penguins at the aquarium is hatching up an egg so the attendants that can are to stay the nightshift to see this through. When Plankton learns about the fact that the main attendants for the penguins can not make it to the Night Shift now what does she do? Well of course she does the only thing that comes to her mind and literally goes to her in the cafeteria at lunch break shouting at her accusing her of not caring about the animals and abandoning them and leaving the work to other people without even spending a single second to ask or even just THINK aböut why she can’t make the Night Shift. Pretty easy answer to the question: she can’t because she’s a single mother of a 5 year old kid.

Now she doesn’t only have these annoying scenes, there are actually some quite good ones involving her, especially when she’s with Fuuka or when she comes to her mind and realizes she should take a different approach, but these overly emotional episodes of hers are far more present than any of her good qualities. She does come around a bit at the end in the last few episodes and has some nice development but the damage is already more than done to make me change my opinion on her.

As for Fuuka, the other main character, after she comes into her own after the first few episodes she acts as the determined and supporting big sister to Plankton, and my god if any of you ever manage to find a friend who is like her, then keep them because you won’t find one like them any time soon. She’s determined, she’s decisive, she knows what she wants, she uses everything she learns and takes it into account for every further decision she makes and is just overall a complete and well rounded character. She’s not without her flaws too (being a runaway ex idol) but her qualities and development more than make up for any criticism you could throw at her. Seriously one of the best characters coming out of anime this year imo.

Because I’ve rambled on quite a lot I’ll close my character part here with an 7/10


ART/ANIMATION:

Not much to say here, the visuals are impeccable, the arts great and fitting for the themes of the show and the animation is magical. Sometimes I feel it’s a bit too bright and colorful, especially for a relatively simple slice of life show so it gets a 8/10


SOUND:

The OSTs aren’t too remarkable or any that are gonna stay in your head forever but I can’t say I’ve heard a single subpar one, and it mostly fits. The OPs and EDs aren’t exactly my favorites but they’re not bad.
7/10


ENDING/CONCLUSION:

I think this was an ending very much befitting this show and they actually delivered on it really well, albeit a bit fast paced imo. It mostly paid off almost everything it build up and ended with a pretty beautiful scene. I kinda wish it would’ve focused a bit more on one particular thing introduced in the later episodes that I’ll not get into because of spoilers but they could always do a movie for that like they did with Hanasaku Iroha so here’s to hoping for that. Because the end was a bit fast and there was no focus on that one thing the ending for me is a good 7/10.


EMOTIONAL IMPACT/ENJOYMENT:

Now then, this is the part where I actually lay some of the most worth into when watching an anime: How does it affect me personally?

If I look at Aquatope then I can say, not exactly in a very positive way. There’s not to say it is not a good show, on the contrary, like I said above I still recommend it to anyone who likes watching proper slice of life stories. But when I take into account just how much Plankton annoyed me then I really can’t give it a high score for this topic.

But other than her I’ve liked pretty much everything else with a few exceptions. It’s kind of a similar situation to EVA: good plot, great cast, nice visuals, but I lack the ability to even remotely relate to the main character. Now Kukuru probably thinks she suffers as much as Shinji but she doesn’t. She’s a character that makes for good drama that drives the story forward but it can also be misplaced drama, and if you’re not gonna get me invested in said drama you can kinda just get lost already. Again, I wish there was more focus on Fuuka.

As an overall rating for this review I’ll put a 6/10 here because of the aforementioned points but since the anime ended on a pretty good note and there is decent natural development I’ll probably have it as a 7/10 in my list. It’s more a 6.5 though than anything else. This is an above average show that had the potential to be so much better but just happened to have a very subpar main character.



P.S.: I don't understand people who make reviews BEFORE a show is finished, sometimes especially with popular shows that just manipulates the ratings, and I HATE to see currently airing shows in the top 30 on this site. Not this one, just in general.

Alright, instead of my usual style for this review I'mma do something different for this one. I watched this anime about a year ago and had to write down a rant (that I do personally find hilarious tbh) because this was the first show to make me genuinely ANGRY. There is obviously gonna be HEAVY SPOILERS in this review as I basically hammer it down how much I hated every single second of it. And it's still my least favorite anime for the below mentioned points, but for some reason I feel the urge to rewatch this, so maybe there will be an update to ... this review once I'm done with that. (Update: my rewatch ended about 10 minutes into episode 1.)

SO, because I actually found my rant from back then I'll post it here for everyone's and my own amusement so bystanders who look at my list can stop wondering "Why does he hate Casshern Sins so much?" Have fun reading:


<<"Casshern Sins" is the most pretentious bullsh** I have ever seen in my life. What the f is the point of the show?

The whole thing can be summarized to basically "if given the opportunity most would prefer eternal life, but to truely call it 'life' there also has to be death too". There, saved everyone from wasting 8-9 hours on this trash heap of a show. And before anyone tries to come on with the "yOu JuSt dIdN't UnDeRsTaNd It" argument, NO just no, you don't need a degree in metaphysical sciences to understand the show, and besides, the ONLY anime that I will freely admit to not having fully understood at first watch are Serial Experiments Lain and Mawaru Penguindrum. The characters are one-note bland boring robots/humans/whateverthef's that don't add anything to the show at all in substance, contradict themselves constantly or just are completely bad. And when there's finally an interesting character it's either killed or written off in one episode (episode 3 with Akoz, episode 7, 8 or 9 with Janice). (Also, how the f do you CHOKE a ROBOT, why the f do they need to breathe anyway? If Casshern, Dio and Leda are the only ones created to feel emotions and reproduce like humans, then why the F do all the other robots too!??!) And what the F is Braiking Boss's deal, non-sensically going back and forth between laughing at Casshern and everyone else for having brought the Ruin over the world and apparently caring for the robots that died by doing stuff like making graves for them. And why is NO ONE actually giving him the blame for the Ruin, he issued the order to kill Luna, and everyone just says 'damn Casshern for bringing the Ruin upon us'.

The story doesn't go anywhere and fails in handling every single theme it tries to address. On top of that it's boring af. The tree outside of my living room window flailing in the wind is more interesting to watch than these characters on their bs journey. I realized that because while watching some of the episodes I actually had to rewind a few minutes multiple times because I was watching said tree flail around. And after rewinding I understood why I spaced out in the first place because the characters were just aimlessly wandering through the desert for 5-7 minutes without any dialogue whatsoever. And suddenly, the tree in the storm seemed like a masterpiece to me.

For the pacing we gotta look at the general types of pacing in anime:

There's the normal pacing you have in most anime, there's fast pacing for some action anime, there's break neck fast pacing like Kill la Kill, there's slow pacing for most slice of life shows, there's really slow pacing for things like the romance in "love chuunibyou and other delusions" or the whole of "girls last tour", and then there's Casshern sins pacing which is moving at such an atrociously slow snail tempo that you could make, say, a 30-35 min OVA that still contains everything this 24 episode show had in it. Not to mention the repetitiveness of the in a lot of cases episodic nature of this show. If I have to hear the phrases "Kill Casshern, devour Casshern, then we get eternal life" or "What am I? what is Luna" or "I am/you are the one who ruined the world, I/you need to atone for this sin" one more time I think I'm gonna throw my newly acquired phone against my wall. I wanted to drop the anime multiple times, as early as episode 1 when the first 10 minutes or more is nothing but a fighting montage and badly designed scrap-metal robots repeating the same line said above over and over, but I beared with it for the whole thing to see some kind of merit to its storytelling. I should've listen to my gut and actually dropped it cuz now I won't ever be able to forget the atrocity I just whitnessed.

I never thought I'd actually find an anime that I like less than Akame ga Kill and God of High school, but hey, here we are. I have my own little rating system where I, even if I think it's complete trash or sh*t, I don't go lower than a 5/10 in rating a show, this is the first time I broke that rule and gave something a 3-4/10 because I felt like it would be insulting to sh*t because THAT at least has a purpose for existing. Well, animation and art were at least above average in a lot of cases, which is also not really used to that great of an effect in the bland fight scenes, only scene that stands out in that regard is the still shot of Casshern with his face full of blood and Janice's singing in the background.

I think I have said everything I wanted about the show now and will just finish off this little rant with wishing you all an early merry Christmas and a happy new year. >>

To add to this rant, I personally think that the soundtrack is kind of amazing and really fits for this post apocalyptic mystery robot setting.

If I decide to edit this one after my rewatch, you'll find the edits down below here:

As for apparent tradition I gotta use a quote to begin my review, but I'll take one not as flashy as the others:

"People take the pain they've been burdened with and unload it on others. It is the only way to escape their torment"

So I just finished reading up to the end of Episode 4, marking the end of the first half of the story, or the so called "question arc" and seeing as this one only has 2 reviews on this site I figured that I could leave my thoughts here as well, because quite frankly I'm blown away by this. This will ... probably be the longest review for this one too. I will use my personal review style I did for my other ones too

STORY:
The story continues where the third part left off with the focus on our mysterious person who crashed the party of Beatrice at the end. By now having found your way to here, you have probably taken a look at the character portion and there's no point in hiding that it's Ange Ushiromiya, Battler's little sister who continuosly got mentioned in all 3 previous parts but never shown until now.

From here on out the fourth game takes place and simultaneously we see Ange's own story of her in her world alone without her family. The storytelling in Umineko was always rather unique but I think this one takes it up a notch and this also what makes it so good. The story managed to progress a great deal and I almost forgot about the deadly game they are playing. Most of what I want to say I'll adress in a later point, so I just leave this category with a score of 10/10 and move on to

CHARACTERS:
THIS was what I was waiting for reading through the entirity of the first 3 episodes, because if I'm being honest, those were almost entirely carried by Battler and Beatrice and not a lot of the other characters were remotely as interesting or fleshed out, safe for very few like Maria, or Eva in episode 3. Into the fray comes Ange as the best addition that could've happened to this franchise sweeping in and seating herself on the throne for best character in the story so far. Seeing her development throughout this thing was worth every second of over-dramatic-ness this story likes to put out sometimes.
And we also got a little more exposure to the seven sisters of purgatory and the other demons, now I can at least make out two of them per name.
10/10

ART:
The art was great and the paneling and arrangement of the pages was insanely good. The only thing I was missing in this part was that magical "black/white/golden" background that was present in most of Episode 3 when they were looking at the gameboard, so 9/10

ENDING:
The conclusion to the first half of the story (man I can't believe I still get to read even more than I have already for this) is everything I hoped for it to be and more. That final standoff going through every single game played before was quite a treat to watch, tying everything that has happened so far together whilst still being critical about any crazy theory the characters came up with, and with the way the story is going, further emphasized by Lambda in the secret tea party later. Just for the simple reason it is not the end of the whole thing, I can only grant this one a 9/10

EMOTIONAL IMPACT/ENJOYMENT:
Now we're coming to the part that sets this apart from all the other parts before it, which is the emotional impact I got from reading it. There has NEVER been a single thing, be it an anime, manga, movie, tv show, book or anything else that has made me cry on the very first chapter. As a former victim of bullying myself, I FELT everything that has happened to Ange as if it were myself, and it brought back some very unpleasant memories. So much so that I actually had to take about a 1 1/2 day break from it because it was hard to read through at times. After the end of episode 3 I had my doubts on how this was going to turn out and how much I'll like it but after finishing it I can safely say that Episode 4 is my absolute favorite part of this manga so far. 10/10

OVERALL:
It is by no means perfect because there are still so many questions left to be answered but for everything that Umineko has put out up to this point, it might as well be as close to perfect as it gets. I almost feel appalled at myself for giving Episode 3 a score of 9/10, I gotta change that to a lower r8, because this one is undoubtedly just much, MUCH better, far and away.

If you've come this far without even reading this manga yet, then heed my advice and just get yourself seated somewhere comfortably, make sure you had your toilet break, got enough food and drinks, and go on a binge reading spree until you've at least caught up to here. You will not regret it one single bit.

Most will not be familiar with my rating system unless you have visited my profile before. Among my scores of 10 (there are 14 so far excluding movies and this one), there are 7 entries that have a full score of 10/10 and 7 that are more akin to a 9.5/10. Umineko up to this point makes itself quite comfortable somewhere inside the latter part of this already, and I am looking forward to, and am rather curious, if it manages to find its way into my true masterpieces after I have completed the "answers arc". For that you will probably find my review on Episode 8 in a few weeks from now.

I tried to make this review my shortest one yet with just precisely 2-3 sentences per category, but I couldn't do it because it's just not my style.

TL;DR: If you're looking for a great sci-fi show, watch it. Great premise, creative and original story with amazing characters. Regardless if you're an anime fan or not, you WILL enjoy this.

Now, let's get started:

STORY:
THIS is how you write a good sci-fi mystery story. There's not really much else to say, it's creative, it's original, it builds up its world REALLY well and excells at visual storytelling giving you just enough hints to figure out stuff ... for yourself without being too confusing or pretentious. And thank god it doesn't do exposition dumps, I hate those xD
8/10

CHARACTERS:
BY FAR, the strongest point of this one.
I want more main characters like Kyouma, he's awesome. Though I might be a bit biased here cuz I have an affinity for characters who act as father- or older brother figures for children. Willem from the WorldEnd light novels is another good example of that.
Mira is a top tier waifu candidate too. She's subject to a lot of "fanservice" but I don't think it takes away anything from the story because the actual characterization and plot simply overshadow it by far, unlike some other shows I've seen with tons of unneccessary fanservice that I don't wanna name here (*cough* Code Geass *cough, what?).
Joking aside she is exactly the support Kyouma needs for his current situation and is just a delight to watch
And for having a guy called and calling himself "Loser" in their story, they sure as hell made him an amazing af character.
9/10

ART/ANIMATION:
A few problems here and there, sometimes almost feeling like a little slideshow, mostly noticeable around episodes 7-8 but overall pretty good, and it's not like having "only" decent animation will hinder me in any way from enjoying the amazingness of the story. Character design is great because you have all kinds of different ones in their build, size, age or even nationality. It's a breath of fresh air to your typical fantasy or high school anime. for sure.
7/10

SOUND:
Nothing too spectacular but I find myself vibing to the opening and ending quite a lot every episode. I NEVER skipped those, and I usually skip every OP or ED no matter how good xD
So, expect to see the dance from the OP in one of the lists on my profile soon.
8/10

EMOTIONAL IMPACT:
Kyouma's backstory hurt me on a fundamental level. His forming connectiions with MIra and the others is heartwarming to see.
And here again another shoutout to my boy Loser, no sorry, Julian Tyler, for letting me whitness that incredible journey of yours.
9/10

CONCLUSION:
To quote our protagonist for this one: "Nothing that happened was pointless. Not a thing."
They did a great job of connecting everything together and wrapping everything up from beginning to end. Every scene had a purpose and there wasn't a single thing that felt out of place or like it could've been cut. Though if I do say so, I want more of this story. Considering the premise there's SO much you can still do with it. which brings me to my next point:

OVERALL:
Starting off very strong with one of my favorite pilot episodes I've seen recently, this is another underrated hidden gem for my list, amazing from beginning to end, and also another entry on the list for the question: "Where is season 2?".
Currently though, I am OVERJOYED because I just found out through this site that this is a manga adaptation and not, as I first thought, an anime original, and after some research I came to know all the volumes are translated and available (unlike the light novels for "Humanity has declined" that I reviewed last) so I definitely will read it, probably even really soon.

If you're looking for a sci-fi entry you don't have to look much further because you can stop right here and get carried into the world of possibilites in Dimension W. One of the strong points for this show is that I can safely recommend this to non-anime fans too, so if you're looking for something different from the usual anime, or are a non-anime fan who is looking for a good sci-fi show, I can HIGHLY recommend checking this out. It is not without its flaws and probably won't manage to get a very high place in my favorites, but it still was a great experience!

So after long last, finally I’ve decided to do another review, and that for a series that truly deserves more spotlight. Let’s not waste any time and begin.


TLDR: don’t watch this for a complex story but for the wacky fun adventure you and the characters will find yourselves in and you’re gonna have a great time with this, highly recommended, this is a hidden gem.


STORY(8/10):

If you are looking for a complex story with tons of worldbuilding and depth and whatnots, then you can immediately turn around and avoid this. But if you are looking for a wacky fun adventure in a fantasy land with a ... morbid sense of humor, see how the characters created a BL boom, get stuck inside manga panels or a time loop, try to prevent skinned chickens from taking over the world and see the rise and fall to ruin of multiple entire civilizations then you’ve come to the right place.

The story is exactly as the synopsis says, simple and straightforward, and nothing more, but man is it ever fun to watch. It’s just the journey of our nameless mediator „Watashi“, one of the last members of the now almost extinct human race that has to deal with the hijinks of the fairies and their supernatural technology in their pursuit for fun. It never pretends to be something bigger and always knows exactly what it wants to be.

The episodes themselves don’t have much connection to each other and are split into mostly two parters with some twist at the end of the first part that leads into the problem solving for the second part.

Additionally the episodes are chronologically out of order and I personally am a huge sucker for this kind of stuff because with this, you can notice some bits you didn’t at first when you rewatch the show.

In terms of creativity, „Humanity has declined“ is one of the best I have seen, and since I tend to watch a lot of niche stuff I’ve seen a lot of wacky shows. It almost feels very similar to FLCL yet even more fun. Probably because of its main character and the above mentioned weirdness


CHARACTERS(9/10):

The focus on characters for this show, outside of 2 episodes lies almost only on the main character, who has remained nameless, throughout the story. Outside of her you won’t find any fleshed out character with an elaborate backstory or anything like that, but fleshed out she definitely is.
She’s a rather introverted and reserved person but has a snarky and sarcastic personality because of which it is just a treat to watch her interactions with the fairies every episode.
She is quite honestly the most delightful and fun character I’ve seen in an anime in a loooong time, which is kind of impressive given this is just a 12-episode show.



ART/ANIMATION(9/10):

The animation itself is not that special and rather just relatively standard. What sets this apart from some other anime I’ve seen in this regard is the unique art style using vibrant colors and the use of the shot direction, lighting and shadows affecting the characters and scenery that just make this feel more alive I guess. It is very nice to look at and the character design is quite good too, especially their eyes are beautiful.


SOUND(9/10):

OP is good, but a little weird visually, fits for the show…

ED is a delight every time it plays (sometimes within a scene at the end of the episode)

The sound design doesn’t hold back either and it always brings out OSTs that never miss their marks and fit in perfectly with what happens in every scene. The only thing you probably need getting used to is the fairies rather high pitched and distorted voices, otherwise the voice acting is great as you'd expect from some big names like Sawashiro Miyuki.


ENDING(9/10):

Given the nature of this show it is very hard to judge „the end“ of the anime because technically the end is the beginning. The last two episodes are chronologically the first because they talk about the backstory of our main character at school before she started her job as a mediator. I for one feel like they did a good job tying everything that has happened in the anime together and found a perfect place to end it. Now I know that there’s still light novel content left that came out later than this and I've read about it a bit but if you aren't japanese I guess there's no chance you're ever gonna get to read them…


EMOTIONAL IMPACT / ENJOYMENT (10/10):

Quite honestly, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I had a ton of fun watching this and I still kinda want more of it.

I’ve never wanted to read a light novel as badly as this one but sadly, and I’m still upset by that, there is neither an official English translation nor are there any fan translations online that go past chapter 1. Guess it’s time to start learning Japanese now.


Overall this was a delightfully wacky slice of life fantasy adventure with a little bit of twisted humor in it that I can recommend anyone to watch who just wants to have a fun time

I especially had lots of fun with episodes 7 and 8 where our protagonist is trapped in a time loop and needs to find a way out of it. The entirety of these two episodes might’ve just as well been a set up for the final Punchline at the end of episode 8, and given the sheer ridiculousness of the joke I’m not even mad about that.

Even with my now a bit harsher newly established rating system, this one has easily earned its place among some of my personal favorites and I’ll grant it 9/10 points. Really good show that I can only recommend everyone to watch, I guess I found another hidden gem again.

So this will be my first manga review I guess although I’ve written a few for myself already but anyway. Just a slight warning, there will be some spoilers regarding this story, the manga „his and her circumstances“(further referred to as Karekano) and the anime „Hibike euphonium“. These spoilers are surface level for the most part but if they're not they are marked as such so you can skip over them. This turned out quite a long review so if you don’t like to read a lot of text then now would be the time to go and do something else ^^


Story:

Bloom Into You is ... quite literally the lesbian version of Karekano, one of my other favorite romance mangas, albeit way less dark and without some of the 90s Shoujo campiness, which in my mind makes it the better version. I mean just look at the similarities here.
SPOILER SECTION FOR KAREKANO:
-„I have to be my ideal self“, one of The main characters hides their real self to keep their social standing and become someone else so they can be viewed as perfect
-main characters are part of the student council
-yuu has a very active personality much like Yukino
-the student council puts on a play that is written by one of the characters who wants to become a novelist
-the Play is heavily linked with the personality of one or more of the main characters which initiates their character development to go into the desired direction
-the Play is shown as a whole in multiple chapters (and both plays are really good too)
-Class trip to Kyoto for the second years (ok well that’s basically just EVERY romance or slice of life anime I guess xD)
SPOILERS FOR KAREKANO END HERE
To be honest I wanted to subtract a little point for not being that original but I refrained from doing so because this has everything I want in a romance manga. Plus to add to what you can do in a normal romance, the characters actually seek advise from other characters because they don’t know what to do with their feelings for a person of the same gender, whether it being outright stated (in the case of Miyako giving advise to Sayaka) or just implied through knowledge of the character (in the case of Yuu's sister Rei to Yuu). I’ve read and watched a couple of Shoujo Ai and Yuri manga and Anime recently, most of them not put in my list on here yet, and for some reason that is rarely a plot point. Maybe I just haven't read enough yet although I think after reaching double digits I can start to demand some things

It’s brilliant and the story always knew what it wanted to do and at no point did it in any way get disappointing. My favorite Shoujo Ai manga so far has been „ichido dake demo, koukai shitemasu“ or „even if it was just once, I regret it“ in english because it also fulfilled all the requirements I have in a great way (next one on my list is "Girl Friends" which also has quite an amount of good reviews so let's see where that ends up for me^^), but Bloom into you has definitely surpassed that by now, I would even say that this is one of the best romances I’ve watched/read period, and not just in anime and manga, though that's my main romance intake. It has some cliches used in a lot of romcoms in general but they’re always executed really well and there’s no unnecessary drama that feels out of place so 10/10


CHARACTERS:

The characters are all well defined and developed in this. None of the characters feel in any way unnecessary and everyone contributes a bit to the plot. Even the side characters randomly introduced at the end of volume 6 are a great addition to the already colorful cast. We get all kinds of characters like the novelist girl who doesn’t like cute things; the friend who plays basketball to chase after an unreachable crush; the supporting but yet accepting and distance keeping (and lesbian) student council Vice President; the hard working, seemingly perfect yet also really weak and needy student council President; the otaku nerd who likes to fawn over girls but turns out a really nice smart and supportive guy; the (most likely) asexual first year guy that enjoys watching over his friends romances because he can’t experience them on his own, and you know what they say "the ones who can't experience love for themselves are the ones who give the best relationship advise to the ones who do" (this one is actually the one I could relate to the most in some of the beginning chapters when he was the only one who knew because not long ago a very good friend of mine has come out as a lesbian and has started to date one of her coworkers and I am so far the only one in our usual circle of friends that knows about this, it's kind of exciting tbh); the drama teacher who’s in a secret relationship with a cafe owner that happens to be our characters go-to-hangout-place.

All of these characters have their own little story, their own stuggles and goals, relationships, and they are all really complex in their feelings. Their dynamics and chemistry flow naturally and their development always makes sense. At any given time you know what they’re thinking, why they’re thinking this way, how they will react and you can relate to them. They’re all put into situations that you’ve probably experienced at least once before in your life. And my god, FINALLY we get characters that actually TALK to each other, or one of the other characters to ask if they know sth, when there's a problem. So many entries in the romance genre (which by the way I am quite fond of considering it is the one I've seen the highest amount of stories out of all genres of) for some reason entertain the idea of stupid misunderstandings, characters making their own assumptions about situations, getting angry at others, ignoring them or taking their distance, and whatever else. If there's a misunderstanding or a peculiar situation that generates a little worry, then it is sure to be completely cleared up in the middle of the very next chapter, sometimes even just at the begining.

But among all these the one that stands out the most is our main protagonist Yuu Koito. In a way she reminds me of my personal favorite anime character ever, which is Kumiko from Hibike euphonium, but simply for the reason that she is the complete opposite of that. While both of these characters have a personality trait of being indecisive for themselves Kumiko takes on more of a passive observing role and only gets more active at the end of the second season after her character arc is coming to its climax, whereas Yuu is pretty much as active as you can get as a character from the very beginning. She's like Kumiko at the end of the second season all the time. She is (almost) always the one directing where the story is going, where her relationships are going. SPOILERS FOR TOKOU: Even though Toko‘s feelings of wanting to be perfect like the picture of her late sister she had in her mind and her development of growing out of that into her own person are quite complex over the story (SPOILERS END) Yuu‘s feelings are the most complex ones here. Starting from the feeling of not knowing what is love (baby don’t hurt me don’t hurt me no more) and thinking she’s never (gonna give you up, never gonna let you down[etc...]) going to experience it, to wanting to be able to support and change her friend to I want to know what love is (I want you to show me) to I want to fall in love with her to … well… I’ll just let you see for yourself. (insert Elvis Presley or Frank Sinatra reference here) Alright ENOUGH MUSIC REFERENCES, BRAIN!

Yuu will definitely secure a spot among my favorite anime characters too, I’m thinking of putting her somewhere in the vicinity of another Yu, namely Ishigami Yu from Kaguya sama which would be a spot in the top 25 at least. To be quite honest saying "I love Yu" constantly without following it up with "as a character/protagonist" felt kinda weird. I think she's my favorite romance protagonist actually, both in terms of protagonist of my favorite romance manga (previously held by Sorata from Sakurasou no Pet), and favorite protagonist of a romance manga/anime (previously held by Hachiman from Oregairu). She's the kind of character that's always coming out on top (jeez I feel even worse for what I did here than for the half-assed rick roll attempt earlier)

Yuu and Tokou‘s relationship is easily one of my absolute favorites in animanga so far and it’s so incredibly cute too, but also quite realistic. It reminds me of Adachi and Shimamura's relationship, only that this one is actually a healthy and wholesome one that goes somewhere instead of a one-sided obsessive (at first) unrequited one that ultimately hurts the characters more than it benefits them. I haven't read the novel for that one yet and only seen the anime but that was quite the frustrating watch after hearing it being praised for how cute and wholesome it is when it was in fact the exact opposite of that.

One thing I wish though is that some of the side characters had a bit more screen time or chance to get a little more development but there are also anthologies and spin-off novels and all that i still have to check out. So far 9/10


ART:

I have but one thing to say about the art in this one. Why is the art so fricking god damn good, like seriously, this is almost way too good art to be in a romance manga. Stop that. My eyes can only sparkle this much, so don’t put more details in there. Please. Like, am I blinded by my love for this or is it really way too good? Am I tripping here? 10/10


Now for an anime I would usually just judge the sound here which is relatively hard to do for a manga. DUH. But I did listen to the animes OST while reading this and it was quite good and relaxing. But I won't put a number on it here cuz that'd be kinda unfair, you know ^^


ENDING:

So one of the big points of how I judge a story is if it sticks the landing or not and sometimes it can make or break it. In this Case we get the usual small time skip ending where the characters all get together and reminisce over the old times and a walk towards the stars between our main couple at the end. Good thing I’m a sucker for exactly this kind of stuff. Honestly after watching/reading both Saekano and this quite recently, I fu**ing want more. I want to see their relationships more, I want to see their daily lives now more, just them doing stuff in the house together, going on dates, just being cute together doing couple stuff. Plus, I kinda wanna see Sayaka's relationship with her partner but I guess that's covered in the light novels about her, god I hope it is, otherwise I threw my money away, just kidding. How do their carreers go, what is each of them doing, who marries first, who gets kids first (ok duh this one is kinda obvious xD), will Maki ever get to experience love himself, probably not because the implication goes heavily in the direction of him being ace, though even some people who are ace do get into relationships, so maybe he will at least try once too. I could read 8 more volumes of just them doing daily live stuff and it would never be enough. The last volume, volume 8, from beginning to end was so satisfying to read, so sweet, so cute, so wholesome, so ... I don't know ... it was just SO GOOD. Just because of that and because I want more 9/10


ENJOYMENT/EMOTIONAL IMPACT:

As you can see already from how long this review is and from the contents of it, I’d say I almost enjoyed it a little too much, I mean I AM writing this review at like 4:30am and I have to get up for work at 6, so there’s definitely something wrong with me here. Alright I wrote the rough draft for this at 4:30am, it's currently 11am and I added some things. But once I started I just couldn’t put it down anymore and just HAD to know what comes next. I did even read it twice completely in just 3 days and I'm already planning on another reread. 10/10


So overall I can recommend this for every fan of a good romance manga. Don’t let the fact that this is a Shoujo Ai/ Yuri manga put you off of this if you’re not really into watching or reading that because it handles it’s topics with the utmost care and sensitivity, much more even than your typical m/f romance stories. Seriously, please read this. I have given a few 9/10s in this reviews to some parts but quite honestly this is a masterpiece. Simple as that. In my personal ranking it gets a deduction of 0.5 points because of the fact that simply a lot of the ideas for the story were unoriginal ones that you can find in every romance or school slice of life. BUT as said above all the ideas even if they weren't that original were used incredibly well and the relationships between the characters are some of the best I've seen. This probably is gonna have to fight against Hibike euphonium for which one lands on spot nr 9 and which on 10. I have the lists in my bio so I guess we shall see