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At first, if I was selling someone on Htiogatana, I'd probably be saying something along the lines of, "Well, it doesn't try super hard to be good" or "Oh, it's not as cliche as it seems", which is what the general consensus tends to be. Now that I'm all caught up, I'm here to say that there's NOTHING cliche about breathtakingly illustrated action, nor characters that I did not expect to be so much more heartwarming than I initially thought. It has an autonomous idea of what it is and what is wants to be. All a manga needs to be great is confidence, and ... in Hitogatana's case, there is so much confidence behind every page, so much style in its character designs, and so much energy in every fight sequence. The story itself is, to be fair, very arc-based and linear, but it's bound to catch you off guard at least once, and it's nothing weighed against a cast of palpable characters and the truly touching moments they can ignite. A lot of manga live and die going to great lengths to be different, but Onigunsou knows how to impress his/her readers without needing to bother. With the explosive popularity of ground-breaking battle shounens like Chainsaw Man and Kaiju 8, it's easy to view Hitogatana as an underachiever and write it off, but if "Bleach with Cyborgs" is simply too cool of a concept for you to pass up, then the path of life has led you to the right place.

It's one of the smarter Isekai satires out there, the animation is commendable, and woah boy, its pretty funny ain't it?

I think it takes itself a little too seriously at times, but the gags and characters are always served up fresh, plus the twist toward the end is interesting, and easily caught me off guard, even if parts of it were a little ham-fisted.

I'm not terribly fond of Isekai, but I didn't dislike this. It sufficiently rocks the boat of the genre, and that's the most I can say about it. If their is a season two in the works, to that I ... say, why not? Also, I liek anime tiddie.

(Straight talk, this is my first review. I write this because this anime seemed quite out of place in my list, and I think a proper explanation is in order. If you're reading this, shouts out to you. Have a lovely evening, you deserve it buddy:)

Prior to uncovering this anime, I had only recently gotten into the honest, but challenging bullet-hell game franchise, Touhou Project. I was already aware that the community surrounding the series was large, far beyond that of just the games. While I didn't think I was all that willing to delve too deep into the fanfare, the games themselves were starved ... for lore, and my interest was peaked, so I wanted to check out the anime. I found that two anime adaptions were released. I watched this one first.

Going into this 3 episode runt of a show, I excepted nothing more than no context, no restraint, just cute anime girls filling up the screen, created to be an inexpensive figurine-selling money sponge. (This is what the other anime was more or less) This show made an unlikely first impression on me. When I started, I saw that each scene had a great sense of ambiance. Characters only spoke as much as they needed to, and a good deal of storytelling was strictly visual. The character designs seemed pretty amateurish, but the animation itself was top-notch. The voice acting wasn't bad at all either. And once the action sequences broke out, oh man, I've seen A LOT worse out of A LOT of billion-dollar animation companies. As I continued to watch, it steadily became clear to me that this show was beaming with charm, spirit, and a vision to do this iconic game series justice by slowly bringing its characters, and its world, to life.

When I learned about how Touhou Niji Sousaku Doujin was not an official anime in actuality, but an independent animation funded by a single passionate Touhou fan, I gained an even deeper appreciation for the show's existence. An appreciation that made me both happy, and sad. Happy that I had become an advocate of this franchise when I did, with the newest and final episode of this show on the horizon after years of hiatus, and sad knowing that I had ultimately fallen down into the hole of this fanbase that I had plodded so carefully to avoid.