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It’s a solid slice of life anime. Easy to enjoy given the easygoing tone, wholesome themes, and some character that carves out a niche for itself within the genre.

Note that if you hate musicals (for some reason) you may have a tough time getting into this one. This is a musical through and through, with at least one musical number in every episode. How well they connect to the story varies, but I think they do a good job with it for the most part.

The songs are performed well and the visuals have a little more flair than you’d expect given how the rest of ... the show looks. That isn’t to say that this show looks bad, but it’s in a bit of a different style that may look cheap compared to higher budget anime.

If you like slice of life shows, I’d say give a couple episodes a shot. You can tell the people behind this anime actually cared about it so it has some charm to it. No biggie if it’s not your thing.

Disappointment.

The world is interesting. The progression is addicting. The narrative is well thought out. Plus the main is pretty entertaining (though a bit of an acquired taste). But all of that is squandered by a studio that bit-off way more than it could chew.

I won’t sugarcoat it, the fight animation is some of the worst I have ever seen. Keep in mind that I have watched almost 100 days of anime. I would rather watch the fights in Ex-Arm over the worst fights in this anime. Granted, not all of the fights are THAT bad (most of the ones featuring the spider girl Kumoko are ... coherent), but a lot of ones with the human characters are really THAT bad.

The CGI animation on the monsters is atrocious. Sure, you get used to it after watching many episodes, but it doesn’t change the fact that they look awful from episode 1. However, by the end I actually prefered those fights over the human ones because at least I will be able to understand what is happening. It doesn’t help that the sound design is also awful for the human fights, so now we have nothing to help us process the clusterfuck of images thrown together pretending to be a fight.

But, I never dropped this anime despite the animation. That’s thanks to the world and progression system.

This anime taps into the rewarding nature of RPGs very well (given that it essentially is one). Watching Kumoko (the spider girl & MC) grow and evolve is addicting because she is almost always leveling up and/or evolving in an episode, constantly keeping you hooked with what new skills or new forms she will get next episode.

The world is also much more interesting than I had anticipated. There are monster hierarchies, prophecies, and a meta aspect that makes up for the absolutely dull side story with the human isekais. While I feel that people are overhating the human side of the narrative, boy I would be damned if it didn’t have all the worst parts of this anime. The characters aren’t very interesting and it takes FOREVER for it to even connect to the Kumoko side of the story, making it feel like a waste of time for many episodes.

Would I recommend this anime? Not if you read manga or light novels. All of the good aspects seem to come from the source material, so just read that if it’s your thing. If you are an anime-only, then maybe??? I didn’t hate my time watching it so there’s that. Watch the first 3-5 episodes and decide from there.

It’s a 3/10. Closer to a 4 than a 2.

A disappointing conclusion after a promising first season.

Overall, it felt like they were just trying to throw in a bunch of Holmes stories and other references without much thought to the overarching narrative and character building.

This season is essentially a compilation of “Hey you know Jack the Ripper? How about James Bond? Do you remember how good The Dark Knight was? Would you like it if we just copied a large part of that?”.

Most of the arcs feel very meaningless in retrospect. There might be a couple plot points that carry to the next arc, but they could be cut out with little ... to no impact on the final arc.

These arcs feel like even more of a waste of time when you also factor in that Sherlock and Moriaty get almost no development this season. None of the changes in their behavior feels earned or realistic. It just happens and we are told to accept it.

Sherlock in particular is disappointing this season because he never does anything despite being hyped up as an equal to Moriaty. They talk about how Moriaty was his “great nemesis”, but it never even felt like they were on the opposite ends of cases very often. Other side characters might as well not exist. They are either not important and/or receive no noteworthy development.

Writing aside, this anime still delivers with top-notch production. The art & animation look very clean and remain some of the best this season. The OST is also great and it covers up a lot of the script’s failings to draw out emotion.

All-in-all, I expected much more from this season. I thought the first season was good and I hoped that this was going to be where this series delivered on all of its potential. But here I am feeling completely underwhelmed by a highly forgettable conclusion. Watch it if you really liked the first season I guess. But if you were kinda on the fence with it, you can skip this one.

It’s a 5/10. Closer to a 6 than a 4.

If I had to describe SK8 the Infinity in two words it would be “ridiculous” and “fun”.

This may be the most unabashedly over-the-top anime that I have ever seen. A secret skating community full of people with alter-egos that race down a mountain. Skaters that can defy the laws of physics. A skater that can break rock walls with the force of his quads. A computer skateboard that can transform into different boards and calculate the best routes on a course. Oh, how could I also forget the guy that dresses like a masquerade bullfighter and acts like Hisoka’s impressionable younger brother? If you are ... looking for a realistic skateboarding anime, you won’t find it here.

What you will find here, however is a really good time. Bones is the studio behind this anime so you know you are in for some good animation. The races are the highlights of the series and they look fantastic. The animation is so smooth and you can always tell what is going on despite the skaters racing on a rocky, mountain course at night.

The art is very clean as well. Even though the art style is nothing special, it’s still high quality and characters are never off-model. The characters themselves are pretty straightforward, but they have distinct personalities and are brought to life by some great voice acting. The sound design is top-notch as well and the OST fit the style of the show to a “T”.

You may be wondering why my score for this anime is only 7/10 despite praising it so much these first few paragraphs. The reason for that lies within the writing of this anime.

While I find that the plot is pretty standard (it mainly revolves around races and one of the main characters teaching a new kid how to skateboard) there was so much unneccesary things added in to force drama and to appeal to a certain fanbase.

I don’t believe that some down-to-Earth aspects like realistic drama are a bad thing for an over-the-top anime. If it is all fun and games all the time then it can get a little repetitive. But, forcing drama between characters for no other reason aside from adding meaningless tension is not the way to go about it. Especially when it is at the cost of betraying everything about a character to do so.

I won’t spoil anything, but one of the main characters starts being a complete ass for no real reason. The reason the anime gives is not something that this character cared about at all before the conflict occurred. Now all-of-a-sudden it is so important to him that he deals with it for 4 TOTAL EPISODES! If you are going to force some conflict, at least make it quick. Don’t stretch out a meaningless conflict that betrays how one of the main characters has been written for 1/3rd of your entire series. That is just bad writing.

But what annoyed me the most about this anime is how much yaoi-bait is present throughout this series. DISCLAIMER: I have no problem with gay relationships being portrayed in anime or in any medium. What I do have a problem with is when gay relationships are being heavily suggested by an anime, yet nothing ever comes from it.

There is a lot of gay relationships that are suggested in this anime and none of it has any significance by the end. All that time and deliberate effort spent suggesting these relationships is left with an ambiguous at best conclusion. Don’t get me wrong, I know why the creators did this. The yaoi fanbase is a passionate one that is known for creating fan art, fanfiction, etc. Having passionate fans is a great way to spread awareness of an anime and it isn’t like the sports genre is unfamiliar with fans shipping male characters.

It irritates me when I see an anime intentionally trying to tap into this market, yet not having the resolution to go through with it and make the characters actually gay. It’s like I’m watching the anime making desparate attempts to convince watchers to make content about it, as if it doesn’t have confidence that it is good enough to grab people’s attention. But it also feels like it is trying to “have its cake and eat it too” by suggesting these relationships for the yaoi fanbase but not going through as to not scare off people that do not like that content. This indecision puts it in no man’s land where it feels cheap and insincere, by far the worst option between leaving it out or making the characters gay.

Aside from the shameless yaoi-bait and the contrived conflict, I do not have much else to really criticize this anime for. There was a meaningless canon filler/recap episode that also served as fanservice in the middle of the season which didn’t help my rating.

But that is about it for my gripes. Looking back, I think this anime could have been slimmed down into a good movie if all the bad stuff I talked about was cut out of it. There is a lot to like about this anime. It is a blast to watch when the characters are racing and was a pretty good time overall.

I would recommend giving it a shot because it is an easy watch. Although if you drop it for the reasons I mentioned, I wouldn’t hold it against you.

It is closer to a 6/10 than an 8/10.

Ah, what could have been.

The art and animation are some of the best you will see in any romance anime. The OST is unique and fits the anime well. I liked all of the characters and their voice actors did great jobs bringing them too life.

There were many aspects of this anime that I really enjoyed. But, after completing it I am still left with some feelings of disappointment.

The sole problem that holds this anime back is the narrative. More specifically, the problem lies in the pacing and overall narrative structure.

This is an anime that trues to adapt 16 volumes of a manga into 13 ... episodes. Obviously, there is going to be pacing and structural issues. The scenes in episodes often have little-to-no continuity with each other. Scenes just end on a dime and then transition to a new group of characters doing something unrelated to previous scene and occurring in an unknown date and time.

To put simply, most of the episodes feel like highlight reels that were cut out and animated from the manga. In the first half of the anime, the highlights are focused on the main couple (Hori and Miyamura).

The scenes in these episodes take the most neccesary stories that develop their relationship from the manga and places them together so we feel like we are watching their relationship grow as they fall in love with each other. The problem, however, is that the pacing feels wicked fast and that negatively impacts our emotional attachment to their relationship because it develops so quickly.

While this certainly is not ideal, I was still enjoying it because the stories that they do show are very good and had some genuine heart to them. The real problem comes in the second half of the anime when the relationship between Hori and Miyamura is placed on the back burner so we can focus on the side characters.

Like I stated previously, I liked all of the characters in this anime, both main characters and side characters. However, I do not like it when almost all of their development that is not tied to Hori or Miyamura is condensed into one or two episodes of highlights.

There are many large problems with this approach.

The first is that the highlights portray the relationships between characters in very inconsistent ways. In some character highlights, some characters are not as close to each other as we have seen them be or are much closer to each other than we have seen. Since the development of the side characters is placed in episodes after Hori and Miyamura’s relationship has mostly developed, some of the stories in these episodes come from before their relationship fully developed, yet it is portrayed to be happening after the fact. Also, some of the stories come much later in the manga series, so some characters are really close in one side character’s episode and not as close in a later side character’s episode.

The second large problem with placing most of the side characters’ development into individual episodes is that once a character’s episode is done, they may be completely forgotten by the next episode. This mitigates the development of the side characters because they can have episodes that start to give them some real depth, only to be back to normal or completely absent in the next episode.

But the last large flaw with placing all of the side characters’ episodes toward the end of the series is that it makes the plot feel like it hasn’t moved anywhere by the final 2 episodes. The 11th episode of this 13 episode anime is entirely dedicated to a side character whose name I didn’t even know. He was never really introduced nor did he take any prominance in the previous episodes, yet he got his own episode with only 2 more episodes left in the series.

Something that I feel I should clarify about the narrative is that even though episodes are mostly comprised of highlight reel scenes from the manga, they are still enjoyable. The stories are all well written and the comedy aspects stay true to the characters. This anime does follow some common tropes and clichés, but they are usually done well enough to be enjoyable.

It is just how the overall narrative is structured that stops this anime from being as great as it should be. I really like a lot about it. I can tell that if this series was a 1-to-1 adaption of the manga that this could have been great. Why this decision was made for a widely popular and acclaimed series is beyond me (but then again, this IS Cloverworks).

I would still recommend this anime despite the glaring flaw of the narrative structure. It is still a good anime, all things considered, and it is an enjoyable experience. Just don’t expect a cohesive story tocome along with it.

It is closer to an 8/10 than a 6/10

I wish that there was a score option between 3/10 and 2/10, because that is firmly where this anime belongs.

I watched this anime weekly and I always write some comments after each episode detailing my thoughts. They make for good reference points when I write my reviews and rate the anime, but I noticed an interesting trend with my comments for this anime. Over the course of this season of The Promised Neverland, I go through all 5 stages of the grief cycle.

So in sticking to that theme, I will review this anime by going through these 5 stages of grief (by the ... way this will include spoilers, but you can keep reading because I wouldn’t recommend watching it anyways):


1. Denial

The season starts out on a promising note (no pun intended). The kids are on the run from wild giant demons and demon pursuers from the farms. They are in unfamiliar territory and things are not looking good for them. But, they are saved by two demons that begin to explain the history between the demons and the humans.

Unlike many other bad anime, it does not start off bad. The art and animation look good. The music is similar to the first season, which is still good. Plus there is a lot of mystery in the world and in the motivations of the demons that saved the children. The kids are able to reach the safe house that Wiliam Minerva told them about using the survival skills the demons taught them and things don’t seem to be as safe as it seems. This could go in a good direction.


2. Anger

How are these kids able to take down trained soldiers that stormed their safe house? How is Ray an expert with the bow and arrow that he can shoot a giant demon in the eye while in the air whereas trained soldiers with guns couldn’t? Why did we get a 6 month time skip after the kids lost their safe house instead of seeing how they survived in a demon world with nothing to guide them? Most importantly, HOW THE HELL IS NORMAN ALIVE!? Wasn’t the whole reason Isabella couldn’t do anything to them because the top children where invaluable commodities to be eaten?


3: Bargaining

Ok, maybe the time skip was just so we could get to the good part of the story. Isabella is still alive and she was given permission by the demons to hunt down the escaped children. That should be crazy given how smart she is and how well she knows the children.

Also, there has to be a good reason why Norman is still alive and why he has so many strong people with him. He also seems like he is a little sinister now, I wonder if he will end up being an antagonist that Emma and Ray will have to stop. Ray hasn’t done anything yet this season so that would probably be his chance to shine. Maybe the manga readers are overreacting about how bad this season is.


4. Depression

Nevermind, it’s trash. They are just rushing through to finish this series in 11 episodes. The reason Norman is alive still makes no sense. There is no reason that they would send one of the best children they have ever seen to a place to get experimented on withother children. Norman proceeded to destroy the facility without anyone knowing, create a drug that makes demons kill each other, and found a way to mass produce it because... they don’t even try to explain it.

It doesn’t even matter. Ray has still done nothing aside from follow what Emma wants. Norman starts his plan of using the drugs on the demons but Emma convinces him and his comrades that have sworn vengence on the demons for experimenting on them not to do it. All of the children at the farm are being gathered at headquarters for “reasons”. The children receive a pen giving them a complete layout of headquarters for “reasons”.

Isabella is promoted to Grandma after doing literally nothing to help catch the escaped children. The children easily overtake the headquarters with no casualties. None of this really matters the creators of this season clearly did not care about this series.


5. Acceptance

Even though this season was bad and the creators did not care about making a good story at all, I am glad I got to experience it with my fellow anime watchers. It is not the worst anime I have seen because it still sounds good and looks good when they actually animate the fights instead of using still frames. At least I was a part of anime history by experiencing a disgraceful sequel to one of the most well-received anime in the past few years.


It is a 3/10, but don’t be shocked if it becomes a 2/10 sometime in the near future

I think Beastars is a great series.

It has some fantastic characters, some great use of framing, outstanding CGI animation, and a unique OST that fits the mood of scenes very well.

But one area that I feel the series lacks is in its narrative stucture. While I believe that the plots themselves are compelling and do a great job at developing the characters to reach satisfying conclusions, the way that we get to those conclusions is often more messy than I would like.

This season is no different in that regard, and after completing it I look back and realize how many scenes were unnecessary or ... how many characters were completely forgotten. I will try to keep this review as vague and spoiler-free as possible. However, if you do not want any information going in, I will just say that you should watch it unless you completely hated the first season. This season had a slight bump-up in quality compared to the first, so if you thought the first season was just ok you may like this one more.

Now that that’s out of the way, I will start my analysis of this season. One of the most noteworthy changes in this season is the shift in focus from Legoshi’s relationship with Haru to Legoshi hunting down Tem’s killer. There is still scenes dedicated to Legoshi and Haru’s relationship, but it is put on the back burner and does not receive much screentime.

Even though this season can be described in simplist terms as Legoshi finding Tem’s killer, I would actually describe this season as taking a deeper dive into the complex relationships between carnivores and herbivores.

Legoshi learning to accept himself as a carnivore while still desiring to protect herbivores is at the center of this season, but there are also many different stories and scenes that have serve to add to this theme instead of having any significance in the plot. Because of this, some scenes may feel unnecessary, inconsequential, or forgettable by the time the season is done.

Whether this is a flaw or a strength of the series will depend upon the person watching. My opinion is that the thematic connection does enough to warrant their inclusion most of the time because it helps flesh out other characters and gives a better understanding of the world. This does not cover all of the narratively inconsequential scenes, however, because some fail to hit their mark and feel contradictory to how the characters (two particular characters dancing together at night comes to mind).

Although I do have some problems with the lack of narrative cohesion that results because of this, my biggest problem with this season is how some characters or decisions are introduced and built up as big deals, only to disappear from relevency by the end.

The introduction of the school security guard and the changes in how the Beastar will be decided are established as big deals at the beginning of the season, yet have no real importance toward the end. I assume that they will have bigger roles later in the series, but they should have at least been mentioned at the end of the season so we don’t feel left wondering what the purpose was for introducing them.

Aside from these problems, everything else that this season had to offer was top-notch. All of the good things I said about the series at the start of the review still hold true and the new characters that get introduced are very well-written.

The character writing in Beastars is some of the best in all of anime, to the point that humanoid animals feel more human than human characters in most other anime.

But the most underrated aspect of Beastars is how great the fights look. The fights are always incredibly smooth with very fluid and natural character movement and dynamic camera work that increases the intensity. While the fights don’t usually last very long, they are always a treat to watch.

But that about covers everything that I wanted to talk about in this review. I find Beastars to be one of the best anime series that has not finished yet and this season solidified that the first season wasn’t a fluke. If you haven’t started watching this series yet, I would highly recommend doing so.

It is a solid 8/10

Before I start this review, I must say that I have never been the biggest fan of the Dr. Stone anime.

While I felt that the first season was solid, I was underwhelmed. I always felt that despite having an interesting premise and a good gimmick of watching someone create modern technology in a stone age, this adaptation fails to improve upon the source material. I haven’t even read the manga, but I can tell pretty clearly how the manga panels would look given the layouts and frames of this adaptation.

This second season of Dr. Stone does nothing to change this flaw and even fails to ... live up to the first season due to a really fast pace that takes away the best aspect of Dr. Stone. The process of creation.

What makes Dr. Stone so unique and appealing to a wide audience is how it shows Senku creating modern technology using basic materials. The audience feels like they are learning something and they get to experience the pleasure of it being completed without experiencing the labor and effort put in to actually create it.

While this took a prominent role in the first season, it is all but gone in this one. For most of the scientific creations, we do not see the process of it being made. Instead, we get Senku pitching the idea a quick highlight reel of them creating it (if even that), or we see the creation as it is completed and the process for making it is quickly summarized after the fact.

The problem with doing this is that we do not get a reasonable understanding of how much time it took to complete the technology, how they were able to get all of the resources, or how exactly they created it. These factors are all very important for an anime ABOUT making modern science and technology in a primative time. It is necessary to establish some level of believability.

My assumption is that we did not get such an in-depth look at the process for creating the technology because they had to focus on the actual war between Senku’s camp and Tsukasa’s camp. The only problem is that there is hardly any action in this war, and when there is action, this adaptation fails to bring the source material to life.

For everyone expecting a big war between the two camps like in the cover poster or in promotional pictures, you will be disappointed. The war is more like a Cold War if anything. But when the fighting actually starts, the animation relies so much on static frames that there is nothing to get hyped over. During the fights, it is often confusing where everyone is in relation to each other and how much time is passing in the story world. While these things may be more forgiveable in a manga, they are deal-breaking in an anime. It only leads to confusion and a break in immersion from the anime.

One last thing I want to talk about in this season specifically is how they handled Tsukasa’s character. *MINOR SPOILERS* in the rest of this paragraph, so skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to know. I did not like how much they backtracked to make his character more likeable and sympathetic. This man destroyed statues of adults with the intent of killing them as an act of genocide. Changing his views or giving him a sob story does not change that. *END OF MINOR SPOILERS*

Everything else in this season is very similar to the previous one, for better or worse. I still do not like the comedy in this series because it relies too much on a character making a “funny” face. While this may work better in the manga, the faces are always drawn out for too long and ruin what little shock value humor that they had. The art is still good for close-ups on characters, but the scenery is bland and generic. I still do like how unique the OST is with using older instruments, but it seems like they moved away from that a bit and used more modern instruments this time around.

This series is one that usually leaves me disappointed by the end because of how its potential is wasted due to a poor adaptation. If you liked the first season, then you will probably like this one as well. If you didn’t like the first season, then I would not recommend watching it. The season after this one looks promising, so I may watch it when it airs.

It is closer to a 6/10 than a 4/10

The best debut anime of the 2021 winter season.

Yes, I am aware of how controversial that claim is, but I am willing to back it up by taking all aspects into consideration.

But before I go any further, I have to state that even though I believe this anime to be great, it is not for everyone. This anime has a main character that could reasonably be argued as a pedophile. He was a 30 year old that was reincarnated as a baby in a fantasy world.

This season follows the main character as he is a child and he does some extremely deplorable actions ... to other young girls. This includes (but is not limited to) touching a young girl’s privateparts without her concent and attempting to remove a young girl’s underwear while she is sleeping. Main character aside, there are norms across the fantasy world for men to abuse their power to take advantage of women, with it often being ambiguous whether these women truly give their concent.

I would not blame anyone that reads this and decides not to watch this anime. The controversy around it is justified and the perversion of the main character is the main thing that hurts this anime.

That being said, despite these glaring flaws, I still believe that this is a great anime. That is how fantastic everything else about it is.

The art style is very detailed and unique, which separates it from the cascade of generic looking anime saturating the market. The animation is extremely fluid, with the movement of characters feeling very natural while giving them a distinct personality. The fight scenes are dynamic, beautiful, and often brutal in how they depict death.

The fantasy world is so well-written and creative. Are you tired of seeing the same “Medieval Europe” architecture in every fantasy and isekai anime? Well this anime actually has some architecture that you would expect to find in a fantasy world, with different villiages and cities having different styles.

The characters are all very well-written too. They are not all black-and-white cardboard cutouts that have no depth or agency. The characters actually have their own motives for the ways the act. Both good and bad. I know I wrote extensively about the abhorent perversion of main character, but aside from that large flaw, he is a respectable person that does good deeds and actually tries to help others. He was a complete loser in his past life and was ruthlessly bullied for it, so he sees this chance at reincarnation as his second chance to redeem himself for the person he was.

There are many characters that exhibit this realistic depiction of trying to be good people, but failing due to some fatal faults. These faults often revolve around the abuse of power to achieve sexual desires and it can depicted in more graphic detail than I would have liked (don’t worry, it never goes into Redo of the Healer territory).

However, despite all of this the anime never feels like it is condoning this kind of behavior.

Whever the main character does some awful shit he gets punished for it. When he gropes a girl he gets the shit kicked out of him, so it isn’t like he is walking around doing what he wants without punishment. There are even times when the main character is uncomfortable with the norms of this backward fantasy world. And when the same main character that groped a young girl has a problem with it, then you know that this world has some deep rooted problems.

This is what ended up being the anime’s saving grace. If all of the sexually deplorable actions by the main character and others occurred and the writer was just giving a thumbs-up to it I likely would have dropped it. But it is not something that we are supposed to think is OK and it does serve a purpose in the story. The main character’s disgusting perversion serves as a point of growth for him as he matures throughout the story. The problematic norms of the fantasy world serve as a sense of realism because of course a medieval fantasy world will not be a perfect society that is seen so often in modern isekai and fantasy anime.

I do believe that this anime goes overboard with the degeneracy of the main character and the unnecessary graphic depiction of females, even though it may serve a purpose. This is the biggest flaw of the series and is the main reason why I did not think about giving this anime a 10. The rest of the anime is so well done and had so much effort put into it that is very rare to see in TV anime.

The problematic stuff does become less prominent as you get closer to the end of the season. So if you are still on the fence after reading all of this, just know that there is hope that it will not be as bad in the future.

This is definitely the longest review I have ever written, but it needed to be done given my stance that this is the best debut anime of the season. If you are still willing to give it a shot after reading all of this, I do not think you will regret it.

It is a solid 8/10

Look, I’m an anime fan, I like my melodrama as much as the next guy. You give me some Clannad: After Story, Violet Evergarden, or Bunny Girl Senpai and I’ll get teary-eyed along side you.

But the problem with melodrama in general is that it falls apart very quickly if the fails to make you feel emotion. This is ultimately the downfall of The Day I Became a God.

As you all know, this anime was created by Jun Maeda, the creator of many melodramatic hits like the Clannad series, Angel Beats, and Chrolette. Say what you will about these anime, but there is no denying their ... popularity and recognition within the anime community. However, the problems in these anime are only magnified within The Day I Became a God and their good aspects feel stale and uninspired.

The Day I Became a God follows high school senior (Youta) as he meets a girl with incredible predictive powers (Hina) over summer break, who claims that the world will end in 30 days. Over the course of this anime, we follow Youta and the self-proclaimed god as they engage in summer activities and unravel the truth behind Hina’s ultimate prediction.

There is a lot of interesting places that this anime could go with that premise. Add onto that some great art/animation, good voice acting (with some exceptions), and solid music, you have the makings of another Jun Maeda hit. But all of this promise falls to the wayside thanks to a bad script.

The goal of melodramatic anime is to get the viewer to feel sadness and sentiment. This is most often achieved through extraordinary circumstances and compelling, relatable characters. While this anime definitely has some extraordinary circumstances, the characters fail to make me care about their struggles.

Youta is a self-centered dumbass that never takes anyone’s feelings into consideration and just does whatever he wants to do. Any compassionate action that he does for others is not out of selflessness, but out of his own personal desire. For example, the first 6 episode of this anime is all about Youta using Hina’s abilities to try and get his childhood crush (Izanami) to fall in love with him. At one point, she is going through some really heavy stuff and Youta tries to solve this problem not because he truly cares about her, but because he thinks this will get her to love him.

If I could describe Youta’s relationship to the other characters, it would be how we treat NPCs in RPGs. You do things for the NPCs not because you care about them, but because they may give you what you want if you do. But the funny thing is that all of the characters in this anime aside from Youta and Hina are best described as NPCs. They have 1 or 2 quirks (if even that) and are at Youta’s beck-and-call whenever he needs them to do some mundane task.

Hina is not much better than these side characters, but she does at least undergo some changes throughout the anime’s episodes. However, she is just loud and self-centered for the majority of that time, which makes her hard to like. This doesn’t seem to be a problem for the characters though, as they all love her for some unknown reason and Youta actually seems to fall in love with her.

Now, just to remind you, Youta is a high school senior (18 years old) and Hina is a young girl (around 12 years old) so this relationship feels very uncomfortable. Some have claimed that they love each other in a sibling way, but this development only starts to happen as Youta begins to stop pursing Izanami, which leads me to believe that this is a romantic love. This disturbing relationship only distracts from the melodrama and does not make me care about the characters any more than the little I already did.

The characters are not the only poorly written aspect though, as the actual plot is all over the place. While Youta and Hina are doing their summer shenanigans, we get a subplot with a character that I only referred to as Hackerman that feels largely disjointed from the rest of the anime. He is introduced abruptly and is given way too much screentime for how little he actually interacts with the main characters. His struggles are completely separate from that of the main characters, so it all just feels pointless and like a waste of time.

As I stated previously, this anime does have some extraordinary circumstances in an attempt to heighten the melodrama and the emotional impact of the viewer. But including this is a double-edged sword, because if the anime does not produce an emotional effect, then the narrative is opened up to plot holes and criticism. If I am not busy feeling sad or sentimental, then the illusion is shattered and I notice how much of the story makes no sense at all.

The Day I Became a God suffers the most from these poor writing choices that ultimately ruined all potential that this anime had. Even though it looks good, sounds good, and the voice actors are doing the best with what they are given, none of it is enough to make up for poorly written characters and a story that fails to emotionally affect its audience.

It’s a solid 3