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Among the worst shows I watched this year.

Characters consist only of quirks instead of having fleshed out personalities. Hisone is freaking obnoxious and most of the other characters are utterly useless. Plot gets going close to the final three episodes and does not make any sense whatsoever. The very little character development we get is predictable and bare bones. Tries to have so many tearjerker moments and each one falls flat on its face due to the persistent tonal dissonance between sudden wacky comedic scenes and super serial super sad scenes.


So much for the objective assessment. What follows is a long, personal rant, my ... main problem with Hisone to Masotan comes down to this aspect.

Sexism is rampant.

"Love is a lady's primary objective" is an actual line form the show... A sentence that vile is something a villain would say. All the male staff act like humongous jerks to the pilot girls and exclusively on the premise that they are females and must therefor be inferior pilots by nature. The old "women are governed by their emotions" BS gets brought up constantly. And the show never reprimands anyone who expresses this thought, it seems in fact to support that notion as the girls' inability to properly pilot their dragons is based on their emotional turmoil. One of the pilots main conflict is her struggles with being treated as a second class soldier due to her gender, and that plot point gets hardly explored and not brought to any conclusion whatsoever. There was a hint of an interesting sub plot with that premise, the male soldiers finally see the girls' skills and realize they've been wrong this whole time... But it just fizzles out, no lessons learned, nothing accomplished. I know it' pointless to complain about sexism in anime, might as well complain the sky is blue. But this is so egregiously "no girls allowed lol" that it gets my blood boiling.


Speaking of sexism. There's plenty of out of place and outright uncomfortable fanservice. The pilot suits being skin tight and making Hisone highly embarrassed by the pervy suit designer was a lengthy plot point. One of those cases where the show tries to have it both ways, making the audience empathize with the girls while unapologetically objectifying them. It's especially Hisone who gets shown off by the camera, panning over her buttocks in intrusive angles many a times. This does not work. You can't tell me to feel sorry for poor abused little Hisone while also telling me to lewdly ogle her like a stripper. Mixed signals much? Do you want to be a real story or do you want to be vore porn? Make up your mind you stupid anime.


And lastly, those fucking Yakult yogurt ad inserts. Seriously? Yakult? Who greenlit this.


Rant over.


If you wanna see a show that does "girl bonds with monster/vehicle" done right, watch Rideback instead. Not a single panty shot to be found in that show, Rideback respects both its characters and its audience. Or try Naru Taru if you like your stories with an extra slice of nightmare fuel. Stay away from Hisotan.

Wow....Not a single review, huh?

I suppose Yorukumo has never been officially released in English speaking areas. That's a crying shame, because it's quite a fascinating read. I'd be hard pressed to compare it to anything. Dorohedoro meets Saturn Apartments? With a good dash of post-apocalyptic goth aesthetics?

Story: So what is Yorukumo about anyway? Well, at its core, it's a love story. A morbid, blood spattered yet heart-warming tale of two outcasts finding each other in an uncaring, cruel world. There is not much of an overarching plot, no world threatening scenarios. It's comparatively closer to a slice of life in structure.
Characters: Now here ... is where it shines. The two mains are exceedingly well written. Same goes for every side character. Yorukumo is a world of broken individuals. While that may alienate at first, everyone's actions make sense in their own F'd up way.
Art: Moody. Gloomy. Fits setting and tone very well. Expressive faces and no same-face syndrome.

Content warning: While nowhere near as graphic as a full on gore fest, there is still torture, abuse and all that good stuff. It doesn't come off as cheap. It's intended to be dark and it earns that darkness.

If you're in the mood for something truly unique with strong world-building, if you like dark themes mixed with the strangest kind of romance....Try to track down a readable copy of Yorukumo.

I cannot possibly separate my nostalgia goggles from my eyes when talking about Attack No. 1. Or as it was known to me and my fellow German speakers in the 90s, Mila Superstar.

Before Sailor Moon, before Dragonball, before Pokemon and Digimon...there was Mila. This was in more ways than one my entry drug into the world of anime.

While it is rather rough around the edges when you look at it today (I mean it was made in the 60s for crying out loud) but it still had all those tropes I would later come to love/hate in anime. It's a sports show with all the ... shounen cliches you'd expect. An underdog story with a rival bully who becomes your BFF by the end, ridiculous superpowers and the melodramatic nail biting thrills of...Volleyball. Sure there were no world ending stakes, but it I'll be damned if it didn't FEEL like the world would end whenever Mila was at the face of defeat. Every time she screamed and cried, my little 5 year old self screamed and cried along. The show had a passion that I was not used to seeing in any other show.

And unlike shounen, Attack No.1 had a cast that was comprised mainly of girl characters. Surprisingly well written girl characters. A sad rarity even to this day. Mila's main concerns weren't boy troubles or looking pretty, she was a goddamn athlete. She had a dream, and my god, she was gonna live that dream if it killed her.

Soultaker is without a doubt, without a hint of hubris or exaggeration, the single worst anime I have ever watched. If you think you've seen some truly terrible anime, you need to witness, not watch, WITNESS Soultaker.

Story: Incomprehensible. Yet somehow really boring and uninteresting.
Art: It manages the impossible feat of being too brightly colored and yet too dark to see anything that is going on.
Sound: Least offensive on the list but still awful.
Characters: WHAT CHARACTERS?!! It's hard enough to keep track on what is happening you think this thing has time for character development???
Enjoyment: I'd call it a bad trip but that would be an ... insult to drugs.


Soultaker will damage your eyes, ears and brains. It is an assault on all your senses. Avoid at all cost. It's not even riffing material.