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This has to be the most complicated “recommended” review I could write, especially for a show I am rating 6/10. Is the show good? Kind of.

Gintama is first and foremost a product of its time. We don’t really have 200+ episode series anymore, and we certainly don’t see comedies that typically present episodic plots last as long as the original Gintama series has.

This series relies on paradox of anime and manga series that were either popular at the same time Gintama aired. It also references popular actors, musicians, and even news anchors that I wouldn’t expect anyone outside of Japan to know. It also has ... a ton of references to Dragon Quest. If you didn’t watch much anime that aired before the 2000s, you won’t really get a lot of references that are thrown out there. However, the show provides a ton of footnotes along the way to help viewers know what exactly is being referenced. This makes watching the show a bit easier because you can at least understand what joke is being made.

My personal gripe with the show is the absolute terrible pacing. Gintama is primarily episodic but peppers in multi-episode arcs that either establish new longer term characters or give the cast a little more time to explore their motivations or learn a little more about a secondary character. That being said, it takes around 50 episodes before we even get to an actual “arc.” This first quarter of this show just feels like a slog to get through.

These multiple arcs that are then later introduced vary in quality, but the first major plot line, the Benizakura arc, is around the time Gintama starts to find its stride. The majority of the arcs bring some interesting new challenge for the main cast while still not forgetting that the show is a comedy.

The main selling point of this show is the characters. Despite the criticisms so far, Kagura and Gin have to be some of my favorite anime characters ever. Gin feels like an antithetical shonen protagonist in a way that no other satire anime has quite captured. He’s lazy and tends to freak out about any character being ridiculous, but still maintains a moral compass that keeps him engaging during the shows serious beats. Kagura is a little gremlin that always adds a chaos element to every storyline; her voice actress nails the energy she adds to the show, too. Shinpachi is just a straight man to all the hijinks going on around him.

The secondary cast is a mixed bag. The show leans heavily on stalkers and perverts as classic comedy tropes from anime that has not aged well. Kondo is absolutely nauseating in every scene he’s in. Sarutobi is also obnoxious in her forced attempts to get Gin’s attention. The rest of the cast—the other shinsengumi members, Kyubei, Hasegawa, Tsukuyo, Katsura, and Elizabeth—are all as prominent as the aforementioned two and all add unique, fun elements to the episodes they show up in that are really funny. These characters also mix and match in different episodes to create new, unique interactions.

Once Gintama gets this heavy cast established and familiar with the audience, the comedy starts to really come together. Recurring gags with characters start to have new takes that catch you off guard. Things ranging from absurdist situations, setups that are taken from an anime/video game/western media, or unique plot lines that come from a build up that really does take 100 episodes to establish all come across in each episode, changing between each other to keep the comedic situations fresh and not just a new iteration of the same parody.

If you’re looking for action, you’ll be disappointed. The animation in this show is fine, but action sequences are non-existent for the most part. Most fights are a quick couple of slashes or just quick cuts to key frames with no in-betweens. I’d say there was 4 action sequences across the entire 200 episode sprint that had high quality sakuga animation that got me excited.

In conclusion, I think this show at this point in time (2025 as I’m writing this) is only going to be for certain people. If you have a sincerely deep passion and knowledge for the “greats” of pre-2000s and early 2000s anime, you’ll enjoy the numerous references and parodies. If you’re the type of anime watcher that wants to know what all the buzz about a show is, you’ll probably be glad you watched it even for the time investment. If you have the patience to get through dozens of episodes to get a payoff for your time, similar to other old school anime that had a slow pace and took a while to get anywhere worthwhile, this is probably worth your time. On the other hand, if you are diving in head first hoping for a gut buster that requires no context beyond the show or have only watched recent anime and generally stick to shorter series, you’re probably gonna have a bad time. There are gems of episodes that anyone would find hilarious, but it takes a long time to get there.

I ultimately recommend the show because I think there’s merit in working through it slowly and falling for the fun cast this show has to offer. Take this show on after you’ve got a bit of old school anime watching under your belt and take it in bite size pieces.

Episode Nagi is a recap episode in disguise. The entire movie consists of the contents of season one, replayed from Nagi and Reo’s perspectives. The beginning does feature some new content to show the two first beginning to play soccer together and highlights of their matches during the first round of selection that we had not seen. Everything afterward is running through the contents of season one while Nagi narrates.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the production quality is also miserable. A lot of shots are reused from season one when available. Otherwise, the show uses a lot of still shots during big moments and narrows ... down to the smallest amount of animation possible for Nagi’s big shots. There’s also this irritating cut to a blue flame that is on the screen during Nagi’s reflections instead of literally anything happening during the game.

There is some merit to the perspective of Nagi during this season. The movie ends with the viewer having a better understanding of his relationship to Reo and soccer itself. I wouldn’t advise anyone waste money seeing this in theaters. Rather, consider picking this up if you need a refresher on season one before the next season later this year airs. Because, again, this is just a recap movie.

Girls Band Cry is a charming music anime with a great focus on character writing and incredible CGI animation. We follow Nina, a high school dropout, who meets her favorite singer after recently leaving her own band and they miraculously forms a new band together.

The character animation is easily the best I’ve ever seen in CGI and even gives traditional 2D animation some steep competition. Every character is so emotive and reactive with each of their expressions in a way that’s still what you’d expect from anime but takes the quality up another notch. Everything flows smoothly and the animation itself gives enough reason to ... watch this show in a character drama, or all things.

That character drama is also really well done. Each character gets their moment to have their backstory explored and build on a theme of regrets and your past haunting you, but each taking their own unique spin on it. While one of the five band members did not get her own dedicated episode, each one had their time to at least understand what is going on behind the scenes in their life. They all behave and act in a different way that feels intuitive from the life they’ve led up to this point. These stories help them come together to form this band and embrace the underdog story of a new indie band trying to make their big break. Also, their interpersonal dynamics are wonderful; their quirkiness reverberates off each other endlessly for great comedy and more endearing moments.

The music is all performed by the same band that voices the actual characters and the quality rings through. There’s at least four unique songs throughout the series that all bring really high energy rock that I had to instantly save on Spotify. The catchiest of them all is the opening.

Overall, this show was an absolute delight. The main five girls are diverse and memorable. The show’s animation and music make everything you experience thoroughly satisfying. The season leaves off with a lot of things wrapped up but just a little bit of a feeling that things are hanging out unresolved. It’s hard to tell if that’s to leave room for hopes of another season or just a lack of time to close the season out. Either way, the journey was more important than the destination in this one and I say it’s a must watch for any music fans. People who don’t watch music would probably get a great starter show out of this or anyone who just wants a high quality character-driven show will find things to love here.

Wind breaker is a simple sell: really great action scenes and a bare bones plot.

Every fight in this season has been absolutely stunning to watch. The action sequences have a great sense of motion in their animation while keeping tight choreography. I don’t think I’ve seen an action show incorporate as much grappling and throwing unless it was explicitly a martial arts show. Every character touts a relatively unique style to their fighting too, despite everyone just being high schoolers slugging it out.

The characters are also endearing. The main character, Sakura, plays into a lot of tsundere tropes which comes off oddly funny as ... he reacts to everything in response to slightest bit of camaraderie from his friends. The rest of the cast all bring a lot of charm too with enough characters in any scene to keep anyone from getting stale even if they’re kinda one-note characters. Everyone blends in to add a lot of comedy to the show outside of the fight scenes.

The plot is not worth talking about. People have some morals they stand by when they fight and the bad guys are bad for bad reasons. There’s a little more nuance to what’s going on, but honestly any attempt to explain character motivations this season left me unimpressed as it never really made sense. The last episode presented an interesting few characters, so maybe this will be improved on in the next season.

That’s really all there is. The action is great and the characters are fun. The show hits on all the Shonen beats so if you need your next shonen action romp, you’ll get exactly what you’re hoping for. Go watch it!

Train to the end of the world is a CGCDT adventure with a great amount of anime zaniness. The show features four girls found in some “apocalyptic-esque” world after a new technology named 7G causes nightmarish sci-fi alterations to the world taking a train to find their missing friend who inadvertently caused this mess. Each town they go to has some new quirk to it—from parasitic mushroom people to people transforming to animals to tiny militaries.

The show focuses on themes of adventuring into the unknown and parallels this closely with the conflict of the main character and her missing friend in tandem with the show ... itself. As the show goes on we learn there was a conflict that led to a falling out due to a disagreement on the point of moving to bigger, unknown towns to pursue lofty dreams. Similarly, the main cast travels into the literal unknown world post-7G in hopes of somehow finding their friend. The resulting conclusion is both satisfying and wholesome with the characters learning to be less scared of taking on challenges that sound impossible. With 12 episodes, the show really keeps to a simple narrative revolving around this and does so adeptly.

The actual contents of each episode are whacky and funny as they wander into each new town. This adds an episodic feel to the story as they slowly gather tidbits of information from locals to understand the underlying mystery of 7G. It’s hard to review comedy, but this show really keeps beating its last concept with each new preposterous concept caused by this new world. Each time we find something creative that’s even harder to explain to anyone that walks in on you watching this, which is what I usually call “peak.”

The grab bag of new, weird things discovered in each town does lead to some weak points in the show. For myself, I found the Alice in Wonderland rip-off town toward the back half of the series to be really weak and didn’t care for the townspeople obsession to get the main girls into a bunch of skimpy outfits that they didn’t want to wear. Likewise, we find a town infested with zombies whose weakness involved anything perverted. While the solution the girls find is a clever misdirection to what you’d expect would be a bunch of panty flashes, overall I kind of wish we just had a different concept for the zombies altogether.

I don’t want to add too many additional spoilers about what wackiness ensues. I think overall if you are looking for a show that has anime randomness that you prioritize when looking for something to laugh at and/or a wholesome CGCDT adventure, you’ll probably enjoy this. Keep the last paraphrase in consideration if you’re looking for any red flags that might make you choose to skip something, but the two blips in content I didn’t care for didn’t overwhelm my enjoyment of this cast of well-written characters that are all unique and get time to show off their own talents throughout this quick 12-episode journey.

I want to rate this show higher for a lot of the things it does great but my god does this show also handle so many things poorly. I’ll flag spoilers but keeping it light.

I’m in Love with the Villainess opens the first couple episodes as a classic Yuri comedy intertwined with an isekai into an otome rpg game. It’s not clear in the first two episodes if you’re being queer baited, but this show sucked punches you in episode three with a painfully deep reflection on sexuality, homophobia, and unrequited love. It cut really deep when I first watched it and was excited to ... get more after seeing this show wouldn’t beat around the bush with its romance.

What helps the show further is just the dynamic of the main two characters. Claire hits most of the tsundere tropes while refusing to show any affection toward Rae. Rae is unrelenting in her love that created some good light hearted comedy. The two end up fitting so well together by the end of the season and this is what really drives the show to be as good as it is.

But man, does this show try to push you away with some poorly handled matters. The biggest elephant in the room is Rae’s behavior in the first 2-3 episodes are borderline harassment and stalking. It makes the cutesy moments of the show get drowned out at first and I wouldn’t blame anyone for dropping at this point. The show does turn a corner after the aforementioned discussion about Rae’s sexuality and makes her behavior less creepy.

From here, the show offers a mediocre fantasy world to dig into. The poorly designed princes and other forgettable side characters make the show less appealing. And the animation of the magic is also especially disappointing. If the fantasy and lore in your show is important, this might be a huge deterrent. The caveat is the show reveals some more interesting political dynamics as we get into the commoner’s movement mini-arc about halfway into the season. The show definitely can handle political drama quite deftly—the animation/art surrounding it is the problem.

And then there’s incest. Sigh. I will credit the show for not blatantly encouraging it. Rather, we have a tragic villain that’s motivated by an incestous love. I’m not sure how much better that is? But after so much anime B.S., I’d say this is pretty tame.

This show was really shooting itself in the foot multiple times until it introduces Princess Manaria in the last 3 episodes. She proves to be a great love rival for Rae and a… sister to Claire. Claire calls her sister affectionately, but I really didn’t thing we’d double dip in this pot. Regardless, Manaria does a great job at pushing the plot forward but also making Rae grow as a character and learn to be more selfish. Watching characters in a romance who are selfless all series finally realize they need to be selfish for themselves will never grow old on me.

I think this show could have been a lot better, but I still enjoyed the ride and am ready for a season two if we get one. Give the show a shot if the problems mentioned above aren’t deal breakers for you is my final verdict.

I’m going to list out the pros and cons of this show in bullet points versus a more typical review because I find this show came with a lot of high highs and low lows. Overall, I would recommend any shonen fan watch this and the tl;dr is the show is great with some missed potential along the way.

The good
-Stunning art direction. The show uses color to both brighten up a normally dark and brooding genre as well as emphasize character development with black and white scenes getting vibrant colors splashed into it.
-Similar to above, this show is an upbeat version of your typical zombie ... show/movie and is sorely needed compared to other zombie content.
-The opening is incredible and gives you and idea of my last point toward general positive energy.
-The show gives a cutthroat depiction of exploitative work culture in Japan. The presentation of Akari’s job in episode one makes your skin crawl with how awful it feels.
-Akari’s history of an abusive workplace is revisited and really fleshed out the anxiety he’s developed from it and breaks up the jovial episodes surrounding it.
-The motif of being unhappy in your work is explored with different spins on nearly every character we meet. It really gives a look into how everyone we’ve met has different perspectives on how worn has affected their outlook on life.
-Appealing character designs and synergy between the main cast that would make anyone smile.
-Seriously, the character interactions is everything in this show.
-Splashes of action scenes and other sakuga that add intensity to each episode.
-The show’s message of chasing your dreams is relatable and can motivate any viewer. Really adds a lot of gas to the show’s content.
-The romantic tension and shipping material of the main male and female are extremely palpable and very engaging to follow.
-I cannot stop gushing about how great the overall animation quality is

The bad
-The opening animation is mostly forgone and instead has a static graphic followed by a rehash of scenes from the last episode. This is corrected in the episodes released post-hiatus and is much more in tune with the music and vibe of the show.
-The narrative of working your dream job and filling out your bucket list is sweet but lacks any scrutiny from how this message would apply in a world that isn’t mid-apocalypse. Maybe it’ll be explored in future seasons?
-Kencho, Akira’s friend and second main male lead, has a getting naked joke that gets old quick.
-Shizuka, the main female lead, initially presents a foil to Akira with the classic survivalist zombie protagonist but seems to hold up her behavior inconsistently after joining the gang. I think the show wanted to show her cold exterior melting away but it just fell apart entirely for the sake of comedic relief scenes and is really jarring to watch.
-Beatrix, the second female lead, has no real character and fees like walking boobs. Fan service with no character behind it is beyond frustrating.
-We get our main antagonists in the back four episodes and they are absolutely incomprehensible. They fill the type of character that wants to get revenge on society but end up bringing up quickly hashed out backstories that hold little weight when you step away to think about it.
-The antagonists get their beliefs questioned by the main cast in revelations that feel like no brainers to any other adult watching the show.
-Some low quality CGI animation used at the end to cut corners.
-Action scenes in the end use more cuts to replace actual sakuga and action choreography

Undead Murder Farce is a detective mystery taking place in a historical Europe setting with some light action. The biggest pull is the amalgamation of mythological and real characters featured in the story, such as Sherlock Holmes, Arsene Lupin, Aleister Crowley, to some wild cards like Frankenstein and The Phantom of the Opera.

The setting creates an exciting watch and our main cast are equally fun to follow. A headless, immortal woman, her ass kicking maid, and a half-human, half-oni recruited from a Japanese circus are as colorful of a line up as it sounds. They have a lot of banter between major story beats that ... leads to a lot of dry humor. There’s no big laughs here in my opinion but was nice for characterizing the main trio more.

The mysteries featured in this season were all interesting at their premise, but had some mixed conclusions. One case feels deduced relatively well but the fallout of the culprit was rushed and left a lot to be desired. After taking time getting to know this cast, we move on to the next case. This rinse and repeat formula for side characters hurt the narrative a bit for me. However, the season’s final case was the best by far. Its buildup in Aya’s investigation and all its revelations felt genuinely surprising. The final case also featured some themes on revenge and judgments based on discrimination between humans and “inhumans .”

While our main detective Aya is entertaining to follow, any other geniuses we meet do not match her wit. I found other characters observations or attempts at showing their smartness to be either arbitrarily guessed at or flat out stated without real evidence and rather an interest in moving the show along.

Beyond the mystery, the show’s action is fun. Tsugaru is a hand to hand combat type and has several clever tactics to turn fights in his favor. He also has some crazy moments that add for some shock factor.

The last con that holds the show back is mixed production quality in the animation. At first, it’s just some characters looking stiff, especially Tsugaru. Toward the end of the season, there’s also shortcuts being taken. There are weird transition effects to occupy time with less frames and weird effects added to animation sequences to cover up moments that feel choppy. One fight toward the very end handled this well by using some fun tricks with the lighting of the scene, but ultimately was too short and rigid to pay off.

I’d definitely recommend this show for anyone who likes mystery or likes the idea of established fictional characters clashing in one show. If you like period pieces, or just like werewolves and vampires, this will also be up your alley!

Also the OP is so damn catchy.

My Happy Marriage is a period piece romance set in the Meiji-eta in Japan. The show includes supernatural elements through the existence of “grotesqueries,” which we learn more about as you get further into the series, as well as “gifts” that take the form of various super powers, like control of fire or the ability to manipulate others. After watching the season, the scope of these powers feel as open-ended as other thinks like cursed energy from Jujutsu Kaisen and stand abilities in Jojo’s, so the sky’s the limit. The first episode has no trace of fantasy elements in it, so if you skip the ... synopsis, like I did, you’ll be surprised when they dive into the main cast’s own gifts.

The first episode gives you all the background you need on the story. Miyo is our protagonist who is treated like a servant by her own family and looked down upon by her stepmother and stepsister. One day she finds out her father has arranged a marriage for her and she’s to leave their home immediately to begin a new life. This creates an opportunity for her to live a better life.

Something that becomes apparent within the first couple episodes is that her fiancé, Kudo, is by no means “saving” her. Instead, Miyo has an opportunity to choose how to live her life in her new circumstances. Kudo is first introduced as cold and apathetic of Miyo. Miyo doesn’t necessarily feel empowered in her new life either. Instead, she is a character reconciling with the trauma of her upbringing and her own low self-esteem that her family instilled upon her while introduced to a man who has no prior opinion of her. What results is a beautiful character arc for the main character as we watch her first recognize her own autonomy and worth, then learning to stand up for what she wants and speak out to her family.

The show continues on by adding conflicts external to our couple, caused by her family’s own grievances when they find how happy Miyo is and other elements that develop as we learn more about the various gifts characters have and the power struggle to have clans hold the strongest gifts through political, arranged marriages. These challenges lead to issues that make Miyo second guess her own worth. Through and through, the show continues to challenge Miyo as these problems that felt like were hinted to develop from the beginning of the series get thrown upon her. Both her own growth and her growing intimacy with Kudo feel organic and earned.

Kudo is a wonderful love interest for our protagonist and the story. Kudo anchors us in the supernatural elements of the show and provides an unexpected amount of depth in this fictional world and some action sequences in his work to eliminate grotesqueries. Where as Miyo’s character growth is front and center for our observation, Kudo’s challenges felt subtle and harder to identify. This might be frustrating if you prefer things explained in clear monologues as some anime might use, but I found his own character struggles to be understandable after having some time to digest his role in the story.

The biggest flaw I found while watching this was the story’s turn of events in the last quarter of the season. Some new conflict arises and for me the actions of the main characters felt really difficult to understand. However, the show revisits the motivations of antagonists and adds some retrospective from the main characters that makes it easier to piece together why things escalated the way they did. As mentioned earlier, Kudo may have been the hardest to follow in all these events due to his lack of exposition, but looking back on the season if we confident saying he had a clear line of justifications as he went through this conflict.

For other elements of the show, the visuals and audio won’t disappoint anyone. The characters are drawn beautifully and their faces perfectly convey all the emotions that might come across in a subtle romance story. The soundtrack is subdued and is mainly used to guide the emotions and tensions of the drama and romance that ensues.

I feel confident giving this show a 10/10. As a romance, it delivers the slow burn and organic character development you would expect from the genre. The overarching conflicts and supernatural element keep other challenges in play for the cast and are good if you want to offset the romance with general drama. If you are a fan of the romance genre I think this is a must watch.

The Dangers in My Heart was a really great watch if you've heard great things about it but want to go in with a healthy sense of skepticism. That's how I started off this series and I was definitely on the fence in the first two episodes, but by episode three I was very much hooked.

The beginning shows the main character, Ichikawa, to be having some really dark, brooding thoughts, but it becomes obvious very soon that he's just an edge-lord. What I came to really enjoy about this anime was just how accurately it portrays middle school (well, at least personality-wise). Everyone is ... incredibly self-conscious, the boys have gross "locker room" talk in the middle of their classroom (which the shows puts them down for), girls are very worried about their looks. Ichikawa ultimately is the embodiment of a middle schooler, with deciding he's some social outcast and can't bring himself out of this negative headspace.

Ichikawa's self-consciousness really starts to bleed into the romance plot line. Yamada, the female lead, is the popular and pretty girl in the class, as is common in romance anime. Because of her status, he is quick to assume that Yamada is either being nice to him or possibly even mocking him through their interactions. This leads to the cliché scenes of one character not getting the hint that you may be accustomed to, but the show has done a really good job of making it feel believable.

As far as tropes go, I feel like Yamada does a great job breaking the mold. A confident female lead that makes passes at the male lead is not unheard of, but her manner of going about it leads to a perfect blend of nervous energy a young girl probably feels talking to her crush while still being brave enough to push things forward for their potential relationship and the plot. Pacing and organic progression are the hardest parts of a good romance story to me, and while the slow burn gets a little ridiculous in the first half of the season, the momentum picks up in a satisfying way in the back-half.

Something else that needs praise is the soundtrack for this show. The opening is very soft-spoken but I ended up finding it stuck in my head just because of how peaceful it is and captures the energy I want while watching romance. Toward the end of the show, each episode has a really genius way of working in the title card with some climactic moment of the show. The soundtrack that plays every time this happens is something I looked forward to almost in the way you looked forward to Roundabout if you watched Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

The side characters are also pleasant. Compared to some of the other romances that have come out recently, they may pale in comparison. However, it was really nice to see Yamada have a large group of female friends who don't overstep boundaries while also prodding her and Ichikawa at the right moments. Ichikawa's sister is probably my favorite side character. She fills the big sister archetype in romance shows that are common to see, but it's obvious immediately that she bullshits a lot of her confidence and it's endearing to see her try to connect with her brother while also admiring the girl he's pursuing.

Finally, my main criticism of the show has to be fanservice. The show features student in junior high and there's no reason to have things like boob jiggle physics or other excessive shots of these actual children going on. In some cases, I can understand that we're in Ichikawa's perspective, but there are also moments, especially in 1-2 episodes, that make Yamada eye candy for the viewer and was really uncomfortable to watch. This is the reason I don't feel comfortable leaving a 10 or giving a hard recommend here. I really enjoyed it but with the "anime bullshit" that comes from the fanservice, I think it's fair to warn viewers in case it's a deal breaker for you.