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I'm going to talk about Hanamono's story, since every other metric as per a Monogatari production is tip top.

Breaking down the walls and walls of dialogue set up by Nisio Isin, you can ultimately summarize the central idea of this show in 1 sentence: Growing up is to realize that people (in this case herself and her mother) are not perfect and that it is okay to be flawed. This alone is great. It's a great theme and Shaft delivers on its execution. What's the problem here then? Well, it's a rehash of many many other Monogatari stories without bringing out something fresh.

From Nadeko Medusa ... to Tsubasa Tiger, Ougi Dark to Koyomi Reverse, all of these stories had a similar main idea of coming-of-age/self-acceptance, but they consistently had something tangible and substantial to sort of serve as the platform to deliver this premise, as well as sort of a plot to develop that into or from. In Hanamonogatari's case, I can't think of anything substantial. If I were to put it frankly, I'd say that the whole dialogue over whether it was okay for Numachi to go around "helping" people was space-filling fluff. There's nothing thematic about it, there's no depth to the message. Alright, some basic utilitarianism vs kantianism. That's cool, but that's all it is. I didn't need to see such a long exchange of how one were to meet the devil, what they'd do, etc etc. It felt as if he was beating around the bush prior to going into the true meat of the story. You couldn't even try and posit that Numachi was a real person and that she wasn't just a vector similar to Tiger since then absorbing the hand would contradict what she had previously said about merely knowing about others' suffering and make no sense. Plus, the hand isn't.. just a hand. It's the manifestation of a weakness in character.

Well, meat it is. The good ol' Monogatari symbolism is there when we need it to be. Sure. Numachi, is a lot of people. She is the manifestation - or more literally, the personification - of people's flaws and fears. To elaborate, since one of her candidates was Kanbaru herself, it was her potential weakness when she had a similar sports injury, the whole "wishing well" monkey arm of an arm she has that symbolizes rashness and impulsiveness that she developed due to bad parenting (the paw was given to her, figuratively and literally, from her mother), as well as her mother's overall bad influence in the form of the rest of the body parts. [Skip to the last sentence to avoid minor spoilers for Hana] As per how Hanekawa tore her Tiger parts into a separate entity, Kanbaru's right arm got absorbed by Numachi. You guys can see it. It's the same story. Even the ending, where Hanekawa reabsorbs her "flaws" which would be the Tiger, coming to terms with being herself, Kanbaru does the same in the last scene with the basketball finale. Along with more symbolism that IS unique to Hana, such as Kaiki telling her to beefen up and not run away from her flaws/herself/her fears, Gaen Tooe entrusting her devil head to Kaiki, a man not prone to act on impulse but instead on monetary gain, and an grown-up Araragi representing maturity leading her back from her escape from herself. That's it. Basically, the general framework for the story and the symbolism within it seems very similar to other arcs.

Interestingly, what I enjoyed most about Hanamonogatari was only made possible because I watched Zoku Owarimonogatari and understood exactly what the Rainy Devil represented, subsequently understanding what the monkey paw, being gifted the monkey paw from her mother, and Numachi represented for Kanbaru. You could say that this was the thing that sets Hanamonogatari apart from the other arcs, but to be able to understand it after watching other arcs is a little too much to ask for. Since Zoku is chronologically right before Hana, I would recommend people watch Zoku first.

It might seem like I had drastically and exaggeratedly condensed the story, but I'd like to think that I didn't. I respect the avant-garde film direction of Shaft and the unique storytelling style of Nisio Isin, but no amount of those things should be used for the sake of covering up an attempt at mostly regurgitating old content. I hold almost all of Monogatari's works to very high regard, but this feels like one of its weaker ones.

Happy Sugar Life is very unique. It's a story that romanticises the development of the relationship between 2 broken girls. Normally, coming of age stories talk about how characters grow out of their own flaws of youth. Well this one's a bit tricky because the flaws are that one girl is a murderous psychopath and the other has had a terrible childhood. If you can accept this outrageous context, you'll find HSL very rich in story and character depth and quite similar in tone to other coming of age tales. Chapter by chapter, the heroines learn something more about themselves, or come to the conclusion ... that they must do something to grow as a person or grow for their lover or what not; they forge new ideas about what love, sin and happiness are. It seems like everyone has a process of growing up, even psychopaths.

The story is terrible when you look at the context. The situation on the ground is almost unbelievable and there are quite a few plot holes surrounding side characters. However, HSL's identity as a manga revolves not around its settings but around how the story develops. The big question this manga asks is "what is love?" and it does a very good job of pacing this development so that simpler emotions are played out first before the whole dynamic between these two girls change as their concept of love changes.

Characterization? Very strong. Somehow even with a ridiculous setting, HSL's story is able to be spun off realistic conflicts. Do you protect your lover from knowing about the sins you've committed or do you confess and pray for forgiveness? What is the value of family? Is family still more valuable than friends if it were a broken family? How do you decide which form of interpretation of love is right? Through the manga we watch our girls attempt to answer these question and delve into main girl's psych which might almost make you say "damn I actually get where she's coming from" but then you remember she killed a couple of people so she's still not okay. I was actually surprised to read that even the damn loli had character development and then turning out her change will be a big part of the story. Kind of happy she wasn't just a token loli to pull in viewership.

Art wise, I like the contrast of Shio's kotatsu-like warmth and softness to the cold brittleness of Satou's unstable mental health but I can't compare it the likes of Umino Chika's 3 Gatsu's art (it has a similar warm vs cold setting). It's mediocre. Average at best. Nothing really screams horror except some unsettling scenes and the black squiggles here and there.

If you're here from the anime site I suggest you give this a go. The anime is honestly too low production that it omits the nuances of the story that's in the manga. And once you've gotten over the idea that a psychopath, an immoral teacher, a pedophile, a hermit, a masochist, a stalker and an abducted loli can coexist in a single story then it's actually a rewarding read.

Believe me, when I saw the cover art, all I expected was this to be the filler ecchi trash that would intersperse between my more serious manga serieses. Boy did this series blow me away. Shomin Sample is now what I consider to be the standard for comedy ecchi anime. One that embraces a unique setting, draws comedy in every unexpected shape and way possible from that setting, and has characters and stories that are not butchered just because the tags "harem" and "ecchi" are in it.

The story comes in as a close second best aspect of SS. There's definitely a setting that's crazy, sure, ... an academy for Ojou-samas who seem to be helplessly unaware of the outside world. However, that's it. The story perfectly controls what's allowed to be ridiculous and what's in line, and the main character is the one that delivers that. He's the line between the fancy aristocratic lifestyle within the academy and the normal world outside. His reactions and interactions with the main cast are all realistic, allowing the story to flow along with his stay in the school. I'd like to also commend SS for how god damn natural the conversations and reactions are.

For the story itself, we have to talk about the characters because this story is ultimately one that revolves around its characters (except the last bits). They're the best part of the series. The overall story is about culture shock when a normal person MC enters an aristocratic school, as well as individual characters' growth. The story is created really realistically, something I'd not expect out of a harem manga (compare Konosuba's terrible placeholder story). All of the main cast have a central idea to them, they are fundamentally flawed in a way, and throughout the series they develop to overcome some of these flaws. I'm not kidding, they even made (minor spoilers) a main girl's boobs grow to symbolize her development as a character. What's the best part? The MC actually good! He's not annoying, he's down to earth, he might be a perv inside but he's mature enough to hold those urges in and actually act like a mature outsider to the girls. Okay I'm rambling now but you get the idea. If you'd shown the more storyrich chapters to a friend, I bet they'd never expect it to be from a degenrate harem manga. More character development and interaction than many more popular shows, and a solid story to back that up.

Lastly, I've not read much hunour, but I've sure had my fair share of subpar humour. SS however delivers a standard that really left an impression. Its comedy is natural and rarely forced. The best part is that it pops up at unexpected moments. Ah I'm not that good at reviewing humour, so I'll just say that you won't be disappointed. Its ecchi parts are the same. It's not in your face at all as I'd expected to see from the cover art. Hell, even the pantylifts you see each have a unique lead up to them.

I'm having a hard time understanding why this manga is so lowly rated. Maybe because people had the same realisation as I had as I read it, that they had expected trashy ecchi but got handed some wholesome storyarcs. How cruel the manga world can be huh?

STOP KILLING MARINA
BABANBO-SAMA
MOCA-CHAN'S WARM MILK

A lighthearted gag-filled (cough and well made) mini series was exactly what this franchise needed. YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT. A well made Bang Dream original animation. Unlike the franchise's first anime season that struggled to be thematically serious this one just throws cornets at you, makes your characters switch bodies, and quite literally kills off your favourite characters. Multiple times.

There are 2 types of episodes, first one's focused on individual characters. Sounds dull, but unlike the first season where really it's just a retelling of Kasumi's grossly overplayed kira kira doki doki story, this one gets a lot of space ... to visit the different characters of the series. Ok look maybe I'm just getting excited because previously all the canon milkable characterization had been in the game's Live2D format but hey would you have expected a 3 min episode of Ran and Moca talking while queueing up for ramen to be this damn interesting? If you found the in-game stories interesting, then imagine that augmented with glorious top quality chibi.

The second type, well. It's a fiesta with each character exemplifying their full blown character trope. Kokoro and Kasumi twice as dumb, Kaoru twice as fleeting, Aya twice as lovable. It's hard to review at this point. It's an episodic clown fiesta and it has convinced me to stop questioning reality and just embrace every minute of this show.

A must watch for fans of the franchise.