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The first few episodes seemed somewhat promising, as despite the lack of an interesting story/characters there was at least the occasional joke I found genuinely funny. There were lots of meta jokes pointing out how stupidly stereotypical everything happening was; these seemed to stop around episode 3 or 4, and by then I was just watching the most stereotypical isekai ever made.

The story was completely lacking; there was no goal, stakes, or actual wordbuilding until the final episode. The characters were all pretty one-dimensional, the strongest of which was definitely Mile, although the "small boob joke" (you know the one), and her constantly breaking down ... crying at every opportunity didn't exactly help. The boob joke has to be the most unfunny joke in anime, it's been reused 1000 times over, and it's just incredibly uncomfortable to have a 12 year old comparing her bust to a 9 year old, and this being a recurring theme in just about every episode.

With the weak characters comes weak, uninspired dialogue that seems to have been copied right out of the "stereotypical anime lines" booklet. Ninety percent of the episode plots are predictable, and uninteresting; for example the classic "tragic backstory" is revealed where bandits killed a character's parents and such, and she hates them so much she wants to kill them. Other characters convince her killing is wrong, they cry for a little bit and the episode is over. I'm just so incredibly uninvested I can't take it seriously, and it's painful to watch.

There were things minor things I definitely appreciated about the show, but they're about equivalent in scale to nitpicks, so I don't think they're really worth listing out. If I let myself write any more this will look more like a rant than a review, so I'll leave it here. I don't recommend this at all unless you're into lolis and have never seen an anime/isekai before. 4/10

After watching literally dozens of dozens of shows, nothing else has managed to quite ooze as much charm and style as Tatami Galaxy does in it's short run of 11 episodes, in my eye anyway. I think its biggest selling point, other than just being a great show, is being completely unlike anything you've ever seen before. I mean this in almost every facet too; the art, music, atmosphere, storytelling, structure, animation; you won't find it anywhere else, and it's delightful to witness.

Since the purpose of a review is to (supposedly) help you decide whether or not a show is something you will enjoy, I ... think this is particularly worth discussing in this instance. First off, the show isn't friendly to its viewer, very few things are spelled out to you, the story is constantly fragmented and changes pacing dramatically whenever it wishes. The dialogue goes by very quickly, and if you miss anything well that's on you. It requires an active and engaged viewer to properly enjoy, it isn't something you could enjoy just casually watching in the background of something else. If you often tune out to dialogue, or usually don't like things without lots of flashy fight scenes, this is definitely not the show for you.

Style and charm aside, the biggest appeal structurally and story-wise was piecing together what the heck is going on in the grand scheme of things, following Watashi's character development, and trying to wrap your head around the philosophy at play. You don't have to be some literature elitist to follow it all (it seems I've made it sound a bit like that, sorry); the type of person that would most enjoy this anime is attentive/thoughtful while watching, and somewhat appreciate character development & discussing philosophy.

With that discussion out of the way, there isn't much else to talk about without delving into spoilers. I'd describe watching this anime as 'fun.' It's fun to look at; fun to piece everything together, fun to watch each whacky little narrative develop, and fun to see the characters unfold and interact in unexpected ways. I don't think I caught or fully processed every detail of it, so it might be worth a rewatch to properly comprehend the story and philosophies. I decided I'd give the show a solid 8/10 right up until the ending blew away my expectations, raising it to 4.5/5. Definitely consider watching this.

Monster is one of the most compelling and engaging shows I've watched. It features a long, intricate plot that's constantly evolving to remain fresh and interesting throughout its entirety. Atmosphere is handled very well through the characters, cinematography, and sound design. Unfortunately sometimes the atmosphere makes it fairly obvious what will/won't happen next, although occasionally this is subverted. The show is constantly playing with your expectations and manipulating or subverting them; sometimes I felt like I was playing a little dance with the show of back and forth expectations vs subversion.

One of the highlights of the show was definitely the characters. It proves a ... character doesn't have to have a super whacky personality/design, or a long intricate backstory to be exceptionally likeable, compelling, and memorable. I fell in love with the vast majority of the cast, one of my favourites being Detective Lunge, who was initially set up to be an unlikable antagonist. As with all pieces of literature, characters are depicted as slight exaggerations of real people, however all of them felt very human and were very easy to empathise with. I think this was partially achieved through their character designs, most of which served as great reflections of their personalities, all while retaining an art style that makes them look like believable human beings (compared to many other anime art syles anyway.)

I also appreciate the show's somewhat unique setting, being set in Germany sometime after the fall of the Berlin Wall. While I knew essentially nothing about this particular time and place, everything was made very clear. While of course it was a real time period, to me it felt like exceptional worldbuilding, and was very interesting to follow and piece together how everything worked at the time. Monster of course utilised many aspects of its historical setting into its story, which you might also appreciate if you liked shows such as Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu or Violet Evergarden (I'm aware 'historical' is a genre but I haven't watched a lot of them ok?).

I'm aware the show is often regarded as "deep," and while I have neither the experience nor expertise to support this claim, I will say the show explored some interesting moral and philosophical questions, while leaving them easy to understand for the casual viewer (myself) and supposedly leaving them open ended. I will say though that Johan's motives are a bit difficult for the casual viewer to interpret, for various reasons I won't go into. I got the general jist but I had to watch a YouTube video to get a clear picture. I'm unsure whether or not designing him like this was a good idea; perhaps it's more rewarding to an observant viewer, or maybe it was a necessary design choice to fully explore his philosophy.

One criticism I can acknowledge is that the show is a bit dramatic at times; although if you look at my rating you'll see this didn't affect my enjoyment at all.

TL;DR I like the show and you should undoubtedly consider watching it. 10/10

GTO is a great little comedy that excels at creating funny and stupidly over the top situations, as well as some great facial expressions. The humour usually revolves around funny/unexpected scenarios and crude jokes; it kind of reminds me of Gintama, but with less meta/pop culture jokes, so if you're into that you might like this too.

Most of the arcs revolve around some flawed individual, whom Onizuka must help/save. I think there were like 5+ characters in the show whose issue was they were betrayed by a teacher in the past and are now a horrible POS as a result (and Onizuka might be fired ... fsr), which in theory is very repetitive, but I think each of the arcs aside from that were unique enough to be enjoyed regardless.

For the social commentary and serious moments in the show... don't take them too seriously. The show really emphasises that Onikuza is a great teacher, despite being a pervy asshole all the time. I think the main takeaway from it is that a teacher should form a strong, trusting relationship with their students, and that a student should always be their #1 priority. Beyond that it's kinda all over the place, Onizuka himself states he doesn't think teaching the kids is important, and instead they should all just have fun at school. It also seems like the show encourages us to completely disregard any ethical considerations and just do what we think is right by any means necessary. This is often played to comedic effect, but not always. For example Onizuka tying up & stripping his teenage female students, writing on their underwear, spanking them and taking photos is going a bit too far. Everyone else finds out, but once they realise it was because the girls were bullies, all is forgiven and it's never brought up again; I don't think this was for comedic effect. Every time he does something unethical, it is forgiven, and he is praised as a martyr, which is a strange message for the show to give.

Despite Onizuka's behaviour, he's actually a pretty likeable character somehow, as are many of the other assholes in the show (there are a lot of them). Most of the characters are fairly well written, others are a bit tropey or melodramatic, but I didn't find them to be a significant issue. One character I was surprised to grow to love was the vice principal; he's like the show's pathetic antagonist, whose life is ruined by Onikuza, and always blames other people for his problems. We are put into his shoes again and again until we somehow sympathise with, and root for him. I won't spoil his character development by the end of the show, but it really made me smile.

As for the technical side of things: The music was catchy and iconic, but there were only a handful of tracks which were repeated throughout the show. The art and animation were decent, although the way some characters' faces are drawn weren't always the best. It was at least refreshing to see something dissimilar to the cookie-cut Kirito face though.

Overall this was a good show. I had a lot of laughs, and liked the majority of characters. The social commentary is a bit weird, but it didn't bother me too much. 7/10

Oushitsu Kyoushi Heine borders somewhere between being good and just alright. It's a lighthearted character driven slice of life story, focused on self-improvement so each of the princes can become worthy candidates to the throne. The characters themselves are unfortunately fairly simple, but still have enough depth and charm so that I wouldn't describe them as being one-dimensional. All of the princes have easily memorable personalities and flaws due to this simplicity, so given the show is only 12 episodes long, being simple may be a necessary evil. The dialogue was kind of bland, I'm not sure what is was about it but it felt ... like what a character in a book would talk like rather than a real person. All of the plotlines themselves are also very straightforward and mostly predictable, but despite this it was all really wholesome, and didn't bother me all too much. To my surprise there's actually an underlying plot behind all of this, which was fairly enjoyable, although I would've preferred if there was a larger emphasis on world building as there seemed to be some potential.

The show's humor was decent; I don't think it tried too hard to be hilarious, just enough to keep you entertained. A lot of the verbal jokes were on a similar caliber to "look the tutor is short" and "that ostrich thinks you look like a girl," but I did actually enjoy a lot of the visual humor like when Heine turns into a pouty chibi.

On the technical side of things, if anyone actually cares:
The animation is good, although not impressive.
The art is nice, but the artstyle is fairly generic. There were maybe 2 or 3 character designs that made a good impression on me.
The music is fitting, but also fairly unnoticeable, and doesn't stand out as anything special.

Overall I say while it isn't a standout show in any regard, it's quite wholesome, and more or less enjoyable the entire way through (maybe with some minor cringe at parts). I don't recommend going out of your way to watch it, but if you think you'd enjoy a wholesome slice of life I wouldn't recommend against it either. 6.5/10