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It's rare to find a BL that pulls at your heartstrings as much as this one does. The story and the journey both main character's go through is gut-wrenching and poignant, while also being touching and meaningful. Each chapter served a purpose, and the plot progression was fantastic. This is really something special, I don't think I've ever read a BL that made me feel close to tears like this one did. Normally in BL, I tend to dislike the protagonist, but this one has so much depth.

The art was fitting and the character's designs were great and simple, all of them making sense ... for the time period this is set in. There were many panels where I was like "Wow. Gotta screenshot this."

While at first this may look like a sort of edgy, toxic BL, it really is just a touching and heartwarming story about two broken people just trying to survive.

If you're considering reading this, just do it.

I saw an ad for this on one of my social media sites, the hook was a character with the dialogue "are you gay?" I, of course, took the bait, and started to read Yours to Claim. After binging all 107 chapters in one sitting, I am left in a state of sadness, happiness, confusion, and bewilderment. The ad made me think it would be a typical BL, maybe a bit of angst here and there, some conflict, etc. I was so wrong. This is unlike any other BL I've read.

This story is straight up SAD. Like, tragic. There's so much angst and sadness ... within each character, and from about midway-onwards, the story was just constant suffering. I must admit that I preferred the first bit of the story, but it's not like I didn't enjoy the rest.

One thing I definitely want to touch on is the plotline with the second love interest. It was... strange. There's the obvious reason (iykyk) but even more than that, his whole story feels out of place to me. It was almost comedic in a way, since the fantasy/spriritual element isn't something I've seen a whole lot of lately in BL, and I didn't feel like it fit well with the rest of the story, or the setting.

The protagonist pissed me off a LOT. I feel like he was constantly mad, and always left conversations midway, which was frustrating. Conflict was left unresolved quite often. I like his growth, but I hated how bad his communication skills were with every character.

As for the smut, it was fine. I mostly read these stories for the cute romance and angst, and in this story it was just kinda there. Nothing spectacular. Definitely skippable if it's not your thing.

A positive aspect I really did like was the main LI. I thought he was written the best out of the three main characters, and had the strongest development. I do wish that we saw more of him with the protag in a relationship (which we saw very briefly at the end). This is a gripe I have with a lot of BL - they end just when the protagonist and love interest finally get together. I'd at least like to see a bit of their life as a couple? 1 or 2 chapters out of 107 doesn't feel very rewarding for all the angst I had to go through.

Overall, I enjoyed this manhwa. It's not the most well-written or the most beautiful (though the art does really stand out in certain panels where the lighting is used beautifully) but it's a unique story with a lot of meaningful messages. If you want to read a sad BL with a touch of toxicity and a love triangle that is borderline unbearable but also entertaining, this is your manhwa.

I'd rate it a tentative 7/10, but more accurately, a 6.5.

So going in, I had already played the game (and loved it), so I knew all about the world they would show in the anime. It definitely enhanced my experience knowing all the mega-corporations, gangs, and slang beforehand. I do find this painful to write because I can see that so much thought went into the art direction for this show. The music was good (a bit repetitive though) and the characters had good designs (the male cast + Kiwi). I watched the English dub, and it was honestly really high quality. Zach Aguilar in particular was great as David. That's about where my praise ... ends though.

I'll say it straight up - this is a show designed for men. The male gaze is ever-present in every episode but is especially bad in the middle bits. It feels like the main female lead spends half of the show naked. David is naked often too, but he's not put in provocative poses and given full frontal shots like Lucy. Not to mention, David is supposedly 17??? Why are we showing 17 year old butt... ew. Yeah anyway, I don't like how this show treated the women.

Another point on how women in this show are treated - (this is a spoiler by the way)... the main female lead gets kidnapped and it's up to our hero to save her even if it costs him his life. She's the only one who can stop him from going completely insane (supposedly) because... romance I guess. It's all so cliche. We have all seen this before. It's what I would expect out of a typical anime, but this anime seemed unique and stylish at the start, only to turn heel and flop majorly by the end. David loses all of his relatability and it's hard to empathize with him when he keeps making dumb decisions. There's also a continuity issue - he is shown throwing up blood countless times, but then the next scene he will be well enough to use his cyberware again?? How is he not passing out from that much blood loss? How come when a character is shot through the heart, she is capable of walking to hide behind a dumpster, and have a phone call? There's only so much suspension of disbelief I can use here. I guess someone could argue that maybe she has cyberware that gives her better defensive capabilities, but even then, she is a human.

Lastly, the writing. I think this was the weakest aspect of the whole show. There was a lot of expository dialogue, which I get since it's a complex and fleshed out world. But I hate when a character is doing something and then another character is like "yo choom, x character is doing x thing!" It's like... yes we can see that. The screenwriting was just not up to snuff for me.

I had a lot of hopes for this show since I loved the game so much and the first few episodes were promising. It also reminded me a lot of Devilman Crybaby, which is one of my favorite anime, but it's just not at that level of quality. After watching the first few episodes I would rate it an 8/10, but once the ball gets rolling, the plot moves ridiculously fast (it should've had more episodes, 10 was not enough for a world this detailed) and the main character was disappointing.

My rating: 4/10

Spoiler-free review

So... Mashle isn't the worst comedy-focused shonen I've seen. That's the highest praise I can give it honestly. The anime is fine... the humor is OK for the most part (many jokes miss though). It's the same repetitive gag over and over and over though about how ridiculously strong he is and about how he shocks everyone constantly. Which makes the show kinda one-note in my opinion. Nothing is shocking or surprising or keeps me guessing, which is why this show felt kind of dull for me. The qualities that had the potential to save this show for me are the pacing (it's very ... fast paced... thank god for that) and the memeability of the protagonist, Mash. He makes many faces that can be used as reaction images, and that's honestly the main draw for me. Which isn't great for a tv show, which has the goal of entertaining you and making you want to watch more.

Okay, I've been beating around the bush. There's one major glaring issue with this show that I feel is not talked about nearly as much as it should, and that's the absolute flop that is every female character. This author either hates women, or does not know how to write them. There is one female character that is a part of the main group, and her whole purpose of being there is to have a crush on our beloved stale af MC. Yep. She is there to fangirl. That's it. As a female viewer, it's honestly insulting to see. I'm waiting for the day that female characters are written as people and their own unique individuals, that aren't tethered to the MC. Just... why??? It's very infuriating and actually made me want to drop the show (I probably should have, but alas, the sunk time fallacy strikes again).

Another thing that's really unfunny and out of place is one of the side characters having an obsession with his little sister. It's really offputting and just... weird. I know this is a common gag in anime, but when can it end? It's not funny, it's not endearing, and the author basically just wrote this character into a gag that he's going to be repeating over and over indefinitely. I get that humor is subjective and someone may find this funny, but even if this is supposed to be funny, the sheer repetitiveness ruins any potential humor in it.

The OP and ED are good, if you care about that (I do). The VAs are great. But these qualities aren't enough to save the show. This anime is meant to parody the generic-ness of the shonen genre, that's pretty clear by how in-your-face it is. But there's a point where it stops being a parody and actually becomes what it was trying to parody. That's what I think happened here. I watched the first two episodes of season 2 out of curiosity, and it hasn't gotten better. It's majorly disappointing.

TLDR: Go in with low expectations if you want to watch it, but I don't recommend you watch it anyway. There's much better shonen you can watch. This anime treats female characters like props and the jokes flop a majority of the time.

Vague Plot Spoilers!

The only bad part about this anime is that it ends.

I have already seen it twice and it was equally good upon the second viewing. There were even some details that I had missed that made the rewatch even more interesting. The main strength of the show, however, is its lovable cast.

Characters
•Kazuki (my personal favorite): a kindhearted easygoing guy with a great sense of humor. You can tell he has a sad backstory (it's foreshadowed super early on) and he goes through a whole arc wherein he is forced to accept the past and move on.
•Rei: A quirky man who doesn't ... get out much or talk to people voluntarily. He's not mean or nasty to anyone, he just would rather not get involved (the reasons why are explored). He goes through extreme growth as well, and it's really satisfying to watch him grow as a person.
•Miri: A sweet young girl who Rei and Kazuki take care of. She's loud, mischievous, and loving. She's pretty realistic for a little kid, all things considered. You can't help but love her.
•Some other notable characters: The daycare worker (I don't remember her name), she was so sweet and I loved watching her interactions with Miri and other kids at the daycare. Kyu-chan was also pretty important, and I liked him a lot, but he was definitely overshadowed by Kazuki and Rei. Even he had character growth by the end.

Plot
The plot of Buddy Daddies basically boils down to two best friends who just so happen to be hitmen have a little girl fall into their care and learn how to be dads. Rei learns to love and be loved, and Kazuki learns that life moves on and all that matters is protecting and caring for loved ones. It's a really wholesome and heartwarming story. There's some tragedy and grief that the main two characters go through, but it strengthens their growth as human beings. The ending of the show is satisfying and it closes out really nicely, which is not something I can say for a lot of shows. I do wish there was a season 2, because I love these characters so much, but I'm happy with where it ended.

OST
The music in this show was great and fit the atmosphere perfectly. The jazz songs for the heist scenes and the banger op and adorable ed were so great - I never skipped them. No complaints.

Animation
The animation was dynamic, bright and lively, I didn't have any issues with it.

Art
The art was good, nothing to write home about, but it was nice.

Buddy Daddies is most definitely worth a watch. If you want a short, touching story with multifaceted characters and goofy hijinks, I'd recommend it. Though the plot is a bit shallow at times, the show's real strength is the way Miri touches the hearts of Kazuki and Rei; they really become a family.

AoT/SnK, first and foremost, is a show/manga built on hype. That's what propels the series forward, sells manga volumes, and sells AoT figures. This season was full of 'hype' moments for sure, some of them monumental to the story. I'm not going to insert any spoilers here, but there's a few select moments where something dramatic happens and then Eren + crew proceed to scream said victim's name in pure agony, while their faces shake on screen, tears bounce off their eyes, and dark lines and shadows are added to convey the despair felt by said characters. This, combined with the opera-like music, makes you ... "feel the feels". Anyway, I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself and my review is already super all over the place. So now I'm going to talk about each aspect of the show individually. And GO!

Story:
This is easily one of the most difficult aspects of the show to talk about without spoiling anything. To be frank, as the show progresses, the story proceeds to get more and more messy. Events happen quickly, and some side-plots feel rushed. Historia's arc is so boring I can't even begin to describe it. I know she's a vital piece to the plot, but characters constantly repeating how important she is gets irritating. Oh! And another thing. A lot of characters exist just for the sake of the plot progressing forward. Sometimes though, it doesn't feel like it's moving forward; that's due to the strange pacing the show has. At times, it seems like the show doesn't know where it's going or wants to go. So many side plots and character arcs are tossed in, which makes the main plot seem not as important or interesting. In the very last episodes of the season the story starts to pick up after a big reveal, but after finishing the show, I can't say that I remember what happened in the first few episodes, or even first half of this season. Some major plot points from season 1 are ignored, while others are brought in. Eren's basement? Eh, who cares. Let's get to that in another season. Ok, but now I've lost interest to what's in that basement. So there. Bascially, the story is not the strongest aspect of AoT season 2.

Art:
There's no denying that the artistic direction is a definite strong point of the show. It's dramatic, impactful, and at times, gorgeously grotesque. The facial expressions of the characters when something terrifying happens perfectly conveys the despair they are feeling in that moment of time. It kind of stays with you, in a weird way. Even the flat characters (hi Bertholdt) give really intense facial expressions, which adds so much to the show. The backgrounds are nice, movement of the horses and characters with the maneuver gear is awesome, and the camera angles are for the most part, perfect.

Sound:
I love the music in AoT. In fact, it may be my favorite aspect of the show. It's intense when it needs to be, timed perfectly with the dialogue, and the musicianship of the instrumentalists and singers is impeccable. The opening song is noteworthy, for sure. The buildup to the chorus is strong, the singer and orchestral background with crashing symbols is magnificent. And dat SASAGEYO doe. The ending song is eery and creepy, with strange moving pictures and weird music. It just feels off. But it's unique and strangely endearing. You can form your own opinion of it, I guess. The OST is great too, with standout tracks being YouSeeBigGIRL TT, Call of Silence, and EREN The Coordinate.

Character:
Character development was overall very weak in this season. A lot of characters that we grew to love in season one (such as Jean, Armin and Levi) are completely ignored for a majority of the season. Jean barely had any lines, and his character growth was nonexistent. Levi was in maybe 5 scenes. And Armin, who I actually grew to like more this season, was not featured enough to feel like he got sufficient development. Uninteresting characters like Historia and Connie got a lot of screen-time for the sake of discovering the identity of the titans. Annie? Who's that? Never heard of her. Honestly forgot that she existed until the tree episode where Reiner brings her up. Speaking of Reiner, I actually grew quite fond of him this season. He got A LOT of development, which added so much depth to his character. Bertholdt got more screen-time as well, and I'm interested to learn more about him and his backstory in the next season. Eren, the main protagonist... well... he sucks. He's just too predictable. He's hot-headed, impulsive, yada yada you get the point. "i FiGhT fOr mY fRiEnDs!1!1!!1!" I hate him. Honestly, why is Armin not the main protagonist. Sorry, I'm getting ranty. I'm going to move on to the next section before I erupt of rage.

Enjoyment:
Despite all of my qualms, AoT is an enjoyable show. While it was airing, I waited in anticipation every week for the next episode to be uploaded online. Though the show has many faults, it's ultimately how much you enjoy it that matters. And I really did enjoy it.

Overall:
Overall, I would recommend watching season two of AoT if you enjoyed season one. It's a worthy addition to the series, and I'm anxious to see if season three, which will is expected to be coming out in 2018, delivers.

Thanks for reading my review!:)

The following review is how I feel about the anime Vampire Knight, and its sequel, Vampire Knight Guilty.

"You must do what you must do." -Kaname Kuran

This remarkable quote, spoken by one of the best anime characters ever, demonstrates the careful thought that the writers put into this incredible show.

I love everything about this show. One thing in particular that I love is how each character is not just there for the sake of being there. They all have their own importance to the plot development, and may I say that the plot is just phenomenal! I mean VAMPIRES!? LOVE TRIANGLES!? This anime right here ... is both original, and creative.

The most admirable character, though each character is immensely admirable in their own right, is definitely Yuki, our heroine. She is so brave, and not even once doubted herself. (SPOILER WARNING) If I were to have a daughter, I would raise her to be just like Yuki-strong, easygoing, dependable, and a vampire. Her eyes never distracted me in the slightest, unlike the eyes of Brock. (Brock is a character from the Pokemon franchise, if you've been living under a Brock. Haha get it? Rock, Brock?). Ok so anyway, this show is a must-watch for anyone looking for a compelling and engaging storyline. I have absolutely ZERO (buh-dum-ch) regrets about watching the show in its entirety. Unless you like cheesy and predictable "dark" shows aimed at a young female audience, and a "heroine" that constantly refers to practically everyone as "__senpai," then PLEASE FOR THE LIVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD IN THIS WORLD skip it.

Meaningful Moments/Quotes
1. Yuki: "Headmaster!"
Headmaster: "It's not headmaster. Call me father."
Yuki: "Father..."
2. *Headmaster fights against Level E vampires that are attacking the academy*
Yuki: "He is trying to protect the academy."
3. "You must do what you must do."
"Kaname...senpai..."
And, in the next episode, she feels courageous all of a sudden and says "Let's go." To which Aido replies, "You sure?" Then she says "This is what I must do." DAT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT DOE!!

Unless you like cheesy and predictable "dark" shows aimed at a young female audience, and a "heroine" that constantly refers to practically everyone as "__senpai," then PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD IN THIS WORLD skip it. Also, the ending stinks. I didn't like either of the male leads, but I guess I dislike Zero a little less than I dislike Kaname. This show is comparable to being given a bowl of glistening frosted flakes, but then once you get a taste of it, you realize that its stale.

All in all, this show is the pits. I'm only giving it a 2/10 because Kanon Waleshima is an awesome cellist and artist.

Soul Eater is the bomb. No exaggeration.

I watched Soul Eater on Netflix about a year ago, and boy was it enthralling. This anime will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout. I'm not going to summarize the story, as I know that there are summaries that are concise and well-written. Allow me to gush about the good (which there is a plethora of in this show) and the bad (not as common as the former).

Story:
The concept of a "magical" school is nothing new. I mean, just look at Harry Potter, for Pete's sake. HOWEVER, this anime is nothing like any other magical school ... show/movie you've previously seen. The story is strong overall, although the anime does deviate from the manga, especially in the final episodes. If you've previously read the manga and haven't yet seen the show, you might be surprised what the creators changed in the anime adaption. This doesn't bother me, though, as I still found the story to be compelling and fresh. But what really complements the story are the characters within it.

Characters:
A strong part of Soul Eater is the cast, who are all intriguing ing in their own right. A great thing about the main characters is that they don't fall under the common tropes that many of us are tired of seeing in other anime. They are funny, determined, inspiring, and it is easy to see that they all care for their partners. Maka, our main protagonist, is a round character in that she evolved from unappreciative and solitary to accepting and appreciative. Another notable character is Death the Kid, who at first appears to be a "don't mess with me" kind of guy, but in reality, he's just a kid plagued with a bad case of OCD. His father is the actual Death God, so there are high expectations set for him. He learns lessons as well, and grows immensely strong. One character that I could see people not liking is Black Star, a wild child that will run into any given situation without a second thought. I've heard others say that he is a carbon-copy of Naruto from the Naruto franchise, which I disagree with. I'm not sure how to explain it, but both characters are different in their own right; though I do have to agree that they are VERY similar. If you watch the show, you'll know what I'm talking about. There is one scene with all of the main characters where they are all taking a test, and it's probably my #1 favorite scene from any anime ever. The characters have great chemistry with one another, making for a quality show that makes you root for them when they are faced with preeminent danger. Also, look out for Excalibur *shiver.*

Art:
Ok, so the art style is a little but weird. It's a reason why so many people drop the show before even finishing episode 1. It is something that you will probably have to get used to, but I actually found myself liking the strange art style. It complemented the setting extremely well, and it also gave the show an original feel. The action scenes, which are fairly common, look great on a screen. Some character designs were a bit over the top, but even still, they represented the characters and the role they played in the story.

Sound:
The soundtrack is strong overall. the appropriate tracks are played at the appropriate times. I liked the majority of the songs in Soul Eater, including both openings and a majority of the endings. The only ending song which I was not fond of was the first ending song. Trust me when I say it gets better as the show progresses. I often find myself singing the opening songs, without even realizing it. And for a non-Japanese speaking person, it's quite hilarious to hear my sad attempts to replicate the voices in the songs.

Soul Eater is one of those rare gems that you could keep watching over and over again. If you have the option to buy it, I really recommend you do that. Please don't let the art style turn you off, as you'd really be missing out in something great!

Please note: There is quite a bit of violence in Soul Eater, so it may not be appropriate for younger viewers.