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The 2019 remake is without a doubt the better representation of fruit basket in anime media, rendering an overall more rounded art style and a better execution of the plot. The story is a slow-burner, it comes across as somewhat off-putting in first few episodes; as the story gradually unfolds and we discover the human beings within the flamboyant personalities of various casts, giving them adequate depth, it becomes a worthy watch. I can hardly disagree that the show demands patience from viewers: Fruits Basket is a juxtaposition of comedy, drama, slice of life, etc. Though hardly offensive, doesn't have a department that readily stands ... out for impetuous viewers. But perhaps it is exactly this subtleness that gives the show an air of genuineness, making it one of best shoujo animes. That being said, the show also failed to eschew from some the common mistakes criticized for a show with such a large cast, mostly related to the characterization of the show.

Losing both parents at a young age, homeless high school students Honda Tohru comes across the Soma household, a family possessed by traditional Chinese Zodiac and shortly after some interactions, She started living in the family and slowly acquaints other members of the family. Fruit Basket has all the ominous sign of a generic story: Sociologically speaking, a low social status main girl stumbles across and adopted into an esteemed family, which consists of the gary stu of her class, Yuki Soma, and his short-tempered but caring cousin, Kyou Soma, forming this implicit triangle relationship off the bat. Luckily, Yuki and Kyou are portrayed as childhood rivals, so their constant arguments are easily construed as innocuous bantering rather than altercations with vitriol, thisvmore or less alleviate the unpleasantness from viewers like myself who can't tolerate the incessant misunderstandings and sappy dialogues commonly witnessed in shows of similar arrangements. Fruit Basket is a heavily character-driven story, the plot follows the characters rather than the contrary, and majority of the first season is introduction of members of the Soma family without an actual plot stream, events in the first season are disjoint chronically and with each episode dedicated to a particular side character, it's easy to feel the ups and downs of show: when a likable character emerges or if some characters are insufferable.

The show revolves around Honda Tohru, the absolute main character of the show, and frankly, the enjoyment of the show depends on how much disbelief you are wiling to suspend for this character. She has a troubled upbringing, the subject of bully in childhood, losing her father when she barely remember him, and from the explicit portrayal of her residence, lives a rather frugal live; and shortly after she enters high school, her mother dies in a car accident. Yet Tohru is also someone with great optimism and empathy, underneath it may lie a fragile heart, though rarely manifested in appearance. At first this apparent contradiction is troubling and the show is self-ware in that regard with Yuki casting doubt on how Tohru remains optimistic with tremendous childhood suffering. The show does surprisingly well at accounting for this personality: She has an exemplary mother, so despite early loss of parents, has a hitherto loving upbringing; She also has great friendships with two other side characters, compensates for her solitude. However, it is not that her optimism that echoes inconsistence: At one time she seems care-free, apparently having trouble recognizing Yuki and Kyou's affection for her, but perhaps it's because she thinks that she's underserving of such affection, always faults herself for the sorrow of others, we see in one episode where she shreds tears when Yuki and Kyou got into bad moods even she has nothing to do with it. Yet this diffidence is at odds with her general outgoingness and the loving friendship she has: Tohru, in majority of the screentime, exudes positive vibes, always the one bucking others up, surely you expect her to cheer Yuki and Kyou up with a smile. One can explain this away saying that she is empathetic, as we see her feel truly sorrow for other people's sufferings, yet her caring nature defies her apparent obliviousness and a lack of self-conscious, always acting flattered and has a dramatic reaction to most things. Surely she isn't making all that up, since it would defeat the whole purpose of her character being genuine. This leaves naivety the only explanation: but for someone who goes through the deaths of loved ones at such a young age, being naive is anything if not far-fetched. It just seems like Tohru can't settle on a defined personality and this is exacerbated by the fact the show relies on her as the speaker of truth: in various episodes, a zodiac member would drop into some sort of depression or life trouble and somehow she always has a speech ready to cheer other members up and brings closure, further seems disparate to how juvenile she is in other circumstances. This constant, very artificial setup makes Tohru all the while one of the most unnatural characters of the show. She is oblivious when the show thinks the romance needs to remain vague, empathetic and full of wisdom when someone needs closure, saccharine when the show needed the drama and becomes all flattered and diffident when the show needed comedic elements. Ironically, her hair style changes all the time as well. Despite the incessantly bashing on her capricious disposition, all of these are very subtle and without being very keen, most likely won't bother you. It's best when Tohru is understood as an embodiment of someone that brings closure and happiness rather than a realistic human being whose disposition becomes all sorts of weird under scrutiny. However, even with that inconsistency, I am still of the opinion that Tohru is an overall solid character in a very important sense that her propitious encounters with friends are meritocratic: We see in numerous self-insertion shows in which the protagonist is a flawed person, who, based solely on serendipity, came across a fortuitous event that spur him to become better, such as most isekai shows; yet even the afterwards effort are something the protagonist can claim no credit because the event that induces the whole story is a random one that could happen on any other person behind the veil of ignorance, which means labeling such story as motivational is purely fallacious. However, Fruits Basket differs in a sense that Tohru was in fact a good person even before events in the story unfold, so it follows that friendships and love in the story are something the viewers can celebrate for it comes with merits of her own. The fundamentally subtle difference is that whereas in other shows serendipity comes arbitrarily at the hand of the protagonist, Tohru qualifies for that serendipity beforehand, and it makes the viewing experience all the different since we are no longer propelled to believe that events in the stories are unwarranted.

Yuki and Kyou are two other main characters of the show, and are, very rarely, members of Soma that doesn't have somewhat an over the top personality. Both of the characters have depths to them that aren't explored to full extent in first season.

The side characters reveal both the show's strength and weaknesses. The first season is episodic in nature, each episode saw the exact same routine but with a different character: there is a sad backstory to each character, either be bullying, loss of a loved one or some sort of identity crisis, and they are all remedied by the protagonist, Honda Tohru is like the panacea to all depressions that all characters desperately need. Whether these backstories are convincing and unique will constitutes a major part of enjoyment. Due to the amount of side characters in this character-driven show, trying to come up with a struggle for everyone is a daunting task, as a result, certain backstories are some of the best ones I've seen, and others more haphazardly handled. To start with the worst element, I despise the overuse of bullying as a plot device in this show, there are at least five characters who experienced some sort of bullying or estrangement in the past and some point in episode 21, where Tohru's friend is revealed to be subject of bully, it no longer feels genuine and comes across as artificial, as if bullying is thrown into the backstory whenever the author can't come up with something new. What troubles me the most is that the show doesn't try to bring light on bullying as a social vice since no further discussions were ever rendered on people conducting the bully, rather, as a convenient way to portray all others as scums just to show all good Tohru is as a person. Yet another category of backstory roots in the nature of Soma family: the family head, mysterious Akito Soma has a hatred for women and therefore her relentless torture of female members of the family is the source of trauma for most of the Soma members. She is the root of all problems in the show and whether her arc in the following seasons will satisfy you and justifies some of the suspense in this season is solely for viewers to decide. The pinnacle of the first season are when the backstory of Uotani and Hanajima are revealed; though it still doesn't waver from elements of bully, two episodes dedicated to the development of two side characters are always something to be appreciated. Both of the stories justify the substantial friendships portrayed in the show: take Uotani's backstory, for instance, the motive for character changes is almost an impeccable one: long lacking parental love in childhood, Uotani attempts to bridge that gap by joining gangs and asserting domination as a defense mechanism for a lack of care; but after her fateful encounter with Tohru family, has come to the realization that the fragile friendship with other gang members can never suffice to overcome the solitude deeply buried within. The backstory brilliantly explains her friendship with Tohru and also brings light to Tohru's benign relationship with her mother. Amongst other side characters whose backstory were revealed, Hatori's story is perhaps the most coherent one, because his personality isn't a cost to overall story-telling: Most of the members of Soma Household exhibit a certain degree of exuberance and some outlandish way of speaking or dressing: One is a seemingly quite and introvert girl and has a violent side that would "beat the shit out of Kyou", another is a boy who inexplicably likes cross-dressing and apologize in the loudest noise possible to almost everything, there is Yuki’s brother, who talks in the most dramatic way possible and yet another is an around 10-year-old tsundere kid who thinks and talks like a grown-up. Most of these bizarre personalities are there for a comedic reason, and while they bring laughter form time to time, almost inevitably come with a loss of credibility: In some backstories, how are we supposed to believe that someone as self-doubting as Ritsu would yell and apologize in the highest possible decibel, or Hiro, who has realization and self-reproach of an adult has this much of a spoiled personality. There is an almost irreconcilable conflict between funky personality and how persuasive their backstories can be, and it comes without surprise, the ones with the most concrete personalities are comparably normal characters: Hatori, Hanajima, Uotani and by an extension, Yuki and Kyou as well. But cohesiveness aside, all characters are funny in their own way and readily stand out.

A brief touch on the comedic elements in the show, character-driven comedies, as a matter of fact, amounts to assigning character certain funny traits and recycle them all the time, so even though the show sticks to this formula, there is nothing reprehensible. What's lackluster, however, is the lack of dynamics in character interactions, comedic scenes are more often too homogenous and the hilarious moments are completely dependent upon the over the top ways sentences are presented by characters regardless of the actual context. Take some critically acclaimed comedies: TBBT is a character-driven comedy at the same time it is context-driven, the scenarios constitutes a major part of the fun. Whereas in Fruits Basket, I find the context to be rather invariant, perhaps the limited screen time of characters contribute to that experience. That being said, good comedies in anime are rare, and for a show like Fruits Basket, whose main selling point is that of emotion and theme, the comedic elements are adequate enough to not be a let-down. Although subjective analysis are hardly helpful in a review, the show has a notorious liking for cross-dressing and gender-subversion, men are inexplicably dressed and looked like women, and women dressed as men, is this some weird liberal fetish? While I can see gender identity to be part of the theme, from a conservative standpoint it's stupid and unnecessary, and though not severe enough to cause me any discomfort, might be off-putting for others.

The voice acting in this new installment is top-notch, contrary to the characterization, voice acting of side characters are precise, they give the exact comedic elements that the show was directing at, In particular, I found the trio of Ayame Hattori and Shigure perfectly performed, conveying a characteristically voice line while also attaining the maturity to each character. Other more dramatic characters, despite whose characterization in the show I might not endorse, adhere very closely to the personality that the show is aiming at. I have mixed feelings for the directing of the voice-acting of three main characters, I somehow knew how Yuki and Kyou's voice would sound even before they uttered any line, in a sense it was very truthful to the personality, but it also gives a feeling of cliche: Yuki and Kyou sounds like exactly the textbook voice for any characters of these types. As for Tohru, I found the deliberate high-pitch performance a bit too purposeful, in order to convey a personality of naivety and cuteness. The voice of Tohru doesn't sound natural especially in scenarios where she's having a dramatic response to certain staff, you can literally feel the voice actor increases the pitch to meet that performance as it surely isn't Iwami Manaka's usual voice line. But the seiyu isn't responsible for this, since she is definitely a talented voice actor, I just found the directing slightly odd.

Bakuman is a rare incidence where a shounen is tagged with drama and romance and yet isn't outright egregious, in fact, I am willing to say that it is amongst the top of the genre albeit some easily spotted flaws like thin characterization, predictable plot and overall very orthodox writing, some could even argue this is the exact template of a shounen. Amongst all blemishes, Bakuman has a romance subplot that's weirdly tangential to the main story, unnecessarily dragged out, and tickles you every several minutes that cuts into the enjoyment of the otherwise very coherent main plot line. And notwithstanding the strong self-aware in ... regard to its unimaginative structure, and at times it even feels like a caricature of traditional shounen, the show still willingly sacrifice credibility for the sake of didacticism. In fact, the show is more of a documentary than a truly persuasive story, since otherwise an exhaustive portray of the manga industry is somewhat unattainable if the protagonists aren't there for the stage. Protagonists journey within the industry just so conveniently includes the parts of the industry authors wanted to address, which unavoidably comes at a loss of veracity. That said, the arrangement has a good purposefulness, Bakuman provides a concrete and thought-provoking story about realization and manga industry. In exchange for a general lack of creativity, the show excels at other known departments such as a tight story, likable protagonists, which honestly is at a premium for not just shounens but anime with romance in general, and most importantly, very fervent writing, within the boundary of conventional shounen, Bakuman is almost unmatched

The premise of Bakuman is straight-forward, inspired by his uncle, Junior High student Mashiro teams up with classmate Takagi so that one day he could be a successful mangaka and marries his crush Azuki. In fact, the premise is way too transparent for my likings, at the end of episode one, Mashiro unintentionally proposes to Azuki by asking for her content if he succeeded at becoming a mangaka, and with an equivocal "yes", the entire story propagation is as clear as crystal to perhaps any experienced shounen reader: there will be some struggles, successes, failures, some departures, some reunions, his success will be gradual as he climbs up the ladder, but in the end Mashiro will fulfill his dream and marries Azuki. And you might expect, this is exactly how it turns out to be. There is no nuance and improbable turns that will surprise you, Episode one unironically robs away any sense of suspense from the plot, and the bane of such setup will be evident within a few episodes into the first season. Admittedly, transparency isn't mutually exclusive with excellence, and the story's redeeming factor lies in its very well-paced, informative plot.

The story has two main plot lines, one being Mashiro and Takagi's journey at becoming best-selling mangaka, the other being their respective relationships with two main girls. The show's strong suit is for sure the former, created by Tsugumi and Takeshi, who together also created Death Note, Bakuman is in some way a realistic portrayal of Tsugumi teaming up with Takeshi where respectively they are responsible for Story and Illustration. As a result, the story of Bakuman is endearing and loving, with an extreme attention to detail, it delivers a very wholistic picture of manga industry, from stretch to manuscript, from gambling to serialization, what the competitions in the industry are like and tips to succeed. At times the show feels like writer sharing to the audience their views through the mouth of the protagonists, and the lines are more often than not very respectable ideas: for instance, around episode 15, Ajin points out a notion in script-writing that you should anticipate characters develop on their own as if you are the observer instead of forcing the story with contrivances and plot devices. It is these seemingly obvious but nevertheless still occasionally thought-provoking ideas embedded in dialogues that makes the show more than a casual watch. With the occasion appearance of real life Jump and mangas, the show really doesn't fail to immerse its viewers. You would expect such a story to be overly tedious since over the course of 3 seasons, the protagonists published over 10 stories in different and fundamentally similar routines. However, never once did I feel bored by the main story line. Bakuman doesn't waste time on meaningless dialogues, and the story moves with a careful balance, it's compact enough to keep you on the edge of the seat, but not so much as to create info-dumping and obscure its audience, the plot also never at once slows down which would defeat the atmosphere of efficiency, which the show so painstakingly created and it also never wavers from a sense of chronology, the events in Bakuman are extremely ordered and sequential, we are constantly reminded the time elapse between events as to better quantify their progress within a few episodes. Mashiro and Takagi's journey is somewhat predictable, nevertheless you could see visibly their efforts and progress as they better their manga.

The same, however, cannot be said about the show's romance plot line. Mashiro and Azuki's relationship is a weird one, and certainly the one that's causing dissenters of the show the most displeasure. Azuki believes that they shouldn't be close to each other before they realize their dreams, as romance would be a hindrance to work, at the same time I completely understand this stance as it is a by all means valid way of thinking, not only is it over the top in this case, as Azuki refuse to not even speak with Mashiro (lol), it is also horrendous story-telling wise. Since Azuki could not be a part of the first storyline for the aforesaid reason that hey don't want to step into others' business, two stories diverges and while we are enjoying the main story line, we are constantly greeted with their relationship struggles, which perhaps only 1 and half people care since remember, as an audience, the fact that they will be together is already apparent by the end of episode one. This setup created this unpleasant alternation where the story is constantly jumping between romance and work where when other than the two stories sharing an end goal we already know, has nothing complimentary, and worst of all, neither of the relationships look anything close at being romantic. I would gladly have this subplot cut from the story or have more actual physical involvement of the four as they strive for the common goal. The lack of screen time of Azuki is extremely detrimental story-wise for the good part of the show, because we never know what kind of person she is, why would she have this stance on romance, why becoming a voice actor, there is no personality to speak of, she becomes sort of an agency that's only there to incentivize Mashiro and at worst objectification. Though having a lot in similarity, whereas in Shirobako, all main characters are deeply connected and work together towards a common goal even in elsewhere, Bakuman consistently feels like a fragmented story for the majority of the screen time.

The two main characters Mashiro and Takagi are generally very likable in that they are diligent and smart, there isn't a single good romance where the protagonist is a douchebag. It's not hard to empathsize with Mashiro as his initial appearance as someone who's smart and capable, yet not motivated enough to strive for the very top is a rather accurate profiling of a lot students of similar age, and when presented with something to strive for, his determination isn't something far-fetched. It is however, surprisingly hard to find a description for Mashiro other than he is hard-working, the show definitely sacrifices character development for a pursuit of plot and I am in general not against this arrangement, Mashiro is somewhat generic, but it shouldn't really prevent anyone from enjoying the show's main selling point. Takagi, on the other hand, is a lot more established, although still a well-known and arguable overused trope, a hard-working class-top student who has enough pressure from his family that he wanted to fulfill his own dream, he is funny, likable and a very respectable person as a character. His ambiguous attitude towards romance is slightly off-puting as it makes his relationship kinda dubious and forced, but since the romance in this show is already that unrefined, it's hard to argue against it. One thing that's a tad concerning is that none of them look like junior high students, if anything, high school students, heck, if without further information, I could assume Takagi is a typical Uni student. The characterization of female characters are pretty disastrous on the other hand, the female supporting character is your typical funny, loud type, who has so dramatic of a personality that it is pretty much impossible to find any elements of realism, not that such attempt would be successful with other comedic characters, but I find it extra costly for a romance show. There is nothing to be said about Azuki, as she has so little sense of presence, the show tries to hid her lack of development with her timid characterization, bearing the fact that as a heroine of the show, she has like less than 10 dialogues counting and with a rather stolid personality as the audience we can rarely envision her as a developed character, the show also fails to establish her through directing, her motive and struggles. The side characters are, when given enough screen time, very well designed. Ajin is a ridiculous but enjoyable character, he embodies all the desirable traits of a mangaka that the producer deem worthy, exemplary of someone enjoying his work and has a steady philosophy. It is an eye-catcher when other characters in the show faced various struggles and uncertainties. The show also very wisely avoided a strong sense of plot armor when it presents the alternative, what if Mashiro failed, with the ending of his Uncle, who, with no less hard work, still ultimately failed and died in melancholy, all the while when the show is advocating hard-working and fulfilling the dream, it demonstrates that hard-working doesn't predict success and offers a bleak possibility for audience to fancy that many traditional shounen lack.

The character design belies their actual age, yet the general art is still very pleasant and artistic. It is very akin to a manga-style design, suiting the show's central theme very well, overall the visual is very consistent and doesn't really feel like a powerpoint coming from JC Staff for their infamous Food War series. I am however not impressed with the show's soundtrack, or it could be that I am absorbed by the plot that sound doesn't strike as much, but it isn't something that is bad enough to take you out of experience.

Finally, slightly unpleasant is the fact that although the show tries its very best to convey a message that Mashiro really wanted to be a mangaka, the fundamental difference here is that while Takagi's end goal is to be a mangaka, Mashiro's motive is that of pragmatism, he wanted to fulfill his goal so that he could marry his crush, drawing manga is an agency so that he can reach the carrot on the stick. However unwaveringly he is determined to reach his goal, this sense of materialism creeps up on you way too often to be subtle. While such materialistic mindset is very realistic, I find it hardly commensurate with a shounen show that's so structurally formulaic.

Bakuman is a typical instance of bearing many small inaccuracies, but has a plot with so excellent precision and pacing that it outshines its annoying parts by a margin.

To give it a verdict, Bakuman is a good show that's specially reserved for those who has a liking in jump or manga industry, as long as you can overlook it's slight stiff plot progression and poorly executed romance. It bears a generally very informative core so at least upon finishing the show there is something to be learned, unlike some horrid isekai shows that is tantamount to staring for hours at a wall.

Hyouka isn’t a romance show, nor is it something purely about detection. Rather, it’s a poetic and subdued story about society and human interaction. Through the entirety of show’s 23 episodes, Hyouka alludes to various aspects of social justice, talent, how people interact with each other and view on romance. To view Hyouka as ‘boring’ or ‘over animated’ is a huge disservice to the show and amount of effort Kyoto animation put into this series. Admittedly though, I did drop the show at episode 2 for the first time due to my personal hatred for social loner type of protagonist, what surfaces itself as generic ... quickly transforms into something much deeper and profound.

The story opens up with the apathetic first year high school student Oreki Houtarou’s encounter with lively, curious Chitanda Eru. Kyoani doesn’t waste time on the set up, explaining Houtarou’s energy conservatism right of the bat. It might impress a few as a “generic personality” but for those who are less experienced on the subject matter, the opening easily grabs attention. Then follows one of the more iconic scenes in the show, when Oreki and Chitanda met for the first time. After Oreki opens the door to the club, the sound of footsteps becomes what resembles heartbeats and the scene follows up by shots of Chitanda and Oreki alternatively, the camera angle moves as Oreki proceeds to Chitanda and the scene concludes with close shots of faces of the protagonists. This is honestly the most well-animated and directed scene of “love on first sight” I have ever seen in this media form, and the show is in no shortage of such brilliantly directed scenes. But back to the plot, the show has three major arcs, namely “Kanya Festival”, “Origin of Hyouka” and “Screening event”, with several episodic arcs. Before I go any further, I’ve seen several impatient viewers labeled events in Hyouka as “unexciting” and “boring”. They’ve completely missed the point of show; a common misconception is that detection should be pertaining to death, murder cases. However, Hyouka takes on a different angle and demonstrates how detection can be everywhere in our life, if you pay attention, there are much to be explored under the surface, the spirit most manifested in the series’ second long arc, “Blind Spot to All”. Arguably that’s the worldview that pulls Oreki out of his energy conservatism. What got me into the series was the first arc about the Origin of Hyouka: Hyouka in Japanese stands for Ice cream, which is a similar pronunciation to “I scream”. Chitanda’s Uncle was a member of student protest prevailed in the late middle of last century, and when the protests escalated into something more serious, causing physical damages, the government has to punish a student for the lead. Chitanda’s uncle, under the pressure of other students in power, had to give up his student life and be the scapegoat. This arc speaks to how powerless each individual was during times of social disturbance, and arguably still now and the constant persecution citizens suffered from totalitarianism. Other than this arc, which seems like a stand out arc compared to others, the other two arcs that follow, at the same time setting up a central theme, brings more reality to our four main casts by portraying them even more (I’ll mention later). Apart from that, episodic cases like “committing a cardinal sin” speaks to how pride and other sins unconsciously exhibit in every individual, episode 19 “Does anyone have any idea” pushes the concept of detection from mundane life to the extremity. Hyouka is filled with so many small wisdoms and that along makes it an outstanding high school show compared to the rest.

Oreki Houtarou is one of the few cases when a social loner type of protagonist is done right, there is no dramatic emotional outburst, no sudden character development and he never breaks character for the entirety of the show. Oreki’s character development is extremely subtle, but meaningful nonetheless: he goes from someone who’s nonchalant, indifferent to perhaps anything to someone, who’s still to some extent unexciting, but is willing to peek at mundane life. His motto "I'm not against socialising, as long as it is not tiring" resonates with me on multiple levels, and he remains true to it through the show's runtime. The last episode contains one of my favorite moment in Hyouka or perhaps in anime: When Chitanda decides to introduce her hometown to Oreki, with the hidden meaning of “please stay here with me”, though seemingly unwilling, Oreki had perhaps rehearsed several times a “yes” by responding to the earlier discussion on business strategy. In the end, however, Oreki simply says “it’s getting cold”, to which Chitanda answers “It is spring now”. The ending honestly caught me off guard, but a second thinking assures me that this is a way better conclusion to the series. The story of Ibara and Fukube’s relationship demonstrates the weight of responsibility, as shown in episode 21. The prerequisite of two people getting together isn’t mutual affection, but rather, if both sides are able or willing to take the responsibility. An easy, less considerate “yes” would be a huge cost to Houtarou’s personality and I am impressed at the show’s conclusion. Furthering the discussion on Houtarou’s character, the show doesn’t explain how Houtarou becomes this way, which is a place deserve some light criticisms, but the show nonetheless hinted at it in the second arc. When Houtarou discovers Irisu had tricked him into solving a case, he becomes angry, which is a rare case to be sure, what it means is that Oreki realized long ago that a helpful, lively personality makes others take advantage of your kind heart easier, the exact reason why he becomes a loner. Social interaction is an endless process of one taking advantage of others, being kind only makes you vulnerable; if others have the malice and guts to bother you, then they aren’t worth helping anyway. It is because that realization had Oreki become reluctant to help others and Chitanda’s purity and kindheartedness is what spells the change for Oreki.

Chitanda Eru’s personality is that of curiosity and purity. What’s worth noting is that Chitanda is the daughter of landlord so her identity resembles that of a “rich girl”. It’s not strange for a rich girl, who’s constant under protection to be curious about mundane life and small, trivial things considering how Kyoani had already used the same personality in K-on. The other shining thing about Hyouka is that character’s personalities aren’t spelled out for you, like that in Oregairu, but you can infer them through animation and plots.

Fukube plays the part of a supportive database; his character oozes energy, as compared to the stoic Oreki. So it’s a deep contrast when he exhibits negative feelings when Oreki solves the cases he isn’t able to comprehend. Both sadly and reasonably, Fukube transformed that envy into expectation. When you expect someone, you are loosing faith in yourself: it’s both helplessness and a relief for Fukube. Throughout our lives, we inevitably meet with someone who’s superior to you in talent, so it’s not hard to emphasize with Fukube on that matter. The same case happened with Ibara in the Kanya Festival, further building a bond between the two supporting casts. The relationship between Fukube and Ibara is characterized by responsibility; it’s a bit redundant to touch on the same subject again so let’s move along.

At this point some audiences might have the notion that these small wisdoms exhibited in Hyouka aren’t that “deep” to begin with. But in defense of Hyouka, or anime in general, “deep” is never an estimation of the show’s quality, it’s rather whether the show is engaging or not (obviously a philosophy book animated into 22 episodes is much deeper but at the same time it looses the charm of being an entertaining media). The level of deepness in Hyouka is just enough to raise thoughts in your mind but not too obscure to be pretentious and tedious. Hyouka is a dialogue heavily show, when a show contains that much conversations, visual techniques like those employed in monogatari series are crucial.

This is the department Kyoto animation deserve great praises, the animation in Hyouka isn’t just beautiful, but artistic. The same visual technique is never utilized twice. Over the top of my head I can name several memorable moments: When Chitanda first says “I’m curious” to Oreki, the background becomes this garden with flowers entangling Oreki, it’s a brilliant metaphor to Chitanda’s persuasiveness and creates an immersive feeling. In later episodes, whenever Chitanda or Oreki is explaining the set up to certain case, a different visual technique is used. For instance, in episode 7, a well-animated house appeared when Oreki is explaining the configuration of the house; in episode 6, crowns with strange masks appeared when Chitanda is retelling what happened during her class earlier: Kyoto animation made what might turn out to be boring, tedious conversation to be visually enjoyable and entertaining. What strikes me more than that is off course Kyoani’s brilliance at handling character movements. Oreki received many close-up shots to demonstrate his supposedly static and nonchalant attitude; Chitanda’s body language speaks to her liveliness and how she’s actively invading Oreki’s territory with her body leaning forward. All the supporting casts took perhaps more time to animate than other studios spent on their main cast, even when some random passengers are passing by, they feel like real human’s movement instead of some moving pixels. The number of great animated scenes are honestly beyond counting and I am at owe at how much efforts need to be put into producing this visual carnival.

Hyouka’s sound track is also a plus to the show. Easily the most distinguishable OST is Bach’s Aria Sul G, which complements extremely well with the show’s theme of literature club and often-placid scenario. Among other OSTs are Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and Sicilienne. Other than the interlude songs, the show provides four catchy ops and eds, both metaphorically meaningful and artistically pleasing. The first op contains many one second shot of Takayama’s nature scenario, the place where the show’s Kamiyama is based on, creating the sense of reality even more. The second op is a metaphor of how Chitanda pulls Oreki out of his dull life. The first ed contains some “needed” fanservice, giving some levity and liveliness to the show; this song is by far the best out of the four, considering how Kayano Ai and Satou Satomi are great singers already. The second ed is a comedic reference to the show’s detection theme. Each of the four songs can be analyzed even further but then the review would be too long to be appreciated.

Up until this point, Hyouka is but a well executed show. But what really puts this show above the rest in my opinion, is that it's story-telling is not consequentialist, allow me to explain. One of the biggest problem of anime story-telling, or perhaps story-telling in general, can be best encapsulated as the follows: Very rarely in anime do you find a story that establishes characterizations first, then allow the story to progress within the boundary of its character definition; on the contrary, what usually happens is, the story progresses with a masked carelessness, heroes succeed, villains defeated, and the story progresses to where the author wants it to, at the cost of character consistency. In some way, the former is difficult to approach, there is no game of throne equivalence in anime, perhaps the closest one is legend of galactic hero. But the point I am trying to make is, a character is a protagonist because he carries most of the narrative weights, not vice versa; therefore for instance a protagonist can never truly be an underdog, must the concept itself is an oxymoron. This is the reason why shows like RE:zero fails for me, because despite all of Subaru's struggle or despair, we as viewers understand exactly that he carriers the narrative weight, he is the center of media universe, he gets the power to reset time and all female protagonist like him eventually, and we are never in doubt of that. These things happen not because the story progresses to its logical conclusion, based on Subaru's personality, these things happen simply because he is the protagonist. Not in the least am I saying this makes a show bad, but to me such consequentialist writing can never excel a show beyond that of a solid show. I am saying all these to say that Hyouka breaks that rule to some extent. The opening of the show begins with a lethargic Oreki looking at his textbook, with the word 薔薇 slowing flying out of window, he becomes smaller and smaller as we get a birds-eye view of the city. Under the obvious romance and other aspects, there is a hideous central theme that caught my attention: That all individuals are small and inconsequential entities with respect to the world, most of the people don't influence others that much, you might think you are important and unique, but in most cases you are not. This message is delivered multiple times through the realization of Oreki, Ibara of themselves as being "ordinary", another case is in episode 6 when Oreki tries to read Chidanta, he immediately felt he didn't know anything about her and thus shouldn't be too prideful, this fact was later reinforced in episode 22, where Oreki realized he indeed knows little about Chidanta's life/family. This is pretty much Oreki's worldview, that no one really matters to anyone else that much, people are constantly overestimating their influences and presence. unlike other typical harem or LN shows that expands the presence of "self" to an insane degree, Hyouka takes an interesting and humble approach that greatly diminish that "self". At the end of the 22th episode, main characters haven't done anything remarkable, they don't get together, there's no overarching goal that they have achieved. This is in general a very pessimistic view on life, if without the last episode, that is. The structure of the show resembles True Detective, in which Rust, despite being the embodiment of pessimism, in his last monologue, revealed that "there is always light beyond darkness". Much like that, Hyouka's last episode really elevated the series to another level, that last conversation was the "light beyond darkness": most individuals are ordinary and our life doesn't have much influences on others and are insignificant, but once in a while, may be you can truly find that particular one, either be a person or an interest, that really colors your world from grey to reddish. The "boringness" that many label the show as, to some extent, is not bug, but a feature, because that's just life for most people. It is for this exact reason, we as audience are able to see them as fully realized characters, not plot devices at author's disposal.

To conclude the review on a more general note, Hyouka is easily my favorite show; it’s one of the rare cases when a show is both well animated and thought provoking, at the same time being engaging. In an era of trashy light novel adaptations and fanservice craps, this is the show for more patient viewers.

(Spoiler ahead)

Shingeki no Kyojin 3 part 2 is a fair improvement from previous seasons but When I think about it 6 episodes in, there are still some issues particularly with the script and characters.

One of the more iconic scenes in this season is that Levi has to choose to save one from Armin and Erwin, both fatally wounded in the battle. Although I do think the scene itself is handled brilliantly with adequate explanation and enough emotional and physical struggles to render a great impact, it's how the plot progresses to that point worries me. It's crystal clear that when drawing the manga, Isayama ... comes up with this "choose one" scenario first and then proceed to consider how to push the plot to that point, because he does so with incredible amount of plot conveniences and plot armour given to some characters. It's the exact reason why GOT season 8 is terrible and why the story is exciting but also cringe to watch. Heck, Armin somehow survives that burning and over 50 meters free fall, Erwin somehow survives the suicidal charge when he's clearly up in the front, not to mention there's another random soldier who somehow dodged all the rocks just to carry Erwin back. When you realise Isayama clearly comes up with the conflict first then based the plot upon that destination, it becomes incredibly cringe to watch.

The amount of plot armour given to Levi and Reiner is also a bit too much. Now I can accept Levi has some crazy skills, but when I see him slaying 20 or so titans single-handedly and cuts the beast titan into pieces like a piece of meat, it's a bit too over the top.

Despite all that, the pacing is great and the story is in this constant struggle-solution cycle that easily keep on the edge of the seat (I've read the manga years ago and still feel quite excited during the ride). Part 2 has some of the best animation in the series especially around episode 5 where levi slays the beast titan.

Needless to say I do enjoy the first 6 episodes in general, but whenever I think twice about what I just finished, I can't help but to notice some of the aforesaid flaws. Other than that, it's technically 4th season now and the franchise's positive and negative aspects have been discussed numerous times, I don't feel the necessity to reiterate.

To keep it short, a good story ruined by pathetic characters.

Character:

While the show did handle quite successfully the character development of, namely, Tamiya Ryouko, and Izumi to some degree, my main problem with the show is that most of other side/ supporting characters are either underdeveloped or just completely pointless and idiotic.

We need to consider the general public of this "artificial world" as a whole, viewing this show does remind me of Mirai Nikki, and in that show pretty much every single character has something called "stupidity" to it. Parasite falls victim to the same issue, words along can't describe how idiotic some ... random characters in this show are shown to be:

There is a girl called Tachikawa, upon discovering one of her classmate is a parasite, instead of calling for help, as every single "sane" person would do, she confronted the parasite on her own with the concentrated sulfuric acid she somehow obtained, just to be injured and irritated the parasite into causing a massacre.

Another girl called Kana, who developed a crush on Izumi, who had this superpower of detecting parasite around her (Never explained). After being warned by Izumi that her power is entirely unstable and can't distinguish Izumi from the rest of the parasites, she completely ignored the warning just to be killed by a parasite she ran into. Love, you say? Now this is a thing I dislike about many animes in general, that the writer tries to justify everything with love. Now love does make people do irrational things, however, if a character's only purpose is to love someone and you try to justify that fucking stupid of a decision, I can't take it seriously. Tachikawa is even worse, falling love with a guy that has no facial expressions, no emotions whatsoever (what a convenient plot device LOVE is!) The entire purpose of kana's existence is completely pointless because her entire trait in the show can be summarised as love Izumi, as with murano also. Kana is just a random character just to add to the tragic nature of the story, her role can be easily replaced by any other character. I'd be surprised if someone can tell me anything about her apart from she loves Izumi and has a superpower. How am I suppose to feel anything for her death if I know so little about her? What is her background? How did she know mitsuo? Where did she obtain this superpower? Nothing.

And then we have Izumi's father, who appeared randomly in the story whenever the story needs him to show up, and when Izumi is on his trip to other places for like several days, his father's existence is completely forgotten. Added to that, his father does what I hate about this show in general, that whenever some character discovered a shocking truth (parasite), he or she tend to doubt if it is a dream due to the inability to accept reality, the same case with Tachikawa and the private detective. This plot convenience is so overused in the show so as to make you question whether the half of the main characters are just completely idiots or not.

And there is also a guy called Mitsuo, just your average street punk, whose entire purpose in the show is to show up, started a fight out of nowhere and move the story forward.

Keep in mind that the these examples of idiotic characters are the ones that manage to gain atleast some screen time and survived for more than 5 episodes. More pathetic, however, is the fact that most of other characters never appeared more than 3 episodes, so there is no weight to any of the characters. As for villains, they simply come by waves, after one parasite is destroyed by Izumi, the show conveniently introduced another parasite just to cover several episodes and died whenever the story needs to move forward. These parasites contribute literally nothing to the entire show one of them might as well have the name of "A". The two parasites that invaded Izumi's school served nothing but to point out the fact that "parasite kills people".

And about Hayase, a girl Izumi met in his trip to another town, who developed a crush on him (not even sure why), and never showed up for the rest of the story. Why the hell bother to give her those "love" plot when you know she is just a plot device character that no one will ever remember for the rest of show? The same issue goes to literally every other side character. Uragami, for instance, had the ability to tell parasite from human, as if he is the only serial killer in the world; tried so hard to escape from the police just to be another plot device that pushed the show to its finale, not to mention despite he tried so hard to escape, him saying "it's no point to escape, they'll capture me anytime soon" is a god-tier contradiction right there.

The general public of the world the story takes place in is also beyond stupid: there is a guy who stand up just to be killed when the police warned them not to stand up, they give a serial killer freedom without putting handcuff, a detective who kept following a "parasite" after his arm been cut off.

I'll say this: in this psychological story, 50% of the character are pretty much idiots with other 30% being underdeveloped and/or plot devices. And it is what ruined the show for me. How am I suppose to take it seriously if most of the characters are irrational?

The romance between murano and Izumi is also nothing to be applauded. Their relation is in this constant cycle of trust-Izumi becomes inhumane-distrust-parasite attacks-Izumi save the day-goes back to trust. I can not feel anything because their relation is stagnant for the entire first 20 episodes. What makes it worse is that we, as audience, know what the conflict is, whereas Murano, as a "person", despite discovering everything wrong about Izumi, about him meeting another girl and that girl got freaking killed, about his superhuman ability, about all the stupid tantrum he threw out of nowhere, still gives everything to trust him just because he saved her, as if it is normal to keep a mountains of secrets to your girlfriend in relation. This is so cringy to watch.

However, there is a reason why this show excels at all parts compared to shit like Mirai Nikki. Izumi and Tamiya Ryouko received satisfactory character development. As a parasite, Tamiya had a curiosity towards human society and gradually developed a feeling for human. Now I want to ask this, is that something so unique that while watching, you'd be like "WOW"? Certainly not, Tamiya's character development is not a masterpiece tier of development, the reason why she seems so unique in this show is because the way the show handles all other parasites. Now parasite is a organism that possess super intelligence, (migi can learn Japanese in one day, for instance). However, in this show, EVERY SINGLE villain parasite apart from Tamiya are such piece of stupid organism that every thing they do is killing human without even considering the consequence of such bold moves. Do you think this is what a "highly intelligent" species should do? It is really pathetic that the reason why Tamiya Ryouko is so surprising is that every parasite of her kind is pretty much unicellular organism of IQ lower than 10.

Izumi, on other other hand, received drastic development, from a timid, shy guy to a mature men capable of taking responsibility and his experience shaped his view of the world and life in general. However, what bothers me is that by referring to development, Izumi's change in personality isn't natural, it was the result of a inner biological mutation therefore it is ambiguous as to whether he would be like that without Migi's part inside him. However, this is not say a development from humane to sort of inhumane then goes back to humane upon the final realisation isn't a good development, it is satisfactory in my opinion. However, the main problem is that the show focus too much on Izumi's development so as to make everyone else look like stupid characters.

Story:

I have to admit I did not feel boring through the entire show, for which I will not rate this show any lower then a 6.
Parasite does a great job at keeping you on the edge of the seat. However, the problem is how the show does it. Let me describe two scenario:
A:
Migi: Shinichi, we have a problem, one of my kind is approaching.
B:
(during Izumi and Murano's conversation)
Izumi: stand here, and I'll.......(suddenly runs away)
There two scenario are so overused in this show I honestly lost counts of how many times these conversations happened. It quickly makes me feel the show is getting repetitive. In the later episodes I could literally know when such thing would happen and I was not wrong. Also, having Izumi and Murano's conversation cut abruptly every single time is god damn frustrating and is really poor directive approach to a show. I had me shouting "god damn, why can't you finish a single conversation."
Another thing to note is that being a show with so many gory deaths, the death in this show is completely random and up to the writer to decide. What I mean is that whenever a character confronts a parasite, if the character is considered still "useful" by the writer, the parasite will suddenly make a speech or talk nonsense instead of immediately kill off the character. For instance, Tachikawa and Izumi had this invisible protection shell around them. On the other hand, however, when a character is deemed useless, the parasite will immediately attack that kills the said character: for instance, Kana. The overabundance of death in this show doesn't really mean anything because it's just a cheap way to make a character disappear and add to Izumi's trauma, whenever a character should not just "disappear", the show will somehow make them escape the parasite despite their lightening speed attacks.
Although I am against this show's method of introducing a new villain after the previous one got destroyed, I'd be honest that it wasn't boring. The parasite's transformation always delivers a visual impact and the elimination of them grants you the same amount of satisfaction as when you played an online video game about destroying zombies. The story itself isn't bad, however, with such a stupidly large amount of poor characters, the story can barely be called good.

At the end of the day, Kiseijuu is no masterpiece, it fails miserably in handling most of the side characters, 90% of them are not fully realised characters. While viewing the show, I was constantly shifting between a 6 and a 8, there are high points in the show that deserved praised, but at the same time an equal amount of stupid writings. As a person who can't bare irrational characters and stupid logic, I have no choice but to give this show a 6.

This review will contain some spoilers and I'll mark them.

Yakusoku no Neverland takes the classic notion of limited survival space, in which our three protagonists play mind games and tactics with “mom”, and tried to escape after discovering the orphanage they lived is only a farm to raise kids to be sacrificed to demons. Similar to AoT, this “limited survival space” set up let you constantly question: What is outside of the house? Is it a demon society? Why does mom obey demons? Therefore you will never feel bored during the show with this set up that left much to be explored and the ... fast pacing of the story. The story maintained a careful balance between psychological mind game and the nature of kids mainly manifested in three protagonists. Emma is the typical naïve yet brave kid who has a mindset of escaping with everyone no matter the cost. If she were the only protagonist I would be much pissed because irrational character is never compatible with the mystery genre. Luckily we have Ray, a genius who does things realistically and has his “selfish” goals. Lastly we have Norman, someone that has the genius of Ray and the kindness of Emma. The story has one of the better openings that quickly escalate the intensity of the show, followed by many inner thoughts here and there that successfully explained the logic of kids and creates tension.

Okay, enough about the manga. Now let’s talk about the anime.
Let me just clarify one thing before going into the context, if you think this review is from a manga reader that got pissed because of how much they cut the inner monologue, it’s not the case. I didn’t read the mange before finishing the 3rd episode and there is a reason to that. My entire argument in this review is how the Promised Neverland can be a much better show and why this is just not good enough to be considered “great”.

Let’s keep in mind that this show is an anime about mind games and tactics between two parties (Or multiple parties, to be exact). Now what distinguish this show from shows like Death note or code geass? It’s the fact that this time we have three 12-year-old kids as our protagonists. This choice of main cast is smart so as to limit the main focus on mind game instead of fights or violence (as a choice of high schoolers would probably cause.) And that’s exactly the point of psychological genre; the main focus is on mind game and tactics (Code geass’ first season gets much criticism exactly because the mecha element sometimes completely defeats the purpose of tactic in the show). However, having kids as protagonists has its drawbacks. It’s often unrealistic for kids to make bold moves and form rather complex plans. So how do you make up for that then? The answer is by including a lot of inner thoughts to let audience know exactly how these kids move from some premises to their conclusions so as to not feel their logic is bizarre and out of no where, although we still pretty much have to assume Ray and Norman are some superhuman but it’s acceptable. You know what’s not acceptable? It’s how this anime adaptation manages to butcher the most important aspect of this genre, the logic.

Let me quote a conversation from episode 3:
#Spoiler starts now#
Emma: That sister hasn’t done anything since.
Norman: That’s probably mom’s order. Mom used to suspect us, but it doesn’t seem like that anymore.
Emma: I wonder why?
Norman: What do you think, Ray?
Ray: what about you, Norman?
Norman: Mon did something behind the scenes so she won’t have to move herself.
(Followed by several sentences basically sum up to: what do you think, Emma)
Emma: There’s no security camera or recording….
Then jumps to the conclusion that there is a traitor among kids.
#Spoiler ends#

What kind of super human logic is that? This whole deduction is a gigantic plot device that has no coherent logic whatsoever. (In the manga the explanation given makes much more sense but I won’t spoil, check out yourself)
Also keep in mind that this is not the only conversation that’s baffling, their conclusions on “demons want to eat brain” also makes no sense when, what’s more amusing is that the show holds a theory that brain size is the determinant of your intelligence when it’s clearly that molecular activities at synapses matters more (This one is just me nitpicking). I can’t help but to feel this is too contrived. What makes these logics ridiculous is the fact that there could be millions of explanations for the premise three kids had, now it is a universal truth that if you want to jump from a premise A to a conclusion B when there is no obvious relation between the two, you should rule out all other possibilities. That said, allow me propose a few questions: premise: (Mom used to suspect us, but it doesn’t seem like that anymore.) Why couldn’t it be that Mom thinks they are not the kids at the gate? Why couldn’t it be that Mom already confirmed that they are the kids at the gate so no need to suspect anymore? Why is it not potential security camera or recording devices? (Because Emma said there are no? Because Norman said he looked around before? So the search for hidden camera happened off-screen? How convenient. How about it goes like this: Norman: I’ve checked, there is no suspicious kid among us, maybe there are hidden cameras---on to the classic search for camera plot in death note.) Why can’t sister Krone keep on eye on them so mom doesn’t have to be there herself? Why can’t it be other supernatural explanations when there is a freaking inconceivable demon group out there? So many questions can be asked about one single deduction but these kids always reach the correct conclusion (there is traitor among kids), which makes no sense at all. It feels that the show is pushing for this classic “traitor” plot while totally disregarding any logic in between, and that’s the problem with this show in general, the plot progression is forced. The manga gives a way better explanation, which actually answered some of the questions listed above, but I would contend it is still kinda sketchy, what Cloverworks does is to magnify that sketchiness by 1000 times to the point that the conversation between three protagonists no longer seems like kids talking, more like the show trying to dump as much info on you as possible in order to move the plot forward. These conversations are never natural from my perspective. And instead of including a more detailed conversation and/or monologue, the show wasted precious sentences on meaningless "what about you/ what do you think" staff that contribute little to no to the overall story telling. (I personally think meant to test Ray at some point, but it was never revealed.)

Apart from that the anime also left out quite a number of important facts from manga. This is not intended to be a criticism since it’s pretty much a manga reader only problem. But all am I saying is that by including these details the anime can be much better. Just a few examples: 1. In that tag game when Emma was carrying two kids running, she was apparently trying to test if she can outrun sister krone. 2. Norman explicitly states it’s possible to kill Sister krone when Ray appeared behind sister krone in the tag game. 3. Norman apparently showed fear and nervousness in manga the day after they discovered the truth but in anime it is not shown. There are many subtle things I could honestly go on forever but I don’t want to nitpick too much.

Now at this point some of you would say: you have all these concerns only because you’ve read the manga, anime watchers won’t feel how unnatural the conversations are, stop comparing anime to manga, blablabla. That’s perhaps the most retarded argument I’ve ever heard. NO, that is not the case. Please keep in mind that I only watched the manga because the logics in those conversations are so absurd that I had to check out the manga in order to keep up with their “logic”, and then I find out what a huge disappointment the adaptation is.

Not to mention they make sister Krone like a complete psycho who would shout out her nasty plan loud in her room and speak to a doll. The amount of ridiculousness of her character design rivals that of the eyeball ninja and big-head women in Miral Nikki. And that is not good for a story with such intensity and mind game. They could make sister Krone creepy, but not too far as to make her seems stupid and laughable.

There is a reason why I am so pissed about this adaptation. Logic and/or inner monologue to mystery/psychological genre is what fan service to ecchi, think about death note without 80% of L and Light’s inner monologue, do you think it would be as enjoyable as it is now?

At the end of the day, this is not a trash adaptation by any means; it’s just not a good one. I find the art style pretty good, the story is rushed but still maintains a solid storyline, and you won’t find it frustrating if you apply the “turn-off-brain” method. The show itself is still good since it’s based on a good source. The main focus of my criticism is the fact that the show could have been much better. And I am greatly disappointed about all the potential wasted since horror and mystery of one of my favorite genres.

It’s true this review is only for first 4 episodes, and the rest 8 episodes could see some improvements. I am pretty sure some of you would start ranting: Can’t you evaluate the show after it finished airing? Sorry I can’t, because this is not a problem that could be answered “later” and I’ve read the manga so I don’t need any answer; the problem is how Cloverworks approaches this adaption. Now 4 episodes in, I am pretty certain Cloverworks doesn’t even know what makes the manga interesting, it’s not art style, not an awesome op, it’s the freaking logic and inner thoughts that contributes to intensity, and I don’t see the improvements coming, not yet.

I will skip the summary since if you are reading this you've probably watched few episodes.

This season inherited pretty much most of the problems commonly criticised for first two seasons and I am seriously wondering how a studio could learn absolutely no lesson from its previous mistakes. The fact that the fanbase is overwhelmingly positive about both seasons really doesn't help, if you really want SAO to improve, then admit its flaws.

1. Setting:
Sword Art Online is incredibly poor in explaining its world setting. Now being a show that centred around a virtual reality, it is truly a skill to deliver essential information pertaining ... to its world setting while not making the audience feel bored. However, what SAO does every single season is minute-long conversation, which mostly happened in a cafe, and tried to explain its setting from Kirito(or someone else)'s mouth. This show starts off throwing a bunch of terminology at you: soul translator, fluctlight, Brain machine interface, Mnemonic visual data, RATH, full dive system and etc, etc. And I am pretty sure 99% of the audience could not remember any of these terms after several episodes. Now other cyberpunk shows like psycho-pass explained essential information as the plot progress and during a mission in the first episode. Attack on titan explained its world setting after a visual impact right in the first episode, after the audience is hooked, then proceed to explain the world setting. That is how a good world setting introduction should be whereas in SAO, it is simply explained in conversation, do you see how this is a very poor way to deliver essential information? Now it is third season and they never changed it. It's like seeing two people walking in a circle for half of the episode in fate/zero, the difference is in SAO, it happened literally every season.

2. Time skip:
This is really a very cheap plot progression tool when studio and/or writer doesn't know what to write next. Sometimes it is really effective while other times this is simply garbage writing. In SAO, it is the latter. An essential key to successful time skip is when the audience KNOW or get an overall understanding of what happened in this period of time. I'll take the two year time skip in One piece as an example, one piece explained what each member is doing during this period show luffy's training, in order to avoid repetition, Oda chose to time skip two years and yet audience never felt this is rushed or inappropriate because they KNOW what happened in these two years. Now back to SAO, also two years of time skip, we don't know how Kirito and eugeo got the city, how did they trained and what happened during their travel, none of these were even hinted. Did I forget to mention that in previous episode, travelling to the city is described as something difficult and kirito needs eugeo to accompany him? and yet the show didn't even attempt to elaborate on that.

3. Overpowered protagonists
Speaking of time skip, there are places where I feel time skip is necessary. Do you remember when Kirito meets Eugeo, he was trying to cut down a tree as his calling, or more understandably, his job. The tree was introduced as tough, the fact is that it took seven generations to only cut through less then one percent of its duration. And then after a fight with goblin, they are able to take down the tree that took seven generations to cut through barely one percent. At least they could have showed some training of Eugeo and Kirito and time skipped a little instead of having the tree destroyed after a single try. It is so ridiculous it hurts, and honestly after the moment the tree is introduced I know this is gonna happen, no joke here, this is what SAO always like, Kirito could never lose. In that goblin fight I am glad to see kirito at least showed some effort in defeating his opponent and yet in the next scene it is as if the fight never happened. The fight had no effect whatsoever on the plot or character development, it is simply a plot device in order to make kirito capable of cutting down the tree, although it still seems stupid and out of no where.
Kirito had a fight with Volo, first of all, the conflict between Volo and Kirito is so forced (Kirito accidentally splits mud on volo's suit) but its another story. The problem there is no tension. In SAO you can not feel any tension in fights since you know Kirito can not lose no matter how powerful his opponent is described to be. Kirito simply stands there and shout out loud that he can not lose, and suddenly becomes powerful. Not to mention the entire fight was like 5 mins with inner thoughts and meaningless dialogues account for half of the time.

4. Antagonist and rape scene
I will not be gentle on this one, Kawahara is not good at building a good antagonist at all, not even decent. Now if you want to build a good antagonist, the most important thing is to make sure that the conflict between protagonist and antagonist logically make sense. In first season we see a sadistic programmer who didn't even know why he massacred so many people and a elf-like crazy guy who only wanted to sexually assault and turned a cry baby once defeated. In this season, we have two guys who wanted to rape Eugeo's girl. Now allow me to ask a question, why did these two shits wanted to have a conflict with Eugeo and Kirito on the first place? The thing is, if you want to create a conflict, make sure you rationalise that conflict, don't make it come out of nowhere. Fans of SAO say it's the society that caused these two guys act like crazy, then how to do you account for all the good guys in UW? Did we see any character background from the yellow and grey guy at all? There is none, and it makes the conflict so stupid and contrived, you see the problem isn't yellow and grey haired guys are crazy, the problem is that they are not real human, they exist for the sake of being bad guys, there is no human aspects of these two assholes (same applied to the elf-guy in ALO). And then of course, the only way how SAO can progress with its god awful plot is having female raped in front of Protagonist, and thus Eugeo opens his Sharingan. Once is acceptable, twice could be an coincidence, but three times and once in every single season? Allow me to speculate the mental condition of the writer, the fact is, rape is just a low and stupid way to progress plot, It's not that I am fragile and not Okay with rape, I don't even feel anything for the raped girls because of the overuse. Remember this is not game of throne, even in GoT, rape is never used as a way to move plot. You know how I would write this? It could be that kirito is injured by two assholes and Eugeo tried to protect Kirito, it could result in the exact same conclusion while weakening Kirito's gary stu status. And yet the writer choose to use "rape" over and over again and SAO fans are excited about it. Really, SAO fanbase is the most bizarre fanbase I've ever seen.

You see all these 4 points not only happened in this season, but previous season as while, further indicating that A1 literally learned no lesson from previous mistake.

Not to mention SAO:A 's pacing is even worse then first two seasons'. 14 episodes and nothing substantial really happened, SAO and other arcs are concluded by now, but it's reasonable since the original SAO:A LN is like several books.

In this season introduced Eugeo, I mean Kirito with different hair color. After finishing the first ten episodes, I could not find any word to describe his personality whatsoever other then he is little shy compared to Kirito, I don't think he can settle on any defining personality at all.And We knew no personal background story on him.

Although I personally think this season is better than first two (although there is not a really comparison to be made, it's like comparing two bad shows where one is slightly better), No matter what good inheritance the first season and SAO's premise left, what is bad remains bad, and people will eventually realise that.

Btw, if you are trying to say "read LN, it's better". I don't care, LN could be good but it doesn't change the fact SAO anime adaptation is train wreck.

People are using the term "Masterpiece" far too often. Just to be clear, Stein;gate is good show, but just not as good as what people claimed it to be. This is a more objective review of the show so please let me explain before jumping to the conclusion "what? Stein;gate should be at least a 9."

Stein;gate is in its essence a romance show that successfully incorporates sci-fi elements, it isn't something you see in other animes, so already Stein;gate is unique in terms of its genre. It has a solid plot line with much twists and hidden lines that keep you on the edge of ... the seat and several great character designs. I've seem many praises about the show so forgive for not going too deep into the positive aspects of the show. Now why is it not a 9 or 10 then?

The first problem is the pacing of first 10 episodes, at the same time it is necessary to set up all instances of D-mail for the plot that follows, it is also a very poor choice to spend almost half of the series on the set-up. The reason why first 10 episodes feels particularly painful in Stein;gates is that the show attempts to make you feel intrigued by having Okabe accidentally changes the world line by sending a D-mail. And that fact is never explained until several episodes later. Now it is a good strategy to keep audience from the truth in order to keep them interested, as utilised in many detective movies. However the fundamental difference being that in those type of movies, the plot is apparently moving towards the solution in a steady pace while as in Stein;gate, the plot suddenly jumps to Okabe introducing lab members, the banana experiment and hacking into SERN, which happened from (episode 2 to 4). Under the premise that the viewer was not spoiled before watching the show, it is hardly believable that a solid connection could be drawn between the banana experiment and the change of the world line at episode 4. So what it appears to many viewers is that show left a puzzle unexplained then suddenly moved on other remotely relevant staffs. It is another rule in many episode-based series that if you leave a puzzle unexplained and proceed on plots that are seems irrelevant to the puzzle for more than 3 episodes, it causes a negative emotion from the audience (notice that I use the word "seems" because it is in fact relevant to the story telling, but it is just a poor way to tell a story, especially when what follows are 6 episodes of "slice of life" where each member get to send their own D-mail), you can see this kind of story-telling in the infamous SAO, where a main plot is introduced in first episode then followed by completely irrelevant bullshits. I mean no offence to stein;gates, but the way stein;gates' first 10 episodes are proceeded are really bad for the overall enjoyment. I understand that you can't judge a show by its first 10 episodes and yes, the rest of the story is great, but keep in mind that first 10 episodes is also a part of the show.

What makes the first ten episodes more unbearable is the Art in steins; gate, now you notice that steins; gate has an art style that is mainly black and white with not much emphasise on other colours, by that I don't mean it is a bad choice of art style and that every show should be like No Game No Life with colours all over, no, what I mean is this choice of colour is again a very poor combination with the show's slowly-paced first ten episodes, it becomes a test of patience when both the story is progressing slowly and the colour, monotonous. Also another thing to point out is that I can't help but to feel that the background setting is too dull, that is, most of the scene happened in Okabe's Lab, and when it isn't, there are always strange white lights all over the screen particularly when the scene happened outdoor. (Are those strange white lights a way to represent sunshine? Not very effective in my opinion.)

Now coming back to the plot itself, I also wanna talk about the science aspect of the show, steins;gate does a great job at proposing an at least acceptable theory and is consistent through out the show (don't get me wrong, most shows that touch on concepts that are apparently unscientific they just leave it unexplained or come up with ridiculous concepts, like the newly aired show Bonny Senpei uses quantum mechanics that seems stupid and contrived.) On this part, steins;gate has a well-rounded theory and makes audience comfortable with. With that being said, What I am NOT comfortable with is how characters in steins;gate do scientific staffs with incredibly unscientific senses. There are two scenes I feel intellectually insulted while watching steins;gate: 1. Okabe tries to hack into SERN without considering any consequence that it might cause. Now if you realise, SERN is the anime version of CERN, or European Organization for Nuclear Research, as the show suggests, CERN in real life is doing nuclear colliding experiments, since the show tries to make SERN in the anime sounds very similar to the real CERN, I can't help but to question if anyone with a common sense would ignore the consequences of hacking CERN, especially when Daru is portrayed as a great hacker, how could he do thing that is just utterly stupid from a common sense. This makes the story of Mayuri killed by SERN agents a little forced in my opinion, this could just be me overthink too much. 2. Okabe lets several other people use his time-machine to send messages that he didn't even know the content. I know steins; gate is never meant to be a sci-fi show but this scene really triggers me. The show tries to explain away these stupid actions by giving Okabe the name "mad scientist", but even then these two scenes really lowered my score for story of steins;gate, it seems like massive deus ex machina to me.

Now let's talk about the romance aspect of the show, there are two things that I feel steins; gate did poorly on. First being the fact that Okabe was like "dating Ruka and Faris" when the story is supposed to feel intense, it is the moment when romance and horror sci-fi do not work too well together, there are moments where I lost the tension for the show that it sets up in the previous episodes. Another thing is that Okabe's romances with other side characters feel forced and rushed. Especially in Faris' case, If I recall correctly, there isn't any scene in previous episodes where Okabe has development of any sort with Faris, they are just friends, I wouldn't even call them close friends by any means. But then Faris went on calling Okabe "Prince" and hugged him, this feels particularly unexpected and forced, I understand that the series is adapted from game and that the anime is compelled to cover Faris' storyline, but it is just not a coherent development. However the romance with Kurisu was very well developed in my opinion, with Steins; gate movies and other products of the franchise.

Last but not least, I want to quickly touch upon character designs in this show, Okabe is a very likeable character and I have not seen much personality of his sort in other animes, his Chunibyou is a great tool to alleviate the embarrassment in scenes. Kurisu is of the tsundere type but doesn't prevent her becoming a likeable character. But other characters are bit too stereotypical: we have loli-like girls with "tuturu" and lady-like girl and a cat-girl with "meow" and a typical otaku hacker. They aren't necessarily bad characters, I just don't feel they are outstanding character designs. Nevertheless, main characters are all great so it is not a big problem in terms of the overall enjoyment of the show.

So to conclude, Steins; gate is a good show, but with an analytical approach, I just don't feel this is a masterpiece by any means, it has several flaws that prevents me from rating it any higher.

Seishun Buta Yarou Wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai has to be the most overrated anime of the season. To preface it with a verdict, this show is garbage. Frankly, your perception of the main character will decide your rating on the show, as with any other harem or pseudo-harem show where a bunch of running-tags heroines revolve around a main protagonist, and in this case, Sakuta, perhaps one of the most excruciating characters that I have ever seen in any media. And for that reason this shows becomes one of the most tormenting show I have the displeasure to complete.

I'll begin ... the review with the most pathetic aspect of the show, its characters. The main protagonist sakuta is the rotten core of the show, and surrounding him every scrutiny raises questions.
As you would expect from average trash light novel adaptations that's plaguing the anime community right now, Sakuta is a female-magnet by design, almost every female character falls for him with less than 5 mins of screen time. Now despite the unavoidable SAO and other shit fan-service wish-fulfillment LN vibe, this isn't an issue, because that's what escapism harems are by nature and I am not dismissing the show by its genre. There are well-written deadpan characters like Araragi from monogatari series, which this show blatantly rips-off from btw. The main problem with Sakuta is that throughout the entire show, he receives zero character development, he debuts as a virgin, inexperienced, deadpan, vulgar high-schooler that miraculously solves all girls' problems and remains that way till the end. So what this show ended up becoming is a 3 episode per mini arc trainwreck of Monogatari rip-off where there isn't any creative visuals by shaft or witty dialogues to enjoy. Sakuta is so unrealistic, that any attempt at taking the show more than just a fanservice trash is impossible. At the beginning of the show, we aren't given Sakuta's background, how he become this loner-type, what happened to his family, etc, which makes his solitary behavior prior to the show's beginning inexplicable. It is somewhat imaginable that the rumor of him using violence makes him unable to make friends, in which you would expect him to remain solitary if he resigned to that state. However, it is evidently not true as he is also someone who wants to date other girls, then is he a Hachiman-type character who appears to be standoffish but secretly wanting friendship? That is also very contradictory because we are constantly reminded that he doesn't care about others opinion, that he teased a girl about being on period, that he is completely deadpan. So what this results in is a frankenstein of a character with no coherent personality, someone who doesn't care about many things, isn't being nice to others, remains solitary for a very long time, but somehow is very good at "flirting" and making out with girls. And he remains this way through the show. (yeah I'll give you 5 secs to ponder this fact). It is incredible, that a hitherto loner like Sakuta, is capable of pouring out so many vulgar and to many extent sexual lines when dating Mai. And if you ask me why that's case, I can confidently tell that this is simply some low-budget wish-fulfillment that the writer installed to cater to every U-18 teens dreaming about being all standoffish and making sexual jokes yet dating the teen-star of his age. And this is pathetic. So much about Sakuta being a terrible character, what's even worse is that he is also a bad human being. Granted, being a bad person isn't something mutually exclusive with the fact that he is a main character, however, he is clearly portraited as a positive figure who helps out other girls, so that raises a lot of concerns. Sakuta is a disgusting person who makes sexual jokes on other female classmates, kicks other girls' butt, makes no attempt as excusing himself when "dating" other girls while in relationship with someone else and instead of getting slapped in the face as you would irl, the girls treat him as a jesus as if their masochistic nature are going to explode. And somehow anime-viewers' suspension of disbelief are simply higher than in irl, but this is a level of wish-fulfillment that I find intolerable. Sakuta crosses a line of being a creepy harem protagonist to someone who's outright annoying.

Why isn't sakuta punished for his offensive lines then? the show greets you with Mai, the most unrealistic heroine I've ever seen, A teen star who exhibits little anxiety, she is sick of attention but that never manifests in her personality at all. Is comfortable with all the dirty lines from sakuta, has very little self-aware being a teen star, dresses like a bunny girl with no other intention then to provide a huge clickbait (which by the way, was completely forgotten once the story moves forward). She is okay with his boyfriend pretending to be the boyfriend of another girl, and okay when asshole sakuta can't be bothered to explain his intimacy with the said girl. This is a level of cringe that you would usually find in some retarded hentai.

There aren't much to say about the show's other female characters except they are just some running-tags that you would expect from a so-called diverse set. A young sister with brother complex, a chill type of lab girl who happens to so conveniently shits out quantum physics staff to try to explain deus ex machina, another underclass girl who developed a crush on sakuta and appeared five seconds after her arc just so we know she isn't dead.

Art: 7
Animation is pretty mediocre by current standard, I never liked cloverworks animation and you can see some distortions here and there throughout the show.

Sound:
I do enjoy the op and ed, however, Sakuta's monotonous speaking is really vomit-inducing, he never changes the way he speaks, again, can you imagine such a guy with no emotions expressed entire time be the same guy that flirt masterfully with girls? if you can, then you need a reality check.

Story: 5
The show's entire runtime is spent at more than ten minutes every two or three episodes explaining pesudo-science to account for the puberty syndrome in the same setting, that is, futaba's lab. This does remind me of the cafe in SAO, just to show you what shit shows have in common, suffering even from a lack of creativity in background setting. The show tempts to explain something fictional using actually science theory, this is ridiculous, it could be handled much better by just coming up with some fictional explanation.
I am not gonna bash the show on its complete unoriginality by bearing so many resemblance to monogatari series, because comparing this show to bakamonogatari is like juxtaposing a gold bar and a piece of shit, and I am not even a fan of bakamonogatari. Instead of trying to make the show interesting, the writer instills into the dialogues so many meaningless flirts and low-iq lines that if don't tell me that this is the same writer that wrote pet girl of sakurasou, I would expect from some LN competition designed for 15-year-olds ( and the other show is also terrible by the way). Half of the dialogues between two main leads are spent on something pertaining to kiss or bed, I can perhaps to some degree understand that this level of written script is more accessible for some autistic kids who would find dialogues in monogatari mind-blowing.
What kills me tho, is that the show attempts to disguise itself as something greater. It is by nature a harem, yet the show contantly reminds its viewer that Sakuta is single-minded, yep, so single-minded as to pretend to be other girls' boyfriend, having simultaneously like 4 girls in your house the same time. (Another sec of silence for someone who takes this show seriously). If the show actually is more candid with itself and prefaces it as a low-budget fantasy, I wouldn't be bothered to roast on this show because you would find some trash isekai of similar caliber every other season. The inexplicable hype surrounding this god damn tradedy is worrying, because what this leads to is more effortless attempts from JP Lightnovel writers seeing how easily people are pleased with fanservices and wish-fulfillment.

Enjoyment: 1
The first few episodes can be enjoyable but the more I watch, the more I feel it is painful to watch more. This is because the more arcs it introduces, the more cliche I feel Sakuta's way of handling issues are. Also again, Sakuta's conversation and tones can be exciting at first glimpse, but as the show proceeds, there is a point at around ep 8 where I feel I can't tolerate his way of speaking any more.

Overall:2
This show is one step away from SAO, the absolute abysmal tier for having generally positive theme about addressing puberty problems, but a thousand steps away from a good show, it is simply cancerous, cringey and definitely the worst show I have encountered in a long time. It's hard to believe that this show is rated over 8+ on this site and is critically acclaimed by many, it does tell you something about anime-viewers and anime subcultures, I just hope I am not watching seasonal animes anymore when it degrades into something even more horrendous.

Many people tend to compare Code Geass to Death Note, while they do have things in common, Code Geass is no match for Death Note. This review only contains first season, because after finishing the first season I have no desire whatsoever to continue second season. I will explain why Code Geass is no masterpiece and at most a decent anime so bear with me before clicking that not helpful botton.

Story: 6
Code Geass is essentially about a high school student Lelouch who was given a power named Geass to control other people by looking through their eyes. Lelouch is heir to Britanian Empire, but ... after his mother was killed and his father show no emotion for his mother's death, he relinquished his rights and was expelled to Japan, a nation colonised by the Empire. Lelouch, with his Geass power, now tries to overthrow the Empire and revenge his mother's death. The reason why Story of Code Geass is only worth a 6 is because also many said it has a lot of plot twists and colliding ideology, etc, etc. By further looking into the story, the plot is actually very simple and cliche. The main storyline is about Lelouch and his childhood friend susake's colliding ideology. So to put it in a simple way, Lelouch seeks peace through violence and power, by destroying his opponents at all costs and Suzaku seeks peace by "trying to gain a position within the empire and avoid violence". How is that even "complex"? You could easily see that sort of ideology collision in Deathnote, light Vs L, Akame ga kill, night raid vs Ran, naruto, pain vs naruto, attack on titan, Eren vs armin. Though they differ a little in different animes, it is basically the same approach where one supports violence and the other takes a softer approach. It is amusing how anyone could say that it is "unique" and "complex". Code Geass also has a lot of plotholes, one thing I dislike the most is that the mecha element in this show is completely a mess. There is no explanation given to the standards involved in these fights, we don't know how these mechas function, their weaknesses or their relative strength. There is a mech called lancelot, appeared to be one of the toughest mech out there, but even then we don't know how strong it is quantitatively, what I mean is that in these battles, what we can see is lancelot destroying one mech after another in early episode and then another mech is introduced driven by kellan and after that another bad-ass mech driven by C.C and lelouch. What I see is that the show throws powerful mechs at you without explaining anything about them. This makes fights in Code Geass lackluster because all fights at the end resorts to the fact that which side has the most bad-ass mech, this fact completely defeats the "tactic" element in Code Geass. Apart from that, the Geass ability is very inconsistent through the show, there are no rules for this ability like there are ten rules for death note. Another problem with Code Geass is a common problem in most shows: it trivalise the idea of "rebellion" or "revolution". Same in Akame ga kill, rebellion is depicted as something only about power fights, little was mentioned about politics, economics and other key elements. I know you can't demand an anime to consider all that, but i am not contented with the way Code Geass deals with the idea of "rebellion". There are many other problems that I will not mention here due to word counts, but all other problems are not minor.

Art: 7
Art is consistent through out, although i am no fan of this type of animation, It is generally good.

Character: 3
Now this is the worst part of Code Geass, many other people say that characters in this show are complex and different. Yes they are different and varies a lot, but they are no way near complex, some of the characters are completely ridiculous and irrational.
Let's begin with suzaku. Image your country is colonised by another country, and there is a guy from your country who joined the invading country and fights your own people. This guy is what suzaku is. He tried to change the status quo by securing a position in Empire at the same time fighting lelouch multiple times where he literally destroyed many chances of Japan being independent. But for now let's assume he is really that stupid and believe in whatever he believes. now look that what he is doing, did he try to secure a position in politics and try to persuade royal members? did he make propaganda about equality and peace? NO and NO, he sits in his lancelot and fights his own people, this is how this guy wants to change the empire from within. Now at this point I can still bear with this incredibly irrational character, but not until the point he faced zero and when empire fired missles at them he refused to escape even though it means dying with zero. Now What the heck is with this scene? Let us be clear that suzaku tries to change the empire from within, now how are you going to do that if you are dead? I am curious. After watching that episode, suzaku in my opinion changes from an irrational character to a complete joke.
Now let's talk about lelouch, he is not bad character but is very inconsistent, as smart as he is, he doesn't know if someone's following him, becomes easily emotional in battles, accidentally caused a massacre( yes you heard me right, the biggest plot twist is accidentally caused, this literally means the following plots and what lelouch does after that is not what he planned for ). As a main character with so many sentiments, his background is as plain as it could be: "my mother is killed so sad I need to revenge for her".
Other side characters are either occupy little screen or are irrational in different degrees.

enjoyment: 4
I did enjoy the show, that is what make me finish the first season, otherwise I would have dropped it mid way. However, once I finished it and think about the show backwards, it is a joke to me, what Code Geass is is an anime that takes many popular elements of the decades and mix them together in a very bad way and produced a half-decent hybrid that has so many plot holes and irrational characters. Yet many people think this is a masterpiece. But no , trust me, if you really think deep about suzaku and lelouch's motivation and their doings, you would realize just how ridiculous they are.

Overall:
No masterpiece, only a decent overrated anime.