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#Review info
Reviewing Info: How I rate/review stuff is explained on my blog.
Review layout: Nerfed MAL format.
Review type: Anime

#Review (short ver):
*In a nutshell: Poison perv get’s stuck in odd circumstances in a really depressing world.

#PROS
+Unique world and premise
... +Amazing dialogues & character interactions
+Stunning Art&Music direction
+Amazing main lead character and impressive other ones.

#Review (comments/longer ver):
*Story
Well… interesting premise in rather depressing modified time period. Well.. mostly for women and their role in there. Anyhow… we have a little poison fetish girl ending up in a rather peculiar circumstances which develops into her strengths and advantages, whilst still being pressured by the world and social norm rules.

I mean, not sure what else to add… story was impressive, progressive and has plenty to offer on both story wise, world and development wise…. honestly can’t add anything without it becoming a spoiler. All I can say the whole storytelling and setting felt very unique and enjoyable to watch even through the unfair and painful role of women there.

*Character
Probably can say for certain that female lead character is probably one of the best female lead characters I’ve seen recently. She has quirky, unique and strong personality. And the whole story of her surviving, playing her strengths yet having that very skeptical worldview whilst going on about her life in such society is rather good watch.

Rest of characters is also entertaining to watch for the most part. All of them have rather painful sub-tones due to their lives and social norms that worlds society has. But honestly.. a lot of emotional strength was put to female characters for most part, which was done great. Although both male and female cast had their “villains & demons”… it simply was world with more focus on circumstances and environments lot of female cast had to go through. Whilst plenty of male characters were more of “good’ish and evil chess pieces”.

There were characters I loved, characters I felt bad for and characters I did hate even with their reasoning.

*Art & Sound
Beautiful Art & Animations, absolutely stunning women. And fitting and quality soundtrack.

Nothing else to add… art&sound presentation was amazing.
Guess could add the main characters voice & voice acting was amazing.

#Enjoyment & Overall
Honestly I’m not sure why I don’t want give it 10. As I enjoyed it ALOOT and binged in one go… and I can’t even give any particular cons. But if I would say, then probably something was off-taste to for me or something I can’t really put finger on I had gripe with.

But goes to my favorites for sure and recommended watch if you are into more serious olden & twisted fictional era drama.

#Total Score 9/10 Favorited

#Review info
Reviewing Info: How I rate/review stuff is explained on my blog.
Review layout: MAL nerfed non-H
Review type: Anime

#Review (short ver):
*In a nutshell: An eternal relaxing journey of quirky dry elf mage.

#PROS
+Very relaxing premise
... +Beautiful presentation (art & sound, story)
+Mostly great characters
+Great slice-of-life Anime with sprinkle of epic fantasy
+Great meme material

#CONS
-Characters dialogues bickering is fun but also feels dry?
-Most of side-characters also give off very dry feelings (attempt of being too real, objective makes it feel less of an Anime)
-Somewhat teases with great powercreep that somehow ends up unsatisfying

#Review (comments/longer ver):
*Story
Well.. it reminded me a lot of “Mushishi” and “Natsume book of friends” which are also amazing relaxing episodic adventure slice-of-life-chill type of Anime. Anyhow…. so is Frieren, a premise of what’s the life of “immortal” Elf after bringing peace to the world (for the most part). Most of the story is essentially oddballs party adventuring the world and doing various odd jobs. Frieren does great job bring that relaxation feeling to the table, giving off that “we just outside, adventuring and having fun while at it” . So very strong slice-of-life vibes in a classical fantasy setting.

Obviously since it’s a fantasy world we do still get plenty of ramped up exciting moments. Monsters, fights, powers etc… Which is also done amazingly. I especially loved how magic and art of magic casting was presented in this series. It’s very “classical” feel. Whilst expanding the “lore” of the world by occasionally revealing some even further past and forgotten “heroes”

But mostly it’s Anime about self-discovery of Frieren trying to understand humans and human emotion more whilst growing as Elf to become more compassionate and understanding the world she lives in.

*Character
Characters is hard to talk about in this series. All of them had their charm, depth, subtoned stereotypes and so on. For the most part characters would be “objectively” rather good and “real” in a sense. Although… my issue with pretty much all characters how toned down their reactions, dialogues, emotions and so on were… it felt more of like watching some sort of serious western TV series…. than “Anime” . Reason is simple…. the dialogues felt so stiff and dull with strong lack of exaggerated Anime stereotypes and vibrant conversations. I mean in story setting like this it did well job keeping conversations and character interactions entertaining. But most of the times I felt same as they did in a sense of “minimal reaction, stay dull” type of feel. Kinda like when I have dry conversations IRL. Long story short…. character interactions and dialogues didn’t have that vibrant “Anime” feel.

But aside that, the main “squad”.
Frieren the quirky dry elf hunting for odd magic.
Fern, the pouty little big girl who somewhat functions as Frierens mom than Frieren does to Fern.
Stark the closeted pervy muscle head who works as comedy sidekick.

That would sum them up in my book. Aside that we have plenty of interesting side-characters with various sub-stereotypes and backstories.

*Art & Sound
Scenic and magic art & animation are both absolutely stunning and so is the soundtrack/music in general. Whilst character art & design isn’t exactly “high quality” but has it’s distinct style, which worked well in this Anime and probably will age well.

Time Flows Ever Onward – loved this soundtrack a lot.

*Enjoyment & Overall
Long story short, I consider this Anime quite amazing, but would have loved probably more if character interactions & dialogues wouldn’t feel as “poker face” as that made me watch them interact as well in rather “poker face” …

But definitely worth a watch if you are into relaxing slice-of-life adventure fantasy feel… If you expect action packed magic fantasy then probably not for you.

#Total Score: 8/10

#Review info
Reviewing Info: How I rate/review stuff is explained on my blog.
Review layout: MAL nerfed non-H
Review type: Anime

#Review (short ver):
*In a nutshell: Sweet? romance Anime with extremely strong cuck/unfaithfulness subtones

#PROS
+Fairly good drama
... +Plenty of sweet aspects
+Characters fairly well done
+Pleasant and vibrant animation
+Hot gal FMC offers also plenty of nice fanservice

#CONS
-Strong cuck/unfaithfulness subtones across the board (plot, characters etc..)
-A bit unlikable premise for me

#Review (comments/longer ver):

*Story
The premise is essentially “arranged marriage, without marriage” so the idea of sticking high schoolers in their youth together to improve “relationships” …. is something I don’t particularly like as I hate “arranged marriages” as well. And if you put high schoolers who are tracked into such circumstances…. well they are more likely to end up casual breeding than falling into love/relationship. Or such be in an awkward position especially when they love someone else. And hence comes the whole story issue if it feeling like a cucking/unfaithfulness lovestory. As most of the main characters are in love with another characters… the “I love that persons wife and that person wife loves someone else than their husband etc….” scenario pretty much. Which is quite obnoxious and infuriating thing… especially when they develop drama and main “arranged coupling” romance and drama….

Other than that story offers fairly good drama and acceptable amount of romance progression. It has unique setting and it's charm... but whenever how much someone can enjoy this storytelling... depends on individual standpoint of premise this Anime is hustling on... which didn't align with my views.

Basically…. heavily “cuck/unfaithfulness” feeling story… that I’m not big fan of…

*Character
A gal, a proper girl with not so proper side, a bishounen and undecideful MC.. long story short they all have somewhat their charms and a lot of drama going on. But as always with romance genre the most infuriating part is them not being to able be honest thus making drama deeper, darker and more depressing. And in this particularly setting and story telling more “cucking/unfaithfulness” aspects. The quotations are for a simple reason that that this isn’t exactly unfaithful relationships as for the prearranged living together setting but it feels and becomes more unfaithful overtime as their dramas and relationships progress and change..

Other than that.... somewhat the dudes were the dullest characters in this Anime.. especially the MC... Rest of the cast was quite enjoyable in both their characters and semi-growth fashion.

*Art & Sound
Art, music, animation are all very vibrant and colorful making them quite joyful and pleasing to watch and hear. So on that regard this Anime did amazing job. Plus plenty of solid fanservice.

*Enjoyment & Overall
Again… I did enjoy seeing gal personality a lot as she showed her cute sides over time more often and well “cute note good sides” … there were still plenty of romantic moments I enjoyed…. but almost everything regarding the story and characters development got simply overshadowed for me with the whole unfaithful/cuck’ish feeling premise and development…. which more than anything simply annoyed me.

So I don’t know how everything will go on from this point onward in story… but I do hope it will cement into vanilla romance eventually… rather than this weird “kinda unfaithful” setting… because on vanilla’ish aspect of this series, it’s rather sweet…

#Total Score 6/10

#Review info

*Reviewing Info: How I rate/review stuff is explained on my site.
*Review layout: MAL nerfed non-H
*Review type: Anime
*Note: Still testing review layouts. This line will be removed when I’m satisfied with the layout.

#NOTE!!!: THIS IS FRANCHISE REVIEW FOR WHOLE SERIES !!!
#NOTE2!!!: Just some general thoughts I had. First story section is season specific with review end having SPOILER SPECIFIC RANT.
#Review (short ver):
... #In a nutshell: Big naked people eating small ones for sport with lot of dramatic plot twists.

+PROS
+ Some great impactful dramatic moments
+ Fairly impressive world building
+ Entertaining “game of thrones” styled character building
+ Amazing animation and music
+ Some really amazing story turning points and main character directions in story…

-CONS
- Some very dumb and unnecessary plot twists that attempt to overcomplicate things by hiding simple truths behind walls of lies.
- With “Game of thrones” death rally I stopped caring about most of characters thus making most of dramatic moments rather desensitized for me.
- Some amazing story turning points turned to shit due to stupid further on “plottwists”
-A little bit of Animation downgrade when studio changed (when CGi used became prominent and on certain episodes not that amazing looking)
-Some weird story presentation moments where it got confusing in a manner I were forced to put back to previous episode because if felt as if I missed an episode. (more of in comments)

#Review (comments/longer ver):
*Character

I mean, what to say. Our golden trio is essentially Eren the typical fighting Anime musclehead who has maxed his willpower stat whilst is average on everywhere else but due his willpower he gets stronger and stronger, with plenty of amazing uniques. Armin the cynical whiny suckup who has maxed his int stat, making him a great tactician pretty much. And Mikasa…. The extremely overprotective autistic brute who has maxed strength stat.

That would sum up the main squad in a nutshell.

Nevertheless, main charm of the characters and character building as whole in this Anime is the extremely large cast of characters, with lot of them having fairly lot of “role” in different place and story at the time… most of their personalities kind of suck (meaning that, I personally don’t like them, not that they are actually bad as characters) or are just in a style of “if die, don’t care”, which works amazing because of how this Anime world is built. But at the same time, we do have some great key element characters that play much bigger roles in the story and do amazing job as drama fueling.

Overall as whole I consider the “characters” as enjoyment factor fairly good. Them being swatted like flies left and right reminded me “game of thrones”, which made it into a great entertainment factor in this messed up world. Whilst characters I cared about eventually with the whole story, world and character building desensitized me.

Point being, considering how many characters there are. Author managed to keep a lot of them still relevant, interesting and plenty of them gave fair bit of depth and character development.
✦Art & Sound

What can I say. Music “Hiroyuki Sawano”, so epic as always. In general music/OST wise there were a lot of amazing tracks that did fit in great and were presented at amazing timings.

Animation & art was also great. At some point CGi became more prominent (might been when studio changed) and with that CGi there was some quality balance issues. For most part CGi was great, but on few occasions It was odd.

But overall, I considered it still great.

#Story (NOTE!: Special case this time with “story paragraph”, since this is franchise review, I will have season basis paragraph for “story” , as general “review” per season for story with few thoughts I had and then SEPARATE SPOILER section for some extra rant for specific seasons)

*General

Premise itself starts as an interesting closed off survival story. Where mankind lives in a small walled off area, living in an extremely dangerous world, thinking that they are the only humans left. As the story goes on, the world broadens, the plot creates a lot of tension within the walls and a lot of problems as everything escalates and expands.

Few things across the board that all seasons shared regarding the story was that all seasons did have their share rather epic moments, gut wrenching moments and one thing for sure high-tension moments. Also early on seasons, with certain plot reveals and twists somewhat allow you to get closer to truth what titans actually are. Funnily enough, my speculation to what titans actually are was pretty much spot-on by half-way to season 2. But obviously, my backstory/truth of them couldn’t be anywhere close to the story as there was no proper information about for a while.

*SEASON 1 (9/10)

Probably I consider still this season the best. It presented interesting world, amazing impact in characters, setting and most important the powerful emotional impact on multiple occasions on multiple re-watches I’ve watched it. Plus, it introduces quite well the surface level military regiment purposes, the training, the gear and so on.

Great season with few twists that excited me a fair bit but also a season with 1 stupid story move that forced me to put back to previous episode because it felt as I’ve skipped an episode, but no… it was just a weird move.

*SEASON 2 (borderline 8/10)

A bit of snowball burn season… season that pulls on you certain plot twists and reveals and I considered were really dumb and pointless as in the end they were just lies layered on lies where under those lies were just simple truth on what certain characters wanted to do or have on their personal greed/need level.. which no matter how much you try to complicate things or bury things under pointless lies is in my book just utter garbage. Actually… the more layers of lies or complications you bury your personal need/greed the bigger pile of shit you are as under that reckoning you just damage everything and once that lies are unveiled even more damage is caused.

But aside that…. Season snowballs greatly… in action wise it doesn’t disappoint that much in comparison to season 1.

*SEASON 3 (7/10)

Well…. My season 2 rant applies here EVEN FURTHER and stronger. If anything, lot of story elements and backstories and characters get even more disgusting to a point I care less and less about characters where I feel that they deserve their fate with titans and circumstances. Also, as always with of those “lets try to make characters more real” I always find it so funny how the answer to that is just layers of lies/excuses as if honesty isn’t real.

Infuriating dumb ass forced politics as well piss me off beyond anything.

BUT it isn’t all bad… that was my main gripe with the story itself. It still offers interesting plot twists, developments that leads to great battles, tactics and further proper progress. I mean the world becomes much bigger place. Plus amazing direction overall.

*SEASON 4 (8/10)

Honestly…. This season for the most part I started to enjoy a lot again. It felt so relaxing and soothing once Eren decided to do what he did. Somewhat I felt all those cancers of human beings there finally get what they deserve in their stupid history of lies and pointless infighting of racism, hatred, group isolation, monarchy forced attempts of control, the power-hungry perverse deeds and so on…. The pointless ball throwing of revenge story… “X did that to X to time point Y, So I will do that to X as revenge”. So lets keep throwing that revenge ball to each other forever. Might as well clean slate clean…

Although… did hope a bit different outcome, but considering how the story went I somewhat expected how it would end, but did not expect certain things, which did disappoint me.

Overall was amazing season of chaos, drama, emotions, revenge, overreached plot twists, more explanations, combat…. Did somewhat remind me enjoyment of season 1, but in different manner.

*SPECIALS/OVAS

Going to only mention that Levi OVAs were pretty good. And “Lost girls” was also nice to watch. Rest of ovas were… just bonus I would say, watchable.

#Enjoyment & Overall

To put it in nutshell in this long ass pseudo pile of garbage of a “review” I would say it’s a great Anime if you want a darker Anime that offers lot of amazing tension building fights, drama and despair where plot twists and course of story somewhat starts you giving “game of thrones” vibes by seeing how fun it’s seeing all the trash dying in a crappy ass world where it would suck it live anyways.

And in attack on titan, it was simply extremely fun in that regard. I was not disappointed in most of fights sequences. Did like plenty of characters for their roles, but barely “loved” any character to actually feel strongly about any of their dramatic events.

Plot twists were somewhat hit or miss for me, some of them I were intrigued about, but a lot of them I were either disappointed or simply disgusted about.

##STORY SPOILER RANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*SEASON 1

My only issue with this season specific was episode where Annie was being revealed as titan… it was such a random episode, where Annie was being led around by Armin and suddenly boom… that episode felt as if I’ve missed an episode… so I went back to previous episode to see if I missed anything… but nope… next episode they explained. Seriously… such move only works at start of movies or episode 1 as foreshadowing… or dramatic effect. Not in middle of series/movie.

*SEASON 2

Another moment where I had put back to previous ep.. when Reiner and Bert just casually started talking about being titans Eren… I felt again as “did I miss something?” …. Nope… just an event.

Ahh… and a season where “lies” start causing shitstorm because of humans being cancer and thinking lying and dumb as excuses will somehow in the end be good somehow thus creating friction, tension and problems.

Ymir.. why not consult Christa….

Fucking priest…. Really… worth hiding the truth if you and everyone will die soon inside the walls?

Reiner, Bert… you been inside walls… really… your mission is worth bloody ant shit stain. Start working with people instead to stop this stupid friction of pointless “racism”.

*SEASON 3

Of course… force Historia into being seedbed or being a figurehead to pump out children right when she finally wants to live for herself freely… and start all sorts of other political drama….

Of course, secret police now start infighting in a dying out tiny human community.

The grand reveal story of racism story against people of Ymir who once used to rule, now suppressed.

Rip Erwin… somewhat hated and liked him. Disliked him for how emotionally dead and indifferent he was and only controlled everyone around him for his personal greed/gain for his lust for truth of titans. Mate didn’t get to reach basement. But at same time I somewhat enjoyed his character due to I personally stopped caring about most of characters and world as well at certain point as how messed up the world was there and since everyone is dying is left and right, there is no point becoming attached to anyone. So might as well just use everyone as own tool for measure of ends.

*SEASON 4

There were lot of plot twists regarding Ymir, people who suppressed subjects of Ymir, people who tried to restore them. The founder herself….. Zeke… Grisha…. Man… too much shit to snap of everything so I’m going to only mention few things regarding season 4

For starters, I loved Eren’s change of becoming “villain” it was so relaxing him becoming same trash like the wall invaders. Was very ironic. Plus, him stomping the outer lands to the pulp and everyone just being in chaos and crushed after wall dwellers being in such chaos as well was fairly relaxing to watch as it was funnily dumb and ironic seeing in the end, everyone is the same. So, I somewhat hoped Eren would wipe the whole “revenge” out of the world by wiping the whole world…. But… seeing how Eren friends decided to be the good guys and started moving against him… I started already seeing the end… that probably it would be dramatic and Mikasa end up killing him… what I did not expect… was Eren wiping their memories in prior thus that being pre-planned.

Probably episode “Assault”, was one of the most satisfying ones.

But whole founder power of memory manipulation and attack titan seeing future power became rather pain in the arse for the story anyhow. Especially when Eren was chilling in the past with Zeke looking at Eren/Grisha memories and seeing how future Eren affected past memories…

Also founder backstory was depressing… being so deeply in love even knowing that person you love is such cancer… yet still loving that person knowing you getting only hurt… and then being that in the end… man… in that regard Eren did at least nice job freeing Ymir..

Sadly… Mikasa is now chained alone until end of her time. Eren should have at least left her with a child for her to love.
#Total Score 8/10

#Review (short ver):
*In a nutshell: Poor parents wallets. Awkward glasses breaking girl and awkward guy never blossoming love story.

#PROS
+Great GoHands unique Animation quality and style
+Fairly cute moments?
+Pleasant enough OST

#CONS
-Fairly frustrating nowhere moving romance
... -The awkward “romance” between odd characters a bit too exhausting to my taste
-Found character dynamics rather poor
-Side characters???????

#Review (comments/longer ver):
*Story
A romance Anime that nuances about a girl that forgets her glasses..? I mean… A LOT. Yes she has some sort of mental defect that is moe’fied . Which for most part is rather cute, but that also means her future partner needs also be caretaker. Anyhow.. story, the idea for the most part was fairly interesting itself but somehow I found the that the whole storytelling somehow flopped hard. Lot of “cute moments” didn’t really get conveyed well enough for me nor much of happening in the story actually progressed anywhere for the most part. Story presented some moments that somewhat promised a concept of “progression” yet somehow managed to let down me as the viewer. Hard to explain without any spoilers. But somehow as far as slice of slice moeblobs go with bare minimum romance, I found this one rather lacking on every aspect when it comes to story telling and story development. Do I consider the story itself bad? No, but it definitely wasn’t any good. It’s okay enough if you like this sort of nuanced caretaker type of storytelling and are sold with this sort of “slapstick comedy?”.

Probably also should talk about the “romance” part as this is the romance Anime after all.. but I honestly cannot really comment much about romance progression. As for the most part I felt it was one sided romance jabbing with other side exploring it’s curiosity of another human being that eventually leads of self-realization. That is best way I can sum it up without giving too much away. So for the most part the “cute” moments weren’t particularly “cute” for me.

*Character
First things first. Main female lead is girl who forgets, breaks her glasses to an extreme level. She doesn’t compare to my horrible short time memory. And prescription glasses cost a lot of money.. so I feel bad for the parents. Aside that she is very lazy “my own pace” character which itself is cute stereotype but taken to an extreme level with her “issues” with forgetting I would say. Has her moe side, but I’m not big fan of her.

Whilst main male lead… isn’t much of a better character. You know those old school classic ecchi harem protagonists who don’t have balls for anything yet are degenerate to some extent, yet pull off when important stuff happens? Well.. he isn’t that… and in those Anime it works because of comical aspect. But in this Anime this guy seriously struggles … on so many levels whenever to whenever to do, say or not do, say something. So basically is extremely ball-ess, yet has some sort of odd superiority complex when it comes to main female lead character, yet acts like a creep in non ironic manner. Basically character that somehow tries to be old school stereotype but is modernized in some manner thus creating that really odd and unlikable character? At least for me.

Side characters????????? What happened to the writing there. I honestly, remember almost absolutely none of the side characters. They are like ghost characters. Few talked, but NPC A, NPC B…. that’s their worth pretty much.

*Art & Sound
GoHANDS, enough said. If you like their Animation approach and style. Then this Anime won’t disappoint you when it comes to Animation. It has great quality and unique style as per usual. It can be at times head spinning inducing because of how heavily camera rotating and movement rich at the times GoHands makes their stuff, but nevertheless I loved the Animation itself.

Music and soundtrack in general as well was good enough. Some tracks were fairly pleasant and noticeable, nothing too amazing, but well enough and fitting for most occasions.

*Enjoyment & Overall
It has interesting concept, great Animation, some cute moments but the characters kinda sucked, side characters were non existent and the whole story telling and progression felt fairly weak. But overall… I did enjoy my time for the most part even with the issues I had with this Anime. So barely 6 I would say.

#Total Score 6/10

#Review info
*Reviewing Info: In nutshell. Personal value >> "objective/critical" valuation. More info on my site.
*Review layout: WP non-H, nerfed for MAL
*Review type: Anime

#Review info

Reviewing Info: In a nutshell personal thoughts/opinion >> critical/objective value. More on my site.
Review layout: WP non-H
Review type: Anime

#Review (short ver):
*In a nutshell: Grandiose fantasy war filled world with lot of “logistics…”…. and plenty of drama

#PROS
... +Fairly enjoyable condensed tragic grand fantasy political warfare storytelling
+large scale fights with some great smaller scale or duel tier power/magical fights
+Really cool grandiose designs
+Very cool vast ideas compacted in entertaining manner

#CONS
-Some EXTREMELY infuriating dumb plot points
-Not really fond of that extremely war patriotism filled brainwashed world moral compass people have there
-Some unpleasant “freedom” characters
? The “condensed” form of logistics/politics/background lore might be off-putting for people who highly focus on story element. (as certain things feel skipped over or fast forwarded, which I personally loved as didn’t really give a shit about those elements, important parts were presented, at least felt so)

##Review (comments/longer ver):
*Story
Man, I have such mixed feelings when it comes to story itself and storytelling. So, I’ll start what I considered good.

The good part would be probably the whole grandiose element. It had drama, romance, tragedy, warfare, strategy, politics, fantasy and fairly odd twists. The whole story felt like really odd theatrics… from the whole first character encounter journey to the whole brainwashed patriotic war filled world to the weddings and plot twists. It’s type of story that could probably be dragged for hundreds of episodes, but here what I loved about it. I feel like as it was really “condensed” a lot of important bits were presented whereas lot of activities and events that most likely would have happened at the same time in the story were skipped over, fast forwarded and so on, but somehow in a really fitting manner. Whenever there was a moment where I felt as something got “transitioned over” It simply felt as if “okay, in a nutshell, they succeeded/failed in that. That’s good enough for me. I don’t need the details, nor cared about then.” Which is cool, as I mostly cared about main characters and key character events.

Of course, such grandiose stories I cannot ever fully 100% follow as there are way too many names. (characters, countries, factions etc…) but what manners that what was presented was mostly quite enjoyable.

The whole story had fairly weird relation between magic, nobles and common folk. And the whole world and story linking between them already itself would be whole paragraph itself. Let alone specific factions, creatures and plot twists which would arise its topics which I simply can’t be bothered with.

Now…. My main complains. There was a specific plot point which I absolutely got infuriated with. It was so unnecessary. Political marriages already piss me off, let alone that… seriously. I would rather sacrifice a universe…. Than what was done. Such a dumb and pointless self-imposed responsibility.

Also, since the whole world lives in constant warfare…. Their whole moral compass is rather twisted in both patriotic and nobles/commoners manners. Which I also find rather idiotic and never been fond of. Which makes the world in this anime rather twisted. Thus, a lot of story decisions made seem “normal” there made me feel simply “like what?”

Other than that, … I did enjoy the gradual plot twists and the whole constant tactical approach of Anime itself. Although story does drop few nukes on you and the finale itself is quite a thing…

*Character
Main character himself is the oddest main character I’ve seen in a long time. He is a generic good doer which itself I don’t see a problem in. But his combat approach and occasional strong decisions and his charismatic roles are such an odd balance. I don’t consider him bad nor good character…. But rather than being “dull & generic” he felt more of “odd”.

But his partner, our female lead. Had quite a charming personality. In a sense she was the brains of the whole story. And I did enjoy their relationship progression overall as well a lot. Although, my only question is why she never changed her outfit still questions me. Considering once she changed her master, she didn’t need to wear it anymore and she don’t she didn’t like it at first.

As for rest of the characters…. There a lot of them. Some are simply and enjoyable, some are questionable in various manners. (whenever their alignment, decisions, pointless self-imposed rules and dumb “aristocrats” culture things…). Some characters are pretty unlikeable…. Some do weird stuff that I don’t really agree with nor like much… but aren’t really a bad as characters nor people. And a lot of characters exist in “game of thrones” manner, meaning that they simply exist to be hated and where you hope they get killed off due to what they cause.

But in the end… there are plenty of base stereotypes with some of them having more background and depth to them and some less… well it’s grandiose political drama so that is to be expected that characters that you can simply “like” are rare. Cast is large yet fairly good I would say, plenty to love and hate. Plenty of growth and development of various characters and plenty of cannon fodder.

Simply some of the for sake of drama, tragedy. Character decisions were extremely infuriating and unnecessary. Looking at you Marianne… that was one of rare Anime where I got so angry at a character that I literally punched wall and stopped watching this Anime for few weeks and finished 5 different other Anime before finishing Grancrest….

*Art & Sound
First things first. I must say. The magic design, the crests concept and designs are absolutely something I adore in fantasy settings. Whenever it’s Japanese rune type magic in games or Anime or Western crest/symbol style stuff magic related stuff are my jam. And this world, did amazing at it.

Art quality itself isn’t anything too special. But designs were superb and there were some amazingly well Animated moments.

There were quite few soundtracks that had their charm. There were few peaceful tracks I noticed and liked a lot and some odd tension tracks I enjoyed a lot. But most of the OST was rather average I would say.

#Enjoyment & Overall
AS WHOLE….. I consider it good Anime. Probably compacted a lot from light novel, but I personally felt that most of the story I could keep track on and important bits were well delivered. Most importantly the fun parts of action and drama had well delivered and impactful meaning. Although even though around the end everything went somewhat every “grand scale bizarre” when it came to bigger powers and plot reveals.

If you want more detailed lore you will have to read light novel. I honestly, didn’t care that much about side factions lore or mumbo jumbo. I simply wanted to watch grandiose fantasy and wanted the story related to main events.
##Total Score 7/10

##Review info
Reviewing Info: Personal opinion/feelings >> objective/critical value. More info on my site.
Review layout: WP non-H
Review type: Anime

##Review (short ver):
*In a nutshell: Ojou-sama get’s somewhat reverse bullied into lesbian submission?

#PROS
+Cute “bully” type yuri romance
... +gradual yuri acceptance
+Otome game world plot rejection (sod off pretty boys)
+I approve that degen FMC

#CONS
-Not really fond of bunch of aristocratic self-righteous pricks stereotypes
-Magic fights/design is really boony (I know it’s not focus at all.. but damn… It was so basic)

#Review (comments/longer ver):
*Story
Pretty fun isekai concept, it became a running trend at some point but nevertheless pretty fun. Otome isekais I mean. This time we get lesbian office woman getting stuck into otome game, but instead of hunting for her prince charming in her favorite game. She hunts for her favorite main villainess. Anime mostly prevails at fun character dynamic between main characters. The degenerate overly attached female lead who gets off by any sort of attention by villainess and the villainess who is not sure how to react to main lead reactions. Thus, creating that cute dynamic where the bullied girl reactions somehow end up bullying the bully. While that is the main focus, the Anime itself has some sort of running background story as well that runs alongside the „otome game“ of the world. Although, some events do happen in the Anime. Creating few rather important events that affect the villainess, but most important events seem will happen later on in the story for what sequel will be required.

Also… probably Important bit… that I personally didn’t care and forgot for most part. Since main lead character is also „protagonist“ of that „otome game world“ … she obviously has to deal with the approaching harem of pretty boys. Meaning… deny their approaches etc… because well. Obviously, she has eyes only for villainess. But as told… it somehow becomes very irrelevant… To a point I ask myself „kinda random flex to make it plot theme? “

But anyhow… the story itself is probably pretty average I would say… but what made this Anime amazing was simply the lovable character interactions which seemed like main focus,

*Character
Main lead character is essentially lesbian degenerate game who is really into game world chicks. So, getting reincarnated into game world where her waifu is dream come true. Although she still has some moral compass to not use game knowledge to tame her love interest and some other self-imposed rules that causes her self-grief and pain. Thus, what else to do that everything to make the love interest happy and hide behind personality of goofy jester.
The love interest is self-righteous aristocrat who pain in the arse personality with harsh and annoying words thinking herself the best. That is the façade she decided to grow up and stay with to show herself being strong willed and from prestigious family…

That’s the characters theme the Anime rolls with. It starts cute and fun, mostly being silly not-serious romcom whilst over time starting to roll over to more serious drama by slowly unveiling true feelings and thoughts of main characters and how they deal with their issues and personalities. In that regard rather than character growth, it’s more of self-realization and acceptance journey, which honestly was cute and fun to watch.

Rest of side characters honestly… I found that they sucked for the most balls. Somewhat low-tier otome game stereotypes. Lot of obnoxious aristocratic types. Overly courteous, overly self-righteous, overly overzealous overly “prince charming” types etc… In lot of Otome type of Anime they are usually done in more smoother manner… and probably I guess more depth? But since this is light-hearted slapstick comedy otome-esque… thus making those stereotypes rather bland… it made those same characters also rather boring and tedious.

But anyhow…. Overall I did enjoy a lot main characters interactions and their progress and growth and changes in relationship over course of series.

#Art & Sound
Visuals are vivid and pleasant to look at. Style and quality are for most part pretty good with few noticeable odd quality drops or oddities. Music/OST for the most part was as well pleasant and fitting, but nothing too special or worthwhile.

*Enjoyment & Overall
As whole what made this Anime a great enjoyment for me was rather adorable character interactions that blossomed into rather cute romance in a sense. Whilst the story was somewhat average and the magic presentation sucked balls and the side characters I didn’t like. The vibrant visual presentation and simply joy to look and listen to main character bickering and simply episodic activities, made it a lot of fun and relaxing enjoyment. Especially with that self-realization drama and unveiling of feelings.

##Total Score 8/10

##Review info
Reviewing Info: In nutshell. Personal feelings/opinion >>> "objective/critical" value. More explained on my site.
Review layout: WP non-H
Review type: Anime

##Review (short ver):
*In a nutshell: Insomniacs get busted, defend their sleep spot and fall in love.

#PROS
+Fairly believable love story
... +Sweet and gradual romance
+Mostly likeable characters
+Lovable interactions and moments
+Somewhat relatable insomnia moments and thoughts

#CONS
-Sadly as per usual with romance genre, ends at early stages
-Very “weak” insomnia approach

##Review (comments/longer ver):
#Story
Considering romance is one of my all-time favorite genre especially pure romance. I found this fairly enjoyable and sweet in storytelling. It didn’t feel as dreamlike and felt more grounded to reality when it came to both character interactions, storytelling, drama and characters background and stuff they personally went though. Concept itself was rather simple, we get 2 characters that have issues sleeping during night and thus the issues that comes with that during daytime, health and overall, in life to some extent. And premise is about those 2 characters meeting and protecting their little comfort zone that somewhat gets out of hand. As the story revolves around their activities of astrology club, then it goes pretty good match with inability to sleep through night. Anyhow, their daily lives activities were presented quite fun, enjoyable with some drama to it whilst the whole time progressing the gradual obvious romance development. In somewhat very natural yet satisfying course without being overly “dramatized”.

Basically… can’t really complain when it came to slice of life romance story telling. It’s pretty “normal” but done in a really good way.

#Character
Well, what to say. Main male lead is a bit grumpy easily depressed fella who in the end gets stuff done who needed as he doesn’t really have much of a life thus easy to focus on school bullshittery. Female lead is overly bubbly and cheerful girl who has bad habit of hiding her problems inside. Yet both of them are kind and caring of people, especially those who are close to them. That would sum up our lead characters.

Other than that their development course and character dynamics are in my personal opinion as always fitting. Like always with romance or character dynamics I find it good match to have pessimistic person to have a partner that brightens their day and drags them around. As by the end those dynamics work in great balance, stability and each other’s support. And in this Anime, it worked quite a charm as well. Both sides got their support when needed and both grew on their own way.

Supporting cast had also quite various personalities whereas I liked most of them. Most of them had fairly unique traits with few of them having traditional stereotypes. Making great mix of side characters.

#Art & Sound
Scenic art and music were great. Character design and overall art quality wasn’t anything too special nor bad. Not much else to add.

#Enjoyment & Overall
I mean, what else to add. Overall, I enjoyed it a lot. It was sweet yet oddly “real but still PURE” romance, somewhat different feel of romance from usual “ideal” romance I’m used to watch from the distance, dreaming of chuckle. But in the end, it was great.
Probably only personal thing I could add was as someone who also has problems sleeping pretty much whole life… but well not really directly only during nights but overall. A lot of sleepless nights, restless nights, staring at ceiling nights, working shifts sleepless, spending most days awake grumpy, tired, attempting to rest eyes at work/school when awake throughout life, sleepless headaches, muscle pains, nausea etc…. I guess it was a bit interesting to see Anime in that related content. But yeah, don’t really have anything dreamy like them. I just power through or chug sleeping pills xD

In this Anime it seemed like they didn’t sleep at night, did night activities having fun. Doing day activty stuff whilst somehow managing doing quick power naps throughout the day… wish I could have such superpower.
#Total Score 8/10

NOTE: S1 & S2 review as whole.

Reviewing Info: In a nutshell. Short personal thoughts on Anime/manga, heavy weight on personal feelings with minor objective valuations. More explained how I rate on my site.
Review layout: WP non-H
Review type: Anime
Note: Still testing review layouts. This line will be removed when I’m satisfied with the layout.

#Review (short ver):
*In a nutshell: Story of lonely Shogi player being mellowed and saved from dark vortex of himself.

... #PROS
+Absolutely superb bittersweet drama
+Superb inner monologues around themes of loneliness and depression
+Great heart warming drama
+Beautiful art presentation
+Touches some fairly great subject for drama
+Shogi made at least dramatized and interesting to watch

#CONS
-Honestly… nerdy Shogi aspect wasn’t really my cup of tea… but at least was made fairly entertaining
-Man….. I somewhat wished for romance
-Just my personal issue.. but somewhat hoped to see more of Season 1 character darker mindset…. before him being mellowed and saved by such heartwarming and fantasy like…. environment…

#Review (comments/longer ver):
*Story
To avoid any particular spoilers. In a nutshell story takes likeable approach with bittersweet drama. It presents you with locked-in character with plenty of issues that drowns itself into game of Shogi, which story revolves around. As story goes on, slowly main character past, family issues, his personal issues and drama starts to unfold giving you this unpleasant drowning feeling. Which already is something really I personally like and can relate to a fair bit.. But the way story is presented, how impactful and such is done quite well. Anyhow, that is the premise and that start of how story unfolds with the bitter part. But over time story will start giving you droplets of sweetness, how the world, environment, people around the main character essentially in unlikely fantasy like manner start helping him out of that drowning shell.

Anyhow…. story essentially juggles between such bad emotions and giving at the same time cozy feeling of warmth. Creating such very longing and fantasy like “wouldn’t that be nice” type of setting.

That was the whole setting, drama part of the storytelling. Let’s not forget the second main aspect of the story. Shogi a.k.a Japanese Chess. I personally don’t really care much about it but, story revolves around Shogi tournaments, characters, growth and such. Here only part that matters that, there is progression. There are fairly interesting characters and Shogi is dramatized and made entertaining, because Anime can do any “sport” genre entertaining.

*Character
Well, since it’s drama story and character section go hand to hand so as mentioned before bittersweetness is this Anime main charm. We have main character who struggles with depression and solitude and has to deal with bunch of other issues whilst drowning himself into Shogi matches.

And the 2nd biggest part of main cast would be the sisters trio he meets. Essentially clumps of happiness and warmth that obviously have their own set of problems. But their encounter with main character is the spark of things to come and how the main character essentially gets “saved”.

There are a lot of other more interesting characters that play part in main characters past, growth and such. But in the end it’s slice of life drama, talking about those things would be too much of a spoiler.

Long story short. Over the course of 2 seasons, I consider the the whole character growth, past, encounters and such were pretty well done. There are plenty of moments where I felt for the main character and there were unreal amount of moments where I felt emotional for his encounters and environment where I simply thought “….man… wouldn’t that be nice” or something along the line.

But overall… felt glad for the main character and those around him. Wish for another season.

*Art & Sound
First things first. Animated SHAFT . So artistic presentation is absolute bliss to look at. Very vivid, well delivered and emotional moments have powerful impact. Scenes are high quality and overall everything was well brought to front that mattered whilst all the backgrounds were pleasant to see as well.

As for music / soundtracks. There were lot of pretty soundtracks that were quite pleasant to listen to. Well delivered in most scenes with proper emotional impact.

So yeah, overall when it comes to Art, Animation and sound part of this Anime. It was superb. Pretty cozy style, great animation, superb delivery. Nothing to complain about. Enjoyed it a lot.

*Enjoyment & Overall
I probably would have rated this Anime much higher if it would have hit those next 3 criteria. 1. Maybe less shogi mumbo jumbo 2. Hoped for some romance… 3. Somewhat hoped to see/hear more of season 1 earlier part MC monologues where he had darker mindset…. as it was somewhat relaxing and more relatable.

But overall.. I found it still amazing Anime, like with “honey & clover” which is made by same author. While honey & clover had that bittersweet feeling related to various romance couple dramas. This Anime had that bittersweetness mostly revolving around to inner issues, family drama and social dramas. But how Author suddenly decided to go with Shogi, is beyond me.

In the end….. if you are someone who can enjoy that bittersweet type of story telling. Someone who doesn’t mind getting edged by depression with sparkles of warmth & happiness then this is amazing Anime. Great characters, great presentation and especially great combination of emotional deliverance. Having constantly told in storybook manner some sad, dark stuff while at the same time being cozied up by warm characters and environment.

#Total Score 8/10

##NOTE: THIS IS WHOLE FRANCHISE REVIEW (can’t be bothered to review them separate)##

#Review info
Reviewing Info: How I rate/review stuff is explained HERE
Review layout: WP non-H
Review type: Anime
Note: Still testing review layouts. This line will be removed when I’m satisfied with the layout.

#Review (short ver):
*In a nutshell: Sometimes, magical girls life ain’t so easy and cute.
... #PROS
+Pretty interesting story concept
+Grandiose magical girl fights
+Epic soundtrack
+Cute girls doing cute stuff is very cute.
+Very likeable characters with solid variation of stereotypes
+Quite satisfying way to close things up for the change of the usual

#CONS
-Story points, where you ask “but why even that was done, if that was conclusion?”
-A bit weird timeline flex with presentation
-Very strong tearjerker factor just for sakes of it
-Yo, where is Yuuki X Tougou yuri end?

#Review (comments/longer ver):
#Story
The story…hmm to put it shortly the good is that the world setting and the concept of story is amazing and cruel. The world is built around civilization being shattered, human panic, stuff being hidden and gods playing role. And per usual, religion being a cu**. Each season/story arc have it’s issues but few things apply to every story for the whole franchise. But in a nutshell. There are invaders, there is a Holy Tree that protects the world, there is religion called Taisha. Taisha has somehow Tree knowledge to empower the Tree to keep protecting world.

The “calm” of the franchise. And the “storm” of the franchise.

Lets talk about the “calm”. Essentially we get amazing slice of life of cute girls doing cute stuff. Mostly playing heroes of daily commute activities. Helping neighborhood. With moeblob era of remind me of K-on times. Very cute interactions and progression. Although what is done well, whilst at times (well, only for the movies at least felt so) feels too much of slow burner was the whole “calm” part being for too long. Plenty of slow presentation of girls living daily life , doing various activities.

Now to the “storm”. Oh boy, and I’m not talking about the action here as of yet. I mean the drama, the “Taisha/religion goup” reveals, twists being unveiled and messed around throughout the franchise is a trainwreck. And I mean not in a sense “it’s absolute garbage” but I mean in sense of “why the hell they have to toss so much hell on those girls”. After the whole moeblob episodes when the damn shit starts to get real, it hits hard. Things get dark fast and powerful.

The only issues I had would be season specific which I will shortly mention next. But as finishing touch for the whole franchise story aspect I will mention that much. Overall the story had great dark premise that was interesting, tragic, dramatic and powerful. There is no doubt in that. Regardless of it’s flaws in story downsides and questionable choices it was still a rather good storytelling when it comes to “tragic magical girls” type of story.

Season 1, the main squad shenanigans.
To put it simply the main issue I had here without spoiling anything. I think “price” value lost somewhat it’s point with how they decided to go with the story.
Which yes, is nice and all and required later on. But when I watched it my honest reaction was “but….eh…..why?”

Season 2, the prequel
Man….. I watched the movie versions. And my main complaint for this movie was the slower burner part of the first two movies I think? The slice-of-life part felt especially slow in these movies. That’s my only complaint here. Other than that…. ;_;

Season 3, the sequel
Probably was the strongest season for me, didn’t really have much of complaint or than the fact of getting over of season 1 finale self question. Couldn’t accept it still for few episodes. Then I didn’t have the emotional capacity to worry about that anymore.

Season 4, the sequel different point of view and the finale.
Okay…. that was a bloody weird to watch especially since I was binge watching everything In a row. So suddenly I’m re-watching season 3 just from a different characters viewpoint. Obviously new characters, new plot gets revealed new activities. But it was simply such a weird thing to experience. Overall what was revealed were interesting plot points that did explain few extra bits but more than anything it generated few more questions and more hatred towards Taisha and the Tree.

The finale itself, without spoiling. It’s not much. It’s aftermath of everything for a bit. That gives a glimpse into future. I personally think it was fitting enough, but would have liked a bit longer section of that part.

#Character
First of all, great stereotypes. Lot of cute characters with amazing quirks. Character interactions are LOT OF FUN and lovable. Dialogues, them messing with each other is entertaining and funny. Character drama, theatrics is POWERFUL, kept me quite most of the time on the edge, stressed and quite depressed and furious about the damn Tree and Taisha. Felt bad for the girls. The character growth themselves is somewhat debatable, they had their moments of realization, but mostly it was the magical girl emotions route. By that I mean girls thinking something alongside of “gotta get over it, hold that pain inside me, get stronger, not time to worry, not to hurt them” etc…. whilst did their characters actually ever grow in the series? I’d say somewhat, but mostly I’d say rather not, most of the character changes came from plot changes after seasons changes that simply changed their roles on what each character does, whilst personality’wise they remained the same. Only thing changed is their position in “society” I guess. Even in the whole grand finale.

That I think applies for the both main girls and the prequel story girls. As for the 4th season alternate point of view girls. Honestly, they felt too much of a side-characters to either grow into them or care about them. Although as characters they were okay, I personally found that didn’t have as much weight nor charm in their character as main story characters or prequel story characters.

#Art & Sound
Simple moeblob design with amazing magical girl battle sequences. Whilst the animation isn’t the most impressive it was still great enough. The soundtrack I loved, lot of great OST that I even listened separate on youtube.

#Enjoyment & Overall
Well, Madoka styled magical girls Anime, where animation style and visual design is less stylish and unique but honestly. The content was better for me. Also let me get this out. Fuck that Tree and fuck Taisha. Heroes are creatures who are obviously also mentally deranged, self-gratification from “serving the world-every living creature” without bias, entertaining to watch, but this story was prime example where just, just don’t do it. It’s not worth it. Let the world burn. Just enjoy your time with your close friends instead.

Gut wrenching franchise with amazing music and intriguing world and story. But yeah, poor girls. Probably would have something more to write and mention about, rant about. But that should sum it up as spoiler free as I can.

#Total Score 7/10