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With a plot written by a bunch of horny teenagers and animation done by some dude they found in the parking lot of a family diner at 4am, we get this borderline low budget hentai. No seriously, I swear the script was ripped straight from some long forgotten early 2000s hentai. You get about the same level of enjoyment from watching one as well just with low effort fan-service haphazardly thrown in. Low effort easily describes many aspects of the anime. It felt like they didn’t really care about the story, the animation quality was hilariously bad at times, and nearly every single character was ... either a walking cliche or utterly despicable. I will admit that I did actually kind of enjoy the main character. He deserves better in a better anime. He wasn’t completely unbearable unlike most characters and unlike most main characters in these types of anime, he knew how to handle drama well without blowing it out of proportion. He was a decent main character and then literally every other character was written was inappropriately as possible for television standards. They were just there for fan-service and to be as horny as possible. Props to the MC. No one else gets props. The story loosely follows a light novel pair of siblings, one is successful, one is not but has to pretend to be the successful one in the eyes of the public. Throughout the 10 episodes of the anime, that’s never really expanded upon or given enough detail to the point where viewers would care. From start to finish, I just didn’t care about what was going on and I think the anime didn’t care either. It wasn’t an infuriating watch or was it a painful watch. In fact, there was only one scene in the entire anime that I actually skipped through because the dialogue was just too much for me to bear. Just once seems like an accomplishment considering how awful the anime is as a whole. Ultimately, I just don’t care about this anime. The story was boring, most of the characters were bad, and the soundtrack felt near nonexistent. I do feel as if it could’ve been much worse than it was if only by a small margin. I’m not going to remember it for being hilariously bad or infuriatingly bad. There are tons of moments where the animation quality did get a laugh out of me, but the terrible script and awful characters suck a lot of the ironic enjoyment you could possibly get. You’re better off looking at screenshots of the poor animation, I’m sure the Internet has that covered in full. There are better anime out there, whether it be for ironic or un-ironic enjoyment. Hell, I know for a fact there’s far better Imouto anime out there because this is easily the worst in the genre.

I’ll be honest, I’m really biased when it comes to these types of anime. Cute monster girls doing cute things? Say no more. I’ll marathon the hell out of it. Ms. Vampire Who Lives in My Neighborhood (Or as I’ll call it, Vampire Neighbor) is no exception. This is no Demi-chan wa Kataritai. It won’t hit as deep as it and it won’t show as much character development, but it still has similar levels of cuteness and enjoyment. I use Demi-chan as a comparison because I really do see it as the quintessential monster girl anime. Vampire Neighbor delivers a really fun experience without any ... true low points or lapses in enjoyable moments. From beginning to end, you’ll be smiling and getting that sense of peace and tranquility that many Slice of Life anime give. It’s not exactly something that will constantly be on your mind or something that’ll be engraved into your memory, but that’s completely fine for most anime in this genre. There’s nothing to dislike about the anime, but nothing to truly gush over. All of the characters were really fun to see interact with one another and they all were designed well. I do wish there were a bit more focus on the supporting cast though. Some characters could’ve been utilized more instead of appearing in an upwards of three or so episodes. The humor revolves heavily on vampire hijinks and a surprising amount of otaku humor. It isn’t exactly something that will have you dying of laughter, but it’ll get a solid laugh from you every now and then. Vampire Neighbor is also very Yuri-centric in the usual slice of life fashion. Nothing ever gets to the point where you think it could become something greater than simple Yuri-bait, but if you find that sort of thing enjoyable, there’s plenty of it here. The anime has a lot of really good facial expressions on top of solid artwork too. The soundtrack was catchy and both the Opening and Ending themes were ones I almost never skipped. Simple monster girl slice of life anime aren’t that common, so I can highly recommend this for those who haven’t seen much monster girl anime or slice of life. (And Demi-chan, I’m actually trying my hardest not to turn this review into a rant on how amazing that anime was.) I do think Vampire Neighbor could serve as a good introduction into either genre/sub-genre.

I was really excited for Anima Yell before the season began. A slice of life/comedy about cheerleading? I’m all in, that’s something that hasn’t really been done in anime. Now that I’ve finished it, I can safely say that my excitement kind of paid off. While it wasn’t anything spectacular, it still hit all the beats of a good slice of life anime. There’s nothing to really dislike about it, but there’s nothing there to make you want to sing praise for it either. The characters were all likable, their designs were cute, their interactions were fun and enjoyable, and they all fit specific character ... archetypes, which could be good or bad depending on how you look at it. On one end, you’ve seen these types of characters again and again in other slice of life anime. At the same time, it’s not like these character types are bad or unlikable, they just lack uniqueness. At the end of the day, Anima Yell is a very normal slice of life. It’s solid, but nothing you haven’t seen before unless you’re really into seeing some cheerleading. The practices and dance routines were interesting and something I wish they went a bit more into. There is ONE scene in particular that is worth seeing alone in episode 3. Despite not being a full Yuri or Yaoi anime, there was a genuine coming out scene from a character. Sadly, it’s never expanded upon or referenced again. In fact, the rest of the show uses Yuri as a comedic device instead of being straightforward and serious like it did once before. It doesn’t detract from the overall enjoyment, but I would’ve loved to see more of these moments. The art was good, but could’ve been better in certain scenes. The music is definitely a highlight for me, I don’t think I’ll stop listening to the opening and ending anytime soon. I’d also love to see a second season that expands on the cheerleading club with more advanced techniques. There’s a lot of hidden potential, but I do feel like this is a one and done anime seasonal.

Why.
Whyyyyyyyyyyyy.
Season 1 didn’t need to exist. Season 2 without a doubt also didn’t need to exist. My faith in anime ends once Season 3 is announced.
OneRoom S2 continues the trend of creepy Point of View storytelling with awkward camera angles that don’t make any sense as a POV anime. POV isn’t my cup of tea, but at the very least the anime can commit to it. It sacrifices its POV shtick for creepy camera shots of these characters. All it does is make you feel uncomfortable, overly awkward, and a douche as an insert character. OneRoom really wants it’s viewers to imagine themselves as the ... main character. This works in things like RPGs where you make your own character and all, but not something like this where the camera (Where you as a character are looking at) keeps jumping all over the damn place. It’s inconsistent and breaks whatever immersion you somehow manage to have while watching it (Which 100% of the time is usually none whatsoever.) If the characters weren’t always designed to look like FBI bait, it’d be easier to sit through. I do *kinda* like the fact that the first arc focused on a girl from the previous season though, as it presented a chance for actual plot development. However, it was just more of the same. The other arcs were also uneventful, vague in what it wanted to do as a story, and ultimately felt like a waste of time. You won’t care about who any of these girls are and will forget them basically after each episode. The animation certainly looked good, but that’s really the only thing worth praising. After thinking about it, it might be worse than Season 1 purely due to the fact that it’s not as fun to make fun of. It was too dull and boring to really talk shit about. Like season one, OneRoom S2 doesn’t work as a romance, doesn’t work as a slice of life, doesn’t work as a POV production, and doesn’t work in general. Keep this series dead. Let it die. Let it fade into obscurity. It’s for the best. No one will miss it.

While a 7 out of 10 is nothing to scoff at, part of me is genuinely disappointed I couldn’t give this an 8. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen an entirely original romance anime. No manga or light novel to work off of or use as a template. However, Tada Never Falls in Love (or just Tadakoi) in no way feels original. I’ve seen plenty of romance anime and it honestly just felt like I’ve seen most of the romantic development before. Even worse, the central romance of the anime didn’t really get any focus until Episodes 6 and 8-13. Episodes 1-5 and 7 were ... mostly dedicated to either casual Slice of Life antics (Which isn’t bad by all means) or romantic sub-plots that don’t go anywhere. I truly feel like Tadakoi should’ve been 24 episodes long. It felt like it wanted to accomplish too much within the 13 episodes it had to work with. While the romance was fairly cliche and the slice of life segments weren’t anything special, Tadakoi is still a good anime. It uses all the good cliches at the very least, so there’s nothing aggravating about the anime for the most part. The characters were simply good. Nothing great or memorable, but solid nonetheless. Tada was quiet and rather stoic for a main character but still a very chill guy, Teresa was a lovable love interest, Ijuuin was voiced by Mamoru Miyano so he half stole the show, half got a bit too much at times (Like most of Miyano’s roles to be honest.) The rest of the cast weren’t anything worth mentioning as they didn’t really add much. There was a decent romantic subplot between Pin-senpai and Hinako (Friends of Tada and company in the Photography Club) but the anime essentially ran out of time for them. That entire subplot was forgotten by the anime in favor of the two main characters after Episode 8. As your standard slice of life school anime, the first 5-6 episodes are good. However, knowing full well that it’s a romance anime, it started to get a bit old. I wanted to see the development of the main romance, but it got pushed farther and farther back right until the very end. Speaking of, I won’t completely spoil the ending, but god damn it, I’m disappointed with it. It had everything perfectly set up for an unique ending, but settled for being generic at the LITERAL last minute. For me, it managed to raise more questions than answers. While the animation was gorgeous at times and accompanied by a very good soundtrack, Tadakoi is ultimately generic story wise. It’s a romance anime you’ve probably seen countless times before, but it’s fairly difficult to hate. Not a whole lot to love, but far from being average.

If you told me before the season started that one of my favorite anime would’ve been about cute horse girls doing races and performing idol performances... I probably would’ve believed you because that actually sounds dumb enough to be good. Uma Musume wasn’t JUST good, it was great. Even if you take away the whole horse girl side of things, you still have a great anime about character striving to be the best runners they can, how they deal with training, rivalry, and losing on their way to achieving their goals. It’s a great character piece where the Main Character doesn’t always win, doesn’t always ... pull through when she has to, and sometimes you don’t know who to root for. These races can get surprisingly intense. It’s not as simple as “whoever has plot armor wins the race.” Each race is full of interesting characters with their own unique designs and racing tactics. While not all of the main cast gets enough time to truly shine, the main two were wonderful to see. Special Week and Silence Suzuka were great to see help one another as friends and rivals. The other members of their team never get the spotlight themselves, but they do well in supportive roles. The screen time they do get is always fun to see. It’s also worth mentioning that every character in the anime is based off of a real life race horse. So if you’re really into horse races, you’ll definitely see some names that look familiar. In the anime, the winning horse girls in a competition get to do these big idol performances to celebrate their victory. However, outside the first and last episodes, we really never get to see them. I should probably be glad the races themselves were made more important than idol performances, it would’ve been nice to see more of. While this was all technically just promotion for the upcoming mobile game, it was great for a standalone anime. It’s filled to the brim with colorful, unique characters, had some intense races, great character dynamics, and is an anime that I will truly miss watching each week. It really did a great job of selling the premise of the game. I’ll definitely check that out and get frustrated when I don’t summon a SSR Special Week.

There is a very fine line between “Relaxing” and “Boring.” Rokuhoudou constantly switches between the two. Some episodes give off the perfect feeling of peace and relaxation with a quiet atmosphere and characters taking time off from their hard lives to have dessert or drink some tea. Other episodes can get borderline sleep inducing. Not because of the peaceful premise, but out of sheer boredom. It’s not particularly enjoyable whenever the anime tries to be anything besides calming. The humor never lands and the character development isn’t interesting. Most episodes tend to focus on new customers visiting the tea shop with their own personal issues. ... Almost all of these personal issues end up being solved by good food or a good drink. It’s not exactly the most dynamic or engaging, but some episodes still manage to be very calming when it handles each character embracing the peacefulness of the tea shop. I kind of wish it stuck with being episodic, as some customers get multiple episodes or segments. Most of them end up feeling like they are overstaying their welcome. As for the actual main cast, I don’t really have much to say. None of them were very interesting or memorable, but none of them were bad. They played their roles adequately. There was a big subplot that the anime built up throughout the entire 12 episodes surrounding one of the MC’s and his brother, but that did not go anywhere. Nothing was really gained from it, it wasn’t interesting, and it didn’t even deliver any character development so it felt like a waste of time. Still, the anime was calming and peaceful when it really tried. While nothing was amazing, memorable, or engaging, Rokuhoudou is still a decent watch for those looking to relax with something easy.

Considering this came out around the time I got heavily invested into Fate/Grand Order, an anime about a JP gacha game was very fitting. Doesn’t exactly make it a good anime though. I was never that big of a fan of referential humor. If you play gacha games, you’ll understand most of the references and jokes. Whether or not you’ll find that funny is another thing. I understood the references, but it was ultimately something I’d just say “Yeah, I get that” and move on without giving it any extra thought. There were probably about 2-3 episodes that I truly found myself enjoying. Most of ... the humor didn’t hit for me and the episodes that weren’t anime/gacha references were absolutely boring to sit through. The main cast were all completely forgettable outside of Choco. She’s the type of character who basically knows she’s in an anime based off of a mobile game, so her 4th wall breaking meta humor was enjoyable. The other 3 really don’t bring anything to the anime at all. However, Last Period makes up for it by having AMAZING side characters. Particularly the group called Wiseman. They serve as the main group’s rivals/antagonists, but they bring so much life and enjoyment to an otherwise below average anime. They were over the top, ridiculous, had great character designs, personalities, and were just fun to see. Hell, even the ED of the anime was their very own theme song sung by the three members of Wiseman. They made the anime worth continuing each week just to see their antics. Ultimately, they can only improve the anime so much. It’s still an average anime that really isn’t worth sitting through unless you’re a diehard gacha fan. You’re not missing out on much.

Golden Kamuy is one of those anime that I think are undeniably entertaining, but I ultimately don’t have much to say about it. It’s not exactly in depth or memorable as some of the other anime this season, but it’s definitely good. I can’t deny that. At the same time, there are no particular scenes that stand out, no characters that I was truly interested in, and a plot that really doesn’t go anywhere. Despite all of that, I am still able to say Golden Kamuy was fun. If I had to pick an aspect of the anime that was memorable, it’d be that it ... was funnier than I was expecting it to be. I don’t have much to say about the any of the main cast outside of their basic descriptions you could get off of a wiki page. There weren’t any bad character at the very least. Oh, I almost forgot about the CGI Bears. A lot of people think they looked weird and out of place. Those people would be right. I just found it funny each time and was looking forward to seeing how it’d find a way into an episode. While the last episode was probably the least enjoyable of the 12, I can appreciate the fact that the episode announced that the 2nd season would be airing in October. It really makes up for the lackluster season finale.

Now this was a genuinely surprising anime for me. From the very beginning, something about Caligula had me hooked. It’s not that I found it to be amazing or anything, but I found it infinitely interesting. I was excited to see what would happen with each passing week. Thankfully, that feeling stayed with me until the very end. Caligula is far from an amazing anime, but I’ll be damned if I say I was invested in it. The main premise alone interests me enough to look forward to how things will play out. An AI program creates this digital world where everyone is happy because ... it provides those that are trapped inside with whatever they want. The AI lets me run away from their grievances of reality to live this false world. There are people who are fully content with living out these glorified versions of their perfect world and perfect selves, but the main cast all want to escape. They all had their reasons for coming into the false world known as Mobius and the anime does an amazing job of slowly building that up and revealing it. We get to see this cast full of flawed individuals actively go against a world that fixes their flaws for them. While the anime doesn’t give as much focus to each and every character, it gets the basics of their personality and history across enough for you to understand their reasonings. Caligula relies heavily on these characters, how they act, and what they’ve been through. It also relies on the dialogue and interactions between all of these differing characters. This anime had some AMAZING dialogue exchanging between people of opposing viewpoints. While the story itself is a bit hard to follow at first, the writing is consistently good. The action scenes weren’t anything impressive, sadly. If the anime gave more focus to some of the cast and had amazing action sequences, this would’ve been an easy 9 out of 10 for me. The anime is a bit too ambitious with how it goes about presenting certain plot points, so the story can feel as if it’s progressing too fast or too slow at times. Some things aren’t explained very well. Despite all of that, Caligula still managed to make me get invested into the plot and the cast. There are plenty of insert songs in each episode that serve as wonderful background songs. The animation also looked really good at times, nothing special at others. This was a surprising gem of the season that I honestly wouldn’t mind watching again in the future. It’s based off of a JRPG, so maybe that’s worth looking into...