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If you asked anyone to describe Children of the Whales, they would probably call it a tragedy. The people that enjoyed it would say it’s a heartbreaking tragedy filled with death and agony, a show packed with emotion. The people that disliked it would call it a tragedy in a more literal sense, and personally I agree with them. With boring and unexplored characters, predictable and badly paced drama, and a dollop of plot armour to top it all off, Children of the Whales manages to mess up almost every part of what could have made it an interesting watch.

Our MC for the show Chakuro ... feels like a misplaced side character given a slight power boost. He doesn’t do much but survive the whole ordeal and worry about everything, making him completely irrelevant to the story. Our converted enemy Lykos is only around for plot progression, occasionally rising up to be important and then shrinking back into a somewhat empty cast member. The real MC Ouni is the one that holds the most importance and gets explored more than every other character, but for some reason, the show continues to brush him aside so our two less interesting mascots Chakuro and Lykos can take over.

The rest of the cast are only around to create drama, make stupid decisions, and die when needed. I can’t count the amount of faceless blobs of mass that have lost their lives in a desperate attempt to suck out some fragment of despair from its audience. It tries to make us feel attached to people while making no attempt to actually allow us to get to know any of them. There are a few people that the show deems to be of some worth for whatever reason, so it keeps them alive with the wonderful power of plot armour and convenience. Instead of enemies killing them instantly like they do with every other unlucky soul, they take their time to have a little conversation to reveal some plot points, allowing our good guys to make it out alive so they can again be unimportant.

Talking about dying, the drama is a collection of the most predictable situations I have ever seen. You can see almost everything coming from a mile away, and when the show does try to surprise you, the horrid pacing stops you from giving a single shit about each lacklustre episode. Add in the already mentioned plot armour and character stupidity and you are left with massacre after massacre that carry no meaning other than to be a cheap emotional scene for us to sigh over. The only parts that carry any impact are centred around Ouni dealing with his history as a mole rat and him trying to protect his friends. However, the pacing and plot armour still brought it down quite significantly. The story could have made a comeback if it had just played its cards right. To make it even worse, the story ends right when everything is building up for a major arc, just to throw the cherry on the mess that was supposed to be a cake.

Now the two biggest problems I have with this anime are the plot holes and singing. The show states that the Allied Empire, the antagonists of the show, is a country filled with emotionless citizens for reasons explained in the show. Emotionless characters are a tough thing to write so many opt to go with characters that start off emotionless and slowly learn to have human feelings, with even Children of the Whales trying (and failing) this with Lykos. However, the supposedly blank slates that our good guys fight against sure seem to be pretty human to me. Showing signs of fear, desires, and ambition, it’s really frustrating having the show keep telling you that they are emotionless when they are clearly not.

And the bloody singing. Why does the show think it’s alright to break out into songs during the middle of a battlefield? Are they trying to make the show seem more deep and dark with a random sad musical playing over some the serious scenes of the anime? I’m trying to find a reason to like this show but it decides to make up for its terrible drama by distracting us with a little singalong. What the legit fuck? It annoys me so much to see something so out of place in an already bad anime.

Children of the Whales is a show that deserves little praise. It is a massive disappoint that it’s only redeeming point is that it looks nice. No one cares about how good a show looks if the story going alongside it is subpar. Avoid this show, move past it and find something that’s actually worth putting your time into, because this show is just a waste of time.

Ok, let’s get it over and done with. We all know what you’re waiting for. Those “hilarious” statements that everyone is making. Hidden gem of the season. Diamond in the rough. Beating every other show by a landslide. And hey, everyone is right with the overused puns. Houseki no Kuni is fucking great, it really does outshine the rest… I’m sorry I’ll stop.

For a show that could be tagged as a tragedy, it’s really lighthearted. Sure it establishes the consequences of their world, with the Lunarians shattering every Gem they can get their grubby mitts on, but you don’t really get a sense of misfortune ... from this story until much later on. Maybe it’s because the characters can’t actually die and can be put back together if they’re taken back from the enemy, but the show does a really good job of switching between it’s serious and comedic moments. One moment someone is drowning in acid or having their eyeball smashed out of their head, then the next everyone is poking fun at the youngest member for being useless. You’re constantly switching between shock and amusement that every scene has much more impact then it would have without it. Many shows try to do the same thing, but often times their comedy can overpower the drama and make it feel too silly. Houseki is able to keep both sides balanced so that it can switch tones with ease.

You could also consider the story to be a bit of a mystery as you’re left in the dark with some elements of Kongou-sensei, their supposedly trustworthy and parent like master. You get glimpses of moments where things aren’t exactly what they appear to be, leaving you curious for more. However, by the time you reach the last episode, it’s clear the story isn’t made to fit into a 1 cour anime. The story is left unfinished and you’re left aching for a sequel, which is a bit disappointing considering how greatly it drew you into the show.

The Gems act as the cast for Houseki and they are quite the funny bunch. They don’t sit around acting gloomy over the fact that they’re being chased after by giant wax figures that rip holes into the sky, (Yeah the Lunarians are really creepy when you think about it) most of them act a little like children. Of course, each one has their own jobs that they’re serious about, like scouting, fighting and repairing. They all have this youthful curiosity about them which can be seen very clearly whenever they encounter something new and unknown. Their mentality contrasts against the harsh situation of being kidnapped, broken and rebuilt against your will. Although, with such a big cast of 28 characters, (Probably less since some have already been taken by the Lunarians) only a select few get some proper exploration. If only the show had more time to actually polish a few more of the other Gems so none of them are left to waste, the show would be significantly better. Ha get it? Polish. Gems. Ahahahaha sorry.

Of course, we have to talk about the CG animation before we finish up the review. There are some people that say the show looks laggy to them, but in my honest opinion, I don’t see what they are talking about at all. This is some of the best 3D animation I’ve seen from anime. The assortment of hairdos flowing across the screen, the light refracting off each character, and the manipulated liquid being controlled by certain Gems, it’s breathtaking watching the show every week. The action as well really conveys the frantic panic and trouble they are in when a dangerous Lunarian appears, with the camera continuously pursuing characters as they run, dash, swing and jump into their battles. It’s almost like watching a boss fight in a video game, with the same level of tension and nervousness as you hope everyone will be safe by the end. Houseki no Kuni really makes me excited to see what else I’ll get to see from Studio Orange

I have nothing more to say. This anime blew my eyes out of their sockets with how great it looks, and the story accompanying it is so full of intrigue and suspense that I fell in love with it immediately. The issues I do have with the show are really minor in comparison to everything else it does well, and I highly hope that every else checks out this spectacle for themselves.

Come one come all as we watch Elderly Robot Jesus plays killer laser tag with Teenage (also) Robot Terrorist… aka the story of Inuyashiki. Sounds like an exciting show right? Two machines of mass destruction face off against each other in a classic hero vs villain anime, really draws the audience’s curiosity. Well too bad it’s not as interesting as the synopsis makes it out to be. As much as I enjoyed the villain, the rest doesn’t really hold up as well.

Since the show’s main priority is to build up the final fight between our main characters, let’s talk about them first. Inuyashiki… is kinda ... boring. An old man who doesn’t do much except for talk about how much he can’t forgive bad people. Sure he wants to play the hero, but it’s only really an excuse to find a purpose in his life. There is one episode where he becomes a little morally grey, but due to it only happening once and never being touched on again, it just feels like some weird superhero phase for him. Along with the same episode adding and disposing of new characters that no one cares for, it just felt really out of place.

Hiro, on the other hand, is a great character. They establish his reason for using his newfound powers for murder, and they allow you to see his inner justification for his despicable actions. Everything he does has its own consequences, resulting in the people he cares being targeted by society in a desperate attempt to bring him to justice. We watch as his view of the world turns from amusement to hatred, his emotions switching between joy and anguish, evolving from a somewhat playful serial killer to a one-man army. The sheer difference between the two MCs is so stark that I ended up cheering for Hiro as he shoots up everything remotely Japanese.

The rest of the characters are pretty unimportant, with only a few other characters getting any real exploration. The others only get screen time for one of two reasons: 1. They’re gonna get killed off or 2. They’re gonna need to be saved. You can’t really care about all these side characters knowing they serve no other purpose than to be plot devices. It also makes character deaths pretty predictable across the series… at least it would have been if it wasn’t for the powers of Robot Jesus.

Don’t worry guys, Inuyashiki and Hiro can basically bring people back from the dead, mend your bones and cure cancer just by holding their lifeless corpse for a few seconds, so most of the characters that die will spring back up again like nothing happened. Hurray for plot armour, thank you for ruining almost every character death scene. Thank you for making the drama basically hit or miss in the amount of impact they hold on the characters and the audience. Thanks a bloody lot.

The rest of the show is riddled with various other problems. For a decent amount of the first half, the pacing is way too fast, trying to rush through the drama Inuyashiki or Hiro must face. You can’t get a grip on the seriousness of the situation before it jumps into the next scene, leaving you completely unsatisfied. Fortunately, by the time it hits the second half, it has already managed to slow down, making it a much more enjoyable experience.

Many of the reactions from characters also seem to tone done the emotions the show is trying to portray. Characters are either too quick to grieve over everything or seemingly don’t care about the horrible shit that’s happening around them. People say that this was done on purpose to make our MCs feel more human than humanity itself, but it just doesn't work in its favour. There is no state of initial shock to help transition the character's emotions to what they should be, so the show succeeds at making it’s characters feel fake and robotic. Which is kinda funny thinking when you think about it.

If I had to describe the action of Inuyashiki, I would call most of it comical and a little ridiculous. An elderly man with no fighting experience bitch slapping enemies so hard that they end up spinning in mid-air or bouncing around the room, and a teenage boy finger gunning everyone to death by saying Bang and Ratatatat over and over… It just feels really silly most of the time. The show is trying to stay serious all the time but I just can’t keep a straight face when I watch it. Sure there is also a fair share of really good action scenes, but even then I can’t take them at face value without being reminded of the show’s previous attempts. Adding in the Trump cameo and final arc, I don't know how anyone is supposed to watch this without either laughing out loud or getting a little pissed off.

And finally, the CG animation. My God, it does not look good most of the time. It’s so out of place when it continuously switches between 2D and 3D. I get that it must take too much time to draw the intricate machine parts that make up our main characters, but it’s just used way too often. Even the final battle has some CG explosions and they look atrocious. Compared to the beautiful Houseki no Kuni sharing the same airing season, it’s such a major step-down.

I’ve gone on long enough and it sounds like I hate the show, so let me make it clear. It really does have it’s good moments when it focuses on Hiro making sense of how he should use his powers, so I can’t give this anime a low score. I can only recommend this if you can enjoy a well-made villain, everything else leaves a lot to be desired.

May Contain Slight Spoilers

Normally a show like Juuni Taisen would get quite a low score from me. From very early on you could figure out the order the battle royale was going for, and even if you couldn’t there were plenty of other hints to let you know who would die and who would be the winner. However, I just couldn’t bring myself to hate it. What saved the show from going below 5/10 were the characters. I, like many others, love a good villain, and a show that has such a variety of messed up individuals was able to slightly make up for the ... lacklustre action and deaths.

For any show to work, it needs interesting characters. For all that Juuni Taisen did poorly, the characters it created were pretty great. Each one is a warrior, doing jobs that no one else could with the lost lives of thousands in their resumes. Of course, not everyone goes about this the same way, and it creates a cast that you want to get invested in even though they'll probably die. You get a deceitful Robin Hood that causes both the rich and poor to suffer, a beast-like soldier that drowns their PTSD in alcohol and blood, and a master manipulator with some special eyes in the sky, just to name a few. Almost every character felt unique in the way they act upon and view their surroundings, making it quite a grim experience as you watch all their planning go to ruin. Even some of the abilities were able to capture my curiosity as I watched them either raise an army of the dead, create poisons and bombs as their weapons or just simply rip people to shreds in a variety of different ways.

Unfortunately, for as much as I enjoyed the characters, the rest of the show just didn't quite hit the mark. For an action show, the fights were so lacklustre. You rarely got to see them battle it out and when they did it felt pretty messy with it either jumping from scene to scene way too much or using off looking CG animation for the characters. To be perfectly honest, the backstories of each character showing them outside of the Juuni Taisen was much more fun to watch than the actual show. They were a perfect representation of how fucked up war is and how it affects people differently, even the ones that you’d think are used to the everyday slaughter. Grief, joy, trauma, ecstasy, and a plethora of other emotions can be found across the cast as they continued their awful ways of living. The only characters that I wasn't too fond of in terms of personality and backstory were Dog (an assassin who specialises in poison) and Horse, (a science experiment soldier afraid of losing) as they felt a bit shallow compared to the rest of our cast, but ignoring them the show really nailed its flashbacks.

So, you’re probably asking how exactly does a show about killing each other work if there isn’t much action, and sadly it just doesn’t. Most of the deaths are too quick and lack impact, with only a few occasional ones that are given enough time to give a little more depth to the characters in their final moments. I get that the show is trying to say that if these people make even just one simple mistake, they could die on the battlefield as quickly as snapping your fingers, but watching such nice characters get such swift ends is just not as enjoyable as it could have been.

I really wanted Juuni Taisen to be amazing, but it just couldn’t reach the expectations I had for it. It was still an enjoyable show, but it could have been so much better if it hadn’t been a battle royale. Give me a spin-off series where it’s just the characters on the battlefield instead of the arena where we watch them do what they do best, and I’ll fall in love. For what I have right now… I’m a little disappointed knowing that recommending it to others will probably just add to the number of people that hate it.

May contain slight spoilers...

For an anime that’s entire focus is dancing, I’m a little disappointed in some of the dance scenes I found in Welcome to the Ballroom. Why, you may ask? Well, if I had to sum up my issues with the show, I’d probably blame them on the show’s budget. Of course, it wasn’t all bad as I thoroughly enjoyed the characters that I met in this 2 cour anime, and the drama and comedy kept me watching for more, but I just couldn’t shake the problems I kept picking up on.

First of all, let’s start with the good points. The characters are ... all lovely and most of them get their own special moment in the spotlight. We either watch them dance their hearts out or peer into their backstories that are filled with all the hardships that they endured to become the athletes they are today. Their interactions with each other are also hilarious, as dancers competing in their pairs are forced to try and somewhat get along, allowing some funny or gripping moments between the cast.

Each of their differing personalities clashes with each other, from an enthusiastic newbie that learns differently from others, the professionals that practice endlessly to maintain their status and a female dancer that would rather act as the male lead role in the couple. The more you progress into the show, the more you learn about a certain someone as they continue to grow in experience and skill. Add in rivals and silly facial reactions and it becomes a joy to watch their antics as they either try to teach the new kid to dance the basics or look away when one of them is being subjected to some painful joint stretches. You can’t help but have fun watching the cast training to perfect their dance routines or enjoying their lives as school students.

Of course, these same elements are used to create drama as well, with a sibling couple separating cause they can’t seem to reach their full potential together or an old-fashioned dancer trying to make a comeback after being out of the game for awhile. You can’t be the best in anything if you don’t overcome obstacles, and the show knows how to create situations for our characters so they can rise up to the challenge. The mix of laughter and tears accumulate into a story that just draws you into their world of professional ballroom dancing as they enter tournament after tournament to show off their style to everyone around them.

Now the main issue I have with the show, the actual dancing. Due to it being an animated show locked under money constraints, it’s forced to use way too many stills and transitions to try and make it’s dancing scenes barely “passable”. If may work for other anime to do something like this, but for a sport that solely relies on body movement to entertain its audience, a lot of the time there is not enough actual movement.

What’s even worse is all the dialogue that should just be going on in the background becomes the focus as the camera is forced from the characters dancing to someone in the audience commenting on what’s happening. Instead of being an anime about dancing, it seems to turn into an anime about people talking about dancing a few too many times.

The music for some tournaments also needs to be improved, as there are a quite a few scenes where the songs in the first half don’t exactly match the dancing. Dancing and music go hand in hand, so to mess up something as important as this, along with every other issue mentioned, it’s gonna lower the enjoyment of the show quite significantly. It might be better to just read the manga where it’s already still/quiet so you won't have to sit through the anime's problems or wait for a movie that has more time and cash to actually put in the effort needed to make the show look good.

Even with the frequently lacklustre dance animation, Welcome to the Ballroom was still a joy to watch each week. The characters and story kept me from hating the show, keeping my score and view of the show decently high. Of course, there may be people that can’t forgive an anime for being unable to properly portray its main focus, so some might see the manga as best option if you still wanna try the series. If I had to choose between calling this show a good or bad experience, I would have to say it was pretty good, so at least try it out for yourself. Anime or manga, whichever one you decide, just let yourself get dragged into their story.

To be honest, I was looking forward to My Girlfriend is a Faithful Bitch (Sho-Bitch for short) at the start of the season. From what I could see, it was a bunch of cute girls making fun of the MC by being as lewd as possible. It didn’t sound like anything amazing but it looked fun enough to give a try. I thought I was right with my judgement as the first few episodes were pretty funny and I genuinely enjoyed it. Then it just kept adding more and more characters, each lewder and dumber than the last one, and I slowly started to regret ... my decision.

As I already said, I laughed at first. It didn’t do anything extraordinary with the comedy but it was funny nevertheless. However, the show tried to become more and more extravagant with its lewdness, devolving into forced gags every single episode. At first, it only had the generic MC, an airhead girlfriend who can’t figure out how to act in a relationship, and a childhood friend and little sister who were too close for comfort. This cast wasn’t much but the jokes they created were just enough to make most chuckle.

That was until the cast slowly increased its numbers, which just overloaded the show. Each one would create misunderstanding after misunderstanding which got more and more unbelievable and unrealistic, throwing in an assortment of incest jokes, gay jokes, and public sex jokes. You just can’t laugh at a show where a transfer student says she loves playing with hairy boys, which is what she calls her dogs for whatever reason, or when the most popular kid in school (who also happens to be gay) helps the MC to get better at baseball, which somehow manages to look and sound like him giving him a handjob from afar.

To make matters worse, it provides no breathing room as it transitions from scene to scene to show off the next new gag. The lack of a coherent flow just buries you under a mountain of bad comedy, making you want nothing more than to finish the episode already so you can be free of this torture.

Sho-Bitch tries way too hard to make the character's every piece of dialogue as dirty as possible that the only thing you can do is sigh in disbelief, unable to understand why these characters are so fucking stupid. After a while, the only time I could laugh was when someone running around went head first into a desk, which I think is a good representation of how much I dislike the cast. In fact, I will go as far as to say that by the time I reached the halfway mark, I hated every single character and would love nothing more to watch the entire school burn to the ground in a fiery blaze.

The romance isn’t much better. It tries to be really sweet all the time, like the MC thanking his girlfriend for trying to make him lunch, even though it sent someone to the infirmary when they tasted it, or him trying to look cool in front of her by practising hitting a home run in secret. It really would have been sweet if the build-up to the romance wasn’t riddled with the terrible humour mentioned above. When you can’t take the show seriously, everything suffers, and the romance suffered the most.

Another reason would be the actual couple. I said before that I hate all of them, but I was actually fine with Shinozaki and Kousaka (along with a few others) at the beginning. It was somewhat cute watching Kousaka try (fail) to understand Shinozaki's fetish so she can be a better girlfriend, but you soon grow tired of it. She just ends up looking like a massive idiot. Shinozaki ain't any better, as he doesn't have a defining characteristic about him. He's just there to either make a comment after each gag or be added to the evergrowing pile of misunderstandings. His boring personality doesn't stand out at all, making him more uninteresting than a bag of rocks.

It had a nice start. I’ll give Sho-Bitch that, but what followed shortly after is unforgivable. If I haven’t convinced you to avoid this show, then go for it. Proceed knowing the fact that you’ll probably be in excruciating mental pain as you try to force your way through this disaster disguised as entertainment. I know I said I enjoyed it at first, but giving this show a higher score just would not sit right with me.

Slight spoilers for Episode 6

Moe and Spies are not exactly two tropes you would put together. Moe can often be found in a relaxing Slice of Life that usually contains lots of Comedy, while Spies takes a more Action/Adventure filled route packed with Drama. No one would ever look at these two very different ideas and consider putting them together would make a great anime, yet here we are. Princess Principal is our latest Cute Girls Doing Cool Things, (CGDCT) and its ability to integrate these contrasting themes as if they were made for each other is praiseworthy in itself.

Princess Principal follows an episodic formula, ... where only the beginning and end arcs span over more than a single episode. The rest is just a selection of missions and daily antics used to explore our characters. Now the curious thing is that most of the anime is not in chronological order. If you look at the episode list on MAL, you can see that each one has a case number set for them ranging from 1-24. But wait, you say with a confused expression on your face! If the highest case number is 24 and the episode count is only 12, where are the remaining 12 cases? Well, they just don't exist. The only real reason I can say about why the creators made it this way is that they just decided to. You aren't really given much of an answer for why they decided to air their show like this, but since it is episodic, the mixed up order and the other supposedly missing cases aren't that big of a deal, although with more episodes the show could've fleshed its world out more.

So putting aside the confusing stuff, we follow a team of 5 spies consisting of Ange le Carré, a master of lies that can use a device to manipulate gravity, Dorothy, the getaway driver and mistress of seduction, Chise, an expert sword-wielding exchange student from Japan, Beatrice, a friend of the Princess who can mimic voices and sounds due to family circumstances, and the Princess herself, someone with an obvious amount of influence which she uses in her favour. This group of girls work together to complete missions every episode, and they're actually really good at their job. There is no ragtag bunch of misfits who need to become the best spies in the world, almost every member are already experts in their fields and the ones that aren't exactly spy-worthy quickly learn how to properly contribute to their team, making them all click together like cogs in a steampunk anime. Each one gets their time in the spotlight to either do what they do best or have their character explored. No member feels left out as we get to see what each one is like through revealments of their pasts, and their interactions with each other allow us to actually see them as somewhat real people with feelings of their own, while also providing some comedy and emotional scenes that don't feel out of place or unnatural.

The actual missions they are given are either about solving mysteries or finding confidential items/information. The action and other spy scenes for the show look great and really express how badass each character is, and the occasional moe scene that reminds us they're cute girls don't overstay their welcome while actually adding some extra layers to their personality. However, the main focus of Princess Principal is the drama that surrounds most cases. Although you are able to guess how an episode might go most of the time, it doesn't matter at all as they portray them with such emotion that you can't help but get engaged with each scene. For example, one episode has them getting a job at a morgue to find a confidential message hidden in one of the corpses, and one of the spies meet their Dad for the first time in ages. It's a classic story of abuse separating a family, a man broken by an industrial accident who took his anger and stress out onto their daughter, causing her to run away from home. We watch as they get to understand why their life fell apart and try to restart their family as a way to make amends, but sadly it just doesn't work out and the show moves on to the next episode. Of course, it sounds like a pretty standard piece of drama that we've seen done many times over, but the show manipulates the characters dialogue and actions to actually make you care for a scene where we had already predicted what would happen, like having Beatrice mimic the father's singing voice to greatly enhance the impact of the previous events. You can see similar examples of this done throughout the anime, allowing Princess Principal to really tug at your heartstrings and pull out the feelings they want you to experience. However, an episode will fail to hit the mark and cause it to feel a little lacking when compared to the rest of the series, but this happens only once or twice so it doesn't significantly lower your enjoyment of the show.

Although it's obvious to assume otherwise, there is, in fact, an overarching story that focuses on Operation Changeling, the team's main mission to replace the Princess with a spy that looks like her, allowing them to take control of the royal family. Now you may remember that near the start of my review, I mention the Princess as part of the spy team, so you might be curious about why they need to go through with this if they already have her on their side. Well, the story progression makes things more clear as the show goes on. It is given to us bit by bit due to the episodic non-chronological episodes, but it actually works in their favour as they are able to slowly reveal secrets behind the Princess and some of the other team members that change the way the plot develops, creating a final climax arc that is able to successfully finish off the series on a high note.

Now if there was one thing I really had to call out as a major flaw, it would be the lack of exploration in the side characters and villains. The show sets up some characters that seem important to the story, but fail to really do anything but make them appear once or twice. The villains look intriguing enough but they're only there to occasionally do something evil and slip back into the void of lost potential. We also have a group of higher-ups that give orders to the team, but again they are only there for that one reason. We get the occasional dialogue between them as they sit together at a table talking about how the episode is going, and that's as much screen time we get for them. If these characters had been given a more involving role throughout the entire story and not just for the final arc, their uselessness could have been avoided and would have significantly improved an already great anime.

I can proudly say that Princess Principal is my Anime of the Season for Summer 2017, but there are still problems that could have probably be fixed if the show had been given an extra cour to really shine some light on the parts that didn't get touched on much. Putting that problem aside, this was one of the seasonals I truly looked forward to watching every week, which is why I hold it in such high regard. If you had doubts about how well this anime can mix cute girls with espionage, I highly recommend that you pick it up and experience this for yourself.

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Slight Spoiler about Episode 11 and a "Major" Spoiler about Episode 7

Kakegurui is more of an experimental anime than a gambling one. How much plot armour can you use in a single story before the viewers started to get annoyed? Apparently, the answer is a lot. As you can see from the MAL score, people seem to love this anime. It's crazy characters and intense drama was able to create a fanbase that loved every single part of Kakegurui. However, with every show, especially the popular ones, comes a significant number of people that just weren't able to enjoy what this show had to offer, ... and I guess I fall into the latter of Kakegurui's watchers.

Looking at the cast of Kakegurui, most of the characters are pretty messed up in the head. We have one that collects human nails, another that loves playing Russian Roulette with herself and our main Yumeko Jabami, who literally gets off by taking risks in gambles. In fact, the only one without an eccentric personality is Ryouta Suzui, although he's only really there to occasionally comment on how the game's going and serves no other purpose but to worry over Yumeko as she throws herself into another gamble. Back to the nutcases, it's perfectly fine to have insane characters to spice up your cast, but when you have this many to this extent, you start to forget they're supposed to be actual people within their world. Their personalities are so exaggerated that it's hard to take any of them seriously, and when you factor in the anime's formula of moving from one big game to another, most of the characters just become another crazy face for Yumeko to defeat, only popping back up a few more times to remind us that they still exist within this school.

Now the other important side of Kakegurui is the drama. Each gamble usually has the same set of steps, Yumeko faces off against someone, the opponent makes it look like they have the upper hand with either a cheating method or their intellectual superiority, but Yumeko soon turns the tables on them and mind breaks them harder than a hentai heroine. Now for the first few games, it might have been entertaining to watch, but after a while, you start to get tired of seeing it happen over and over. A number of issues also pop up, further bringing down my enjoyment of the show.

First of all, plot armour and convenience. Yumeko will never lose an important match, the story won't allow her. With stakes like massive debt, slavery and sometimes even death, it would be problematic if Yumeko lost too many times as she would no longer be able to participate as our main character. So the obvious solution is to make her incredibly lucky. Sure you could try to make each game a battle of wits, allowing our MC to come up with ingenious strategies while crushing her opponent's plans in the process, but who wants to see something like that? Mind games are boring, I'd rather just watch Yumeko shine her shinigami eyes and win over and over. Games that hold no dramatical impact are much better than an intense showdown between two people, ain't that right everyone?

Secondly, shock factor. No, I'm not talking about the twisted and contorted faces each character makes, I'm fine how messed up each cast member looks during the show. I'm more focused on the actions that some of the characters make during an episode. For example, Yumeko asks Itsuki Sumeragi for a loan so that she could defeat Kaede Manyuda, but Manyuda taunts Sumeragi by saying she has no chance of reaching the top. In an act to show off how determined she is to become the best of the best, Sumeragi bites down on her nails and rips them out with her teeth. Now, why the fuck would you do that? Just give Yumeko the money and make a speech about how you do have the guts to take a risk, you didn't need to physically injure yourself. There is only one reason why you'd do this, and it's to create shock factor. The show wants to make you feel squeamish, so they pull off these ridiculous scenes to make you squeal while covering your eyes in fear. It doesn't work that way, guys. You need a reason behind gore and other messed up scenes, just mindlessly showing off stuff like this all the time causes it to feel forced and lessen the amount of impact the scene would have originally had.

Thirdly and finally, plot developments that make no sense. Now granted, this doesn't happen as often as the first two issues I mentioned, but it's something that needs to be addressed. In episode 7 where Yumeko is facing off against Midari Ikishima, playing a game called ESP Roulette. Someone in a separate room creates a pattern by placing a set of cards face down, each marked with different symbols, and a live feed is broadcasted to the room where the players are. The two opponents must then place their cards face down, each with the same set of symbols to try and guess the order. Of course, once all the cards are revealed, the person who guesses the most wins that round, and the chance to shoot their opponent with a revolver filled with a varied amount of bullets, hence the roulette part of ESP Roulette. (Again shock factor and plot armour wow so intense) Now, Yumeko figures out that Midari is cheating by occasionally inverting the video feed, changing the order shown on the screen. However, this provides neither an advantage or disadvantage for any of the players. Midari still has no idea what order the cards are set up until they're revealed, and her partners on the other side have no idea how well Midari guessed the cards, she's just changing the order up for no reason. It makes no sense to have her do this when it makes no difference to whether she has a better chance of winning or losing.

Kakegurui has nothing to offer to us but its characters and drama, but these two factors end up feeling more bland then exciting. There were still times where I thought the show did things well, as I consider the debt replacement game in episodes 4 and 5 to be the only good gamble in the anime, but overall I just feel like taking my chances with another gambling anime and see how much better that fairs. I hear Kaiji is really good, should probably watch that.

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Major Spoilers about the Story

Netsuzou TRap was actually something I was looking forward to watching. I was interested in seeing how exactly an anime would take on a premise of having your partner taken away by someone else. Sadly, it didn't really do that, it just became the story of how Yuma Okazaki became a lesbian because the show was too scared to actually have any decent drama.

So when you think of something with NTR, you expect some intense mental turmoil right? One side of the couple is unsure whether to choose their partner or the new person seducing them, while the other side is ... trying desperately to get back their partner but usually failing miserably. Well, that's not what happens. The most dramatic thing that happens is that a couple breaks up cause one of them "suspects" that the other doesn't love him, and an abusive relationship that isn't properly explored. What we do have as drama is quite forced or lacklustre that you can't help but feel bored. The story is way too tame for something that supposedly wears the NTR badge proudly on their anime. The ending is also way too sappy, there was practically no need for the show to have people cheating on each other. They could have just thrown away the two guys and focused on our main characters, wouldn't have made much of a difference anyway.

Talking about the characters, I have to say I found the abusive couple (Hotaru Mizushina and Fujiwara) way more interesting than the other one, even if they got little spotlight besides some weak drama set up. If I had to choose between the two couples, one consisting of an idiot who doesn't understand she's cheating on her boyfriend most of the time (Yuma) and the guy who's too nice to do anything or too trusting to realise he's being cheated on (Takeda), I would choose the abusive couple. I probably would have enjoyed this anime much more if they threw away Yuma and Takeda and actually gave us a better look into how Hotaru's and Fujiwara's strictly sexual relationship works.

And one more thing. Get rid of the comedy. It's so out of place that it's more cringy than funny. This is supposed to be a serious anime about people being unfaithful and having conflicting feelings towards others, we don't need a few dozen moe scenes trying desperately to lighten the mood of a show that needs to be somewhat dark.

Take my advice, whether you like NTR (the term not the anime) or not, don't watch this show at all. It doesn't have the guts to be what it wants to be, and we end up with a lost of lost potential for something that could have truly been a worthwhile watch. If you're gonna give me an NTR anime, don't be a pussy about it and make it an actual NTR anime.

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Spoilers About the First Episode

Do you think you could live in a world where your marriage partner is scientifically chosen for you when you turn 16? To be honest, I wouldn't mind letting an algorithm decide on my lifelong partner. Of course, I'm against real-life arranged marriages, and the Sybil System from Psycho-Pass definitely rubs me the wrong way when you look at the society it creates, but the "The Red Threads of Science" actually matches you up with someone that's suitable for you, and benefits society by decreasing the number of single people and increasing birth rates. How much easier would life be if ... you didn't have to worry about finding the love of your life? Also a better chance for sex at 16! What a great deal! Of course, there are many people that disagree with me, and Love and Lies focuses on one of them, Yukari Nejima. It's an interesting idea, one that could definitely be something incredibly enjoyable, but as you continue the show you start to realise it's not as good as you thought it would be.

If it wasn't clear, this show is a love triangle. Yukari is in love with Misaki Takasaki, but his assigned partner is Ririna Sanada. Throw in a best friend, Yuusuke Nisaka, whose feelings towards the trio are quite the mystery, and we have all our main characters. On their own, the characters are all perfectly fine. Yukari is forward enough so that he isn't a complete pussy, Misaki and Ririna are both perfectly likeable girls and don't have any annoying character quirks, and Nisaka is kind of an enigma but an enjoyable enigma. (Although the mystery is never cleared up and we're left with character with vague intentions) The other frequent characters also fit well with the show, all having some sort of purpose to the progression of the story. However, once you take in the romance and drama, problems start to arise. First of all, there is one main issue I would like to address.

Yukari is a bit of an ass...

I'm sorry, but he's just way too indecisive. Put yourself in the shoes of Ririna. You have been given a marriage partner by the government, but you find out he actually likes someone else. At first, you find this cute and decide to support him by pushing the two together, but as things progress you start to develop feelings for him as well. Your first thought would be that you want that person to choose either you or the other girl. Of course, it's gonna hurt if he rejects you, and there might be some repercussions, but it'd be better than prolonging the inevitable and causing even more emotional pain. However, your marriage partner can't fucking decide between you two. This is the problem. I know it would be terrible for the show if Yukari just chose one of them early, the story would no longer have a reason to continue its love triangle and be forced to move onto something else or just end it there, but it's just not fun knowing that either one our main girls or both of them are gonna end up getting hurt really badly when it all could have been prevented with a simple answer.

The romance also suffers from plot convenience and pointlessness. The reason shown in the first episode behind Yukari's and Misaki's feelings for each other is incredibly forced. They tried to set up a couple way too fast and caused it to feel stupid and unbelievable. Later on, we do get some more development that allows us to make better sense of the pairing, but we're still suffering from the recoil of that first episode that we're struggling to see the love as genuine. As the show goes on, our main's feeling is pretty one-sided, with the occasional monologue of "Do I like Ririna?" and "What is love?" (Baby don't hurt me) A lot of the progression in the relationship is between Yukari and Misaki, with Ririna in the background like a knock-off cheerleader that desperately needs some attention. It makes you wonder why exactly the love triangle was created in the first place if you were only gonna focus on one couple. Either give both girls an equal amount of romantic screen time or scrap one of them, because the way this show is doing it's love triangle is incredibly annoying. The ending only makes the whole ordeal even more frustrating, but going any further would be spoilers.

The drama is ok, but it also relies on a lot of plot convenience and plot points that don't get explored enough. An example can be seen in the first episode, as Yukari gets an email on his phone about who his assigned partner. At first, it shows Misaki Takasaki as his chosen partner, but the phone suddenly glitches and disappears. Then two government officials appear out of nowhere and hand him a notice in an envelope, stating his partner is now Ririna Sanada. Okey dokey, so first of all, what the actual fuck? That's not how an email works. What kind of next level hacker is in this anime trying to bring up the hopes of some random high school kid and send them crashing back down? This scene was only done as an incredibly weak set up for drama, relying on its audience to turn off their brains for a minute so they don't collapse from the ridiculousness of the situation. The worse thing is that it never is explained, it's just brought up a couple of times to fulfil its job as drama set up and thrown back into storage, never seen again. Also, how did the government officials know where to find Yukari? To make it clear, he is not sitting at home happily waiting for his notice, he's out at a park in the middle of the night. There is absolutely no way for anyone to know where he was unless he was tagged or being followed for the entire night, and I doubt that's what happened. There are many other scenes that use plot convenience and create plot points that are never touched back on, but listing them would be tedious and spoil the anime.

I really wanted to like Love and Lies, cause the premise was something I was genuinely interested in. Sadly, too many issues popped up and I spent too much time picking apart bits and pieces to properly enjoy the show. Although, I'm sure a lot of people here can look past the issues I saw and really enjoy the anime, so go ahead. Pick the show up and see how you like it yourself. Just don't drop it after the first episode. Don't let a piece of school stationery scare you away.

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