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Have you ever wondered what life might be like if you suddenly died, but instead of truly dying, you became a ghost tied to the material world?  No? Yes? Same to be honest. It's really not the most unique concept, but somehow it gave a soft twist. "Now that I'm a ghost, he won't know if I show him my pants" (Yuurei ni Natta kara Pantsu Misetemo Barenai yo ne!?) is a dumb and goofy manga, made purely for exploring the concept of this idea in a classic setting, High School. I'll start off by saying this is by no means a masterpiece, but it's ... a quaint, strong and short but sweet story between a boy and his unrequited love with an ill-timed fate.


[The only spoilers are the ones that try to tug at your heartstrings, or character details, its a slice of life, little changes.]




[ Story ]

It all starts with Kenta, and his happy-go lucky and energetic childhood friend, Konno. His life prior to Highschool was filled with her antics, teasing him, playing games with him and so on, something he deemed embarrassing. So, as he went into highschool, he started distancing himself from her slowly. One day, both now as 3rd Year students, Konno was eventually taken by the trope of the century, Truck-kun, being given only 2 panels mind you. Most surprisingly, Kenta "barely" reacts in the one panel we get of his authentic reaction to her death, "Maybe I shouldve hung out with her more if this was going to happen." Perhaps a bit morbid, but damn, have a little humanity. Immediately after, we're both jumpscared with an underwear shot of Konno. What follows is the traumatic realisation that Kenta can see his dead childhood friend as a ghost, being a slightly perverted one at that. From then on, the story is more than a little predictable. They get closer, he makes friends that somehow get involved, some that can because the plot wants it to, so on and so forth. It's meant to be short, and a tad stereotypical, but again, with a sweet twist. It really succeeds at doing that. Obviously, this manga is meant to be light-hearted in every way. It doesn't try to dip its toes into emotional torture despite the morbidity of the situation surrounding Kenta. At best, and I think even touching still, his friends in class (they're mostly nameless, except for Satoru, Kenta's friend) approach him a few times throughout the manga to make sure he's okay because he'll supposedly be "mumbling to himself all the time", or because they're worried about him since it was his childhood friend. He keeps it secret, of course, but its a nice touch to the isolated world around him. Slight changes like these makes it feel all the more unique in between interactions and events, different perspectives or thoughts I wouldn't even expect to see. Wether it was being in Kenta's or Konno's bedroom, taking a bath, a pool, sitting somewhere in school, or being at their houses or walking down roads to school. It's a weird, but calming breath of fresh air for a slice of life.


[ Art ]
It is, at first, rather generic, but clearly makes up for it within the small bits of charm in each of its character expressions or the various panel details (like the background filters). Personally, it fits the manga's ambience and mood perfectly. Really, the drawn style of the characters themselves really make this entire manga feel a lot more personal- more indie with a finish of polish and passion. I'm forgetting to mention that the panels are so incredibly clean, paired with the "rough" drawing of everything that isn't the background, it makes it a joy to look at nearly every single page.


[ Characters ]

The main characters are pretty sweet. They generally don't have stereotypical personalities nor do they have a 'dere' type to them. They feel like separate characters, separate entities and people with their own lives and goals. Look, they're not listed here on MAL, so, the main characters are Kenta Onodera, Konno Kowata, Sana Hoshikawa, and if you really stretch it, Yuyu Munomoto (who is more of a side character if anything since she comes in Ch.13).
I've already introduced Kenta and Konno, but Sana Hoshikawa is a shy, yet energetic and pure girl with at best I would describe as a regular mind (she's not always pure, she's regularly dirty minded, like a regular person). Its hard to describe her since she feels so much like a normal person. In her first chapters at the start, her initial reaction to the knowledge of Konno being a ghost is to pass out, that's normal. She does the same again when she catches Kenta talking to Konno, and thinks Kenta is insane when he tells her he can see her ghost. Naturally, who wouldn't? When she becomes friends with Konno, she tries her best to give romantic advice and act as a friend to her despite having no experience. I think one line that really helps deliver her character, "Hey, I'm still a little scared, but if you are really here, Konno-chan". Its simple, but a lot in the aspect of the relevant panel.
Least importantly, Yuyu Munomoto is an Occult Fanatic who also happens to be a Gyaru. By chance, she is also a full on pervert that really doesn't contribute anything to the story or act as a FOIL to the main characters other than being a solely perverted version of Konno focused on loving Konno, rather than Kenta. If anything, she detracts from the enjoyment of the manga and hurts the quality of dialogue between Sana and Konno. She is the only sole stereotypical character shoehorned into the plot for the sake of progression and breaks whatever chemistry is occurring between the other characters at the time.
A disappointing character aside, the side characters are simply Nana and Miku, who only appear for 1 chapter as Konno's past friends (they're pointless), and Satoru, Kenta's recurring friend that he talks to about his issues through hypotheticals, things he's doing or in general. Satoru really is the casual side character to the MC with the Bro archetype. He's chill.

Out of the 3 actual main characters, Konno Kowata has to be the best of the cast. I'll simply say, she has a sweet heart, unexpected thoughts and reactions, and the courage to change and develop.



[ Conclusion ]

Considering my score, you'd suppose I'd have something wrong with me. Or perhaps after reading this, maybe you'll hopefully give this manga a try. Even disregarding the below average score this manga has, it solidifies its charm, its heart and its soul. Its a slice of life, a comedy and "sometimes" a bit too perverted. The upsides being that this had the advantage of subverting readers now and then due to its entire concept, and that it did for me. It's definitely inconsistent in a lot of areas, specifically its plot, but I couldn't help but grow a small attachment to these characters. Somehow, it made itself memorable for me. I found this manga by chance as it started being translated at Chapter 1 around April (3rd or 4th) of 2023. I was perusing the tags of "Ghosts",  "Romance" and "School Life", and out of a selection of 3, I saw what was very clearly a clean on-the-nose manga cover unabashedly being itself. So, what did I do? I clicked it, read the only chapter and found myself saddened by the fact I assumed it was a very short oneshot with no more than 5 more chapters left to be done. I was surprised when more updates came to it, pleasantly in fact. This has been quite a mainstay in my "expecting manga chapters to come soon" list. My main takeaway from this manga is that it was fun, and fresh. A relatively unique concept, a bit of charm and chemistry between characters is really all you need.

I hate to be one of those people, I really do, but I’ll open up with saying… seriously, the anime is not that good. It is genuinely quite godawful. I both do and don’t understand the huge boom in popularity Eminence in The Shadow has garnered since its anime debut, and whilst it deserves it, it seems it’s “not for the right reasons”. Now that I’ve gotten your attention, Kage no Jitsuryokusha ni Naritakute (Otherwise known as, Eminence in The Shadow) is an isekai, and your seemingly typical boring power fantasy isekai at that. But no, it’s so, so much more, in that there is ... simply something unique and special thinly veiled within “this” as a whole, something that no other isekai seems to have. But, the anime depicts it in some of the worst ways I’ve ever seen within an adaption and some can probably tell why.



< Minor spoilers but they’re only in reference to the manga where some parts aren’t even shown in the anime, which are completely non-detrimental to the plot, along with references to comedic scenes which carry nothing to the story at all. >


<< Story >>
Eminence in The Shadow starts off sombrely with an intro to a typical school setting, highlighting its clear focus on what seems to be a typical normal day. That is till we’re met with Nishino Akane, our temporary main character and famed, beloved student who puts a mask of her true character on to maintain her status in school. She is adored by all, except the one man who she can’t understand and always gets her name wrong, Minoru Kagenou (Also Cid Kagenou), a man of mystery, skill and immense strength, but with his own human limits he fully comprehends. Nishino Akane soon finds herself late one night walking back home kidnapped by two conspirators seeking to use/ sell her, and finds her soon-to-be saviour, a masked man dubbed the Stylish Ruffian Slayer and wielding a crowbar beating the ever living hell out of them. He disappears into the shadows as he frees Nishino and restrains the criminals, leaving Nishino to call the police and head home safely. All the whilst, the Stylish Ruffian Slayer, secretly Minoru Kagenou, contemplates on being “The Eminence in The Shadow”. Following the next morning, she greets Kagenou, and he greets her with the right name, relieved she realises he too, hides behind a mask. The day after following some twisted circumstances, Nishino soon finds out that Minoru Kagenou is dead. After Minoru Kagenou is killed, and by our beloved idol, Truck-kun, he finds himself to be reincarnated as Cid Kagenou in a fantasy world of magic, the one thing he so desperately sought after to become more powerful, and now he had it. And with that new-found power, Cid came to train, and train endlessly day and night to become the “Eminence in The Shadow”, all the whilst under the guise of trying to remain as much of a boring, simple background character as possible. He later continues to grow, building his strength until he comes across an elven girl covered in something named “possession”, a cursed disease buried within many that turns their bodies into deconstructed magical slop. Cid, effortlessly cures it and dubs the nameless girl as Alpha, the first of seven within “Shadow Garden”, a group that would soon come to rid the lands of the “Cult of Diabolos”.
My first complaint to start off with has to be, “Why didn’t they adapt the manga instead?” I know. I know. Comparing it to the manga is a no-no. But, that whole opening school sequence never happened in the manga (School-scene was only 5 pages long). I saw that opening as a relatively big nothing further contributing nothing to Kagenou’s character and established nothing other than he’s strong and wants to be stronger for a whole 15 minutes. Oh, and also Nishino’s character which doesn’t really need establishing for anything. Overall though, it seems as if the decision to adapt this from the light novel instead of the manga has impacted a lot of aspects of the anime, in particularly the story. I may be wrong, but it skips past a lot of dialogue ALL THROUGHOUT THE ANIME that is typically said and a lot of the comedic humour is sucked out for the sake of edginess, being cool and staying serious, which honestly kills it a lot. Not to mention, the backstory of characters, which I’ll highlight next.


<< Characters > >
Right off the bat, I’d like to describe how the side character backstories, mainly the 7 Shadows of Shadow Garden are completely skipped in the first cour of the anime (Ep. 1 - 12), aka, Alpha (excluding beginning parts of Alpha), Gamma, Beta, Zeta, Delta (best girl), Epsilon and Eta. Delta is one of the known core favourites for Eminence in The Shadow (check the favs on MAL), but here she is given almost no screen time whatsoever, no side events, very little comedic dialogue and no backstory. Honestly, quite shameful. And some of the other characters are the same. When there isn’t a focus on the characters supporting the main character, it makes the story feel all the more emptier since all they act and seem like is just pawns or dolls doing his bidding instead of people with complete understandable devotion to Cid to fight for his cause. That’s what of the Shadows feel like in this anime. For example, Gamma had a scene with Cid regarding Mitsugoshi and it was objectively hilarious, and there’s 8 more other scenes that aren’t explored that are like that, and give depth to those in Shadow Garden, their purpose and how they affect the world, especially Mitsugoshi as a company. Whereas most other characters are seemingly abandoned for the sake of advancing only the main story plot which shamefully hurts a lot of the background and world building.
However, Beta, Alexia and Rose are some of few side characters, if not partially close to main characters as well, that are explored thankfully well. In reference to the manga, some of their golden dialogue is skipped, and some jokes are as well, but their chemistry nonetheless mostly remains with the exception of pure unbridled hatred between Beta and Alexia, which instead seems to be more “You’re standoffish, I don’t really like how you act” from Alexia, and lesser so Beta towards one another.
I would also like to give an honourable mention to the nobody character that is Barnett Sherry, whom to my knowledge doesn’t exist in the source, but, that may be because she’s the most tropey boring and useless kuudere(?) character to exist as some kind of “consequence” to Cid. And that may have been the joke in the manga, but it’s most certainly not conveyed that way in the anime, which is another gripe of mine. It keeps taking the characters, even the villains too seriously, and it’s hard to laugh at them when there’s no character to contrast their evil with aloofness, stupidity or funny dialogue. It vetoes a lot of that from the anime, or perhaps simply the light novel, which is a huge shame, because a lot of the golden humour is killed because of this. The only time there is that same comedic dialogue is with Shadow, because he is the only one who can’t seem to take any of them seriously because, at least in the manga, he thinks it’s all some elaborate joke planned out by Mitsugoshi to entertain his dream with Shadow Garden. Whereas the funny dialogue by the Shadow 7 is usually because they’re so powerful they just don’t care and see most fights as a quick job so they can get back to doing whatever they’re doing. And this specifically isn’t really conveyed through the anime because of a lack of dialogue that should be used from the manga to slowly build their personalities and what they do when they aren’t tasked with missions, which is quite disappointing. This is generally what I felt throughout the anime seeing most of the characters, thinking of how they could’ve been expanded on had they dedicated more time away from the first 2 episodes of dragged scene setting and elsewhere.


< < Art >>
Of course… it’s hard to put my hands together for this. But it must be done. This… is, considering Nexus’s track record and literally no name animes (excluding Darwin’s Game for some reason), brilliant. It’s no OPM, but boy, some scenes, blow you away, literally. Two of the most stunning scenes in this anime is easily Shadow’s “I Am… Atomic.” That, is the Rule of Cool being blown away there. To be honest, I very much like this art style. It’s true to the manga and especially Sakano Anri’s detail of characters, design, complementation of background, the surrounding world and so on. I can’t complain about pretty much anything at all here. The fights, I do wish had a little bit more detail and expression, but I realise that’s not within the capabilities of Studio Nexus, because they’re not Ufotable, they’re not Bones or Madhouse, but they do a brilliantly amazing job displaying the fights, the small details in character’s expressions, finger movements, clothes- you name it. Everything is there, and it fits so well in the world. If I didn’t care so much about the story and comedic aspect of Eminence In The Shadow, the art quality and style alone would’ve sold me instantly. There’s so much creativity and exploration in how they decide to animate some scenes and abuse the Rule Of Cool when showing off moves and attacks, especially when it switches the color palette to being completely black, white and red with the slightest hint of purple to illustrate that shit is ABOUT TO GO DOWN. I’m a sucker for scenes like that, as much as it can be edgy or cringe, it does it so very well that it often takes me in and blows me away.


<< Sound / Music >>
The OP was pretty decent and memorable, and the ED was nothing to sneeze at.
But… but. Sound quality, bravo. I really shouldn’t have to say more on this, but, the slight foot movements against ground, the small gasps of air, the chinking armour, explosions, murmuring, conversations in the background, cloth rubbing against other objects. Some, you see typically in anime, isekai anime even, some of the detail that can be spotted now and there, is pretty damn up there. But, it’s the scenes, the fights with Shadow that sell me on it. And, of course, it’s always the wise, smart decision of whatever sound engineer thought it would be coolest to isolate, and kill every sound, every dead noise, to curate the rule breaking, “I am… Atomic.”


<< Summarisation & Conclusion >>
I have to give it to this anime adaptation and especially Studio Nexus, they fucking nailed every technical aspect of this anime to a huge T. They gave the quality of the animation, the smoothness and detail of the battles a huge amount of justice. And CANNOT forget, they blew the audio quality out of the park. But, I give my hands to the excellence of the animation alone, sound quality, and the subtle character expressions and details. If we were to grade this purely via its technical ability in its rightful style, this anime would be a near masterpiece. But, unfortunately for the anime, I'm a fan of the manga, and a long, long-time reader of it (2019 woo). Clearly (and I'm not the only one), the anime delves too harshly onto the edgy side, detracting from the enjoyment of it, and whilst it does have scenes that are overwhelmingly the rule of cool (e.g "I am Atomic"), it pushes too hard into what appears to be "cringe".
This affects the story, a lot. And, it is the weakest aspect for me, and that hurts, because it was one of the best in the manga alongside the comedy. Which, dare I say, is only half as good in the anime as it is in the manga. Meaning, "its alright, I guess?" But, on the edgy side of itself, the anime contradicts the whole purpose of the manga, which was intended to be a parody of failed isekais and repeated tropes. But, the anime has clearly tried to be a parody and failed very harshly at doing so. And I blame the adaption of the Light Novel for that, as that is what Studio Nexus were told to do, so it’s not even their fault. What’s even more annoying is that the anime clearly takes reference from the manga for a lot of scenes too (e.g background scenes, character expressions, designs, so on). Mostly, It's disappointing since the manga perfects that VERY VERY thin line of being "unironically cool" and "making fun of other edgy isekais" without tarnishing itself, and I adore that, since so few manga, let alone animes have done that properly. What annoys me so is whilst the popularity is deserved for Eminence In The Shadow, its all for the wrong reasons, because it does "being edgy" in the most glamorous way possible, putting it under this guise of quality. Whilst it looks stunning, I can't help but be pulled away from it because it doesn't do the characters and dialogue justice when there’s clearly so much more potential had they given more time to some characters. Especially the 7 main girls in Shadow's arsenal, because it skips most of their backstories. It would've taken 2 minutes of slot time to even go over them in a quick slideshow/ equivalent, showing how he meets them, instead of skipping straight past it and simply saying they all came to meet and formed "Shadow Garden" after several years. It killed portions of their character development, especially Delta (she deserved it the most) and Alpha, who especially and mostly gets hidden background character screen time and no-focus scenes on her, as she has a fantastic character and involvement with influencing the world. It’s a shame to have to say this, but whilst this is a stunning anime by itself, it’s a poor portrayal that leaves me reflecting “what could’ve been” had it utilised all the dialogue to its best potential and at least some side scenes available, especially since Eminence in The Shadow solely got popular off the manga, and not the Light novel, which is why this decision doesn’t make sense to me.

Another day, another anime. If you want an edgy anime with stunning visuals and audio quality, more so closer to a “turn-your-brain-off” kind of action than a quality anime, then this’ll fit like a glove for you. If you’re coming from the manga, I’d say turn this away from your list, you’ll be more disappointed than you would be satisfied were you to watch it. In fact, I’m willing to call it a Tokyo Ghoul 2.0 situation but without the suffering, and all the coolness of a character done fairly well, but in a poor supporting cast and storyline. Hopefully, season 2 can execute some portions more successfully and build on top of what it already has going for it, because it has the chance to become one of the Top 25 anime of MAL.

I'll be short and sweet, maybe not so sweet with this one, but short. The Strongest Florist (or rather, Too Strong To Raise Flowers) is quite literally what the title is. In otherwords, it generally sums it up well. And no, it's not a classic boring isekai, it's more like Bofuri, in that its a VR game half-isekai, but this MC actually has a life outside the game despite his burning passion for flowers.



◇ [You're safe, there aren't really any spoilers for the late or mid parts of this Manwha.] ◇


《 Story 》
It ventures the main character, Jae-ho, an extremely well built 24 year old ... man and his lifelong dream of becoming an actual florist. However, there's a huge problem that stands between him and that goal. His father, as he wants to train him to become a master Martial Artist. However, Jae-ho simply does not want to become a Martial Artist despite his combat prowess being top-notch, citing its "not his cup of tea" to his close friend and gym pal, Wansig who also plays the VR game. And so, he attempts to hide this secret of his from his father, constantly nervous when discussing the game with his friend thinking he might appear at any time. Yet, he continues to slowly curate the flower shop of his dreams, working toward it at a lion's pace all the whilst encountering countless problems and issues that impede him from succeeding in his goal.


《 Art 》
It's pleasant. Nothing special from a Manwha and is pretty much the standard of most that I've seen. However, it does have nice backgrounds and lighting that often receive a little more detail than others such as characters, which are albeit plain and uninspired.



《 Characters 》
Jae-ho is probably the only interesting character here, as he's mostly the only one that doesn't generally follow a trope or cliche of some sort. Wansig doesn't really either, but we aren't shown enough of him and his personality, or really he doesn't get enough screen time as a side character. Perhaps he's actually included more as comic relief past Ch. 24. Jae-ho's mother and father are walking cliches, but they're shown for very little time, so not much care towards them. May, on the other hand, is the "obsessed" and "useless" archetype of a character. Or rather, the fanfic girl who adores elves like they're the greatest beings to exist. Which, I don't really mind, usually characters like that have deeper personalities behind that smokescreen but don't really see it for May, which is rather disappointing. But, she is quite a fun character to say the least. Everyone else is paper thin, but attribute to exemplifying Jae-ho's character.


《 Conclusion 》
And like this review, it's also short and sweet. It's not bad by any means, but certainly is not stellar in any way. It does, however, succeed in giving some characters a taste of unique character and fairly well done world building, which pleasantly surprised me. I decided to read this after a fairly positive recommendation from a friend. And from that, I've only read 24 chapters since that's how much of the English translation there is and hasn't been updated since 8/1/2021 (DD/MM/YYYY). I probably wouldn't advocate for another 50 chapters, but its somewhat worth your time, albeit I have a small amount of regret having read this. Drained me quite a bit.

In a world where life is harsh and nothing but the depressing and anxiety-inducing reality strikes you in the face every single living moment you have, you begin to be someone like Neeko, whom is the main character of our dear manga titled “It’s Hard Being Neeko” (Neeko wa tsurai yo, respectively), where it brands itself as a “Painful but fun popular slice of life comedy”, and only the first word of that is really true. It’s hard to live life without knowing what you want to do, and it’s even harder being able to understand why you’re afraid of doing it. But you know ... what’s worse? Knowing all of that, and having the crippling fear of anxiety scare you away from ever approaching what seems to be this insurmountable, ominous goal. That’s what life is like for so many of us.


(Light spoiler warning for you all, but not to worry, I barely remember fuck all.)


<< Story >>
(This is going to be a relatively half-light half-deep review as opposed to a super deep dive so…)
I’ll be honest. Have not read this manga in a while, touched it even in over a few months. And, can’t even recall when I last read it. I had thought I already wrote a review for this manga a few months back, partially evident to my history, and I recall believing I would binge-read this manga and write a review, but that did not come due to translations for this manga essentially being completely dropped every 2 months now (only 3 chapters left too, but shh, it’s doomed). Thus, impatience became worn when I noticed in my MAL a manga I vaguely recognised, “Ah, Chapter 38 came out… That’s weird, where’s the other 3? Oh. Oh…” Anyhow, we follow the story of Niito Nemuko, Neeko for short. With her name being a slightly clever play on her personality, Neeko is a 23 year old living the life of a socially anxious and destitute NEET after leaving high school with no prospects, clear goals or true aims for the future. Her trauma and reason for her lazy past years of anxiety is shown to us in the very beginning, with her being verbally abused and harassed after attending an interview for a job unbeknownst to her entire family and friends. As a NEET, Neeko is constantly urged by her younger sister who’s in her last year of high school, Imoko to help her with her resume for work and her telling Neeko to get a job. Not only this, her mother pressures her to do the same, consciously guilting her for her inaction all the whilst Neeko and her realises that even though that same guilting might be necessary, Neeko simply just can’t do it. And there’s so many points in the story where her mother pushes, and pushes all at the wrong times, the wrong events that force Neeko into the complete opposite direction that she wants her to go because she can’t understand how she thinks, yet thinks she knows Neeko better than she knows herself, and it bites her back in so many ways.
And so, the story focuses and follows Neeko’s change as a person from a broken NEET, unable to communicate properly with with people and being jealous of everyone around her by instead slowly developing the ability to step outside of her comfort zone bit by bit as the chapters pass by, being able to do things without the pang of anxiety constantly drumming against her heart and giving her the painstaking aches many of us know all too well.



<< Characters >>
There is nothing perfect here, in the entire manga. I’ll say that outright, other than one thing. The character dialogue. I’ll admit, most of the characters don’t even memorable names, but they do have memorable personalities. Something that’s unique to them, and only them. They don’t feel like carbon copies of stereotypes, other than partially Neeko, but, she’s a whole huge different page. It’s likely this story is written as a form of projection from the author, trying to depict their lives or thoughts of how things were for them in this digestible format. Perhaps I’m wrong. Yet, with every character, nothing feels “right” to say. Everything feels like it’s the “wrong” thing to say. Yet, it’s all, so painfully realistic. So realistic it hurts my heart to read it and remember it over and over again, because some of it is engrained in my mind. A lot of the dialogue between Neeko and her mother, and her sister is very raw sometimes. It appears to be at face value nothing more than, “Ah sweet, they don’t realise anything at all, 2D personalities as usual.” Yet, that same dialogue with Neeko and her family often was the same words I’d hear in my own family, the same destitute guilt I’d receive, the same half-recognising but completely ignoring feelings, the same words that always had to be said but simply just wouldn’t- work- wouldn’t be the “right” thing to say. It often feels like in life, there are some things that need to be said to get someone or something to start going somewhere or get moving, but even if they know that same thing too, it’s like both people are walking straight into a brick wall and simply are trapped- and can’t move and that guilt or not being to simply feel like you can’t do anything is intoxicating. It suffocates you so much. And that same feeling is expressed so clearly in the dialogue with Neeko, her mindset and thoughts replicates that same back and forth arguments in your mind, memories of the past, inability to have confidence in doing things that I see so often.
Overall for Neeko, her character is painted to be something that is incredibly realistic and relatable for majority of readers, evident in when there are many, many, many chapters and scenes with Neeko where her anxiety and procrastination pushes her to do the same things many of us do by; reliving nostalgic games because we got distracted, doing a YouTube binge run, buying the wrong things, pushing off cleaning your room, etc. There’s a lot of “Ah, anxiety and procrastination” moments that really help solidify the situation around not only her character and make her this visibly vulnerable and shaky person who’s simply not a caricature of someone who’s a NEET, but show the world of the people around and how many have come and how many have failed to accomodate for each other’s needs at times. Neeko’s character is a reflection of her world, If she feels like everything is falling apart, it will feel that way at times, and the characters around her spectate that, attribute to it or simply try to help, but often in the worst ways possible. The characters aside from Neeko are not particularly memorable as I mentioned before, but it’s their position in Neeko’s life and their original personality that makes unique to other mangas and how they treat one another, especially Imoko who flies as a good-doing sister with good intentions, but rarely pushes the boundaries of her sister and only does when she’s given what she deems as a positive opportunity to get her out of her comfort zone, whereas her mother juxtapositions that same mindset by doing that at the worst possible times and making their relationship worse and worse, and sometimes, better through luck and happenstance communication.



<< Art >>
This is a bog-standard manga Art style in mostly every way imaginable. The other part that isn’t mostly, is that I appreciate the fact that somewhat explicit detail goes into panels when Neeko becomes visibly anxious or a scene is being established. Especially on her being anxious, it really paints that range of hateful to scared emotion Neeko feels and conveys it a lot more effectively than what I’ve seen in other manga. Also, a good amount of the chapters start with the first 3 - 5 pages coloured to remind us of who’s what and what’s what, which I actually really like, and whilst I realise that’s difficult to do, it makes such a nice difference to be able to connect it all together again without having to read the previous chapter back. Overall, it’s truly nothing special but it doesn’t hurt to look at the detail that’s there when it shows up.



<< Conclusion >>
Neeko wa Tsurui yo betrays it’s comedy genre. It follows a dramatic and abrasive story of a depressed 23 year old girl and it truly hurts to read because it reminds me of Bocchi The Rock, but only a large spoonful compared to the ramen bowl that is Bocchi The Rock. It has a specific awareness that doesn’t let up and one that I rarely see in the mangas I’ve read, and sure there’s meta ones, but they don’t convey that feeling of realism and self-association this does, only the fact that its poking fun at something that I can see in the real world. And this assumingly based on the direction the last few chapters were going, would end in a very wholesome and deserving way that Neeko would be set for nicely in the last 3 chapters, the last 2 being super wholesome though… I read this manga on a whim, a whim that I intend on satisfying by continuing to find unknown mangas in the rough. I wouldn’t know where else to go currently at this time to find a manga like this that so perfectly encapsulates what’s to be felt by someone who struggles with anxiety. But, if you’re looking for an unfinished translation (and possibly never to be finished) but a hell of a heartache, there’s a pretty good manga well worth the read right here for you.

What if I told you, there was an isekai, but this time it had a talking sword? You’d probably say something like, “How in the world could that be in the slightest interesting considering all the other isekai that exists?” You might think back on smartphone isekai or cheat magician. And, you might ask that of me, and I’d say, “Well… Uh-… I-I guess you’re right, it wouldn’t really work out, would it?” And wow, yeah. It would be as bad as you could imagine it to possibly be. But at least for me ~some concepts~ of Tensei shitara Ken Deshita (or honourably known as, ... Reincarnated As A Sword) work fairly well, yet, the ones that are bad are abhorrently… well, really, really terrible.


(There are some brief spoilers regarding the initial plot.)


<< Story >>
Reincarnated As A Sword follows the story of, you guessed it, an isekai character dying and arriving in a magical world by “you-know-who”, our beloved deity, Truck-kun. He’s been taking quite the break in the past couple isekai seasons, so it’s nice to see him again after quite a long break. Oh- wait- but I was wrong, it’s not actually Truck-kun, just a car that ran over a guy standing in the middle of the road for some unexplained reason. Anyhow, the first line of dialogue we hear from our protagonist is, “I died…”, further evident by the splatter of dripping blood and the terrible camera turning of what you’d assume to be a death from Goldeneye 64. Thanks, actually couldn’t tell he died. He is reborn in a fantasy world with the loss of his memory and his identity, but surprisingly remembers what a fantasy world is and what an RPG is, and is simply whispered to by what could be assumed to be the god(s) of the land as he awakens within a pedestal in a forest as a sword. A sword that is a so-called “intelligent weapon”, one that manipulates the ability of thought and can control itself physically through Telekinesis, a skill he’s given due to his race. We know as little as he knows when he arrives in this land, and as he’s suddenly approached by what the story says is a goblin (multiple of them) initially, a stock cartoon sound effect (the classic running one) plays before he cuts them down. Of course, this eviscerates my insides, because I haven’t heard anything close to a stock sound effect since Mairimashita-kun, which was legitimately actually funny at times. This type of humour persists consistently throughout the anime and delivers it terribly, the timing feels so out of place 90% of the time and that’s almost all entirely due to the dialogue and the unfunny “faces” that our sword protagonist makes. Nonetheless, a combination of these first few scenes are simply an example of what the following episodes are like, as it rarely flows properly in terms of mood, making it incredibly jarring and follows a similar “comedic path” that feels uneasily awkward for most of the time. However, it does attempt to bring in a somewhat heavy backstory between one of the other main characters, Fran, and uses her constantly as a device for sad and depressing scenes that reflect her unfortunate past and the problems within the world, which surprisingly help actually bring detail to the characters that exist in what would be society and its people. Overall, it seems to be uninteresting so far regarding what could even be called the “comedy”, but the world itself does further present a well developed magic/ skill system that isn’t actually that half bad, not to mention the world-building, granted, there’s not much, it makes me want to learn more about what’s there. However, some of it is simply too unbearable.
Anyhow, the story progresses with what could be described as his “training-arc” montage, until he meets the cute “Black Cat” mentioned briefly before known as Fran.


<< Characters >>
Beaten and kept as a slave, Fran is a “Black Cat”, a type of beastkin/beastmen that seems to hold little value in society. One of which many seem to be incredibly racist towards due to their lack of combat ability and general strength in the world. It’s constantly repeated by Fran how “no Black Cat has ever Evolved”, a form of levelling up, or ranking up to the next biological stage in strength, an ability that nearly all races appear to have, that is except Black Cats. And after finding our main protagonist, the sword, she wields it and becomes the owner of him, naming him to be “Teacher”. And thus begins the journey between the both of them. As a character, Fran isn’t half bad. To be honest, she’s probably the only relatively likeable character in the show considering she is quite cute and has a somewhat developed backstory. Of course, she has her moments throughout the first 3 episodes where it feels as if she’s being a bit of a sad edgelord, and granted, she has a sad backstory, sometimes it feels like the anime doesn’t know when to control or space it’s “le sad moments”, throwing you constantly between emotional scenes like: happy, sad, sadder, happy, intense, battle, sad, happy. Of course, one can understand her on edge reactions to strangers and other people, but sometimes it’s really off putting in the immersion of the anime when SHE IS CONSTANTLY SPEAKING OUT LOUD TO TEACHER. Does Telepathy even matter? She only seems to use it 50% of the time with him, but every time she’s relatively ‘around’ others, she speaks to the sword in public as if it doesn’t matter. Would the people not think of her insane, or at least would it not give away that the sword she’s wielding, the secret they desperately want to hide from others because it could be a weakness others exploit, is an “intelligent weapon”? Apparently not, because the people of the world are devoid of simple hearing abilities despite this cat girl speaking at a normal volume. This makes dialogue between characters feel out of place, naturally, and of course further makes it harder to like this anime when it does something like this.

The sword, dubbed to be “Teacher”, has a personality similar to that of Rimuru from Slime Isekai, except, every line that comes out of his metaphorical mouth comes to be the most awkward sentences and reactions to be seen in a long time. Sporting comedy that seems to be stuck in the 90s, his slapstick reactions to literally anything in the universe, wether it be a goblin spitting on him, someone realising he’s a magical sword, or being an annoying mockingbird during duels that Fran has, he makes every scene so hard to bare. There is very little that could be found to be interesting about his character other than the plot holes that are glaringly strong in his memory, in which he states in Episode 3 that he has no recollection of his past, but remembers that he’s apparently in another world- which doesn’t make sense? It’s no statement to say that the plot clearly isn’t trying to be the strongest aspect of this anime, but it actually seems to be the only thing that is decent. Paired with this annoying character of a sword, it makes me wish the second Teacher became wielded by Fran, he lost his ability to talk and all he could do was make motions mid-air or draw in the ground to communicate. It might’ve been boring, but it would certainly be less painful than this.


<< Art >>
The art. It’s good. It’s actually animated decently well, something that is typically rare, but surprisingly growing to be more common even in isekais that are considered of low quality. The fights are usually well detailed, obviously not to a high degree, but it keeps in a relative amount of detail when attacks or skills or spells are performed, showing how the environment is often affected and when wounds actually appear, they’re not just smudge marks, they actually have flowing blood at most times. The same goes for both enemies and Fran when she becomes injured. Having actually fluid animation makes this one of the more stronger points within this anime. However, the art style does not fit the tone, or even the intended tone of the story. It does not help it and curates this incredibly uneasy contrast between trying to be goofy and have fun, to being cute, perform fights and then suddenly depressing 50% of the time. This art style, or at least the way it’s utilised hardly fits the depressing emotions and story from Fran’s character it tries so hard to push on. It can reflect the story in fights evenly well and often have a fitting area for cuteness- but barely. The jarring switches between being goofy and being depressing doesn’t work for this art style, and makes it really difficult to invest emotion in anyone at all when it comes across as simply being cringe and painful to both listen and read. If it had adopted either changing it’s style to not just seem so “fake”, like it wasn’t simply something that’s a story and didn’t matter, or it not taking murdering monsters and killing things so seriously (queue Teacher’s line from Episode 1: (2:59) “I thought I’d feel more guilty, but…”), perhaps the art would be more fitting for the tone it tries to present. Nonetheless, the art style fails to present the serious tone that the story tries to exemplify within the characters, mainly Fran herself and ends up simply turning it into more of something that’s hard not to cringe at.


<< Music/ Sound Effects >>
Thinking about it, the OP doesn’t really fit the tone of what the isekai feels like it should be. Incredibly dark, melodramatic and trying to be serious? This feels more like the kind of anime that tried to be a parody of a parody and failed at even doing the anime part, let alone be a parody. Yet I’m not sure if it is actually a parody or not, and that’s where the tone of both the anime and the OP cross against each other. It’s recognisable the anime itself ATTEMPTS to be serious as a whole, implementing action and dark reflections of the past and juxtapositioning racism and so on, but it feels as if it misses the mark so strongly. However, the OP is actually pretty good, it’s not great, it’s not bad, but it’s decent. But it feels like something more of Re:Zero’s style with Subaru, specifically Redo. If it actually focused more on the serious side of the world and it’s heavy issues instead of throwing back and forth to awful and cringey comedy routine, it feels as if it could contrast with the same feeling Shield Hero had in Season 1 where it reflected a lot of slave trade and rescuing others and the weakness the protagonist holds as a person themselves. The ED on the other hand, it’s nothing to sneeze at, it bears more on the weaker average side of ED’s, in fact it’s probably just bad because majority of the entire song is Fran running on grass in the same motion over and over for a whole minute with generic ending song 15 from the early 2000s. Beyond the music, the sound effects are atrocious.
With attempts at using actual fucking stock sounds throughout the first three episodes as mentioned briefly before, the anime brings itself to a new low. Obviously, you might think this was a joke, no, it’s not in fact a joke, neither what’s stated nor what the anime tries to do with its terrible slapstick, is a joke. It is perhaps the worst execution of slapstick comedy to have ever been seen before and barely passes as something that could crack anything close to a grin. The sounds used supposedly for comedic purposes makes scenes extremely unbearable to listen to and read. Along with the switch in tones between both characters when reacting to one another or to an event from a different character, it makes it incredibly grating since the animators think it’s necessary for nearly everything to have sound.


<< Enjoyment >>
After Episode 1 finished, I realised I had to commit to the 3 episode rule. Then sit through so much unbearable cringe. I could not enjoy it. I didn’t, or at least, enjoyed very little. It was enjoyable seeing Fran when she had her screen time away from the thoughts of the annoying Teacher. She’s cute and it adds flavour to the rather bland duo that melds the both of them together. But of course, she couldn’t save it by herself, as she herself aside from being cute has her own issues that detracted from making the anime fun or entertaining, and often felt sluggish in certain moments when it felt like it wasn’t necessary.
Finally, simply to nitpick, killing goblins does NOT make you a “Kobold Killer”. Episode 1: (3:22).
(Translated directly: ゴブリンキラー = Goblin Killer. コボルドキラー = Kobold Killer.)


“If this is an isekai story, then I’ve gotta have some kinda cheat-level powers.” A bit too on the nose for an isekai to me. And the comedy is god-awful, if that’s what it could call comedy. It is a generic power fantasy that is literally nothing else but “Generic power fantasy + Deluxe Edition, a cat girl included”. It’s boring, yet has an interesting world, but holds literally nothing of value towards majority of the characters in terms of personality and development. Let alone the “sad” moments, which turn out to be too much edge even for a former edge consumer like me. It doesn’t utilise the seriousness it presents in a proper way which turns it out to be something like the later anime seasons of Tokyo Ghoul, except way more empty and harder to be compassionate for when Fran starts to sound whiny at certain point because of how much the tone shifts when she complains, making it incredibly jarring. I disliked this anime, and found it too cringe even for me. There isn’t much unique about this other than a sword being an annoying main protagonist, but certainly expectations for this weren’t high or particularly low. I went in expecting an isekai, and I got a little worse than what was expected. If you like anime with decent animation but godawful characters and you’re simply in it for the power fantasy, go ahead, watch it. There might be better anime, but at least this one has a cat girl.

I Said When Episode 2 aired: I’m surprised people aren’t burning this down to the ground. (Boy, was I wrong.) Heck yeah. This anime’s cute and funny. Love it already.

*Some Minor Spoilers Included*

(Now finished) This is a rom-com. My Dress-Up Darling is a rom-com. Not whatever was popular the previous seasons, like last year with Horimiya which was /bad/ in several categories. Not only did I fully enjoy listening to the OP every episode but that ED, THE ED is so FITTING, it’s so calming and perfect for the end of every single episode and it transitions so nicely with the last episode. But enough ... with them, with controversies, issues, pleasantries, fan-service and stunning animation, this lewd anime starring Marin Kitagawa and Gojou Wakana explores a tiny budding romance explored off a whim between a cross-chance of hobbies. A preface, this isn’t a properly structured review, nor a good one, but who cares about that.




Anyone who ever said Gojou is a self insert or a nobody character are either idiotic, doesn’t watch anime at all, hasn’t watched this or something inbetween those 3 combined. Not only is he beyond relatable, he’s humanly realistic and it’s often comedic but grounding to see how little and how much he knows of the world outside of school and his home. He doesn’t know social etiquette that well or how to deal with outing occasions properly, he gets extremely anxious and nervous infront of girls and he attempts to be as kind and respectful as he can despite tripping up on his own nervousness at times whilst slowly improving those skills bit by bit. What surprised me on the internet was the amount of people who thought his character was unrealistic, that it didn’t exist, and here I thought, “Damn, alright. Peace.” Having that amount of anxiety isn’t super rare, there are tons of others with even worse levels of it who struggle to even talk with people full stop and the internet’s telling me that people who stumble on their words while talking to girls or get really really nervous seeing their bare skin is unrealistic? What rock are they living under? Thought about simply disappearing like that one meme if my existence itself was invalid in people’s mind’s of reality. Gojou is a good character, an insanely good one with complex desires, emotions, dreams, reactions, fears and all. Marin has the same and more. It’s clear that there definitely was a lot more focus on how a character was expressed with Marin, Gojou didn’t exactly get as much limelight conversational-wise compared to Marin but that might also be because they’re polar opposites to each other and it can be easier to show development and traits with someone who has an outgoing personality.
Everything isn’t perfect in this anime, obviously. It’s not the lewdness, that doesn’t bother me, in fact I think it’s very fitting for the anime and overall Marin’s character as it helps accentuates her personality and genuinely, it portrays what teenagers are like. Most Teenagers are horny, you can’t say otherwise. No one can say otherwise. It’s a notorious trope that they are and it’s real because hormones exist, etc. People might say “this is bad because she’s 15 and she’s doing lewd acts”, and you haven’t seen it happen in real life yourself? I can count at least 100+ times. Not only that, it’s not the main point of the anime, it merely accentuates to add character to Marin and make it realistic. (As unrealistic it might seem to the outside eye.) Because this does exist, wether you want to disagree or not, I could name 30 different people who are teens and beyond horny so it’s not like we can ignore it and say, “this doesn’t happen, it creates a false narrative”. And in reference to episode 2 with Marin and Gojo, being the girl she is, there are girls like her that are PLENTY willing to taunt a guy in some way or another through dressing down if they have confidence the guy won’t pull anything off because then they have fun just screwing with guys like Gojou and making them uncomfortable as heck. Thinking that’s out of the realm of possibility in the world seems “???”. It’s not a common situation by any means and it’s certainly weird but it’s definitely not “impossible”. However, that could also be due to Marin’s ignorance of a lot of situations which I’ll cover a bit later in this terrible format.

Personally with the overall fan-service, it’s fine, I’m okay with it. There was a lot of it but it wasn’t rub your face in like it is with a literal beach episode 24/7, it was somewhat natural fan-service that often had some flow to it. But it definitely, DEFINITELY should be labeled as Ecchi, I do not know how in what world this isn’t Ecchi considering how lewd Marin is and how Gojou often reacts. (Those last episodes… Ayo Gojou…) But at least on the site I watched it on, it listed it as Ecchi understandably as it should be. (So many young kids aged like 10 or 12 are watching this, milord. Their spelling is awful.)
Another issue that nearly slipped my mind, it’s a bit… ahem… very, very weird that during episode 2, Marin went out of her way to find where Gojou lived online. Now, she’s supposedly 15-17, it’s Japan, Japan has some wacky culture but I’m not too sure even after all the anime I’ve watched how they tolerate to what degree of stalker is considered a bad stalker. It may be that Marin is generally ignorant of her surroundings and some social etiquette within her life, which I won’t say is improbable, but it’s evident every now and then throughout the anime that she’s not aware of a lot of things in terms of borders, guidelines and what’s typically okay because Gojo is the type of guy to take it all on and say “Yep, okay.”, no matter what. And I think that’s one of the main flaws this show didn’t explain or present to the viewers. Marin is a highly invasive person and she often doesn’t realise it yet she’s also aware of how others treat her. She’s both a airhead and not. It’s a weird thing to sort of jumble together and make sense of because she’s a complex character that has issues that isn’t explicitly made clear to be an issue because Gojo manages it surprisingly well. I know the author already focused on a lot of the flaws with Gojo, and this was by far highly appreciated because he’s an incredibly deep and developed character and deserves the limelight. With the replacement of a lot of ecchi scenes there could’ve been tons of development done for Marin. But assuming there is going to be a second season which is SORELY needed for this anime, and without that, it can’t be anything higher than my given score for those reasons above and some of the next few points.

Look, I’m also sick of people complaining about Loli characters. Get over it, seriously. Tired of people whining about it, ignore it or don’t talk about it or simply move on. Inui Sajuna, from what I could tell was actually a well developed character with a realistic Tsundere-like surface. I like her character as she’s quietly expressive with with her passions. It wasn’t brash and insane like Taiga’s (as cute as it might’ve been [a lie]), but it felt fitting to say the least. However, Sajuna’s introduction to meeting Gojo, I’m tired of this trope to be honest and I cringe at it and had to pause the video when it did happen because I thought “Poor Gojo, his character has to suffer this for the sake of ‘fanservice’…” as well as all things for Inui, being introduced this way… I’m more surprised everyone pretty much forgot about it and it wasn’t constantly on at least Gojo’s mind considering he literally WALKED in on a girl naked in the bathroom and saw it all. To be fair, at least the situation happening is somewhat realistic. Like, it’s not impossible that his old man might’ve let a crook in to rob their house and Gojo being the anxious person he is would’ve risked it for a biscuit considering they could’ve been stealing stuff or starting to run away, etc. But god, her slipping was REALLY unnecessary, seeing her naked was enough, seeing it all, too much. Nonetheless, I think the little foster of love Sajuna starts to develop for Gojo is actually pretty natural, it’s not a harem anime but you can tell she’s changing because of Gojo. She’s learning to be more open with herself and pushing to try new things. I think even in the second season assuming it exists soon enough they might do more going out with Sajuna along with Gojo, Marin and Shinju which I actually want to see happen.
And then with her sister, Shinju, I couldn’t care less about her. She doesn’t matter to me and she didn’t contribute much to the anime other than as to make it less awkward or etc. The argument of how she “can’t have that big tits because of her age”, again, is wrong. It is a guarantee that there are girls in this world (I mean there’s 4 billion of them) that have large breasts to that degree at that age and constantly saying otherwise that there isn’t full stop devalues those girls because it invalidates their existence. Wether it’s super rare or extremely uncommon, it is not out of the realm of possibility and logic to assume there ARE girls with boobs as large as hers at the age of around 14-16. (And I know I’ll sound beyond obnoxious and etc) I’ve seen girls in real life at the older edge of that age have breasts close to that large (albeit beneath clothing like a regular human being), and I’m highly, HIGHLY doubting they had surgery at such a young age. So if people want to continue stating their own personal life as facts in life, then I’ll do the same. But what do I know? I’m some stranger on the internet. Such a weirdly presumptuous topic to assert your opinion on. And yes, I know it’s done for the sake of “plot” a lot of the time. Wether the author wanted it for the sake of plot or “plot”, I doubt it was entirely “plot”. Probably 50/50 split between them. Take it I was wrong though, which I could be for all sakes and purposes, then in that case is complaining about it going to change anything? Maybe you just want to because you want to, in that case feel free, still does nothing. Laugh at it and move on, not that hard. Stop taking it so seriously since it’s just anime, no one’s being exploited, no one’s being hurt, it’s not that big of a deal.
If you don’t like it, you don’t have to watch it, really as simple as that. And If you watch this knowing there’s ecchi in it or even SAW the first 3 episodes and continued watching this despite knowing you wouldn’t like it or it wasn’t going to be to your taste, then your hate’s on you. Mainly the only ones who are ever going to be affected by this are the young children who’ll grow out of that “oooh big booba” mindset 4 or 2 years after they see it all and have their time being idiotic kids.

Alright, that’s the controversy out of the way. Now. The. Animation! *queue Gigguk’s In A Nutshell music*
WOW! Wow, wow, wow. Seriously, wow! I did not expect this from Cloverworks, an extremely heavy hit or miss animation studio that often butchers shows. Every moment of this show is surprisingly fluid and beautiful, every emotion within each necessary frame is conveyed just right. As much fanservice there is, somehow it’s all beautifully animated and it just looks so good to sit through despite the lewdness. Even everyone’s hair is amazing to look at like there is rarely a single scene throughout this entire anime that doesn’t have smooth, fluid, and detailed hair flowing somewhere in the vicinity.and you know when the hair’s detailed, that means so much of everything else is bound to be detailed beyond detail itself. If you excuse the background every now and then for some episodes where it’s a couple still images, which are distracting and breaks the immersion and beauty of the show a bit, it barely rips away from the quality that is everything else.

Aside from the gorgeous animation which is clearly made with love and passion (Thank you Cloverworks for trying for once!), the story was well built. I can’t say it was tip-top notch but it’s a rom-com with a flow that slowly leads to them realising their love for each other whilst following their antics throughout the day making cosplay outfits and posing for photo shoots and preparing for cosplay, etc. I think the author’s clearly a fan of cosplaying.
And to branch off for a bit, speaking of the author, it’s a woman. Most hentai artists and lewd manga/mangaka artists and writers are women these days and that’s actually a surprising fact. How else would authors get such lucrative details of a woman’s personality, insides and their reactions? I still get frustrated these days with childish people attacking authors and others for reading lewd manga/ doujinshi or hentai in general and calling them all kinds of labels. Someone doesn’t become a sexual offender because they read a manga/ hentai with rape, the same applies for nearly everything else in the fictional category. The work does not reflect the artist, and the reader doesn’t reflect on the work.
What the mind finds horny, doesn’t reflect the person on the inside.

That’s off topic. Good anime either way. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this back to front and getting those fluttery little warm moments in my chest at least a handful of times because of the wholesomeness and the blossoms being set in their relationship. I hope there’s a season 2 because this anime sorely needs it. Gojo was best character though.

Love Me For Who I Am, a manga that tackles a tough group of sensitive topics. It shows the lives of several high schoolers undergoing issues in their romantic situations, their sexualities and gender, and the overall umbrella of LGBT+ (LGBTQ+/ LGBTQI+, etc) in school. One of few these days that are of any quality as well, and what I can commend to this is at least the arts’ really pretty. If what you’re looking for is a good review, this isn’t going to be a good one, nor a proper one. And look, I’ll cut to the chase and say that despite my rating, ... I liked this manga. Only the last half of it at least.



*I manage mostly without direct spoilers, except for Kotone.*



I can weirdly relate to this manga, maybe not in every part, but having an incredibly religious and abusive family and lineage has its “perks”, but sexuality and gender along with family household issues is something I’ve struggled with. It was weird realising 3/4 of the way through like “damn, I relate.” Nearly pulled out the “fr, he like me dou” a handful of times too. This was something I could at least subscribe into the fantasy of happening, given chances are low, it’s definitely happened somewhere IRL and it was cool to think of that.


Story: 6
Tackling the deep topics surrounding sexuality, gender, dysphoria, the internal struggles and fear reinforced throughout life, Mogumo Ryuunosuke (Preferably Mogu-chan) is our main character alongside Tetsu Iwaoka. My main issue with the story here is that it has a REALLY, VERY poor time during the first 14 chapters finding its footing. And paired with the fairly nonsensical and partly unexplained character reactions and development at the start, this didn’t sit well with me at all. I want to express purely that I found it upsetting to read through what had the potential to be as good as it was toward the last half, it was personally making me sick to the stomach due to its quality. Now now, that might be because it’s way past midnight and approaching what I like to call “the new day”, but god it was upsetting trying to puzzle my head around some parts of it. Most of my issues come down with the characters themselves, but how the story progressed following contrivances between Kotone and Tetsu felt, and I’m going to put emphasis on this, *disgustingly bad*. Look, I get how she acted a lot of the time is possible in the real world, it’s not something that doesn’t happen often every now and then, BUT GOD, DID IT FEEL SO OUT PLACE AND UNREALISTIC. **Spoiler** Specifically, throwing water on Tetsu. I laughed when this happened. Was this… the author’s way of creating a problem? ANYWAYS, my main issue with the story at the start and I kept repeating it to myself over and over again as I read through every chapter until Chapter 13, everything felt so FORCED. Like the story itself had no substance, the characters felt beyond artificial and everything that was there was only there to covey a message. A comparison if I may and only for structural reasons, a political cartoon. I didn’t like it, it felt icky and yuck. The characters didn’t feel like they had a personality of their own right up until then, it was almost every 5-8 panels I was being taught something directly or indirectly related to LGBT+ which was so unforsakenly not needed. I would’ve rather the manga been so much more drawn out and longer than it being stuffed into my face and down my throat and eyes like it was.
Another issue that ties into this and causes that really jarring effect is this mood that quickly shifts from chapter to chapter like it’s Speed-O-Sound. The author does a terrible job when it comes to emotional pacing, changing things up so quickly that it’s hard to settle down on an idea of how we should feel about something. One of the most clearest examples this shows is in the cafe where someone meets Mogu-chan and they’re so “in your face”, seemingly trying to make themselves seem as horrible as possible with little to no emotional regard for anyone else around them. It reminds me of actual sociopaths/ psychopaths from other animes’ even though they don’t barely resemble them later in the manga. It just seems so out of place that the author couldn’t decide on how someone should be acting which comes to be consistent throughout the entire thing.



Characters: 5 **Spoilers for Kotone, she’s a garbage character anyways**
I’ll come off right the bat before talking about anyone else.
Fuck Kotone. What a shitty character that was developed in an annoyingly proper way. I’ll cut to labelling her (as much as I hate jumping to labels to insult others) right now because seeing her in the early chapters made me pissed that she existed. Was she supposed to be acting as a villain? Damn. Thought she was a fucking paper airplane the way she flew in and out of their lives. (Ha gotteem.) She was seemingly transphobic, sexist and racist for little to no reason. I can understand the initial transphobia, yes, the sexism I STILL DON’T GET FOR SURE- where I assume it could be because she grew up with the idea of hating men because they reinforced the idea that she had to love a man, or because some boys acted obnoxiously dumb in her younger years by fakingly saying “I love you”, BUT- that doesn’t give a clear explanation as to why she might hate being near guys, touching them, seeing them or hearing them. I guess it’s still ‘possible’ that she can harbour that much of a hate because society was initially built that way and it kept stripping her of her opportunities for love, but it’s such a weak point to bring up as a reason for why she hates them ALL so gutturally.
And this is likely merely reaching, she was racist?
IS IT WRONG TO SAY “YA”? DOES SHE HATE PEOPLE FROM KANSAI OR SOMETHING? I was so confused seeing her get pissed off at Ten-chan for saying “ya”. That singular chapter and the few before and after had to of had the most unnecessary points of contention that made the littlest amount of sense possible. She just seems like the entire time throughout the book she exists as a character solely to hate and be that one childhood friend that’s like “Yeah, no, you’re not allowed. Go away.”. Such an annoying trope that’s done badly so often, genuinely end it.
Sigh. Aside from that, every character was actually pretty decent, not garbage like Kotone. Kotone just had the most pointless interjection of being close to a main character that I wish she wasn’t there nor existed. She was used as a plot device and that was it really, the main characters would’ve mostly been fine without her, given Mogu-chan might’ve starved to death though, but they (she?) would’ve been fine.
Now, onto Mogu-chan. Before I get into how somewhat good of a character Mogu-chan is, I’m not quite sure how to refer to Mogumo since halfway through the manga, they decided they’d be fine being referred to as a she (aka biologically MtF). But… then no one refers to Mogu-chan as a she ever, at all after that point? I’ll stick to they for now since that seems to have been their as to not step on any characteristical toes. Anyhow, despite this, I didn’t like Mogu-chan at the start, no, not at all. First chapters immediately ticked me off and gave my sensors and fears a whirl. I understand that it was a culmination of a lot of her fears when it came to being misgendered constantly, and a part of my mind is saying it was a bit of an “overreaction”, but that’s obviously insensitive and not true. Having thought they found a place they could finally fit in, Mogu-chan was betrayed by that same idea being false, etc etc. Other than this singular issue, Mogu-chan is a fairly well rounded main character, they’re actually quite likeable and probably the only one I could bother worth liking minus a few side characters (Suzu and Ten-chan :D ). The side characters are mostly the pride and joy that make this manga all the more less sufferable, removing them from the story clearly makes it seem like it would have an impact but I WISH, I absolutely wish everyone got much more time to be shown and have their lives. Tons could be done with these interesting characters that the author has curated.
Although, Tetsu kinda just feels empty. I don’t really care for Tetsu, like at all. I’m neither on the side of “hating”, “disliking”, “liking” or “loving” him. He’s kinda… eh. He feels throughout the manga as only a support pillar and a caricature of a message to show other people reading that they too can develop feelings for their own gender and it’s okay. And he constantly calls himself an ally when he feels lacking in something, which- god, it feels SO SO tacky. Like disconnectedly tacky. I don’t like saying “ally”, it’s a weird way to say you’ll actively stand for others and go out of your way to support others when capable of doing so. Anyhow, Tetsu feels pointless and useful in the story. More that he isn’t a character compared to how he is actually a plot device that’s… “there” the entire time.



Art: 9
I don’t have much to say about the art, but I thought it looked really pretty and well done at times, often with a surprising amount of detail that I hadn’t seen earlier in the manga. For a debuting author to come out with something you’d see in a funded and weekly formatted manga is fairly surprising. Others might definitely have a different opinion on its quality, but at times the art was there when it felt like it needed to be there and that’s what mattered for me. Particularly the background and LORD, the faces were so well made. If anything had to be one of the most winning parts of the manga, it was the expressions. Clearly they have a knack for it and wether the characters were good, decent or horrible, their emotions were clearly expressed both via face and body language and it felt soooo good watching it evolve bit by bit throughout the manga.
A lot of people will complain about this and say it’s a bad thing, I won’t. Personally, I liked the moe cute style a lot with this. For me, having something like this with the topic it’s covering, it makes it a lot easier to digest and take things through if it’s in the style it’s in. At times, yes, characters might’ve looked completely different to how they were before, often like much younger kids aged 13-16. However, we never actually know their age, so ‘darn’. I mean that sarcastically but anyhow. It’s not much of an issue to me (at all really), depending on how it’s used I prefer it that way often as I adore cute things as much as Mogu-chan here does, or even Ten-chan. I loved the style consistently and it kept swooning my gosh darned heart back and forth the more I saw of the characters at the cafe and Mogu-chan.


There was a lot with this manga that wasn’t… good. Not great, poorly done, emotionally imbalanced at times. It’s at least one of the better LGBT+ mangas around that I’ve read, albeit it has a very commercialised and artificial tone at the start which can feel like a tough wall to break through, which it manages ehhhh somewhat “okayly”. Terribly if I were to remove the cute art. Read this but probably actually just ignore the first 10 chapters completely, I wouldn’t even care for the introduction or lead up. I did at least really enjoy the second-half of the manga but it wasn’t enough to save it completely. I won’t control you, but you have been warned.

Accept this so called “review” I’ve created at the dawn of a new day, 32 or so hours past midnight and only a handful beforehand since I finished it. My final words, it’s cute and traumatic.

This was SO CLOSE to being a 10/10 for me. A journey of joy in every way. However, there was this single error that put me off from giving it the rating it so deserved.

**Spoilers**

Story: 10/10
The dream of a fantastic story, a great tale, it comes from this. A perspective that must be earned by the viewer, wondered and thought distantly of. It fulfilled my fantasy of aggressively running over people on the road, over and over… and merely cleaning their remains off the windshield. This anime has a better story than 70% of J.C Staff’s backlog of animes’. A truly once ina lifetime experience.


Characters: ... 9/10
The characters, they entranced me. Their emotions and backstory, their lives so well embedded into our screens. Winning hearts over in a matter of seconds. I only fault it for there merely not being characters within this masterpiece.

Sound: 10/10
There is not a part of this that shows fault. It is a constantly pleasant experience to go through a variety of sounds, similar to one another, yet so different and vast in their emotions and reactions.

Art: 10/10
The simplicity of it all was more than enough to convey what it had achieved to do. Inspiring hearts of many all over the world and for many more years to come.

Enjoyability: 10/10
What’s there not to enjoy in this anime? There’s a little something for everybody.

Final: 9/10
I enjoyed that thoroughly. Every inch of this animation, this series of sounds and creative fantasy blessing my ears was a treasure unbeknownst to mankind. Yet, it merely fell short for the smallest of reasons. I wanted to commit murder, in that car, just one more time. Just. One. More.

Is this todoroki but burnt? That’s what I originally thought when I saw the MC, Takt at the very end of this anime, and I’ll later explain that. Nonetheless, to make this point, my first thoughts when watching the very first 2 episodes of this anime;
“WOOOOOOO! MUSIC IS A BANGER! BEST WAIFU THIS SEASONAL. GOT A COMBINATION OF SIESTA AND ZERO TWO!”
Clearly, I liked it a lot. So why did it jump down to this seemingly mediocre score of a 7? Well this can easily be explained by poor writing, and I mean disappointingly poor writing. This then slowly had turned my reaction into more ... of a;

“So, I’m confused. What the hell did I just watch?”

And I wish it wasn’t.



{HEAVY SPOILERS}




This anime had a lot going for it. The excitement towards the start and ecstatic qualities shining through the eyes of countless watchers everywhere, glowing up and gleaming above and beyond with both music and animation quality. And yet, it mishandled itself like a nervous robbery in the middle of a parade. They fumbled the weapon and tossed it in the air, only to catch it by the front of the firearm and not the handle. They’re lucky they didn’t completely shoot themselves. So, what went wrong? Let’s start first with a small summary and characters.


A Short Summary & Characters:
In this anime we have our main 3 characters, Takt, Cossette and Anna. Takt is introduced as someone who consistently loves playing on the piano and acts like a social outcast to all. Then we have Cossette who later dies and becomes Destiny, is a loving sister of Anna who likes to try and help get (and mainly annoy) Takt out of the house to show off his piano skills. Anna on the other hand is the mother of the bunch, taking care of them both whenever possible. We’re left with this continuous and clear plot line after Destiny’s forthcoming into existence of “We have to get from A-B in order to help Cossett- I mean, Destiny!”. Which by itself, I liked the idea of and sat for the ride.


With our overall characters, we have a decent bunch of generic characters. Takt is the edgy kid who lost their parents/ father in a supposedly freak incident where D2’s ended up attacking and Takt himself barely escaped with his own life. In terms of development, he experiences next to nothing in change and only the ability to come to peace?, with the loss of his father and Cossette. Oh and he can also make a song I guess now. As if that was really of any importance considering the story sidelined it towards the end, making him seem as if he’s been the same character the entire goddamn anime.

Then we have Anna. What was her point? Being there, existing? She’s a character alright and a decent support/ main for the both of them. Although, I’m concerned as to why she isn’t also a main in MAL as she is there every episode and does have highlights with specifically her constantly. Doesn’t matter. She certainly has more substance than Takt because she has a deep complication within herself with trying to accept Destiny’s transformation from Cossette, and coming to terms with her complete and utter death. Which I liked as a plot point that consistently carried throughout episodes until she finally blew up because she couldn’t handle the guilt of it anymore. THAT was development, but she did barely pass the line with only a single complication and nothing more than being okay with Destiny and loving her for who she was, as her own sister still.

Of course, we still have our helpful side characters that I didn’t mind too much, some I did.
Titan, Lenny, Sagan, Schindler, Heaven, Hell. (Also Valkyrie.)
Lenny, I liked. He was actually surprisingly a good character and I preferred him more of an existence of development in comparison to Takt, because he had an interesting back story. His back story was enveloped and shown off, he revelled in his guilt for Takt’s father’s death, constantly blaming it on himself and swore to protect Takt when the time came. I like how he was a depressed, sad and lonely man who only wanted to help others with music, given back to life by Titan. They were a really nice duo and perfectly fine support characters. Him dying, was not exactly justified in how he went out, but it was sad, it had some connection for me.
Heaven and Hell, I couldn’t care less about. They were just annoying Musicarts that broke the law of logic and character rationality a handful of times. They both, apparently came from some gem or something? Story didn’t exactly explain in the end how Sagan got them.
Schindler, he was boring and annoying as hell. His purpose was mind numbingly dumb. As surprising as this would actually be possible, hurts, but it goes to show spite doesn’t always win against the one with some handy powers (which I think don’t detract from the story) and a bit of plot power.
And oh god, Sagan. I don’t understand the point of this character. Was he supposed to be a villain, or did he know he was being a villain? Did he see himself as a hero? Was he purposely being malicious? I’ll talk about the dumbness of this further down. God, was he a bad a character. Even Takt couldn’t stand him. Self inserted myself inside Takt whenever he was near Sagan, could feel that anger broiling within him.

NONETHELESS, there was thankfully positive and actually non-excruciating development with 1 character.
Destiny. I think, all the brain power in the development and writing studio only went into her. All of it, 200% of it, bothered putting it all into Destiny.
It’s difficult to compile all of this. But I love Destiny / Cossette as a character. She’s obviously a bait waifu, but, even then, she’s such a good character in and of itself, she has the most development and personality curation out of everyone in this anime. In the start of the anime, so many symbols of dialogue and metaphors are thrown out, and many of them together towards the very end with Destiny and Takt. At the start, Destiny is nothing but a dutiful, sensible and hard working Musiccart with the sole aim of destroying D2’s. But it’s with growth that she evolves into this witty, yet responsible and sweet-sugar-cake loving maniac who does everything she can to complete the mission and keep Takt safe. The love that grows between them makes sense, the inner ability and love that resided from Cossette stays and finally shows itself as a resemblance to her when Destiny gives her goodbyes. The lines she utters during those scenes are magical and by far bring back connecting symbols to call to Takt. She had so much personality development. From being a seemingly hollow shell, to a character with traits of Cossette still inside her and forms of caring and traits developed from being around Takt and Anna, helping others whenever she thought to in her own time and off screen. It was just, pleasant to know she was changing like this. Whereas we barely saw anything different with any of the other characters, because there wasn’t enough time to develop them all fully. But it was more or so made up by the animation, music and close to great and enjoyable story/ plot before it fell on its face. God, Cossette is such a sweetheart. She’s not like the Detective from last season, by far. She might’ve been witty and cold hearted, but Cossette was robotic and dumb at times, not thinking ahead or doing everything based solely on needing to remove the enemy immediately. The Detective was different despite her small amount of development. It’s why she’s my favourite character in this anime.



Now, I AM REQUIRED TO TALK ABOUT THIS SPECTACULAR THING CALLED THE MUSIC.

Music / Sound:
The. Music. Is. Stellar. Stellar. I need to repeat myself, this music, the score is absolutely stellar. It is out of this world in quality. The OP song is FUCKING INCREDIBLE. Not to mention the OP is an original made just for this anime, and lord does it encapsulate everything in this anime to a T. All the lost emotions, memories, broken hearts and lives gone, it’s all squeezed nicely and quietly like a puzzle piece fitting together within the melody of the opening song. And they barely even used it in the anime, which I say was a good call. It would’ve over saturated their abilities to make an incredible opening song like this and made the song overly repetitive. But. I can’t forget the music they played at the start and in the middle of the anime. I was so surprised by the stellar quality of the songs I was hearing bring pleasure to my ears. Music to my ears at its fitting quality to a comfort of positivity. I wish, I wish so hard that the anime was entirely about the MC, Takt using pianos or any other fitting instruments to fight the D2’s continuously. Not abandon the concept and idea of this in the last 3 episodes. I wish even, in the final battle, not the messy fight it is now, but somewhere they had Takt playing the piano and blasting Destiny’s abilities to the sky in strength as she might’ve marauded through enemies after enemies. Hearing (I believe) Mozart and Beethoven and Chopin songs all be played was fun as heck to hear. Especially as even in the music world they all reside in, many remember the classics. I would’ve for the anime to continue to carry on the tradition of playing classical music during battles, as it always had this mystical sense that I haven’t ever seen done before in anime the way they made use of it.


Animation:
This is by far the greatest element in this anime. Alongside the stellar score and overall music within this, we have this superb literal piece of animation. I am so completely and utterly disappointed by how well they used their animation abilities and killed the anime in the end of it while still displaying fantastic animation skills. It’s like watching a bit of Madhouse share it’s life blood as they compile it together with J.C Staff to make this glorious animation wonder with a piss-poor plot line of an ending. (Only checked later to realise it is Madhouse and MAPPA animating this piece. I blame the writers for butchering the ending.) Straight from the first episode, the pilot episode, the anime was no stranger to showing of its highly qualified animation. From the smooth movements of Cossette and flow of fingers and hands in some the subletest movement’s, I could see every frame in its fluidity. It surprised me to what I had been expecting. The OP alone already gave me enough of what I hadn’t been expecting in the very first 10 seconds with Destiny running out of the house. So much effort, care and delicacy dropped into so many frames wether they’d been pointless or crucial to the story. Further, with every single fight scene, ALL OF THEM, had consistently remained top tier animation with it rarely ever lacking fluidity and smooth frames of drawings all connecting with each other in the way Destiny swung her weapons, Takt waved his wand or played music, the twirls Destiny took to doing several times when battling D2’s, the massive giant beams of energy that continuously looked accurately realistic (as realistic as it could be at least) in how it could fire out slippery smooth like butter. It’s difficult to keep praising this anime for its animation without repeatedly saying “smooth” over and over again, because that is quite literally what it is. And even with this incredible of animation talent, it all seemingly goes to waste given the end of this. Despite that, I still love and admire the quality of this anime when it came to passion and hard work squeezed into it, even in the final episodes it outputted spectacularly with itself. Add On: Madhouse truly never fails to output artistic art pieces when it comes to these anime, wether it be a gacha grab or a stand-alone anime off by itself, it comes out with plenty of positive traits wether they aim for it to be good or not.



The Ending:
Look, I can understand the love, treatment, all the symbols of Cossette still resembling inside Destiny, her loving Takt, the lines she spoke at the start of the anime of how music is like love and how it ended the exact same way, the witty dialogue. But- logic fails me here. How did they get to the beach by the sea? How were they 100 kilometres away from Symphonica HQ? They were both on the verge of death, and somehow got out of the building while parts of it was collapsing nearly unscathed. Not just that, what was the point of the main villain, Sargon? What was his motivation? To destroy the world, or help it? Was Takt being a simple, to the point “shut the fuck up” person to Sargon as he was impaled showed that he knew he was wasting his time and was a dumb person for not realising his actions meant nothing? Why didn’t Sagan bleed when he was impaled by Takt with Destiny’s weapon? Was the combination of Heaven and Hell supposed to be explained? Why did they suddenly freeze up into a calcified version when fighting Destiny? If it was Destiny’s abilities and hands doing that, why didn’t she beat the shit out of her in hand to hand combat in the first place? What the fuck was seriously going on? AND ESPECIALLY, Anna apparently turned into Destiny? Or did she manifest Destiny to exist still? Did she take up her powers? It makes no sense and clearly isn’t going to be explained since there is literally nothing to make a S2 from there. They actually had something really incredible going for an original, and somehow, it fumbles the entire ending like a nervous guy at his first day in the office. Showing Sargon just crying over some broken buildings isn’t going to tell me his motivations. Was it showing he basically gave up on trying to save humanity because he thought it was pointless? Maybe. Was it showing he had enough of it? Maybe. Did he decide to just turn to the dark side and try to destroy families and hurt people instead? Apparently he did, but then why was he trying to “sacrifice” the continent for the greater good? Not only is he just being plain evil for the sake of being evil, he decides to act like a hero because he wants it all to stop, after causing it to be worse himself. Makes no sense whatsoever. And that’s just the villain, the ending itself is lacking so much.

We jump to Cossette and Takt on the beach of Ep 12. Somehow the most sense in this episode is there. Plenty of recalls to symbols and lines said at the start of the anime, made me a bit emotional. But, did Takt actually die at the end? Because Destiny, a Musiccart who was explained to be connected and only supported by Takt’s lifeforce, was supposed to disappear once he died. He did die, and then Destiny / Cossette disappeared after coming to complete peace with her love for him and giving him the sweetest kiss of the season. Now, even after a confusing ending like that, that was probably the only “good” scene in the episode if you separate it from everything else and it hadn’t been rushed like it is now.
On the topic of being rushed, the ending was by far clearly rushed. This anime had the potential of going to a 2 cour (24 episodes), making the plot super deep and invested rather than making it a quick 10 minute-shove-it-down-your-throat-villain arc. They could’ve made it about them going to space, going underground to destroy a mother hive of them, finding out the cause behind them all, etc. But no, they decided to throw this dainty, lack of logic ending at us, with no compatible rationality. Which is honestly more disappointing than it is painful.


Plot Error:
I also want to add on to this confusing ending, one of the main plot points that threw me off was the fact that D2’s were still around, but also not. It’s confusing because multiple times in the anime they seemed have stated that “D2’s are long gone here and they don’t exist anymore after 2 years ago.” But then it immediately cuts to D2’s appearing for some reason, and the only explanation made clear is that Schindler is behind it, and then Sagan is too. But- the D2’s were happening all over the country of USA. So, more confusingly, do they actually exist any more, or is Schindler and Sagan these godlike beings capable of moving at sonic speed across the country to summon the D2’s? Are all the D2’s actually dead or buried underground and they’re bringing them back to certain locations through using the Diviner? It’s truly confusing what they’re trying to picture here. Do the D2’s even remotely exist, or is Sagan making them all himself? Since, as a plot point, it would’ve been PERFECT if they had it as if Sagan was an evil mastermind after trying to wipe humanity as they know it using the D2’s. Like it was a whole underground enormous breeding operation.



Finished:
So. I’m confused. Not completely, but I am confused. The ending is a tad bit fucky wucky. Up to about episode 10, the anime was scoring a high 9 in my books. Dropped to 8.5 in 11, then to a whole 7-6 right off after the end.
One main thing, what the fuck was that ending? Seriously.



Final Words:
I had high hopes and wished for this anime to incredible, yet they somehow bombed this original near masterpiece to the ground. They could’ve had one of the best anime’s of the season but they cut it and burned it alive for the sake of nothing? Laziness? Advertisement towards a gacha game maybe, WHICH, to be honest most people won’t even understand a thing about what the gacha is about or trying to do. Out of the viewer base, you might get maybe 10% max of viewers to play this game as opposed to a possible 40% if they made this anime stick it’s bloody landing.
I personally loved a lot of aspects of this anime, but they just threw this anime in the bin when they got to the ending. I’m honestly shocked, it took me 2 days to compile this in my head because it was just shocking that this went down the way it did. So many spectacular things in this anime, so much that could’ve been taken further and beyond. May this anime rest in pieces, as good as it was, it was so close to being one of the greats this year.

Come, come. Join me on a ride through what we call, “Remake Our Life”. A weird, generic, entertaining and future-setting and aiding story where we have our main character, by the name of Kyouya struggle consistently with being too reliable for everyone around him. A perfect Main Character that suffers majorly from his sheer perfections.

========{Spoilers Warning}=======

This anime, it was... really good. Surprisingly good. From the cover it seems so generic, but in actual fact it feels so refreshing to watch. It’s such a weird, clear masterpiece placed in front of us with so much to unfold and understand. It’s- like- how do you even ... explain something this good. It’s just, enjoyable. It’s entirely enjoyable, that it’s so hard to find faults with it. I love this anime and I love this formula. The only comparable anime is of course Re:Life, where they too also have the MC go back 10+ years and relive their life. But this anime, it improves on the concept by SOOO MUCH MORE. IT MAKES IT SO ENTERTAINING AND FUN. I can’t- even emphasise how almost every single aspect of this anime masters it’s angles and techniques. They constantly make 4th wall references to themselves particularly during the game making arc and even before, they establish the “hand-clench” action in the game, where Kyouya does the same hand-clench multiple times before AND after the arc. It’s just- so incredibly they set up their own techniques and then make it clear.
Then the characters, NONE OF THE CHARACTERS ARE HATEABLE. They all have this good aspect with them, they’re all 3D in an emotional way, none of them are plain and clear with nothing about them. Even the side characters have some form of detail to them, emotion and clarity. Kyouya man- he’s literally such a “Chad” of a main character, he’s so fricking- how- I can’t even. He’s like the perfect MC with just the right amount of flaws, just the right amount of independence and caringness. He suffers because he tries too hard, he learns the error of his mistakes towards the end- he rectifies them and makes do with the crap he screws up with. He doesn’t give up, but he keeps trying, trying and trying, at first with too much consideration for others, then realising that he takes away all the hard work for others because he can handle it, but then they don’t learn. Doing everything for others simply makes them unprepared for anything ahead of them. It’s just- ITS INCREDIBLE HOW WELL ITS BUILT AND LED UP TO. THEY MAKE IT SO BEAUTIFUL IN SUCH A WEIRD WAY. I love the characters so much, and obviously Kawasegawa had- I can’t. She’s a sort of side character in and of herself, partly main character, yet- somehow she had so so so much developement, so much detail and emotion to herself despite being a character with less focus than the others.

It’s- I love this anime man. It executes things and so many aspects of itself so perfectly, and you can tell even with the end, it’s prepared for a second season, where more detail of everything can be unfolded, the questions left unanswered will be discovered. How does his time travel even work? What does Keiko have to do with all of this? Why is a loli so proud of herself and how old is she supposed to be considering she’s friends with their teacher? And you can just FEEL that most of it is going to be answered in the next season. I want to give this a 10. I really do, maybe I will, maybe I’ll change my mind. I think it makes scenes so powerful yet making it feel beyond realistic and clear about the reality of everything around. The scene at the airport with Kyouya and Kawasegawa, that scene was by far a fricking perfect scene. It was so, sooo, soooo good. The emotions, the power, the thoughts, the troubles, the instant depression-filled thoughts with our MC, Kyouya as he slowly folds over himself, Kawasegawa confessing her love by sheer accident and brushing it under the rug as best as she could, not making a giant scene out of it as if “love” was the primary aspect of their lives, their future was, their lives, their happiness and their mental states is what mattered to each other. They were being simply realistic in that single scene that was flowing with so many emotions and importance in mere seconds. This anime feels so casual, normal and clear. It’s no AOT, it’s no FMA or Re:Zero, but it’s a master of its own genre. It’s a master of redoing life and making each and every character feel like they have some sort of cog. The whole concept of the story, the creation of games, was executed as one of the best I’ve ever seen it done in the anime industry, of course excluding New Game!. It- felt like creativity was constantly abundant, the lives and dreams of so many, compressed and shown in an animated format, the world building of an area with developers, a single sneak peak into the chaos of game makers and artists, the pains and struggles to get there and live throughout it.

However broken a format like this can be, I think this anime executed so many aspects correctly and right. It feels so ordinary yet peculiar in the way it attempts and shows things. I can’t obviously forget to mention, the music and sounds, while it was by 100% FRICKING AMAZING. It gives off the vibes of a really old anime, like it jumped back from the past of 2000s and 2010s to the future- and what’s more- it’s by POPPIN PARTY. I loved playing BanG Dream- and its incredible to think that Nanako, the actual singer in the anime, sings the OP, and is also from Poppin Party. And the ED, of all things is sung by the same VA who voices Kyouya. Like-. Lord. The OP quite literally corresponds with being set in the time the story was set in, 2006 and 2007. And that’s in a modern time of all places. The attention to detail to so many things impresses me. The art style, while it’s probably the most generic you could find in any day anime, it makes so much use of it with the subtle details of emotions and physical expressions. The small movements that are expressed and capitalised on, the minor fanservice that even somehow incorporates into the future plot. Shinoaki is obviously a big part of the story too. In the future when Kyouya jumps to meet his now wife, Shinoaki, she always had that despondent feeling and look to herself, and it was clear in the first moment he met her. But even then, she was so pretty and his daughter, Maki was honestly so fricking cute I thought I was going to die of a heart attack on the spot. Obviously, a majority of everyone that watched this series fell in love with Shinoaki as Kyouya nearly did, but he prioritised his life and everyone’s future, including his own. It was just- the aspects and tools used. The cuteness and life of being a father of such a fussy and cute daughter with such a caring wife troubled with her own struggles and complaints that she worries about with silence. The End- when Kyouya decided to go back, the entire afternoon and night where he stayed and loved his family, talking about Shinoaki’s drawing and how her love had slowly been revitalised by his own efforts in a game that had a butterfly effect from years ago. I love Shinoaki with her subtle cuteness and choosiness, she knows what she wants and she tries to get it. She doesn’t fuss with it too much, she’s clear, to the point and explanatory. She has a weirdly unique character to herself, beneath that Kansai/ country accent she’s so loving and wholesome it melts people’s hearts that her obliviousness causes few problems in reality. Nanako’s love going unrequited and her carrying on in the future, a plot arc and story where so much can happen and unfold. There’s so many open paths that can go so many ways and it feels completely natural and normal, like, “This is life, it’s what it is and can be. No more.”

I can’t wait for a season 2. I can’t wait to see more of these characters. They’re interesting, charming and incapsulating. So many aspects, so many characters, whatever others think of the plot, it’s only one of the many strong points of this anime. The open time concept left with so many questions to be asked, and it makes that clear, it knows there are those questions and it leaves it open for the future. I can only assume that it will be explained. Maybe Roselia will jump in on the next OP.