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Great Pretender is an exceptionally enjoyable show in many regards. The premise is fun and interesting, the characters are vibrant and likable, and the art is beautiful. My only real gripe with the show is some particular character interactions and the plot progression in the final arc, but the issues therein are significant enough where I feel like focusing on them in particular is warranted, especially when every other aspect of production is right on the money.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

The overarching plot for GP is fairly simple; you have a band of good-hearted international con artists who only target those who they feel deserve to be ... taken down a peg. Our MC, a small time Japanese con artist, is recruited and wacky hi jinks ensue. The season is cleanly split into four major arcs, each covering a separate 'con' with a new location and target.

An important thing to note is that each con essentially functions as a backdrop for exploring different characters. Arc one is the introduction and dive into our MC Makoto Edamura, Arc two focuses on Abigail, three for Cynthia, and four splits between Laurent and Makoto again. With the exception of arc four (which I'll get into in a second), I thought these were pretty successful in providing a bit of character development while also getting a nice look into their backstories and motives. The cons themselves delve into the absurdly convoluted, but with some suspension of disbelief are still enjoyable to watch.

Here's the part where I start venting on what went wrong.

The first thing that really hit me the wrong way was the relationship between Laurent and Makoto, which only worsened as the show progressed. Laurent is shown to have an unsettling level of control over Makoto's life over a period of several years, which he uses to manipulate Makoto into participating in a number of highly dangerous cons against his will. On multiple occasions, Makoto is forced into the roll of being a plant in an organization that would gladly kill him at the first hint of betrayal. Despite Laurent's utter disregard for Makoto's safety or volition, he's never really framed as anything less than an enigmatic guardian, nor does he lose the trust of any of his crew. Even Makoto himself, despite expressing frustration with Laurent's constant interference, often goes along with him and plays friendly.

The last arc is really where the story falls apart, and existing problems are exacerbated. Through a combination of an unreliable narrator and constant side-switching, following the thought process of Makoto or his newly found father is a confusing mess as they flop between Laurent's group and literal human traffickers. There's a point where our morally righteous MC, thinking two of his friends and his dad are dead (despite seeing them previously fake deaths in a similar manner earlier), genuinely joins up with the traffickers and actively participates in their actions for a significant length of time. After his not-actually-dead dad and friends explain the situation, he suddenly swaps back to the 'good-guys' to carry out the plan. This utterly destroys Makoto's character and development, as it's shown he can quite easily discard his guiding morals given the right circumstances. I honestly would have welcomed this development if it was played as a defining moment for a character we thought was incorruptible, but his brief spree of abusing and selling children is never actually questioned after the fact. It was all part of the 'plan' to keep Makoto in the dark and become a full fledged villain in order to gain the bad-guy's trust, which makes it okay I guess...

To cap off a confusing and upsetting arc, the climax is unspeakably dumb. There's a point where the heads of two rival trafficking orgs are headed to a meeting to hand off a large some of money, during which Laurent & Makoto drug everyone en route and fly them to a secluded island. At this point the logical thing to do would be to simply take the money while they were out and leave them on the island, which would lead us to the exact same ending. Instead, they pointlessly construct a duplicate building to serve as the meeting place and go through a whole charade of double-crosses and even more fake death, and then escaping in the confusion. As if it couldn't get worse, Makoto made his own contribution to the pointless plan by contracting all the past villains as muscle in his fake double/triple-cross, despite being extremely evil individuals that go against everything Makoto stands for. It really is a sight to behold.

Despite my grievances with Great Pretender, there really is a lot this show does well, and for the most part I did enjoy it. For anyone who's willing to look past the train-wreck of the last several episodes, I still recommend a watch.

When talking about a show that leans this heavily into licensed content, I feel like there is one question that must be asked: Would the show still stand on it's own without the inclusion of this licensed content? Sadly, I believe the answer for High Score Girl would be no.

The first thing most people will notice when watching HSG is the particular art style J.C. went with. The show is largely CG, which I particularly don't mind, but to call the animation 'budget' would be putting it lightly. It's not horrendously bad enough to ruin the show single-handedly, but it certainly isn't doing it ... any favors.

The writing in HSG is... not great. Momentarily ignoring the shtick of including licensed games, what we have is a largely generic and uninspired rom-com whose writing ranges from inoffensively mediocre to laughably bad, with a remarkably forced romance at its core. Now, add in the fact that a good half of the show is comprised of the writers nerding out about almost every notable early 90's game release, narrated by one of the most annoying protagonists to ever be on screen, but I'll come back to *him*. It's actually somewhat confounding how knowledgeable the writing staff seem to be about these games, and yet completely failed to capture how people would casually talk about them. Imagine several Steve Buscemi's walking around, fully decked out in 'fellow kids' gear, talking about 90's arcades.

The characters are, sadly, remarkably flat. At the three points of the obligatory love triangle are the main characters: Ono, Hidaka, and the protagonist Yaguchi. Ono is tsundere to the max, and inexplicably *does not speak throughout the entire show*. No, she's not mute, she's just 'quiet' or so the show will tell you. Already riding the crutch of not having any dialogue to express herself, she instead relies on Yaguchi to mind-read her intentions and explain them to the viewer. The show already has a "tell, don't show" problem, but this is kinda ridiculous. Next is Hidaka, an uptight girl unfamiliar with games who inexplicably drops madly in love with a guy who does literally nothing but play games and act like a general asshole. She is, after this point, completely defined as a character by this forced romance.

Now for Yaguchi, and oh man is he the WORST. This protagonist is easily my biggest grievance in what was already a mediocre-at-best show. Taking up a good 90% of the screen time, Yahuchi is exaggerated to the point of being a parody of all those negative early gaming stereotypes, to the point of being borderline offensive. His dial is permanently stuck at 100 while he screams in everyone's face about how much of a GAMER he is, while acting like a douche to everyone he interacts with and self-admittedly not giving a shit about anything that isn't a game, which *of course* causes all the panties in his harem to drop. His personality is that of an intentionally hateable side-character that was pushed into the role of protagonist. For someone framed by the show to be relatable, man is he annoying as all hell. Even by the end he, and the other characters for that matter, undergo little to no development other than realizing they like a person, and maybe working up the guts to tell them about it.

Overall, High School Girl is a show that rides exclusively on the novelty of incorporating licensed games. It got people's attention with it's catch line, but had little of substance to actually offer once people got through the door. I have a feeling that without the 90's gaming frame, this show wouldn't be getting nearly as much praise.

I just cannot fathom why this show is so applauded by the masses. Season 1 is what I would consider a show carried by its premise; it's execution was mediocre at best but it's base concept appealed to people and I can understand that. But *this*...

The plot is a broken mess, with gaping holes from last season completely ignored while several new side stories are piled on top. The writing is awful, with bland dialogue and exposition dumps as far as the eye can see. And, perhaps its greatest sin, is that the majority of the season is devoted to an entirely new cast ... of characters that can only be described as the most generic and forgettable lineup I think I've ever seen.

Instead of building on what the previous season established, Overlord inexplicably decided on quantity over quality and just screamed "MORE!" while it dumped everything it could on top of what little it had; more stories, more exposition, more characters, quality be damned. Overlord II is the epitome of superficial; if you were to simply remove the overlord branding this show would be drowning and forgotten in the sea of mediocrity as it deserves.

I was going to give this show an even lower score, but after a while of mulling over my thoughts on what Juni Taisen did wrong I came to a realization; if you want to fully enjoy this show, DO NOT think of it as a battle royale. I know this is the exact antithesis of what it's advertised to be, but taken at face value it has major issues holding it back, chief among them being a majority of screen-time being taken up by past events, plot holes galore, very obvious death-flags, not enough actual battle to even fill a kiddie pool, very off-putting ... transitions between 2D and 3D animation, and a terrible ending with zero payoff. I won't even count the fact that the entire death order is evident to anyone that pays attention.

No, if you want to actually enjoy this show, you have to go in expecting twelve short stories about characters that just *happen* to be fighting to the death. If Juni Taisen has any particular strength, it's in the characters. While not particularly exceptional, most of the fighters have interesting designs and backstories, and while condensed to an episode each their flashbacks convey their character well.

I get the feeling this is more the direction the studio was trying to go for, since each episode was very heavily focused on one character with each getting their own turn. To be honest, I may have preferred twelve completely standalone stories based on these characters, but this is what we have, and I can't willfully recommend a show based on the merits of half, when the other half is so woefully underdeveloped.

I absolutely adored first season, and more Kekkai Sensen is always great, but as a sequel this just doesn't bring much to the table.

I am currently 8 episodes in (watching in dub) out of this 12 episode season, and I have yet to see any semblance of an overarching plot. The season is, as of yet, entirely comprised of side stories focusing and building on each character of the main cast. Now don't get me wrong, I very much appreciate this; one of the main flaws with first season was how little love some of the characters got. However, with the way this is ... structured, it is much better suited as a side series or OVA's rather than a legitimate sequel. I'm still enjoying the heck out of it, but the lack of any actual plot is a major bummer.

Will update when the season is over, but I doubt my opinion will change much.

UPDATE: After finishing the show, it unfortunately finished how I expected it to. The last couple episodes are the only meaningful plot movement you get, and even then it felt underwhelming. This show is still loads of entertainment, just not what I wanted out of a sequel.

No Game No Life is definitely one of the most hyped series of the season, and with so many people telling me just how much they loved this show, I went ahead and gave it a shot. TL;DR While I don't see it as the absolute masterpiece that some have made it out to be, overall I do not regret the time I spent watching the show.

Story (7): The overall concept of the story is definitely a unique one; a world where disputes are settled with games, and a couple gamers are set on challenging the god of said world. While there are some ... similarities to other game-centric plots, including the numerous shows where the cast is stuck in a video game, the open-ended "rules" of this world allow for a diverse set of scenarios and experiences that the writers take advantage of. That said, the plot is constantly reminding it's audience that it is supposed to be a "smart anime," where everything that happens is because of intricate plans and plots. However, when these plans are finally revealed after their fruition, and sometimes during the games, I commonly felt like the writers were pulling Deus ex's from their hat and then acting like the characters knew these things would happen all along.

Art (8): As you will find in most reviews, the art in this show is very much above average; the light and unique color pallet along with the fluid animation makes sure that your eyes are never bored. While the character design might not be everyone's cup of tea, I found the art in No Game No Life a pleasure to experience.

Sound (7): The overall track lends itself well to the show and it's tone, and while there were no memorable, stand-out pieces, I didn't find myself distracted or annoyed by the sound at any point. The overall Japanese dub is very good as well, with the voices fitting well with their respective characters.

Character (5): For the sake of being blunt, I believe the characters are the weakest point of the show. Starting with Sora, it kept nagging at the back of my mind that this guy is supposed to be some kind of super-NEET, but is commonly shown to be extremely charismatic and able to read and manipulate people face-to-face with no troubles. Sure he has his weird quirks, but I just feel too much of a contradiction between his back-story and how he acts during the show. Going on with Shiro, I only have one major complaint with this character but it's a big one; this eleven year old girl is one of the major sources of fan-service in the show. I'm not about to argue with people's taste in fan-service, but this isn't about to cut it with me. Otherwise Shiro is a bit more of a believable, if not somewhat dull, character. Lastly is Stephanie; in summary she is basically boiled down to the show's idiotic whipping-girl who occasionally shows a bit of actual character. One last complaint I have is that the show very much tends to exaggerate reactions for comedic purposes, such as Stephanie constantly banging her head or Sora's unrivaled perverted tendancies; in my opinion these could be turned down some as they start to become grating after a while. While I've pretty much only listed negatives for the characters, I'll admit that they are still fairly fun to watch, and are somewhat relateable to a good portion of the audience.

Enjoyment (7): Overall I did very much enjoy watching No Game No Life. Even with the deus ex abundance I found the actual games played to be very entertaining, and often found myself eagerly awaiting the next game. The show is a pleasure to the eyes, and even with their flaws I found the characters themselves somewhat charming. One thing I have yet to note is that the show very much alternates between a "smart" think-it-through anime, and a turn-your-brain-off-and-enjoy anime. I can see how this may upset some, but I found little problem with it myself.

Overall (7): While no masterpiece, I will say it is probably one of the better anime of the season. If the premise appeals to you, I very much recommend to watch the first few episodes to see if it to your liking.

Soul Eater NOT! is difficult to judge because it's hard to pick what standards to judge it from, as well as what demographic it is trying to accommodate. If you come in looking for a slice-of-life anime, the steep, intermittent changes in tone and the general story-arch may be jarring for many. If you are coming in for a story-driven action-fest akin to the original series, this show will disappoint with its sparse and short actions sequences and how few episodes are actually driving the story forward. This show also assumes you have seen the original series, else many of the unique concepts behind the ... canon as well as back stories and cameos from the original story will be lost to the viewer.

Story:

The first half or so of Soul Eater NOT is very episodic with little overarching story to speak of, instead using the time to introduce the characters as they go about their first semester at DWMA. The last six episodes is when the story starts kicking it in to gear, but up through the end I found it somewhat shallow, both in complexity and scale. The anime does offer up some quite entertaining moments, whether its humorous or unsettlingly dark and unexpected, but these are relatively few and far between. Overall, it is a very "the power of friendship" kind of story, so be aware.

Art:

There isn't a lot to say about the art except that it was "okay." As a slice of life the colorful and somewhat simplistic nature of the bulk of the animation holds up fine, but the few action sequences were largely hit-or-miss; some scenes were relatively fluid and enjoyable, while others were completely lacking.

Sound:

Again, the sound was okay for the purposes. The voice-acting was decent enough, as I didn't find myself cringing at any particular characters when they spoke. The music was forgettable however; literally I can't remember any of the songs besides the opening...

Characters:

In terms of the three main characters, their personalities and motivations are pretty generic; you can pretty much pin them to a T from the first episode or two. You have the main girl who wants to get stronger to protect her friends, one who lived her child-hood in high class and wanted to escape it, and the overly enthusiastic, dim-witted one. Not much else to say.

The supporting cast is where I believe much of the show's entertainment lies, as long as you are familiar with the original series. Many recognizable faces are present in one way or another, and it was actually very interesting seeing their stories expanded upon from before the events of Soul Eater without any major discrepancies of the overall canon. I feel that I would have enjoyed the show much more if it gave more focus to this pre-story in terms of these recurring characters. There are a few characters, however, that I feel are not given proper justice and/or inconsistent if you are familiar with the original canon.

Enjoyment:

As I stated before, most of my enjoyment came from the expanded narrative around the supporting cast. I didn't find the show overly bad in any way, but as I am confessedly not a huge fan of the slice-of-life genre, those who are fans may get more out of it than I did. Although I still find the action-side of it lacking, if you are a fan of both genres and aren't afraid of switching between them in the same continuity, I would say go ahead and give it a whirl.