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Jin-Rou, or Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, is a movie that mixes together intensely beautiful graphics, immersive soundwork and music with solid but ultimately somewhat uninspired story.

Prevalent through the entire film is a supreme sense of mood that largely comes down to the overall aesthetics of the piece, giving the film a foreboding and dark sense throughout it. Scenes such as the start of the movie, for example with a yet-unnamed terrorist/freedom fighter stepping through the water-soaked underground to deliver satchel bombs only to find herself hiding and fleeing from the military that she only hears from afar, would flounder in a film that lacked this ... must polish. From the blocking to the sound of steps through the water to the grizzly ending it is striking. And this can be seen although the film: The fire of molotov cocktails against dark streets in protest, the contrast of sparkling water to more gritty urban environments and particularly effective use of facial emotion or other cues tha work together with the rather low-dialogue nature of the work. I will also note this movie features spot-on sound effects for the various guns used in it which is a nice touch.

This goes hand-in-hand with the terrifyingly ominous Protect Gear that the Special Unit utilizes, bulky with the menacing glow of red night vision goggles that conceal the user entirely to the point of feeling almost like a horror robot. They are used sparingly in a wise decision that ensures their impact is felt when the right moment comes, especially as this movie is not particularly afraid to go into loving animation on the messier parts.

The animation gets a nine largely due to a few off model scenes with the faces. While good at showing expressions through much of it, especially in the eyes and in very subdued expression, it sometimes struggles when it comes to very outsized ones such as intense grief or happiness. Normally this would not be a big enough deal to drop the score down a point, but one of the worst times it happens is right during the largest emotional climax of the entire film and it took me right out of the moment. And getting a moment that important to the film to the point it takes me out of it is plenty enough to downgrade it compares to others.

This mood helps prop up the plot and characters, which while more than it seems on the surface graded out as mostly a Good. The use of Little Red Riding Hood allegory is smart, but after a certain point wears out its welcome when it would feel stronger if it was more condensed and we instead got somewhat more insight into the characters. This is particularly true since in a move that seems to be going for a more subtle approach elsewhere, everything about said allegory is taken to the film like a sledgehammer and aside from perhaps a brief fake-out (which, if intended, did not fake me out) makes some of the points that are supposed to be more hidden far too obvious. It IS used well in chunks of the movie, particularly the ending, but having good sides doesn't stop it from dragging down other parts somewhat.

The film's sharpest and strongest focus outside of the start is probably on the internal affairs of the government and the twists and turns that come with the Public Security Division, the Special Units Division, the police and the main government clashing and vying against each other. Henmei ends up a notable character due to this and it tends to be when the movie is most articulating a point as well. It also leads into the twists and turns, that I won't spoil, later in the movie that give the plot the majority of its depth.

While this does help a lot, it also leads into an issue I ran into for the characters: The revelations we get may add new context to previous scenes, but it also feels like it emotionally or logically rides up against them as well. It is hard to get into details without large spoilers, but it renders aspects of how Fuse and Kei (the main focus of the majority of the movie) rather fuzzy and unrealistic. Or if not unrealistic, at least not exactly tight storytelling. This is another reason that reducing some of the Little Red Riding Hood allegory for a bit more insight, be it direct or simply giving us some breadcrumbs so that we might come to our own conclusions, would have been a great tool as it could have been used to help paper over or avoid these issues. This goes moreso for Kei, who despite a large amount of promise ultimately ends up rather flat, I would have liked a bit more of a look into her. I will note I appreciate the film's anti-authoritarian and anti-fascist themes, but it does feel like they are largely relegated to the start and end of the film and could have been perhaps explored more.

To a degree I wonder if the film had a tough task to follow after the initial 13 minutes or so as the riot at the start of the film feels like the high point of the film aesthetically. Despite the fact that the entire start essentially is lacking in names, we only find out the name of terrorist girl Nanami later, it nonetheless gets us invested in these events quite naturally. Nanami's walking through the streets juxtaposed against the violence of the protests for freedom, with the kind of cool yet tense music reflective of a dark thriller backing it, is a strong point and the result of her delivery is some very well done animation. It also certainly feels like it had a lot of room to inject plenty of meaning into it if it was a full movie, enough that it could have surpassed the movie in messaging.

Overall, a solid movie that drags its weaker parts along with some strong audiovisuals that help invite interest even at weaker points and drag some scenes beyond what the screenplay would suggest. Well worth checking out if the premise is intriguing, but don't expect anything beyond the norm.

Dark and driven, Psycho-Pass was a smash hit in the 2012 anime season and went on to win numerous awards and accolades, spawning an entire series including a movie, a sequel and so on and so forth. Note that this review contains some minor spoilers: I'll mark down when those appear and stop.

The setting itself is appropriately dark and dystopian, with intentionally muted emotions and voice acting to fit in a world where suppression of stress and emotion is the norm. While the dystopian setting could be said to have some holes in it, it is for the most part well fit together...and more dystopian ... settings have some elements of logical flaws to begin with since they're usually exaggerated in order to discuss some kind of point. We'll talk more about some of the more character issues with it later, though. One difficulty the show faces is that because it is going for this kind of muted approach it can cause some of the worst episodes to really drag and be rather unenjoyable to watch, especially if the episode turns out to be irrelevant to the overall plot of the show. This is particularly an issue with some of the earlier episodes, which at times made it an actively unenjoyable experience.

The plot is set up pretty early and it gets into its overarching story involving Kogami, Akane and Makishima, which for the most part is good. But one unfortunate side effect is that the plot is so all consuming that other characters really don't get much of anything to do: Using some of the earlier episodes to add to the other characters would have been welcome and they could have been better integrated into the later plot. For example, the backstory "villain" from Episode 12 would have made a lot of sense to possibly show up during the events of Episode 14/15 which could have been used to give Yayoi any actual purpose in the squad.

I'll use that to divetail into the characters, which is the part where Psycho Pass really gets iffy. Makishima and Akane are pretty good, with Akane being a stand out for having a fairly solid character arc that avoids being focused on romance despite Kogami's involvement and having a solid viewpoint with a good deal of smart decisions...although sadly the ending really is a letdown for her. Makishima is solid, although I found him somewhat lacking. Part of this probably comes from the fact that the Sibyl System is so laughably evil and obviously terrible that taking Makishima as an "Evil vs. Evil" approach feels wrong, yet at the same time the show really wants to present him as this larger than life psychological villain. When he starts comparing the world around him to famous dystopian works, it is hard to not think that those works stand above the show...and it also isn't hard to think that it is trying to be a bit TOO on the nose. At the same time, his slick charm and reasonable yet effective plots combined with some memorable lines plus good combat sequences make him a memorable villain. He could have been so much more if he was shown in a more faceted way however, such as delving into him and Choe more (in fact, more of Choe in general would have been really interesting: He's wasted given he has some of the most unique viewpoints here!).

Kogami is the other big character and he is...okay. He is a bit of a one note character but his opposition of Makishima remains mostly interesting through the show. The rivalry can at times feel a bit stale and derivative, however: Despite not having finished Cowboy Bebop at the time of writing this review, the rivalry couldn't help but remind me of Spike and Vicious except somewhat less interesting. The final confrontation between the two also reminded me of Kiritsugu and Kotomine's from Fate/Zero...except less cool. I couldn't help but feel he was stuck in a story where the people around him tended to be the more interesting and better explored of the main trio.

But it is the other characters, especially in the squad, where the show runs into true difficulty: Kogami might have some issues, but he's still overall a solid character with good lines and who keeps us interested in what they do. Akane and Makishima are the best two, as mentioned. But the rest...eh. Kagari and Yayoi feel entirely superfluous to the story and show, easily removable without almost any effect on it. Yayoi gets a worthless backstory episode for Episode 12. Does it help us get to know her better? Not really. Will it be relevant in any way, despite an ambiguous ending? Of course not. Does Yayoi do anything else for the rest of the series? No, not really! She barely has any lines outside of that episode and isn't relevant to any of the events or other character's development. She feels like she was entirely included to have a salacious lesbian relationship with Shion, which itself barely pops up and basically just for fanservice, rather than to have an actual character. The character from her backstory could have casually come back during episodes like 14 and 15...but nah, lets just make it UTTERLY POINTLESS.

Kagari has a more interesting character basis than Yayoi, because his Psycho-Pass has been clouded since he was 5 and so he's been forced out of society since then (This isn't a spoiler, it is discussed very early). This is all you will get from Kagari, with no further discussion of what he might think of anything or him really affecting anything else until he gets a shock moment late in the series. All he does is get to be the joke-y one of the group. A total waste.

Ginoza and Masaoka are the two who get a bit more to them, but they aren't really utilized that much and Ginoza's character arc felt a bit expected and on top of that just kind of having meh execution. It felt a bit too back loaded and the fact Ginoza feels like he has little outside of things that directly impact his character development makes him fall a bit flat. Masaoka is the more interesting of the two, an old cop from before the Sybil System got implemented who doesn't really believe in it, he tends to give some interesting views on everything and has a more complex and complete view of the world which makes him feel like a deeper character. Like most of the squad, however, little attention is given to him except for when he's needed for "key moments". Personally, I would have loved to see an episode delving into his backstory: Say, a case from when Sybil is first being implemented and is clashing with his traditional detective abilities. It could have shown us both more about this society and him as a character and given the events of the ending would have been a hell of a lot more relevant than Yayoi's episode. Given the multitude of early episodes that are more to show off the world than to be part of a big plot, it would have made sense to show off more of the underutilized squad during this slower period in order to deepen our feelings for them when things get intense.

I'm going to try and talk some about the ending and some events from the mid points of the series, so some spoilers ahead (but I will try not to spoil more than a little).

The revelation of the Sybil System's true nature is actually pretty well done, but I take issue with Akane's response to it and the general character development of it. First off, Akane's speeches in the last episode are the kind of boring and trite garbage of just "Humanity will totally improve!" that requires a stronger thematic backup to have any effect. It also feels fairly weird character-wise for Akane, mostly in how bizarrely non-specific it is and how it is mostly blind hope. Akane never suggests she has any idea how humanity will continue or really gives any indication of how she will so to speak "fight Sybil" while working under it, and in general comes off as incredibly naive and foolish rather than defiant or hopeful like the series tries to frame it. When she's laughed at for it...it is difficult not to laugh at her as well. The fact it goes into some balance of law and chaos thing is also bizarre, as quite frankly the Sybil System is so blatantly evil and presented as such in an over the top way (Do we ever see the actual benefits of the system?) that it makes it hard to see this as a reasonable thought process, let alone the fact that the Sybil System should be considered "law" or "lawful" to begin with. It feels like a total non-starter.

Episode 14 has a gratuitously violent scene where people don't react to someone being horribly murdered because the Sybil System isn't showing their Psycho-Pass as clouded. This is utter nonsense and the show itself shows it. Yes, people put an insane amount of trust in the Sybil System and use it to determine crime and stuff. But they aren't idiots and as soon as the first episode it is shown that people still react to crime happening even if they don't know about the criminal's Psycho Pass level. On top of that given it takes a moment for reactions, people should have been running in terror like they do at other times when he first STARTED beating her up because they wouldn't know about his Psycho Pass level to begin with and it could have easily been in the "just about to go over" state. The people in universe are NOT the audience, they are not magically aware of the fact this guy isn't a clouded hue! On top of that, people are shown to react to this level of violence even aside from the Psycho Pass, even as soon as the start of the episode this event happens. Ignoring how wholly unbelievable this is in a real life context, it is entirely bizarre in the context the show provides, and it happens at least twice within the same episode despite not working that way elsewhere. It severely undermines the point of the episodes when the show throws its own logic out the window on a whim.

Spoilers end here.

Another thing that could have been interesting is a bit more challenge on Sybil prior to the end of the series. For example, we're told some nebulous global issue has caused countries to descend into chaos and how bad things are in Japan and how Sybil saved everyone. The country has returned to its closed status in the world of Psycho Pass, which begs the question...how true is this? We only ever hear it from people who are known to be willing to lie to protect themselves and/or the country's order in any reputable manner, and the Sybil System's enforcers have plenty of reason to spread misinformation on the subject.

Even leaving that aside though, what do other countries think of this insanely dystopian yet low crime area? If the world has descended into chaos, is it something they think is worth it, or do they still think of it as a poor thing? I bring this up because the idea of what people on the outside thing of this very insular system would have been very interesting and because the show had a perfect character to explore this idea: Makishima's right hand man Choe Gu-Sung, who is a Korean immigrant who is shown to be very smart like Makishima with his own differing yet similar views on the world...and yet we hardly get any thoughts from him on anything that really matters, although he does at least get one monologue. But I feel the show could have really benefited from making him a larger villainous presence and giving us a deep understanding of how differences and criticisms of the system in front of him. He felt like a potentially fascinating but bizarrely underutilized character.

On the whole, Psycho-Pass is a somewhat enjoyable but heavily flawed series. It reaches some good highs with specific episodes or Akane's development for example, the show looks really good (although it has some crazy off model or bizarre looking shots later, especially involving the Chief, which helped lower the score) and it does provide some thought provoking moments: I especially enjoyed Makishima in the ending and Kogami along with his mentor exploring Makishima's head and some logical places the society would go. But a multitude of boring or underused characters, logical hiccups and the fact that, honestly, I found a multitude of the early episodes pretty boring really caps how much I enjoyed it on the whole. I would recommend it to those who enjoy crime procedurals, dystopian fiction or high psycho-analysis kind of stuff...but in general, I would look for other stuff first.

Seeing as this is a 23 minute short for an animation project, you will forgive me if this review is on the shorter end.

Death Billiards certainly does a major part of the entire point of an animation project: It looks GREAT, with a lot of strong shots to show off not only how pretty it looks but some good use of things such as perspective and coloring. I'm not an expert in terms of graphic design so I couldn't go into great detail, but it pretty consistently looked good and used a variety of types of perspective. The sound was also solid, from the voice ... acting to things like the drink glasses and pool shots.

The one shot episode story could have been done better: The young guy (Otoko)'s breakdown scene where he runs around to escape and whatnot for example along with some pointless repetition of exposition, especially of the "I can't tell you anything" kind, probably should have been shuffled around and cut to make room for a bit more of the two pool players interacting or somewhat more in depth flashbacks (perhaps add a minute or two to the length?) as it makes things like the episode's climax or the later breakdown a bit less of a connection.

With only one episode's runtime worth of space there isn't much room, but I could definitely see more being done with it (This is a concept that has certainly been used in a few places, most prominently in my memory The Twilight Zone) and it is therefor no surprise this inspired an anime in Death Parade. On that note, Decim and Onna are well characterized despite being very background characters: The mysterious arbiters of this afterlife in-between, with Decim being the colder one who talks less while Onna is a bit more inquisitive (mostly in the last scene) but has the same level of empathy. It is reasonably well done.

The final verdict is Death Billiards is a good visual showcase, exactly what it was designed for, and a good watch if you plan to watch the Death Parade anime given that is where it started. A reasonably fun use of 23 minutes as well, especially if you enjoy the synopsis.

Princess Principal is a show I would have been unlikely to put high priority on watching, but the fact that a bunch of people I knew were planning to watch and review it instantly got it on the table for me. While I was far too slow to join them, I nonetheless made sure to push through later, and here we are. And Princess Principal's concept IS interesting enough. You don't really get a lot of anime spy shows, for example. The recent Joker Game anime, which I still need to watch, was one of the first examples to come to my head. Joker Game, ... from what I saw, looked a bit underwhelming, so I went into Princess Principal hopeful it would be better.

Princess Principal's chief issue lies in the characters, as there is absolutely no character development throughout its twelve episode run time. Each character gets at least one background one shot story to give you an idea of how they joined the team or got to where they are, but they are essentially never relevant to the plot (Beatrice's in particular is barely even seen, let alone matters) and do not end up driving much of anything or even giving us much more of a sense of the characters. Chise's is the closest and it is still mostly tepid, although it at least has a full and complete self contained story...and then she got another generic focus episode that served solely to show off characters you don't care about who will never appear again and stuff you already knew!

I like the idea of how the background stories were structured, starting us with the team on a mission already and then slowly showing us how they got here while mixing in more present episodes, but the fact that these backstory episodes are totally lacking in substance just kills the concept in the crib. The princess was just about the only character I thought was interesting, although she is a pretty unrealistic character, because her episodes were executed somewhat different than normal via the latter episodes. It was more tied into the overall story than the one shots and offered more character insight in the process. Can't go into too much detail here since it'd be a spoiler, although you will most likely figure out what happened by the end of the second episode.

The overall series plot is only barely existent, with the series largely consisting of one shots and an ending 2-parter. The 2-parter would have definitely benefited from some foreshadowing. It wouldn't be hard to tie more of the one shots in to it when almost none do. For example the episode about smuggling nerve gas through could have instead been about smuggling through some materials which are used in the final episode. You know, basic stuff. Granted, the finale isn't good either and has one of the goofier villain exits I've seen as they escape the plot after suffering a minor setback.

The one shots aren't that great either and suffer from an issue that the first episode already kind of tries to spell out (albeit trying to spin it as a good thing) and which is obvious from just watching 1-2 episodes more: Nearly every episode of this show is going to have some kind of plot twist shoehorned into it. Once the viewer understands this, almost every episode becomes painfully predictable as despite the show trying to sell you on "twists" it never really tries to be inventive, do anything new or even execute what it does in a manner that advances the characters. I wouldn't mind the lack of inventiveness if not for the last point, as the execution is pretty much boring and expected without using it to enhance the show. Episode 6 was the height of this to me: Unless you either have somehow not gotten what this show is about at that point or have never seen this style of plot before, you will figure out exactly what is going to happen at least halfway through the episode if not sooner. It was extremely disappointing and going for a different ending which could further Dorothy's character would have made it much more engaging.

This is compounded by the fact that this is one of those series where all of the characters are unbelievably competent and thus makes it difficult to feel tension in scenes. Most of the time, their plots don't even go all that wrong and thus there is not a lot of challenge felt: There are a pair of recurring antagonists so forgettable I don't even remember their names and they always come off as less competent than the show presents them due to repeatedly losing and being foiled in frequently easy ways. When the show tries to end on a stinger of them preparing for future conflicts, it is difficult to take them seriously due to this. For an idea of how unbelievably competent some characters are, the backstory of one says that they cannot read or write, but that they then learned NINE LANGAUGES...without anyone helping them. While also learning about 10 other listed things! It completely destroys any willing suspension of disbelief when it is so outrageous, especially since the setting otherwise plays out as somewhat realistic but with some ill defined magitech.

If there's one thing Princess Principal did solidly enough, it was the art and sound. All of the girls are reasonably cute, the background art is at times fairly pretty, it has a very victorian feel to it mixed with some industrial stuff, so if nothing else that works. The CGI on the other hand is pretty hit or miss. Stuff like the car is usually fine if sometimes a bit jarring, but the last car chase scene for example looks pretty bad (the CGI train made me laugh for a bit, which is not what you want from your dramatic heart pounding scene usually!). The soundtrack was a bit more forgettable, but there were some decent background tracks and the OP and ED are solid. Overall, this was one area where Princess Principal largely felt reasonable.

I was honestly somewhat surprised by how much I disliked this series by the end of it. It started off fairly standard and I thought it would be some general 4-6 star anime fodder. Instead the complete lack of character progression, lackluster one shot plots, lack of an overarching story and absence of tension completely stifled the show for me and left it a pointless slog. I would recommend avoiding this anime unless you are a hardcore spy fan (although you might even be more annoyed by me at how lackluster it is if you're hardcore into the genre), have some character design or part of the concept really jump out or simply want to watch as much anime as possible.

My Hero Academia is the latest in terms of ultra-popular shonen, ranking #25 in MAL's most watched at the time of writing this review. With a variety of friends who have watched the series or read the manga plus the fact that unlike some other shonen it is of actually reasonably watchable length. And so I picked it up recently.

The plot of My Hero Academia is pretty simple and straightforward, with main character Midoriya (or as some others refer to him as a nickname, Deku) being a person without superpowers ("Quirkless", with powers being known as Quirks) in a world full of them. Nonetheless he ... aspires to be a superhero and idolizes the top hero of the world, the all american All Might (seriously, his attacks are named after random states/cities in America, and it is hilariously great)! Midoriya is about to give up hopes on the possibility when a chance encounter with All Might leads to a series of events that leads to All Might deciding to pass on his Quirk to Midoriya as his successor, for his is a nearly unique quirk that can be passed on to others...and All Might's time as a hero is nearing its end.

All in all, the setup ends up rather standard, but the standout character of All Might helps push it along: All Might's pondering on how a career he built so much is coming to an end, passing it off to someone who he finds worthy for their morals over their power and struggling with how he has such a large instinct to help people when he no longer can as easily do and his thoughts on having an icon of justice are pretty much all the most interesting parts of the first season. Both of his designs are quite good, although I am surprisingly partial to his normal form, with his All Might costume and design looking like it jumped right out of an American comic book which also helps really establish the tone.

Midoriya getting into the hero academy of the title leads to a host of side and semi-main characters with their own wacky powers and so on, although the first season primarily focuses on setting up for later seasons by introducing its quirky cast and what will obviously be recurring villains: About 3 of them are semi-mains who get focus as Midoriya's friend group, while the rest are relegated to more one note side characters for the moment. Some of them are really obviously going to be important in the future, Todoroki being the most obvious, while some are clearly just gag characters, like Yuuga or the awfil Mineta. In general, I would say a weakness of these characters is that the introduction of so many makes them quite one note at the start, even for the more prominent Ochako and Iida.

Bakugo, Midoriya's..."friend" from childhood and school who also got into the academy is the rival character of this show and a character I am iffy on. Quite frankly with how Bakugo interacts with Midoriya I have no idea how we are supposed to buy into the idea Bakugo and Midoriya are actually friends, with Bakugo telling Midoriya to kill himself, repeatedly threatening to kill him and blowing up his stuff. Yeah, sure, they were friends as kids, they repeatedly flash back to Midoriya and Bakugo at four years old with Midoriya getting messed up by him. And he still was friends with him for over a decade? Nobody's parents intervened or anything? It isn't like Bakugo is subtle. Yes, Midoriya does at times talk about Bakugo's flaws but those are for the most part glossed over. I simply can't buy into the idea of them as friends and the rivalry stemming from it seems odd. Bakugo is also pretty one note in the first season with the vast majority of his scenes either being "superiority complex" or "explosions".

I am also going to take a moment of my time to say that Mineta, one of the minor heroes, is a truly terrible character in his limited screentime and should be kicked to the curb posthaste. He has two roles in this series: To be the one who makes pervy "jokes" + pervs on the girls and to be an overly loud, whiny "hero" who panics and is useless. These two traits combine to make a character who does nothing of value except unfunny jokes that often hurt the scenes he is in: His "cowardly" characterization in parts of the end of the season with Midoriya and Tsuyu stood out to me especially for hurting the atmosphere of the scene and lowering their quality notably. He also looks more like a child and his superhero outfit has what I would best describe as a diaper look to the pants, so you can tell this is just a parade of awfulness. Replacing Mineta's unfunny comedy antics in the finale's parts with an actual character to give us insight into them would have been a significantly better use of time than this waste of a character.

The plot is fine for what it is, since most of it is setup and we do get some good All Might stuff. While the pace is solid, I feel it would have been perhaps better served paring down the cast a little and giving a touch more focus to the ones they did have. The appearance of the villains in this season are kind of out of nowhere, but it works well enough and sets them up for the future seasons (can I just make a minor complain it annoyed me that the one team predominantly headed up by the women students was the only one that didn't definitively beat their villains?).

One thing I have to talk about and it does make the pace feel off is that this show has waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many flashbacks. The Midoriya/Bakugo fight in particular has a multitude of flashbacks that beat the same point in, sometimes being flashbacks to the same thing earlieri nt he episode (I assume to bring to speed people who didn't see it due to tuning in mid-episode/after commercials?), that really end up taking you out of the scene and feeling rather jarring. Cutting down on these flashbacks and using them better, for example giving more to Ochako and Iida instead of all the Midoriya flashbacks, would improve the plot.

Graphically, the show looks quite good: The characters are extremely expressive, All Might's unique shading really helps give pop to his character and make him look like a larger than life hero, the use of a lot of powers is well animated, I'm no expert in this kind of thing but I thought it overall looked pretty good. Sometimes though the faces really went too far, which either made them unpleasant or difficult to take seriously or otherwise kind of warped...I'm not sure how to put it, but sometimes it was too dramatic, other times it just looked funny. The VAing and sound is mostly solid: I may be the only person on the planet who doesn't especially care for MHA Season 1 or 2' OPs, but the background music is good but not something that jumped out to me. The voice acting is a bigger point in its favor, like Tsuyu, All Might and Bakugo's. Mineta's VAing was so good at playing the character's annoying traits to their appropriate annoyance that it only makes it easier to hate him.

My Hero Academia is not a shonen you watch because it is especially innovative, but it IS rather fun with enough to it to keep it from feeling vapid. Reviewing only the first season is awkward, and it is best to know going into this show that the first season is mostly there as a big introductory fest with the exception of All Might. I would generally recommend it to people who are predisposed to this kind of show given the strong visuals, enjoyment of fights and unique designs and the fact it has high potential to build on what it has made in the first season...but I also wouldn't say it super impressed me or that it is a show I would be especially trying to get people who aren't especially into this genre to watch for its quality. The primary thing it has is being enjoyable: The show is rarely dull and thus keeps the viewer invested.

Rokka no Yuusha, or Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers, was an anime I watched for two principle reasons: A friend I know who doesn't watch a lot of anime watched it and enjoyed it, and I thought the summary on MyAnimeList looked interesting and unique. I am most definitely a sucker for these kind of shows that play around with the "group of destined heroes" concept. Of course, you might not know what if you watched the show and, say, cut it off after 3 episodes.

The start of Rokka no Yuusha is somewhat deceptive and is more the kind of start you would expect ... from your standard light novel fantasy adventure: A braggart hero interrupting a flashy tournament, a cute and naive princess contrasted with a dark and brooding cool haired girl and, someone pretty obviously set up to be a rival. These episodes aren't bad, but they aren't especially notable when you're starting out, they are the kind of episodes that are actually a lot better to rewatch than to first watch, as they contain a surprising amount of foreshadowing for the series. In many ways, the series can be said to have truly "started" in Episode 4, when the series moves from a fantasy adventure piece into a closed room mystery action piece.

From there, it gets fairly interesting. I had heard some complaints before that the mystery was "too obvious" but while it isn't DEEPEST MYSTERY EVER WHOOOA or anything I thought it was perfectly acceptable. The ultimate suspect is not one I suspected for the most part and the method actually did trip me up from expectations. Given this anime is 12 episodes and only 8 take place in the closed room setting, I found the mystery aspect more than acceptable and actually rather fun. This does bring me to one issue I had: With only 12 episodes and 7 prominent characters, roughly half of which are not introduced until 1/3rd of the series is in the books, some characters pretty clearly fall by the wayside in terms of how much we really get to see of them and their depth or complexity. Adlet and Hans for example get good character examination, while Maura is left rather bare.

Nonetheless, this was a rare show where I would say I did not dislike any characters in it, although most did not stand out to me especially strongly either. Hans was probably the best, you get a pretty good sense of who he is and how he works with some multiple facets without even getting to learn much in the way of backstory or anything. And while it isn't exactly "character" in the same sense, Chamot's character was pretty fun and not what I expected in the first place...and the surprise reveal of her power set was actually one of the most memorable parts of the show to me. It is quite a trip.

One character interaction I felt was somewhat off was the romance part, specifically involving Adlet and Fremy. On Fremy's end it makes sense given her backstory, character and the fact she seems less committed to it, I thought it was less than believable from Adlet's end and stuck out like a bit of a sore thumb. I have heard that the Light Novel has some more explanations for it...but I can't exactly grade the anime for something outside of it and it stuck out to me. The ending is also something that makes sense, I assume it was the same cliffhanger at the end of that Light Novel volume, but in the context of the anime it felt pretty out of place and was one of the parts of the show I more disliked. It felt somewhat cheap and more like it should be at the start of a season two first episode than the end of this show's. And I'm not sure how much I like the direction it is implying it will go to begin with.

The art of this show is pretty hit and miss. Stuff like the fight scene in Episode one and some of the exposition after has some really pretty art but at the same time the CGI in this show is generally fairly bad. I don't just mean the monsters, where it seems to be trying to give them an otherworldly quality but fails to do so (compare to the D-Reaper from Digimon Tamers for example despite being a much older show), but another thing they do is these odd panning shots which are painfully and obviously done in CG. They cut down on these with time, but they prominently stood out to me most of the time they happened and not in a good way. Also, the second opening had some slightly jarring parts to me that stood out repeatedly when I watched it. I did for the most part enjoy the character designs a good deal...although I am sad they didn't give Fremy a freaking shirt because I would love the outfit a lot more if it did. Sound is mostly positive with some good voice actors, in fact that's what bumped the Sound to an 8 here, I thought the show actually had some pretty good voice acting, most obviously from Hans, Fremy and Chamot. It had some good ambvient sound and some pretty good songs as well, overall it was pretty good.

So, what's the final verdict? Rokka no Yuusha isn't a masterpiece, that much is certain, but it is a fairly fun and good show. It explores its premise with a reasonable amount and combines it with solid and memorable if at times a bit lacking characters. It combines this with some fun action, leading to a show with an overall "Good" quality that nonetheless does not especially stand out. The very end is a bit lacking, but largely coming off the heels of the mystery's wrapping up being done pretty well. If the premise or designs interest you, definitely give it a whirl: It is ultimately pretty enjoyable. If they don't, though, I wouldn't necessarily explicitly seek it out, as it does not do a ton outside of what it advertises.

I was recommended this anime by a friend of mine and entered it with a sort of cautious optimism: A quick look at the MyAnimeList page and a Google search showed that this was a rather well received anime with character design that appealed to me that had somehow totally slipped under my radar. I wished to avoid spoilers for the show, so I did not look further, and instead dove right in.

The show starts off rather quickly and right off the bat, introducing the viewer to the relevant characters and plot points in a swift yet efficient manner, a good pace to start off ... with. The setting of the show is interesting and provides for some beautiful scenery shots with the rather nice CGI effects. The CGI might be a turn off for some people, but, well...given my RWBY avatar it should not be surprised I am less bothered by it. It is also rather nicely woven into the show as it enables the characters to look particularly gem-like against the world around them which is most especially notable in the varied, frequently sparkling hair of the cast. Liquid effects, especially some of those later on, are also of notable high quality that contribute to the feel of the show, and plenty of other such things.

The story itself concerns the life of living gem-people protecting their home against the mysterious Lunarians, who wish to turn them into gems for decoration. More accurately, though, the show is a piece of character examination with other show elements sprinkled in, most prominently mystery and some action to go alongside it. This is largely packed into our main character, Phosphophyllite (mostly known as "Phos" because...you try pronouncing that constantly as a voice actor), who undergoes quite a large transformation throughout the 12 episode run time. This is probably the most striking part of the show and alongside Akko from Little Witch Academia felt like some of the most natural and realistic character developement I have felt in a while, with changes to how one views the world connecting to goals, outward and inward personality, reactions from others and more. I won't get into much detail since I would be spoiling it, but it is actually quite an impressive feat and while Phos probably wouldn't make my Top 10 anime characters, she has a good argument to be close.

Although the story does firmly focus on the character developement, the other elements of the show are still handled fairly well through it, such as the notable and consistant tone of mystery to it. Not just in the enemies but the setting itself and more which then feeds into the feeling of the setting as this kind of introspective and quiet world. The break of this into action is usually rather seamless and helps keeping the anime from feeling too sleepy, especially with some nice (though not top tier) monster designs. The introspectiveness of the setting feels like it meshes nicely with the high focus on "change" as a thematic motif.

Packed alongside Phos is a colorful cast which is quite expansive, especially given it is a 12 episode anime. In fact, if anything, the cast is perhaps a bit too expansive: Being based on an ongoing manga plus the fact it is clearly gunning for more than one season means it is clearly setting up characters for later story developements or as more one note characters fitted to fill roles other characters could not. The fact that this show nonetheless does them well, however, makes this more of a minor complaint. Another complaint I can file with the show is that it feels like the importance given to Cinnabar fails to match her screen time and ability to get to know her, which can leave some scenes as coming off a bit less emotional than intended. This is the more major issue of the two: It did not grate on me really, but it does hitch the story a little.

This is contrasted by other characters being handled well, with Antarcticite being a standout for me...although I cannot talk too much about them thanks to spoilers. Bort and Diamond are also handled well, their toxic seeming friendship/relationship and how it leads into latter events especially since at first it feels more minor. Or even stuff like Rutile's desire for medical dissection and reconstruction feeds interestingly into later events, giving it more depth to something appearing minor. While I wouldn't call most characters amazing I also wouldn't say a single character actively annoyed me which is rather rare for me.

The animation in this show is gorgeous, although it can at time look a bit too much like a CGI game. The animators are very well aware of how CGI can work and utilize to their advantage: Using the natural shininess and unrealisticness of a lot of CGI, for example, to create the shiny Gems and contrast them against the alien and unnatural feeling Lunarians or the more human Master Kongo. The hardness of the Gems is contrasted by their enemies often having very soft features, dissipating into wisps or even fluffy features and thus create contrast. And both of them look great due to affixing them to the CGI style well. Another thing this show does well? Using the CGI and the fact Gems can be put back together (Not a spoiler, this is established in the first few minutes) to create scenes that would UNDOUBTABLY raise the rating substantially if done on flesh and blood humans...and on top of that, the CGI style makes it all look quite amazing. By eschewing trying to make the CGI look extremely realistic, it instead does amazingly at making it look fantastical. And if you like beautiful 2D animation, the ED of this show has got your back. Also, the action is pretty well animated in this show if often a bit basic for my tastes, and the perspective and movement shots in Episode 10 are gorgeous.

The sound is quite good, with pretty strong voice acting from the cast all around and some memorable scores such as the sound of the Lunarians approaching. The sound effects on most anything gem-related is nice. The OP is somewhat forgettable, but the ED is pretty nice. The sound is also pretty good at fitting the mood, overall it is pretty good although I would not say it meets he very upper echelon of anime.

Houseki no Kuni is an anime about change. What does it take to change, what does it mean, will you be happy when you do? So interwoven is this theme throughout the anime that to discuss it without spoilers is difficult. But the show tackles it, it tackles it well and it tackles it in a way that left me interested throughout the show. It can start off slowly, too, but that is no reason to fret: Shows, too, can change. While not the best anime ever, I heartily recommend Houseki no Kuni to anyone who is interested in a strong character focused piece and impressive animation. And I am very excited for the prospect of a second season.

Izetta: The Last Witch is a rather straightforward series, which as far as I can tell was released to a good deal of interest which then petered out. Personally, I am pretty big on historical and alternate historical settings and shows which utilize them, and I like magical girl shows, so throwing them together into a blender is a good way to get me interested in the show, and at twelve episodes, it wasn't a very big commitment.

Taking place in an alternate World War II, Izetta is focused almost entirely on the small fictious country of Eylstadt, which borders the Germanian Empire (...Germany) and the ... Romulus Federation (Basically Italy), and so they end up getting war declared on them by the Germanians to be able to better move with their allies. Being a small nation, they would normally be pretty boned...were it not for the last known witch in the world, Izetta, who was being secretly smuggled into Germania to study her (and, well, for some more reasons), which throws a whole wrench into things when Princess Ortfiné Fredericka von Eylstadt (...We'll go with what everyone else calls her in the show, Fine) is trying to escape Germanian capture and happens upon her, then later is kept with her on the way to Germania...because, you see, Izetta and Fine have a past together, enough to awaken the witch!

The start of the series is ultimately pretty simple, albeit well enough put together, where Izetta's witchly powers (which, by the way, look really cool) are used to defend the kingdom against overwhelming odds...and also a lot of yuri, of course. While the plot of the series is pretty standard at the start, the Germanians trying to find out Izetta's powers and weaknesses against the main characters trying to work around things like her limited range and some spying plot is enough to carry it well enough. Around the halfway point, the plot begins to get a good deal complex, and I would actuall say the latter half of the series is more of what I was hoping for: More of a look at what happens when a magical girl style of magic meets with a real world war and technology scenario, political plays and spy work and so on.

Dipping into characters, the two main characters are the aforementioned Izetta and Fine. Izetta is not a particularly complex character, and while fun enough, she really could have used a bit more depth to her character and I don't think it would have been too hard to give it to her, such as some more reflection on, you know, all the stuff she is doing in WAR for Fine and so on. Fine is the more interesting of the two, a young ruler thrust into a difficult situation and forced to make tough choices, and while it isn't explored to a particularly deep degree, it does allow her some stronger character moments and is at least fairly interesting, being a stronger character driver than Izetta, although the show is a bit...light in this regard, and so I did not feel it was handled as well as it could.

Something I wish had changed with the show is that the show, rather obviously and something everyone would know who has been paying attention to this show's description on anime sites or promotional material, pretty obviously plays Izetta and Fine as having lesbian moments with each other. As someone who naturally enjoys yuri moments, this is appealing to me, but like many of the shows it doesn't turn into an actual romance, which is pretty disappointing. I felt it was especially disappointing here, as not only does the show play it pretty heavily, but I feel it would better tie together Izetta and Fine's characters, as how they see each other and what they will do for each other is an important part of the show, and frankly it feels totally ripe for a romantic upgrade from friends...in fact, Episode 11 has a perfect moment for this, and while the show may trick you for a moment to think it has happened, it ultimately cops out with an open ending instead of a solid one, and to me it ends up making it feel like this plot line does not resolve in a satisfactory way.

The other characters are more interesting to me. Berkman is not an especially memorable antagonist, but he is played in an interesting enough way and his very self-centric viewpoint ends up being in very interesting context and contrast to essentially every other character in the show, making him more standout and unique. Sieg is probably the most interesting character in the show, with earlier moments that might seem a bit confusing at the start end up slotting into place when backstory is revealed, and ultimately makes him feel like a more deep character than most of the others, although the last stuff he does feels kinda out of place. There's also more minor characters who come in and out and I won't go into all of them, but they tend to have some of the more interesting/different moments in the show.

Both the plot and the characters are a bit basic overall, though, and I wish that the show focused more on the second half's styling, as one thing I wasn't super happy about with this show is that I feel the integration of technology and magic could have been better done. Izetta's gun-broom is AWESOME and I love the idea and I do like how her powers feel both analogous to various real life military units and cleverly tied in. But the politics of it, the fighting aside from Izetta, and so on is rather lacking, and would have been more interesting had the tone of the second half been spread more through it, as the tone is oddly two-faced to it even if it never really goes dark but instead more serious. While I did like the second half, the last episode left me very divided, especially in how it messes with how one might imagine the world, although I did like the villain of the end.

Going into the animation and sound, the animation is actually really pretty, with Izetta popping off as vibrant and managing to make surprisingly realistic styled character designs soft and interesting, which helps make Izetta stand out more among them. Stuff like Izetta's riding of her gun-as-broom looks pretty cool and some of the scenes with the magic are quite lovely. One issue the show sometimes has is in some iffy CGI, most apparently in the last episode but at times seen before. This keeps it as a pretty and high end animation, but far from the best. Sound-wise the opening, Cross the Line, is REALLY standout and something I could listen to all the time. The sound effect of things like the planes and so on are very nice...but while the OP is good, the ED is forgettable, and it has some good music, but nothing which can be compared to the best around, so I leave it as good but not amazing.

Overall, Izetta is not a show that will amaze you, and if you seek a show with a deep exploration of a premise, you'll probably end up ultimately disappointed. If you want something which can give a more minor level of depth, really nice animation, and enough character and plot to keep one interested until the end, you'll probably fine Izetta enjoyable. The second half helped prop it up for me, and there is enough here that I was ultimately left with a positive view of the series...but not a very long lasting one.

I went into this show with some knowledge of Gundam, although I have not watched much, and with the idea of reviewing a short series for the night I watched it. Robots, dark stories, the combat of war...these are all things that interest me, so with a solid score, I dove into Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt.

The tone of the show's darkness definitely strikes right away, after a jazzy start of a space army getting ready and then going right into getting blown away. While Thunderbolt gets right to the point, in this regard I feel it suffers, giving little room to consider or process events ... and frequently moving too fast to really create an investment with the characters. Talking about the overall plot and narrative of Thunderbolt is hard because, honestly, it...doesn't have much of one, despite the dark atmosphere, the plot is very barebones: I know it is a four 18 minute episode anime, but I feel even something like Space Patrol Luluco (13 episodes of 7 minutes, 91 minutes of runtime compared to Thunderbolt's 72) had a stronger plot and Luluco's plot wasn't even anything special. The strongest theme is pretty obvious: War has a lot of hard descisions you have to make and that sucks. Any meaning or plot aside from that basically is "Federation vs. Zeon!", little to it.

The problem with this largely comes down to the characters, which are almost entirely exceedingly flat. The only one with any life in them is one of the main cvharacters, Daryl, who gets some level of characterization over his Paraplegia and flashbacks...but, in part due to the constant flow of interrupting nothingness, the fact that the flashbacks give little context or reason to interest us aside from the most obvious, and the lack of seeing Daryl doing things not related to it, it comes off as rather trite, and his reactions to the events of the story around him are mixed in interest. This is especially notable near the end when his rival, Io Fleming, makes a line that the show presents as dramatic and meaningful, with the exception that it is rather counter to his emotional reaction and the story beforehand, which basically makes it come across as trying to be deep but ending up cheap.

Pretty much everyone else in this show is flat. Io Fleming, the rival to Daryl, who is nothing you haven't seen before if you have seen a cursory amount of media in general, the guy who has thrills for battle with a cultural twist, in this case jazz music. Karla and Claudia have no impact on the story despite the amount of time devoted to Karla and she comes off as somewhat of a caricature of the common character archetype (non-fighter forced to fight/do combat research/etc) with her vanilla backstory and lack of scenes NOT relating to that. Claudia's character barely is expanded on and seems like she is supposed to serve as something to relate with Io, except their interactions pretty much mean nothing. Death in this series is hardly a spoiler when so many characters die, but Claudia's is noticeably disappointing as it is clearly meant to serve as an emotional/dramatic high point. I found myself unable to care. Nobody else is even worth mentioning, and there's lots of characters who exist as throwaways to show the "dark" setting: These characters usually get a handful of scenes where they show little or no traits outside of what is necessary for the story, making connection and thus caring about them beyond the cursory "oh, they died" extremely difficult.

I'm sure it can be argued that, as a short anime, I should expect characters to be more shallow and for them to get more time to grow as things go on. The problem with that here is that, frankly, I'm not given much of a reason to BE invested in these characters, with the majority being cannon fodder as well, and no plot to really hook onto or become interested in. If this was, say, the 4-episode start to an anime, I doubt I would be very interested in watching the rest of the show. It isn't a good anime as a standalone and it isn't an interesting start: Other Gundam series certainly have superior starts, let alone counting other depth naturally.

If there is one good thing in the series, it is the music, which not only sounds quite nice between both how it sounds and some good uses of merging of it with the show, and is pretty much the high point of the series, merging music with flashbacks, action and the bits in between. The animation generally looks nice, but fight choreography is rather disappointing, and the "Thunderbolt" of the title so far is useless aside from Deus Ex Machina at certain points in the series, although given how it is used I assume that it will actually mean something later in the series. Only the last fight is notable for much and it isn't honestly all that great in the context of Gundam, let alone all other anime and shows.

In conclusion, I would personally avoid Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt for all but diehard fans of Gundam, as it is not an especially good or deep representative of the series, nor is it especially interesting on its own. with trite and shallow characterization, little is left to the show except for action set pieces, which do not properly utilize the animation that it has. Plot is largely non-existant, although it at least manages to avoid major issues due to the lack of it, so unless you really like mixing in music into animation, it doesn't really have much to offer on a watch.

One day, a little MyAnimeList user named FrozenRoy was on his friend's Crunchyroll account, looking for a show at the start of the anime season to watch, and eventually review on My Anime List. Our little FrozenRoy quite enjoys steampunk and clockpunk stuff and so was interested in a show called Clockwork Planet, because it had a really interesting premise. That's how we get here.

Clockwork Planet's premise is, indeed, pretty cool: The planet Earth was fucked up so hard that it looked like humanity was going to become extinct, long ago. A supergenius only known by Y proposed and performed a massive operation to replace ... the planet, piece by piece in its entirity, with a world made out of clockwork, gears floating in space. And he managed to do it. A thousand years later, we live in a world of gears where clockwork machinery is an every day part of life, and main character Naoto Miura discovers RyuZU (yes, the caps are meant that way), a clockwork automaton made by Y.

This is a fairly solid start, right? We've got potential mystery of the past and present, if you like cute girls its got a robot, the other main character Marie is also presented as facing a crisis with one of the city's main gear towers, giving us some instant suspense. So, sounds like a good start for a series, right? How does it shape up?

Haha, it is TERRIBLE. First off, the plot and backstory is all but irrelevent. Very little of the show couldn't have just been set in a somewhat future world and been almost the same. Marie's plot with the military is one of the most obvious and yet blundered plots I've seen in a while: The "villain" is utterly incompetent both in terms of in character and how they are provided, for example, and the logic of it is quite absurd, I'm trying not to spoil it but...look, its like if you tried to cover up killing someone by going out and bombing a police station. Yeah, great, people might not investigate that murder, now you're on the hook for something more! They later do try to do a single thing with the Y backstory, but its so poorly communicated that it ends up as very muddy and simply doesn't go anywhere, creating a villain with essentially zero motivation.

That's another thing about this series that sucks. There's a few villains who are even named and all of them have either cardboard cutout or non-existant motivations, never get to fight and do not perform logical plot functions. Instead, 90% of enemies are nameless mooks who are supposed to be good fighters, but get mowed down by the dozens until they are little more than speed bumps on the path of the heroes. When the game makes it out like they are actually a threat, it doesn't feel tense or believable, because we've seen these exact enemies get simply flattened previously, eliminating the suspension of disbelief.

Characters in this series tend to end up with boring or inconsistant characterization. Naota has any potentially interesting gimmick in how much he is just a huge gear fan in this world, buuuut that mostly goes nowhere and he ends up being the generic main character surrounded by waifus. RyuZU has is oveprotective but it seems very selective when she is and otherwise is kind of just...there, it is hard to say she has a very defined personality, although that to an extent has a point due to her robotic origins. She does have one good quality, especially in a show full of not very likable characters: She's programmed to phrase her compliments in the most biting manner, resulting in her cutting down character's for their deserved stupidity repeatedly.

I hold a particular dislike in my heart for Marie, though, whose character was terrible and incoherent throughout the entire piece. The show really doesn't know how to portray her. Sometimes she comes across as incredibly hot headed and arrogant, other times she is over the top depressed about her abilities. Most commonly, she seems to take whatever extreme that Naota isn't taking, in order for him to take the reasonable viewpoint and come out on top of her, which also makes stuff of the finale seem rather out of place in the series. Her super speed repairing powers seem quite random and are generally poorly animated, she generally was very badly done as a character, including a worse "hidden identity" than Clark Kent, which also ends up being thrown out in like 3 episodes anyway so WHAT WAS THE POINT. TELL ME YOUR SECRETS, SHOW.

You also get Halter, who is...generic bodyguard basically. AnchoR I can't talk much about for some spoiler purposes, but she too is quite bad, and in particular has some icky stuff where the show really doesn't seem to want to know if it wants to take a romantic rival or daughter situation with her. The results are as squicky as you might imagine.

AnchoR is a good anchoring, hehe, point to talk about the shows AWFUL art and sound design and direction. The art is the far worse of the two: AnchoR's hair frequently looks like toothpaste on top of her head and character's outfits are frequenrly drawn in an odd and improper manner, making it look almost more like a paper doll with clothing that is a part of them and shifts awkwardly. Expressions do not always properly follow moods, often if animation is repeateded, such as Marie looking confidently annoyed at Naota in a scene where she is clearly in great distress. Animation of characters often is flimsy during talking or still shots, making characters look uncomfortable and blob-like, with machinery having uninspired designs and backgrounds being sparsely detailed. AnchoR frequently gets it the worst due to her dress and hair, making her stand out as being unrealistically poor in the crowd.

Sound design is similiarly poor, with uninspired voice acting with the exception of Halter who has a kinda cool older guy edge to him, entirely forgettable and drab in-story soundtracking and lacking sound effects for various things, although it often more skirts to forgettable than horrible in comparison to the art. I gave it a 2 simply because the OP is decent enough, especially with the clock effects in the background, and because of a handful of good mechanical noises in the finale, putting it above the true dredges of the world in that regard.

So, ultimately, the thought of this show should be rather obvious: It is dreadful. The plot is poorly paced, with filler slapped in at random and utterly drama breaking comedic moments hampering a script full of obvious stupidity and little tension. The art is some of the worst I've seen in a while, unless you are a huge fan of Colgate making some hot new anime. The sound design is poor and uninspired and the characters have difficult defining their personalities or otherwise are extremely inconsistant and poorly done. Battles are extremely disappointing, with action scenes largely consisting of stomps or boring fights against mooks, with no true villain fights even, eating up runtime as little more than filler. If you consider yourself a connoisseur of bad anime, then give Clockwork Planet a look, as it has plenty of material to mock with your friends. But if you want a quality anime, avoid Clockwork Planet in its entirity: You miss nothing but terrible spins on pre-existing concepts and an infuriating inability to do anything with its core concept.