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Incredible sequel to probably the best Pokemon spin off in recent memory.

It may not have as much variety with it's animation style and art direction as the original Poketoon had, but it makes up for it with consistently gorgeous visuals and in my opinion, a more heartfelt story to most of the episodes.

Eight episodes overall, four of them are wholesome, cutesy type of one minute short content, often in a music video format. While they're all well and good, it's the other four episodes where this series truly shines. A duration of about 10-17 minutes each, they all showcase a specific Pokemon (or ... two) and their various relationships with their partner/friend/acquaintance. Themes of forgiveness, friendship, trust, etc, all cheesy themes when done poorly, but are executed very well here. You rarely see this sort of emotional depth in Pokemon, which is probably why it leaves such a big impact on the viewer, especially if you've been watching Pokemon for as long as I have (25 years).

I hope to see a third season of Poketoon, and maybe a few more longer length episodes than previous seasons.

Failure Frame is an interesting one for me. A Fantasy Isekai show, it's incredibly derivative in it's ideas and execution, has some absolutely horrendous 3D scene transitional animation that breaks any immersion whatsoever, laughable caricature villain antagonists (You don't have to like all your classmates, but come on!), but despite all that, I dunno, the show was still kinda fun this time *shrugs*... Friday mid-morning, come home after milking my cows and then proceed to chuck on an episode of Failure Frame. Goddamn, Friday was a great day for seasonal anime this time around. Failure Frame in the morning, palette cleanser Giji Harem in the ... evening right after some odd farm jobs, and then finish it off with the "sophisticated" Gimai Seikatsu, almost feel like I have to dress up nicely for that one, a glass of white wine to accompany. But enough of that, so what exactly did I enjoy about this show?

Well, the character design was top notch, both the main cast and the endless masses of monsters. Touko Mimori, our main MC, does have that usual stock Light Novel look about him, but I'll tell you, making the character look slightly more mature/masculine and without the squeaky voice of a boy yet to hit puberty, works fucking wonders. It's complimented by the way he generally acts as well, a very careful, meticulous character who doesn't scream or overreact at every damn thing, he's not really angry edgy either, just incredibly focused at the job/goal at hand, yet still cares and shows some compassion for his companions.

Seras Ashrain, the main Female MC, might just be the hottest elf I've ever seen in anime. Well done to the artist who struck gold with this one, you did good. She kind of falls under the usual "falls in love with the main guy" trope after certain circumstances, but it still takes time to develop, it's not fucking immediate like so many other shows. A gorgeous badass elf, not much to hate here.

Now, I am a huge sucker for cosmic horror types of creatures and atmospheres, and some of these monstrosities definitely left me thinking "what the actual fuck" or "that's a lot of eyeballs" when they appeared on screen. Part of it was also thanks to the ghastly 3DCGI work lol, but it made them stick out even more, some really cool and creepy looking designs, the last time I remember being so awed by monsters was while watching Gantz:O. It'll never get old for me, no matter how many similar disturbing designs I come across. This show was a lot more grittier and darker in tone than what I anticipated it to be.

Make no mistake, the MC is extremely OP and proceeds to use his skills with little resistance throughout the show and it's a revenge driven narrative. It's not something like My Instant Death Ability Is Overpowered where Bro utters "shine " (die) after an unfunny, confident tirade from the antagonist, the girl chirping in afterwards to make a straight man joke, rinse and repeat till it's over, in Failure Frame the MC is cunning and ruthless and there's not much forced comedy element to his unstoppable killing spree (the way he sometimes fakes out people can be amusing), it's all introspective and analytical as he walks his path towards his goals.

I can scarcely believe it, but I even kind of want to check out the Light Novel after finishing this, which is something I never fucking wanna do after finishing a similar themed anime. There's also that longing, ever present tease of when is he gonna finally reveal himself to others from his own world/the goddess, etc, that sort of satisfactory viewing you can only get through certain situations. It's all very manipulative in it's boyish qualities, but I guess these elements just play greatly to that kid in myself.

Overall, it was the main characters and the dark, brooding ambience of the show that kept this show afloat for me, not sure I'd recommend it overall unless you enjoy these sorts of tropes specifically, maybe have a go at the source material, which is what I am planning on doing in the near future.

This is certainly not my first anime that I've seen where we've had a character (loosely) based off of famed writer Osamu Dezaki, suicidal tendencies and all, even some of his works being incorporated into the show (his most famous work reworded into the title of Isekai Shikkaku, No Longer Allowed In Another World), Bungo Stray Dogs and the Aoi Bungaku series come to mind. Anybody who is slightly aware of this man knows what they're probably getting themselves into, and I was no different.

I thought I could still stomach such a show, and at one stage of my life I most certainly could have. ... I'm of the belief that anything can be parodied and made light of, nothing is off limits. It all comes down to who you are as a person and what experiences you've been through. I won't go into too many details, but unfortunately, suicide is something that has tormented myself and my Family for some time now. Seeing your own Mother, such a strong willed women, break down in tears every now and then, beside herself, is a horrible thing to see and go through. The "lead up" chipped away at her bit by bit and a part of her also died that day.

I don't think I even find it THAT offensive... just incredibly uncomfortable, his little idiosyncrasies, they bring up thoughts and memories of just crap that has completely drained my Family, his aloof and always tired disposition, they way he snacks on pills is absolutely disgusting and managed to trigger me greatly, the way he speaks "as a matter of factly" about wanting to die (and the princess also coming to that conclusion in episode 2), it's pretty unpleasant to sit through an entire episode of this, let alone an entire season, especially if every fricking detail is somehow relatable. I know it's supposed to not be taken seriously, hell, I might have even chuckled at a joke or two, but my threshold line is much too short.

This is a pretty personal review and I have no doubt a lot of people would find this show enjoyable and hilarious, as it was intended to be. Which is fine. I'm just giving a different perspective on things here. If you've been through similar stuff and can still stomach a show such as this, then more power to you. I hope to get there one day as well.

I keep reading conflicting information as to why there's a recap episode halfway through this series, from production delays, to Voice Actor Taito Ban testing positive to Corona Virus, to the World Table Tennis Championships taking it's time slot. It could be one of these, it could multiple reasons, whatever it is, recap episodes on currently airing anime are almost always garbage and unnecessary to watch. This time is no different either. It's not quite Promised Neverland S2 levels of pathetic (after only 5 episodes), but it's close.

The episode skims over seven episodes worth of content that's already fresh in the memory of everyone ... watching and adds nothing of relevance or interest to the viewer. No fancy or intelligent way to retell the story to make it somewhat enjoyable (Gintama were the Kings at this), just a rehash of scenes with the MC narrating once in a while.

If you're not a completionist, I would otherwise skip. It's not bad or good, it just kind of exists.

It's what I imagine a PS2 (possibly even PS1) extended gaming trailer to look like, the "gameplay not included" note and all. In some ways, it's quite charming, these retro looking CGI character models alongside some pretty refined looking background art, it does trigger that sense of nostalgia in me, of a time much simpler.

A one man project, Syun Matsuena adapting his own work here, so I am a little lenient on the score. The creator of Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, an incredibly fun battle ecchi/comedy, Waza no Tabibito is the dollar store version in comparison. Syun definitely knows how to make thicc characters, I'll ... give him that.

We have a girl called Techni who is traveling on a journey, in order to train and master her abilities, abilities that of a Wazabito, a person who has strengthened their own will to try and reach new potentials. I won't go into too many other details, this short movie is only 30 minutes long.

What really surprised me was hearing Rie Kugimiya voicing the main heroine, did not expect to see her in such a relatively unknown project. I am partial to her work, so there's extra points here XD

I can't really recommend this anime, unless you enjoy those PS2 graphics, or want to see some big booty fanservice.

I'm a tad surprised with how little tract this show has gotten. Part One went under the radar throughout it's airing and even once it finished, I still thought not many people were talking about it. Now here we are with Part Two not long after Part One, and it's the same feeling.

I personally had no idea that this show was from the creator of Durarara and Baccano until about half way through Part 2. I could definitely relate it to those series, even mentioning them in episode discussions unironically, comparing Dead Mount Death Play to Durarara XD, without even realizing that they are ... from the same author, must have looked like an absolute idiot, but I digress, if you enjoyed his previous works, I see little reason as to why you wouldn't also enjoy this one.

Ryohgo Narita's way of weaving stories together, not many come close to his unique, oftentimes disjointed writing with such a fun, ensemble cast to match, and it is a big cast. It can be a little daunting trying to make sense of everything that is happening on screen, trying to memorize names to faces, who's with who, which organization is doing what, which part of the jigsaw puzzle goes where, but that's the magic of his work, that's the beauty of it. It's wacky mayhem in an urban environment, it's a fairly slow progress with the overarching narrative, but there's always something interesting happening. There's always fun character interactions. There's always awesome power struggles, different fighting methods, intriguing strength/power scaling, interesting bits of dialogue that may not make much sense yet, but will eventually down the road... It's a mystery, slowly being unraveled. Durarara got chastised for being slow paced, and I just could never make sense of the criticism myself. I wanted MORE, I wanted more episodes, I wanted the story to go on forever (half serious XD). Everybody has their own idea on what good pacing is, everybody has their own limit on how much information gets supplied to the viewer, before becoming fed up with the lack of answers. I can wait for as long as you need me good sir, I'm that invested in what I'm watching, I'm that invested on the world building, what's another few tens of episodes? ;)
These shows just do something to my brain, they tick a lot of imaginative boxes.

I dunno, does it not live up to the standards of it's predecessors? You've seen one rendition, you've seen them all? There's not much out there like this, the way this show is presented, I say give it a go.

A decent start to a fairly niche work, Bullbuster is at least worth a try.

First things first, the CGI of the creatures is absolutely shocking, especially in comparison to the mechas. The juxtaposition is off the charts when they're in the same picture. I should be desensitized to these atrocities as they are not too uncommon in todays scene, but I still cringe seeing it in otherwise fine anime. This is a deal breaker for a lot of people, which has a paramount effect on the overall score.

Secondly, the show is a rather slow burning, moderately paced anime that gives more importance to closely ... nit character interaction between workers of a small business, rather than constant action and quick plot development. It's a gradual build up, we learn a little more every episode, whether it's plot related or somebodies circumstances. Another deal breaker for a lot of people.

Thirdly, a lot of these characters are caricatures of people with specific traits or personalities. My favorite has to be Mr Kataoka, who is constantly seen bellyaching about their expenses and overall budget, trying to balance costs and expectations of everybody else, he is a stark reminder of my old boss who was always "budget, budget, budget", whenever anybody enquired about attaining certain things, even for the overall workplace. I get a good laugh out of Mr Kataoka.

It's not that bad, certainly not under 6.0 bad. It's a solid show that may appeal to lovers of light mecha or possibly an older, more experienced person, someone who just gets it.

This show started off well enough, but quickly fell off the rails with it's annoying and frustrating moments that eclipsed the more cuter and wholesome acts, and never really got back on track again.

I was quite looking forward to this show, in an already packed Summer 2023 season. As a studio, Doga Kobo is a personal favorite of mine, so I was more than willing to check out Shiro Seijo to Kuro Bokushi. They are the creme de la creme of CGDCT and/or wholesome slow life anime at the moment, the synopsis reaffirming my feelings once again, anticipating another relaxing and funny Doga Kobo ... adaptation. They "heal" you, so to speak, washing away the stress and exhaustion of another day of slaving away at work, unfortunately, there was no such healing this time around.

The sole reason is Lawrence, one of the two main characters in this show and our Male protagonist. He's also voiced by Kaito Ishikawa, somebody that I am so sick of hearing these days, it feels like he's in every 3rd show I watch, it was a double whammy personally, punched in the gut twice.

The reason I didn't like Lawrence, was simply because of how dense he was. Whether it be towards Cecilia's obvious feelings for him, friends throwing hints or questioning him, etc, it just did not matter, this dude took thick-headedness to the next level. Think of any other dense MC you know of and times that by ten, that's Lawrence. As a direct result to all this, Lawrence acts like a worried and overprotective parent all damn season, no matter what Cecilia did or didn't do, it was overbearing and frustrating to watch, which made it difficult to care or enjoy the small sparks of romance that would sporadically happen every now and then. "Seijo Sama, careful where you walk, Seijo Sama, leave some space for dinner, Seijo Sama, time to get up now, Seijo Sama Seijo Sama Seijo Sama", literally a parent taking care of a child.

This sort of density wouldn't usually bother me so much, in such a laid back anime, an anime that lacks a serious plot, and I felt that way in the first couple episodes, but it really just got to be too much. It's more of a threshold thing IMO, some won't care at all, others won't be able to stand it. It seemed so counterproductive to me, you want to relax or laugh, but then Lawrence does something moronic for the 127th time, ruining any chance of relaxation lol...He does show tiny amounts of progress, and you do get something out of it in the final episode, but by then I was already long gone.

It is a very aesthetically pleasing anime, I will give it that. Adorable character designs, simplistic but vibrant artwork, cozy enough soundtrack, it ticks all the boxes there. I don't think I've ever been let down by Doga Kobo in this regard.

Overall, it was a pretty disappointing experience, Hazano Kazutake's first adaptation excluding artwork that they've done for other projects like "The Angel Next Door". I won't say just stick to art, but their first story was a miss for me. 5/10.

What's that famous saying again? Liar Liar, pants on fire? Self immolation sure did sound nice every time I finished an episode of this utter garbage, it was a struggle getting through that for twelve straight weeks. In the same vein as Classroom of the Elite, Tomodachi Game, The Irregular at Magic High, etc, we have a new addition from the Summer 2023 line up.

Written by Haruki Kuou, this is their first work to get adapted and it'll be their only work I will watch going forward, that is for certain. I suppose you have to start somewhere, but my goodness, are there a ... lot of recent first timers getting adaptations which have been dreadful. They are obviously staking it all on this series, as it's been the only thing they've worked on since 2019 and maybe the original source is a different deal, but the anime stank on all levels.

Liar Liar is set inside a special school where only the most exceptional are allowed entry. Sound familiar? Everything meaningful there is decided through games and every person attending the academy has a ranking of sorts, depending on the amount of stars one has. You win a game, you earn a star, so to speak. Our protagonist, Hiroto Shinohara, just so happens to meet the strongest student on the Island on his first day, the six star ranked Sarasa Saionji, a girl who has never lost a game. Hiroto miraculously ends up beating Sarasa and becomes the strongest student in her place, the incredible seven star, except that, you guessed it, it's all a lie.

That's the main jist of the show (there is an overarching story which is hardly developed), him trying to survive and deceive everyone on a day to day basis, getting challenged to all sorts of games and this would be all well and good, until you quickly realize that the games they play are fucking lame and/or confusing. The vast majority of the games are either poorly explained, incredibly convoluted exposition, coma inducing to watch or poorly executed with the way they develop and end. It's usually a combination of these things.

What was supposed to make these games "exciting" to watch, were the addition of abilities one could use in the games. You are given three slots and can access a wide range of different abilities or powers through your phone, that will do different tasks for you and become useful once the game starts. The more stars you have, the better the abilities you can access. For example, there's a detecting ability that let's you see where students or the objectives are on the map, there's a jamming ability that does what you think it does, etc. Unfortunately, with the way they speed run through the rules and regulations of the games, the powers themselves are barely given another look after we've been introduced to what they do. It all happens very swiftly. I compare it to something like World Trigger, where everything is meticulously detailed and you learn so much interesting things about the specific power system and their games before hand and afterwards, Liar Liar absolutely fails in comparison. There's no room to breathe here, you're playing constant catch up, like you've been away from School/Work for a couple days and are thrown in the deep end once you get back.

That's not even the worst part about these games though, it's the way they are completed. If you're expecting top notch ingenious and smart tactical plays being employed, then I've got bad news for you. It's mainly luck based and/or full of deus ex machina ploys that he finds from fucking cheating. There's nothing interesting or amazing about it. The visuals can't save it either, there's no style over substance here lol, it's full of stills, ugly background artwork, shoddy fighting sequences, etc. At least the main cast looks pretty amirite? Probably the only reason why this thing got the green light.

As an avid tennis fan and player for almost twenty years now, I stayed away from tennis anime like the plague, for fear of anticipating constant cringe in an anime, from a sport that I know and love. Let's just get one thing out of the way, I REALLY like tennis and have been pretty obsessed with it in the past. I mean, absolutely balls deep into the game, following the professional tour every tournament, playing down at my local club 3-4 days a week (used to me more back in my School days), learning and studying the techniques, the grips used, the rules, the ... players, the history of the game, etc, the list could go on and on.

These days, I don't have as much time to keep up with the tennis world as intensely and rigorously, as I once had, and I have a couple of other interests that also share up that time, one of them being obviously, anime watching. I still go down to the courts when I can and while I don't watch nearly as many full length tennis matches of the pro tour, I still follow what's going on, who's winning, who's losing, who's injured, replays if I have time, highlights on YouTube if I don't, etc. Still, nothing compared to what I was doing a few years back.

I frequent a tennis forum and I got recommended this anime from another member, who knew I was into anime. Prince of Tennis was a no go for me, mostly due to the amount of episodes, but this show "only had 50" in comparison. He told me he enjoyed it himself and his analytical tennis brain is similar to mine, so I ended up taking him up on his recommendation.

So, what did I enjoy about this show? Well, the first thing is, and this goes even more so for the first season, was how much time and effort went into explaining the rules, strategies, game styles, the mindset, the overall physicality of it all, the training side of things, it was rather meticulous and detailed, you can obviously tell that the author is a fan of tennis or at least has people in his vicinity that know their stuff. A lot of accuracy in all this information we are spoon-fed. And it is spoon-fed, for better or for worse.

The second thing I enjoyed was the little romantic sub plot, it didn't feel forced, nor was it swept to the side, their chemistry was always there and it finally came to fruition in this 2nd season. It was handled well and it didn't become overbearing or affect the plot much at all.

The third thing were the characters, especially Maruo. All different personalities, builds and game plans, same end goal. To turn professional. Maruo has to be most analytical main character I have ever seen, not just in sports anime, but in anime overall. I loved the notebook thing (even if remembering and drawing patterns of play, point by point during a match, suspends my belief lol), it reminded me of myself who would take notes and do write ups of every pro match I used to watch, did hundreds and hundreds of them, so I could relate to the nerd inside him. I did like the idea of an MC like that, my favorite players are the smart tacticians, and most sports protagonists are generally gifted elsewhere, mainly physically.

Now, what I didn't enjoy. His rise to the top is ridiculous and clashes with the realism of the sport shown and the meticulous analytical side of things, to the point where it is a little too nonsensical for me, even as a sports shounen. No tennis player EVER has managed to do what Maruo does, no matter what other members here say, "some people develop at a much faster rate, yada yada", no. This goes well beyond that. Maruo's incredibly fast development and rise is a big "press X to doubt" moment throughout the series for me, though I kind of took all that at face value for the most part. You can be the most dedicated, diligent person on Earth, you're not improving at such a quick rate and competing against top 500 players in the world, which he was doing a couple of times during the show XD This could have all been prevented if the author just tweaked his backstory a little bit or something, he started young, quite tennis, but came back, for example. I don't think you would have lost much overall.

The second thing I thought was overdone, was the introspection side of things. The endless inner monologue, the dry exposition of the way a match was going, his thoughts and feelings about every single thing, no matter how big or little it was, all throughout his tennis matches. This is where my thing as a tennis fan comes into play, personally, this was torture at times, listening to him repeat things ad nauseum, information that I am already aware of. I could also see this being incredibly boring and off putting for a casual watcher, getting info dumped like this during a match or Maruo's.

The third thing I thought was subpar at best, was the visual direction of the tennis matches. The animation of the matches themselves were poor overall (whether it was in birds eye view or not), from the overall fluid movements of the strokes (the serve looked quite good for the most part) to the player positioning on the court, to the wide shots of the court and the frigid player and ball movement. It left a lot to be desired unfortunately. Still, ten times better than 1973's "Aim for the Ace", where everyone is falling over every damn point, so I suppose there's that XD

There were other minor nitpicking things, technique being completely wrong for the underhand serve, the complete lack of forced errors in matches, Maruo being very competent in almost all areas of the game, yet not enough screen time or practice on these certain elements to believe it, etc, small things in the grand scheme of things (well, maybe not that last one lol), but again, it's the tennis fan and player in me.

Overall, it was a pretty solid watch and around the same sort of level that the first season showed. Fairly abrupt ending, though obviously they were hoping for a 3rd season in the near future. Unfortunately, it's been about 8 years, one can still hope though, especially with all these anime being adapted with big gaps in time between seasons.