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"We are just the trash of society, and if we don't risk our lives for every chance we get, we'll become nothing more than sore losers."

This anime's harsh realism first breaks your heart into pieces, then stomps on it, and finally repairs it and gives it back better.
Rainbow: Nisha Rokubo no Shichinin takes us to the 1950s. In a defeated Japan that suffered heavy losses due to the Second World War and atomic bombs, a group of young people from different backgrounds come together in a reformatory. Although these young people were not inherently bad, the current situation in Japan and the conditions they ... lived in pushed them to commit crimes, and they were sent to Shounan Special Reform School to serve their sentences. Although it looks like a simple reformatory from the outside, life inside is very different. As in the opening song of the anime, "Sunlight was the only thing that felt right before I came here", there is not much inside that can make you feel good, and right and wrong are determined by certain people. When six young prisoners are thrown into their cells, they meet another partner in fate named Sakuragi Rokurouta, and this young man becomes their only hope in life.

The anime is divided into two parts in itsef, and I can say that the first part is simply perfect. The young people's resistance against the cruel and sadistic guardian Ishihara and Doctor Gisuke Sasaki, a pedophile boy-lover pervert, despite his statements saying stuff like "we should treat children well" and their dreams of being free again, touches the heart of the audience. The second part of the series covers the life of young people outside, which I cannot say is bad by any means, but the story that took place inside the reformatory was on a completely different level. But throughout the anime, the bond shared by these 7 people and their hold on to life together is displayed at an almost perfect level. Rainbow: Nisha Rokubo no Shichinin is not actually an anime with a deep plot or breaking points. It has a simple story, but it is handled so well that while watching it, you can empathize with the young people as you can more or less put yourself in their shoes, and after a while, the group's struggle for survival becomes your own struggle for life.

Adapted from an award-winning manga, the series has a fitting finale as it was adapted into an anime after the manga ended. Madhouse has once again demonstrated its capabilities with Rainbow. The violence and sexuality used, combined with the scenes decorated with watercolor-like drawings and magnificent animations, made a great contribution to the overall tone of the anime in terms of impressiveness and so on. The quality of the music should not be overlooked either. The song I quoted from, called "We're Not Alone" by the band Coldrain, who also sings English songs, is simply amazing. Rainbow: Nisha Rokubo no Shichinin, as I said, is a simple anime in terms of story, but it is one of the best in terms of execution. Although the pace slows down a bit in the second part of the series, the journey of seven friends towards hope and life is definitely worth watching.

Shokugeki no Souma, the anime that shows that even cooking in the anime world can be an action-packed and cool thing, affects you in such a way that; you can feel like a world-famous chef even while making eggs.

As for the story; Yukihira Souma has been helping his father in the kitchen at the family restaurant since he was little. As he got older, his talent in cooking and his unique spirit began to show itself. Although he challenged his father to food battles many times, he could not beat him even once. The only thing that matters to Souma is to surpass his father ... in cooking. But one day, his father disappears, saying he took a job overseas and the only message he leaves for Souma is to improve his skills by entering the best cooking school in the country. Although Souma confidently heads to the academy, it will not take him long to realize that his time here will not be as easy as he thinks.

First of all, I would like to point out that our aproned senpai has a saying: At this academy, everything is about food. From fights to classes, conversations, friendship, everything is about food. The drawings have found their place in the list of the best I have seen so far. The success they achieved in creating the characters with harmonious colors, the beauty of the characters, and the details of the locations are factors that really need to be appreciated. Especially the liveliness of the food drawings will make you want to eat, which may cause you trouble if you are watching at night.

The plot progresses a little slow at the beginning, but later on it increases the momentum and manages to draw you in. But the food descriptions were kept too long. Even though the explanations of the people eating the food attract your attention at first, it becomes boring in the following sections. The same goes for their reactions when they eat. Towards the end, it makes you say, "Okay, that's enough." But itt has various variations in terms of comedy and makes you laugh a lot. Anime, which is normally modest in terms of excitement, increases in shokugeki (food wars) and academy exams and events, increasing the enjoyment value. Especially the relationships of the characters have great potential for the following seasons.

Ecchi parts feel like they can go wherever you want to take them. What I mean by this is that ecchi parts are generally integrated with the meals. In parts such as eating scenes, the ecchi feature increases the power and appeal of the dishes that are the subject of the anime. I don't think the ecchi dose of the scenes will bother you too much. Ecchi was introduced into the anime as a supporting genre rather than the main subject. I also must say that the ecchi scenes increases the comedy of it a lot too, at least for my taste.

If we look at the characters, we see a wide list. This is a situation that always has pros and cons for me. If we look at it in terms of Shokugeki no Souma, I felt that this situation had more pros than cons. First of all, the characters, including the main character Souma, have almost no depth and complex personas. But to balance this, each of them has characteristics that can almost be called unique. While watching, I didn't think any of them were plot models, on the contrary, I think each of them successfully raises the entertainment and comedy value of this anime.

I guess that is the best use of word for Shokugeki no Souma. It is highly entertaining. After all, when a work from the entertainment world can entertain you, small details don't matter much.

When I watched the first season of Umaru-chan years ago, I found it quite entertaining. But unfortunately I cannot say the same for the second season.

Without making the review too long, I will say that I don't care about Umaru's group of friends, all of whom are very annoying. The entire entertainment value of this anime was the goofy but sweet things Umaru did during the time she spent mostly in her room and the relationship she had with her older brother. While character development is very important in fictional stories, Umaru-chan is not that kind of story and it should have stayed the way ... it was. In short, I would have prefered to watch mostly Umaru herself, just like in the first season, rather than Umaru's three idiotic and annoying friends.

It's not something so hideous that you should definitely not watch it, but I can't recommend it either.

At the point reached with the 3rd season, even great animations could not save Kimetsu no Yaiba. Although Kimetsu no Yaiba has always been a very cliché and basic job in its genre(literally how to Shounen 101) it has managed to be an above the average job up to this point with the animation quality that everyone is aware of, fun characters and good action sequences. But with the Swordsmith Village Arc, that's all gone. Characters made me want to poke my eyes out. I wanted to slit my wrists every time there is a flashback scene for a character who is about to recieve ... a fatal blow, the efforts to dramatize them in those scenes and force sympathy down my throat, and when they are saved by someone else in next scene to follow. Two Hashira we see in this arc really made me miss Uzui so freaking much. Two Upper Demon in this arc made me miss Gyutaro so much. Action sequences? After Mugen Train and Entertainment District Arc, I have no idea how they managed to make them so soulless, boring and with zero hype. Dialogues? Most scenes go like this:

Tanjiro: I'm gonna cut that demon's head!
Someone: Cut it Tanjiro!
Tanjiro: I'm cutting it!
Someone: You can do it Tanjiro!
Demon: He is cutting my head!
Tanjiro: I am cutting your head!

Inosuke could have saved this season. Even though he's basically a cliché character too, most of the entertainment value of this anime comes from Inosuke for me. Take him out of the equation, add everything that I just mentioned above and what do you get? A pile of garbage. Totally a waste of time.

For those who haven't watched Gungrave yet, I want to make a warning from the beginning. Skip the first episode. Because after the first episode, there is a time skip and you watch the past for about 17-18 episodes and see how the events came to that point. The first episode is confusing, but more importantly, it gives big spoilers. This is my humble recommendation for enjoyment value.

The theme and general setting difference between the first and second episode was so different that I could have sworn that I accidentally opened another anime. I have to say that there are big differences in the parts ... of Gungrave that tell the past and present.
To briefly summarize the episodes that tell the past, it tells how two delinquents and also friends living in the street life enter a big mafia organization and rise step by step. For me, the peak of the anime were these episodes. In terms of storytelling, I can say it's one of the best works I've ever seen. Even though the pacing sometimes slows down and feels off-topic at times, all of the minor and major events in the past are key points in the anime. Because Gungrave isn't an event story, it's a character story.
That's why, as we watch everything Brandon and Harry go through, we get a better understanding of the mood and situations they are in when it returns to the present. Moreover, there are a lot of well-written, if not perfect, side characters that add to the enjoyment value.

For me, the slight drop in Gungrave starts when it returns to the present day. Because from there, supernatural and science fiction come into play. Of course, although the foundations of this are slowly being laid in the episodes about the past, I think that this is a sharp turn that has not been executed well enough. If I need to exemplify the difference, the episodes that tell the past feel like The Godfather, while the episodes about the present feel like a mixture of Hellsing and Devil May Cry. I know how silly it sounds, but it really felt so silly to me.

Gungrave's story and storytelling has a lot of nice details worth mentioning. Apart from the main characters, the side characters with considerable screen time also have many aspects worth mentioning. But I want this to be a spoiler-free review, so I'll leave these parts to new viewers.

For my part, the sci-fi parts slightly lowered Gungrave's rating, but at the end of the day it doesn't change the fact that it's a pretty good anime. It has everything you would expect from this kind of story and setting, and it reflects most of that quite well. Even if you don't like sci-fi, I highly recommend watching Gungrave just for the episodes that tell the past events.

"To protect is to never betray."

Shoukoku no Altair is the definition of hidden gem. It is truly an invaluable feeling that a series that you randomly choose from your watch list and realize is not popular at all at the beginning turns out to be something this enjoyable.

So what makes Shoukoku no Altair so enjoyable for me? First, it does something that I've never seen in any historical/military anime I've ever watched so far. It uses the theme of war as a gear behind diplomacy and bureaucracy, supporting them. Rather than making war its main focus and quickly pass the rest, it does the opposite. It handles the interests of ... individuals and nations, the profits and losses to be taken from the decisions to be made, and the processes of making and implementing those decisions very well. On top of that, it uses the macro and micro tactics used during the war, inspired by historically accurate tactics, in a very logical way. When the focus is not on the war, we constantly see the detailed treatment of the economy and trade, which was quite enjoyable to watch.

In proportion to what I have told so far, I would like to say that the characters are one of the factors that make everything better. This is not because they are impeccably written, have a lot of depth and multiple developmental processes. But unlike what we normally see in anime with this kind of theme, none of them are dumb muscle mass. Although there are numerous side characters in the anime, they all have aspects and character traits that make them distinguishable from others. It's definitely a big plus for me that they always appeal to their ideals and intelligence and get things done this way during a deal, negotiation, mission or war.

Although the animation quality wasn't out of the ordinary and sometimes the quality was even worse, possibly due to the low budget, it was still nice and clean. The soundtrack was great though, it fit the theme and the setting of the anime quite well.

In summary, Shoukoku no Altair knows what its doing and does it right. While it pays more attention to the intrigues, economic and diplomatic agreements, profit and loss relations in the background of the war, it does not neglect the war itself and does a better job than most of the other more popular animes that has the same genre. I hope it gets more recognition as it very much deserves it.

Humans and demons have been at war for fifteen years. However, neither side had a clear advantage. "Hero", the greatest warrior of humans, leaves his comrades behind and storms the Demon King's castle alone. Determined to destroy the Demon King, the Hero sees a beautiful and attractive queen rather than a king. "The Demon King" offers to partner with the Hero instead of fighting because she also wants this war to end, but she thinks that the abrupt end of the war will do more harm to both sides. The hero finds the Demon King's words meaningful and accepts the partnership. Now, the common goal ... of both is to bring prosperity and wealth to the country and to provide peace.

The anime, which deals with the common cause of the Hero of the people and the King of the demons and their funny but romantic relationship with each other, actually manages to attract attention with its first episode, especially with its subject. In my eyes, the decline started in the second episode because the "educational" fiction started to replace the fantasy fiction of the anime. It would not be a lie to say that the anime kind of deceives you. After the first episode, you think you're going to watch a sometimes funny and sometimes romantic fantasy fiction that takes place in the Middle Ages and tells the war between humans and demons from the eyes of both sides. But instead you come across with a work that deals with the importance of trade, the life of the serfs, agricultural and political activities like growing crops and such. These are supported by plenty of social messages. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But speaking for myself, I have no problem seeing these kinds of topics in an anime, but I prefer that they are side stories rather than the main event. In other words, it is one thing to briefly talk about the importance of taxation during an event, it is another to make the importance of taxation the main event itself.

I can't say it's boring because I still have the patience to endure a 12-episode anime, regardless of its content. But I don't think it's fun either. There were other aspects that kept me watching until the end. Despite its overwhelming scenario, the anime's drawings are pretty cool. Especially the background drawings in the watercolor style deserve an honorable mention. The music is just as good as the illustrations. I especially liked the opening and ending tracks. In addition, it is a different but nice detail that people are called by their titles (such as Yuusha for the Hero, Mao for the Demon King) and not by their names in the anime. Although this adds a fairy tale atmosphere in a way, the boring scenario and processing of the anime like I just mentioned causes it to remain nothing more than that.

In summary, while I think there are some good things the anime does, they're not enough to save the day. If you are interested in the topics that this anime deals with, it will be much more beneficial for you to open a book or an article instead of watching this. If it had handled the mentioned subjects by doing justice to the fairy tale atmosphere it tried to create, and blending them into an enjoyable and entertaining fantasy fiction, even if it's not very original, it could have been a different job.

I've never been a huge fan of Shingeki no Kyojin but for the first few seasons, I admit it was unique. It had enjoyment value. It had an interesting story, well balanced pacing and it would leave you wondering about the next episodes. Now it doesn't have any of those qualities and it just keeps getting worse and worse. The art design, animations, and music are still top-notch quality, even getting better and better in contrast to the overall series. But what happened to that intriguing story and the storytelling?

Since when did Shingeki no Kyojin turn into a classic superhero story that we had ... to expose for nearly 20 years, that is made so cheaply to appeal to the general audience? It turned into a "there are good guys, there are bad(?) guys. So fight and save the world!" kind of story and I hate that.

Shingeki no Kyojin has always been an overrated work for me. But I hadn't really thought about it until now. It wasn't too strange for me that people liked it because of its good animations, nice music and action sequences. But if you've been a "true" fan of Shingeki no Kyojin for a long time, have been acting like a missionary of it, or if this is the best thing you've watched/read in your life over the years, and you're still thinking the same thing at this point, I recommend medication.

This review is only about the anime since I haven't read the manga.

The events begin in an apartment in Tokyo. A group of people who don't know each other(mostly) find themselves in an apartment with locked doors and windows one evening, and as you can imagine, they have no idea how they got there. Apart from a group of confused people, there is one more important thing in the room: a giant black orb that is called Gantz. Apparently, Gantz has lots of information about the people in the room but it refuses to give information about what is going on and instead, it gives ... some instructions with a sarcastic language. Then we learn from a kid who knows more than the other people in the room that Gantz somehow found the people who lost their lives that night and teleported them to this mysterious room. This is not an act of kindness tho, of course. Gantz's goal is to get these people to fight in its own special game. There are aliens that need to be destroyed, and Gantz provides special protective suits and weapons for everyone in the room. If they fight, kill and reach 100 points, they will be able to escape this game of Gantz and get back to their lives.

Now, first of all, at first glance, I can't say that the story is very interesting, at least in concept, but it is certainly interesting enough because there is a lot of unknown. Even just from the first episode of the anime, I had a lot of questions in my head. Like what exactly is Gantz? How does this whole game, teleporting people, special weapons and clothes, people who lose their "authenticity" when they die work? Yes, I know that the Gantz anime is split into two seasons. So I didn't think I would get all the answers from the first season. But it's pretty obvious that I won't get them from the second season either. I need to read the manga for this, but the bad things the Gantz's anime does are enough to make me lose interest in the series.

So what are these bad things? First and foremost, pacing. I can't stand that they ruin something interesting on paper by setting the pacing so badly. Yes, Gantz is interesting as a concept, but it is just as bad and boring due to this. Second, the characters. The characters are absolute disgraces. Let me summarize our main trio. One of them is a dishonest, malicious, perverted jerk. The other is the classic tall, big, so-called good boy who has pure feelings inside, but can be dazed because of it. Finally, a frustrating girl with weak character and dependent on others, who was put into the series to show sexual elements and a pair of big tits, but with no other character and personality. Almost all of the side characters, on the other hand, are the types that can be called the garbage of the society, who talk and act in the dumbest way possible and mostly die this way. Because I guess it takes a few NPCs for a story like this. You know that character portrait in slasher horror movies that's only written to piss you off because it gives you a kind of relief and happiness when you see them die? Other characters are mostly like that.

In terms of brutality and gore, Gantz is actually pretty good, it might even be the best among the animes I've watched. But nudity? Now that's another topic. What exactly is the purpose of the sexual elements in this series? Okay, you just designed a character to be a sexual object. Again okay, you've also stressed enough that one of the main characters is a perverted jerk. But why do you always show us a pair of breasts for no meaningful reason? Why do most of the male character population in the anime try to rape the girl and almost all of them are molesters? I don't even want to talk about the dog.

There is one last disgraceful aspect that I should mention. Dialogues and general behavior of the characters. I consider these two elements as a whole. With respect, mangaka must be thinking he is Steinbeck, but someone needs to tell him. As if the things that come out of the characters' mouths are very meaningful, these and meaningless actions of them cover the majority of what we watch. The same and repetitive dumb and meaningless dialogues, the characters keeping the same dumb personalities without any improvement in 13 episodes, endless waits for an obvious decision... You can pick your favourite out of all this bullshit, Gantz has it all and more.

Good idea, very bad implementation. That's the gist of Gantz. I won't be watching the second season. Because it's made as a whole so it probably has just a few different kinds of aliens, but nothing more than a continuation of the same bullshit. I don't think I'll read the manga either, because it's a lengthy manga and I don't have the patience to go through this bad shit just to find answers to few questions.

I haven't watched anything as boring, overrated and overall just bad as Trigun in a long time. It was a long, slow and tedious journey that felt like it was longer than 26 episodes. Which was surprising to me, as most of what I've heard about Trigun over the years has been overwhelmingly positive. But the bitter truth had nothing to do with my expectations.

As for the story, Vash the Stampede is a man with a $60,000,000,000 bounty on his head. Vash is constantly in trouble because of the bounty on his head and wherever Vash goes, trouble follows him, hence the nickname Humanoid Typhoon. ... But the weird thing is (!) Vash never wants to hurt anyone, not even actual criminals. Actually, this short summary is enough to understand most things because Trigun is an episodic anime and there isn't much in the name of the story. I don't even feel the need to mention the tsundere and the classic mindless giant duo. Wolfwood is the only character in Trigun worth mentioning, but he is a good character only for the Trigun bar, not in general.

Let's come to the reasons that I mentioned at the beginning of the review, why Trigun is such a hard anime to bear. First, Vash's background and who he really is begins to be told after somewhere around 15th-16th episode. Up to that point, you have to deal with a work that is far from funny, pretty mediocre and often laden with inadequate action sequences. I was already disconnected from the story, characters and the setting itself by that time, I was bored to death and I was just trying to be done with it. That's not all. Vash has no middle ground. He is a complete idiot (sadly, not a funny one either) for the most of it and he sometimes gets "too charismatic" but why? Why was this choice made when it was possible to make the character structure more balanced and make him an average character at worst? Beats me. Not that making him that way would save this anime but at the very least, I could have watched a mediocre MC in a very bad anime.

Visually, I can't say it's bad for its time, but at worst, it can't go beyond average again. I've seen older and better ones. Trigun is also quite inadequate in terms of music, frankly, I would expect them to show the theme and action scenes better than they actually are, at least in this way, but both the opening and ending tracks are as ordinary as the ones played during the episodes.

In summary, Trigun is obsessed with repeating its own boring and unfunny cycle. It's full of badly written characters. The action scenes are below average. Musically inadequate. And on top of all that, its extremely slow and boring pacing makes it unbearable. I don't have a comment about people who were hooked on this anime for some reason at some point in their life or just love it out of nostalgia. But this was one of the most overrated things I've seen lately, one of those works that didn't do justice to its reputation and high ratings.