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This review is for both this season as well as Flowers.

Here's another classic battle shonen that got a remake. I never grew up with one, but I did try the original a number of years back, and I didn't care much for it. I had a plethora of issues with it, but my biggest was that Anna rubbed me the wrong way. Funnily enough I didn't really feel that way much during my watch of this series, and it's been way too long since I tried the original for me to remember exactly why or pinpoint and analyze the exact ... differences that made me enjoy this one and not that one.

To be clear, I didn't think this anime was incredible. I thought it was fine. Fine enough to finish, even though it's 65 episodes with both seasons. I know I would have absolutely adored it if I grew up with it, and I kind of wish that I had, but watching it for the first time as an adult it's fine, it has very enjoyable moments and just some so so moments. The best part, in my opinion, where the few episodes where we got to see Yoh Asakura's and Anna Kyoyama's past, although I wasn't that invested in their romance overall, not because they were bad for each other, just because the romance itself was an afterthought. That's by design, it's not necessarily a criticism.

Season 2 was worse than season 1 in my opinion, although even it wasn't terrible. I didn't think the new protagonist, Hana Asakura, who was Yoh Asakura's and Anna Kyoyama's son, was as fun or interesting as his parents, the villain also wasn't as good as Hao Asakura, (who himself wasn't like a masterpiece of battle shonen villains, if I were to rank him on a tier list of battle shonen villains I'd probably give him C tier, at best), it was way shorter o the characters weren't given nearly as much time to get fleshed out, and overall it just felt kind of unnecessary to me.

But both seasons are equal in terms of the technical aspects. The character designs are somewhat unique, the animation is pretty standard for the genre and demographic, and the fight scenes are mostly pretty fun.

I have a love/hate relationship with Rumiko Takashi's body of work. I respect her and her manga a lot for what she did for the industry. Not only paving the way for other female manga authors to break into the industry and having more strong and interesting female characters in general in manga--without her we probably wouldn't have Hiromu Arakawa who's one of my favorite manga authors, and her incredible female characters, which includes Winry Rockbell who was one of my earliest anime crushes. But on top of that she also created so many tropes that are still used in romantic comedy ... anime and manga to this day, for better or for worse. Basically, if you love romantic comedy anime and manga, you owe everything to her work.

As for my opinion on her body of work itself, it's very hit or miss for me. Mostly miss. A few years ago I tried watching the original Urusei Yatsura. The original anime from the 1970s has 195 episodes and 6 movies, and I watched 52 episodes and 1 movie. That's way more episodes than most single season of anime these days, and that's far more than I'd typically tolerate an anime I don't like, but I really wanted to like it, but I eventually just had to call it quits, I just couldn't. While I respect it for the various areas that it changed anime and manga I just couldn't.

On the completely other side of things, i grew up watching InuYasha, and it still holds a special place in my heart. There are some things in it that annoy me a bit whenever I re-watch it, but t hose ticks aren't as common as in a lot of her other works, some of them are a bit more understandable considering the context of that particular story and universe, and there's a lot more tropes in the series that has nothing to do with romcoms since it combines her standard stories with the battle shonen formula. Oh, there's also Rin-ne, which was just insanely boring.

Ranma 1/2 falls somewhere in the middle with me. The original anime was 161 episodes long, and I watched 26 episodes a few years ago before dropping it. Just like Urusei Yatsura that was way more than I'd usually tolerate an anime that I hate. But this one I didn't hate. I thought it was fine. It annoyed me a bit, but it wasn't pull my hair out of my head annoying like Urusei Yatsura. But I still didn't like it enough to watch 161 episodes of it, that's for sure. But I did watch all of the first season of the remake, as it was only 12 episodes. There's also a higher likelihood that I'll watch the entire remake, if it does like 12 or 13 episodes at a time.

There were more funny and genuinely charming moments than I expected going in. It once again proves to be the most mixed one of her works for me that I've seen. But I didn't hate it, and for that I'm very happy. I thought it was okay. I didn't love it, but I enjoyed it more than I expected to.

This review is based on all of season 1 and the first 8 episodes of season 2.

I really wanted to like this anime. Like, I REALLY wanted to like this anime. Not just because it's a popular one and I don't like being seen as a pretentious contrarian, but because I really liked the premise. It's an Isekai where the protagonist is extremely weak, which is already different, but it also has the gimmick of the protagonist, Subaru Natsuki, constantly dying and reincarnating, so he has to use his past experience to hopefully get further than he did the previous ... time and find out more about this world and why he has the power to reincarnate, not to mention the mental toll that continuous deaths has on him.

The series had a strong start, but by the time season 1 ended I got super frustrated with the characters, and not for the reason you might expect. I actually liked Subaru a lot. Before watching the series I heard a lot of people call him an incel, but I don't get that at all. He was fine. Honestly there's far worse anime protagonists that I like. Hell, Im' probably the only person on the planet that likes Kazuya from Rent-a-Girlfriend, and hates Chizuru, so take that how you want. And Kazuya is objectively much worse than Subaru, there's no debate about that.

But no, the reason is because of how inconsistent that the character's motivations and viewpoints are, and how the characters make statements about other characters, particularly Subaru, which drastically differs from what I'm viewing with my own eyes. Like for a good portion of season 1 several characters, mainly Emilia but also a blond chick who's name I don't remember, and to a lesser extent Rem and Ram, criticize Subaru for being arrogant and self serving, which is objectively false from what I could tell the reason he did stuff like not stay at the mansion when Emilia told him to is because he genuinely cared about them.

Now maybe the message is supposed to be something like you shouldn't go out of your way to help someone if they don't want your help. While I disagree, that is fine, I don't necessarily need to agree with the theme of a story to enjoy it. Hell, many of my favorite anime are ones that where I personally disagree with the message. It's the execution of said message that urks me, because the characters are implying, or sometimes outright saying that the reason he does that is for himself, which makes zero sense because his actions almost always put his own life in danger. A self serving, egotistical person isn't going to put his own life in danger in most cases just to gain praise, so this fell flat for me.

Something else that confused me was that one of the characters towards the end of Season 1 or maybe at the start of season 2, I think it was Felix, (when they were all going into battle together), commented that he had changed a lot within a day, but I don't really think that Subaru changed at all from the start to the end of season 1, it was just really odd.

So while my opinion on the series was positive at the start, they were mostly pretty negative by the end. But I decided to keep watching. I watched 8 episodes of season 2, and then I decided to call it quits. Not only were none of my issues with the storytelling resolved in that time, but I was also already starting to get tired of the reincarnation gimmick. It was nice and unique at first, but by that time it just started to get old for me, and I wasn't even close to being caught up with the anime yet.

So that's my controversial take on this relatively popular anime. Not overwhelmingly popular, it's not Frieren level of popular, and I have heard many more negative opinions on this one than that one, but popular enough. Much more popular than most Isekai, and less controversial than some like Mushoku Tensei. It's always ranked up there with Mushoku Tensei and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime as the must watch Isekai; I've even heard some call them the holy trinity of Isekai, or sometimes holy quaternity, including Konosuba in that one. But this one didn't do it for me like those other two did.

It's sad cause there was a lot I enjoyed about it. Not only the premise, like I mentioned before, and Subaru's character from the start, but a lot of standard stuff in modern anime like the waifus, their personalities, and their character designs, the fights were fun albeit not incredible most of the time, the animation was pretty good for an Isekai, and there was also some pretty good comedy in it too. I also want to give a special shoutout to Emilia. While I did have some problems with her, which are connected to the inconsistent character motivations and viewpoints that I mentioned above, I didn't hate her necessarily. I definitely didn't think she was boring, and that seems to be the predominant opinion on her from what I can tell, and I adamantly disagree with that, she was mostly fun and very interesting. But the flawed writing made it impossible for me to enjoy this series overall.

In recent years there's been a lot of remakes of older anime. And in a lot of cases that makes sense. If the original anime didn't adapt the soruce material too faithfully, (or simply ended because the source material wasn't far enough along yet), like with Ushio to Tora, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Hunter Hunter. Then there's other times where the visuals and other technical aspects can be improved upon, like with again Hunter X Hunter and Ushio to Tora, but also Dragon Quest: The Legend of Dai, Dororo, both Astro Boy remakes, (yes, there are three completely separate Astro Boy anime), ... among many others. But the most pointless anime remake to date in my opinion is Spice and Wolf.

Spice and Wolf is one of my favorite anime of all time. The arguments I'm making here I could also make for Bartender which was probably also a pointless remake, but I never saw the original and thus don't have the emotional attachment to it. But with Spice and Wolf I do. The original Spice and Wolf is incredible, and it still holds up perfectly to this day, so I didn't see why they would do a remake. It doesn't meet any of the criteria that makes a remake worthwhile that I mentioned above. While I haven't read the light novels, from what I've heard the original was a perfect adaptation, and the visuals didn't need "updating" at all, it looks like it could come out today. I mean the style you don't see much today, but that doesn't make the visuals outdated.

The funny thing is, it's hard to be too mad because it's not like it ruined the original. Narratively it's completely identical to the original, with the exception of the opening of episode 1 and the ending of episode 25 which shows Holo talking to her daughter, framing the anime as a story she's telling of the past. That is to say, it's still really good. I love Holo and Lawrence just as much as I did when I watched the original anime many years ago, it was so awesome seeing them again. I'm not a fan of the changes to the art, shading, and color design to this anime, I prefer the way the older anime looks, although it's not ugly to look at. I also like that they did two cours straight through so they could adapt everything that was adapted previously, so if they did a second season they could finally move past that; and lo and behold, season 2 has been announced.

To me this just had similar vibes to the Psycho remake, which was shot for shot. And at least that did have potential ways it could be updated, as in adding color. But on the other hand, Spice and Wolf didn't ruin the story and characters with its remake, so this is definitely a way better than that. Also, I think the fact that they already announced season 2 lightened my opinion on the idea of this remake quite a bit.

But enough about all that, it's time that I gush about this series. It's incredible. Like I said before, it's one of my favorite anime of all time. Of course the star of the show is Holo. There is no end to her charm. It's weird because Holo seems like a character I should hate. I've went on record stating how much I typically don't like the super smug, teasing romantic interests like Hayase Nagatoro from Please Don't Toy With Me Miss Nagatoro, Takagi from Teasing Master Takagi-san, and Hana Uzaki from Uzaki-chan Just Wants To Hang Out. Nothing in anime irritates me more. No, that's not a joke. So Spice and Wolf deserves extreme props for making me fall in love with Holo, twice, because on the surface it seems like she slips perfectly into that category.

One reason could be that there's more sides to Holo than that. She's not a one dimensional character. She has layers. That's just good storytelling in general, but it also adds depth to her actions and personality. Lawrence is just as great a character. And as a duo they have great chemistry and their dynamic is super adorable and wholesome. I also love that the voice actors returned for this remake, in the sub and the dub, including for Holo and Lawrence themselves. It just wouldn't be the same without Brina Palencia as Holo and J Michael Tatum as Lawrence.

This is the latest installment in the Dragon Ball franchise. It's also by far the shortest as well. Dragon Ball was 193 episodes, Dragon Ball Z was 291 episodes, Dragon Ball Kai was 97 episodes, Dragon Ball GT, the previous shortest, was 64 episodes, and Dragon Ball Super was 131 episodes. This one is only 20 episodes. In some respects I appreciate that, especially since I wasn't that into it, unfortunately.

It's sad that this is the last thing Akira Toriyama wrote before his untimely death. There are good things here. The beginning is kind of cool, as ... it shows clips of the Z fighters previous adventures, mainly from the Boo Saga, with the characters who will be the villains of t his series commentating over them. This shows us that Daima takes place after the Boo Saga but before Super. Some of the dialogue seems like it was trying to emulate how many of the fans act when they watch the series, which made it kind of charming.

However, after the first episode which I enjoyed a lot, most of the series is...fine. It's not great. It's not the worst thing ever. It's just fine. After completing it, I can tell that the only reason this was made, outside of printing money, was to canonize Super Saiyan 4. That's pretty useless for me, because I've always been one of Dragon Ball GT's biggest defenders. I do have to admit that when Super Saiyan 4 shows up it is presented much better than in Dragon Ball GT. In fact, in general, the last couple episodes are even more of a highlight than the opening. They were great. But when only three episodes out of 20 stand out, one at the start and two a the end, that's not good.

I hope it isn't controversial to say that this was a cash grab. That's not inherently a bad thing, some of the best pieces of media have been created out of the desire to make money. The reach for money can have the power to spark incredible creativity. But this is not that. It wasn't horrible, but I probably won't remember it for very long. I would rather re-watch Dragon Ball GT.

Dandadan is easily one of the best anime of the year. It’s surprising because most big seasonal anime like this rarely live up to the hype. That’s not to say that the most hyped up anime are usually bad because I don’t believe that either, but I almost always feel let down by them. Hype truly is an evil beast that can prevent me from loving an anime the way I would like to. But somehow, Dandadan survived that struggle.Through a combination of passionate staff that care about the source material and are super talented, and adapting a truly badass source material, Dandadan rose above ... the crowd and delivered an anime that has the potential to be a masterpiece.

The premise sounds like clickbait of a really bad YouTube video. I say that, but then again it got me interested in it. An evil witch steals the balls of the MC, Ken Takakura, also known as Okarun, which are massive golden spheres for some reason, not long after he makes friends with a girl named Momo Ayase. Okarun adamantly believes in ghosts and Momo firmly believes in aliens, and this differences causes them to form a close friendship, and eventually romantic feelings.

And that’s all there is to it; after that, it’s one of the most genuinely fun rides I’ve seen in anime in awhile. Like seriously, the entertainment is nonstop. Both of the two main characters are instantly likeable and brimming with vibrant personality. I love the contrast between Okarun and Momo. On the surface it looks like they would have no similarities at all, but this series does the My Dress-Up Darling thing of having that be a facade. In reality they’re very similar, they both believe in something that lots of other people would call crazy, namely aliens and ghosts respectively, and they’re super passionate about it. However, they also have enough differences that genuine, heartfelt, hilarious conflict can also spark between them.

That’s where most of the humor comes from. It’s either them arguing about the thing they believe in being real while the other being ridiculous, or Okarun involuntarily going into his demonic form and Momo having to quickly revert him back, or Momo teasing Okarun about loosing his balls and Okaurn verbally pummeling her for it. And that’s another thing, Okarun may be timid, but he’s not a doormat. He proves early on that he’s easily able to match Momo’s tendency for smart ass remarks and defend himself.

There’s no doubt that their relationship is the heart of the story. From the funny moments to the to the drama. While Momo and Okarun does have a lot of funny banter, they also have more heartfelt, thoughtful moments as well, such as early in the series when Momo chastising Okarun for being too timid, and for constantly apologizing and putting himself beneath others, claiming that this is why he has no friends. It’s these diverse, complex traits that not only make them fun characters on their own, but makes their friendship so damn endearing. And makes me want them to become a couple as well, although like in most cases I haven’t read the manga so I don’t know if it’s happened yet or not, or if that’s even the trajectory, it is kind of hard to tell from just what the anime has given us so far.

Momo is a fascinating character, and there is one more, arguably more complex reason why. In recent years there’s been a trend in trying to improve the female characters in anime and manga, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Some of the most famous ones recently have been Marin Kitagawa in My Dress-Up Darling, Maomao in The Apothecary Diaries, Frieren in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, and almost all of the women in Jujutsu Kaisen. Not to say that there’s never been strong ladies in anime before this, I mean Rumiko Takahashi was well known for this going all the way back to Urusei Yatsura in the 1970s, and while I don’t think most of her works hold up, I still respect her for her importance to the manga industry.

But besides her, there’s been anime like Black Lagoon, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood have casts littered with amazing women, so anime fans haven’t exactly been starved for female characters, but I will acknowledge that it has been more common in the past few years. And I feel like Momo Ayase from Dandadan fits into this category as well. She has the standard stuff Otaku expect from an anime waifu--she’s very attractive, funny, and interesting--but she’s also incredibly useful and is able to match the male MC in his role in the story and his wild personality and antics.

She doesn’t require the male MC to be a strong character, but she is stronger with him, and he is stronger with her. I do hope they become a couple, but even if they don’t and their relationship remains purely platonic there’s a level of strength and catharsis with their friendship, but again Momo’s character doesn’t require that friendship to be strong. And neither does Okarun’s, for that matter. I’ve been thinking about making a video talking about some of my favorite women in anime, and I’ll have to at least consider discussing Momo if I do, because she’s actually great.

Oh, there’s other characters in this anime too, right? Yeah, I guess I got so caught up in talking about Momo and Okarun, especially Momo, and I haven’t gotten to talk about them yet. Well, the other characters are good as well, but we don’t get enough of them for me to call them truly great. The only one that comes close is Seiko Ayase, Momo’s grandmother, who has had quite a bit of screen time and I do like her a lot. She’s funny whenever she’s on screen, and her relationship with Momo is fascinating but so far we haven’t gotten that much of it. But in and of herself I do enjoy her because he’s entertaining, and for…other reasons.

All of the characters are good in their own way. I’d say only Momo and Okarun are great so far, but every single one of them that we spend a significant amount of time with have merit. I say a significant amount of time because there’s characters like Momo’s Gyaru friends that we get like one or two very brief scenes with so it’s difficult to form any kind of opinion on them either positive or negative.

But the most amazing thing about this anime is that there’s almost no downtime when nothing is happening and I’m bored. Even in many of my all time favorite anime, that’s almost never the case, it’s actually exceptional. But despie saying that, I still can’t say that Dandadan is an all time favorite anime, namely because I’m only 8 episodes in at the time of this writing, and haven’t read the manga. So it’s not an all time favorite anime “yet” would be a better way to put it. But I do think it contains all the ingredients to reach those extraordinary heights for me. A wonderful cast of characters with depth and intrigue but are still fun and entertaining, with fascinating and enjoyable relationships with each other and interactions, and…let’s say above average quality of comedy, a genre that can be very hit or miss for me in anime.

There’s one more thing I wanna talk about though, and that’s the visuals. Now I’m no animation expert, but the animation in Dandadan seems very experimental and unique. I don’t really have the words to describe inventive animation in an analytical way so You'll probably just have to try it yourself to see what I'm talking about, but I'll try my best. The inventive animation, art, and color design mostly shows up during the action sequences, where the staff really went out of their way to make us salivate at what we were looking at. They truly went above and beyond, it’s an orgasm for the eyes at times.

This is an okay anime from the early 2000s. It's one of those anime with cute girls that's mostly a comedy but gets somewhat dark towards the end. This was actually a trend in the 2000s, there were a lot of anime that did that, although even as far as anime with those endings are concerned this anime isn't insanely dark at the end just more so than it was prior to the final 2-3 episodes, which isn't really saying much. The plot revolves around Doris Ruridou, a young princess who had just entered Teito Academy. She is also a Panzer, ... a person with special abilities and fights with a weapon called a "tool". Shortly after entering, her older sister shows up to teach her how to fight as a Panzer against other Panzers who challenge her. And that's basically all there is too it. It is what it says on the tin. What you see is what you get. And it was fine, but nothing special in my opinion. I do have to say, while I don't normally comment on this, the ending theme song is an absolute bop. Yes, the ending, not the opening. Also each episode in this anime is less than 10 minutes long, so even though it's 24 episodes long, it won't take you that long to get through it.

This anime is incredibly average. It was clearly made to try and capitalize on the popularity of Haikyuu. A little late I might add, s this anime came out in 2021. Haikyuu wasn't fully adapted by that time, but it was close. And if you haven't seen Haikyuu then just watch that, it's so much better than this. This anime isn't terrible, but it's in no way a good alternative to Haikyuu. First of all, it's only one season, 12 episodes. But beyond that, the characters just aren't as interesting, and the volleyball scenes aren't nearly as intense ... or well animated. Aside from the premise, this series does have some other similarities to Haikyuu. Not only did the uniforms kind of remind me of Haikyuu, but this anime has its own version of Kageyama. Although in this anime it gets even more extreme, as he was a such a jerk to his old team to the extent that one of the members attempted to unalive himself. And I kind of wish we got to see more of that guy, cause that sounds interesting. Other than that, his character arc doesn't have the same catharsis and enjoyment that Kageyama's did.
This is a really short review, but there's nothing to say about this anime other than that. It's just nothing special. If you've already seen Haikyuu and you absolutely NEED more volleyball anime fix, then it's fine I guess, but personally I'd rather just re-watch Haikyuu.

Am I really gonna try and write a review of the former king of MyAnimelist? Isn't that like trying to review the Godfather in 2024? Of course everyone reading this has at least heard of it, even if you're one of the probably .0000000000000001 percent of people who hasn't seen it (number is not based on any studies conducted or data collected by writer or anyone else). It's so popular that it's one of the few anime that transcended the Otaku fandom and even people who don't watch it have seen it. And most people like it. Of course, like I said ... in my Frieren review, no anime no matter how much mass appeal it has crammed into it and how well it executes each of it's various ideas, will appeal to everyone. At the time of this writing there are 39 negative reviews and 63 mixed reviews on MyAnimeList alone. Of course that's against a jarring 917 positive reviews, but that just goes to show you how it's impossible to please everyone, and that's actually comforting knowledge as a creative myself, as it greatly reduces pressure when I'm creating. There is mass appeal, but there is no such thing as universal appeal.

As for me, my opinions on Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood are much more cliche. I think it's one of the best anime ever made. A true masterpiece if there ever was one. A masterclass in character, plot, worldbuilding, animation, art, and music. Brotherhood is so perfect it's almost disappointing. Not perfect in the literal sense, as I don't believe perfection exists, but perfect in the emotional sense. Brotherhood took me on an emotional rollercoaster that I haven't often experienced in all my years of watching anime. There is not a single scene that was boring, in 64 episodes, which is actually a miracle. Most anime can't manage a feat like that in 12 episodes, especially nowadays.

The world is the most instantly memorable thing about this anime in my opinion. Rather than being set in Japan in any random time period, just roll the dice, (usually modern or Sengoku, let's be real), Fuillmetal Alchemist has an aesthetic that's reminiscent of early to mid 20th century Europe, which makes it tremendously stand out in a sea of anime that prefer to play it safe and present a world that their core audience, Japanese people, would be more immediately familiar with. To be clear it doesn't take place in Europe, or in our world at all, it's an alternate fantasy world that just resembles Europe a hundred years ago. And this includes just about everything, from the environment, to the clothes the characters wear, to a lot of the terminology used in the story; for example, King Bradly, the leader of the military, is called the Fuhrer, which is the German word for "leader" and is what Adolf Hitler, the infamous Nazi leader, was called from the 1930s to the 1940s. On top of that there were many war crimes and genocides that the Amestres Military took part in, much like the Nazis, although I don't know if any of them were directly inspired by any of the Nazis specific atrocities, or if it was just the concept that Hiromu Arakawa took as inspiration.

But the best part is the characters. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is one of the most truly character driven anime I've ever seen. The world is fantastic, as is every other aspect, but it truly wouldn't work if the characters weren't good, which they were. Every character is fantastic. Not all of them are likeable, but the ones that are unlikeable are intentionally unlikeable. But most of the characters are likeable in some way. If I were to do a top 10 characters in Fullmetal Alchemist it would be insanely difficult. A top 20 wouldn't be easy. There is no character in Brotherhood that I would deem to be bad. Winry Rockbell was one of my earliest waifus in anime; if you don't count girls like Misty from Pokemon and Tea from Yu-Gi-Oh, which I watched when I was SUPER young, then she probably was the very first, with the only ones able to possibly compete being Kagome Higurashi and Songo from InuYasha. Winry's design is insanely hot, without the series having to be overt and in your face about it, with massive tits and being half naked, (or entirely naked), all the time like you'd typically get in a modern anime. The attractiveness of Winry is very subtle at first glance, but it sticks with you in your subconscious. And don't worry, that's not all that's great about her. She's one of the most likeable and interesting characters in the series, and my personal favorite. Her relationship with her childhood friends, Edward and Alphonse Elric, was extremely wholesome and heartwarming. And her romantic relationship with Ed manages to be one of my favorite romances in all of anime, even though it's not massively focused on, I maen this isn't a romance anime after all.

The best part of Winry is that she's not the standard female character in anime, especially from the time, that, if not being useless, would exist primarily for comic relief, and maybe to be the romantic interest of the male MC. She does obviously serve those purposes as well, but she stands tall as a great character along with the Elric brothers. She's very useful as she develops the automail for Edward and the mechanical body for Alphonse. But she also has her own journey and character arc when she hunts down the character Scar, who was responsible for killing her parents, and get revenge. This is a vector for her to move past her grief and heal properly, and it's one of the most memorable character arcs in the entire series. But it's not just Winry, Fullmetal Alchemist was known for having a lot of amazing female characters. There was Winry Rockbell, Izumi Curtis, (the mentor of Ed and Al), Riza Hawkeye, (who's the love interest of Roy Mustang), Maria Ross, and Sheska, Rose Thomas, and the Homunculus Lust, who were all in the original anime as well, and then Oliver Armstrong, Alex Louis Armstrong's sister, and Mei Chang, among others, who were added to the pile in the Brotherhood adaptation. They're all fantastic. Oliver's badassery should go without saying, and Izumi is possibly my favorite mentor character in all of anime, she's definitely high up on that list at the very least.

I haven't even talked about Ed and Al yet. They're among my favorite protagonists in anime history. They have extremely likeable personalities, and flaws that the series masterfully plays off of not only for comedy, (especially the one where Ed doesn't like to be called short, which is the most common recurring gag in the series), but also a vector to give us excellent character arcs. The two are fundamentally different at the end of the series compared to where they started, especially in regards to Ed himself. Not not just because he grew way taller, to the point where he had to look down on Winry instead of Winry looking down on him. They're some of the best shonen protagonists I've ever seen. Their individual characters are great, their chemistry as brothers is fantastic, their chemistry with Winry is good, and their chemistry with every other character they meet as well. They're complex and very sympathetic.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood also has some of the best action scenes in all of battle shonen anime. They're not nearly as large scale or overblown as a lot of its contemporaries, but they're some of the most tense for sure. Probably the most tense moment in the entire series is towards the end of the series when Father attempts to use the entirety of Amestres as a transmutation circle and sacrificing every person in the entire nation. There's a pretty long scene where we go all around Amstress and see all the characters we've grown to know and love throughout the series keeling over, and it's really jarring but nevertheless extremely effective. The animation is also outstanding, and is good enough that it improves basically everything in the anime, from the comedy, to the action, to the emotional moments, everything.

I do have problems with this anime, but it's less actual flaws and more a few things that i preferred in the original. For example, I actually preferred the origin of the Homunculi in the original anime, how they were the product of failed human transmutations. Especially with Izumi, who had a miscarriage and tried to bring her baby back to life via alchemy, but not only did it not work, but she also lost her womb as a punishment, and her child was brought back but as the 2003 anime's version of Wrath. It's not only an emotional gut punch, but it also made it make more sense why Izumi was so against the Elric brothers using alchemy to bring their mother back to life, because she knows the consequences of that first hand. Not all of the homunculi worked as well as Wrath and Izumi, but nevertheless I do still love the concept, as it gives yet another consequence of trying to revive the dead using alchemy. I'm also not the biggest an of Father as a villain, (who's the creator of the Homuncuil in Brotherhood), I just didn't think he was that interesting, although he's still a better final villain than Dante, who's even less interesting. Plus, Father at least has a super kick ass final fight with Edward.

I don't know what else I can say about Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. It's a masterpiece. Even with the few issues I did have with it, I still felt like I had to give it the highest possible rating. I've always been a defender of the 2003 anime, which most people want to forget was ever made after Brotherhood came out, but while I do still love the 2003 anime, I do agree with the consensus that Brotherhood is better, for the most part. It's become one of the most iconic anime ever made for good reason, and while it's not my favorite anime of all time, I think it deserves to be the number 1 anime on MyAnimeList way more than Frieren.

This anime was very fun. It's basically "cute girls do war" 7 years before Girls Last Tour. And it does have a lot of similarities with that anime. It's about a group of cute anime girls who are soldiers and fight in a war. However, Girls Last Tour took place in the aftermath, or perhaps the latter end of that war, where as Sound of the Sky takes place during the war and we actually see them in active combat and even get some PTSD flashbacks from one of them, a girl who's entire squad was taken out in the past. ... Also if i recall correctly I believe the war in Girls Last Tour was basically a post-apocalyptic war that wiped out a large portion of humanity, but the stakes don't seem that high in Sound of the Sky.

All the girls are super cute and likeable, and their interactions and antics were a lot of fun. At first it seemed like it was gonna follow the tradition of most moe blob anime where it has this interesting concept to add cute girls into but have little or even nothing to do with that concept, it's just a vector to show use cute girls doing cute things and trick us into watching it because of the unique premise, (no shade, I love these shows), but like I said before we do have some scenes with one of the girls, namely Filicia Heideman, having PTSD flashbacks of her time with her old squad, who were all wiped out before her eyes. She's older and more experienced than the other girls.

This, and some present day battlefield sequences, (albeit to a lesser extent) do a decent job of illustrating the horrors of war, even if not on the same level as an anime that are more directly about war or the affects of war like Violet Evergarden, Grave of the Fireflies, Eighty Six, the original Mobile Suit Gundam, or hell, even Attack on Titan, (yes, really). All of this ads to the worldbuilding and the emotional hold this anime can have over you. At the end of the day the anime is no masterpiece, it is just a cute girls do cute things show at its core, but these additions helps it rise above its contemporaries, even if ever so slightly.

I especially love the soundtrack, which is good cause that's an important part of it all. There's decently frequent scenes with a couple of the characters playing a Bugle, and the soundtrack that plays over the series gives a sense of melancholy and loneliness, but also strangely hope, which helps compliment the themes of the anime.