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This is a review about the series as a whole from season 1. Surprisingly, this show has a chronological plot. Which is why I had to be detailed.

Whenever I think about what constitutes a good show, I’ve always been worried to express my opinion and put it objectively. It’s like I’m on quiz show. The host would ask every participant the same question: “What is the best anime?” and my neuron-activated monkey brain would just answer them with whatever comes at the top of my head: Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Fullmetal Alchemist, Soul Eater, Kekkai Sensei. But truly, even the audience can see all the ... flies gathering around my body due to how much bullshit I brought upon.

So, anyway, in between these two, what the hell is Jashin-chan Dropkick?

There is nothing about this show to defend from how stupid this is, essentially akin to an empty Pringles can; and something that amazes the audience with its absurdities and nonsenses. Just a simple show for simple-minded ass-hat like me who doesn’t like to think much and wants to have fun. Bullshit anime with zero-context has gone on since long periods of time ago. Pop Team Epic, +Tic Nee-san, Carnival Phantasm, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, my beloved Kill Me Baby, and many others. For long periods of time as well did I adore these animes. This review is written from the perspective of someone who loves this kind of anime.

I can’t seem to unattract myself from the heavy gravity of nothing-burger craps like Jashin-chan along with her shenanigans. Something about these kinds of anime put a special place in my heart. I can’t say much about the author apart from the fact that she also made Haganai and Noucome novels, and how he got the localization title. The series is literally called “Jashin-chan’s Dropkick.” The name “Dropkick on My Devil” implies that Jashin-chan, The Devil, gets dropkicked all the time while, in fact, she doesn’t; in fact, it’s much worse. The dropkick is, in fact, her signature WrestleMania move. I didn’t think there would come a point in my life where I had to go “WELL ACKSHUALLY” like this and explain this but I just did. That’s how much I love Jashin-chan, that’s how much I can’t stop enjoying this piece of shit.

Where to begin to review this clusterfuck of a show lies absolutely within the discussion of all the personalities combined which constructs the entire show as a whole, which is why there’s no other way to do this but to delve deeply into the minds of the characters, especially Jashin-chan’s. The characters are wilder than the bee-stepping-dog Amber Heard’s domestic abuse trial. Noticed how I kept using the suffix “-chan” in Jashin-chan?

No, I fucking shit you not, one of the episodes explains that if you use the suffix “-san,” her name would be Jashin-chan-san. Imagine putting both “Sir” and “Mister” in your name. I might be a demented weeb, but even I have never something this heinous. Jashin-chan’s real name is so long and agonizing to extensively memorize that if you ever asked to record her spelling her full name, may God have mercy upon your soul because you need to fasten the recorder by x30 afterwards just to get to the 20 seconds of the entirety of spelling, until she told you that that’s not even halfway done. Believe it or not, her long ass name is a token of her nobility for that Jashin-chan is a demon noble heir. None of it was said since season 1, but that’s just the fact of life we had to swallow and choke on. So is putting Hatsune Miku in this season 3 with her original VA. “Waste any human lives all you want, but don’t you fucking dare throw away homemade foods!” Such inspiring quote from Jashin-chan too deeply philosophical beyond humanity’s tiny grasp of understanding. Out of all the Gods, she’s definitely one of them.

This apathetic hyper-durability half-snake motherfucker that Hidan from Naruto canonically worships is not some “thing” you can negotiate or reason with. She has no remorse, no regrets, and the biggest asshole I’ve ever seen so far. Not only does she want to watch the world burns, but she will also hold its ashes and cinders for ransom. If the show ever goes downhill, Giga Chad Jashin-chan would just doxx all her viewers and blackmail them into buying all the BDs and every printed manga if needs be. She teases the poor and humiliates the unfortunate just for fun, and she deserves all the karma that get to her.

To scrutinize the uniqueness of Jashin-chan’s anime embodiment of shitposting, we must talk about her “roommate” Yurine. Yurine is one hell of a full-metal witch. She is a kind human girl who has no bad intentions, just terrific hobbies. Terrific. Her highest personal interest consists of collecting a high variety of armaments, weapons, torture devices and anything similar, and utilizing them to full effect. Ultimately, she practices all her weapon combat techniques with her partner, Jashin-chan. Emphasize on “practice.”

Anarchy in the Jinbocho ensues when Yurine decided to summon a Demon Lord, among other things. I think there’s something here that tells us about lazy writing when the same witch who summons shit out of thin air somehow doesn’t know how to return them back to the realm it belongs. From there on, both Yurine and Jashin-chan found out that the only way Jashin-chan can return is by killing the summoner. You know how this goes. What this is as a result, is a Tom-and-Jerry-esque cartoon combined with a mix of dark comedy and Japanese comedy, where Jashin-chan is Tom as the dumbass punching bag of comedic relief and Yurine is Yurine as Yurine.
This anime could be a physical comedy at times and then completely shifts its mood into wholesome cute-girls vibe at another. This is exactly why I think Jashin-chan is special. One example being how she keeps manipulating her friend Medusa, which she nicknamed as her “ATM.” Although I appreciate how much she keeps her friends precious and how serious she is when it comes to doing anything for her friends, it doesn’t change the fact that she keeps lying to Medusa about being out of money to ask her lending some while promising to return the money back without telling her that she used all Medusa’s money for horse-race betting and fucking gacha pachinko.

I honestly think this kind of anime would not work in the first place the first time I watched since season 1. Back then, I didn’t think the anime would keep going due to how mediocre it would be, or for the majority at least. To my surprise, this actually went off in Japan because I forgot the main factor this series has: CGDCT. One thing that keeps flying over my head when I watched this is that this show has another target audience with its “Cute Girls Doing Cute Things” trope. Most of the time, this show is about Jashin-chan’s nonstop scumbagginess in full display. However, putting aside the dark comedy, of course; from the unmistakable animation style to the slice-of-life theme being substantiated in the series, we can assume that Jashin-chan’s cute friends are here to make the show brighter and more cheerful.

At some point after watching the anime, you wouldn’t be able to tell which one character and story is canon in the manga or not. You have Minos, daughter of demon yakuza; Yusa and Koji, the Yuki Onna siblings named after narrator’s VA; Pekora the homeless angel; Poporon the idol angel; Pino the mentally unstable paranoid angel, Persephone, and so on. I’ve been following both anime and manga and even I think this shit is too much.

In one point of view, I think watching this kind of shitshow would be a breath of fresh air. Not a lot of anime wants to market itself to be nothing but chaotic fun, but Jashin-chan excels in it. In my experience, this series can only fall under the category of guilty pleasure. Jashin-chan’s Dropkick is the kind of anime that’s so bad that it’s so good.

Apart from the animation looks good and the characters are really whacky to follow their own stories through, everything else feels average. What am I supposed to say to other aspects like the story and the soundtrack? Even if there’s a noticeable plot, none of them connect to each other; you can start watching this from any episode in any season and still left amused. You wouldn’t really care about chronology and plotline relevance when all you want is seeing Jashin-chan split into two vertically or horizontally.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

“There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less and a cleaner, better stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.” – Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow.

Over the past few years, I’ve been quite intrigued with Sherlock Holmes series and its adaptations, even in recent times where I’ve put my interests in quite a lot of reinterpretations of his character: Guy Ritchie’s two films with Robert Downey ... Jr. displaying the comedical and tensely action-packed portrayal of character’s adventures, Moffat-Gatiss’ Benedict Cumberbatch’s inevitably flawed yet interestingly written modern depiction of him and Jim Moriarty’s rivalry in BBC’s Sherlock series, and even his 93-year-old dementia-ridden retiree self played by Sir Ian McKellen in Mr. Holmes. I love Sherlock Holmes series because it tells us many heart-pounding stories full of incredible adventures and puzzling mysteries. It’s a mystery novel series that encourages the readers to rack up their brains and not afraid to think for themselves, without simultaneously belittling or ridiculing them, because of the meticulously detailed explanations and perfectly presented expositions in every stories Sir Arthur presented to us that made us wondering how everything in it works without robbing away our enjoyment due to the splendidness of the plots and all the impressive characters introduced.

My first experience to Sherlock-esque adventures were from Detective Conan manga series. I remembered how passionate Aoyama Gosho used to be with the series and how cool every characters in there were drawn and written. From then on there began the many books of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that I’d followed wholeheartedly full of all the adventures of Sherlock Holmes back in my youngest days and all other reinterpretations of classic detective novels like Tracy Mack’s Sherlock Holmes and Baker Street Irregulars. It brought me to all the world of detective mystery stories like Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot series such as The ABC Murders, and I even followed Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin stories. Recently, Rowan Atkinson’s Inspector Maigret performance also piqued my interests. Several espionage and detective movies like the most intriguing Se7en and the intense Inside Man. Some mystery drama anime like the action-packing Bungo Stray Dogs, the internal political conflict drama ACCA-13, and the espionage world of trickeries like Joker Game have become some of my most personal favorites.

Which is why it’s not an understatement to say that I have long anticipated this anime of the antagonist Moriarty, since I have been following the manga for a long time. Nevertheless, there are some problems in this very reinterpretation of Moriarty. So, try to keep up.

Also SPOILERS, et cetera.

From the series title itself, Moriarty the Patriot, viewers will probably already get the idea. Enter Professor William James Moriarty – orphaned brother of this series’ fictional Louis James Moriarty – a child of prodigy who raised himself way all up into the thrones of noblehood, all thanks to the help of noble child, the series’ fictional Earl Albert James Moriarty, sickened by the way the extremely corrupt and irresponsibly carefree world of nobility works and personally witnessed Liam’s capabilities of making things to go as he intended and his motivation to turn the unjust London and Britain for the better. I gave the word ‘fictional’ due to these characters being the anime’s version of these characters in order to add more dynamic to the stories (William’s brothers were only mentioned once as James Moriarty’s sibling(s) in original Sir Arthur’s The Valley of Fear and The Final Problem, which unclear whether there is one or two of them but certainly never had any further involvement in original James Moriarty’s heinous deeds). The three stooges began their way by murdering the mother and second son of Moriarty family, with Albert’s consent given by ultimately dirtying his hand and complotted in the murder of his own mother and brother and afterwards reintroducing both William and Louis as his brothers instead. Several years later, began William’s journey as Professor Moriarty, the noble who works as criminal consultant with the vision of changing Great Britain and the world.

A great premise sure is shown. A series where the antagonist became the hero protagonist and becoming the rival of true protagonist, Sherlock Holmes. Sounds great, but there are some things needed to be mentioned.

This is not the first time where a franchise tried to bring a new light to the antagonist as some kind of sympathetic villain with good intentions in a story, or even being heroes themselves. We had Disney’s weird interpretations of Maleficent and Cruella, lots of Marvel Cinematic’s villains for the closest example, Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender who became a hero of his own story, and even Shishio from Rurouni Kenshin could be some of the most sympathetic villains. Many such characters would be considered common to exist in the world of fictions. It is seemingly easy to bring them out since villains are also humans like us who overcame their hurdles through many years of each of their own’s journey of bittersweet life, except of course that the fictional characters brought it to the next level. Usually, such mainstreamity would be a problem in the plot and eventually became its own plothole, even if the antagonist is supposed to be the core of a story.

What I’m glad to say is that Moriarty in this series is not coming out as unnatural despite the worrisome origin of his that almost doesn’t make sense. Weird to think that Napoleon of Crime himself has an origin in the first place since that would also eliminate the mystery element of his character, but I suppose in case of the antagonist acting as a hero of the underground, it will probably do. I also found out that there are some parts of the manga that strangely isn’t shown in the anime, like Sebastian Moran’s resolution for example. It looks like the studio tried to cut many parts of the manga in order to pack all the stories into two-seasons anime. Either that, or Moran’s story will be revealed in season 3 which the producers have high hopes for if the series sells enough, also because there are continuations of The Final Problem in Sir Arthur’s original works. In case of consistency of the settings, I wouldn’t expect anything much since this is a Japanese adaptation of the franchise and I honestly couldn't care much less about the pseudo-English in this series, especially the most chuckling “Catch Me If You Can, Mr. Holmes” part. They tried, I guess. LMAO.

It’s already established that the plot is about a noble in the late 19th century who wanted to fight against evil aristocrats while manipulating Holmes behind the scene as his rival to help in his everlasting struggle for the sake of toppling down the Great Britain’s corrupt empire. Now we have the characters to talk about, and damn and blast, there are a lot of things needed to talk about that. First thing first, let’s talk about Moriarty.

In this series, Moriarty’s very own character is referred to as William James Moriarty, the mind behind all the works. Needless to say, this alternative version of Moriarty is the weirdest yet. As I said before, Moriarty has no origins. Therefore, the author giving him one seems incredibly out of place. Because Moriarty is originally known as a cruel and malevolent criminal mastermind, altering his character by giving him a background story would only seem to weaken his character and devalue him as antagonist. Even if the purpose of this series is to present him as the patriot who works discreetly by painting his hands in blood, his origins still makes no sense. I think the only reason why they gave him that is just to make a completely different depiction of the original character just for the sake of it. Which then begs a question: how much more can a noble patriot dirty its hands in order to keep everyone’s hands clean, while psychologically being stable? The road to hell is pave with good intentions, but I guess we will never know how that phrase shall corelate, since this show doesn’t showcase that question in the surface and instead Moriarty just decides to kill himself to end it all in what appears to be a re-illustration of the event of Reichenbach Falls. Oh boy, that one really doesn’t look quite as good as the author thought it would be, even in the manga.

Sherlock Holmes here is as narcistically self-centered as every Sir Arthur’s readers found, so maybe that’s alright. Forget about John Watson since he’s portrayed as some kind of bumbling idiot who only follows Holmes’ journey in order to add more stories to his publishing novel under the pseudonynm of Conan Doyle as the author, I shit you not. Why do I dislike this depiction so much? Because at least even in original works, Watson is greatly involved as Holmes’ great accomplish. Even in Guy Ritchie and Moffat-Gatiss’ works, he’d be recognized as Holmes’ skillful companion, a war veteran who knows self-defense to execute Holmes’ plans. You know, someone who knows how to think for himself. Honestly, he’s much cooler in those two’s adaptations compared to whatever he is in this anime. The only thing cool about him here is his looks. Actually, so many characters in this anime have great looks to the point they might be gay for each other. In fact, I think we can just pair Holmes with Watson as his second lover or something, next to Moriarty. Maybe that’s why a lot of people watch this show; people in this are just so majestically pretty.

Then we have Irene Adler, which essentially is a product of Moriarty’s character. Ever since Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, Irene kept being introduced as Moriarty’s accomplish. This really is never the case at all and I don’t even know how this had started in the first place. Irene Adler is the femme fatale of Sherlock’s adventures who came out blackmailing a Bohemian aristocrat and eventually put Holmes under her charm. I have no idea why people would always put her as some kind of Moriarty’s henchwoman. In this series, it’s even more peculiar, because she’s now working as his mercenary, under the pseudonym of James Bond, I fucking shit you not.

There are some action characters too, like Moran’s associate Fred Porlock and Jack Renfield the butler. I’m not even going to try to elaborate on how Jack is behind the story of Jack the Ripper in order to assist Moriarty in his plans. They made Charles Augustus MIlverton as main antagonist of the story here. I guess that works too, since Moffat-Gatiss did it and turn that into canon somehow.

All of these would work, if and only if they have considered what Moriarty the Patriot is supposed to be: an anti-hero villain. Probably it’s just me, but if I wanted to see such character, it’s not by simply making him the Mary Sue of the story where things will always work out as long as everyone else followed what he said so that they can come home safely. Obviously this series doesn’t pass out the settings to such extent, but I personally think that by making the characters too secure like that would only jeopardize the plotline. Could be just me.

Then, we have the animation and soundtrack, really getting me acting up.

There is nothing wrong with how they were played into this anime, but what if I told you that this could be better? Back to the author’s manga where everything here seemed to be darker, I was more immersed into reading it rather than watching the anime. No, I’m not talking about the manga’s monochrome coloring. I’m talking about how everything were drawn, how they were played in the head of readers. When I’m looking forward for the anime version, I expected to watch this where the visuals are like the greyest of the grey and it has Youtube’s “19th century villain playlist” playing in the background. Does anyone here know what I’m saying?

I was expecting that the animation style would be more dynamic and intense. Something grossly rough which came out of DavidPro’s Jojo, and beautifully but diligently precise like most of Comix Wave’s, but not really. What effectively I’ve noticed in this I.G.Pro’s product is that it has become more vibrant and perhaps visually easier to consume as if this was made for broader audience – probably those who aren’t familiar with Sherlock Holmes series – to the point that it somehow felt painstakingly static. The animation plus the pacing of the show doesn’t feel like a build-up and it’s almost as if we’re feeling like the safest as the audience wherever we are. The show’s atmosphere and vibe doesn’t scream ‘challenge’ to me. For example, Guy Ritchie’s version where Moriarty killed Irene. Not like in this version where Irene now works for him is anything wrong, but everytime the characters here would get involved in some dangerous, I almost felt like they’d certainly get out of it without a scratch. Original Holmes did that as well almost all of the time, but without telling the readers that everything will always be alright or something.

It felt like this has become a commercially manufactured product that only works for general audience instead of the long-time fans, much like Disney’s but instead it’s from one of the notorious studios like IGPro. Surely, this will work for others, but certainly not for the average Sherlock series enjoyers. There isn’t anything much to say about this one apart from the fact that this anime really gave up on the audience’s imagination and how they’re supposed to perceive it.

So here’s a recap: the plot is tricky, the characters are trickier and weirder, and the animation felt a bit plain. Do I enjoy it? Yes, certainly.

There isn’t much Sherlock’s adaptations or reinterpretations lately that made it into the public and officially recognized due to most of the writings are complete ass. Compared this particular anime with other works like Sherlock Holmes and Baker Street Irregulars that I used to read for example, this one certainly had succeeded in giving a new perspective to the series. There used to be a theory where Moriarty plotted everything in order to control the corrupt world instead of just simply desiring to watch the world burn, but this show associated that theory more comprehensively and created it into a much better idea on how Moriarty the Patriot will work out.

I never despise sympathetic villains. I think such complexity as something needed in a story once in a while because we as the viewers can see what the antagonists’ true motives really are instead of just assimilating them into some kind of additional character for the protagonist to fight against, which is why I hate series like NCIS or The Mentalist, or most of detective TV series. Surely enough, Guy Ritchie’s Jared Harris’ Moriarty is more menacing and more dangerous, but something like Moriarty the Patriot would motivate the viewers enough to follow up what kind of conclusions such character would bring. I know I said that it’s more appropiate for the author to make the readers question his character’s psychology even more in order to get to know him better, but he worked out the most of this series as the core of the story without having to revolve around that issue. Of course there are other characters that I would humbly disagree, but in this kind of show, it’s good to see them working out as the story’s catalyst and giving more spirits in what this is supposed to be just like how the author envisioned it. Although the animation is something I personally disagree with, this entire series sure felt absolutely animated.

I think overall with all the passions put into making this anime, IGPro and the producer had created a certainly enjoyable and recommendable series. For what it's worth, the author Ryousuke Takeuchi has successfully created it while staying faithful to the originall Sir Arthur's works. It would even be considered memorable to some, there is more to this than simply what is on the surface and I genuinely believe that with more considerations and more careful attention to details then this series could have been greater and much more fittingly desirable to the infamous Sherlock Holmes franchise than what the author and the readers expected it to be.

God, I miss the times when I used to watch Steven Universe un-fucking-ironically.

If you’re looking for a good fun CGDCT (“Cute Girls Doing Cute Things”) isekai anime, or maybe you want to get yourself familiar with anime genre about female main character reincarnated into fantasy world plotlined with interesting adventure theme and you don’t know where to start, then I strongly suggest you to start with this.

If you’re looking for an unexpectedly good fantasy series with a sense of originality about an overpowered character who lives a leisurely easy-going life accompanied by good comedy and a great amount of action-adventure spirit throughout the story and its astoninshing variety of inspiring characters, then I have some kindly ... strong advice for you.

RUN.
Run for your life.
Keep on running and don’t look back.

My greatest mistake was thinking that I’d lower down my standard and going into this expecting something nice, like Itazura, or perhaps something more chill like Honzuki no Gekokujou (Ascendance of a Bookworm), which then I regretfully realized half of the series later that this isn’t even remotely like either of those. This ain’t it. In fact, remarkably, it’s lower than either. Even after comparing it to any fantasy anime with woman MC, I still couldn’t wrap my head around this one.

Like all good things in seasonal anime series, Slime 300 (for short of "Slime Taoshite 300-nen, Shiranai Uchi ni Level Max ni Nattemashita"; tl: "I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level") has a little bit of good premise out of it in the first episodes, around half-cour I’d say, to show the audience that this has a little bit of something for everyone. Nevertheless, almost nothing if not none had been delivered in the midway.

Warning: SPOILERS, et cetera.

Perhaps the one part that had me the most is that sequence in the first episode where Azusa (the MC) makes her battle debut and fights a dragon as a witch where the animators showcase a potentially cool and smoothly drawn action sequences. Three episodes later after that, I was served. But to say that I was served is the same as me asking for the most expensive recommended dish accompanied with the best wine present in the most luxurious French cuisine restaurant, only somehow to be given BTS meal instead. Not what I asked for, but hey, I’ll take it since I’m hungry enough and I can box them up for home because I certainly won’t eat that shit at a resto. Based upon this, you can pretty much assume what kind of taste I have in this slice-of-life anime stuff: not great, but not terrible.

That’s basically how it all started. Everytime one of these seasonal show came out, the concept would somewhat be interesting enough to invest to at first glance: Somehow Azusa died after overworking herself and somehow her physical form transferred herself into a fantasy world where somehow she decided to take this new reincarnated life experience as a new opportunity to create her new self into being an isolating lone-wolf witch. Henceforth, living her daily life by killing slimes every single day for 300 years straight and getting away with it somehow. And she didn’t get bored in all those 300 years of doing the same shit over and over again. Somehow.

What I like about Azusa is how she decided out of the blue to make peace with what she had to become and settled down to make a living of her own and for her own. All in all while killing slimes for 300 years, which would’ve been either funnier or cooler depending on how they would care to elaborate on this peculiar monotonous behaviour of slimes-killing Azusa to get to know her better and perhaps have a little more perspective on how she did all this without slowly losing her absolute state of human sanity. Needless to say, they went with “extraordinarily immortal human” trope and shrugged it off.

I think what surprises me the most is the voice actress behind Azusa is literally Aoi Yuuki herself. There’s a part of me that felt absolute respect and an uncontained amazement when I realized that the same woman behind Azusa’s voice is the one who voiced a lot of unexpected characters. I certainly wouldn’t expect that this is the very same Tsuyu (MHA), Yoshiko (Aho Girl herself), Madoka (Madoka Magica), Tatsumaki (One Punch Man) and Tanya motherfucking Degurechaff (Youjo Senki). It’s like if the word “Kusogaki” (shitty brat) was ever a person, then this woman would voice it. I also remembered her as Lotta Otus (ACCA-13) since that’s my favorite show. By the way, she’s also voicing Kumoko (Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka) in this season.

Add the plain fantasy world nonsenses if it’s not bad enough. Put some more of those meaningless Silmarillion-esque names and dictionary vocabularies. The villagers look like passerby walking dead to serve as some kind of pity background. There is no open-world building, there is no sense of adventure nor any kinds of self-satisfaction in Azusa’s daily fantasy life, and certainly there is no reason for either Azusa or me as the audience to indulge in her world any longer. We’re supposed to go with the flow of this show’s world-building like it’s some sort of incomplete RPG fantasy game in which we have to wait and pay for its DLC expansions in hopes that it will get better afterwards, which will never come out. I’ve never been scammed this hard before since EA’s Star Wars Battlefront.

Perhaps the part that I could give any chances to is the ‘COMEDY’ of this show, which came out as a product formed from the dynamics between all the characters gathering around the overpowered Azusa like attracted flies. Things couldn’t get any better when you realized this is a faithful adaptation to its original light-novel work. For all it has to offer, I can’t think of anything else about the side characters but taking them as some kind of product of running gag where they’re all fanservice characters presented for the sake of ambiguous yet obliviously mainstream stereotypes that would always appear in all seasonal anime, purposefully created just to make us laugh: shy tsundere red dragon girl, klutz blue dragon girl, klutz elf girl with big breasts who is suspiciously perverse, loli twins, loli demon king with big breasts, young tsundere ghost teenager girl and ‘not-naked’ dark elf demon girl. In terms of those unfamiliar with this format, there may be chances that all the jokes in this anime could land to such viewerbase. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that both the light-novel author of this adaptation and all the Chad Japanese anime-enjoyers need to realize sooner than later that this is 2021 where the only people unfamiliar with this sort of slapsticks ‘comedy’ format are Gen-Z kids who were born in the middle of 2015s and wouldn’t even know about any other types of animated shows apart from Youtube’s Cocomelon.

At least if I want a slow-paced slice-of-life fantasy journey where I can take it easy with my main character, please give me something like Kentucky Route Zero. That literal piece of shit of a supernatural point-and-click story based PC game actually had no gameplay whatsoever and I can still get invested in it to the point that it became my guilty pleasure. Also, the reason why I’m currently talking about KZR is because that game reminded me of how much it lacked gameplay and if that game made my day, then it can definitely make your day as well, and neither I nor you would get out of this while being incredibly bored if that lame ass game is so enjoyable.

What reminded me of everything Kentucky Route Zero always have even among its inevitable flaws is what essentially this show is lacking: visual immersion and reason to follow the plot; which is funny because the only thing KZR has offered to me in its 20 good hours of ‘gameplay’ is literally nothing but having me dully loitering around in the same dumbass city. In that sense, I could put KZR in comparison with this kind of anime, because it felt like watching a movie. Whereas Slime 300 has a total of 13 episodes with 25 minutes each and I stopped watching at episode 8; roughly less than 200 minutes of watch time due to the lack of visual and world exploration. Hell, I’ll play KZR again after this just for the hell of it.

More hardcore DLC scam can be found in the animation department. Not only did they not deliver us with better open-world, they also went from the attitude of “Let’s make our best impression!” to “Yeah, fuck it” in somewhere around episode 6 that I couldn’t even bear it anymore. Exactly there, actually.

What I found incredibly hilarious is that this isn’t from any god-tier anime studio, right? So of course at some point I would get into this with low expectations when it comes to its animation department. However, this anime is incredibly skillful at how it grinded my gears due to how much trickery they put into it to the point it’s deceitful.

We were served at the first episode with a fine animation between Azusa and the red dragon, which again not great but not terrible, and it went well as a first impression when we jumped into this. Further along, we have more characters introduced, and then came episode 4. That episode showed something. Out of nowhere, Azusa who always wanted to lay low and avoid conflicts at all costs, fights multiple dragons at once. Fine animation, but that’s like second in a row. So I imagined that if they keep this up, they’d certainly make this anime so much better just because of the animation alone. But that wasn’t the case, since they stopped doing that in the midway. What we’re witnessing in this series is a blue-balls waste of our goddamn time. Gosh, I hoped the animators aren’t being paid less or something. That wouldn’t happen ever, in anime industry.

Even with a carefully made soundtrack, it still didn’t help the fact that this show is becoming quite bland the more we’re getting into it. This whole thing is like a scam. It has good premise and promising plotline, but nothing happens. It has some better-than-average animation, but doesn’t deliver any more of it after. It wants to be better, but doesn’t know how and just fucking around in it.

So, with all that explained, now it begs a question: Is this a good light-hearted anime? Well, yes.

Nah, not really.

I have to say, despite all the negative parts, this looks just like any other CGDCT anime, with its own appeal. For a lot of bad things in this show, I could not disregard the fact that a show about a female witch that lived for 300 years and killing only slimes for EXP gain does exists. It just sounds too good to be true that an isekai anime featuring an OP female character would ever be made on-screen instead of simply laying dormant in light novels. The premise sounds like something that is memorable and worth to recommend when you think about it. As I said, however, I made a mistake by thinking this would be like a slice-of-life with a little bit of adventure settings, like Itazura, or Somali, or Aria, or pehaps my favorite of all time, Girls’ Last Tour. Despite thinking this has potentials, it doesn’t go anywhere further than being a seasonal anime that not even God knows whether or not it would get season 2. It just feels like something that people would forget after watching it once yet still certainly worth the watch regardless.

I used to watch lots of slice-of-life anime back when I was a young lad, like Azumanga Daioh, Kinmoza, Gochiusa, Yuru Yuri, Love Lab, Comic Girls, Hitori Bocchi, or even Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-san and Senko-san. Even now, I’m still watching stuff like Yuru Camp (very discreetly, of course). Among others, lots of my enjoyment revolves around slice-of-life CGDCT. I think there’s something about that genre which brings me to a peaceful and safest space, but in the midst of it also kept on reminding me that there is more to this genre than simply just escaping to my comfort zone all the time.

Which is why I tried to invest my time into Slime 300, because it looks special. Not only it’s a slice-of-life, it’s also a fantasy adventure. Not a lot of these can come out succeeded in doing so; maybe that isekai spider anime Kumoko, but honestly I thought this one has much better prospects. I feel like there hasn’t been any anime with slice-of-life fantasy adventure where the main character is an overpowered female. Omnipotent Saint, which is the closest we have for such anime in this season, might be the example, but honestly it is far from being an action adventure, despite it being a fantasy anime.

For what it’s worth, let’s just put it in a perspective where we as the viewerbase watched this with a grain of salt and ask more questions: Is this worth the watch? Can ‘I’ get invested in it? Is this recommendable? The answer is: No, no, and probably.

Exempli gratia: Girls’ Last Tour is an easy-going anime about a couple of girls making their way on a nomadic journey in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity almost extinct. Slime 300 is also an easy-going one, but revolving around a reincarnated woman from another world who lived for hundreds of years while becoming a slime-kill exp-gaining witch.

Remember when I said that CGDCT is an anime genre where you dive into our own comfort zone? That’s what I had from Girls’ Last Tour: it did so while also being opposite of that at the same time. Almost like watching Gakkougurashi without it being too dreary and grim. There is a part of Slime 300 that brought me hope that it would be something more than a mere slice-of-life. It challenges the viewers. Maybe the closest I could have when it comes to a slice-of-life with the same trope is Nagatoro from the current season, but I haven’t made a review for that one yet. What with all it has offered, like animation, or fantasy settings, or the well-done soundtrack, I felt like Slime 300 could have done more than just being how half-hearted they are.

I have to say, this is such a good breath of fresh air. An anime about female main character who knows what she’s doing is something I’ve always looked for, especially those in unfamiliar settings. However, I just hope that this genre will have a better chance, whether it’s outside of this poorly-handled series or perhaps in the next installment of this series if the sequel is ever confirmed. I genuinely wish that the industry in this particular genre would look at this as some sort of inspiration and perhaps bring a better light into it. Now excuse me while I’m getting the fuck out of here to enjoy my unironical Viper the Rapper playlist since that’s definitely much more indulging than whatever this weird anime is.

Of course nobody wrote a review on this! Which is great, since this is actually my favorite series. Finally, here's my first ever FIRST review for an anime. Also, SPOILER, et cetera.

As usual, like the series, everything in ACCA - Regards, is smooth, and I'm not even joking: no stiff animation, nice and gentle OST, authentic and crisp atmospehere showing in practically any located background, adjectively level-headed characters introductions and interactions, o hell even the plot is smooth. In fact, remarkably, the only thing that kept me from writing this is because my big empty head couldn't keep up with thinking about using any word ... that can replace "smooth" or "gently", but damn I’m gonna keep trying my best, and worst at the same time. Let me tell you why these are all as what I told you.

Right off the bat, we can see Madhouse just mad flexin' as usual. Good flex is when you know what you're doing is relatable to the target audience. Even if this is the same studio which helped the production of God-must-be-crazy anime such as Vampire Hunter and One Punch Man, they know exactly what ACCA is supposed to be. Not everything have to be mega-bombastic and ACCA is one of the anime which shows that. So to start off, we begin our pre-title sequence with a simplistic jazzy piano playing joyfully behind a crowd of fully-handed government civil workers preparing for the anniversary of ACCA, after a dramatic attempt of coup d’etat against Kingdom of Dowa viewed in front of the whole world. Quite a simple plot.

Basically, this OVA could pretty much be the only continuation following after events in previous season’s episodes. All I can say is, even if I’ll be told this wouldn’t get a second season, I’m glad that they’re making it not to be too looking like a try-hard effort, simply just showing what ACCA is in the first place in its essence: a simple drama anime, essentially.

All the key characters are still showing up, revealing what they have in mind even after the conflictious event in previous season. Obviously being the afterward of coup d'etat, suspicions arise here and there, and a slight hint of unsafeness could be seen in the form of whispering winds. The involved characters like Jean Otus might be very cool-headed, but for something grand to be revealed, even the higher-ups like The Five Chiefs would be very careful.

The ambitious youth would be the worst case, for they often fret over the future anxiously and might as well try to find out about any unseen zephyr. Who should worry and who shouldn’t, no one can guarantee the sure answer. Yet again, for those who are just living a life like Jean Otus, a slight breeze could still be enjoyed simply as nature at work. The peaceful daily lives of people still go on. Not just in Dowa, that applies for all, even The Five, Head of ACCA Director Mauve, and surprisingly the coup’s malefactor. Suspicion is merely an unrenewed piece of mind. Worry is a misuse of imagination. Quietly living life amongst the unnoticable is not an exaggeration. It’s just life as it is.

We can still talk about the animation. Some look like still images, others are fluidly well-done, but none of them seem remotely close to being stiff, because that’s just exactly what Madhouse is. As I said before, being ACCA, this is the only anime in which I can absoutely appreciate the very vibe I’ve always been digging in: a slow-but-surely, serene and soothing vibe at a steady pace that brings my relaxed self wonders. They gave good choice of soundtracks with good timing and nothing is off, because that’s just exactly what Madhouse is.

I’ve always wanted to come back to the series and write my review, but I really don’t know how to word out the anime as a whole. It’s a special guilty pleasure, but also memorable. It’s probably why I haven’t make a review about it yet. However, this isn’t something you should just pass. How boring it sound, give it a chance. Take a break from any anime mayhem that you’re not interested at the moment and spend just 48 minutes of them to watch this light entertainment. I guarantee you a nice experience from it.

Anxiety.

One could look up the meaning of the word in Google, probably in Urban Dictionary website. Very easy to look up. Here’s one of the first result that came up if you’re too lazy to search: “a feeling of unease, such as worry or fear, that can be mild or severe.”

Often, however, this particular word is one affiliated with, by most people, cowardice.

Many a normal person would always shake their heads, wondering what anxiety actually means. Some said it’s just a term to associate people who “run away from things”, others said it would be anything close to the word “delusions of panic”. Those who’d ... never experienced it – usually people who’d always claim to be winning in everything, even including life itself, and have encountered little to no amount of failures – created the former answer, while those who did but denied it ever existed in their lives created the latter answer.

On the other hand, there’s also a side willing to help. It’d argue that one doesn’t need to be a psychologist – or any formal degree that a supposedly smart and bright individual would be correlated to – to know how such mental illness works in those affected. Another part of them also exist, who would counter that argument all the while calling names to those who even mentioned just the word “anxiety” alone, like “hypocrites” or “know-it-all”, treating those who are well-intended with utmost disrespect because to bring up the topic with the purpose of giving any help to each others needed are to be stood accused as seeking for unnecessary attention as if they want to profit from a hardship instead.

Yet at the same time, they’re just another part of the same side: those who want to help. Both aren’t much different apart from their ideals. One has the idea to give all they can to help others, no matter how little or insignificant it looks. The other one sees everything in a wide, cynical perceptive, in which they concurred that nothing in our lives matters any values. Just like how insignificant this world is and everything in it, along with everything we do, we don’t matter because we’re like a speck of dust compared to the vastness of universe. Nothing is made specifically on purpose and everything is as it is because we only made it so.

I think there are many things needed to be said about this, especially with what’s happening right now. Of course, I can’t actually speak more about it. Because this is an anime review, and it just so happened that this is actually a very good anime I’ve been enjoying with so much passion since episode one. I love this so much and still it has something to say that really hit me in a perfect time and a perfect place.

ATTENTION: For that part above, you can go to my TL;DR down below. If you don’t want to, just skip to the Overall paragraph. In the meantime, let’s move on to this review.

So what is this anime about? Fortunately, it’s a very wholesome and joyful anime, about my favorite girl of the season (probably forever!), Hitori Bocchi.

This anime, the “Hitori Bocchi’s ○○ Life” (ひとりぼっちの○○生活, read: Hitoribocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu), doesn’t have a third party that would argue about anxiety like those who oppose it. However, this is an anime worth to watch when you want to know what inside the mind of a person with social anxiety roughly is like. Hitori Bocchi is one character that I’d relate to anxiety the most, specifically social anxiety. Even the character herself is named after the one thing socially anxious people usually resembled: “solitary” or “lonely”.

There isn’t much to say about the plot, because it’s just about a girl being left out by her elementary friend so that she can befriend everyone in her class once she’s in middle school. The focus here is that she has an uncontrollable social anxiety. It’s a decent storytelling fuel at best. What makes it better is the characters around her and how she interacts with them and everything around her.

Obviously the obnoxious Cute-Girls-Doing-Cute-Things (shorten to CGDCT) in this anime also shows, but it’s really just as far as that in terms of being slightly annoying. In a sense, if you’re used to that kind of thing, like me, you’ll enjoy it very much. It’s been quite a long time honestly that I fell in love with a Slice-of-Life (shorten to SoL as well) anime with a light-hearted atmosphere since Azumanga Daioh. Even if this anime brings up a topic of social anxiety, it absolutely does not look like that at all. It’s so subtle in a way that a SoL anime always is. It’s relaxing, it’s heart-warming, and there’s not a slight hint of it being heavy despite the MC constantly showing her social anxiety in every episode.

Even better, this anime and its creator managed to use that as a comedic relief in a very subtle and convenient way for the audience. Bocchi’s social anxiety literally became the only thing that made him a center of plot development and, affectionately, something that we like about her. I love her struggles for going through these “hurdles” like mentioned in some episode, solely because she has an objective; a mission, at best: to befriend everyone in her class. There doesn’t seem to be any pressure showing in her giving her all to do so while we’re watching how she’s doing it. It’s because the sincerity that Bocchi has in what she does, which probably some of us at some times rarely give off. There isn’t anything bleak, miraculously, in watching a person doing her best to be socially active, wanting to participate in a social activity, and just radiating a very positive intention through and through. It just makes you smile.

You can completely lay back while watching this with a little smile on your face. This anime has something to speak about without pressing on the matter too much and making it too serious. Instead, it gives us laughs while at the same time rooting for Hitori Bocchi’s success as a main character in her own stories. I love everything she does, from start to finish, from the tiniest thing to the biggest thing, to the point that I couldn’t stop watching in the middle. I waited every single episode to come out, and then watch it right through like a weeb I am. Which is exactly why I found Hitori Bocchi to be incredibly special, in comparison to other anime from this season like Senko-san or Senryuu Shoujo. I’m sorry, Senko-san. I’m sorry, Nanako-san.

I do seem to agree that it’s really fucking cruel for her only friend in elementary, Yawara Kai, to just leave her in middle school without any communications, let alone supports, like a mother bird throwing her children out of the nest. Sure thing, it looks like it’s working a little bit for Bocchi. However, it’s seriously, seriously not the most recommendable approach someone should’ve tried to do in order to endorse others for overcoming their issues: just leave them be and see how things work out. Lots of apocalyptic disasters in the past history of mankind like Chernobyl would’ve been solved so easily with little to no sweat at all if so. I don’t care if she has the same voice of one of my top favorite girls, Kasumi from Asobi Asobase. Okay, maybe a little bit, but seriously. What were you thinking, girl? That wasn’t very……..“YAWARAKAI” (lit: やわらか, meaning: “soft” or “gentle”) of you.

There are also a few episodes focusing on other essential characters. We have the Unfortunate Aru with her very supportive actions for Bocchi and her laughable bad fortunes. It’s good to see that the VA, Akari Kito, is voicing in 3 consecutive seasons: this, WATATEN and Kimetsu no Yaiba; which is also good for me because I can hear Noa from WATATEN again. We also have energetic Sotoka (or Sotca – full name: Sotca Luckythar; read: Sotoka Rakita – which somehow if you put her name like that into Google, the search result will bring you to either this character or some Mahindra off-road car) who also seems to be struggling with her environment as a transfer student from abroad – including working her way out to befriend Bocchi, instead of all the master-disciple relationship nonsenses – and maybe Kurai and Ojousa. Also maybe the teacher, Oshie Teruyo (lit. meaning: “I’ll teach you), because in terms of VA career, Minami Takahashi is definitely a senior.

Goes without saying that I like Nako the most. She’s an honest person in a lot of times. She knows Bocchi’s conditions and is always honest to her and, ultimately, Nako’s own self. I think that’s also important. You can also be supportive like Nako, to someone with issues like Bocchi, without looking too much like you’re taking the person’s side. We must all, not only be aware that someone we’re trying to help needs our support the most, but also be aware at all times not to be too careless about others’ feelings and not to see things so personally and fully biased. We may not be able to save every single person on the planet, but at least we can be honest about what we and other people feel. Nako is very impressive in it that it doesn’t look like there’s anything impressive about her. She is so perfect in many imperfected and honest-to-God manners. Even her name, Sunao Nako (lit: 砂尾 なこ), literally means: “honest child” (lit: 素直な子). How good is that? Also, what are the odds that the VA who voiced Lily from Zombieland Saga also voiced this character, Minami Tanaka? Life’s a goddamn trip.

The animation style is so simple yet refreshing. Just the ideal CGDCT animation that I’d always love to see. I’d be wondering if it was made by Trigger who’s known for Little Witch Academia, but I did get a bit surprised when I found out just later on that this was made by the same studio which made WorldEnd, Studio C2C Co.. The soundtrack is, again, like all the SoL anime with CGDCT, especially like Azumanga Daioh or Hidamari Sketch, so laid-back in each and every single one of all tracks.

In terms of enjoyment? I think this is it. This is the thing. This is what I enjoy the most for a long time. Maybe I’ll make other wholesome reviews for other anime from this season like Senko-san or Senryuu Shoujo, but this has one particular thing that others usually don’t seem to have: the subtle bringing of a pressing issue at hand.

The closest I could think of, when it comes to a CGDCT SoL anime with a certain matter as a center of attention for the plot without it being look like too challenging or dramatically pressuring, would be partially Hidamari Sketch and Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. If we look at the most similar example, it’d be Girls’ Last Tour. I doubt, however, that Hitori Bocchi is remotely close to that, not to mention that Girls’ Last Tour have the background plot of a post-apocalyptic environment.

This anime also proved that, like many things, anxiety is not an act of cowardice, but doing nothing is. People with anxiety have a struggle to go through and, as far as we know, efforts cannot be blamed, no matter what. That is to say, some of us still contradict with that point of view, or even despised it and failed ourselves so.


TL;DR.

A relatable case just happened recently, and the culprit was anxiety.

Around the end of June, it began with my Twitter account showing many tweets in Trending section. At first, I was just in Twitter for having fun. When I was reading them, they were all mentioning about the loss of someone. It was a person who struck to me, and probably to many, as a good man. He’s known for being a very cheerful internet personality.

I knew nothing of the guy. I’d only seen him a few times on Youtube reaction videos and surprisingly enjoyed every of them despite him being a Twitch live-streamer and I’m not fond of many reaction videos. What many people didn’t know is the fact that he also struggled with severe mental health issues, including anxiety. It was shown a lot of times like in his tweets or him being in other social media. The last time everyone saw him was a few days after he posted his last video on Youtube. Later, there’s a news reporting about a found dead body near a river. Police confirmed his death as suicide.

I know what you think. People die, and the odds are very likely every single day. However, there’s more to it than that.

It was only a few moments later then that I was a bit shocked. Many people on the internet – just like a huge amount of people on the internet – laughed at his death and his conditions. Nevermind memes, some even made monetized Youtube vids and putting so many mid-roll ads in the middle, literally profitting off his death. Their excuses? Providing that “he’s also a scumbag exploiting from the consumerist behavior of society”, “he’s a suicidal coward who used to profitting off people’s meaningless and unproductive demands”, and the worst of the worsts, which I quoted from this guy who literally made a Twitter account just to say this, goes to “he’s just some dead n***** found in the street.” That last quote just now was made by someone who also spoke in threads after threads in Twitter while showing off his brain cells, claiming he’s not trying to justify anything, but merely because he wanted to provide a good argument

This is revoltingly psychopathic.

The stunning lack of empathy some people had had me wondering whether they’re actually joking or just that emotionally dead. There was once an argument saying these are all the result of competitiveness we oftentimes applied or experienced in our daily lives, mainly at working environments where people are demanded to commit fully, regardless of their own opinions and their individual subjects of emotion. There’s a point of view those people hold and I don’t blame that kind of point of view. I can’t possibly deny it also. We can’t possibly deny it. We know many things, we know how things work and how our contributions are still tiny compared to other bigger things.

What surprised me, however, is how it’s best for them to ridicule people’s issues because it’s irrelevant to them instead of helping those people. Compared to anime, it seems that, in reality, some of us laughed and even mocked those who are not like them, treating them like a lowly being lacking of something that some of us do have, because it’s more convenient that way, because we don’t feel like we have to feel other people’s pain yet also trampling on others’ struggles of life. How are we supposed to disregard the fact that, no matter how little it looks to anyone else, one of those struggles also happen to include something as insignificant as fighting one’s own anxiety?

One line that really struck me the most is how we, collectively as a group of human beings, somehow can relate to this still: “All you can do is do nothing and all you did was shouting at people doing absolutely nothing. You had nothing to offer, nothing to do, and so you’re calling out everyone that everyone did nothing. The irony is, you did nothing.”

We did absolutely nothing to give consolation to. Ironically, in that statement, it’s also safe to say that I’m also doing nothing. Nevertheless, even if everyone agreed that we shouldn’t do anything and instead should make fun of people who actually did something, I wouldn’t give in. It doesn’t matter what we think our reasons are, but if ignoring people’s cry for help is in the norm and everyone is happily living their lives in their ignorance, not even I want to live in a world like that. Why should we always seek for a life without pain when remarkably, in fact, we’re not actually living in a blissful ignorance but merely pretending that we’re living in one? Doing absolutely nothing when there’s a problem right in front of us is an act of cowardice.

It pains me a lot that there are still some people in this world with this objective mindset that is similar to: “everyone suffers, so don’t be so naïve as to feeling like you’re special and anything that you do is important”. What is naivety? Is it not naïve to believe in just one thing as if it’s the truth? Even if the things we believe in are all lies, does that mean we don’t learn anything from it? We’re humans. We don’t stop learning. We keep discovering and rediscovering.

Reality is not as simple, but this anime, Hitori Bocchi, is at core a perfect example of a person conquering, with all might and heart, her own hardships. It’s not frequent that I wrote a dedicating article like this in the middle of a review. With that being said, I wish everyone with the same case of mental health issues a good luck in overcoming their hurdles. To the dead man, I prayed you rest in peace. Thank you so much for bringing joy and happiness with many of us and I’m sorry you had to end up like this. You deserved better. We all deserved better.


Overall:

The score? It has to be in the category of overall 11. Don’t know why MAL gotta do Hitori Bocchi dirty with 7.7 like that tho. Don’t believe that score, believe me. You see, I’m loyal to Hitori Bocchi like that. It’s how much I love this anime and not, according to my friends when we were in an otaku con, because I’m so attached to 2D and just broke up with my gf. They’re just jealous, alright? Don’t listen to it. I don’t. I believe in myself because Lord believe in me…

No, for real, jokes aside, this is a good SoL anime. I am aware that I’m exaggerating, but in all honesty, this looks like a magnificent SoL anime to me. In reality, both the helpers and the needed are deemed to be in a very hopeless position at times. In this case, however, anime couldn’t be truer, because Bocchi’s seemingly ridiculous struggles look like something I could always appreciate everytime.

This anime has all the things you can enjoy to. The comedy is there, the cuteness is there, the atmosphere is there, the characters are there, and the story development is there. Everything is working very well. I think there are many VAs making their debut in this anime and the studio in charge of this isn’t very well-known, also the OST might not have quite memorable song worth to mention, but in terms of making a very good anime overall, this deserves a very good score. And I meant, a score of |7.8|.

So, here’s a recap:
a. Plot: |7.5|
b. Character: |7.75|
c. OST: |7.5|
d. Art: |8|
e. Enjoyment: }8.25|
f. Overall: |7.8|

In the first 4 episodes aired which was in April, it took me at least only 3 days to make a review about this anime. Its last episode was aired in June 22.

It took me at least 2 weeks after this anime had finished airing to complete and submit this review as a whole, in which I did because there were more things I needed to add and more thoughts I needed to gather.

I don’t blame moderators if they take this down. I think at some point they wouldn’t like this whole 6 pages article I wrote. Probably for “misusing review platform” or something, maybe exactly that. In fact, I think they’re laughing at this. I highly doubt I’d rewrite this down and resubmit it if they did so, and I’m certainly not going to post this anywhere else like in Facebook or Twitter.

There are a lot of things I wanted, but it’d be rounded into 4 things when it comes to this in general: a remake of Sousei no Onmyoji anime, watch and give a MAL review for every single anime from the past 30 years, a sequel for each and every CGDCT SoL anime, and last but not least, everyone to appreciate any and all life struggles others make. Finally, one last thing I can say is that there’s absolutely nothing in this world that I wanted more right now…

...than “not Sousei no Onmyoji anime.”

...And a sequel of Hitori Bocchi.
Peace on earth. Good night.

It only took me the first episode to know what exactly in the god damn hell is going on in the start of our 2018. However, because I didn’t read the guidelines, my previous review was removed. Fair point, obviously. I originally thought I can give something for this community by creating a review for an anime that I found incredibly unique but I didn’t put so much effort into it and it made my review look more like a trolling rather than serious reviewing in the end. I’m not going to do the same thing with this one now. I know for sure a ... series that has 12 episodes in average has to be reviewed after there are 4 episodes broadcasted, but I feel like I need to make this review even though there are only 2 of them airing right now, noted since Saturday, January 13, 2018. With that being said, here goes nothing.

There’s some real happening in the world of anime caused by a culture most famously known as ‘memes’,which came from our particular world of cyberspace called ‘The Internet’. Eventually, due to the massive interference of a certain society in the world wide web, it affects the society of real world. From such, it created what appears to be, which is the main point of our review, Pop Team Epic. Be wary of this anime, for this isn’t your average one. This anime is very absurd, if not surreal.

[MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD due to a lack of informations]

You might be confused by the first episode and dropped the whole show already with all your might. The first minutes of this Episode One we’re talking about doesn’t even show anything remotely close to the premise of this anime, which needless to say, is pretty much an act of ‘trolling’. It introduced us with the plot of an ordinary, average everyday high-school boy called Taira Daichi, who has a classmate of a girl called Hoshifuri Sosogu, which little did he know, is a celebrity idol. Judging from the animation and the decent 8/10 opening song, it looks like something quite promising. Lord were we fooled, because only a few minutes later, everything turns into a wreck.

Out of nowhere, the animation is completely changed. The characters, which were previously introduced are not there anymore, and instead being replaced by 2 Chibi girl characters wearing high school uniforms: the short one and the tall one, which both are ridiculously voiced by old men. The anime storytelling format changed into something like 2-minutes-per-episode show, where every single scene is played in every two minutes for no obvious reason. Unfortunately, Pop Team Epic doesn’t tell any particular stories whatsoever and just mocking any other anime references in the running while it got the chance; and even if the format looks like 5-to-10-seconds-per-story, the show is actually a 24-minutes broadcast. It generated another question for us: with the way Pop Team Epic goes, how did they manage to fill in the gap through the second half of the episode? The answer might shock you.

When the second half is running, they REPEATED the same scene where Daichi first showed up and introduced. They also repeated the same opening song. What we didn’t expect, however, is how they repeated the same scene where 2 Chibi characters showed up and goofed us up: they goofed us harder. They completely use the same EXACT scenes from the first half, only this time they used different voice acting, originally from a couple of baritone-pitched sailormen into a couple of adult voice actresses. They changed ONLY the voice acting. THAT’S IT. Nothing else. Wikipedia said that Mariana Trench is the deepest and lowest place where humanity can sink into. This anime show is evidently the living proof where we can sink even much lower and further than that.

Bob’s Epic Tea …… I mean, Pop Team Epic, is adapted from 4-cells manga. It doesn’t have that much of a premise, nor a point about the show worths to mention, apart from it’s just about 2 characters having fun. It doesn’t serve any purposes except for the comedy and the comedy itself. There’s nothing critical, philosophical and deep about Pop Team Epic. One must not expect anything from this, neither the viewer nor the anime producer, because it looks like even the anime producer is only doing this just for fun while being carefree about what they’re creating. Reminds me of that anime where the guy keeps parodying everything whenever he got the chance. The guy’s called Gin-san, by the way. That being said, here are my scores for the main elements of this show [to find out my opinion about this show, go to the Enjoyment section]:

Story: ?/10
Truth be told, there isn’t any form of storytelling here in this. As I mentioned before, Pop Team Epic is about 2 characters having fun, randomly and carefreely. Viewers aren’t meant to think nor are they to comprehend anything that’s going on in this show because this anime is doing everything randomly in order to create laughs. The story setting of Daichi and Sosogu called “Hoshiiro Girldrop” is a complete lie, but they keep telling in every episode preview at the end that it’s what we’ll get in the next episode. Also, even if it does tell any stories, it’s only 10 seconds long in average with the longest is variative. The last thing one would expect is for all of those stories to be constructed as a whole.

Character: 4/10
There are 2 characters you need to pay attention to, and the only ones that matters: Popuko, the yellow-colored ponytail-haired short-tempered short girl; and Pipimi, the purple colored long-haired tall girl. Both has the appearance of a high school girl and wear the usual high-school clothing of sailor-themed uniform, except for one thing: they both talked like sailormen. In episode one, we’re introduced to such characters voiced by such actors as the standard, but that’s not so. Because later on, in the second half, the couple of MC’s voice actors changed into a couple of MC’S voice actresses.

Although the lack of characters is to be said (mainly there are only 2 of it), both voice actors and actresses did a good job on the voice acting most of the time. They might sound pretty lazy and half-assed at some point while doing it, but for such a half-assed voice acting, I admit they did a good job because their voice-acting is genuine. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be considered notable at all.

Soundtrack: 6/10
It’s not to be expected. Surprisingly, Pop Team Epic has a small bag of good OSTs. The Opening song is incredibly catchy, whether it’d be the pop idol-ish song of the deceptive and misleading Hoshiiro Girldrop’s or the electronic ravish Pop Team Epic’s. The same can be said to the Ending song. The opening song of Pop Team Epic sounds like the beginning of something visually chaotic and remarkably unimaginable to be served as a form of comedic relief.

As for the rest of it, clearly they’re not doing anything desultory. Only the thing is, the amount of song tracks used here is quite a few, but when there is one, they composed and created it very well. Either because the anime doesn’t use background OSTs quite often so they wouldn’t have to create too many song tracks and they can focus in perfecting each and every single tracks (if it actually matters to them just as much, looking by the way this anime is presented to be), or they did it on purpose because they’re just so good at it that they’re lazy.

Animation: 7/10
Pop Team Epic has a diverse collection of animations. It’s been proven since the first episode where they played the opening song and introduced the arguably most despicable lie in the history of human, Hoshiiro Girldrop, in which the animation clip is beyond mesmerizing and unbelievable and it’d go without saying that each of the heroines in it have the potential of becoming a waifu material. So much efforts put into that opening that it doesn’t even look like anything remotely close to a farce. Not a lot of people know about this, but it also worths a mention that the people from Kamikaze Douga are the animators of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure’s opening clips.

From then on, every single one of their episodes features a variety of clips, Be it the weirdly disgusting animation skit of Bobunemimimmi or the French live-action skit of Japon Mignon. These kinds of efforts shown is Pop Team Epic’s way of telling the viewers how much they’re absolutely capable of doing in creating this anime by that of a smug. Allegedly, much like how it’s portrayed so far that Pop Team Epic looks like it was made by a group of jerkheads, their animation is primarily a professional-ish 2D consists of chibi-looking characters.
Enjoyment: 8/10
This anime is enjoyable subjectively. Some would despise it and spit on it, some would love it to the ground. It actually depends on the comedic taste of each person. There’s a name for the kind of comedy Pop Team Epic has, and it is called “Anti-Humor Comedy”.

As it is called, Anti-Humor comedy does not intend to serve anything humoric to the audience, which is the very intention of the comedy. It indirectly generates laughing materials to enjoy and thus becomes what considered to be a new type of humor for the audience. Mostly, this kind of comedy gives some particular sign of random surrealism in it. Much of it is incomprehensible and not easy to decipher. However, the audiences are not meant to question ‘why’. There isn’t anything behind it to find out about and there is no use in pointing out the details for the sake of the enjoyment itself. Instead, what they need to do is to question ‘what’, as opposed to ‘what is the purpose of them doing this?’ but to ‘what the heck are they think they’re doing?’.

Examples could be found in the infamous western TV shows such as Monty Python’s Flying Circus and The Eric Andre Show. As it premises, almost everything in the show is a part of incomprehensible comedy skits instead of showing any tiny fabric of genuine reality. If we are to take examples from well-known anime, the closest one we could ever get would be Nichijou. The only thing that excludes it from being an Anti-Humor is how any elements in Nichijou is actually quite relatable to us, be it from the characters interactions to each other or the story settings, which makes it “Surreal Comedy”. The similarity of Surreal comedy to Anti-Humor comedy makes Surreal comedy the best foundation to relate to. Despite the similar absurdities, however, Surreal comedy is still understandable and easily laughable to the majority of audience due to the built associations between them and the show. Pop Team Epic obviously shows a huge gap between itself and that.

They also did many parodying. They parodied a typical pop idol anime by using fake opening song and intro of one , which is later on to be known as Hoshiiro Girldrop.It doesn’t just stop there, because they parodied many anime shows after that as if it doesn’t care how many 4th walls they break and the consequences of it. Just in episode one, they already parodied and made many references such as Kimi no Na Wa, Pokemon, Berserk, Totoro, and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.

These kinds of comedies are very minor and unpopular because of the incomprehensibility and the nonsenseness of it. Needless to say, Pop Team Epic created a very good one and I’m gladly willing to give this show’s rate of Enjoyment a strong 9/10, for its mutifariousness of anti-humoric jokes and liberties of parodying. However, I have to be objective for the readers of my review. Which is why I can give this 8/10. That's as low as I can get.

Overall: 7.5/10
In this modern society of 21st century, men-children and women-fujoshis, wherever they are, all participate in it. We live in the very age of raising awareness to infinite possibilities where everything can work. A businessman could become a leader in a country of power, nerds can have friends and become filthy rich, and people can trash each others and talk smack from far far away using the so-called "Discord Voice Chat" to establish a person as that of a lisped Ethiopian retard. Eventually, it created Pop Team Epic in the middle of it. This anime is created from memes. It’s stupid, unforgivable, unacceptable, nonsensical, idiotic, abusive, derogative, absolutely low, disrespectful, stupid, world-tier threatening, brain-consuming, carcinogenic, tumoric, hemorrhagic and a source of agoraphobic existential crisis. Have I mentioned that this anime is also stupid?

And yet, I’m feeling lucky and thankful.

I’m feeling lucky to start my 2018 with something out of the norm such as Pop Team Epic. It doesn’t want to follow other formulas of comedy anime like Osomatsu-san or Gintama. It’s not afraid to be different. It really wants to stand out as the center of attention like an attention whore it is. It holds a megaphone in hand while butt-naked, being watched by everyone including women and children, and shouts: “I’m f****** retarded!”.

I’m feeling thankful that, after many many ecchi-harem anime later (looking at you, To-Love-Ru and DxD), I finally can have something so special that I can personally look back to and said: “This is absolutely memorable and historical because it’s not like any others. I shall keep and preserve it”. I could never begin to imagine at any moment that it’d be something I’d grin to, smile to or laugh to.

At the end of the day, we all laugh to our stories and everything that’s around. Whether it’d be about the TV show we watched or about the times when we’re feeling down in high school. The real question is: “will it be a sad laugh or a heartful laugh?”

The artist responsible for the mangawork which is the original work that created this particular anime adaptation we're talking about with the same name is the guy called Cool Kyou-shinja. He's also responsible for “Danna ga Nani wo Itteiru ka Wakaranai Ken” (transl.: I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying). Yes, it's probably the longest name for any TV series in the world lately since “DANMACHI” and “Shomin Sample”. If you're interested to have a look at this guy's works, you're into a quite big surprise. It includes fetishes like: loli, oppai, oppai loli, shota, more oppai, shota x oppai, and so on, ... and so on. Oh, and did I mention ‘oppai’ yet? You can find any of them in his mangas. Be it “Danna ga Nani”, “Ojojojo”, “Ooya-san”, “Komori-san” (that's ‘oppai loli’ for you), “Fullmapla”, “Mononoke Sharing”, “Fukumaden”, “Chichi Chichi”, “Metsuko ni Yoroshiku”, and last but not least, “Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon” (Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid). The last five works I just mentioned, which includes this anime, involves gigantic oppai which is the same one you'd probably seen in the BBW character from Occultic;Nine. In this particular show, the BBW one is a female with a big fuck-off tits, the loli is too airheaded and ecchi, and the lesbianism is covered in a multi-layers of "plot". Now we got all the negative points settled, back to business.

TL;DR: skip to Overall paragraph.

You already read the synopsis. It's up to you whether you feel ridiculed or intrigued by it. There's one thing for sure about this anime: the plot executed properly, if not perfectly. As the story progresses, you'll get everything you need: who dragons are, who Kobayashi is, why the dragon becomes a maid and serves a master, how many dragons involved in the story, how things will turn out as the dragon and Miss Kobayashi are indulging in their master-and-maid relationship. The pace is right, not too slow or too quick. You can watch it without having a fear of being bored or losing something in the middle of it.. Already, the first episode took me on the edge of my seat.

l always felt uneasy about the plot, because there's nothing much to say in it: an ancient dragon turned itself into a maid and tries to serve fully to its master, the female office worker. If anything, in fact, I was genuinely worried this anime adaptation will turn out to be a complete disaster. I remember about what TMS Entertainment and 3xCube did last year to my favourite manga, Jitsu wa Watashi wa. It proves that no matter how good you think the original work would be, it won't do the viewers any good if the anime is an utter excrement. That gave me a severe trauma. However, as I watched it episode by episode, I can see that this anime is going very well with its execution. They managed to balance the unrealisticality of "dragon maid" plot by work it out together along with other essential elements, such as characters, soundtrack, animation, etc. Which is why, I'm glad to say that this show has a story everyone can easily follow. Notice how I said "everyone" instead of "every anime viewer". I gave this anime 7/10 for the Story section, which is "Good".

We got the story section out of the way, now it's the Art section. It’s Kyoto Animation we’re talking about. Therefore, it shouldn’t be a big deal. They always did a great job on the animation department, even in Myriad Colors Phantom World last year (god, it was awful). The animation is not Makoto-Shinkai-ly, where it makes everything alive and you'd have to watch it in Full Ultra HD screen or something, but it's still as dynamic and eye-refreshing as you'd expect from KyoAni. Nothing special in the art style, except that it'll remind you of Danna ga Nani once again in some way and it's much more colorful than it. I was doubtful whether to give the Art section a 7/10, or 6/10 which is "Mediocre". However, I'm quite sure everyone including me agrees that this section deserves 7/10.

I'm not sure if I could say the soundtrack is mediocre, but I know very well that it's quite well-fitting for this anime within every episode by episode. If it could get any better, I'd be willingly to give it an 8/10, which is "Very Good". For now, however, 7/10 would be acceptable.

In the Character section, we have 2 main course: An ordinary female office programmer named Kobayashi who works in office daily, and the hundreds-of-years old female dragon serves as Kobayashi's maid in a female human body dressed in maid outfit named Tooru. Tooru is a dragon which, like most of the dragons in the past, has very terrible and complicated experiences with humans, and makes her have her own opinions about them. Living with Kobayashi, however, will change her perspectives about humans. This is probably where things turn to be better or uglier, which all depends on how Miss Kobayashi; an especially total maid maniac, heavy drunkard, and hard-working daily-routine female office worker; will try to change Tooru with her nurturing and solid resolves. As the story goes, you’ll find a lot of other characters as well, which mostly are Tooru’s relatives. Looking at the characters and their background stories, you might think this is a very seriously tense anime, especially when the protagonists have serious characteristics too, but not quite so. As I said earlier, everything is balanced. There's a high chance you'll fall in love with this anime and all the characters in it. The character in-depths is well-shown in every single appearing character, you’ll always find a place for them in your heart and keep it in. I think 9/10 should be a reasonable score in this section.

In my objective point of view, I gave this show an Enjoyment of 8/10. I'd been watching all the episodes without getting my eyes diverted to somewhere else except my computer screen. That’s how much I enjoy it. It makes you laugh, happy, stunned, impressed, tragic, overwondered, pitied, delighted, etc. All sorts of emotions mix you’d expect from a comedy-fantasy anime. Strangely, with all those emotions, you can’t help but also amazed by how it’s all well-executed perfectly just like how the manga did it. Even when there’s some additional scenes in the anime that’s not in the manga, everything’s still presented brilliantly.

OVERALL: 8/10

Yea, I get it. That “loli” and “lesbianism” is just too much for a joke. Apart from those two things, however, the rest is true. I mean, c’mon, dat boobs doe.

I'm actually a fan of Kyou-Shinja's works; if not a fan of the guy himself. All those weird fetishes depicted in his works aside, his mangas are worth the read. I also fell in love with this anime. Because this show is presumably, if not absolutely, his most successful anime adaptation. I’m so happy knowing my favorite manga turned into a successful anime with many positive reviews. The first paragraph you jusr read is a little bit of reminder I made about what you’d expect from Cool Kyou-shinja, but I was trying to make it as offensive as possible for the greater good. I mean, there could probably be some of anime viewers who hates oversized tits or something. So I was just kind of trying to sort them out.

Despite my overjoyness, I know my responsibility as a reviewer. I changed all the scores in the midway as objective as possible. That being said, as you can probably read, I also already did my fair share with the negative points at first paragraph above. You can see the positive points in my review, ones I tried to reveal as much as possible, along with my objectivity as a reviewer in it.

In conclusion, if you want an anime about daily life and fantasy at the same time with some relieving comedy, a little bit of sick “dragon action”, and obviously good chibi-looking animation in it, you must try this. This is not like your ordinary dragon stories you’ve ever heard about. This is about Miss Kobayashi and her “Dragon Maid”.

The only reason why nobody want to write a review about this OVA is either because they watched the 12-episodes series first, which came out a year before, without watching this OVA at all; or because they watched the 12-episodes series first and then watch the OVA and held a grudge upon it afterwards because of the very disappointing previous series, which made this OVA appear to be mocking the audiences' expectation; or because they watched neither of both, despite the fact that this particular one here is actually a good comedy anime out there even though this is just an OVA.

While the ... previous Kill Me Baby was pretty much not quite appealing to audiences because of its unfitting slow-paced-old-gags travesty of comedy; this OVA, in a way, made the most of it. Although the rest of the elements of this OVA is just the same as the previous 12-episodes series (OST, characters, plotless background story), the faster pace, the various witticism with its more aggressive (often violent, like "Tom&Jerry violent") approach and the stronger-ly unique characterization, somehow made me laugh more than I expected to compared to when I was watching the first series. Because it was aired after the first Kill Me Baby TV series, however, this particular hidden gem would make you feel like you're watching J.C.Staff's product of redemption, or aplology, or mockery, or carelessness out of sympathy over the series. Name it whatever you want.

It doesn't matter, nevertheless, how bad something in the past could be. If you'd like to see what potentially would be the best comedy anime out there (if you don't mind with 'chibi' characters and random happenings), this OVA would help you.