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In my short life watching animated series, if there's something I learned through the years is that the best pieces of animation are those ones which can balance remarkable and original art, animation with a fascinating or at least compelling story with well written and rounded characters, and last but not least, making a good use of music to make the experience more delightful, memorable and even complement the atmosphere and characterization, especially if music is the central theme of the aforementioned series.

In this case I am reviewing one which art is kind of remarkable, with decent musical compositions, but appalling melodrama and cardboard characters: ... Sound! Euphonium.

Art & Animation:
I am, like everyone, a biased person, and I have to confess that I'm not a fan of how Kyoani confront their creations: they clearly are almost unbeatable in how they animate every detail and how fluid can look, only comparable with cinematographic works of Ghibli, CoMix Wave, or any film with high display of production values like Redline or Sword of the Stranger.

Of course, they lack of creativity in some aspects like character design in order to make them look as cute as possible ends up falling into the generic department, losing against other formidable pieces like Dennou Coil, Cowboy Bebop and FLCL. And don't make me start on how some animes with budget limits prove that your animation can have high standards like Haibane Renmei, Rakugo, Trust and Betrayal, Evangelion or Berserk '97.

Music:
In a series about music, someone may expect masterpieces that can give classical musicians a run for their money or at least if the staff are using non original soundtrack, to use it properly like Nodame Cantabile so you can mentally relate the music with the anime. And even though it's not bad music per se, it's unfortunate how average are such compositions and how wasted it feels at the end of the day (you can separate it almost completely from the anime and enjoy it more on your own!). I can forgive this if we weren't talking about a slice of life where the cast is in a school band. Fortunately, sound effects are extremely polished but that can be expected from Kyoani.

Story:
So far I haven't spoken about what is this all about. So, what's this all about?
Well, a group of Moe girls walking and talking nonsense most of the time, and supposedly focused on winning a place in the school band and rehearsing as hard as possible. This second part is, again, supposedly to be the main plot but Kyoani preferred to focus on their specialty: giving queerbaiting between cute innocent schoolgirls because yuri-bait helps a lot with merchandising. At least 30% of the camera is entirely focused on schoolgirl thighs just for the sake of having them somewhere rather than giving more space to actual characterization, so far we've been told rather than shown the motivation of the main cast to find the Euphonium, hence the pace of this series is also appalling in spite of having less than 15 chapters.

Characters:
And now the biggest offender: the characters. To be fair, Kyoani never was a studio that gave half a damn about good screenplay or writing, so the closest thing to decent writing that I've ever seen of them is the characterization of Haruhi suzumiya (instead of being a cute retarded cardboard, she's a full sentient girl with bad manners) and the comedy of Nichijou, that worked somehow in each chapter.

Nevertheless, do not be fooled by those who claim that the portrayal of these girls are totally realistic -whose names can be replaced by the main girls from K-ON due to how awfully similar they are-. There's nothing that helps people to point a single trait of personality of ANY of these girls. Why? Because it's not necessary to even try to give them a personality. On the other hand, checking other music-centered animes like Kids on the Slope, Beck or Kono oto Tomare, you can easily make a distinction between each one of their respective casts. Also, there's not character development at all, not saying that this is mandatory but at least the writer could make these moe dolls had some charisma and more traits to convince me to care about them. And before you ask, no, Liz and the Blue Bird is not realistic or even remotely good either, but wins against Euphonium due to the segments of the tale of Liz where animation and music actually merge with each other smoothly and they forget about the high school setting

Overall, it's only worthy if you are a hardcore fan of this overrated studio. Otherwise, I advise you to stay away from it and find the other examples of how great some anime music can be: Nodame Cantabile, Kids on the Slope, Beck, Kono oto Tomare, Forest of Piano.
If you really want to see how good Kyoani can be with their high production values, go check Violet Evergarden or Nichijou, which are so far their best works.
And if you wanted an actual GL story rather than dirty pandering, Revolutionary Girl Utena is always available, or Shinsekai Yori.

A self-insert introspection (finally) about how to face your adult life

Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei or the Tatami Galaxy from now on is an adaptation of the campus novel of same name, written by Tomihiko Morimi. An author who has written several interesting novels like "the eccentric family", "Night is on, walk on girl" and "Penguin Highway".


The anime shows us an "endless eight" (in blunt otaku terms) story of a nameless protagonist (Watashi) experiencing his first two college years searching the so called rose colored university student life and a beautiful dark haired young girl as a love interest and partner. Each one of the ... 11 episodes has this exact time frame but with different choices he made at the beginning of each episode like the circle/club he decided to belong and friends he made and the naivety of blaming everything on the "incarnation of evil", Ozu. And as much as I'd love to make an analysis of this character, I have to make this as spoiler free as possible.

Having such a humble premise, why is this anime so praiseworthy? Because of everything!

1) Story: the quality of these 11 mini stories don't rely of shock factor or pretentiousness , but how these are told. Tatami Galaxy has extremely fast dialogue focusing on several details that include foreshadowing, retrospective, dark comedy about humiliation and sex life without falling into vulgarity, excess of screaming EHHHH or useless fanservice. Be careful, once it starts (especially the first 3 chapters) it will gain more and more speed so if you get lost due to bullet speed dialogue, don't feel bad and practice. No, there's no dub anywhere.

2) Art: I have 2 words: Masaaki Yuasa. There, that's it. You will either love his works or hate it with burning passion. For the 3rd group of people with no idea who is this man or his works, go to "Ping Pong", "Mind Game", "Kemonozume", "Devilman Crybaby", "Kaiba", "Night is on, walk on girl" or "Keep your hands off Eizouken!". Yuasa is arguably the most creative director of modern anime so far and not only his creativity is one of the most remarkable of all animation, but also it is quintessential in the storytelling, especially in this one, where both dialogue and artistry go together to uplift the experience by tenfold, keeping a perfect balance of beautiful style and deep substance. I honestly have no words to describe it, but imagine a huge mix of minimalism, highly detailed drawings, plenty of color palettes and even real pictures mixing with the anime!

3) Sound: this OST is almost Yoko Kanno tier. Other than that, Michiru Oshima (2003 FMA, Le Chevalier d'Eon) made her most prolific music so far that encapsulates several feelings and leitmotif. If I have to pic some favorites are the main characters' themes and "Yojouhan ki Owari" (the climax), but it's an overall 10/10 that certainly gives others great soundtracks a run for their own money. The opening may struck to some of you, since it's from Asian Kung fu generation (famous for their shounen ops like Haruka Kanata), but lyrics and rhythm of the song actually fits very well and the opening sequence has equal originality as the entire anime, no clickbait at all, a detail I have to applaud. Ending song is more relaxing and unless you listen to it with headphones you may dismiss it, not the best I've heard so far but it is charming too

4) Characters: So far, Art, sound and story are pretty solid. Fortunately, the characters make justice to all the good things said earlier and more. All of them are excellently written both as people and psychological concepts. However, Watashi, our nameless protagonist is one of the best four protagonists in anime and manga.
And that takes me to the first statement of the review: a self insert introspection. 9 out of 10 times when we speak about self insert we automatically assume that power fantasies are on the table. Escaping from reality and thinking ourselves surrounded by gorgeous waifus or husbandos. And here is my main reason why The Tatami Galaxy is one of my favorite animes of all time: it respects so much the viewers (especially if you're about to be in the twenties or going to college) that made and develop a nameless protagonist made by imperfections, mistakes and yet an increasing self realization to help the viewers to meditate about life choices and errors. Also, while this anime has accurate comedy, the dramatic moments are really well implemented and cathartic, without melodrama.

All in all, everything that takes to make a good work of art is a balance of originality, respect, subtlety and one or several messages meant to us spectators, delivered through aforementioned work:
The Tatami Galaxy does it with such elegance and humility we may have to share it to the next generations, especially if these messages are becoming more and more rare to find in the anime.

10/10

The rising of another Kirito

Another day, another dream come true for the fetishistic audience drooling with 2D harems and power fantasies in the painful Isekai genre. In this special case, the worst anime of 2019 and the most similar ripoff of Sword art Online, only with a shield. There won't be spoilers of the light novels, not only because I haven't read them (why should I torture myself?), but also due to the fact that an adaptation should not depend of nothing but itself.

Story: poor.
I have nothing with Tate no yuusha, only summoning 4 generic teens and help with "waves of enemies" like an ... RPG, they even copied SAO interface! Only that it's not a game, and the only one of the group that comes up with the belief that this is an actual world is Naofumi, because he's the only one with common sense apparently. Also in order to victimize him during the whole season he's falsely accused of rape by his pretty female companion. Why? Fuck you, that's why! Then his only companions are 3 lolis, 2 of them being furries and one of them eventually grows into a woman but keeping the age of 10. Did I mention that 2 of them were sold by a SLAVE OWNER? Wait, it gets better: all of them become part of his harem... of course this was going to happen. I'm not going to describe further generic asspulls, victimization or the countless plot holes this thing has because they are countless and the screenwriter certainly had no idea how to avoid basic contradictions while writing dialogues.

Art: meh
Kinema citrus is a completely bad studio, putting aside Barakamon and Made in Abyss. However they managed to make a slightly decent background and generic yet acceptable character designs. However, the CGI in the battles is sickening, even for their standards. Opening and ending sequences would have been ok, hadn't those been clickbait in comparison with what can be looked in the series.

Music: Average
The composer of Made in Abyss, Kevin Pelkin, was the only good thing that happened to Shield art online but that's the only compliment I can give. At least Yuki Kajiura made an effort for SAO's soundtrack to sound more memorable; but I cannot blame the composer for working in a shitstain of a show with no substance nor style. Putting aside the OST, there's no remarkable music since OP and END songs are dull

Characters: appalling at best, cancerous at worst
Naofumi started as an edgelord, misogynistic incel and ended up as the not so edgy yet overpowered generic incel for self insert.
All the little girls of the harem are annoying, especially Raphtalia, the worst female character of the cast, which is a merit considering the competition.
"Bitch" (I don't call this character like that, the MC does) is a bad person just because. If the raccoon fetish wasn't so cancerous, this pathetic attempt of antagonist would be the worst character
Spear hero is as dense as a donkey, but at least he is endearing; while the other 2 are so irrelevant that I bet no one remembers their names
Queen is boring and the King is the only one with a non developed enough motivation for his hatred towards shield heroes.

To sum up: 3/10. It's not even worth to laugh at how much it sucks. The worst episode of Re Zero or the most boring one of Konosuba are much better written and produced than any moment of this SAO copy & paste. It's easier to prevent a disease than cure it.

If there's something I learned watching anime and who produced them, is that A1 pictures is not a particularly good studio in terms of Good stuff/Bad stuff ratio. Space Brothers, Shinsekai Yori and Silver Spoon are undoubtedly excellent in their own ways, I've yet to see Tsuritama and it's openly discussed if Your lie in April, Magi and Erased and other anime are either excellent or decent. Then you have a massive load of horse shit (Oreimo, 7 deadly sins, SAO, Ecchi Tail, etc).

Why that long prologue? Simple: Kaguya sama love is war is currently part of the 2nd group discussion and I'm one of ... those who consider this series is good in spite of critical flaws here and there.

Starting with the most obvious aspect: the animation begs to be compared with Shaft works! The director of Kaguya sama worked in Arakawa under the Bridge (which I can't recommend it enough) and this style of animation fits unexpectedly well to show us how the usually calm council room is nothing but a mine field for our MCs. Some neck tilting here and there and there you have it. In terms of production they polished as much as they could the raw, basic style of the source material (sorry Akasaka). However the consistency of this art begins to fade in some episodes which makes me feel a little bit disappointed because until episode 8 the animation and art style were excellent. Putting aside the vibrant opening Love dramatic, I wasn't very enthusiastic with the OST, a bit basic and dull sometimes. The main ending is decent, and even though I dislike Chika dance, the animation was the most fluid in the entire series.

Now that the technical baggage was put aside: why I consider this romcom good? Simple: it tried to follow the path of actually good romances of before, especially Kare Kano and even though it wasn't as good as the aforementioned anime it has it's own charms

The premise already bought a lot of people: the main characters are already sure that they have a crush on each other so the only thing left is "when the hell are these 2 going to make a move?" And they only want to force the other to make such move. Inner monologues of their mind games and dynamic animation go together to give the spectator some action in a genre where you'd rather expect a little Tsundere kicking the MC and the comedy is actually pretty self aware of romcom cliches (like Gintama mocking action shounen or Konosuba kick the shit out of RPGs and Isekais). The structure of each chapter being between 5-6 minutes of different situations helps more than it's given credit for in order to let the spectator have a couple seconds to relax otherwise this
Both characters are supposed to be the smartest people at school, but when someone is in love the intelligence drops a bit, especially when giving advice to newcomers (I'll speak of them soon). Like every romcom, they have to work out the nonsense and control their massive egos, which they actually are starting to do in almost compelling ways. Fortunately the manga shows us how these egos were born and raised by different circumstances, but the anime hasn't reached this yet so it's understandable if people were let down waiting for more of their backgrounds (especially Miyuki). This chemistry starts with an "ok" to "why you like this person, again?" ending with "oh, I can see it now!", nothing vomit inducing like in harem stuff, Otome stuff or God forbid, NISEKOI!
As I said before, the self awareness in the series is accurate enough through the presentation of Hayasaka, the maid and Ishigami, the "favorite" of the author. Starting as the punching bag and ending as a closer friend of the main couple and retroactively through his relationship with them both parts show and develop more traits. Each time this guy appears is not wasted time, I promise!

Pros being said I have 3 large problems with this series that were in the manga too.
1) Kashiwagi and her BF. Using not one but 2 characters as plot device and compare them with Kaguya and Miyuki would be fine if they hadn't begun like they did! Also they are more of a contrivance
2) Chika Fujiwara. This is the main element of chaos in the series that appears right a the moment where someone would think the war is over. It's funny the first 2 times but after the 3rd one I was immediately tired. Even though her issues with best emo Ishigami (Spoiler: they won't be together, fortunately) are enjoyable from my perspective, I'm just not into her character in general, though I understand she's the main reason why this anime had this popularity
These problems are nothing against
3) The narrator. Exposition is stupid, and so is this. The only times this narrator worked were in 2 gags, other than those this unknown narrator in 3rd person is my biggest problem with the series. It doesn't allow to enjoy the actual mind games or how the plans of the main couple are blown out. Had this narrator never existed in first place, perhaps I would have genuinely loved the anime.

In conclusion: is this another generic romcom? No. The self awareness and development of events and main characters are good enough and the animation helps in great ways to surpass the cons Kaguya sama has. If you are into romance anime, then I can say this is for you. If you felt disappointed with melodramatic high school romances with japanese comedy focused on fanservice, this also has fun with this trope too!

PS:Today's results.... good Romcom genre has returned!

Talking about Black Lagoon should be as simple as the premise and story of the aforementioned anime, but considering that this is one of the best manga adaptations of Madhouse, for the sake of this review I cannot be objective nor impartial.

Let's talk about the weakest part: the story. To be fair, no one who came to watch this are interested in any plot, and so were the writers since 90% of what we got is raw action and guns with almost infinite ammo. If it's so simple, why didn't people (or at least myself) drop Black Lagoon? Maybe because it didn't try to ... take it so seriously and the main goal was to pump up the adrenaline. It's pure entertainment and charisma (but that's for later) in contrast with a "girls with guns" classic stuff.

Art is good and the OST helps enough in the scenes where our "girls with guns" go berserk and annihilate everything with their weapons. Credits for Madhouse, again. There's a reason why their animes are adored most of the time and this one is between my favorite examples of how to adapt a manga flawlessly.

Enough about technical terminology and weak points and let's talk aabout the EXCELLENT pros of this.

The protagonist duo of naive Rock and harsh Revy have a contrasting chemistry that in this case worked perfectly and I have zero complaints with them. The side characters have their own charisma as well and help to carry the drag that is to have basically a simplistic premise to the point that most of them (especially Balalaika, Chang, Roberta, Dutch and Bao) have enough personality to replace any bland mc from a lot of mediocre animes. In terms of entertainment, if you expected explosions everywhere like in a good old action film, stop for now your research and enjoy this until you get bored.

To sum it up: from time to time people are just not interested in complex stories and they need just to watch something simple, but not insufferable like harems or crap of the sort. Black Lagoon is pure, unrestrained adrenaline and it serves to relax for a couple minutes or hours and it accomplishes that idea.

Overall score: 7/10.