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Sherlock Holmes and the novelizations and short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have always filled my life in different shapes and media adaptations. From the Sherlock who is an overly cocky, but jaw-dropping expert on criminology, criminal history and chemistry in the original novels, or the cunning expertise and meticulous memory palace using Benedikt Cumberbatch and even in more abstract forms our beloved Detective Conan. All these Sherlock incarnates connect one thing, the ability to solve every case with precision.

Kabukichou Sherlock is majorly different. The story caught my interest because it dared to add the "comedy" genre into the mix. A mix of murder ... and slap-stick comedy might sound like a terrible mix of genres that cancel each other out, but bear with me. This time it will surprise you even more.

Kabukichou Sherlock is a mystery show set in a district of Japan that is mostly known from the Yakuza Series in form of Kamurocho. In fact, Kabukichou is one of Tokyo's centers of crime and nightclubs which has its own allure thats hard to describe. In this story our journey into Kabukichou introduces us to a dozen of wacky and eccentric characters which are connected to the Sherlock origin story by namesake, but not so much by the original role setup. In Kabukichou crime is ubiquitous and Sherlock has to solve them together with his lesser helpful squad of acquaintances.

Is Kabukichou Sherlock in any way comparable to the originals? Besides of a rearrangement of characters it isn't. The main character Sherlock, while able to solve cases really sucks as a detective. The clues are presented to him on a silver platter and he always feels smarter than the audience despite not making much an effort. He presents the solutions to the cases in old japanese style of storytelling - Rakugo. Rakugo usually involves a dialogue between two characters which perform comical or sometimes sentimental stories and act them out. In all honesty, Sherlocks Rakugo sucks really hard, but it gives him comedic relief.

People familiar with the original might be put off now, because the comedic relief in Doyles novels came more from the imbeciles in the police force or Watson himself. For me this was an interesting subversion of the original story. It also made clear to me that this adaptation shouldn't be treated as seriously.

And god I was so wrong: What starts off as a smirky comedy about the wacky life in Kabukichou and all the chaos that goes on there slowly takes up pace and introduces us to one? of the overarching plots. Jack the Ripper is causing harm in Kabukichou by killing women and displaying them in artsy styles. This is a stylistic device of noir stories to connect the gruesome with the arts. In another subplot they are after a specific mcguffin that is connected to the Sherlock group and wanders through the hands of different characters which then become targets.
As Jack the ripper makes their entry into the story the pace gradually adds up until there is actually a sense of dread lingering over the characters because they have been undermined and the culprit is among them. Believe me, this show actually picks up pace and becomes brutal at times.

This mystery then spiral out of control as the story throws red herring after red herring to mislead the audience. We begin going through the people close to Sherlock and investigate their behaviour and quickly we get invested into finding the culprit before the narrative tells us. In typical Sherlock Holmes fashion there I can only quote one thing: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Characters:

There are a handfull of characters worth mentioning. We have Sherlock, Watson, Fuyuto Kyôgoku, James Moriarty, Mary & Lucy Morstan, Michel Belmont and Mrs. Hudson in the main group. All characters have either unique looks or personalities that coincide but not overlap with the original source materials.

I advise you not to assume the traditional roles in this adaptation. Sherlock isn't always the good guy and Moriarty isn't diametrally opposite to him. Also Watson isn't always a sidekick and useless. Detach yourself from your expectations, everything can happen in Kabukichou.

Sound:

When we first hear the opening we might feel we took a detour to the jazzclub. This perfectly underlines the setting in Kabukichou. The lyrics of the song aren't even really deduceable without looking at the lyrics but it just somehow just wants to make you dance without knowing what is said. This is especially true for this show. You are just along for the ride but mostly don't know whats going on. It's just entertaining. The video for the opening also drags us on a wild ride through the streets of Kabukichou while showing the different characters. In a sense you could take this anime as a snapshot of life in wacky kabukichou and it works fine.

Art:

The artstyle isn't special and the show would've profited from being more stylized. Instead it feels like they put thought into the looks of the characters but not so much into the world. Kabukichou while being introduced as this wacky place where everything can happen looks rather bland and like every normal city street. But a lot of the action is going on in the side streets which gives it a sense of uncannyness and that there could be danger looming everywhere. The show is also pretty dark, as in not much lighting is used. The bar where all the squad gathers greatly contrasts that with bright colors and it feels like a safe haven from the happenings in the town.

Enjoyment:

While I honestly did not enjoy the first episodes of this anime because I just didn't think Sherlock lived up to my standards both in wittyness and wits as soon the pace picks up and an actual threat is involved I was waiting for a new episode every week to find out whether my suspicions about specific characters were true or not. Safe to say this anime managed to surprise me multiple times. I wouldn't say the writing is great, but its salvageable and true to the intention of the show.
Beyond the middlepart around ep8-11 I was hooked ultimately and so will you. But since the story is rather slow and the first cases just introduce the mannerisms of this colorful cast of characters people will drop the show before it gets good.

Overall I would say if you are here for a faithful adaptation of the source material you are wrong. This show doesn't apply for that. If you are a fan of being led around by a narrative and fooled by red herrings and like to solve mysteries then you are definitely right here. Kabukichou Sherlock is a wacky show and I'd call it an acquired taste.

But as soon you get used to it it turns into a wild ride with colorful characters and manifold possibilities in the chaos that is Kabukichou.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk. 7.5/10 but rather 8.

I'm the first to write a review about this movie, but I'll make sure it's covered well. Today when I browsed a few of my nono-sites I came across this movie, which was just freshly subbed and prepared for me. It was called "Cencoroll" and after short looking up what it is, and what it is based on I decided to watch it this morning.

Cencoroll Connect is a continuation of the first film of Cencoroll released in 2009 which is a story based on the manga Amon Game from the prolific producer and character designer Uki Atsuya. Cencoroll first hit me as a artsy and ... creative type of storytelling where you are absolutely told nothing. The 2019 movie Cencoroll Connect redeemed some of this assessment since it explained a lot of things to at least get a grasp of the full movie. A third movie is announced to be in production already since this years June.

Cencoroll Connect is a full feature film spanning over 1 hour 15 minutes and begins with a prologue that is 1 by 1 the section that is told in Cencoroll (2009). This means that people who don't know this movie can immediately start with Cencoroll Connect and not miss anything. It blends elements of body-modification, mystery, grand scale fights and science-fiction together and it has moments that remind you of the great horror Manga "Parasyte" from 1988, though the anime adaption "parasyte the maxim" is more well known.

Story:

Cenco is one of several "octopuses" that suddenly appear in an unnamed city and its a shapeshifting, amoebic creature with lazy looking eyes and certain abilities. The octopus stay unexplained in their origin, but they are stated to possess certain abilities like shapeshifting, invisibility or sheer strength.
At the beginning of the movie, people who haven't seen the first film are introduced to Tetsu. Tetsu lies on top of a roof and talks to his personal octopus link called Cenco.

One day he just travels by bike and another girl, Yuki, notices that his bike has a protruding eye. She proceeds to poke it and it transforms into a giant blob, that is Cenco. First perplexed but strangely fascinated she asks Tetsu if she could take a ride in Cenco, which has transformed into a car at this point. Tetsu isn't really excited but let's her do just that. While she is out to buy some groceries suddenly another person called Shû who is capable of controlling two octopusmonsters attacks Tetsu because he wants to harness his abilities. A fight on a surprisingly grand scale begins.

Cencoroll Connect then adds more to this rather mysterious tale. We get an explanation who Shû is and why he attacks Tetsu. Also, we learn that Yuki can harness Cenco's abilities herself. I won't spoil what she does with it, but the open-ended story is expanded upon with more characters who possess their own monsters.

The art is surprisingly sterile for a show like this. I already alluded to the fact that the monsters resemble something right out of parasyte, they are aliens but they are not anthropomorphic, neither are they looking like animals. They are abstract creatures with eyes where they don't belong. The background art and the cities debris are very accurate, but the art still feels somewhat surreal. I might mention that it looks somewhat like Zankyô no Terror in the kind of contrast the colour scheme gives way to interpretation. It doesn't look like the high-quality movie production we expect from a Makoto Shinkai or Takahata Isao though.

The sound is rather hard to define topic. The beauty and at the same time uncomfortable eerieness of the first movie was complemented by the actual LACK of distinguishable music. It had more an ambient feel, almost mysterious how it only uses sound effects to great effect. This movie throws this formula out of the window and adds ultimately impactless vocal songs and dubstep into the mix, especially during scenes where the monsters fight and there should be an impactful hit incoming. I think the mood of the direction of the first movie was far superior. The ending of the first movie was a song I really loved: Love & Roll by Supercell. The second ending from Cencoroll Connect is "Nanairo Night" also a song by Doujingroup supercell. And it bangs!

The characters in the show were deliberately not well expanded upon. The first movie featured three main characters of one, the antagonist? kept unnamed. In the second movie, we learn about the names of the character and also that he has companions, so to speak. The main characters we focus on are Tetsu Amamiya, Yuki and Shû. Side characters are Kei, Kaname and Gotoda.

Amamiya, Tetsu is the first person to be shown that has control over one of these octopuses. He doesn't use them for fighting usually but when he was attacked he shows prowess in using certain transformations of Cenco to fend off his opponent. Based on the intro he has not done this the first time. He is a rather negative character, never smiles and always feels bothered by something.

Yuki is a clumsy but responsible female character in the movie. She first finds out about Cenco and shes really intrigued. Later we find out she played an important role from the start, but it's not explained further.

Shuu is a villainous character that looks like a carbon copy of Izaya from DRRR!. He uses both octopus monsters for his own personal gain and doesn't have any explained motivations.

Kaname & Gotoda are other people who possess an octopus and significantly more knowledge about what these octopuses are for.

Enjoyment:

While the story was the most confusing part of this movie It just captivated me. Usually, people treat the mystery genre like something they have to desperately unravel in every facet. Danganronpa is a great example of such failed mystery storytelling, but this movie made a difference. It fully accepted that it didn't provide enough information to get the overall plot and this as a viewer just makes you think a lot about the possibilities that the plot could've taken or if something happened offscreen which could explain what's going on further. I like about it this movie that it made me think about it instead of consuming it and moving on. The fights were not the most exciting when you already have seen a lot of space battles and other mecha exchanges, but for an abstract, artsy movie like this, it was sufficient. Also, the transformations were creative.

Overall this movie isn't really a secret tip to recommend for everyone and that's fine. It feels that this movie is for enthusiasts of people who like when a story follows the show, don't tell-approach. It's also pretty calm and you can't consume it on the side, you have to be focused on it.

The conclusion doesn't convince me though and I hope that the third movie will expand on that universe without breaking its mystery. Please don't do that.

Overall rating is 7/10.

No Guns Life is the anime adaptation for the original Manga by Karasuma Tasuku and brings us a mix of Cyberpunk, Mystery, Crime and a protagonist with a gun for a head. I've heard from a few people they felt the anime was ridiculous because of the superficial look of the main character, but I decided to let this show have an impact on me as I watch it.

The most stellar feature of the show is that the world-building creates a setting that draws you into the story. You wonder what kind of wacky combinations of humanoid robots they can come up with and how ... the narrative and the story elements weave into one another. I can already tell you that the first 5 episodes were definitely not enough to understand what the hell is going on in this world. You encounter a lot of terms which only make sense in the realm of this fictional world like Extenders. Also, you want to learn about the significance of the boy and why everyone is trying to abduct him for themselves.

We have our main protagonist Jûzo that's a capable "Extender", a race of people that looks like they fused with machines. Jûzo has a gun for a head, but so far in the show, it is only cosmetics and he doesn't use it as a weapon. That doesn't make him less of a badass though. He speaks in such a cool demeanour and is also a rather cynical dude. He also does have a rather infantile side where he blushes for seeing something raunchy and behaves overall unfitting to the mood the scenery is trying to build up.

There is a scene later where he gets a "hair cut" and has his eyes covered as enemy forces rush in to interrogate and threaten him. He doesn't lose his cool.

The enemy designs are quite special, for example we have a mechanical spider robot or other kinds of machinations which give our characters a hard time. I really hope for some kind of Orwellian Dystopia to take place in this world mixed with a bit of critique of future technology.

The Visuals are really nice and create an image of a modern city with some kind of scrapyard feel to it. The colours are vibrant but don't penetrate your eyes, generally, there is a lot of silver, grey, brown and metallic in the scenery. This creates a salvageable image of this machine city.

I have to this point seen the first 5 episodes that released and I'm eager to follow this show. A Season 2 is already on the Horizon and I picked up the manga so I can learn more about this intriguing show and its lore.

Who would have thought that I will ever plan to give a Comedy/Harem show a 10/10? I guess noone and least myself, but here we are. Ore Suki (Ore wo Suki nano wa Omae dake ka yo) is definitely worth to be compared to the phenomenal anime adaption of Oregairu or other fantastic rom-coms.

The most interesting part of this show are the characters and the way storytelling is done. I had a feeling of unreliable narration as certain story sections are told from different perspective with differing outcomes and how the characters have understood or misunderstood the situations. This leads to a plethora of hilarious ... and both gratifying and just overall funny moments.

We have Joro, who is a real suckup for the girls that he is interested in and does everything for them he can to support them with their chores. He seems like a total beta but he is actually the real chad of this anime. We see this as soon he realizes that none of the girls (quirky Osananajimi and strict but shy Seitokaichou) he puts so much effort to please like him, rather want him to help them getting together with Joros best friend, a handsome guy called Sun-chan.

Joro encounters at the core three women of which only one turns out to have actual interest in him. But the show tells us that that girl is undesirable for Joro and thus he fights with all his energy against getting together with the third girl. This third girl turns out to be sharp and saves his ass from abusive reliance.

Are the characters flat? Are they as confuciusdragon points out "bad characters"?
I would heavily disagree, because I see that show inherently as a deconstruction of the romance genre as we know it. We don't have an ecchi protagonist that is totally oblivious to the female charme and we don't have conventional characters. What he do have are the most overused tropes of a romance show possible: impossibly clingy Osananajimi, Senpai Seitokaichou and an Ojou-sama Librarian..

Some of the jokes are crazy in hilarity. There is this scene where Ayano isn't able to speak to her love interest without getting nervous and so she starts talking in a traditional Sengoku-Era Samurai tone and says shit like: "I'd like to indulge with you in the practice of having a meal on the roof" while Joro is just cringing hard. I nearly died of laughter.

The first 4 episodes I was constantly in a state of excessive laughter at the genuinely funny jokes and in dismay for the beta protagonist to be stepped on and exploited. But in ep 3 after ep2 ends with an impossibly sadistic cliffhanger, we are introduced to the smartness of the Librarian character who deduces based on strings that were pulled by the aforementioned narrative earlier that theres betrayal among the characters, despite them thinking they are all doing each other favors. This kind of 4D chess feels amazing to follow and it kept me interested.

The music is strange, because its sometimes dramatic at places where it doesn't need be and sometimes the musical underlining is perfect. We have more eerie sounding OST as well as Piano music sometimes. Also the sound design is superb and adds wonderful accent to each of the jokes.

The art is decent, it could be better and it definitely doesn't reach legendary status but it's likely the best this stupid can produce. For that sake its nothing to complain about. Also the superdeformed characters can add to the jokes.

I didn't plan for this review to be so long, especially since the anime didn't even finish airing but with such an awesome show I cannot keep my words brief. Really appreciate this season, even though nothing looked appealing at first glance.

I can only give this show kudos for the times it made me laugh and that I consumed 6 episodes of it when I should long be asleep (5:38am) and I still bother to write a review...well that should mean a lot.

Good night!

So I watched this movie like a few hours earlier in the CineStar in Frankfurt. It was part of a simultaneous screening in a few towns around Germany. I didn't even know KonoSuba outside of the first 3 LN's so I took my time to watch the first season just yesterday. I didn't manage to start the second season yet, so I wasn't aware of like 20% of the cast, which was unfortunate. I didn't expect the movie to supercede the second season and I also do not expect the movie to be canon.

The story is rather dull, but KonoSuba lives off its enjoyment, the ... quirky characters and the witty banter between them all so I can ignore that point. The story mainly surrounds the Crimson Village and a lot of KonoSuba-typical shenanigans happen there. Our group also encounters another evil general of the 魔王 preceded by a horde of ugly goblins and fight them with Explosions.

The art is fair, but there were a few bad animated sequences. Some even had some kind of image blurring. Mostly the animation was okay though, it felt like an amalgamation of several studios which was then confirmed with the credits. I saw influence from White Fox, JC Staff (obviously) and Aniplex, but there may be more.
The colors are vibrant, don't feel overly flashy though. This is a negative for me, because I kind of expect such a quirky show to flash me with near epileptic magic spells and summons. I wasn't really blown away though.

The music is nothing special. The opening sequence starts with Subarashii Sekai, which we already know from the Season 1, but the credits theme is a newly composed one. I cannot really remember any memorable section in it though. It's more of a smooth finish but not overly representative.

It could just have been the cinema sound, but the explosions were probably the most impactful of the show. They ran through every cell of my body and during a special explosion scene with an unexpected twist I even developed some goosebumps. Thats decent.

Voiceacting is absolutely superb, even the unimportant characters had great voiceacting and were as believably quirky as the general cast.

Enjoyment:

Well the enjoyment is rather awesome, simply because KonoSuba lives off its jokes. The jokes were spread evenly throughout the 1 1/2 Hour of playtime and it felt like watching a special episode of the show. I kind of felt like the trope of the Crimson Villagers going full-on chuuni is going to tire out really quickly, but they each had their individual twist to it which made it fun everytime. The banter was really enjoyable and also Kazuma fucking himself over by his limitless horny on main was a great joke.

I felt that the jokes were stretched a bit much though. The punchlines had always worked well. I doubted that they would miss a single joke right after the first 15 minutes.

Misc:

We were watching the movie with German sub and these were rather unfaithful to what was said in my opinion. Though they somehow made the jokes work in a rather primitive fashion. There is this scene where the main group insults Kazuma by giving him different honorifics and nicknames. The translated subs just filled these blanks with insults like "Kazumarsch, Kazumüll" etc.

Also there was a section where the original japanese sub was inserted and not translated. I cannot conjure an explanation for such an oversight?

Overall KonoSuba - Legend of Crimson is a decent experience, which I why I give it a solid 7 and watching it in a cinema screening was a good idea. If you excuse me now, I will watch Season 2 tonight.

Well, it's morning 4am and I'm writing my first review for this website. I'm actually interested how it came to this, but I digress and just blame my insomniac craziness. And craziness is actually the term I want to build this review around, as Hanebado gave me a crazy enjoyable experience here. Let's Jam.

Hanebado or Longer "The Badminton of Ayano Hanesaki" is typical sports anime in which several characters are fighting in intense badminton matches to reach the top of the nationals, which is apparently the most prestiguous spot to have for them. We have Ayano Hanesaki an actually talented protagonist, that trained a lot ... in sessions when she was younger. Together with her mum, who is the most notorious, well-known prodigy in Japanese Badminton she trains to become better, but one day her mum leaves the home and leaves her alone back in Japan. Ayano thought here she has been abandoned by her mother for not being good enough and thus turns into a literal "badminton demon". Her counterpart and rival Aragaki doesn't have it as "easy" as Ayano and has to train very hard to become as good. The anime here first introduces us Ayano as the protagonist, as the title also tells you, but it does really clever things here which puts it over the rest. The anime switches between protagonists and creates technically a back and forth between both and their seemingly tragic backstories.

And this is also the tone of this anime, since it is a badminton game which is likely one on one or at best doubles, it really gets you at some point, because the games are actually well animated, show a ton of creative shots and angles and are overall just nice to see. I did not think you could make Badminton this appealing honestly. What also creates nice flow is the way the anime uses stuff like speedup shots, spins, slowmotions and more. What is first a soft-paced sports anime quickly turns into Shounen-like battles, as you actually feel when the characters are putting things on the line they turn the court into a battlezone where nothing matters but their own next creative shot and how to serve it back. Here is also where the strong point of Hanebado lies, because it never outright tells you who to root for and this is a course throughout the whole story even till the end. Hell, not even the characters in the game know who to root for so how should we? This is something everyone decides on their own as both characters are somehow depicted as harsh and villainy at times and none of them have actual a motive that would warrant them being so overly dramatic on the field. Hanebado is a Seinen Anime though and rather than a basic sports anime its a sports drama and one that will suck you in and not spit you out until you finished the series. You don't know who will win at the end, because this depicts the unpredictability of the sport. That is great.

Something I did not like though were the characters, particularily the side characters. I'm bad with names first so I personally just remembered the names of Aragaki and Ayano and that shows how forgettable the side-characters were. Theres the sister of Ayano who is also very good, but thinks that other people just hinder her success and outright refuses to play with them, what a bitch!
Next there are the friends and team-partners of Ayano, who she completely disgustingly refuses and tells them to fuck off figuratively. Really painful to see how villainy the people want Ayano to be. The rest of the cast mostly sits on the bench and acts as a spectator.

There is a memorable scene with Ayano where she actually is on the lower side of the field and loses and her trainer then blames her for not using good tactics to win. She then turns around and outright refuses his pleadings saying "It's not my Badminton". Sadly she throws away just that and says afterwards that her Badminton wasn't too successful and then uses the trainers strategies...and loses even harder. This scene probably just showed that there is no way to win everytime and that heart works better than theory and tactics. Good scene and a nice moral.

Anyways. I would've enjoyed if they toned down the musical support a bit, because it might be somewhat exciting, i just think working with pure silence and sound effects would've had a better effect and atmosphere overall. In the final confrontation they actually use this and they also display a great detail. The anime at this point shows two badminton virtuosos fully at match with each other and fighting until they have no breath anymore. Absolutely thrilling and then the studio decided to cut the voices, soundeffects and panting sounds in a way the whole presentation is split the same as the field they are playing on. That detail amazed me, as it just works so well because in this battle the whole buildup of the anime just comes together well and it coincides with this concept of making you root for both.

All in all Hanebado is a really thrilling experience already from the third episode forward, Ayano has this monsteresque personality that comes out only when in combat and you just want to see how she fares. There are no super-powers and special shots with fire or sure-fire win strategies. But Ayano doesn't have anything unique like Kurokos presence or Midorimas 3point throws that give her an edge over things. Both just compete at the highest strength with hard work and willpower and thats whats exciting about hanebado.

Rating: 8