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Midori no Hibi was a pleasant surprise that teaches you to never judge a book by it's cover — or in this case, never judge an anime by it's premise.

Just from reading the synopsis, I had prepared myself for the worst. But the positive reviews for this anime convinced me to give Midori no Hibi a chance, and I am very glad I did.

Have you ever said, "Man, I'd give my right hand to have a girlfriend." ? Seji is a guy who said the same line, and his wish came true. More than just a silly fanservice anime, Midori no Hibi is a show ... about how both Midori grows as a person in order to develop the confidence to confess to the one she loves.

Let's face it, using the right hand girlfriend premise is silly. It could be used for so many dumb sex jokes, but Midori no Hibi doesn't go there. Instead, they used it to develop their characters and actually get the watcher invested into them. They did way more than I would have ever expected them to do with the story, but in the end, it still is a romantic comedy-esque show with it's silly moments. Well done, nonetheless.

Story: 9/10

Art and Sound feel like they are from the early 2000s — which of course, they are. The art and sound have aged quite well in comparison to 2000s anime though. Nothing seems wrong here for me, but nothing seems to stand out either.

Art: 6/10
Sound: 6/10

Characters were done well here, especially Midori.

Most of the characters are stock characters, and Seji seems to be one as well. He doesn't change much throughout the entire story, but he has his morals and although he is called a delinquent by others, he is a pretty decent guy once you get to know him. From fighting bullies to looking out for the weak, he does it all and earns the respect of many other cast members.

Midori and Ayase are the two big examples of characters that change. Through their interactions with Seji, they slowly learn to change themselves and realize their feelings.

Of course, we also have the stock side characters. From the friend who keeps getting into trouble, the local otaku, the alcoholic sister, and neighborhood school kids, there are a wide range of these side characters, but that's all they are. Side characters that show up for a short while, have their problems solved by the main characters, give the main characters a little bit of development, leave. Most of the screen time is taken by our main boy and girls.

Character: 7/10

Enjoyment. Hell yes, I loved this. Watched the first episode at night, went to sleep, and woke up early to binge the rest. There are comedic moments, and there are touching sad moments. A very nice balance that kept me entertained to the end.

Enjoyment: 10/10

Overall this anime gave me a similar sort of feel to Kimi no Na Wa. Minus a few litres of tears and boxes of kleenex. I have nothing else to say other than it was way better than I expected it to be.

Overall: 9/10

Quanzhi Fashi, while it isn't a diamond in the rough, it's like finding ten dollars in your winter jacket when you bring it out of storage. It's a pleasant surprise. Unlike other anime we think of, QZFS is from China, and the dialogue is in Mandarin. Thus, many people may gloss over it when looking for anime to watch.

As for the story, it is very rushed. We start off with a MC who finds himself in a reality where everything is magic-based. Being a person from a more realistic science-based world, he of course has to learn everything from scratch.

Being from the lower echelons of ... society, even in this alternate reality, he and his folks find themselves picked on by the higher class folk as they profit of MC and his family's labor.

QZFS uses the classic privileged vs underprivileged and nature vs nurture conflicts to base the story. MC is a poor person who happens to discover hidden talents, then gets into conflicts with the privileged and wealthy.

This anime also uses the age old, duel at age 18 plot point. Oddly enough, this trope is, in my opinion common, yet I rarely see it put in play in animated works. Only in live action and literary works such as the Condor Trilogy.

QZFS is rushed. There is no doubt about that. They could have filled up the story with boat loads of slice of life, seeing as it is a Magic High School story, but they didn't. Instead they focused on MC's career as a budding mage. Just like real life, exciting things do not happen every day, so we have blank spaces between episodes spanning months. While this is jarring, I feel it is because the studio did not think they would get very far with this project.

All that being said, the story of QZFS has potential. While the story was fairly good, rushing it like they did squanders the potential it has.

Story: 5/10

As for the art and sound, I am no expert, nor do I pretend to be one. However, it does not take a rocket scientist to determine that the art and sound for QZFS isn't the best.

The animation was somewhat lazy. They cut off the lower legs for some walking scenes, but they exaggerated the up and down bobbing of the bodies. Many movements did not look smooth. These two combined really mess with the art.

The soundtrack was alright, though the op feels a bit too upbeat for what the story deals with.

Art: 5/10
Sound:6/10

Characterization is something I feel was done well. For one character at least. Of course, this is the MC we are talking about. Mo Fan, the talented MC born in a poor family, is a really relatable character for me.

He is someone who never fails to stand up for his folks. Not to mention stubborn to a fault. Someone picks on your sister? Go confront those jerks. Someone thinks they can buy your allegiance after they wronged you in the past? Don't be a sellout.

I'm not exposed to Chinese stories often, but Mo Fan reminds me of characters in age old Wuxia novels, where the most important things are filial piety, patriotism, and loyalty. He could have gone ahead and accepted sponsorship after people found out he was talented, but he decides to stick with his folks and never forget those who wronged his family. Eventually finding work and using his pay for his family, even though it would have been easier to just take the sponsorship.

Sadly, very few of the other characters get development at all. In fact, some change drastically over time-skips. Of course, development could have happened off-screen, but the show does little to indicate it if that is the case.

Characters: 7/10

In terms of enjoyment, QZFS is very high up there. Even though it is sitting at a 7.XX rating (at the time I wrote this review), it is a fairly obscure anime and you seldom hear people mention it. Although the visuals can be a bit hard on the eyes at times, the snippets of the story we see are compelling. With scenes that show just how high in regard the MC holds his father, and his relationship with his crippled step-sister.

Enjoyment: 9/10

My last words regarding this anime is that it is better than you think it would be. QZFS is a fun watch if you are able to overlook the shoddy animation and abundant time-skips.

Overall: 8/10

Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance is your "retired badass returns to fight once more" story crossed with harem elements. As we all know, in a harem, there is a boy with lots of girls. The problem here is boys don't have these "elementalist" powers. Except for our main character.

The story follows our main protagonist after he was hauled out of retirement by the almighty headmistress of a girl's academy for elementalists. With the world "girls" being redundant because only girls can be elementalists. Our retired badass seems to have a history with the headmistress, and in his heyday, he crossdressed to avoid attracting attention as ... a male elementalist (which should not exist). The headmistress calls him back to participate in a tournament, and that's what the premise of the series is.

The story is full of an interesting plot mixed with various running jokes about our MC being the only guy, our MC being a sexual deviant, and our MC's crossdressing past. The jokes do get old sometimes, but there are many more times where one would read that chapter and smile on the inside.

Another point I like is how they bring back characters who you have long forgotten. Arc villains return after several books as anti-heroes. This is a good way to make side characters seem more significant, instead of seeming like weak one-book characters.

Story: 8/10

The art for this light novel is decent. The anime that was adapted from this however, is a huge upgrade. The biggest bone I have to pick is how the sword designs in the illustrations were incredibly simple. Est and Restia's sword forms are depicted as rectangular pieces of metal with a handle. Even though the novel is categorized as "ecchi", it still is called "Blade Dance," thus I would have expected more work to have been put in to drawing the weapons.

Art: 4/10

The cast for this light novel is somewhat lacking in depth in the earlier books.

We have a MC who, due to his upbringing, has little experience interacting with people. He vaguely shows attraction to the girls in the harem, but seems preoccupied with his long-lost partner.

Then we have the generic red-haired tsundere with abandonment issues, blonde rich girl, blue-haired brawn-over-brains, black-haired naughty girl who has some dirt on the MC.

I found the girl's personalities to be bland until they were fleshed out more in later books. Variety is also increased later on due to the foreshadowed Tournament Arc.

In terms of development, the girls are on the receiving end of major development as the series goes on. Some stop being brats and begin to pull their weight. Some make amends with rivals. However, our MC remains the same old person he was. Except he now has the power of love and friendship.

Yes, that's what our MC gets. He goes from solo fighter, to team player. Except it's evident that for the earlier half of the series so far (Vol 1-6) it feels like his team is holding him back. In fact, MC-kun is proven to be BS levels of strong. It's just that he's out of practice (another thing the book never lets you forget) and the big opponents he has to face are all people who were able to fight him on equal ground in his prime.

Characters: 6/10

Overall, I loved reading this. There is ecchi in the light novels, but its not as much as say, Highschool DxD. There is also an engaging plot within the series and the Tournament Arc is different from the tournament arcs we have seen in other series, but still gives the feeling of everyone competing for a common goal.

Enjoyment: 10/10

Your mileage may vary. Some people are okay with overused running jokes. Others are not. The overuseage of the "shy, pure, holy princesses" type of character is also a possible turn off for many people. However, I enjoyed the series very much.

Overall: 10/10

This review refers to the two special episodes as episodes 13 and 14.

Getsuyoubi no Tawawa is a 5 minute anime that doesn't try to be something it isn't. If you want some deep mind boggling story, this isn't what you're looking for. If you're looking for something to make you smile for a little while, this is it.

It's not some deep moving masterpiece or anything. The story is supposed to be daily life of several average blokes who are off working their rear ends off in office buildings. Each of these guys end up meeting a girl that brightens their day.

Because it follows several different ... guys, the story is episodic.

Yeah, of course there are big breasts. However, this is a different type of fanservice from Masou Gakuen HxH. In this case, the girls simply radiate an aura that makes you wish you knew someone like that in real life, because they actually seem like good people. (will explain more in character section)

Don't go to a Chinese restaurant expecting French cuisine. Tawawa is a short anime about salarymen who meet kind women.

Story: 7/10

Time for art and sound.

Sound is decent. You can't really expect any better from a 5 minute anime. What are they going to do? Insert a song that takes up literally the entire episode?

Art, however, is something wonderful to me. Tawawa's art style gives off a real calm vibe, especially when matched with what the story is about. A slow start on Mondays. A sort of comfy vibe.

Art: 8/10
Sound: 6/10

Here's what you've probably been looking for since early in the review. Characters.

Bland salaryman characters. They are bland characters who rarely have their eyes shown because they are supposed to be you. Insert characters. What makes this acceptable for me is how they play around this.

Ai-chan. The sweet girl. The type of girl that you wish you knew back in school. Because you met by chance on the train, you now realize that you share a mutual interest in each other, so you begin making conversation every time you meet.

Kouhai-chan. Your cute coworker who happens to have been hired after you were, thus you are the senior. She helps you out at times and you help her out at times. You even go drinking together, but you know she's taken already, so you're content to be just friends. After all, it's nice to have a friend in the workplace environment.

Convenience Store-chan. Have you ever had someone you liked back in school, but you never talked to them? Now that its been many years, you have some deep feelings of regret. The one that got away. A lot of people have someone like this in their lives. "Gee, I wish I knew ____ better." or "I should have taken the initiative back then with ____."

Each girl represents a relatable aspect of every person's life. Almost everyone has had an encounter with someone that brightens their mornings. Almost everyone has had an encounter with a comrade that helps you fight in the war zone called "work." Almost everyone has deep seated regrets about social relationships in the past. This is what works very well with the bland self-insert main character, as we end up remembering these types of people in our own lifes.

Very effective use of a self-insert. Your mileage may vary, however. If you don't like self-inserts, this might be a bad thing for you.

Characters: 9/10

Overall, this anime was very enjoyable. It's about cute girls making the POV character's day just a little more livable, and you get some fanservice on the side. There isn't supposed to be a deep story. There isn't supposed to be epic action, be it drama or actual fighting. You enjoy this anime because there is cuteness, girls, and boobs.

Enjoyment: 10/10

Finally, before I give my verdict, let me explain why I love this anime so much.

Getsuyoubi no Tawawa is more of a healing anime than anything. It's for tired people to sit down and feel a little more cozy. As with all healing anime, your mileage may vary.

Just like how one medicine doesn't cure all illnesses, this type of healing doesn't heal every type of spiritual wound.

The anime shows us the gloomy world of adulthood. Facebook feeds aren't what real life actually looks like. The real world is like the night sky. Plain black. The Tawawa girls are like the stars in this sky for the salaryman characters. Just a little bit of happiness in their lives.

Perhaps in your lives you suffer the same problem of living in a gloomy world with nothing to make it more livable. In that case, watch Tawawa and maybe, just maybe, you will feel a bit better after.

Overall: 10/10

Masou Gakuen HxH is an anime that made me get up in the middle of the night to write a review on. That could be good or bad.

If you are looking for a sterotypical ecchi battle harem, this is not for you. First of all, none of the main girls are redheads. On a more serious note, has way more fanservice than your typical battle harem, so take caution. If you are looking for fanservice, then I would consider watching this anime.

First up, the plot. Who on Earth put a story in my softcore hentai? Instead of being an anime with ecchi elements, it feels ... like borderline hentai with an out of place story shoved in it.

Notice how I used "hentai." Exactly. This show goes way to far with it's fanservice. Without being too explicit about what happens, let's just say this. While many ecchi shows can be passed with a E for everybody, Masou Gakuen HxH takes the E rating and moves it past F and G all the way to H. H for hentai.

Looking at the story, there is potential. Inter-dimensional war between Earth, and the baddies, with Earth on the losing side. Teenage boy shows up at an academy for training mech users. Most of humanity on the mainland is extinct. All this points to a decent sounding story. Similar premise to Aldnoah.Zero.

However, fanservice is thrust into the viewer's face faster than they can comprehend the plot. The immense fanservice overwhelms the story, and the story itself wasn't executed too well. This waters down what remains of the story into an incoherent mess. Especially when they thrust a scene at you, then only to reveal that the scene was either from the past or from the future for some odd reason, and it has little to no relation to what is happening in the present.

The story feels like a buffet dish after someone used the wrong spoon to scoop from. There are bits and pieces of other things mixed in, but you know in general what this is supposed to be. You don't necessarily like it either.

Story: 4/10

Normally, I don't judge too harshly on art, because I simply am not cultured enough to be able to differentiate good art and bad. What I can notice is inconsistency.

In HxH, one scene can look perfectly fine, and then the next scene can look abnormal. Poorly drawn faces, etc. A big issue here is some of the character's breasts. They can look perfectly normal for a few scenes, then look like watermelons taped onto a person in the next.

Art: 4/10

I don't usually critique sound harshly either, but I'll have to take points off here because I can't deal with the porn music.

In my opinion, the music for the... almost hentai scenes do not fit at all. It isn't soothing and calm enough to make you think the characters are truly happy and making love. It isn't sensual enough to make you feel the atmosphere either. It feels out of place.

Imagine that you are trying to concentrate. At school or at work. Then someone lets out the nastiest fart next to you. You can live with it. But it sucks. That's how the music felt to me.

Your mileage may vary here. Just like how some people like farts, some people find the mismatched music funny.

Sound: 6/10

Characters. The story is about a guy who touches women to give them power ups. There need not be proper characters. However. Let me just say this. However. When you do choose to give a bit of character to your rather bland cast, please for the love of all you hold dear, do it properly. Or at least try to.

Kizuna is our wonderful bland harem protagonist that somehow manages to get a harem all the while having all the girls outside of his harem flee from him like medieval townsfolk from the plague. He has his moments of greatness, then breaks the pedestal we put him on. Namely when he says something meaningful to solve a girl's problem, then fanservice ensues.

The three main girls. All have passably distinct personalities. That's okay. What isn't okay is how they develop through the story. Their problems don't feel like they are persistent. What I mean is that each episode, we have a short scene/flashback about someone's personal issues, and that very same episode (or if we're lucky, the next one) it gets solved by our main boy. Of course, being borderline softcore hentai, we forget about these moments after the next few minutes of... fanservice. It's not too much of a sex scene, no matter how much innuendos there are. Just lots of touching, feeling, and licking.

Sylvia. The cute little loli angel child who is in charge of guiding our main character. I suppose that she is meant to be a middle-schooler, but being a loli, she is literally half of our main boy's height. This isn't much of a spoiler, as any anime watcher worth their salt knows what will happen, but our angel child gets lewded. Thankfully they just cut to the very end and didn't show anything. It would have hurt me to watch that. But hey, different strokes for different folks. Just because I'm not into it doesn't mean other people aren't. The problem I have here is that it goes from 0 to 100 very quickly.

Characters: 3/10

Overall, I feel that this anime is okay, as far as my expectations go. I heard about it, expected some ecchi, but got the bare bones of an actual story along side some softcore hentai. The tone of the anime varies a bit too much. Jumping from typical battle school to super deep conversation to near sex. With the fluctuating tones, I could not bring myself to enjoy this anime as much as I enjoyed others. The abrupt changes in tone made me sit back and think: "Why am I watching this?"

Enjoyment: 5/10

Lastly, my opinion, going by tags.

This is tagged as "action," but the only noteworthy action I see is some mildly intense boy on girl action, with the occasional firing of ion cannons.

Tagged "comedy," but it's not very funny. You know, other than how it comically fails at everything else it does.

Tagged "romance," but as far as I can see it's not very romantic.

Tagged "school," but the only thing that makes it school-related is that the story takes place in one. I don't remember a single classroom scene with a teacher lecturing.

It's watchable. Watchable as in you won't die watching it.

Overall: 4/10

This is an anime used to advertise a card game, or so I hear. As an ad for a card game, I feel like this anime falls flat. As a piece of entertainment, I say it was good. Yes, there were some parts where I was tempted to drop the anime, but Luck & Logic is not as bad as people like to say it is. It's still sub-par, but its not that below the average.

It was hard for me to get interested in the story. It essentially uses the "retired badass comes out of retirement" plot. It appears our protagonist mentally crippled himself in ... a past exploit that we will never hear about ever again. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for this retired badass story. It just feels like a let down. Potential gone.

Story: 4/10

Art wise, I'm no experienced critic in this aspect, so as long as it doesn't look like what OreTwi's TV animation looked like, then I'm generally lenient (don't get me wrong OreTwi is great in my opinion, but the animation was bad before they corrected it).

Holographic bits an pieces looked cool, but some fight sequences looked a bit different from the normal animation. This threw me off a few times, especially in the later half of the anime.

Art: 6/10

Sound. No expert on this either, but I thought it was great. The soundtrack is composed by Tatsuya Kato (I believe he did Shokugeki no Souma too). From experience, his work is usually something worth listening to. I liked it.

Sound: 8/10

For the characters, Yoshichika (MC), I feel is an exaggeration of the "cookie cutter" main character. Retired badass, check. Mysterious girl shows up offering a contract, check. Goes into first battle and begins to take command, check. Quick to jump to conclusions, check. I love his hair though.

Olga is another character I find memorable enough to mention. He starts off looking like this sinister anti-villain/villain type character that everyone avoids mentioning. MC decides to pry then it is revealed that Olga just has a severe case of chuunibyou. The only thing he seems to be good for is his predictions, which are nearly always accurate. What I like him for is that he gets serves as the straight man to our crazy cast at times. Also, he gets massive development during the last arc. Good character in an average anime.

Other characters are, like the MC, very "cookie cutter" style. Mysterious veteran squad leader. Formal, power by merit girl who gets shown up by MC in second episode. The "Don't worry, Bros I got this" character. Silent sniper. Immortal immaturity. The cute and cuddly girl. Other than MC and Olga, the characters seem to be very common fare, aside from the MC's family(fairly minor characters generally used for comedy).

Characters: 6/10 (because Olga carried this category)

Overall, this anime is a fairly good. Your millage may vary though, due to the abusurd amount of stock/static characters, and fluctuation of plot. There is a harem anime joke in the middle of the anime that really caught my attention though. I like those types of jokes quite a bit, sadly that's the most memorable part of the third quarter of Luck & Logic.

Enjoyment: 6/10

My thoughts. Again. It's not as bad as an anime could be. Scarred Rider Zechs was worse (Just the name of a random anime I dropped). Luck & Logic isn't unwatchable, per se. However, I've mentioned before that there are arcs that make you feel like you want to drop it. It was likeable.

OVERALL: 7/10

This review counts Busou Shinki as 13 episodes, with the OVA included as the final.

Busou Shinki is an anime about cute girls doing things in every day life. Shinki are little automatons modeled after girls, built to serve their masters. Originally designed for combat, they are now seen in various lines of work along side their masters.

If you are looking for an anime filled with battle harems and shounen shenanigans, then this is not for you. Busou Shinki is exactly what the description says. Futuristic slice of life with tiny robots.

In terms of having a story, the anime has one, but it's very loosely connected, ... and it seems to be done that way on purpose. It's somewhat episodic with the only common elements being that the Master of the automaton cast is a high school student freshly transferred in and the episodes being in chronological order.

Keep in mind, at least 80% of the story's events happen behind the main guy's back. This is just a story about cute little robots doing helpful things.

The later half of the story definitely fares better in the story category, with more interesting events happening. I feel like Busou Shinki sells itself short by saying that it is just a futuristic slice of life. In the later half we deal with themes like forgiveness, abandonment, grief, and death. Through out the whole story we begin to see that another important theme is the Shinkis' loyalty to their masters. To wrap up the whole story, our final episode dabbles in some fate and destiny to end on a high note.

I would have scored the anime higher in this category if it had more of a concrete story in the beginning. Once you get into it, the concepts and ideas in this anime leave you wanting more and more, and the well done second half doesn't quite fill the gap.

Story: 8/10

For Art and Sound, I'm no expert in these two categories, but I enjoyed them, and I felt the quality was fine.

I feel like the battle scenes look like a better Infinite Stratos. In fact that's exactly what the Shinki are. Thumbelina with an IS.

As for the sound, I can only think of two instances where it really stood out to me; but in these two instances I feel like they really manage to tug at my heart. Possibly because I'm somewhat sensitive. Then again, your mileage may vary when it comes to how much music affects you.

Art: 6/10
Sound: 6/10

Characters. Busou Shinki is largely centered around the automatons and their life as partners to humans. It is understandable that few human characters are ever seen.

I love how even though Shinkis have a limited variation of models, I can tell them apart by their personalities and their paint jobs.

One issue I have with the show is how they overplay the "loyalty to Master" theme. The automatons under the ownership of the main guy seem to have a one-sided crush on him. I feel like this could have been avoided by writing the characters differently, or lampshaded by making the main guy a "friend to all things" type (which he falls just short of being).

Another issue I have is that the characters of Ines and Hina. Both seem to have very tsundere qualities, although Hina seems to be intended to be more of the kuudere type. I feel like more work should have been put in to separate their personalities, which is what happens late in the anime. If these problems were hammered out earlier, I would have no issue.

In Busou Shinki, we see little to no character development in the sense that they change (aside from Hina, in my opinion). A large portion of this development is crammed into a two-episode arc and a flashback episode. I don't dislike this, even though I think it could have been done better by letting characters develop over the course of the 13 episodes.

Characters 7/10

In terms of enjoyment, I really liked this series. I came in after seeing the average score of 6.xx, and I figured it was going to be another battle harem anime.

I was pleasantly surprised. This anime could have easily taken a haremesque turn at many points, but they chose not to. They continued on making it just a cute anime about Thumbelina Infinite Stratos (with a better story and barely any ecchi at all).

On top of this, they also hit me with the feel bat. In most episodes, it's just a slice of life/comedy anime. Like I mentioned earlier, in select episodes, we deal with deeper themes. The first 6 episodes are mostly some cuteness and moe with asskicking on the side, while the last 7 are more somber and feature a lot of fighting for a slice of life.

Busou Shinki's creativity also deserves credit. They take small conflicts and make them bigger, including turning a lunch box delivery into a coup d'etat. There's also one part that deals with a "Hey, it's me your _____" scam gone dark.

Although some may be turned off by how over-the-top this anime can get, I loved it because these shenanigans lead to us seeing some minor characters given a call back to. Like a certain pair of Shinkis who are always up to Tom and Jerry-esque antics.

Enjoyment: 9/10

Overall, I gave a fairly high score, mainly because this is where I can add my personal feelings to the review. I feel like this anime really hit the spot for me. Especially the final, which really warmed me on the inside. It gave me sort of a warm "its a small world" vibe. If I were to take out the personal feelings part of the score, then I'd say at least 8/10.

OVERALL SCORE: 10/10