Back to Kristiwazhere's Profile Kristiwazhere's Profile

First off let me say that I enjoyed the first season and the movie quite a bit. To me though this second season was a complete let down.
The first season was filled with beautiful art, a sense of mystery and exploration, and a whole lot of charm. This season that is all replaced by episode after episode of nothing but explanations of game mechanics that make no sense, clumsy action scenes which consists mostly of the show's protagonists running away from ever single fight, and samey looking backgrounds. There is no sense of actual progression, no sense that any of the things that are happening ... in the game world mean anything. I've seen a lot of people gush about how the animation is better than the first season, that may be the case but that doesn't mean anything if the content isn't good. I don't know why people rate this season so highly, but I do know that I didn't enjoy this and felt that it lost everything the first season had going for it.

I have never heard of this anime before, and I had nothing to do with the crowdfunding campaign, so I don't really have any overt attachment to it in that way. This may be why I didn't have the visceral reaction that some of the reviewers seem to have had. I honestly didn't find it either that bad or that good.

Story: The story was ok for what it was, they tried to pack as much into the OVA as humanly possible, and it surprisingly worked for the most part. I didn't have the problem of needing every minor detail explained to me, my imagination ... filled in the gaps fine.
Though I did have a problem with a couple of details. The first of which was the fact that the US military were presented as boogyman type bad guys here. There was no real explanation as to why they were hunting down the boy, it was obviously not because he was a white, since they seemed to have no knowledge of the Pandoras, and it was never explained as to why the flowers were their enemies. They seemed to be there as a generic bad guy force, which reeks of the anti-American messages that are popular in Japan at this point in time and left me very uneasy. The second thing I had a problem with is the ending, but I won't get too spoilery with that.
Art: It was fine, animation could be a bit stilted at times but all and all it was decent for a low budget kickstarter project.
Sound: again decent, not much to say here, the music fit the scenes and that's good enough for me.
Characters: There is only so much you can do with characters in a 30min film, but the did a decent job of making the characters likable enough even if we didn't get to know them all too well.
Enjoyment: I think I would have enjoyed this a bit better if it weren't for the anti-american sentiment and the confusing ending.

All and all this wasn't a bad anime, but I'm on the fence as to whether to recommend this to anyone. It's rather impressive for a kickstarter project, but it also has some problems and a message that I don't really care for and reeks of Japanese right wing propaganda. This one leaves me torn.

Usually when I watch an anime that has a large following I can understand why people might like it even if I dislike it. This on the other hand is one of the few times that I don't understand what the appeal might be at all.
The art and animation is decent, it's not outstanding by any means, but it does the job, isn't stilted, and doesn't have a ton of animation errors.
The sound work is ok, the ending and opening music was really my cup of tea and there were spots here and there where the music didn't really match the scene but I ... didn't find myself getting angry over any of the sound choices.
What I did find myself getting angry over was everything else about the anime. The story it's self was a frustrating jumbled mess. It almost felt stubborn in a why, like it was refusing to budge, refusing to go anywhere. It felt almost like the first few seasons of Natsume's Book of Friends, where there would be deep character progression and then it would all be forgotten next season. Though in this case after every episode, that love confession last episode? yeah, nope, doesn't matter, it's some how shocking again next episode. Character figures out that uncle isn't living in the apartment anymore episodes ago? OMG, better move out because the uncle isn't actually living there anymore. Not only that, the story it's self is very poorly written, people will reference major plot points that won't even be explained until an episode later. Not really in any way that's supposed to be mysterious, but in a way that's pretty much "oh, yeah, we better explain that". Where in the mean time you are confused as to why the female lead is just casually talking about something that the show hasn't even referenced yet.
Well, you might be thinking, if the writing is so bad, then the characters must be likable, relatable, or charming. Nope, not at all, we have a main character that I'm pretty sure was supposed to be your standard naive country bumpkin but instead just comes of as a just plain idiot. Then we have the female lead, who is probably supposed to come off as a teenager in puppy love, but instead comes off as a near psychotic stalker. Finally our secondary female lead is a stuck up bitch that uses people. The only character in this anime that I found ever remotely likable was the "more wise than you would assume" character who has been in cram school for numerous years.
So all in all I would not recommend this anime, it was a painful experience and not in the least bit a rewarding watch and I don't understand how so many people can like it.

This anime is an odd beast, many of these OVAs start out lackluster and then get better as they go along. With this one I felt like it was the other way around, it charmed me from the first episode but then started to fall apart as the show went on.
The art is nice looking and the style is nice, the animation is a bit choppy but ok for an OVA like this, the music and sound is ok, but nothing really stands out.
Where the show really falls apart though is the character development, or lack of it. This anime was obviously made for fans ... of the manga and absolutely no one else, and as such they expect you know EVERYTHING about these characters already. This isn't about there being no real overarching story, I know what a slice of life anime is, and I appreciate them. But there are huge gaps, things that should be filled in and it just leaves the viewer confused and frustrated. Over all this anime is a huge disappointment but I feel like an anime based on this manga could work and be wonderful, maybe it will be revisited by more competent hands one day
If you are a fan of the comics I might recommend it, but otherwise I'd say give this a pass. You will just end up confused and frustrated like I was.

This one both disapointed and infuriated me. The first episode wasn't really anything too special but it was kind of cute and a bit charming. It's about a shut in girl that decides to cast aside her shut in life. The first episode plays out like a cinderella sort of story, and if you view it as such, it isn't that weird as other people might claim. She instantly meets a couple of guys, one a seemingly magical hair dresser that makes her instantly beutiful in the middle of the park, and another that was an old flame from when she used to go to ... school. She comes back to school and everything seems to be going well.
But then there was the second episode where all this plot and build up is just thrown out the window. The brother, who was simply just possessive and annoying the first episode, goes full rapist, simply because his sister saw him fapping and now he "can't hold back". Oh, and this somehow translates to him being in love with her by the way, because, yah, that's totally how love works. When she repeatedly refuses his advances he leaves before he actually rapes her, good on him. But then the girl just sulks around, wanting him to come back, actually resolving that she will give himself to him even though she doesn't love him just to have him back. Which she does, rapey sex then presumes. Then they are boy friend and girlfriend I guess and they are crowned best couple in school and that's ok I guess even though he even acts like a snarling jerk on stage. Yeah, good job guys on ruining something that actually had potential.

Fist off, I would like to take a bit to say, I am not a fan of this franchise, I have never played the games and I have not watched the TV Series, which I have heard is much better than this.
Anyhow, on the the actual review. This is the first, of many, attempts by Pink Pineapple to adapt the adult video game franchise Kakyuusei into a non-hentai format, and the second attempt over all, the first being a hentai film from a couple years beforehand. Pink Pineapple is primarily a hentai anime producer, so I believe their motivation was probably that they thought the ... story of this franchise would fit well into the love triangle/herem anime sub-genre that was gaining popularity at the time and they wanted a piece of that pie.
This anime it's self makes the idea that this is just a quick cash in all the more solid in my mind. The story is bland, uninteresting, and pulls out every trope of the sub-genre. If this was the anime's biggest problem then I probably would have thought more of it, but no, the animation it's self is a complete and utter train wreck.
First lets talk about... well.. the first episode. The first clue that something is off is early on in the episode when we get to a scene were the male lead has hijacked the school intercom system to tell the entire school that he isn't dating the female lead. In the scene it cuts from the class room the female lead is in, and then the intercom room, and then back to the class room. Though when it cuts back we are greeted with a still shot of nothing but the female class members mid-undressing and looking surprised as if some one has just walked in on them. It lingers on this for many seconds before it abruptly cuts away. My thought is that this HAS to be an animation error that was left in due to no one actually checking the animation before it went out, possibly from a direction they decided not to take the anime in. Anyhow, there it is, staring you right in the face, and confusing you, and forcing you to wonder why on earth it's there. From that point on the episode continues to be a complete and utter train wreck. The art style flutters all over the place, almost as if the episode is composed of bits and pieces of abandoned projects, one scene will be in one style, another in another. The rest to the series is more consistent, and nothing, other than a poorly done sequence in the third episode that uses silent film era flash cards in place of scenes I suspect they forgot to animate, gets quite as bad as the first episode. Though it is still litered with animation errors here and there and the animators seem to never get a handle on how to convey emotion or draw consistent faces.
The story, as I said before, is extremely on the generic side, to the point where it gets very frustrating. Though there is one part of the story that bugs me in the third episode where the male lead declares that he would need the get to know the female lead better. How does he do this you might ask? Well he takes to her to a love hotel and forced the her to strip for her with the intent of having sex. She breaks down into a mental break down crumpled on the floor. He tries to console her in a generic fashion that ignores the fact that this is essentially mental rape. She ask if he hates her, he never answers, scene ends... This scene is from then on pretty much treated as if it never happened and later in the episode he rescues her from a guy that tries to rape her. There is really nothing more that I can say to this than WTF, seriously, WTF. The final episode is much more well done than any of the rest of the anime and dare say I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, I just wish the rest of this anime could be that well done.
All in all I would say avoid this unless you are a rabid fan of this franchise or this genre.

This one is a hard one for me, since I really wanted to enjoy this, and for the first two episodes I did but after having watched the series this derives from this just fell flat to me.
First off, I have to say visually and sonically the show is on par with the tv anime. Which of course means that the art, music, sound and animation are all really well done. Where this falls flat is the story, it all feels a bit half baked. There are themes and plot lines that are never fully explored. I would have liked to have spent ... more time with the interactions between the robot companions for one thing. Also, this time around Professor Gill's intentions are never fully explained. In the first anime Dark was a mafia like organization and he wanted to extend his reach and become a defacto dictator. This time he just wants to build a giant robot and destroy the world for.... reasons.... we never really get to know what exactly his motivation for doing this is, last show he was a power hungry egomaniac, this time he's been reduced to generic bad guy that want's to do bad things.
It also veers way too much on the side of the overly melodramatic "edgy" style anime story that was popular among anime studios around the time this was made. While the TV series did go in this direction a bit it never fully dipped it's feat in it, there was always a glimmer of hope, a feeling that everything wasn't going to end in pure desperation, that everything will be all right. You don't get that here. Gloom and doom fully takes over by the end and you are told that the meaning of being human is despair.
All and all this is an anime that doesn't hold up to scrutiny or time and I feel like it's an unfitting end to a semi-modern classic.

This is basically an interactive video for little kids. There was a telephone device that would work on the audio signals and then you would press a button to answer the questions the tape would ask of you. This is an interesting little relic of it's time but nothing more.
The animation is ok and matches the style used in the Mario mangas of the time. It's not very polished but that's ok. The voices fit the respective characters and the story is a loose narrative based around the events of Super Mario World.
Though what really bogs this down is the phone device, at first it ... isn't too annoying but as the video goes on Mario and pals use it more and more often. The questions are fine, if at any point you think to yourself "these questions are too obvious" remember that this device was aimed at toddler aged children. Though the frequency of the "calls" is a bit much, especially after the first third of the video and I could see even a little kid getting annoyed with this fast. So as both something for kids at the time and for people watching it now, I wouldn't recommend it beyond historical curiosity.

I would say that this is a decent short OVA that most people should enjoy if they adjust their expectations accordingly.
With the OVA's description you would probably be thinking that I'm referring to the 3D aspect of the anime, but I am not. People that remember or at least know of the 3D booms in the US are sure to be thinking of features that are nothing but tasteless gimmicks that you could never get any enjoyment out of without watching it in proper 3D (though most of the time it was questionable if you would with the 3D). Thankfully though this isn't the case ... here, the OVA doesn't seem to only exist to show off the 3D system and even though there are times where the 3D gimmickry is a bit obvious it doesn't really hamper one's enjoyment.
The reason that I suggest to adjust one's expectations is rather that this is very obviously an OVA that was meant to be a series but for one reason or another never made it past the first episode. Here we are pretty much just introducing the characters, their motives, and the general plot of the show. There is not much in the way of character development, since that would happen as the series went on, and the OVA is of course open ended. Otherwise, the story is presented nicely here and you get a good feel for the characters and their motives. The animation and art are pretty well done for an anime of this type and time period. The sound and music is mostly well done, the only thing that could have been done better is the opening that introduces the concept of the show with images and a text crawl. It is completely silent and could have used some music. Over all I would say that this is an interesting little OVA that you will most likely get enjoyment out of unless you are the stereotypical anime snob.

Don't watch this. I will say right up front, before I say anything else, don't watch this, even if you are curious about how bad this is, don't do it. You won't have fun, this anime isn't so bad it's good like other people might have you believe, it's just bad, it has no redeeming qualities what so ever, well maybe the first 15min of the second episode is funny, but that's about it. This is utter trash.
The premise it's self isn't really horrible, yakuza boss's daughter picks a teacher to protect her, really if this was handled a lot better this could have made ... a good anime. But no what we get here is something where it feels like a hentai anime that they took the sex scenes out of at the last moment. The art is so so, it's tolerable even though our 20 something high school teacher protagonist looks like a very tall 12 year old for some reason. The animation though is awful and approaches Twinkle Nora Rock Me tier at many points, there is a point in the first episode that is animated so lazily that it looks like a group of students are floating past a window. The personalities of our main charters seem to change at whim, at the beginning of the first episode the yakuza daughter is a floozy that will do anything to get what she wants, and seemingly she wants to jump the teacher. But that is all suddenly forgotten about half way through the first episode where she is suddenly a complete innocent that needs saving and doesn't know BDSM from a school dance. And then we have the second episode, which actually starts out very funny but quickly goes down hill. The episode culminates in a low ranking Yakuza who's personality "changed" after he stabbed some one kidnapping our main girl in order to rape he, which it seems everyone wants to do in this anime actually, but I guess it's super bad and not just "hahaha, it's so funny they want to rape her" this time because he's mean and violent. Anyhow it turns out that he is just mean and violent because his friends turned his back on him because he stabbed some one in cold blood... and I guess we are supposed to feel bad for him?... really?... REALLY?? And this is all revealed in a confusing scene where our teacher hero, barges in drunk, acts like a coward multiple times, and... yeah... really I don't feel like going on about this anime any longer. This anime is dreadful, it's not worth anyone's time, don't watch it, the end.