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This is going to be a short review because most everything I want to say has already been said and it took me a year to finish this damn anime.

I'll start by saying that unlike a lot of other people I don't have that big of an issue with the age-gap aspect. Hell, my favourite anime is Cardcaptor Sakura which has a student-teacher relationship that is much, much worse (the girl is like 11). I also love Violet Evergarden where Violet is 11 years younger than Gilbert, and he practically raised her.

The issues I have with Kiokimo are mostly more technical, and I have issues ... with how they handled the relationship.

Now on to the things:

Story: Is bad. It's about a guy who "falls in love" with a girl and then starts bugging her until she falls in love too. The story is pretty non-existent to be honest.

Art: The character models are just plain bad, and they are constantly drawn off model. The characters are also, obviously, superimposed over prerendered backgrounds. They stick out horribly. I've seen this done before in 'Minami Kamakura Koukou Joshi Jitenshabu' but at least there the backgrounds were often times beautiful, if not breathtaking. Here it's just plain ugly.

Sound: The voice acting is subpar at best. Besides the OP and ED being halfway decent the rest of the sound design is really laughable. Ryo's VA, especially, is horrible.

Character: Ryo is just a creep. He harasses Ichika until she submits. And then avoids her because he "doesn't want to hurt her". It's supposed to be character development, I think, but it's poorly written.

Ichika is boring more often than not.

Rio is one of the only characters I sort of enjoyed. Her support of Ryo and Ichika was a bit weird but she was on the funnier side I guess.

Tamaru was boring. I know some people like him but he just bored me.

Matsushima was the only good character. She deserves better than being in the trash fire of an anime. She's the only character that made me feel anything and I was rooting for her to find happiness. She is similar to Ichika expect she has an actually personality. I felt bad for her when she cried while eating the White Day gift Ryo gave her... Still, Ryo isn't good enough for her regardless.

Enjoyment: It took me a year to finish this anime. I tried to burn through the second half of the anime in a single day but I could barely make it through half an episode before I got bored.

Overall: 3/10

It's just bad.

It took me far longer to finish this anime than I had intended so I'm not entirely in the mood to write a lengthy review on it. I will however give a few reasons why I believe it is mediocre at best and downright awful at worst.

SPOILERS

1. Characters are not great. Besides Elena I found most characters boring or annoying. Sawa was generally okay but she was no where near good enough to carry this anime.

2. SO MANY FAKE OUT DEATHS. Holy shit. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me 5 times shame on you. Like wtf. Asahi alone had 2 fake out deaths, ... and the second onw was a huge slap in the face. I actually thought Asahi dying would be good for Sawa's story but nope, she's alive! Glad Elena survived her fake out death but Jesus.

3. Sawa's death was stupid. How she died to simply being stabbed is confusing. I understand she was killed by someone whose job it is to kill people like her but Sawa was consistently shown to have incredible healing capabilities and yet a single stab killed her.

4. Did Jin actually die? He just kind of disappears after his final kill.

5. Making is seem like it was a shock that the big government baddie dictator was a senile, old man but like... that's been done so many times before. I saw it coming from a mile away.

6. Asahi is now Sawa 2.0. Saw that coming too. It's the old cliche that revenge is a vicious cycle. How deep.

Basically I didn't really like the anime throughout due to weak characters, world building, and plot but the finale was just a fucking train wreck.

I'm going to keep this brief because I've already written a review on WEP's first 12 episodes and don't feel like making another rant on this garbage. Spoilers I guess.

I knew this episode would be bad but holy crap was it even worse than I expected. It was an absolute mess of a narrative, it was pretentious beyond all belief, everyone is unlikable, nothing important happens, the ending is sequel bait (and cringy as all hell), and the reveal on why a certain bespectacled girl killed herself is so laughably bad and disgusting that it throws the whole show into question. Koita didn't even commit ... suicide! Her death was an accident and turns out she's a complete monster who deserved it anyway! What the hell was the point of Ai's journey then? What was the point of any of this?

Hot garbage. 3/10

What a complete mess of an anime.

What was the tone they were trying to go with here? Comedy? Serious Drama? Psychological? Slasher Horror? Like serious wtf is this dumpster fire? The writing is borderline offensively bad, the art is constantly off model, the animation budget must have been $5, and the voice acting/scripting was questionable at best. Like why the fuck is Yuri running toward the stairs to chase after s specific mask while screaming for 10 seconds straight? Like what the actual hell?

Concepts are presented and then thrown out the window almost immediately. Oh you thought talking masks were rare? NOPE. Every mask and ... their dog can talk now. Masks are supposed to push people into committing suicide? Nope! Every mask just straight up murders everyone now! It feels like it was written by some edgy 12 year old because the story/world building is not only nonsensical but every concept is forgotten about in an episode or two.

Our 12 year old author was obviously very horny too because holy shit is there a lot of needless panty shots. Like yeah panty shots are nothing new but Tenkuu Shinpan has the dumbest, most pointless panty shots I have ever seen. Yuri is really bad for this. Constantly she is flashing her panties to everyone, including her girlfriend after 2 days Mayu. To add to the panty shots we have Mayu over here running around with her bra hanging out for 90% of the anime as well.

Was I supposed to be sad when the doctor died? Okay. But no. That was hilarious.

2/10 What a clusterfuck.

Hanoka is not good. It was made in flash by a single person but that doesn't forgive some of its errors. This aired on television. This should have just been uploaded on to some Japanese New Grounds website or something because the quality of this anime is bad in almost every aspect.

I've watched the entire 12 episodes PLUS the "directors cut" versions of episodes 1, 2, and 4. The directors cut versions are slightly better (especially for episode 1) but they are still not good... at all.

The story is the best part of this anime. It's not amazing but it's not the worst thing ever ... and you can see that there's a decent idea behind it. It's just not executed very well, which I will get into later.

The voice acting is okay. Hanoka herself has a pretty good voice actors but everyone else is pretty mediocre or bad. The sound design is... okay for what what it is.

The animation is not good. This much is obvious. It's just bad. Ugly with bad animations. The explosions look okay. Everything else looks like crap especially the human characters.

My biggest issue with this anime is the terrible pacing. I get it. Every episode is "5 minutes" but that doesn't excuse this issue. First I'll start by saying that most episodes are actually under 4 minutes. Yes, MAL says every episode is 5 minutes but I believe there are only 3 episodes that are 5 minutes or more (with episode 12 being nearly 7 minutes). This is made even worse when you consider that every single episode starts with an OP that is 1 minute and 30 seconds long. That's about 33% of the runtime of the entire anime! And on top of that every episode starts by repeating 30 seconds of the previous episode before getting into the episode proper. This all combines to make a fast paced mess of an anime that has no time to breathe or make sense. Things happen rapidly and nonsensically throughout the anime making it very difficult to follow or take seriously at times.

Yes every episode is very short but the OP and recaps make the episodes even shorter and the premise of the anime is much too grand for under an hour of story telling.

Not good. 3/10

Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun had, in my opinion, a terrible first episode. The first episode was full of cringey dialogue and questionable ideals. It also had a fairly mediocre, cringey final episode. But everything in between was actually pretty competent and enjoyable.

I want to start this review by stating that I had issues with the "lesson" the anime seemed to be trying to teach. I was on board with Tomozaki every time he complained that something seemed dishonest or scummy, because those things were fairly dishonest and scummy. At first it seems that Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun is trying to tell the audience that the only reason you are ... struggling in life is because you don't try hard enough and that no one has any inherent leg up on anyone else, but it ended up being an anime about being true to yourself and following your own desires. I didn't completely agree with the points it was trying to make at all times but I appreciated what it was trying to do in the end.

My biggest issue with this anime was Hinami. She is constantly labeled as caring and perfect but she's sort of a sociopath. She has no connection to anything around her because she constantly has a mask up and everything she does is so she can "win" at life. It's rather pathetic, yet Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun never implies it to be as such. The final episode is dedicated somewhat to Tomozaki trying to convince Hinami that people do have things they desire and that life isn't just a big contest to see who can win. Life is about having fun and doing what you want. Hinami, of course, brushes this off stating there is no proof that personal desires exist... which is just ridiculous. Hinami through the entire anime teaches Tomozaki how to be more presentable and how to be less socially awkward but she also comes across as incredibly two-faced and unlikable. She wants Tomozaki to confess to Fuuka even though he doesn't even know if he likes her. Hinami says it doesn't matter since Fuuka likes him so it would be selfish to ignore her feelings. What?

Mizusawa has a similar personality to Hinami (always having a mask up) but he comes across as much more genuine and he comes out and clearly stats that he is sick of being that way and wants to change. He knows it is wrong to try to be with someone you don't even like. He personally confronts Hinami about her "mask" and she just wears another mask to pretend to agree with him. He of course sees through this but she sees nothing wrong with her own actions. It's not as if we get any deep story about Hinami explaining why she is like this, she's just a weirdo who thinks life is a big game that she needs to win and doesn't really care about personal feelings... even though it does seem she genuinely likes her friends you can never be sure if this is true or not.

Hinami wasn't the worst character ever I just had my issues with her. Her personality is never fully explained or given a reason so it's hard to feel for her. Everyone else was either pretty good to great. Of note Fuuka was very cute, Mimimi was interesting, and Tomozaki himself was very likeable.

I don't have any other major complaints but I had my fair share of issues with this anime. Overall it was a pleasant watch and much better than the horrible, cringey first episode.

7/10

Uzaki-chan wants to hang out because she’s an irritating bitch who has no social graces. She doesn’t care if you want to be alone and live your life how you want to live it. No. If you aren’t living how she thinks you should be then she’s going to annoy and pester you until you submit. Some people may like that. I do not.

My two biggest complaints about this anime are Uzaki herself, and that stupid ugly-ass cat. Uzaki is just plan annoying and despisable. She is rude, loud, obnoxious, selfish, and irritating to a level that I’ve rarely seen. The anime tries to paint ... what she is doing as a way to help Sakurai but it becomes clear that she’s just a pest. She eats all the food Sakurai pays for, she never pays for anything herself, she forces Sakurai to spend time with her, she laughs at Sakurai, says mean spirited things to Sakurai (in a not very endearing way), and she YELLS CONSTANTLY. She’s a sore winner and a sore loser, making her insufferable regardless of how a competition (that she always instigates) turns out. And yes, we get it, she has giant tits. So funny omg I laughed so hard when they referenced her giant rack the 100th time. The show also likes to imply that she’s “innocent” but she’s just plain stupid, which she clearly gets from her mother who is as dull as a spoon.

What is the point of that ugly cat with the shocked expression constantly appearing? It’s like the show is trying to tell us how to feel or something? It’s also just plan ugly. I don’t want to look at it and it pops up far too often.

Another thing. Episode 10 was just a blatant advertisement to draw tourists to Tottori. It was so shameless and put a bad taste in my mouth. And that ending to episode 11? What a fucking joke. It was a poor attempt at a “emotional cliffhanger” and, as expected, Uzaki was just being a self-centered bitch again.

Also, I fucking HATE comedy stemmed from misunderstandings and/or miscommunication. I do not understand the appeal for comedy (or drama for that matter) like this at all. It’s more annoying than anything, and this show does it A LOT.

Side observation: The way people react to Sakurai’s appearance is ripped right out of Toradora, except not executed nearly as well. It feels very forced.

The only half way decent characters were Sakurai and Ami. Ami’s father was okay too but I wouldn’t say any of the characters were stellar.

4/10 The anime would have been much better without the TITular character.

This is a short review.

So a lot of people said this was one of the, if not the, most hilarious anime out there. I will sadly have to disagree, but that's mostly a personal thing as I don't find a lot of the humour in Grand Blue particularly hilarious. Some of it is funny, and after episode 5 or so I actually started to like the show more but regrettably I cannot say it tops my list of comedies.

My issues with Grand Blue are the repetitiveness of the jokes and the general tone of the show. I'm not a young man (I'm over 30) who ... likes to drink or lust after women so I don't connect to the humour a lot of the time, and constant miscommunication is a big pet peeve of mine. I did not hate the show (well, I hated the first episode but it got better) but I wouldn't say I found it overly hilarious either. I did laugh a few times, mostly when the jokes were more akin to the style of humour found in Asobi Asobase, but overall I was more interested in the more serious, slower moments of the show. The diving was very interesting. I felt like the characters were pretty well written, the underwater scenes were gorgeous, and the voice acting was pretty great overall.

I had a habit of constantly comparing Grand Blue to Asobi Asobase, which may have been a mistake. I found Asobi Asobase utterly hilarious so when I saw Grand Blue shared similar characteristics (an anime that doesn't advertise how wacky it is, the ridiculous faces, the absurd humour, etc.) I instantly expecting something somewhat similar. Grand Blue is obviously targeted toward a different audience, and that is clear since 99% of the jokes in Grand Blue are either sex, alcohol, or dick related. I found Asobi Asobase more varied in its humour, and far more snappy. Grand Blue was fine and all but just not to my taste.

The abundance of male nudity was nice though.

6/10

How the hell is this anime labeled as ECCHI? This trash is full on hentai.

I took to watching this pile of degenerate trash because I kept seeing people talk about how awful it was. I had to see this trainwreck for myself, and ho-boy should I have just stayed away.

The IDEA this hentai has for its story is an interesting one. What if you could go back in time and get revenge on the people who did horrible, evil things to you? But the execution and tact (or lack there of) employed here are embarrassingly bad.

Protagonist is a disgusting lunatic who uses and abuses women ... like they are reusable tissues. The female "characters" are either evil as all hell, or obsessed with our MC. Like come on just having sex with the dude makes a girl fall in love with him...

Who is this hentai for? Seriously. It's pretty gross and the sex scenes are pretty poorly done so... Yeah. I don't know.

Interesting idea, horrible, terrible, disguising execution. I may continue to watch just out of morbid masochism but we'll see.

1/10 I have the big gay so big tits do nothing for me.

So it took me a few days to get my thoughts in order but I think I'm finally ready to write a review about this anime. This review will however be a bit different. I felt that I wouldn’t be able to properly convey my thoughts if I was to split everything up into neat categories so I’m just going to discuss the things I liked and disliked about this anime starting with the things I liked.

SPOILERS

Things I liked:

The art was pretty good all around and the sound design wasn’t terrible. The concept was interesting at first and the main themes the show deals with ... are important ones (in theory).

That’s all.

Things I did not like:

So where to begin? This anime is kind of a mess and I don’t quite understand the hype it is getting. Just because it covers a darker, more mature concept than other anime does not automatically make it better. First off, the genre is a huge question mark for me. You can go ahead and say it is a fantasy anime but that’s not very descriptive. Is it a sci-fi anime? Is it a magical girl anime? Is it a slice-of-life? Horror? It feels like it’s trying to shove a million ideas into a single 12-episode anime and it just doesn’t work. At first you think “oh so this is supposed to be like a psychological thing?” and then “wait this is kind of a bit like a magical girl thing” and then it turns into a science fiction drama with slice-of-life elements and melodramatic moments. The melodrama is to be expected but can anyone clearly state what year this is supposed to take place in? It looks to be incredibly similar to our everyday but then they have A.I. and dream scanning/screening, and girls popping out of eggs (LITERALLY). Every episode feels like they are just trying to see what more crazy shit they include, and I did not enjoy it at all.

Speaking of the science fiction aspect… So Frill is like this perfect little girl that these two grown ass men didn’t think to give the proper personality to not be a killer? They made her sweet, funny, intelligent, stubborn… but they did not program her personality to be not insane? She was supposedly raised perfectly fine (in seclusion but that’s neither here nor there) and as soon as she learns that one of her “fathers” got his wife pregnant she kills her. Okay, that seems very logical. She shows no remorse or guilt or anything. These “geniuses” programed an A.I. that turned into a killer even though they had full control over what her personality would be. Okay.
I didn’t find anything scary except for the one scene in episode 12 where the big head was peeping out of the pool. Very underwhelming even in terms of horror anime, which are never very scary to begin with.

Also are we really sitting here and saying an anime that implies an evil A.I. is where girls commit suicide? That's what the anime claims. Hopefully in the final special they explain that's not actually the case, but as of right now that is literally what the anime is saying.

I didn’t really like any of the characters. Ai was pretty annoying and her crush on her mother’s boyfriend kind of feels like it comes out of nowhere. It doesn’t seem implied or hinted to at all until someone tells the audience that Ai has a crush on him. The other three were pretty meh. Neiru started out okay but when it turned out she was the head of this big company I laughed out loud. That’s so ridiculous and so stupid. Rika was annoying. I understand her mother drinks and she wants to know her father but jesus is she really dramatic. Momoe was fine I guess, though not really sure how anyone would think she’s a guy. The way they drew her she looks like a girl with short hair and masculine clothes, yet everyone (expect Ai of course) think she’s a boy.

Wonder Egg Priority seems like it’s trying to be this deep anime but it’s really not. Making episode 12 somewhat of a mind fuck near the end doesn’t help either. Yes I get that you are supposed to watch for which hairpin Ai is wearing to determine which Ai it is, but why did main-Ai’s clothes change?

Ooto Ai is a dumb name.

I have a question, if anyone is able to answer. Why was the red-haired girl in the first episode so knowledgeable about what was going on with her and the Seenoevils yet every single other girl that comes from an egg afterwards has no idea what is happening? Was it to explain it to Ai, thus also explaining it to the audience? Because that’s lazy. Very, very lazy. Why does this one girl know everything yet no other girl does? It doesn’t make sense.

I was not a fan of this anime from the start and it quickly went downhill. As soon at it started to delve into the science fiction stuff out of no where I knew this anime wasn’t for me. I like sci-fi, don’t get me wrong (some of my favourite anime are sci-fi), but this anime had no indication that it was a sci-fi at all until the group visits Neiru’s business. So dumb. It comes out of no where and the world building in Wonder Egg Priority is atrocious.

4/10 I don’t understand the hype at all