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A hentai plot destined for greatness, now rots in the forgotten pits of mediocracy.

Higehiro attempts to integrate mature and edgy themes into a hentai plot to hopefully mask the hentai elements within it’s story. It’s hard to deny the clear malicious intents of it’s creation, the writer and producers clearly intended to lure and cultivate a large gathering of the teenage male demographic before simultaneously giving them all blue balls by the end of the third episode.

*THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS*

Our damsel in distress, Ogiwara Sayu, looks like a Walmart version of Katou Megumi illustrated by Jaden Smith’s production team. Sayu is a edgy ... troubled teen with major underlying daddy issues, her mother’s ignorant comments following the suicide of her socially irrelevant best friend was enough to push Sayu off the edge, thus initiating her much anticipated coming-of-age story arc. Fortunately, Sayu misinterpreted the phrase ‘Coming-of-age’ as she instead decides to run away from home, allow guys twice her age to come inside of her in exchange for a place to stay, a habit which frantically spirals out of control. Before we knew, Sayu had reached the pinnacle of female empowerment (2021) by becoming a self-sustaining worker in the red-light district of Osaka at the tender age of 16. Sayu has hit rock bottom, which was also ironically the highlight of the story.

‘The good thing about hitting rock bottom? There’s only up from here.’ – I think Confucius said this ~420 BC.

Our knight in shining armor, Yoshida, doesn’t seem to have a first name, I guess he manifested himself into existence and spawned into the world. Yoshida is a mediocre nine to five office worker with a big heart and dangerously low levels of libido. One day a heartbroken Yoshida while under the influence, stumbles upon a homelessly horny underaged prostitute on the side of the streets and the rest is honestly history. Under the care of Yoshida, Sayu misses getting pipped by total strangers and lusts for Yoshida to quench her sexual frustrations. Unfortunately for Sayu, she finds herself in the worst possible position a ‘horny underaged homeless prostitute’ such as herself would want to be in, because Yoshida is in fact, Asexual. Yoshida and Sayu go on to develop an honestly heartwarming father-daughter relationship which is hard to take seriously when the production team keeps hinting at a possible romantic tension between the two. The story becomes progressively lackluster, I found myself feeling cheated, such that I signed up for a hentai plot but was instead baited into watching 13 episodes of a generic slice of life anime.

On another note, Sayu’s friend from work, Asami, lives in a mansion and is quite well off. Asami looks ready for hot girl summer 24/7, yet she works part-time at a convenient store to befriend a homeless prostitute? The writers obviously felt SO bad for Sayu that they had to convince the audience that she is capable of conversing with and befriend girls her own age. The forced friendship between Sayu and Asami is so bland and meaningless, it’s honestly disgusting how interactions between the two simply felt like I was watching a filler episode.

In conclusion, Higehiro had the potential to bless the Hanime community, but instead I guess we got some thriftshop version of Usagi drop that left me with nothing but a mild level of discomfort in my ductus deferens alongside the bitter aftertaste of unseasoned chicken breast in my pallet.

‘Age is just a number… and remember kids, It’s not incest if you say no chromo’ – Albert Einstein 1969.

Although hard to decipher from the title, Assassin’s Pride conveys the affectionate student-teacher affair that takes place between primary protagonists Vampir Kufa and Melida Angel. Their relationship is truly heart-warming and could very well be considered ‘#relationshipgoals’ until you realize Kufa is a legitimate borderline pedophile, but that doesn’t matter because the feeling is mutual and true love has no boundaries.

Our primary male protagonist Kufa Vampir definitely possesses some unique and original characteristic traits. These traits range from being a Kirito lookin' mother fucker, grooming ... young underaged girls and having high levels of proficiency when it comes to the sex offender shuffle. From his name alone, no one could have expected him to be half-vampire. Vampir Kufa is a full-time fucking clown who works in a circus alongside the other clowns who are all mentally deluded into believing they are assassins. One day Kufa’s ringmaster (who is completely oblivious to the fact that Kufa is a fully-fledged pedophile) commands him to set up a tent in an all-girls middle school in order to provide ‘guidance’ to an underaged blonde Loli, who is (to absolutely nobody’s surprise) the female protagonist.

Our female protagonist Melita Angel is completely and utterly useless, her biological parents are nowhere to be found and it’s pretty easy to see why considering every character that is introduced in the story seems to know how fucking useless Melita is. Much to everyone’s dismay, Melita is actually a hidden OP in the school and is able to instantly receive a power-spike by simply stating that she is stronger than her opponent/s. After spending the first day to analyze Melita’s situation, Kufa (being the absolute paedophilic mastermind that he is) realizes the vulnerability of Melita and commits ‘Michael Jackson’ on her without a second thought before proceeding to inject his ‘mana’ into her body within 24 hrs of meeting.

Just when you thought you’ve seen it all, Kufa suddenly evolves from clowning around to utter degeneracy after agreeing to play ‘husband’ in order to aid Rosetti, a fellow co-worker with daddy issues. Kufa then breaks up with Rosetti smoothly with the one-liner ‘It’s ok we can still be brother and sister after this’ and continues to confide in his interest for children.

What is ‘Mana’ I hear you ask? No one really knows as the anime adaption chose to completely ignore the philosophy of mana and instead exposes the audience to ‘cutesy’, flirty and mildly suggestive dialog between the characters while at the same time failing to address the elephant in the room that is Kufa’s incestuous and paedophilic relationships.

In conclusion, Assassin’s Pride uncovers the most compelling and heart-warming love story you are ever going to find in anime. Witness the spectacle that is a 17-year-old Kufa utilizing the final year of his adolescence to manipulate and groom a 13-year-old Melida before his 18th birthday where he will be immediately convicted and shipped off to the nearest mental asylum.

Want to watch two Elitists participate in a psychological warfare? Do you like the occasional flat chest jokes? Or prehaps you just want to see THE best dance choreography in all of anime for yourself? (22:30 Ep 3.) Kaguya-sama: Love is war! or simply 'Kaguya-sama' for the sake of the review, is a rom-com that exaggerates the psychological aspects of teenage crushes. 'Kaguya-sama' delivers it's success through the use of episodic skits throughout the series, so if you are looking for an anime that delivers in-depth storytelling and obsessive amounts of character development, you're not gonna find it here.

Kaguya-sama is THE ONLY anime ever ... to feature 80% of the show in a single location and keep the audience entertained for the entirety of the duration. This is possible because of two major factors, cinematic techniques and characterization, the conflicts and interaction between characters pair up perfectly and I dare to say PERFECTLY with the camera work. The use of shadowing & coloring to appeal to emotion are complimented and heavily emphasized through the frequent zooms and spectator angles, to the point where the average human grammar is unable to capture the true essence of it's beauty and it can only be summed up as 'Art!' (except it's not an explosion).

Aesthetically, I believe A-1 did a splendid job with the art style because of how much the art complements the comedic side of things, from facial expressions to the opening scenes(Gawd Damn! that opening is good), it was pretty much spot on and congrats to A-1 for occasionally doing well once in a while.

The fact of the matter is that 'Kaguya-sama' is a comedy, and the ideal type of comedy is subjective for every viewer, I try to accept that fact. For the most part, Kaguya-sama does try in many ways to appeal to the majority, done through both childish and subtle mature humor which often is accompanied by a pinch of dramatic irony. But personally, I found myself laughing to tears at certain episodes and chuckling at others while all the while being entertained with my eyes glued to the screen.

*ahem* In short, Kaguya-sama is an original rom-com that utilizes complementary animation and cinematic techniques which correlates really well with the episodic skits. The styles of humor offered in Kaguya-sama appeals primarily to modern teenagers & millennial men, though I believe everyone can easily enjoy the show equally, it definitely has the potential to become one of the funniest shows in 2019. Ironically, Kaguya-sama also introduced indirect forms of comedic value, every time I see a review criticizing the show for the lack of 'character development and depth of story' just makes me laugh so hard because you would think after 66 million years of evolution that humans can tell the basic difference between an episodic series and a sequential one.

Domestic na Kanojo is a poorly conducted Romance which attempts to integrate dramatic aspects into the show through predictable and unoriginal pathways. The series begins by introducing primary male protagonist Natsuo, instantly is it evident to anyone watching that there is absolutely nothing intriguing about Natsuo's characteristics. He has no hobbies, no close friends, no quirks, and absolutely no other ambition in life other than to slide into bed with his Teacher. Like any other troubled teen who has failed to obtain any recognition from their crush, Natsuo does the next best logical thing, lose your virginity to your crush's biological sister, of course, ... that's pure GENIUS!

As for the pros of the series, it has a really good Opening, quite well done in my personal opinions, anyway here are the cons:

My biggest problem with Domestic na Kanojo is the potential the series had, the groundwork was laid out for implementation of original concepts but was completely and utterly tore apart alongside the introduction of generic substances. For example, Rui, the first episode of the show portrayed her as this gloomy and composed little girl who gave off the impression that she didn't care what others perceived of her. Instead, the series decides to chuck this idea out of the window and constructs this shy, socially awkward and introverted little girl who is a loner at school, the male protagonist breaks her out of her shell and helps her make friends. WOW! This is an original concept that has never been done before! To give you an idea how original this concept is, here are some names from the top of my head; Kuronuma Sawako, Tachibana Mei, Furukawa Nagisa, Tachibana Kanade, Tachibana Rikka, Toudou Kirin, the list goes on. This persona is overdone in romance franchise and any attempt to integrate the same concepts can just immediately be rendered as trash.

The series then attempts to drag in several other females into the plot all with the unoriginal, plain and upright boring characteristic. We have the 'girl who has slept with all the guys at school but suddenly takes interest in male protagonist', overdone by the likes of 3D Kanojo. Oh really? she likes the boring male protagonist for his deadass average personality? OH REALLY? It caused jealousy within his love triangle? OH REALLY? The f*cking girl in the library likes him now? OH REALLY? He has to kiss her to help him write a book???? OH REALLY? THIS CAUSED MORE JEALOUSLY AMOUNGST THE LOVE PENTAGON?? Why is the grown ass women allergic to closing the door before touching herself to the thought of a married man??

*ahem* To summarise, Domestic na Kanojo is a melodrama that attempts to integrate overdone personas and manfolds of Cliché, in a desperate attempt to leech aspects of past anime series to cluster f*ck predictable elements into a sad sag of sh*t that is it. If you are currently watching the series, I would highly recommend spending your time elsewhere, because the only thing worse than watching Domestic na Kanojo in your spare time is to watch a production attempt to integrated the aspects of Drama into a Harem.