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Others have praised Hunter X Hunter elsewhere. I am only writing what bothered me most about Hunter XHunter.

This is a typical shonen and like others, suffers from an incredibly boring protagonist. Gon is the typical eager, refuses to give up, thick headed and over all perfect lead. His very presence irritates me and it takes away too much of the enjoyment from the story itself. On the positive side, the pacing is good and the world is interesting.

Kurapika and Leorio, whose VA also voices Zenzo in Gintama and who by far is the weakest of everyone (its a mystery how he passes the ... exam), are more interesting and its a pity they don't get much screen time, especially later in the long Chimera Ant arc.

This manga deserves more reviews, and so I am writing one.

The synopsis gives a good description of the events at the beginning- the first 2, 3 chapters. I will be clear that this is not a romance manga and there will be no resolution to any love stories. I wish it was not so, but things stay exactly the same at the end as they were in the beginning- apart from Hotori moving to her 3rd year of high school and one of her seniors (Kon-senpai) graduating.

The characters are where the real charm of SoreMachi lies. You have the Arashiyama family, the 3 regulars to ... Seaside Maid Cafe, Hotori's High School friends and various others. The chapters are (mostly) stand-alone stories, sometimes a mystery Hotori solves, sometimes just a normal day in her life. Keep in mind that the chapters are in a non-chronological order, I first noticed this when Hotori's hair length kept changing between successive chapters. Still, the episodic nature of the manga ensures this is not a big deal (until the last chapter).

There are some supernatural elements too, like aliens, heaven, alternate dimensions, ghosts, monsters, a memory erasing gun etc., The supernatural aspect is the least developed though and only comes in once every 10 chapters or so. But it serves to freshen up the stories once every now and then.

Lastly, even though the serialization of the manga has ended, the story itself does not give any sense of having ended. Its like we were given a tiny glimpse into the lives of the people in the shopping district. Life will still go on for them (figuratively speaking), but we won't have the pleasure of knowing what happens afterwards. Sanada has still not confessed to Hotori. Tatsun has also not confessed to Sanada yet. Ebi-chan and Takeru (Hotori's brother) are a cute elementary school couple. Kon-senpai has started college and has moved away to another town. If only we could see what happens after graduation for Hotori. 'And Yet the Town Moves'.

This was a pretty good hentai(judging hentai differently from normal anime for obvious reasons), just lots of sex without a forced story shoved in, because lets admit it, we dont(atleast the majority of people) watch hentai for the story.

If you dont like incest, 4somes and lolicon hentai, then stay away from this.
A good thing, relatively speaking, is that it does not have NTR or rape, which are quite prevalent in hentai.

A plain summary of this anime is this:3 idols, who are also sisters, fuck their big brother, who is also their manager.There is only 1 episode, which is of the standard length, i.e, ~20 minutes.

This anime was consistently hilarious.I wish it could have continued more as each episode is just 5 minutes long.Each episode tackles a different mental affliction, for example, voyeurism, depression, panic disorder and many others(after all, there are 20 episodes!).

It is one of the best 5 min anime's i have seen, along with Teekyu, Plastic Nee-san and Aiura.It is neither as crazy as Teekyu and Plastic Nee-san nor as normal as Aiura.All the characters are crazy, except perhaps the doctor himself, for whom you cant help but feel some pity for having to cope with the kind of people he has around him.

As for this anime ... being 'informative', you wont learn as much as other reviews say you will, but it still has quite a few things you might not have known before.

The comedy is the main strength of this show, as it puts to shame even many 24 min comedy anime's.You can watch the 1st episode and immediately decide whether this show is for you or not, as almost all the episodes follow more or less the same basic structure.

Well, as is obvious from the synopsis, this show is about Buddha and Jesus Christ holidaying on Earth.Most of the jokes have to do with miracles ascribed to either Jesus or Buddha reproduced in a modern setting.More often than not, they are very short and you have to be acquainted with some religious stories to fully enjoy them.The bromance between Jesus and Buddha is awesome, seriously.

Only extreme fanatical believers will be offended by this show as its is not judgmental on any religion in any way, nor does it poke fun at it.

With that out of the way, i felt that the show was too ... short for it to be memorable for a viewer.It would been ideal if it had got 12 episodes.2 OVA's are too short to get into the show.There is a movie and i have'nt watched it yet, so i cant say whether it is good or not.There are just 3 characters in the show-Jesus, Buddha and their landlady-and i felt the show could probably use a few more characters.

Yuru Yuri is an anime about middle school girls having fun, quite a simple idea, but its been handled extremely well and the characters, while mostly cliche, work because they interact well with each other.

Yuru Yuri itself as a whole was a solid 8 for me - before this OVA.In the previous seasons, though the basic premise was all too common in anime, the characters were fun to watch and most of the jokes were over the top and different, not cheap cliche ones.

This OVA seems to be produced by a different production house, and they totally butchered it.It has became too tame and conformist, ... and the jokes, and they are relatively rare and below average compared to the previous seasons, are just not funny enough to stick in our memory.

This is 1 hour long, and it could easily have been condensed into 30 minutes.Many cheesy dialogues have been forcefully inserted and seem out of place.Mushy dialogues made me cringe while watching it.

This is for those who know have seen the previous seasons of Yuru Yuri.Kyouko, as those who have watched Yuru Yuri before will attest, had always been a fun and unpredictable character, but in this OVA, she has become dull and far less interesting.The Akarin jokes have dried up, and Ayano is a perfect tsundere.And whats with Himawari and Sakurako being all 'friendly' friendly?Did i miss something important wherein they stopped making fun at each other and instead started complimenting each other?!

If you are a hardcore fan of Yuru Yuri, you might enjoy it, but for others, like me, who thought it was a very good but not an excellent series, this will feel like a totally different series and not an enjoyable one at that.Since the 3rd season is also being produced by the same production house as this one, i dont have much hope for it.But i will probably watch it when it airs for old times sake.

Bottomline is that this is so forgettable that tomorrow i will probably be surprised at myself for having watched and reviewed it too.

My reviews will be entirely subjective and the last few episodes will have a big influence on the final score, they will also not outline the good and the bad points neatly, rather, they will be my thoughts on some important points.

Barakamon was an anime i had been meaning to watch since many months.
And it started out very well.After 2-3 episodes, i thought it might very well end up as a 9 for me, at the least.But sadly, it never really took off.

The initial premise itself was too silly for me to ever take seriously.I mean, Calligraphy?!No one cares about shit like that these days.Okay, ... not exactly shit, but it was really hard to stomach the notion that some people would dedicate their entire lives to writing neatly.

But i watch slice of life mainly for the characters and the interaction between them, and Barakamon's characters were introduced very well, so i was'nt bothered much by its premise.My favorite genre is slice of life, more specifically, comedic slice of life.And as everyone knows, though characters are always important in anime, their importance is exponentially more so in these kinds of anime.And what i felt is that they were never explored as much as they could have been here.They become pretty stale by around the 8th episode.

I am not even sure i know the protagonist after all these episodes, and that's worrying to me.He was the one who had the most screentime of all the characters, and was supposed to have grown as a person by the end, but there was never any conflict anywhere for him to make us believe so.

I was actually resigned to give this an 8 even after i was bothered by many things in it, but the 9th episode totally spoiled it for me.Since giving anything away here would be potential spoilers, let me just say that what the protagonist did was totally uncharacteristic and does'nt make any sense to a rational person.I mean *SPOILERS*no one can be that nervous and his initial calligraphy entry for the contest was far far better than his final submission.*SPOILERS*.
Also *SPOILERS*, the way his mother suddenly changes her mind in the last episode is ridiculous, that part was handled very poorly.*SPOILERS*

The art is good, but not outstanding and does'nt break any new boundaries.But i am not particular about art anyway, unless its outstanding and breaks convention or so bad that it interferes with my enjoying said anime.

The only reason it has ended up with a 7 is because i genuinely enjoyed the first 6 episodes or so, but unfortunately, it slowly descended into mediocrity after that, with a predictable plot and some cliche dialogues.

P.S- The protagonist's mother looks, at the most, 35 years old( a really attractive one at that), while his dad looks like his mothers father!For some reason, i was annoyed by these character designs.

This is how OVA's/Specials should be.Not directly related to the main series in terms of it being a continuation of it's parent series, but knowing the characters beforehand makes it much more enjoyable.

This Special was nearly perfect.It did'nt touch any serious theme like it's parent anime did (which was a coming of age story), but solely focused on giving us another look at the characters lives.

It's about when the Iwatobi Swim Club members went to Samezuka Academy's school festival and ended up playing a survival game with water guns.Many new and interesting interactions between characters who did'nt talk much in the main series are explored.

Overall, ... its a blast from start to end.

I will be writing reviews as soon as i finish a series, and so they will be totally based on my enjoyment of it and the ending will hugely impact it.They will also mostly just be my ramblings, without a linear thought process.

I loved the first season of Free!.I was pretty new to anime then and was hugely impressed with the animation and bromance in it.I liked this season even more, but gave it an 8 whereas the 1st season got a 9.

A large part of this is because i am strictly against changing my rating except in the rarest of rare cases.As i was ... relatively new to anime then, i was perhaps easily impressed.

Most of the issues i had with this season were related to pacing.The first half (6-7 episodes) were way inferior compared to the second half.I must have teared up atleast 3 times, and i am not one to be easily moved, having seen a lot of anime.

Many reviews say that Sousuke was the most fleshed out character in this season and that others did not see as much development.*SPOILERS*I disagree with it as i felt Haruka and Makoto developed by leaps and bounds in the last 5 episodes or so.The 9th episode was the best of the bunch as Haru's internal struggles were shown very well.*SPOILERS*

I did think *SPOILERS* that Nagisa and Rei bawling their eyes out in the last ep was unsightly, as the drama was slightly overboard there, but its not that big of a deal *SPOILERS*.

Rin had already sorted out most, if not all, of his issues in the 1st season, so he was mostly there for the other guys to depend on.But his sister Gou and other side characters (their adviser and coach) received far less attention this time around.

The last episode was nearly perfect, though the middle was drawn out a bit and it would have been better if more emphasis was placed on other things in that time.

Though some of you may not consider watching Free! because it might seem to be obviously pandering to women (whatever that means), i urge you to give this a chance, as though some parts may seem overtly cheesy and the beginning of this season may contain homosexual overtones, it really picks up at the end and goes out with a bang.If only all the episodes were as strong as the last 5-6 episodes.

This manga has too few reviews, so i decided to write one to help decide whether this manga is for you or not.

First off, i love slice of life manga, and when done right, it is remarkably sweet and nostalgic.I picked up this manga after reading Seishun Kouryakuhon and having loved that.While i came to this manga expecting something similar, i am left with an odd mix of both great and extremely mediocre stories.

As given in the synopsis, this manga is about a bunch of high school boys at an all-boys high school.Having done my schooling in an almost similar situation, i am as close ... as you can get to having a strong empathy towards the characters.

The main gripe i have towards this manga is that it is too 'romantic'.Of course, i am not a hater of romance, but more often than not, the 'love' in this manga is based purely on looks.

Again, they are high-school students, and i don't expect them to find the love of their life at this point in their life.But the manga will have you believe otherwise.All the love stories are portrayed to be of the till-death-do-us-part type.Most of the time, the interactions between the boy's themselves was realistic.

We all know how boys behave with their high school friends, there's an ease which is effortless and the banter simply does not stop.As i said, the romance was(is?) the weakest point in the manga, as it was too 'cheesy'.I wish the manga's focused more on friendship than on romance.Though the boy's stay at an all boys school, they are always seen with some or the other girl!And more often than not, that girl will be lusting, ahem, crushing after one of the 'hot' boys.I mean, come on, every boy in their group is supposed to be absolutely gorgeous to look at.That's just plain absurd.To top it off, there is a love affair(or just a mutual attraction?) between a student and the nurse!I am not against love in which a large age gap separate's two people, but the build up to that was just ridiculous, just a makeover was enough to transform the 'plain' nurse into the 'hot' nurse.

After my long rant, i have to admit that i loved the main characters back story, that was a warm and bittersweet love story.

This review is just my personal opinion(of course) and if you enjoy romance manga's in general, you should definitely check this out as even though i may not have enjoyed it as much as i would have liked, i have to admit that the manga get's some of the love stories right, and the interaction's between the boy's is great.