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This anime is neither scary nor creepy. Horror is generally a very difficult genre to get it right, especially in anime/manga because not only is it niche by nature, but it also actively conflicts with one of the biggest eyecatchers that hooks people into your series; the artstyle. Something like Horror in media that doesn't feature live actors generally requires the visuals to be closer to realism and character designs to be more grounded, so the viewer/reader can essentially "feel" it more at a personal level to be truly effective- Similar to how Horror themed indie games have become popular because the interaction aspect of ... games fits so well into the genre.
Over the years, getting people to even take a look at your series as a mangaka/LN writer has become so difficult due to the market being so flooded that it has become common practice to put the entire premise and gimmick of the series as the title, in case the artstyle didn't hook people in. However, the artstyle still remains as the main pull of any series, and that's specifically something that warrants addressing regarding Dark Gathering.

If anyone genuinely thought that this series was meant to be truly frightening after seeing the main character dressed like a Kingdom Hearts character on the front cover, then I'd suggest them to go to a doctor. No, this isn't even some copium statement of someone going "You don't find this scary??? I-It wasn't meant to be scary at all!", this is just a basic observation that a child could make. Yes, this series has ghosts and skeletons, but that doesn't mean the main intent of the series as a whole is inherently horror. Ghostbusters had ghosts and occasional conventionally "spooky" moments too, but would you ever make the argument that the movie was meant to be scary as a whole? No, of course you wouldn't. Just because a series has typical elements of something doesn't mean that's its main identity. Watching the first few episodes should make it very obvious that the intent and the main attraction of the series is the Pokemon ghost battles. Ever wondered what would happen when Sadako from The Ring fought Kayako from Ju-On and it wasn't in a dogshit movie? Yeah, that's the whole series and that has always been the main focus.

This anime adaptation however, does not live up the standards the original manga has set. The animation studio behind this adaptation also animates Pokemon, so there's a bit of an in-joke there I'm sure, but just looking at the OP animation should give the viewer an indicator that the storyboarding is pretty poor. While the anime manages to have all the relevant scenes from the original source material, it does the job of filling out the transitions between those scenes poorly, and just doesn't do a good job giving the same atmosphere as the manga did. Those said transitions feel very simplified and minimalistic, and the effects heavily outdated, almost as if the animators just wanted to put as little effort as possible where their creativity should really shine, so it's pretty disappointing. While the main intent of the series as a whole isn't horror, the individual scenes that are still attempting to give the horror atmosphere before the payoff (that being the ebin Pokemon ghost battles) should function better to make the said payoff more satisfying. The anime's bgm is good, but the usage of color is excessively bright and contributes to dampening the atmosphere, which is another major reason I believe this anime adaptation to be an inferior experience regarding this series.

So basically, if you think you would be interested in a series that's essentially Pokemon ghost battle seinen where ghosts do cool chuunibyou shit and maim each other, I would just recommend reading the manga, and maybe watch the anime adaptation afterwards. If you're expecting genuine horror after looking at the main character's Chain Chomp shoes, I would instead recommend watching one of many mediocre anime adaptations of Junji Ito's horror series and complain about it there and come to a shocking realization that maybe anime just can't do true horror because it's almost always inherently counterintuitive to the genre.

Honestly, the whole isekai trope isn't inherently bad- It's definitely feasible to make something genuinely good with creative world building, interesting character interactions, good direction and premise, and so on. Unfortunately, this series, like most others, has none of those and is quite literally the most trite isekai that could be made by what I'd presume to be a human. Though if someone said this was computer generated by re-using every awful isekai trope ever, I'd unironically believe it. This is a prime example of a series using an incredibly "clickbaity" title as a hook without offering anything of substance beyond it, and it really ... shows.

First of all, even the title is boring as shit aside from the "slime" part. "That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime" says nothing aside from the fact that the main character is going to be a slime. Big if true. Shocking. Apparently the author had real difficult time coming up with the title. Sure, there isn't anything inherently wrong with making an eyecatching title- But if the answer to that is just literally putting the premise as one, then it's pretty safe to say the author is very obviously creatively bankrupt and the series isn't worth the time. And to add to the insult, the character is an overpowered sue character that doesn't even abide by the common notion of a slime and the series becomes another self-insert power fantasy. And to even further add to the insult, it still manages to use the generic cute anime girl design instead of the slime in the promotional poster. Amazing.

The setting of this series is also disgustingly generic, and it really boggles my mind how some people unironically think any of this is good world building. Slimes, dwarves, goblins, orcs, monster wolves, dragons, elves, demon lords, and just any other Dragon Quest reject mobs you can think of, and it's got them all. Essentially it's like making a randomly generated dungeon with RPG Maker's premade assets and just calling it a day. There's nothing interesting to look at, because you've seen them all before- The only thing that could remotely subvert an expectation would be that they act slightly differently from the "norm", but even that is overdone and tiring.

But you might be thinking, "Who cares if it borrows assets from every other isekai fantasy series ever? That doesn't say anything about its writing quality." And you'd be right- It doesn't. But what it says about the series, is just complete utter lack of creativity not only in assets, but also in just general writing.

Just look at this nonsense up to the sixth episode:

[minor spoiler below]
The main character gets reincarnated as a slime in a different world- Then immediately by the second episode, he becomes an overpowered sue character that can quite literally do anything. They can just eat anything of any size and instantly gain all of its powers and abilities, because apparently that's what slimes do. He also has infinite storage of what he eats, and can finitely but perfectly reproduce anything he also eats as long as he has the resources in his infinite storage. Then if that wasn't enough, he also gets a giant exposition machine called The Great Sage in his head that just explains away anything that he might be unfamiliar with, so there's absolutely no struggle. Then if that also wasn't enough, he doesn't have any motivation whatsoever other than completing a few "side quests" he might encounter along the way, so his characterization is the most boring "good guy" trope you can think of. Then of course, everyone likes him because he's Number One. And if there's someone who doesn't like him? Clearly must be evil or stupid. Or both.
[minor spoiler above]

The fact that the writing needs a gigantic exposition machine in the first place already shows that the writer is absolutely incompetent and that unraveling his dollar store isekai world care package through other means is simply beyond his talent. This exposition machine is also incredibly obnoxious as it constantly cuts off whatever is happening on the screen into some Shaft-style Powerpoint presentation mode whenever it wants to explain, which just doesn't do well for the flow of the show. This sort of exposition machine is commonly used in narrative when the main character isn't talkative or is a video game character that responds based on player input to add some sort of character dynamic while maintaining that form of interactivity- So when it's used aside a very talkative main character, it really goes to show terrible the writing is to warrant the usage of it.

And finally, the show doesn't even make great use of what little it has going for it- The production budget. I guess they thought they found the next Overlord in the making, so the quality of the visuals is actually pretty good. Sadly, the series also spends a lot of time on minutes and minutes of monologue, explaining characters' powers and abilities, and covering backstories of side characters nobody cares about. Essentially, this is the Weeny Hut Jr. version of Sword Art Online, but I guess people don't even notice the similarities because Kirito got a cool slime mask. With this trend, I can already see that "Reborn as a Vending Machine, Now I Wander the Dungeon" series having a bright future as soon as it's picked up by any semi-decent studio. No, that actually is a thing. And yes, anime is fucking dead.

Press F to Pay Respects.

Basically Sword Art Online for people who are too embarrassed to admit they like Sword Art Online or think they're above it when they're not. Three seasons in, and Overlord III still manages to be as embarrassingly terrible as the series has ever been. Apparently Madhouse managed to split up the budget for one cour worth into three, and it really shows. How this series is still so popular despite Madhouse's awful adaptation and the original material's abysmal writing can be very easily described in two words: Power fantasy.

But what makes this particular power fantasy so profitable and appealing?

It's the fact that the protagonist ... is a spooky skeleton man with very stereotypical villainous role archetype assets. Ability to summon undead minions? Powers that generally involve darkness(tm) and death? Completely loyal evil minions that are comically cynical towards humans and also have similar abilities, all with their own gimmicks? He's got them all, and kids love him. There's a reason why something like "Dark Flame Master" is a running joke in shows like Chuunibyou, and it's because it's pretty common for kids to love the bad guys more than the good guys. They have cool abilities, look cool, and act cool! It's every kid's dream to be Dark Flame Master. But does that mean every Overlord fan is a kid or a manchild? Not necessarily. The series does have some merit, but it's certainly not the animation or the writing.

The animation is pretty abysmal- The OP animation is incredibly lazily made, and the ED animation is just a slideshow of still images, which goes to demonstrate how little budget went into the show. Add that up with constant stillshots of Ainz's completely unmoving skeleton face and just embarrassingly common usage of bad looking CGI in nearly every episode, and one could feasibly argue that Madhouse really did split the budget for one cour into three. Even the worst of the worst harem isekai shows tend to have fairly impressive, or at the very least, decent looking openings to pull people in, but it seems that Madhouse knew their fans will eat this shit up regardless of how little money they spend on it. There's quite literally nothing positive to say about the animation. The soundtrack is pretty mediocre, and doesn't really distinguish itself from other similar shows, which is also a disappointment.

Then there is the writing of the show, which is easily the worst part of the series.

Conceptually, this should be interesting- It's supposed to be a story from the perspective of the villainous protagonist, which is genuinely rare. Sure, there are plenty of stories where the main character is some variation of demon lord or whatever, but at the end of the day, they still end up being no different from just any generic isekai harem protagonist. Did Ainz manage to separate himself from this common trend? Sure, if being a cardboard with a different coat of paint counts as a separation from the norm.

The issue with telling a story from a villain's perspective is that it's not very easy to make the protagonist likable for the audience to care about. Essentially, when a character becomes too villainous, they become harder to be relatable because they would have to be borderline sociopaths, and the focus shifts from the character to what the character does. One exception to this would be if the character's motives were interesting or empathetic, but Ainz's motives are boring as shit and he's more or less just going by what his minions tell him, so sadly he doesn't make the list. Ainz has never been interesting as a character, and the focus has always been on the spectacle of what he does with his power, rather than him as a character. Basically, he's barely a character, and the power he wields is more of a character than Ainz himself. If a main protagonist is solely defined by their power, then the writing has already irredeemably failed.

The another issue with this is how this different perspective affects the antagonists of the series, who would naturally be heroes, and rarely other villains that belong to other factions nobody cares about. When the focus is mainly on the villainous protagonist, it becomes difficult to portray the would-be heroic antagonists as anything but generic "good" guys. Normally this wouldn't be too much of an issue by itself, but yet another major problem makes this a significant issue: Lack of an actual antagonist. Throughout all three seasons, there hasn't been a single character that was a credible threat to Ainz that also had consistent screentime to get proper development past their character page description. Not only does this make every encounter completely predictable, but it also kills any anticipation for what could happen next because the outcome is always preordained. And when there isn't an antagonist that fits this criteria, then every heroic antagonist ends up being just carbon copies of another with no distinguishable feature of their own beyond surface-level general characterization and motive. And if they're not going to be dynamic characters, it makes them harder to empathize with, which in turn, doesn't make them seem interesting to be distinguishable from every other character. They're essentially cardboards that just say some cliche'd throwaway lines that a typical protagonist would say, and that's all there is to them.

Basically, villains generally don't need much screentime to begin with, because most of the time, their villainy is portrayed just through their villainous actions. Meanwhile, heroic characters need them, because heroism is a trait that requires empathy. Instead, Maruyama decided that it was a smarter idea to make more irrelevant fodders for Ainz to defeat and conquer, and devote way too much time into their vague, generic characterization that will stop mattering after their inevitable loss. If the writing is good, empathy for the characters should ideally come naturally through storytelling that actually adds to the plot, rather than attempting to force it through Overlord's patented method of wasting your goddamn time telling you about how Tom loves his kids and how he's the family man.

When that isn't happening, it's devoted for long inner monologues about the antagonists to think about how strong Ainz and his minions must be, which Ainz and his minions do for themselves already, which just makes it incredibly repetitive and pointless. It's just shit writing at its finest. And the lack of credible, persisting threat makes every arc feel like a filler arc that serves very little to no purpose to whatever the overarching story is, which is why all three seasons of this series are nearly indistinguishable from each other. The common defense for this is "But Ainz is the threat!" but that completely misses the point. The heroes should ideally be a constant threat to the villains as much as the villains are a constant threat to the heroes. One sided victories are boring as shit when villains are the ones doing it just like how it's boring when shounen protagonists always win in the end.

It should be noted that neither an overpowered protagonist nor a story told from a villainous perspective is inherently bad. It's the combination of the two being handled incompetently at the same time that puts the writing of this series into absolute trash territory. Sadly, Maruyama is a terrible writer, and Overlord as a series is like watching a grown man playing with his action figures alone in his room while indulging himself in the same old dance that he's done a million times with his self-insert Skeleton Stu that never loses, which really does reflect in Ainz as a character. Maybe this is some galaxy brain tier 4th wall poetry and all Maruyama wants is for his friends to play DnD with him again.

But just because the writing is complete garbage doesn't mean it doesn't have any merit- One of the most common misconceptions is that something bad can't be enjoyable, which is why a lot of people will really reach to defend the poor writing if they enjoyed the series. Most common method is to cite the original source and pretend it's better than the adaptation when it's pretty much just as bad. I mean, if they enjoyed it, clearly it must have been good! Somehow! You just didn't GET it. But that's just childish narcissism, and a lot of people fail to understand or just refuse to admit that trashy writing can still be fun. While Overlord may be just as poorly written as Sword Art Online, what it has over SAO is that the spectacle is sometimes genuinely fun to watch when the focus of the series isn't on the side characters, albeit repetitive and poorly animated. And that's basically what the appeal of power fantasy is- Watching smug protagonists stay smug while watching smug antagonists getting blown up.

Fate/Extra Last Encore is basically what happens when you put the IDEAS GUY in charge of everything rather than working on the project as a group. Nasu clearly had a story that he wanted to tell, but it wasn't done in a way that was fun to watch or easy to understand, making the show seem like a convoluted mess at a first glance. While they claimed that Last Encore was written in a way so that people who are familiar with Fate/Extra's setting and people who aren't could enjoy it equally, the outcome ended up being the complete opposite. Where did it all go ... wrong?

One of the major issues is that the setting is completely unfriendly, especially so for people who are familiar with Fate's normal setting. The only vaguely similar thing is the concept of Masters and Servants, but no one's going to know what Moon Cell or Angelica Cage are. They're supposed to be on the moon as some computer programs or something, but I'm sure at this point most casual watchers already lost interest and moved on to watching something more highly intellectual like Overlord III or something.

The show, for all intents and purposes, and regardless of intent, assumes the watcher is familiar with Fate/Extra's setting, which shouldn't even really be a necessity if you want to produce a show that reaches out to as many audience as possible instead of the small group that may have played that one PSP game nearly a decade ago. The problem is that it can't deliver the setting very well without resorting to an overly expository dialogue, so it ends up wasting a lot of time that could be spent for something better- Though looking at the mediocre battle scenes, I guess there wasn't anything they could do other than scrolling through the classic Shaft's Google background Powerpoint presentation.

But while the expository dialogue is a problem, the bigger problem is the show underexplaining whatever is happening on the screen. Basically, Nasu spent so much time explaining the setting to familiarize the new watchers that it didn't have the time to properly explain what was actually happening on the screen. I guess it does raise a question about how much explaining is "too much" or "too less", but this show really does feel like the latter when it comes to the actual story it's trying to tell. It's completely fair to argue that maybe the show was just 2deep4u and that it's the viewers' fault for not figuring it out, because technically, everything does make sense in this show. There are also some genuinely good cases of foreshadowing, and there are some really nice visual cues that clue the viewers in on why something is happening.

One of my favorites was when Hakuno meets Pieceman in the first episode in the trash chute below the school, he briefly sees a vision of a city in flames reminiscent of Fuyuki from the 4th Grail War- But later in the last episode you notice that this is actually city Pieceman died in during his life on Earth. This is significant because Hakuno doesn't have a memory of his own, so it has to be a memory of someone who was down there with him- And he just so happens to meet Pieceman immediately after the vision, foreshadowing the later twist in the last episode.

There are many other cases of neat visual cues and foreshadowing like that if you look for them, but all of that just gets buried under really uninteresting setting, the characters' interaction, and generally awful delivery of the plot as a whole. While Hakuno does eventually get character development, he's just a really boring main character, and the character interaction in the show ends up being very limited in general due to the whole "monster (master) of the week (floor)" format that the setting had going for.

The animation, as mentioned above, is pretty subpar- And doesn't really get very good until the last part of the show with Gawayn. While Shaft tries to manage by cramming in as many expository dialogue as possible, when it gets to the battle scenes, it really shows that the budget for the show wasn't very high. But while the animation itself isn't very impressive, some of the scenery and the storyboard that doesn't involve animation can look pretty good, so visually it has something going for it. The soundtrack is also notably good, but that's about to be expected from the composer.

Summarily, Last Encore technically isn't a bad show at all- But unless you're familiar with the setting, like the characters, like the series, and basically go out of your way to TRY to enjoy it, you will very likely not enjoy it. So in terms of delivering a palatable show that's friendly to the viewers, it has completely failed. Most people aren't going to attempt to understand a show they can't comprehend easily if they don't like it, because that's supposed to be the show's job in the first place. This is something that would've worked much better as a novel or a visual novel, and it really shows.

While some people might say this show is a "cash grab", it really doesn't feel that way at all once you look at all the stuff they managed to cram in the show. There was definitely passion put into this show- But instead of the hugging you gently kind, it was the shoving the big dong into your mouth kind.

Surprise, this review has spoilers. That's more surprise than you'll ever get from watching Danganronpa 3.

What made the original Danganronpa stand out from the rest of its genre was the combination of the interesting storytelling through interactive exploration, mystery solving, and the quirky characters. It also didn't take itself too seriously, which was a plus. Unfortunately, many of those traits are lost during a typical transition process from a game to an anime, and this is exactly that. It wouldn't be too bad if the writing was good, but Danganronpa was never really known for that particular aspect. In fact, it was arguably Danganronpa's ... weakest point, which was normally overlooked due to its other positives.

Danganronpa 3 had an interesting gimmick by having 2 separate series airing during the same season- Each telling a story of their own while revealing a few key plot points about the other. This could've been great if it was done competently, but competent writing and anime are pretty much antonyms at this point. And as this "Hope-arc" is supposed to be the conclusion of the both, this review will have spoilers for the both series and the finale itself.

The animation itself is about average- I'd assume this was the best they could manage while trying to keep the action sequences to absolute minimum, as many of those end up being just skipped over or last very briefly. The voice acting is perfectly fine, and the soundtrack manages to accompany the animation well, so the general sound direction is fine too. The OP and ED for both shows are easily the best part about the entire series, so it has going for that too. As with most anime, the animation and the aural aspects are not the problem.

It's very difficult to explain what exactly went wrong with the writing, as there are way too many things that went wrong. And by too many, I mean literally almost everything. So with this in mind, I'll try to cover just some of the major issues I had with this show:

1) Pacing & Characters in Future Arc

Future Arc introduced several new characters, but all of them failed to be likeable because they died way too quickly. This is one of the natural problems that arise from the aforementioned game to anime transition. Unlike the games, there is very little interaction between the characters, and there's only so much that can be done in a single cour anime. Bandai ends up dying after spending his few lines on nonsense because Lerche couldn't pay the voice actor for more lines. Gozu dies immediately after fulfilling his role as a bodyguard for Naegi, Kizakura dies immediately after fulfilling his role as a bodyguard for Kirigiri, Izayoi dies immediately after fulfilling his role as a bodyguard for Ruruka, Hagakure wastes his time by himself by doing literally nothing, Komaru and Toko spend an entire episode finding out something that becomes irrelevant later, and Monaka fucks off to space despite being built up as Junko Enoshima's successor. Basically, most of these characters just existed for the sole purpose of dying, and not to actually contribute anything worthwhile to the plot.

Some of the characters actually got some development for whatever the reason through flashbacks and segments of Despair arc, but they don't really amount to anything either. To go into more detail, Ruruka and Seiko are supposed to be friends who became enemies because of some misunderstanding. The story tries to explain why one hates each other, and they both wonder where it went wrong, but this doesn't work because one of the two is obviously in the wrong. Obviously the intent was to make the audience feel bad about both of them and how they split apart after a misunderstanding, but when Ruruka's constantly depicted as a manipulative character that only took advantage of Seiko, there's nothing to sympathize about. In the end, they only existed to provide some action sequences and make the atmosphere more hectic, but served no other purpose aside from that. Worthless.

2) Pacing & Characters in Despair Arc

Despair Arc is even worse than Future Arc, which is a feat considering the characters in Despair Arc have already been given characterization in the second game- Even though the storytelling should theoretically be better because the writers would have more time, it turns out that the writers had no fucking idea what to do with "more time" and end up squandering it completely. Considering how this is paired with one of the most asinine plot points I've ever witnessed in any form of entertainment media, it all translates to a big waste of fucking time. The idea behind the Despair Arc was showing how the Class 77 fell into despair through Junko's manipulation. What actually happens is the complete opposite of what anyone would expect from a competent writer.

Junko is one of the worst, incompetent villains I've seen in recent memory. While Junko has been portrayed as this super manipulative, cunning villain through what she has accomplished in the previous titles, it's never actually shown how exactly she did it. Now that it's shown in Despair Arc in its full glory, it's anything but competent. Junko's sister, who also happens to be a twin, who also happens to be obsessed with her, also happens to be one of the physically strongest characters in the series. So by default, she is given a bodyguard to cover her in case something goes wrong from the moment she was born. As Junko decides to enact her plan when she hears about the Kamukura Project which just happened to be completed at the time, she manages to reach her objective because Hope's Peak's security for the most dangerous being in the series is awful enough for one SHSL level student to get past without problems. Junko and her sister manage to survive without any significant injuries after meeting Kamukura, and also manages to somehow convince him to join her immediately with nonsense talk. Then as soon as Junko is leaving the hospital, she meets Mitarai, who also almost never leaves his room and is just as dangerous as Kamukura plot-wise right on time. And later in the story, Junko manages to survive because Komaeda decided to talk a bit too long instead of just shooting her, and she also manages to blackmail Juzo successfully only because he conveniently happened to have that exploitable weakness related to Munakata, and happened to be the person sent out to investigate Junko at the time. Juzo also happens to lie to Munakata instead of telling the truth when he could've just as easily accused Junko of lying and fabricating a photo of him. Munakata also decides to drop suspicion all together without doing any research of his own just because he's been told that Junko was innocent by his two friends even though he was almost completely certain about his suspicion of Junko. There are other things too, but the point is that nearly every single aspect of Junko plan has worked out through sheer luck- For a villain that's supposed to be incredibly cunning and manipulative, everything just happened to work out in her favor through convenience, which really degrades the character's quality.

Mitarai is the other major problem with the series as a whole- Despite being classified as a SHSL Animator, his talent is so potent that it's easily the most powerful talent in the entire series. In fact, it ends up taking NWP, which is "built with the most recent psychotherapy technology and administrative software by the Ultimate Programmer, the Ultimate Neurologist, and the Ultimate Therapist, among other talented people" just to undo the damage done by his talent. While this is already a problem just by how asinine the concept of "brainwashing through animator talent" is, an even bigger problem is derived from it. Instead of showing how Class 77 was turned into despair by long-term manipulation and tragic backstories, they're immediately brainwashed into doing Junko's bidding. Even the brainwashing part wouldn't be so bad if they were conditioned into being more susceptible to hypnosis with a sequence of tragic events (Twilight Syndrome Murder Case, for example), but there's not even that. Instead, another character named Chiaki is used as a sacrificial lamb just to make this plot point possible- Chiaki basically existed as a Jesus-figure type character that literally everyone liked, so that Class 77 could fall into despair through her death. This is complete nonsense because Chiaki's death wasn't necessary at all for Mitarai's brainwashing animation to work. In fact, Junko's masterful plan to make Chiaki the sacrificial lamb only ends up working against her completely, as all it does is give Kamukura second thoughts about his stance. Junko's such an amazingly incompetent villain that one time she decides to do something through actual planning, she ends up fucking herself up later. Brilliant. Furthermore, this completely shits on the series' concept of "despair" as a whole because it's less of a personal mental state and more of just being brainwashed by Junko.

3) Lack of Mystery & Predictable Twists

The real twist of the show was that there were almost no significant twists. While Future Arc had some, they were mostly inconsequential- The remaining survivor counter in Future Arc's OP ended up being nothing important. There were no fake dead bodies, and the only unrevealed NG code wasn't significant. The great twist of the cast being underwater in an exact replica of the building above also ended up leading nowhere, other than to give Kirigiri a purpose for discovering it. The means of murder through monitors became obvious eventually through Despair Arc, and became anti-climactic when the actual twist was the most boring possible option available. Real Nanami died by the end of Despair Arc as quite literally everyone had expected, and Class 77 was turned into despair through the laziest means possible. Basically, real Chiaki was solely made to explain everything that happened with the Class 77 by making her the center of everything. Ultimately, Despair Arc ends up contributing nothing, other than provide backstories that would've been left better unknown just by how poorly it was done. While shocking twists aren't exactly necessary, they would have made the series much more interesting by just not playing things out exactly as everyone had expected.

4) Incompetent and Inconsistent Writing in General

In Future Arc, the victims commit suicide by being brainwashed by the monitors, and it's deliberately done in a way so that others would think it's a homicide instead. However, when it's Naegi's turn to commit suicide, he makes no effort to make it seem like homicide at all as he just attempts to thrust himself with the knife. Kirigiri doesn't bother to suspect or investigate the hidden Power Room after discovering the fake exit, which could've ended the murder game immediately, which is out of character for someone who's supposed to be a SHSL detective. Tengan's "Complex Motives(tm)" involves causing a Murder Game between FF members to get Mitarai to broadcast his brainwashing anime world-wide- But ends up risking Mitarai's life by not only involving him in the game itself by not just delaying the Murder Game, but also by taunting Munakata into killing literally everyone he could see. Not only does his plan not make sense when he could've just forced/convinced Mitarai to broadcast it anyways, but there were so many things that could've gone wrong that it almost feels like the "motive" was forcibly shoved in at the last minute by the writers. This is even more convincing when Mitarai was shown in Monokuma's Murder Game explanation video, even though he wasn't originally planned to participate.

5) Everything about Hope Arc

This was the writers' desperate attempt to reel the fans back in after making a complete mess of the series with incompetent writing in two shows in one season. Despite the promotional poster showing Naegi and Hinata staring each other down, Naegi ends up doing literally nothing. Instead, Hinata gets the screentime and dialogue he desperately needed after having literally 30 seconds of screentime in the Future Arc, and his only dialogue being how bored he is. Apparently Mitarai suddenly needs 30 minutes to complete his mindhack Global Hope Saturation, even though he has shown that he could immediately brainwash people in seconds. Thankfully, this time limit gives enough time for Class 77 to show up and tell him to stop being a literal faggot. Mitarai just immediately submits after much weeping and self-loathing, and it just ends. All that build-up from the previous episodes just amounted to talking and more talking. Even though Class 77 claims what they're doing is "redemption," it's actually nonsense considering how they were forcibly brainwashed into doing evil deeds. Their first act of "redemption" is then followed by having a barbeque party on a boat and chatting with what is presumably a ghost of a fucking computer program, so happy ending for everyone. Except the real Chiaki, but I guess someone had to die to make the story meaningful, I guess.

In conclusion, this show is awful. The only enjoyment I got out of watching this series was viewing other people's reactions to it, and not the actual show itself, which seems to be most people's motivation for watching awful shows while they're airing. At least they did name the shows appropriately- Future Arc makes you wish you were in the future, instead of present, where you're watching it. Despair Arc puts you in despair because you question yourself where your life went wrong that you're watching literal garbage. Hope Arc makes you hope the next entry in DR series will be better than what you just watched, but it won't be.

Why?

You know why.

Obligatory spoiler warning because Overlord is a masterpiece that must be experienced first-hand. So apparently what Sword Art Online needed was for Kirito to be a skeleton wizard and Asuna to be Mahouka's Miyuki. The concept of this series is the same as what most people are already familiar with; A guy is playing a game, and then he's suddenly trapped in it because of some unexplained reason. Overlord does absolutely nothing original aside from having a few aesthetic and irrelevant differences from the rest, and people seem to consider it as a brilliant masterpiece because it apparently managed to appeal to those who wanted ... to play as the bad guy in a roleplaying forum.

The original LN has some pretty nice art and cool character designs. That's about the only good thing about the series as a whole- Everything else, including the writing, ranges from mediocre to genuinely awful. Apparently when Madhouse realized that they were going to be animating One Punch Man, they saw Overlord's amazing budget saving potential- Most notably, zooming in the unmoving skeleton man's face so they don't have to animate anything at all while he's talking. The animation is really subpar, and there's a lot of terrible looking CGI in the show while it's not focusing on Momonga's face. It only truly picks up in quality at the very end of the series, and even then, it doesn't manage to be very impressive. The OST is very forgettable to the point that I might even consider it one of the worst in the shows I've seen- Basically take whatever Yasuharu Takanashi does and make it even more generic than some of his worst works. That about describes it. Visually and aurally, it's definitely below average.

But surely despite all that mediocrity, the writing must be amazing. After all, the main character is a skeleton wizard and leads an army of Saturday morning cartoon villains. Despite the series attempting to present the protagonist and his group as evil, the best it does is having them kill completely unlikable characters that barely get more than a minute of screen time. That's some evil right there.

Momonga is an incredibly boring character. Aside from providing exposition after exposition through his internal monologues from his experience with the MMO when describing what's happening on the screen, he really does not have much personality. His entire character motivation is to find out about the world he's trapped in, just like the viewers- Basically, it can be summed up that his motivation pretty much does not exist because it simply exists as a parallel to the plot itself. Furthermore, he's very powerful- Apparently overpowered MCs are acceptable as long as they're not designed like teenage boys, which makes it admitedly harder for neckbeards to relate to. But Momonga's degree of power exceeds even that- He's powerful to the point that nearly nothing poses a serious threat to him. This is a problem in storytelling because no conflict is ever relevant- Momonga's powerful enough to just solve it easily without any effort. One could say that it was the writer's intent to make Momonga seem powerful and impressive, but it doesn't even do that correctly. Power is relative, so when Momonga just one-shots random fodders that spend more time boasting about themselves than actually showing what they're capable of, it's not impressive in the slightest. A key example of this happens in the fourth episode, where the bad guy summons what is supposedly a super-powerful monster, and when Momonga kills it, it's supposed to look impressive. But the audience doesn't know what this monster was even capable of, outside of the bad guy boasting about its supposed strength, so it just feels completely flat.

While he makes all these unnecessary convoluted plans about how he would spread his name around the world to catch the attention of those who might have been trapped in the world like him, he essentially just solves all his problems through his raw power. His problems are more self-imposed than anything due to his tendency to be incredibly paranoid due to his fear of something that “might” be more powerful than him. And to make it worse, he just outright contradicts himself near the end of the show by risking his life in an unnecessary one-on-one combat due to his ego. Brilliant.

And to make it more brilliant, there really was no reason for the MMO backdrop at all- It's a completely unnecessary addition. The series could have worked just as well with Momonga being a genuine evil skeleton lich in a genuine fantasy world instead of “some guy trapped in a MMO world that became REAL.” All this does, essentially, is to give an excuse for some parts of poor storytelling to exist, such as exposition dumps from Momonga based on his experience with the MMO, and floor guardians being completely, unquestionably loyal to him for no reason. The series never references back to the real world, so it might as well not exist- And since the audience has no idea about the said MMO, it only emphasizes the point about this just being a pointless hook, and a justification for awful storytelling that relies on the backwards idea of “Tell, don't show.”

All the floor guardians and Momonga's lackies are uninteresting and flat- They have some interesting designs, especially the maids, but all their personality is about as interesting as a rock. First few episodes make it clear that they absolutely adore Momonga, and they spend their entire screen time thinking and/or talking about how great Momonga is. One of the worst examples is Albedo, who spends every moment of her screen time doing just all that. She never does anything outside of praising Momonga, whether he's in the same scene as her or not- Comparing this to Mahouka, she's basically this series' equivalent of Miyuki if Miyuki did absolutely nothing outside of praising Tatsuya, which makes Albedo far, far more annoying. Remember how people absolutely despised Miyuki because she wouldn't shut up about her onii-sama? There's an exact same character here, if arguably worse, but Albedo gets a free pass because her target of affection looks like a skeleton wizard and has a fanservice design.
There's also nothing interesting about floor guardians' interaction with one another, as all they talk about is how great Momonga is and how they should do their job and serve him. I guess the assumption the author made was that his target audience was so stupid that they needed to be reminded of the obvious every scene, every line.

Another awful aspect of this series is the pacing- It's always painfully slow. A lot of people seem to defend slow pacing by claiming that it's character development, but there's no development. I'm not sure where people got the idea that character interaction equate to character development, but I guess just listening to pointless filler dialogue gives some people a false impression that something must be going on even though nothing is really going on. This is especially noticeable in the episodes where Momonga teams up with a lower class group of adventurers to complete a quest- The show spends several episodes attempting to develop this group of nobodies by giving them cardboard personalities, but in the end it's completely pointless. They're not likable because they haven't really done anything, their interaction with Momonga is pretty bland, and the series makes it clear that they're not important to begin with. And surprise, it turns out they were completely irrelevant. Amazing character development for characters that never mattered with pointless, drawn-out character interaction that did nothing for everyone in the cast.

If all that wasn't enough, the series doesn't even tie itself up properly- The last part of the show involves one of Momonga's minions, who is just as powerful as he is, suddenly being brainwashed through the power of plot convenience because the author thought an actually threatening conflict was needed around this time in the series. Despite taking all the safety precautions with all his power previously, Momonga decides that he needs to make a point about how he's the leader, even though there was absolutely no need for him to do so when all the floor guardians already adore him unquestionably. Basically, Momonga is not very intelligent- Everything goes as he plans because of his raw power and having so many tools to work with- Not because he's actually skilled at strategizing. It also should be noted that this last part of the show was incredibly grating, because the brainwashed minion still sucks up to Momonga while still opposing him. Really, Overlord?

So to summarize what happened in this entire cour: First quarter spends its time on just introductions on characters that have no personality whatsoever outside of all sucking up to Momonga in perfect unison. Second quarter is about Momonga effortlessly beating an army of literal nobodies that won't matter for the rest of the season. Third quarter is about Momonga effortlessly beating an army of zombies and two bad guys that won't matter for the rest of the season. And finally, the last quarter is about Momonga beating a brainwashed minion only because he handicapped himself even though it would've been just as effortless because he's a poorly written character. I can't even really claim that this is a pacing issue with the show itself- This is more like a pacing issue of the novels because the show covers fair amount of the novels. Remember that statement about how MMO setting is used as nothing more than an exposition tool? Yeah, it's apparently being used as a filler as well in the novels, explaining things that nobody gives a shit about to pad out the content.

I really don't understand the praise for this series- Aside from simple aesthetic differences, this series has all the flaws that all generic light novels have. The MC is just yet another generic Stu protagonist that has next to no character motivation, the side characters are cardboard cutouts that constantly suck up to Momonga only because they were quite literally made to do so, and the storytelling is a complete mess where the MMO backdrop is only used as a convenient excuse to make way for exposition through Momonga's inner monologues. Instead of being from a perspective of a genuine evil villain, it's from a perspective of a generic MC that only looks like a villain with underlings who are about as laughably as evil as Akame ga Kill's antagonists. As an adaptation, it fails- And as for the series as a whole, it's just another generic fantasy novel with a gimmick element as a hook. There's literally nothing positive about the series, aside from the LN's art and character designs, which all just seem like a waste of talent and effort. Both of which are not present in the adaptation or the writer.

The spin-off series, Ple Ple Pleiades is actually far more entertaining. Go watch that instead.

Ever wondered why Touhou doesn't have an anime? This is why.

There are two perspectives you can watch this show from: Either you played the game, or you haven't. This show is clearly designed to appeal to the former, and does a great job at failing in everything because of that. The thing about making an animated series of something like Kancolle is that, aside from having the fans seeing their favorite characters being animated, it also gives a chance for them to see the characters develop beyond their limited personality trait in the game.

What happens in this 12-episode odyssey is the complete opposite ... of that idea.

Before going any further into this series' embarrassing writing that makes Boku no Pico Shakespearean in comparison, there are several other notable aspects of this show that warrant mentioning: Music, for the most part, is pretty decent. Apparently there seems to be an unspoken rule that terrible shows must have a decent/good soundtrack. Though, having claimed that, it's actually pretty difficult to hear most of the soundtrack because the battle scenes barely last more than a single minute. And yes, I'm being pretty lenient with the term "battle scenes" because the visuals are legitimately worse than something from a Toei show. It's not even like YYY where 3DCG scenes were hardly noticeable- It's just literally everywhere in every battle scene in this show, and they're all so incredibly poorly choreographed that it makes you wonder whether a properly functioning human being was responsible for them.

-Spoilers below-

As mentioned previously, this show is something that tries too hard to appeal to the existing fanbase with the smallest effort possible that it fails at its job completely- First, the characters. There are way too fucking many. How did Diomedea manage to include all these 50+ characters in this 12-episode show? The answer is, they didn't. None of them end up being actual characters, and all they get for lines is repetition of the same throwaway line they babble in the game ad infinitum. See, this is the difference between a game and an animated series that tells a story- In games like Kancolle, it's pretty difficult to actually express characters' personality aside from their throwaway lines, so to keep the game interesting, more characters are added to compensate for the lack of further development from the existing characters. But when you're trying to tell a story, that no longer applies- The more characters there are, the harder it is to focus on a certain character(s), and thus, it makes them as bland as they would be in the game when the point of telling a story is the complete opposite: Developing them beyond what would've been feasible in a simple click-and-win game.

These characters' gimmicks are also influenced by the fanon- Such as Akagi being a big eater in the show due to her consuming lots of resources in-game. Completely necessary addition, I'm sure. Fubuki, the MC, is incredibly boring and breaks personality several times in-series just to create unnecessary drama, which makes you wonder why the Admiral favors this particular character in the first place outside of her status as the main character. Everyone else can be summed up with a single sentence: Shimakaze likes going fast. Kongou likes speaking in broken English. Hibiki says one Russian word every chance she gets. Yuudaichi likes -poi more than -desu. Sendai really loves night battles. Naka won't shut the fuck up. Calling these protagonists cardboard cutouts would be an insult to cardboard cutouts from Akame ga Kill, so I'm not sure what to call them.

What about the antagonists, though? If you expected anything other than "incompetent mute cyborg zombies," then god damn is this show happy to disappoint. I'm not sure what the trend is with all these silent villains that have no real motives, but I guess writing any form of conflict outside of badly animated/choreographed battle scenes was beyond Diomedea's capability. And if that wasn't enough, the Abyssals are pretty pathetic at their job and manage to be as threatening as moving dartboards. I guess they manage to finally sink a character who had a total screen time of less than a minute, who happens to be a friend of a boring friend of the boring MC with a last-second sneak attack. Oh, the horror. It's especially hilarious when the show cuts to Abyssals looking ominous and evil with spooky music playing in the background when they're a complete non-threat.

And finally, the Admiral. It's pretty obvious that this Admiral character was designed to represent the viewer/player, which is why this character is never truly shown on the screen. Therefore, the character's motives/personality/appearance are all completely unknown because it's supposed to be “you.” I'm not sure why this is even necessary considering this character plays a very little role, but apparently it was- Which is why Diomedea decides to fuck that up too by giving this character an identity. Apparently the reason why the Admiral favors Fubuki (the boring MC) so much is that he has a boner for this character. Well, that's great. Now everyone knows that the Admiral is this guy who has a boner for Fubuki, who is the most boring character in a show full of characters solely identified by throwaway lines. What happened to ambiguity, again? Honestly, Wo-class is a much better representation of the viewer- Looking bored and stoned as fuck throughout the entire fucking show pretty much sums up my experience.

Aside from the poorly written characters with no effort put into them, there are two other things Diomedea decided to do to “appeal” to the existing fanbase of this series. One is tying in in-game mechanics like repair docks, buckets, upgrades, and etc. Not exactly necessary or hindering, but I'd think that alone should have been enough for references from the game instead of making every character what they are in this show. The second thing is "historical reenactment"- Since all the characters are based off of real life ships, the idea is that they would meet the same fate at the same time at the same place. This is sort of "foreshadowed" in the opening sequence where you can briefly see the real Akagi ship sinking and is a “major” plot point in the latter part of the series. I'm not exactly sure how this is supposed to be an appeal, however. Knowing what's going to happen in the show based on real life events seems completely uninteresting especially considering the flat characters and setting, and if it was any more focused by the series, it would just be yet another cliche'd "fighting against fate" plot line that's been done million times over, so I really don't get it. I guess it makes some people feel smug for knowing that this one character that may have been in the background in one episode will sink before other people do.

So outside of Diomedea's blatantly embarrassing fanservice, what else is there? I guess there's supposed to be a plot somewhere, but the pacing is so horrendous that it's actually difficult to remember what actually happened in this show. That being said, this show does few things that could be considered two of the worst things one can do when writing a story. The first is lack of focus- Just like several other shows, this show cannot decide what kind of a show it wants to be. It could be either a fun show about wacky hijinx, or a serious show with drama that may or may not be forced. If it stuck with one, and did just that, then it would have been fine. Unfortunately, Kancolle attempts to do both, and fails at both- I'm not sure why so many shows do this when both drama and comedy hinder each other most of the time, thus making their simultaaneous inclusion counter productive. I'd assume it probably sounded good on that used toilet paper they used for the storyboard for this show. The amount of sudden mood shifts in this show is transcendent, and this is made even worse with piss-poor pacing. For example, there would be a forced drama scene with Fubuki and her friends. Then it would immediately cut to Ooi and Kitakami doing their usual comedy routine. Then immediately cut back to the drama scene. Flawless.

The second problem ties into the first- Even the drama is completely forced. And even then, these supposedly sad scenes aren't even relevant or impactful. Because by the end of the episode, it turns out everything was fine all along, which makes the characters seem idiotic for worrying about it in the first place. This problem is especially notable with Fubuki breaking character and doing something reckless against the enemy because suddenly she decided that she wanted to feel important and have a personality. She obviously fails at everything noted above, but this scene itself has also failed at having any lasting impact. No one ends up getting hurt in the end, and everything was daijobu. Then she goes to train with moving targets, which really are as threatening as Abyssals considering how much damage Fubuki came out of it in the end. What a joke.

But wait, there's more. In the last episode, where everything seems "hopeless" because that one mean Abyssal just won't die despite it being only able to shoot out nearly harmless white balls in the protagonists' general direction as its masterful strategy, Nagato suddenly shows up to the rescue- It was all according to plan, apparently. Then when it doesn't work, a new shipgirl appears out of nowhere that got a brief "foreshadowing" (using this term extremely loosely) in the previous episode and comes to save the day- Then the Admiral literally uses repair buckets out of nowhere to get more shipgirls in the battle, and the show doesn't even try to hide its Deus ex Machina garbage writing at this point. Then Black Rock Shooter and Fubuki stare at each other before the former realizes this writing is fucking retarded and goes back down the ocean.

Basically, every single episode in this show can be summed down to this: 20 minutes of filler that may or may not include poorly written drama that ends up resolving itself the same god damn episode, and 2 minutes of poorly choreographed battle scene where victory is solely decided by shooting at things a lot with no strategy involved.

It's incredibly ironic that this show tried so hard to appeal to the existing fanbase that it only alienated them as a result, and ended up appealing to an entirely different group of people who watches shows based on anything but quality. Now, I think it's pretty notable to mention that some people seem to defend this show with claims like "What did you expect?" But that sort of claim would only be valid if someone criticized something like Hamtaro for its lack of drama. It's completely invalid here because it doesn't do either drama or comedy because it tries to do both and fails at both. Most criticisms for this show do not come from complaining about what this show doesn't have- It comes from what this show does have and that is fucking awful. Some might also claim "It's a game advertisement show so it obviously wouldn't be good!" What about Rage of Bahamut: Genesis? That was a show based on a Mobage, and it was one of the best shows of its season, so that excuse isn't valid either. Any show, no matter what it's based on or which studio's doing it, can have actual effort put into it, and that alone would make any show significantly better than this garbage. The fact is, this show is just a lazy, half-assed attempt to make money off a popular franchise while putting as little effort as possible. And just to emphasize on the point of "striking while the iron is hot," a second season is immediately announced by the end of the last episode. Subtle.

The best way to describe Kancolle would be that it's basically anti-Touhou. It's everything that Touhou isn't- Kadokawa also apparently decided that it didn't want to put any effort into their “game,” so they decided to forbid any Kancolle doujin game whatsoever because having to make anything that's more than a clicking simulator would be far beyond their talents. And then they get this show made just to make sure they can rake in as much money as possible before the popularity wears off. Considering how this show turned out, and how many of its existing fans reacted to it, I think it's pretty safe to say that ZUN made the proper decision. And I think it's pretty worrisome if all this makes a drunken man who can't even get human anatomy correct after nearly a decade seem like Albert fucking Einstein.

-Spoilers Ahead-

The brilliant minds behind Angel Beats and Akame ga Kill joined forces in an attempt to capitalize on their respective "talents" and made what some people call "one of the most underrated masterpieces of the season" without an ounce of irony. This series is pretty much everything wrong with modern anime, and there are plenty of reasons as to why. It's just so up its own ass pretending to be not a grimdark show in a vain attempt to fake out the audience for so long that it ends up boring, and when it actually gets to the grimdark it was leading up to, ... it does in the most hilariously incompetent way possible. Many of its other problems include the asinine pacing, lack of character interaction and development, and complete lack of subtlety, which all seem to go under the radar because apparently everyone is too busy crying over ham-fisted drama.

That being said, there are some positives about this show- Mainly the visuals. Despite some heavy usage of CG in some parts, it really doesn't look that bad at all in motion, and the colors do not make your eyes bleed like NGNL does. Character designs are pretty neat and I do appreciate how they don't look like something out of Precure. Not that Precure designs are necessarily bad, but the designs here make thematic sense and at least don't look generic by its genre standards- Instead they look like something out of Sword Art Online, not that it's a bad thing either. The music is pretty decent- There are two to three tracks that were actually memorable and were reminiscent of something out of Madoka and whatever Akiko Shikata makes, but the overuse of those tracks made them a bit stale.

Speaking of Madoka, there's a lot of people who compare this show to Madoka and even call it a rip-off. But honestly, it's hard to blame them- Shady magical girl contract with a supernatural being? Check. Enemies that appear in a strange world that do not actually offer actual character interaction due to lack of any dialogue whatsoever? Check. Main title character being over optimistic and the most underdeveloped character out of the main cast? Check. Mentor-like character that later goes nuts after reading the fine lines in the said shady contract? Check. The questionable magical girl system existing to prevent the end of the world? Check. This show's really got everything. But because this show shares so many similarities with Madoka, it also shares the flaws- And those flaws become more evident with poor direction and pacing.

Apparently when Takahiro was writing for this show, he thought he'd change it up from Akame ga Kill's pointless gorefest and decided to turn it into a pointless borefest. This wise decision turned the first half of this show incredibly painful to sit through. The main problem is the lack of characters- The villains and even the fairies are absolutely silent. Therefore, there is no character interaction whatsoever with the opposing side aside from fighting and more fighting. This wasn't a problem in Madoka due to the existence of Kyubey, who delivered some form of drama whenever necessary for conflicting character interaction, but that role is severely lacking here. Taishas do little more than send out phone messages whenever they aren't busy catering to the crippled, and the supernatural being that gives magical power is a poorly drawn magical tree always obscured in fog. This narrows down all character interaction whatsoever to the five main characters, and everyone else might as well be a cardboard in the background. This effectively turns the series into a Slice-of-Life type of show, which is actually in the description for this series. But then the problem comes from attempting to mix this element with grimdark setting, which was basically the gimmick with Akame ga Kill. But even then, mixing the two isn't the problem- It's the execution. There needs to be some form of consistent flow in the tone, and this series handles it very poorly by going from one scene to the other with incredibly sudden transition. Having a tea party? Suddenly phone call and everyone's warped to fight the giant floating monster thing. Then lots of yelling and chanting in the background, and suddenly they're in space. And when they're not doing that, they're busy being very angsty about something else introduced later in the series.

The first few episodes followed the aforementioned formula incredibly precisely, while occasionally increasing the number of enemies to mix it up a little although it didn't really hinder the protagonists in the slightest. After managing to kill twelve of these things, the protagonists conclude that their battles are over because the Taishas said so, which is an obvious fake-out halfway into the series. It's also odd that the protagonists didn't suspect anything strange about Taishas informing them that there were supposedly arbitrary number of these things, which would mean that the Taishas somehow did not manage to defeat any of them at all despite having a detailed sealing process to defeat one. That aside, this formulaic plot progression didn't really serve to develop any of the characters at all. Sure, there was some character interaction between the main cast, but character interaction doesn't necessarily lead to character development. These particular interactions were just wacky hijinx and comedy, so it did absolutely nothing.

After halfway into the series, our good director Seiji decides that he needs to start including actual plot, and the grimdark elements start being introduced. Whenever the girls use their magical powers, they occasionally enter this super mode known as Mankai. The show never explains whether these girls enter the state willingly or whether it's done automatically- And even the official website claims that it's half and half. Basically, it's whenever the plot fucking wants it to happen. Why? Because this is the aforementioned grimdark plot element. Whenever the girls enter this state, they lose a certain bodily function and gain a fairy in the process. The series attempts to fake the audience out by claiming it's temporary, and then it spends several episodes that arrive at a not-so shocking conclusion that it's permanent. Yuna loses her taste, Mimori loses hearing on one ear, Fuu goes blind in one eye, and Itsuki loses her voice. What does this all lead to? Forced drama. Apparently Itsuki entered a singing audition, which everyone knew nothing about, and suddenly the whole thing gets dumped at the audience's face in the most convenient way possible when Fuu is trying to deal with the whole permanent body function sacrifice thing. If that wasn't enough, Itsuki goes on a long speech in the recording about how she loves her friends so Fuu can go on a full guilt trip for getting her to tag along on the Hero Club before actually singing for the audition because the judges were too busy looking for their non-existent script, as with every other character in the show. A proper, subtle way to handle this scene would've been to establish the singing audition thing before this happened, and then flash back to it briefly after the realization hit home, instead of just being embarrassingly blatant about it. But I guess subtlety is lost art.

Meanwhile, Tougou decides to be dangerous and attempts to test her theory by playing sudoku with a blade, and comes to a horrifying realization that fairies are "forcibly" keeping them alive. Apparently it's supposed to be terrifying that these tiny things keep the girls alive while they're on a dangerous duty that they're not being forced to do. Obviously there are huge consequences for not doing magical girl things since it has been established in the first episode that Shinju-sama is protecting the world and these aliens who are for some reason named after zodiac signs are trying to destroy it, but the job itself is still technically optional. They're not being forced to do it at gunpoint or whatever, so the supposed horror factor they were going for is completely invalid. Furthermore, Tougou apparently attempted to play sudoku multiple times because once wasn't enough and goes on about all these different methods she tried to kill herself for almost no reason other than sounding edgy. But then I realized this was Takahiro's specialty- Hammering the exact same point and over and over to arouse some form of emotion. These two brilliant men's talents really do shine in this series.

Afterwards, Tougou gets warped into the cripple gold medalist's room, who was their predecessor and now has over twenty disabilities and the equal amount of fairies. Then the audience is informed during their second meeting about the shocking truth that everything outside Shinju's territory is red vomit with white aliens swarming about. It's been known that Shinju was protecting humanity from getting fucked up by something since the first episode, so what's the shock here? Why does it matter that the villains are aliens or gods who decided humanity sucked? Whatever it was, it drives Tougou insane and makes her come to an ingenious conclusion. Apparently the best way to protect her friends and stop their sacrifices altogether was to blow a hole in the barrier, get the tree killed, and then get everyone sacrificed as a result of her decision. Maybe her ability to form proper reason was taken during one of her Mankai sessions. Would've been better if she actually consulted with her friends first-hand, but clearly that sounded too uninteresting and sensible for the writers. Most of the conflicts in this series also seem self-made, so it's also incredibly difficult to actually relate to any of these characters especially when they make stupid decisions such as Fuu attempting to kill the Taishas after the aforementioned forced drama sequence.

When the evil tofus attack, suddenly Yuuna is incapable of transforming because of her distressed emotional state despite Fuu being completely capable of doing so during her rage. Then Karin suddenly wakes up from being unconscious and activates Mankai multiple times in a span of few seconds coupled with too much yelling in an attempt to win the "most crippled" award in the show. After that, Yuuna manages to punch some sense into Tougou, destroys the Final Boss Vertex, then decides to become Jesus by taking everyone's disabilities onto herself by becoming a vegetable. Then suddenly the audience is supposed to accept that the enemies just stopped attacking because either they are really gone for good or they just got bored trying to kill a tree.

It later turns out that every fairy represented a physical function the girls lost, so when the fairies disappear, they regain everything they lost and stop being heroes. This may be because Shinju figured that keeping emotionally unstable girls who almost got it killed as its guardians was a terrible idea. Yuuna stays a vegetable for a while because Takahiro figured he could cram in some more sad scenes near the end, but then she gets better through the power of friendship. As stupid as that sounded, the ending isn't the issue- Even if the ending resulted in everyone becoming a vegetable, this would've been still a very poorly written series.

The happy ending can at least be explained with how since all threatening Vertices are supposedly gone, assuming the sun-shaped Vertex was the last of its kind for a while, Shinju doesn't need to exert as much energy to keep the barrier up since there's nothing much left to keep out, so it just gave everything it took back. It would explain how nobody is giving a shit about that part of the barrier Tougou blew up earlier.

The point is, if there is no actual threat left and the Taishas aren't being lying dicks about it this time and Mr. Tree is actually a benevolent god that everyone claims it is, then there really should be no point for it to keep what it took unless it's a dick too, which is probably what most people were guessing. And it's not like it was ever established that it couldn't give back what it took, so all the more reason for it to do what it did. And to the show's credit, it did briefly mention through one SoL segment that it was "alright to eat the offerings if they were there for a while" so maybe either it was foreshadowing or maybe I'm giving the show way too much credit. I'm actually surprised Takahiro managed to learn how to make use of mundane segments instead of cramming them in for the sake of just having them as a contrast to his edgy grimdark parts.

There's a lot of hate for the ending of the show, but most of that hate seems to be misdirected since it mostly involves "It had a happy ending, so it sucked." While it's not that having some plot elements that lead to a depressing ending is inherently bad- It's that when it does happen, it needs to be well-paced and give the audience enough time to feel actually attached to the characters in question. But with the lack of actual villains to provide any form of conflicting character interaction, there's next to no character development, and everything just ends up being a snooze-fest because these characters are just hard to care for outside of them looking cute. Unfortunately, this particular writing style has become quite popular with modern anime (Attack on Titans, AgK, or even Kotoura-san, etc), and for some reason, everyone seems to eat it up. Here's a possibility: People are just so used to badly written happy endings that they'd rather have badly written sad endings, while deluding themselves that sad endings are apparently inherently better than happy endings because they think they are more mature. Something about teaching a moral lesson about heroes not always winning or some shit, I don't know. In that case, the preference is determined not by the actual quality of the writing, but just by the inherent difference of definition. It's like preferring black shit over brown shit. "They're both shit, but at least it's not brown." While this is no longer applicable for this show since it had a happy ending, it doesn't change the fact that it was the direction the series was leading people towards, and it's obviously the main reason behind people eating it up.

All in all, this show is just yet another attempt at the ever-popular modern formula which involves characters going through depression in one way or the other, whether or not the characters were likeable or the depression relatable and the plot behind it well-written. It was practically tailored to the type of people who ate up the likes of AgK and Attack on Titans, and it did just that right before the end. I guess at least their reactions were entertaining.

Tsunako is a pretty good character designer.
Tachibana is a pretty awful writer.

I wonder what the hook was. Every passing volume, I wonder what this series could've been if it was written by someone competent, with the same premise and all. That's a pleasant thought.

After deciding to catch up to the most recent volume, I can pretty much guarantee that the series isn't going to get better. This is a pretty odd series in that it presents itself as a parody of a typical harem genre formula, yet it strives to be one at the same time. At first this seemed like a very ... subtle form of self parody, but no- It's literally just a generic harem. It had the potential to be not one, but that has been thrown out of the window a while ago.

The first thing to discuss is art- Possibly the only positive trait in the entire series and the only reason people were compelled to read this series. Tsunako is a pretty good character designer (outside of her tendency to draw incredibly similar faces), so the character designs in this series definitely stand out compared to the others in the market. In fact, Tsunako is probably one of the biggest reasons why this series even got popular in the first place after Neptunia's relative success in the niche market. Unfortunately, her art isn't complemented very well because Tachibana can't write.

The premise is as silly as the title- Shidou, the MC, must date Spirits (basically aliens from another dimension with mostly uncontrollable supernatural powers) to prevent them from killing a bunch of people. I had difficulty taking this premise seriously because the latter sounds awfully grim while the former sounds incredibly silly. Fortunately, (or unfortunately) I'm not the only one who's confused by this weird premise because the author is clearly just as confused.

See, Tachibana is pretty good at setting things up- This includes things like making the premise, introducing the characters, introducing a plot arc, but then he always somehow manages to fuck things up, and completely shits on what could've been above standard. This is incredibly annoying because this series does have a potential to be pretty decent, but it's in the hands of a writer who just doesn't know what he's doing.

To get into more detail, let's discuss about the major characters in this series. There will be some minor spoilers, so proceed with some caution.

Shidou, the main protagonist, is just a very, very average protagonist. He's that boring, nice guy who almost always does the right thing. While he is clearly inferior to a protagonist like Keima in terms of having a personality, he isn't actively an annoying excuse of a comic relief like Issei from DxD. It'd be great if he got any actual character development, but 11 volumes into the series, and Shidou still manages to be incredibly boring- His personality never changes, so he stays a static character for all 11 volumes. What a great guy. But you see, there's a reason for that, but more on that later.

Tohka is one of the worst things in this series- Her introduction was pretty decent, though. She's initially very distrusting of everyone, but then in a span of a single chapter, she degenerates into a stupid moeblob who becomes incredibly clingy and manages to be annoying in every scene she's in. There's no character development here- All she needed was a little talk with Shidou and she's suddenly a completely different character. The only real development she goes through the entirety of 7 volumes is her being slightly less clingy so that Shidou can actually progress the plot without her being a complete nuisance, but really- It's a terrible idea to have the main heroine be a complete imbecile. One could also argue that Tohka isn't stupid, but just naive- However, she never actually learns anything and stays stupid, making her mostly a comic relief until she's relevant again so she can help Shidou pull off something he normally can't. Terrible execution of a potentially decent character.

Origami is a prime example of author not knowing what he wants to do with his characters: She's a good comic relief character, and is presented as a character who is supposed to do both comedy and drama. She can't do the latter because she's hilariously incompetent like the rest of her AST (Anti-Spirit Team) squad, despite supposedly being one of the best in her group. She keeps getting involved in multiple plot points, but she herself never manages to actually be a relevant character for the majority of them. Her motivation is also an antithesis to Shidou's in that she constantly goes after Spirits to kill them as opposed to Shidou's peaceful method, but due to her incompetence, this becomes irrelevant like the rest of her character. Another terrible execution. Furthermore, there is a very obvious, sad excuse of a plot twist later in the series that was seen from miles away who bothered to check the characters' names. Not only is the plot twist completely unsuccessful in making her a better written character, but it also manages to take away what relevant trait she had as a character- Meaning, she's completely empty as a character now. Must be a mandatory thing for harem.

Kurumi is one unique character that had the potential to be good. Unfortunately that did not work out very well because the author couldn't decide whether to use this character for pandering or to use her in the original intended purpose. He decided to do both and added another contrived thing in the mix by making her a deus ex machina to resolve yet another contrived plot element later in the series. Despite her overwhelming popularity, no one actually likes this character aside from very shallow reasons like her gothic lolita design and the personality trait she's constantly attributed with (ie yandere) although she's really not one. Apparently fans' interpretation of an insane character who wants to cannibalize a character means they are crazily in love or something. I don't think that's how love works. But I guess those self-insert fans needed something to justify liking this character aside from her character design.

Here's the thing about this particular character: She gets built up as this legitimately creepy character who kills people for a hobby, but the worst she does is killing a bunch of fodders. And they're not even regular fodders- They're unlikeable fodders so people can justify that her actions are totally good when they're not based on her profile. If you're trying to make the character seem dangerous, at least make them actively do something actually evil for a change. The dangerous nature behind her character is only in the profile, not her actions- Yes, she actually even attempted to do something legitimately threatening, but it was just immediately stopped. Can't cross that line, oh no! That would be too spooky! At her introduction, she was the only legitimate malevolent spirit, which could've been a cool way to tell a story by having a spirit that's not "misunderstood" for once. But now due to fan popularity, she seems to be heading towards the whole "totally good guy all along with extreme motives" which is just setting flags for her to be yet another empty harem fodder because there clearly needed more. It also eliminates any and all possibility of a spirit possibly being actually genuinenly evil for once and making all possible future spirits and their characterizations to be incredibly predictable. Honestly, despite the direction this is going, Kurumi is really the only decent character trapped in this shitty series. Send help before it's too late. Someone.

As for the rest of the Spirits I haven't mentioned yet- If the above was any indication, the same applies to the rest. Decent introduction, awful execution. Yoshino's a fragile girl who's emotionally damaged from being hunted down- Understandable premise behind the character. After her arc, her presence completely disappears and any further character interaction between her and Shidou is nowhere to be seen. Furthermore, her character arc is incredibly short and she isn't given much time to interact or develop with Shidou outside of more talking. All I got to know about this character from the entire arc was that she's a frail girl who gets scared a lot, which I already got from her character design. And there's no more to it. If your writing says less than a character design, then you have a problem with your characterizations.

Miku is surprisingly a pretty well-written character with fairly descriptive past that explains her trauma and her current personality, and she stays pretty consistent with her profile. She actually feels like a legitimate threat compared to the rest, where everything is resolved by people evacuating and Shidou talking to the spirit until they feel bored enough to let him kiss them to resolve the arc. But then she fawns over the MC after her arc and she stays that way. Her past trauma is never really brought up again, and Shidou is all she needs. The problem doesn't even seem legitimately solved- The idea behind the arc and the character was good, but why the half-assed conclusion? What's with the pacing?

And more importantly, why keep these characters around when they might as well not exist after their respective arcs? I get it from the pandering standpoint just to maintain the harem quota, but it really doesn't make sense to me from the writing standpoint. Wouldn't it be better to just have the MC fail at times so that the audience can't predict what will happen to the Spirits at the end of their arcs? The author just shows that he can't do actual drama, and always has to write an ending where everyone just lives happily ever after. I completely understand that this is half-comedy, but if you're trying to include drama in there, at least stick with it until the end. I'm not arguing that a character must die/disappear to make a drama good, but there is not even a single form of consequence/risk present here. Even in the 7th volume, when all seems completely hopeless, everything just sort of works out and everyone pretends as if nothing happened. No lasting impact whatsoever. 10th/11st volume, deus ex machina comes to save the day. Sure, the method had presented itself in previous volumes, but the character capable of using the said method never showed the intent (or even hinted at it) of using that particular method in that particular manner, especially considering the resources it takes for that character to make it happen in the first place.

Without any failures on MC's part (excluding Kurumi), there is completely no sense of accomplishment from Shidou succeeding his "missions" either. That being said, since Shidou always manages to succeed, he never really develops as a character- He remains the character he was in the first volume, and he will constantly repeat what he always did. In fact, there is not a single significant character development for Shidou eleven volumes in. This poor writing can all be attributed to the awful fanbase the author constantly tries to please via pandering. Right now, the only thing these supposed fans are looking forward to are "oh when will this new girl join the harem omg she's so qt i cant wait to self-insert! why isnt kurumi saved yet???" instead of actively wondering whether Shidou will succeed or not. Of course they wouldn't. He always succeeds. Good writing? What's that?

Overall, this series is a huge disappointment from start to end. The comedy is pretty decent, but it sometimes feels very inappropriate and out-of-place when some half-assed drama gets thrown in the mix. And the drama can't really be good either since Tachibana just can't write anything but a typical happy ending, so there's no anticipation. The author is trying to do both, yet fails to do both. Even the whole "choose your action/say something" comedy gimmick got old 3 volumes in, so that's yet another example for highly formulaic everything this series offers. While pandering doesn't bother me that much, when those get in the way of potentially decent plot and consistent character development, then it's actively annoying. It's like writing a fanfiction of a series (since the author is pandering to popularity based polls by fans), except that you have the authority to make it canon because it's your own. The proper way to handle it would be to just settle it with side stor- Oh, the author already does that but apparently it's not enough, so it gets shoved into the main plot anyways.

I had my doubts for this series- In fact, I thought that maybe this was all just a clever parody deep down, but then I realized that was giving this series way too much credit. The most disappointing thing, surely, is that it had the potential to be a clever parody- But then it fell on itself and became the exact thing it was supposed to be parodying, and in the most generic way possible. Furthermore, even if it's generic- It could've been good with some creative writing, but even that wasn't the case here.

A lot of people defend this series with some hilarious claims like "You're taking this way too seriously/You have really high expectations." But here's the thing: If a series presents a drama, how am I supposed to take it? Not seriously? Half-seriously? If I have to selectively ignore a series' shortcomings until I can get rid of all the flaws to finally conclude that a series is "good," then the series as a whole isn't good. This is no different. You can't cherry-pick only what you like and artificially lower your standards to come to an incomplete conclusion to justify a series. You're not defending it- You're just ignoring its flaws. It's not an argument, it's an excuse. The only time when that excuse would be viable is involving a series targeted for children, and this isn't one. Some people claim that you'd need to "turn off your brain" to enjoy a series, but would you really be considered enjoying it if you actually have to do that? Or is that considered just being willfully ignorant?

That being said, this series held a lot of promises- But that is no longer the case. The series devolved into what is possibly one of the most generic harem series I've ever read, and I can't really see it coming back from it. If you want a quality writing and/or actual comedy that doesn't rely on boring gags involving women's tit sizes and asses, look somewhere else and stay far, far away from this.

-Spoilers Ahead-

Here's the obligatory premise of the show for this review because I'm assuming you can't read the Synopsis up there due to allergy or something: Sora and Shiro have tremendous gaming skills and are bored with the regular world. A message arrives for the siblings, and when they open their message, they are stunned to see the scenery around them change to a world they had never encountered before. They've been summoned by Tet to...

Yes, the premise is pretty much a carbon copy of Mondaiji-tachi. In fact, it's so similar that I had to actually check when the respective light novels were released. ... They're both about incredibly talented kids getting sucked into a different world because they're too special for boring human world, and they play "games." Even the visuals are strikingly similar in that they're both incredibly colorful. But hey, you can't exactly be always original- Technically speaking, every show could be considered a carbon copy of some other show that came before, and being uncreative doesn't really detract from the quality of the show. That's not the problem here. The visuals and music are fine too, although it does overuse that one track a lot when the MC explains his plan.

But the visuals are the least of its problems- The two main characters, Sora and Shiro, are simply put, Stus. Everyone loves Stus as main characters, so why not? Izayoi from Problem Children was a huge Stu too, beating the shit out of everything with next to no effort, and these two are no different. They're just incredibly talented at everything and their only supposed weakness is that they have to be together at all times. Thankfully this weakness is actually never an issue except when it's relevant, and outside of that, it's played for comedic effects. And even if it ever would pose a serious problem, it's usually resolved by one of the two planning something out before the weakness actually happened in the first place, so it's just a pretend label. It doesn't make them any less of Stus. Unfortunately, many people seem to think this is actually a valid weakness, and therefore, doesn't make them Stus. It really isn't.
At least they're not Tatsuya, right?

They're not the only problem, of course. Stephanie Dora is this incredibly obnoxious character who pretty much exists for a comic relief. In fact, literally every episode involves making fun of this character for being stupid, and it never ends. So much that even the fanbase now associates her name with the term "stupidity." Making fun of a character for being stupid is funny the first time. Maybe the second and third. Not so much after when it becomes an established fact. "Ha, the sky is blue! So funny!"

And then there's Jibril. Her introduction to the series is just so terribly done that it's almost offensive. There's no foreshadowing whatsoever to her existence, and when it's brought up, it just turns into "Oh, Steph was stupid. Guess that's why she didn't tell us about this character that didn't exist until this point in plot." And after she's introduced, she's mostly written as an exposition character that just explains all the world building for the watchers instead of letting the viewers figure things out by themselves. This also serves to mediate Steph's complete uselessness as a character because the author realized it wouldn't be a nice idea to have a recurring side character whose only purpose was to be a comic relief.

I think simply claiming they're Stus isn't really enough to convince anyone, so I'll be more elaborate. But I can't exactly explain that in detail without explain this other thing. And that other thing is the title's namesake; Games!

Maybe the series was trying to be clever with its title "No Game No Life" because there hardly is anything that can be categorized as an actual "game" in this series. The biggest problem with these so-called games can be summarized like this: "Oops, I win."

Since most of the episodes have games in them, I'll just explain how each was handled-
First episode doesn't explain how Sora won the game. He just did, and you're supposed to accept it. Third episode is a chess game where the rules don't really exist. It's supposed to technically play like a chess, but there really are no established rules- If you're the main character and give a speech, apparently you're rigged to win. Am I supposed to be impressed yet? Fourth episode doesn't have a game, but it breaks character- Sora and Shiro are supposed to be scared of crowds, but in this episode, they get over it pretty quickly as if that was never a problem in the first place. Then they proceed to give an incredibly cliche speech about how the weak can become strong. A speech that's not even really reflective, since Sora and Shiro were never "weak" in terms of their gaming prowess, or inspiring since the speech was practically nothing. The entirety of fifth episode is Steph being called an idiot, and a sequence of games that just follows what the series did with the first episode. Sora just "wins" them all, and the few ones that he does explain how he won, is just completely out of some puzzle book. Brilliant.

Sixth episode is where Jibril is introduced, and it's sadly considered one of the "better" episodes in the series. The game here could have been well done, but it's really just a mess. The game's victory hinges on the fact that Jibril does not know about the planet's structure. How could have Sora known this? What if Tet's magic world planet had a different structure from Earth? This is even before Sora had access to Elkia's library, so he wouldn't have known that wasn't common knowledge. Furthermore, Elkia isn't exactly the most knowledgeable nation- He claims that he supposedly figured out in the middle of a game by seeing how she reacted, but she could've been just as easily pretending. But it just so happens that she doesn't know about his win condition. It's a victory that just happened with assumptions and guesses, and apparently this is supposed to make the MC look like a genius. Really?

Breaking off a bit from this pretend game nonsense, seventh episode manages to be the best episode in the series- Instead of Sora pretending he's smart over something he got completely lucky over, the audience get decently written characterization and not as forced exposition. That about sums up every compliment I had for this show. Everything afterwards just builds up to a very disappointing finale- Though, not before informing the watchers that Shiro is definitely helpless without Sora. Except not really, because Sora is still there, you see. What happens is that Shiro is supposed to play a piece on a board game that she can't see. This board game was being played by Sora and an another character. But apparently since she's a "genius," she can predict where he's going to place the pieces, and know exactly where to put it. Except that, the game wasn't called Solitaire. I'm sorry, but it's logically impossible to exactly predict the game state of Othello from knowing just half of the game. Of course the show doesn't explain how this was done. It's just brushed off as Shiro being a genius and knowing everything about Sora, and that was the key to victory. It's all the more offensive when you realize that the victory of this game is what also later helps Sora to win the final game in the series in a domino effect.

The finale attempts to make Steph seem relevant by having her pull the final trigger. Too bad she didn't actually do anything. Sora and Shiro planned her to do it! Genius! This last episode's supposed "moral lesson" is completely insensible too. It keeps repeating the line "when was the last time you had fun playing a game?" If people are putting something big like continents and people's lives at stake, it'd be borderline psychopathic to find fun from playing a game putting that at risk. I don't get the "moral lesson" here. Is this show telling me to completely disregard everything except having fun? I guess Russian Roulette was a popular party game too. Possible bullets to the head? YES! GOTY! 10/10 IGN. Why aren't you having fun? Are you stupid or something?

This particular game is also flawed in that their winning strategy also hinges on the fact that the enemy does not notice something that they later claim to be able to notice. Good thing they didn't the first time! Those stupid warbeasts! Even though an entire continent is at stake, they can't even put up that much of a caution! Again, this is not planning. It's luck. Sora gambles, and wins. You can't just win the lottery, make a smug face, and call yourself a genius. But this is what this show does. Every single time. It's not even pretentious in a sense that it's trying to do something remotely clever- Because it's not even fucking remotely clever.

I also don't understand why Sora/Shiro are separate characters. Shiro is just literally Sora, without the smug attitude, being a fanservice bait, and doesn't have much of a personality outside of being incredibly clingy. The show also plays out their relationship far too much to the point that it's creepy. But then again, that's what these shows seem to do these days: Incest is ok, because they're not actually blood-related siblings. This show also constantly hammers in the point about how "Blanks can never lose" and that both siblings make up Blanks to an extent that it's incredibly annoying. Of course they can never lose- They're the fucking MCs and the plot bends itself backwards to LET them win. Furthermore, you pretty much know that Sora and Shiro will win no matter what. They always bet something to the point that if they lose, the series would probably be over, so you know that they can't lose. There is no sense of anticipation or whatsoever. Then after winning through some poorly explained method which this show constantly nudges you about how clever it was being, Sora just makes that same fucking smug grin.

So yes. The biggest problems with the show supposedly about games is the games themselves, and the characters playing them. The series also constantly teases about how exciting things were before Tet became the absolute God. It's almost like it's self-aware. Lovely.

This series could've been better if they didn't constantly play these games where cheating is more encouraged than making actual strategies within the game's boundaries. See, games are fun to watch because you want to see what the characters can do within their own boundaries to actually win in a clever manner. It's also fun to watch because you don't really know who will win. But due to the whole retarded "Cheating is fine as long as it's not caught" rule in the show, the author is given the freedom to not write anything remotely intelligent. All he needs to do is just say Sora won because he did something that was outside of game's design and that just made him win despite the fact that it would be near impossible in practice. And hopefully it's just as impossible for this show to get a second season.