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D4DJ is a multimedia project I have been following for a bit less than a year before the TV series started, my excitement towards the anime was huge, and I'm really happy to say that not only it was nice, but it also surpassed my expectations.

This anime follows the cheerful Rinku and her new (and not that new) friends as they form a DJ unit in a school very heavily focused on that activity (the funds spent on that big-ass beautiful building and all the rooms with equipment to do DJ performances must have been crazy). As the episodes pass, they will meet new rivals ... that will both bring a bigger challenge to overcome, and also become friends that will help out each other to improve even further.

One of the most important things to mention is that this is one of the rare music anime that is not really focused on drama, the characters do have problems and sad moments, but they all get resolved without being dragged out more than needed. I sure love a good drama, but I personally loved how D4DJ managed to have emotional moments while mostly just being an anime focused on sheer fun and good vibes.

Now time to take on a part that is usually very controversial for the anime watchers but that really shouldn't be the case for this anime: CGI animation. SANZIGEN is a studio focused on anime of this type, and as someone who watched how Bang Dream from that same studio drastically improved between the second and third season in terms of CGI quality, I can say that D4DJ now took it not one but three steps further to become one of the best looking works using that style of animation. It makes me so happy to read so many people who are not a fan of CGI say that they found this anime to look great and not feel uncanny as they usually feel. With that said, I have to admit that the background chars suffer from generic face syndrome, but how well the main cast looks and expresses their emotions, and how great the performances are make up for it hard.

As a music anime, one has to indeed give a lot of value to the music, and nothing to worry about, because this anime covers that section nicely as well! Nearly every episode has a new song (or two) that make you spam on loop on youtube after watching it due to how nice it sounded, and the normal soundtrack that plays during the series is also very solid and memorable. Not fully related, but since series about DJ performances are close to none, I really liked how D4DJ made sure to show the basics of how it works so one can make an idea about what the characters are doing and not just feel clueless with what the task of a DJ is.

I have to give its own paragraph to the opening song of this anime because it not only sounds fantastic and shows how good the CGI of this anime is, it also fits so well with the theme of DJ performances this work focuses on. Guru Guru DJ TURN!! Really can be seen as three different songs transitioning one after the other, and this (groovy) mix delivers hard to make it one of the best openings from 2020. Make sure to check it out if you haven't yet!

Sadly we're now reaching the end of this review, I hope I managed to convince you to give this series a chance! I glossed it over to not go full on detail, but while I really enjoy the music, what makes me truly love D4DJ is its lovable cast full of different personalities that just work greatly together (or become closer after struggling due to their ways to be), I'm sure that if you watch this anime you will end up feeling the same way and will want to see more of them. At the time of this review, we will be getting chibi shorts starting the week after to fix that, hopefully sequels will be coming soon as well!

Now this is what I call a blessed manga. Little I expected when I randomly gave this a chance a few months ago that I would be starting a work that is blazing its way into my favorites list with its amazing comedy and a cast that I'm really, really, really, really, really in love with.

Meet Aijou Rentarou, a dude who so far has only met pain and heartbreaks when it comes to romance, but all of this changes when one day, the God of Love (who seems to be a big Ghibli fan) appears and tell him that he will meet not one, ... nor two, but a hundred soulmates during high school.

This meeting sets this hilarious story into motion. Our boy Chadtarou (he deserves to be called this way, trust me) is slowly meeting the characters forming his harem when fate makes them look at each other, making them "connect" and instantly fall in love, boy what a power.

So… what makes this manga good? Lots of things so far honestly, starting with something that makes it very refreshing and that is pretty much the slogan of this series: There are zero losing heroines. Whenever a new girl gets introduced and proceeds to fall in love with Rentarou, she becomes a part of a harem that our guy puts a ton of love into to the point that (eventually, depending on their personality) they are okay with the others being there and in love with him as well.

If the protagonist of this manga was the standard Mr. Generic McNoPersonality with zero reasons that anyone would love him other than the fact that he returned them the eraser that fell off the table during class, this work would fall apart quickly, but this is not our standard harem protagonist, this is Chadtarou, and if he doesn't become your husbando through the events of this manga I will be very upset. The amount of love he pours into each of the girls and the lengths he goes through to make them all happy is insane and makes him a character worth the appreciation the fanbase has towards him.

And of course, what would be of a harem without the girls? Here in The 100 Girlfriends who really, really, really, really, really love you we have everything to please everyone. You want a tsundere? Enjoy! The big tittied hot girl? Of course! The smart girl who thinks everything logically? A tactical decision! The girl who makes drugs and that is like freaking Doraemon with the inventions she comes out with, and that has two “forms”, a small hyperactive one and a hot scientist girl one… wait, what? Yeah, I said everything, included another surprise one that I want to keep secret for this review, if we don't get an alien waifu I will be disappointed. Oh, and we also have Shizuka Yoshimoto, everyone loves Shizuka Yoshimoto.

The insanity of this supernatural setting goes perfectly along with the comedy of the series, which is ridiculous and over the top, full of parodies, fourth wall breaking, and references to other works or real life companies, and due to Kusuri's inventions we also have our fair share of sci-fi elements with the weird stuff she comes out with and that she makes sure that everyone gets a taste of. The fact that all the girls know and interact with each other because Rentarou makes sure that they are aware of the harem going on also leads to lots of fun scenarios between them that are so enjoyable to watch. I also appreciate the fact that it's not all just laughs, with some more serious moments that truly show the feelings of the characters and that help develop the cast and make sure you like them even more.

For the mandatory comment about the art of the manga… really good honestly! The style and character designs are very appealing and the reactions they make add so, so much to the comedy, no complaints on that regard.

Now I guess I have to talk about the negative points of this manga… wait, none so far? Yep, being completely honest, 25 chapters into this manga and I'm loving everything about it, the execution of the setting and the characters are all pleasing me immensely and every chapter is a joy to read. There is one worry tho: I'm absolutely clueless about how the author behind this story is gonna pull off the setting once the cast grows to the uncontrolable amount that 30, 50, and hell, 100 girlfriends is eventually going to create, but seeing the quality of this manga so far I'm not too concerned and I'm sure that he will come out with something to properly give them all enough focus once that happens. Crossing fingers that I don't have to edit this review to prove relatively younger me wrong and instead just to raise it to the 10/10 score I would give it so far if it had more chapters.

This more or less marks the end to this review, this manga is seriously good and I'm crazy in love with it. When the resident Kaguyafag that I am, who has been shilling that work for close to 5 years already is looking forward to this work weekly as much as Kaguya-sama, you know that something great is going on here. I hope this review convinced you to give this manga a chance, chances are you won't regret it!

New year, new Precure, Star Twinkle gave us a new entry to this wonderful series that while I personally didn't enjoy as much as others, it's still well worth checking out.

The story starts when Hikaru Hosnina, a cheerful girl who absolutely adores space and stars, one day, to her complete surprise (and excitement, damn she's excited about it!) A rocket suddenly lands close to her, inside is something that will change her life: an alien named Lala together with the two mascots of this entry, Prunce and Fuwa, who are searching for help to save the universe from the villains of this series. Soon after ... Hikaru becomes a Precure, bringing a start to this story of massive scale.

One of the highlight from this entry is Hikaru and Lala's friendship and development they go through due to their contrasts in personalities and ways to see things they have, and the other two main characters, until later on, the main cast is completed with Elena, a very hardworking girl who brings a smile to everyone, and Kaguya, who suffers a lot from familiar pressure due to their long history and expectations put on her. They are both likeable characters and I especially liked Kaguya, but outside of at the start, Elena suffers from getting spotlight episodes really late into the series when to me it was quite out of time already to truly get attached to her.

The villain side was quite promising as well with every general providing different strategies to face the Precure, like Kappard focusing on melee fight while Tenjo uses minions to execute coordinated attacks for example. This gave quite some variety compared to other entries, but in the end, outside of just how meme-likeable Kappard is just by personality and design, the villain side this entry felt pretty weak to me, with Eyeone, who was quite annoying to me at the start ending being the kinda redemption on that regard due to her development and own drama through the series. To be fair this also was a point quite hard for Star Twinkle to shine on due to having to deal with the shadow of last year's Hugtto's Precure, an entry that just nailed that part to the max for the franchise to me.

Going back to the space adventures, together with the usual slice of life interactions of the franchise, in this entry the girls also travel to different planets, which were probably the best moments of this series, meeting characters from those places and seeing their way to be was a lot of fun and I would honestly have been in for the whole series to be going from one place to another, but it was perfectly fine with this mix of normal SoL and adventure as well.

I love the art style of this entry and I especially have nothing but praise towards the amazing character designs. Lala was love at first sight once leaks of how the characters looked appeared and she easily places on a top spot as one of my favorite character designs, with the rest of the main cast not being too much below her.

The action scenes started with very solid quality, although overall I think that Star Twinkle was kinda in the lower end of Precure in terms of animation quality in general, with not too many impressive moments and mostly just good enough looking to be appealing. The music was nice as expected of Yuuki Hayashi (Boku no Hero, Haikyuu, Shokugeki… and well, KiraKira and Hugtto Precure), always delivering hype and emotions to the scenes.

Compared to the preliminary review I had of this series I'm not as positive as I was, but Star Twinkle was still a fun year that I can recommend to the fans of the franchise, althought I would suggest others (which I also have reviewed here!) To try instead if you want to give a chance to Precure.

It's time for the HappinessCharge girls to have a new adventure in a movie pretty similar to the Smile Precure one if you have watched it.

The story is focused on a girl called Tsugumi, who lost her ability to walk and therefore can't dance, the thing she loves the most. This makes her despair as wanted for the villain of this movie, Black Fang. Once the girls go to the Kingdom of Dolls after being invited by her, it's the start of a mix of wanting to have fun there and doubts about the current situation the place is in.

This movie handles pretty nicely the ... drama of the story, and especially gives quite a lot of love to Megumi and Hime, with emotional protagonism to the first and lots of funny moments for the second, Iona and Yuuko sadly got the short end of the stick on that regard, and I don't even want to talk about poor Seiji and Blue. Together with Tsumugi there is also Prince Zeke, a character that cares a lot about her and that I liked quite a lot, which is nice especially considering the relatively short duration of this movie.

The animation and art quality of this movie was very good, with nice action scenes and well executed reactions from the characters to the events, definitely nothing to complain on that regard.

I'm satisfied with what I watched and I can recommend if you enjoyed the series or you just want to see more of Megumi and Hime.

“It was meh”, that's some words I hoped to not have to say after the amazing experience I had so far going through the franchise, even despite the issues I had with the first season of this entry that were saved more than enough by the positives, but Max Heart in my opinion is a sequel that doesn't provide enough freshness to feel necessary to be there.

The biggest change compared to its prequel is the introduction of Hikari, another girl with powers (but not considered a Precure) that fully focuses on supporting abilities for the girls, not being able to properly fight like Honoka and ... Nagisa do. Her calm and quite adorable personality is likeable, but she isn't particularly memorable IMO, and the show is once again carried by the main duo… that start to suffer from just the length of the series being too much for the depth of their characters, with 50 episodes it was more than enough for the fantastic development of their friendship, and in Max Heart it kinda becomes an overkill with some episodes feeling too similar to things already done previously because there isn't that much more to do for them.

The biggest negative in any case is definitely the villain side, Precure is a franchise that has some really lovable and/or memorable villain characters that bring a lot to the series, but that's not the case for Max Heart, they are just so forgettable and outside of the pretty funny Uraganos there is nothing I can even think of to describe the other evil characters, something I can't even say to the already underwhelming baddies from the second half of the original

With the significant negatives said, here come the good parts. The art got a solid improvement that was quite noticeable through the whole run, the action looks as nice as usual, and well, despite the staleness the series suffers from, Nagisa and Honoka are still great nonetheless. More importantly I have to admit that I was very satisfied with the conclusion of the story, something that saved quite a lot my opinion on this sequel.

I honestly wouldn't recommend much this sequel despite the still relatively positive score I gave to it unless you absolutely loved the first season or its been a good time since you watched it, the repetitiveness is very noticeable and I'm sad that I can't just go full fanboy as anyone reading my reviews on the franchise most likely sees me as, I can see people finding Max Heart outright terrible if they don't think that Nagisa and Honoka are as good as I do because they are what keeps this sequel entertaining enough to keep going in my opinion.

A random day back in December 2015 had me giving a chance to at that point very recent manga called Kaguya-sama after the cover grabbed my attention, not too many chapters after I already fell in love with it and it eventually became my favorite work ever and the one that I was waiting like crazy for an adaptation to happen, and when that time came… oh god, they couldn't have delivered harder!

The main duo of this story are Kaguya and Miyuki, the two students at the top of a highly renowned academy and the two most lovable tsunderes out there, consistently trying to outplay ... the other into confessing their love to hilarious results. These two characters come from very different perspectives (she is from a very rich and influential family with questionable raising standards and has been sheltered from the outside in the process, while he has to work part-time together with all the stuff he does to help his family, this man needs to sleep) and this is so, so nicely used for both comedic elements and also for the more dramatic parts that this work has, that give fantastic character development and make us understand and love them even more than before.

Together with those two, the student council also has two more (and equally awesome) members that bring extra dynamics to the interactions and comedy. Chika is a completely chaotic element to the tactics of the main duo, with her personality completely clashing with all the strategies they might have prepared. Lastly, we have ourguy Ishigami, the man, the legend, this man is so lovable and the perfect mix of “dude, wtf” and “stop being relatable”, protect at all costs.

A-1 Pictures is a studio that gets a lot of hate that I can't agree with at all, the way they work with different staffs leads to very different results, but any studio is pretty hit or miss anyways, and when this one goes all in very few deliver as hard, so I was very optimistic towards them getting this anime, and yet they surpassed my expectations, hard. The directing of the series is just fantastic, with so many great shots, camera movements, perfectly executed timing on the character reactions to add to the comedy, lots of extra details… just wow.

Another thing I want to praise is the voice actors, who did such an outstanding work in the way that makes you think “man, they sure had fun recording this!” I have nothing but good things to say about them, and I especially want to mention Yutaka Aoyama, the narrator of the series (such a key element of Kaguya and he did it flawlessly, so many laughs!) and Aoi Koga, who I already had the fortune to hear about thanks to her secondary role in the also fantastic Aikatsu Stars, which made me see before this anime started that she was the perfect fit for Kaguya's character, who gives a hard work with her switches between absurdly adorable and quite terrifying due to her way to be and that she did so well.

I'm so happy that this anime got the popularity it deserved (thanks Chika dance for helping with that) and I hope that this is just the first from a lot of seasons that this work needs so badly, I 100% recommend you to give this anime a chance if you haven't yet, you won't regret it!

I can't say I'm too big on Max Heart when compared to all the other Precure I have watched so far, but I'm glad to see that I will end this entry in a good note thanks to this good movie that used nicely the element that in my opinion is the strongest part of Futari wa: the friendship between Nagisa and Honoka.

A new mascot character appeared for this movie in the form of Houou, who is in danger due to the attack of a duo of enemies wanting to get rid of her to bring an end to the world, this together with the ... previously mentioned part are what this movie focuses on and I think that it did a nice job doing so, delivering good emotional moments and showing more than ever that the bonds between Nagisa and Honoka are strong despite the problems that they might sometimes have.

The artistic quality was more or less on the same level of the TV series, which is perfectly fine because it's nice, and the action scenes were well animated through the movie.

This movie has some characters introduced in Max Heart with big presence so it's hard to recommend it if you haven't watched it yet, which is a bit of a shame in case you aren't too big on this entry but liked Futari wa, with that said, I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone who likes the main duo of Futari wa and wants to see more of their frienship being a big focus.

It's time to review Fresh Precure! Another fantastic season and the one to praise for introducing a successful formula that most later entries followed in terms of villains and story.

The story this time is set in Clover Town Street, a very cheerful place where the main characters live. After the protagonist of this entry, Love, gets involved in the attack of the enemies from this story during a performance of the unit band Trinity, becoming a Precure in the process, she and her friends will have to fight to save the world from a bad ending.

The cast of Fresh is one of the strongest from ... the franchise IMO, this time the main trio (the cheerful and passionate for dancing Love, the kind and animal lover Inori and the fashion fan Miki) were already friends from before the start of the series and they really felt like a group with their interactions. Due to what happened at the start they also started to practice dancing with the help of the leader of Trinity and that gives them another point to work hard together that gets really nice use through the story.

While the main trio is solid (although I'm not that big on Miki, who honestly suffered from lack of spotlight) and I really like Love, it's with the fantastic side cast that the series really shines. The main villain trio of the story for example are characters I grew to love a lot. Wester is a super goofy character that delivered tons of laughs with his personality, Soular is the serious business one of the group that gave great challenges to overcome for the Precure with his plans, and lastly there is my favorite chracters of this entry: Eas, who had an incredible and emotional arc that I absolutely adored. The story does a great job showing the place and situation this characters come from and it's hard to not grow to love them as the episodes pass, maybe even more than the main trio.

And I still have to mention other great side characters like Daisuke, who is a great love interest for Love and forms part of some of my favorite episodes of this entry with the focus on those two, and the mysterious Kaoru, who gives as many laughs as donuts he sells. This entry also has two of my favorite mascots with Tarte and Chiffon, the first feels very different to the usual mascot as Harry from Hugtto did due to his personality, and Chiffon is really freaking adorable. I can perfectly understand the dislike for baby characters (I'm not that big on them either) but this one particularly stood out in the positive side, being 99% aww 1% cry.

Now it's time to talk about the art and music, Fresh is actually the entry that looked the least appealing to me visually from the few info I saw from each before starting, but I ended up being pleased with what I got even if I liked others more. The color palette of this entry is less colorful than usual, and while this entry had good quality overall, it rarely stood out as others did with fights outside of two or three very nice moments. The transformation scenes and stock footage attacks are solid although I feel that this entry suffered from the second ones being too long. Overall it could definitely be better but it was consistently good. When it comes to the music, this entry has one of my favorite transformation songs and nice OP and EDs, that together with some nice songs through the episodes made me satisfied on that department.

Fresh Precure is one of the best choices for first Precure to watch thanks to the great execution of the formula and the lovable characters it has, I really recommend to give it a chance!

First of all, I really have to say thank you to all the people who were talking nicely about Hugtto, without them I wouldn't have given a chance to a franchise that is now giving me endless hours of fun between all the entries. I hope this review helps other people to do the same.

As I did with the provisional version of this review while the series was airing, I want to tackle some points that people have against giving a chance to Hugtto, or this franchise in general:

- "This is a kids show": Locking yourself to demographics is such a waste, a good ... story is good be a seinen, a shoujo, or whatever it is. Precure in special also falls into a fantastic spot where it pleases fans of cute girls anime due to the lovable and funny character interactions the characters have, fans of actions series that want to see great fight scenes, and also to people who don't care as much for those thanks to the (completed!) story and nice drama and character development. Hugtto in special delivers with that touching some controversial themes that left me so satisfied with the execution. And as with all the entries I watched so far, it's not afraid at all to get dark whenever the story requires so, delivering hard hits that left me wondering if kids are really the main target audience.

- The mascot characters: I could understand it for some Precure entries, but that's definitely not the case for Hugtto. Hugtan is a well done baby character that is 100% adorableness 0% annoying crying, and Harry is far from being just a mascot, he's a fantastic character that adds so much to the cast and the story.

With that out of the way, let's talk about the series.

The story of Hugtto is focused on the Criasu Corporation, an evil company that tries to stop time and put an end to the future of the planet, Harry and Hugtan come from the future to avoid this with the help of the Precure. This anime is not afraid of going in the dark direction showing the danger of the villains while at the same time being honestly fun characters to watch, one roots for the protagonists but still enjoys the interactions with the bad side.

The big theme of this story that I adore and in my opinion had flawless execution is about moving forward and keep dreaming despite the fear for the future. The characters in this story have their traumas they can't deal with and/or fears for what might await for them as time passes, this is especially visible for the villain side, who I found myself really emphatizing with after we got to know more and more about them. This theme hits close home for most people (myself included) and this anime can really give a push of motivation to any watcher who can relate to the characters and how they feel.

I only have good things to say about the villains and so I feel about the good side. The main characters of the series are fantastic, having likeable personalities and very solid development with honestly one of my favorite character arcs in anime included for one of them. Their interactions are lots of fun to watch and both comedy and drama moments coming from them are a blast to watch. The protagonist of the story, Hana, deserves a special mention after becoming one of my favorite characters, her cheerful and lovable personality only does but increase how hard it hurts the drama focused around her and how painful is to see her working so hard to make everyone happy when she herself is one of the characters struggling the hardest.

After this we get to the fights, Hugtto did a very nice job at keeping the story and development always going, with close to zero episodes feeling like filler, but that doesn't change the fact that the episodic action scenes are a staple of the franchise and this anime hasn't changed that, nor it needs to because they are awesome to watch. The animation is constantly great for them (and honestly the whole show looks nice, it feels so alive) and so much fun to watch, this also includes the mandatory transformation scene before the fights that are sooo good looking, Precure knows that they will be reutilized a lot so they go full power on them to make them look as great as possible, and I can say they deliver.

With that said, I will go for pretty much the only complaint I had for Hugtto: the fights sometimes felt unnecesary and out of place. This is a small issue but one that Hugtto in special suffered compared to the rest of the franchise I watched so far due to its big focus on character drama. Some episodes delivered really emotional moments to then make the monster of the week appear out of nowhere into transformation into fight (sometimes shorter than the transformation) to end the episode. I wish they had just kept going with what the plot was delivering instead of the mandatory fight, although sometimes they managed to make the fight add to the meaning of the episode so this wasn't always a bad thing at all.

As I already briefly mentioned for the fights, the art and animation quality are very nice and consistent, and I'm also impressed with the direction of this show which delivered fantastic execution of scenes, especially in dramatic moments where it provided great shots that added so much impact to them. The music comes from Yuki Hayashi (which you might know from other works like Boku no Hero Academia, Haikyuu or Death Parade), and as with those, he did such a great job in that department, giving us some very memorable songs.

I hope the points made in this review convince you to give Hugtto a try, I really don't want to see a franchise as fantastic as Precure stay this ignored here in the West as it currently is, and if my reviews of the series help changing that even if just a bit I will be so happy.

Well, I didn't expect to watch somewhat of a Toy Story movie when I started Fresh, that's for sure.

In the movie of this entry, all the toys are disappearing and our girls have to visit the Kingdom of Toys to face a villain called Toymajin, the one behind all the chaos created.

In all honesty, and despite that I liked it myself, I can perfectly understand anyone who wouldn't like this movie. As it's the case with most of the movies of this type that I have watched, their short run time (and the more or less 10 minutes spent in stock footage of the transformation/movements ... doesn't help) together with wanting to split the screen time so all the girls get protagonism made the plot quite underdeveloped, but the theme of this movie about the feelings of the toys and why of the actions of Toymajin hit me pretty hard emotionally as someone very weak to those elements.

The art was pretty nice as expected of Precure. This movie uses some CGI in the later parts of the movie but it looked pretty good IMO, the awesome models for the characters already used for the ED dances helps with that quite a lot. The music was the same of the TV series and while it's not too memorable it does a good enough job with adding to the scene.

If you liked Fresh and find the story elements I mentioned interesting enough, this movie is well worth a try, but I recommend to not go with high expectations.