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Now I'm going to let you know in advance that Stardust Crusaders is my favorite manga of all time. So I'm a little biased toward it and it's anime adaptation but I am going to write a review to the best of my abilities taking this into consideration.

What is the beast called Jojo's Bizarre Adventure you ask? If you're looking at this with no prior experience with the series you should go watch Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (2012) which is an adaptation of the first two parts you need to watch! Jojo's is a legendary manga series that spans many genres of manga including Shounen, Seinen, ... Slice of Life and so on and so forth. It's definitely worth a read. Today we're going to be talking about the anime adaptation of the most iconic part in the series to date, Stardust Crusaders.

Story: Now the story for Stardust is fairly simple but it works and is enjoyable, tough delinquent Jotaro Kujo has locked himself in prison to protect his mother from what he deems an evil spirit. Holly, his mother, along with Joseph Joestar and Muhammad Avdol come to bail him out. This is where he discovers he has an ability linked to him called a "stand" which are spirits that have many different abilities that you'll see later in the adventure. When Jotaro arrives home, his mother Holly falls down ill because of the stand she begins to develop and the gang discovers that the only way to save Holly is to defeat DIO who has developed a super powerful stand of his own. (who you should know from the previous series) This is when Jotaro Kujo, Joseph Joestar, Muhammad Avdol and Kakyoin Noriaki decide that they have to set off to Egypt to find and finally kill DIO once and for all. The story is serviceable but what really makes Crusaders special is the off the wall fights that take place, ESPECIALLY in the second season. Look out for the D'arby brothers, Vanilla Ice and DIO's specifically.

Art: The art of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is very unique, unlike anything I've ever seen before and honestly that's the only reason it's so high. Vibrant colors and amazing character designs make every scene a delight to watch. NOW onto the cons, the animation is awful. It's seriously almost like a slideshow at times, the bright colors and palette swaps are what makes it special. Some panels look VERY ugly which is to be expected of most anime at this point.

Sound: The OST for SDC is probably one of the strongest points. The intros, Stand Proud and Sono Chi No Kioku having amazing animations and are just great songs in general. They'll be stuck in your head for a long time even if they aren't as good as Sono Chi No Sadame. The sound design is very good too, the sound effects that come with Star Platinum's punches are all satisfying. ***SPOILERS*** When DIO's stand, the World, activates it's time stop there's another amazing sound effect that sounds like, for lack of a better explanation, wubs from a dubstep song.

Character: Now onto the strongest part of Jojo's as a whole, the characters. The entire cast of Stardust Crusaders are colorful and entertaining characters. Jotaro Kujo and Jean Pierre Polnareff are two of my favorites. The stern bancho wearing thug Jotaro is a perfect match with his mentor and grandfather Joseph. Jean Pierre Polnareff serves as both comic relief and a pillar to the crew as a whole as he's one of the strongest fighters present. The returning and older Joseph, Kakyoin and Iggy are also fan favorites. These guys make the experience twenty times better and you'll miss them by time this part/arc ends.

Enjoyment: While fan reception of this part is mixed, you're bound to enjoy the intense action, funny/memorable characters and unique art. Give the first two parts a try and if you enjoyed them, move right on to part 3. Stardust Crusaders gets a 9 out of 10 from me (Even though I personally give it a 10.)

"A king must live a grander life than any other’s, and stoke his people’s feelings of admiration! He who is worthy of all heroes’ envy, and he who leads their way, is king! Therefore, the king is not alone. For his will equals that of all his followers together!" - Rider (Fate/Zero)

Honestly I was very apprehensive when starting Fate/Zero. I didn't know what to expect from it but what I got was a great surprise.

Story: The story of Fate/Zero is this, several big families pick a representative to fight for them in the 4th grail war so they can get a wish. The ... main protagonist, Kiritsugu Emiya, is a hardened assassin who was chosen by the Einzbern family to represent them. He is paired with the servant Saber (the strongest class.) I don't want to say much more for I fear I'll spoil the story which is something you have to experience. It has a very grim atmosphere and it doesn't pull any punches, which you'll see with the Caster character when he's introduced. The ending is one of my favorites in recent history because of how dark it is. It's extremely well adapted from the light novels.

Art: I think this is one of the strongest points of the series, the gorgeous animation and art. Sure some frames don't look amazing but that goes for practically all anime. I enjoy the rather pale and dark colors used for the scenery and the characters, it represents the tone of the story quite well. The animation is absolutely gorgeous, even the 3D parts which was something I was rather skeptical about. Berserker's jet fight with Gilgamesh illustrates how great the animation really is. Ufotable really went all out with this one.

Sound: The soundtrack for all the Fate series is amazing. Zero really stands out because it probably has one of my favorite ending songs in anime history, Manten. It's a really powerful song that plays at the end of episode 18, keep an eye out for it. The orchestrated tracks bring a lot of tension into the larger fights and make them even more entertaining to watch. Trust me, you'll be listening to this OST after you finish the anime. It's THAT good.

Character: Quite possibly my favorite part of the series is the characters. Oh god do I love 90% of them. Rider, Kiritsugu and Kirei are probably the ones that stuck out the most to me. Rider's powerful and charismatic personality matches perfectly up against his master, Waver's, geeky and angsty personality. Rider is also extremely lovable and goofy at times so he's a treat to watch. But he really isn't just a generic meathead, he says some extremely powerful things as well. Kiritsugu's backstory, which they dedicate 2 episodes to portraying, is gripping and sad. His actions are questionable as well which makes him entertaining to watch because you don't know if you're rooting for him or not. He has good intentions but poor execution. Kirei is similar, Kirei doesn't exactly know what he wants when the anime starts but once he meets Gilgamesh, things change immensely for him. Kirei and Kiritsugu take similar paths and are similar people with different motivations, that's what makes them so interesting. Saber would probably be the only character I wasn't quite into, she's pretty bland.

Enjoyment: This was an absolute blast to watch, the fights are great, the dialogue is great and the animation is STUNNING. Watch it then move on to the ufotable version of Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works. You should definitely give the visual novels a try too because you'll miss out on a lot of wacky Kirei antics.

I'm going to put it on the line and say it

Story: Sword Art Online isn't good at all. It has its moments where it shows potential like when Kirito's first guild is slaughtered but who are those characters to us? We know nothing about any of them other than the fact the girl is scared of dying but who the fuck isn't at that point. The death scene itself was actually extremely well put together which makes it even more frustrating, watching all these people die but at the same time you can't help but think "hmmm Kirito probably could've saved these guys he's like ... level 50 at this point" but nope, they all die anyways so Kirito's character can go ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE. Don't get me started on the romance, it's so hamfisted and clearly shoehorned it for fanservice-y lovey dovey shit so they can get some female viewers.

Art: This is where it gets REALLY insulting guys because the art is STUNNING. It's really hard for me to take my eyes away from the beautiful scenery, great action, bright colors and detailed characters. Just knowing it's supposed to represent the awful story we were given makes it so bittersweet I had to deduct a point. The animation is also extremely good with all of the characters attacks looking like they have some SERIOUS power behind them. Even the 3D stuff like the Dragon from episode 7 looked good. It's just such a shame it got paired up with this story.

Sound: The music is ok and the intro is catchy. I really don't have much to say here because it's just really really average to me.

Character: Here we go guys this is the biggest fault of Sword Art Online, the characters. Kirito is an obnoxious edgy teenager with some kind of bipolar disorder because he keeps flipflopping from solemn loner to friendly lady's man. Not to mention there's many occasions where he could've prevented a lot of people's deaths but nope god forbid "the black swordsman" (Guts is the real black swordsman, by the way) do something for someone other than himself. Oh not to mention the loli, the blacksmith and the mary sue he tries to romance in the first couple of episodes. They're all annoying except for Asuna I guess, mainly because she can at least handle herself a little bit while loli girl and blacksmith scream and cry while trying to fondle Kirito's video game dick. I liked Klein or Tsuboi, he was pretty cool.

Enjoyment: I enjoyed looking at Sword Art Online but I didn't enjoy listening to it or it's characters. The twist of the story is so generic and revealed way too early, everybody is fucking annoying (bar one character,) the romance is forced and harem-esque for what Sword Art Online is trying to be and you know what? Just do yourself a favor and watch something else. Hell go watch Attack On Titan, even it is slightly better than this wreck. You're allowed to enjoy the show guys, this is just my opinion and I feel very strong about it. Apparently it gets even worse in season 2, count me out.

Now before fanboys get mad at me I'm just goint to say I love One Piece very much, it's one of my favorite manga of all time. It's thorough, colorful and exciting. But I have a LOT of problems with the anime.

Story: The story is good, it's serviceable. Luffy goes out on an adventure to become king of the pirates. A very generic concept but once he assembles his crew (Zoro, Sanji, Chopper, Nami and Usopp specifically) things get a lot more exciting. The villains (ESPECIALLY CROCODILE) stand out a lot because of how different they are from each other. There's a lot of ... good guys in the marines and there's a lot of good pirates on the sea so it creates this gray area which is extremely interesting. Now for my problem with the anime, the pacing is absolute DOGSHIT and I really don't think there's an excuse for it at this point. Look at Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, it is another really long manga but it's gotten through 3 LONG story arcs without going over 100 episodes. One Piece takes its sweet time going through things and it really hurts the experience. I'm only on episode 45 of the anime because I can't handle sitting down and watching the 700 something episodes while I'm caught up with the manga

Art: The style faithfully adapts Oda's work its based off of. Although at times it looks pretty awful and uncanny valley (ESPECIALLY NAMI'S FACE JESUS CHRIST SHE LOOKS SCARY AT TIMES.) I understand looking ugly some frames, it comes with animation but lord it's really bad sometimes. Like I said, the anime's style faithfully represents Oda's original work BUT it's still pretty ugly at times and I'm not talking about the random frames, I'm talking about just looking at the anime. Oda's artwork didn't translate super well into anime form.

Sound: The voice actors in both the japanese version but everybody knows how shit the 4kids dub is at this point. I don't even have to talk about it. Just listen to the pirate rap and you'll understand. The voice actors in that version are so shit they take away the emotional power of some very sad scenes its that bad.

Character: This is the part where the anime succeeds with flying colors (mainly because it's pretty difficult to fuck up characters from the source material but you get me.) The strawhat gang especially are well done compared to the big 3's main character and their "crews." The strawhats all have aspirations outside of Luffy's big dream, they all feel individual instead of desperately clinging to the mc's goal. My personal favorite strawhat is Zoro, he's been there since day 1 and he's extremely loyal. Unlike other anime characters, he doesn't forget his dream when he goes with Luffy and he continues to train. The villains are also pretty amazing, Crocodile is a cruel and sadistic pirate who watched four people who wanted to fight him die slowly while he laughed, Akainu is a bastard (One piece fans will understand why he is, spoilers) and Blackbeard is cowardly scum you DESPERATELY want to watch lose

Enjoyment: IT'S ONE PIECE! If you're a fan of the manga you're gonna enjoy the anime, it's a faithful adaptation that doesn't leave anything out as far as I've seen. It's great seeing some of my favorite pirates in motion even though the animation leaves a little bit to be desired. I really highly recommend this if you're too lazy to read the manga and you still want to experience One Piece. It's shonen action at it's finest. I hope you enjoy the story as much as I am.

This is my first review so here goes nothing

Berserk is probably the closest thing you'll get to perfect in any manga in my honest opinion.

Story: The story is about Guts, a swordsman who's been training since childhood who finds a woman named Casca and a man named Griffith who would alter his life forever by offering him a chance to join his crew, the Band of the Hawk. Without saying any spoilers, Guts harbors an intense hatred for Griffith now and he gathers a team so he can snap Casca out of her funk and defeat Griffith and his newfound abilities given to him ... by the Godhand

Art: The very gritty and realistic art style suits the story extremely well, especially watching Guts become more grizzled and tired towards the later chapters of the story. The manga's art is so well made it even inspired the game Dark Souls for some of its areas. Another noteworthy mention is the armor of the characters like Guts's Berserker armor, Grunbeld's armor and Locus's armor. They're all extremely well detailed and a pleasure to look at. The massive stone castles and mountains depicted are also marvel to look at. If I could give an example, the Kushan Empire's castles would be a good one.

Characters: Guts and Griffith, the two stand out characters from the manga, are both multidimensional characters with motivations that you question or support as you read. Other characters like Casca, Serpico and Farnese are also explained thoroughly. The original Band of the Hawk contains lovable characters like Rickert and Judeau. All of the main cast is memorable and the enemies are especially intimidating like Nosferatu Zodd, Grunbeld and Femto. Visually, all of the characters are great too look at, ESPECIALLY the ruggedly handsome Guts.

Enjoyment: This series has been a perfect experience from start to the most recently released chapter. Now that Miura is done with his idolmaster and is writing again, it's the perfect time to give it a read. This is an extremely well put together manga that exposes the reader to a world so fucked up yet engaging that they can't possibly put the manga down after one volume.