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If you were to summarize Natsume Yuujinchou San in one word it would be boring. After the first couple of episodes you have basically watched them all as Natsume Yuujinchou San is repetitiveness in its purest form.

The story and characters themselves lack any kind of depth. When watching the show I wondered what this show actually had going for it. Action scenes with the youkai? No, even the worst action type anime can match it. Pathos heavy storytelling? No, none of the stories were emotional enough to actually make any impact. I can't think of a single redeeming factor for this show, it just ... screams mediocrity.

But I could ignore every single flaw with this series if it hadn't been for the protagonist being such a blockhead.

If you are unsure whether you'll like this snoozefest you can watch a 2-4 episodes and you've basically watched them all. If you're uninterested you saved yourself time to watch other shows.

The concept of Drifters showed a lot of promising potential, but yet again the potential is ruined by it being too centered around Japan and the Japanese. If the plot was changed especially in regards to the amount of drifters and who the drifters were it could easily have been a great show if not a masterpiece.

The plots real weakness lies in the lack of Drifters, the problem in and of itself or rather the potential being wasted is most likely due to the author of Drifters being far too centered on Japan and Japanese history while being less knowledgeable about non-Japanese history which ... is why characters outside of Japan are lacking to say the least. I would list tons of generals, commanders, kings and so on that I think would have been amazing additions to make Drifters an exciting anime, but the list would simply be too long. Even if we skip all the lesser known generals there are an abundance of famous ones that are simply left out which in my opinion is a complete and utter waste.

Short lift of possible additions; Timur, Genghis Khan, Alexander the great, Julius Caesar, Attila the hun, Qin Shi Huang, Charlemagne, Saladin, Suleiman the magnificent, Wu Qi and Napoleon

Just by seeing these names most people will know the amount of potential wasted by simply leaving them out of the story. Naoshi Kanno was also used, but if you were to use a ww2 pilot that died during ww2 one of the optimal choices would be Otto Kittel which scored a total of 267 aerial victories meaning he's one of the most successful fighter pilots in history compared to Kannos 25. If you absolutely wanted a Japanese fighter pilot that died during ww2 your obvious choice would be Hiromichi Shinohara which sat Japanese records having shot down 11 planes in a single day, author please.

Onto a minor issue is regarding to the portrayal of certain characters and Rasputin is by far the most obvious. If you saw a picture of Rasputin in drifters and you were asked which historical figure it is there's no fucking way anyone would ever guess Rasputin apart from getting it on a wild guess. Surely the Japanese can't hate beards so much to the extent that they're unwilling to create fully bearded characters.

The last matter would be the personality of the characters themselves. Digging deeper into history and figure out what kind of people they truly were and how they acted would have been better in addition to something that would have made it possible for all of them to communicate with each other efficiently. Some lines in foreign languages wouldn't have been a bad thing either if they managed to get the voice actors to actually pronounce foreign languages properly.

Although the story in and of itself is an isekai I also believe it would have been much better without magic. Seeing a contest of raw skill and strategy between famed generals throughout history would have been a much better option. Although the combat still would have been in the realms of fantasy it would have been much better this way.

So in the end the story ends up at a wasted potential/10

The art and sound were both fine, although you can clearly see the similarity to Hellsing as the author is the same, but I don't think the art fits as well with Drifters as it did with Hellsing.

Massively wasted potential/10

When you see the title of this anime you'll probably expect an anime about gamers and you will see some gamers in the show, but the main character is not one of them. I never thought an anime could piss me off this much, but when they call people that mostly play mobile games "gamers" I knew this anime was gonna piss me off. A more honest title for this show which could have made it even somewhat acceptable is "gamers" instead of gamers implying that they're not gamers at all which they're not.

The story largely revolves around the concept of romance and whatnot ... and portrays it poorly at that. There's practically zero gaming or gaming related things in this series, so you might be deceived. I would be fine with the romance, but I don't see how any female could ever be attracted to the protagonist unless he got Scrooge McDuck levels of rich.

When the most dis-likable character in the show is the protagonist you know you've done something wrong unless he is meant to be hated in which case I applaud the effort. Amano Keita is the equivalent of the people that play mobile games like angry birds exclusively and call themselves gamers. I don't think there's a single character trait he has that is likable, he's basically a walking "punch me" sign.

In summary if you expect any good romance, something that will make you laugh or something gaming related you'll be left pissed off.

This show is a result of the Japanese having sub-par knowledge about European history and culture. If you want to watch for the ecchi or battle harem type stuff then there are better shows to watch out there.

Story:

The story in itself is piss poor and makes zero sense logically. If you ignore every aspect of the story that doesn't make any sense at all then you can probably find some enjoyment in it.

The gist of the story is a count that for some reason isn't acting like a count or have the skills required to be a count is taken prisoner and for some ... unexplainable reason is let live by his captors. After his county is attacked by a duke within his country for no good reason he sets out to defend his county by killing everyone that oppose him and allying with his captors.

There's also some war maidens that only exist of ecchi purposes.

Vorn says he cares about Alsace, but after the first battle he could either have let Eleonora annexed his territory or called out to the duke ruling over him. He instead join Thenardier and Ganelon in committing treasonous acts, but unlike the two dukes he seems to wonder why he's branded a traitor after allying with the people they just went to war with.

Combat/tactics:

A major part of this show is supposed to be the combat and the tactics in war. However every single strategy that is used could be bested by a 6 year old with relative ease. Against an archer like the main character a large part of the enemy armies decides against helmets and shields, you know the things that could help against arrows for some mysterious reason. There are people carrying around quails with arrows for Vorn in battle, but largely Vorn is useless in battle. The war maidens seem to be the only ones doing work in battles and an honorable mention to Lim as she's the only character that actually seems to command troops.

Have an overwhelming force facing a tiny army? Let's get a couple thousand people killed and subsequently retreat!

A count for some reason not capable of using a sword. Gains magically powerful bow, fuck that shit. Let's just use a normal one instead and do almost nothing.

The best example of showing how stupid the combat is in this series is by using Vorn vs Thenardier. Big man Thenardier knows he's up against some scrawny kid that doesn't wear any armor and only knows how to use a bow. Let's not wear a helmet! Let's not use a shield! Big man Thenardier could have just thrown a fucking javelin at Vorn and he'd be dead unless he used his haxx bow.

Characters:

The women are the classic battle harem/ecchi type in falling for the mc for no real reason other than *plot*.

Nobody gives a shit about the majority of the soldiers

The dukes are conveniently both scheming retards incapable of taking down a single count. If Thenardier had a functioning brain he'd just destroy Alsace when Vorn was jacking off doing some dumb shit for no reason and he'd be destroyed mentally, easy win. Ganelon just comes up with some stupid schemes and does nothing noteworthy.

Vorn is just a dumb and spoiled pos. If not for the war maidens carrying him he'd be dead during his first fight. Arguably less likeable than Kirito which is quite a feat, but at least Kirito had some value in his series, Vorn has none. He has zero redeeming characteristics.

This review is based upon having read the manga first and it will contain some minor spoilers to use in examples to justify my reasoning for rating it the way I did. If you haven't read the manga and don't like or don't plan to read the manga I will still urge you to do so, but if you don't then the anime is fine to watch.

Story:
One of the biggest problems of the Tokyo Ghoul can be described as trying to fit 1 liter of water into a 0,5 liter glass. There's just so much of the story that has straight up been left out. ... I could have somewhat understood if they only left out some dialogues that wouldn't have mattered that much, but even in scenes that are in the anime they chose to leave out minor characters like in the ghoul restaurant episode in which there are several humans alongside Kaneki that are going to be served. Leaving out even minor characters like these severely weakens the impact of the story in general. There are also story that is replaced by an "anime only" type version. An example of this would be Kanekis interaction with Banjo and his group including their escape attempt and due to this being removed its replaced with Banjo and an anime only couple working with Banjo being a clean up crew in the room Kaneki is tortured in. Not only does this severely reduce the impact of the couples death compared to who dies in the manga it also reduces the bond form with Banjo and the feeling of betrayal by knowing that Yamori didn't let Banjos group escape. Not only does this weaken the story, but it won't impact the viewers as much as the story to its fullest would have.

As for the art aspect of the story the main issue is trying to make an R rated manga into a pg 13 anime by inane censorship. I can understand lessening gore as the animation costs would be quite hefty, but censorship is not the way to go. There's a reason for Tokyo Ghoul being classed as psychological and horror and to reduce the impact of this by censoring as much of it as you can is not good although this is a problem with anime in general. For example when Kaneki walks in on Hinami feeding that is supposed to affect the viewers as well, but instead you only get the reaction from Kaneki which doesn't impact the viewer as much if at all. To truly make an anime within the psychological and horror genres have impact you can't censor the things that are meant to have an impact on the viewers, it would be like making a porno with just massive black censorship boxes and still claim for it to be porn, it simply wont' have the same impact with censorship as it would have without it. In my opinion censorship has got to go in anime in general as it doesn't do anyone any good.

Characters:
The characters of Tokyo Ghoul are also essentially been reduced to rubble by various factors. The story is mainly at fault in this aspect as much of what is shaven off the story of the manga helps build the characters. Even minor dialogue and interactions help builds the characters and shows the viewer who they are, what they feel and so on. Due to the large amount of supporting characters that get backstories and have an impact on the story at least in the manga I feel like it would be wrong to have it almost dismissed in the anime as these supporting characters do not only have their own characters built up, but also help build the characters of the main characters.

Another massive factor that is absolutely laughable is the voice acting. Voice acting is extremely important to make characters come alive, but the voice acting in Tokyo Ghoul is sub par at best. Perhaps the most glaring voice acting flaw in this anime is that of Shu Tsukiyama. The reason for this is two-fold, the first is my biggest pet peeve in anime voice acting which is the pronunciation of non-english words which is something Tsukiyama does a lot and making him have some broken Japanese sounding version of the words is not going to cut it as it makes Tsukiyamas character seem like a moron. The other part is to capture the essence of the character from the manga which I will say can be difficult to achieve, but it seems like not much effort was made at all. The voice actors also seem to fail to truly capture the emotions of the characters as can clearly be noted in the torture scenes as Kanekis voice acting doesn't make you feel like its as bad as it is portrayed to be despite all the censorship.

Sound:
The choice of background music and the sounds used are also horrid although most of the time background music can be overlooked, but in certain scenes they are meant to capture the spirit of the situation which is something the music choice in Tokyo Ghoul has completely failed to do. The sound effects for the fights are not optimal either, but sounds can be overlooked for the most part if it hadn't been for this being a horrible adaptation. To make it even better both the OP and ED are horrible and don't catch the theme of Tokyo Ghoul at all.


Conclusion:
READ THE MANGA INSTEAD

If you absolutely hate manga or reading then you can watch this adaptation because as a stand alone it would have been ok.

This manga had enormous potential and was actually very enjoyable up until the last fights when it just turned bad. It's a classic example of manga that completely fail to write a good ending and in the end you'll be left disappointed that the story ended the way it did.

The story is very straightforward and enjoyable enough, but it also feels a bit too rushed in terms of pacing. It's pretty much straight to the point which is both a strength and a weakness. However as already stated the ending is mediocre at best and I think I would have liked the series a ... lot more if I hadn't read the ending at all.

As far as characters go they are also pretty great up until the last fights. What I mean by this is that what you can consider the two main characters in Staz and Wolf have essentially everything they've been through made void by how useless they are in the end which doesn't sit right with me. Due to the ending it feels like the character development completely stopped or even as much as declined.

As far as the combat goes it was also pretty good up until the last fights and especially the last fight was just complete garbage and honestly I wish I could erase it from my mind. In the end you're sitting there waiting for an epic fight of sorts to break out but it never happens, there's no real climax for the reader, just bitter disappointment.

If you wish to read this manga I recommend not reading the last couple of volumes as you'll just end up disappointed. Apart from the ending the manga is pretty good though with a relatively good story, combat and comedy.

Samurai Champloo is a good example of a show with an immense amount of potential if it had only gotten a bit more polishing, however it's still a very good show despite its flaws.

The story is Samurai Champloos greatest weakness as the story will follow a vague goal that you won't know much about until the very end with the other episodes being single instances of encounters heading towards the final goal. Although most of the episodes are very enjoyable there are some episodes that just feels like nonsensical filler and could have been left out without much problem.

The characters of Samurai Champloo are ... well done. Although there's not much room for character development over the series the characters due to the single instance episodes it is still made up for due to their mannerism and character being well explained and defined through their backstories and actions. However what makes the characters shine is their contrast with each-other as it makes for great comedy.

The combat seem to shift between the non-supernatural and the supernatural between episodes, but despite this it is always entertaining and at a decent level albeit lackluster compared to some other anime/manga set in the same area with similar kinds of combat. However due to the skill level of Jin and Mugen there are only a few times during the show where they really have to get serious.

Overall this show is definitely worth a shot at watching due to its comedy more so than it's action. You probably won't regret it

This will simply be an explanation for why you should read the manga instead of watching the anime. The anime covers part of the manga although some arcs are changed and some is anime only, but most importantly the anime ends with a anime only arc and doesn't really bring you the full story of Get Backers.

The arcs that truly would be worth watching is not adapted in the anime and thus you miss vital character development and story. The ending of the manga will solve most of the questions about the story and characters which is something you cannot get out of the ... anime version.

HOWEVER, if you're not keen on reading and would rather watch I would recommend watching the anime up until the last arc in which you can decided whether you wish to read the manga or not as the anime in itself is pretty good.

Since the story of the anime is incomplete at best you'll merely get an introduction to the show in the anime.

The characters and their development are good, but due to character development taking place after the anime you cannot witness that in the anime which means it will be lacking. Not only this, but the power of the characters and battles won't be at its peak either, but the battles in the anime are still very enjoyable

It's a great show, but it lacks vital parts of the manga. However I would definitely recommend it if you're not into reading manga

The only thing you'll think to yourself after watching this anime is "Why did I even bother watching this?". I hoped that it would at some point improve, but alas that hope was never met.

The story was lackluster and you never really develop an interest in the story or the world of Trinity Seven.

The characters are all quite dull and perverted without much depth. You could say relationships are built upon between the characters, but in a harem sense more than anything.

My last hope was for the combat, but I would argue that the combat is even worse than the characters and the story. ... To put it like this the protagonist is weak physically, weak mentally and is relying on copying the power of other characters through his grimoire.

The story and characters are so bad and it's so riddled with ecchi that this show would have done much better if it had been turned into a hentai, honestly it could have been a pretty successful hentai in my opinion as well.

PS: The opening theme is good enough, but I don't recommend watching the show just based on the opening theme.