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An arrogant man is thrown into an alternate world upon death. The man is reincarnated as a cute-looking blonde girl Tanya, a kind of ideal female figure for lonely anime fans. There’s a vicious world war going on and the hero becomes a soldier. She is good at magic, killing, and best, unlike many anime heroes, she is not a wimpy brat whining about saving humanity. She is ruthless. The main character makes Youjo Senki stand out among hundreds of alternate world (isekai) anime.

Tanya is what makes this anime worth watching. She is merciless. She doesn’t care what happens to people caught in the destruction ... she makes. But she is not insane. Tanya is a calculating, mostly rational character. She represents consequentialism, the idea that the end justifies the means. She orders killing even civilians to prevent the possibility that they can come back as soldiers to prolong the war. By killing a few innocent she wants to prevent immensely more casualties. Her ideas are simple and direct: be ruthless and fast in order to end the war as quickly as possible.

This is also how evil justifies itself. Mass murderers defend their ignoble actions by saying that it is for the sake of good results. All invasions throughout the history didn’t happen because the perpetrators had bad motives, but because they were “good” deep down. The Japanese empire attacked half of Asia to “help” weak Asians to develop. The Japanese army did crimes against humanity in Nanking because they claimed that the end will be good for everybody. Tanya shares the same mindset with the militaristic early twentieth century Japanese leaders. Her ideas are one-sided, narrow, and unfortunately not challenged seriously throughout the series.

I related the connection between Youjo Senki and real-life ugly truths to emphasize that anime is not innocent. It is not always escapism. It can serve to justify evil. Anime is a medium of telling tales and there are all sorts of tales. Some tales are insidious, they prey on the innocent.

School is the perfect location for coming of age stories. It's a shame that this potential is little utilized. Thankfully, Hibike is an exception. It's an anime with chewed to death school settings, with clichéd competition aspect, that manages to be a fresh breath of air. Hibike is a well-told simple story.

In Hibike, the tribulation of the characters is small everyday problems that in general order of things are not that important. The stakes are low. At worst they’ll lose a competition which is hard to relate to. To be honest, they have pretty small individual worlds. But Hibike explores those little aspects of life ... deeply. Rather than giving a fast-paced adrenaline rush to the top, we see characters face the stress of their situation.

The competition itself takes a little time. But the nature of competition is something they actually take time to reflect upon. Competitive events have this ugly side that there is one winner. The hard work of the losing side, their years of sacrifice means less once they lose. The anguish competition creates in real life is a hell of pain, sadness, depression, and wallowing in hopelessness. Most anime on competitions are superficial and tend to sugarcoat that ugly side. In Hibike, we see this insidious problem touched.

Hibike has characters with average personalities. Average, but nevertheless human, identifiable, with tiny lives and even tinier problems. I don't undervalue or belittle them. On the contrary, I appreciate the effort put into this anime. It explores school and competition settings thoroughly and gives a new, tender and beautiful depiction of the usual life.

The biggest chunk of our life is spent when we are occupied with our daily activities, chattering with friends, lovers, dealing with our teachers, parents, bosses, and others. In Hibike, those moments are exactly when we are closer to life, closer to what we really are despite all the mundane pettiness. But we want to be different. We want to be unique individuals. That’s why sometimes we are hopelessly pretentious. What passes as pretentiousness, scorn for others is really some kind of fear of being really human, because being really human is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naïve and goo-prone and generally pathetic (this is a quote from David Foster Wallace). Hibike doesn’t hide the pathetic side of life. Thus when a cool character shows her deeper self in an embarrassing way, despite however how shallow and pitiful that depth is, we can understand her.

The background and foreground animation, sound, voice acting, are all top notch. Yet, it wasn't those details that captivated me, though their absence would make the anime less appealing. What I loved was the poignancy sprinkled throughout both seasons, a waft of reality, transience of the characters' lives, especially the briefness of their small venture, a handful of people clinging together for a brief time to win a competition, and their painful self-awareness of that fact. Yet Hibike shies away from going further. It doesn't venture far away from its comfort zone. It manages to evoke feelings, and for that I'm grateful, but I can see that it's not a masterpiece.

Mayoiga is a perfect example of a third-rate anime that takes itself too seriously with its cardboard characters and creates few unintended pitying chuckles.

A group of people travels to a hidden village to start life anew. Character introductions start immediately, with the worst possible way, letting each one stand up and talk. They are all eccentric and therefore typical in anime, each you might have seen in any other average show.

The anime relies heavily on the mystery aspect to grab attention. It is all good and nice, but for a mystery to work, one needs to connect with characters. Otherwise, who cares about an ... uninteresting nobody experiencing problems? Another part of the mystery is the character backgrounds, which for obvious reasons are revealed slowly, and unsurprisingly, we discover that many characters have some tragic past. The creators don’t fail to use the easiest way of characterization. They make them victimized. To create the villains, they make them despicable caricatures.

You can spot the main character the instant you see his ordinariness among others on the bus. He is our hero, weak-looking, a coward now and then, but defending others selflessly, kind, bland, nice, wimp, boring. In short, a face you’re already familiar with. After a person is lost our wise hero asks, “Is it really a good idea to call the police?” If it isn’t, then only in an event of genocide people should call the police. There is an aloof character, a shy one, a cute one, a potential murderer one, a silent one, a tsundere one, a psycho girl, an adventure-seeking one, an aspiring detective, a middle-aged bus driver who acts like a whiny child, a bossing type, a messing-around potential rapist one. The list goes on. They are slightly crazy, illogical and violent. All for the shock factor.

Characters take themselves too seriously. They are like children playing adult. They can make you chuckle and cringe few times with their overacting. The anime tries clumsily to add some plot twists but fails embarrassingly. Great plot twists come with characters we love, they aren’t just unexpected turn of events.

The animation is ordinary, too ordinary. It could be made a decade ago and nobody could tell the difference. The sound is as unimpressive as the animation, with a forgettable opening and ending. There are many anime out there which heavily rely on great visuals and sound, effectively redeeming poor plot. Mayoiga isn’t one of them. Low budget is apparent from the very beginning.

It’s painful to write a negative review of any anime. Long working hours and low wages in the industry make everyone hesitate. Yet, every year watching dozens of generic works that will be soon forgotten isn’t helping. Wishing to see something extraordinary, solid, awesome demands fans to be harsh in their criticism. A genuine art piece is visceral, stays with us, inspires us, and sometimes makes us better or worse persons. Mayoiga, a below mediocre work, delivers not much enjoyment. It isn’t worth it, but you can force yourself to over-think or lower your expectation to get some pleasure. For me, Mayoiga is a passing memory. It will be forgotten and lost in few seasons, thrown into the dustbin of anime history.

No Game No Life is an anime of our age. It has solid animation quality, catchy opening song, and escapism-flavored generic story and characters. Anime has to succeed at least one of four main departments to get viewers' attention: characters, story, animation and escapist fantasies. The last one is the cheapest trick in the book. Therefore the market is inundated with isekai genre, where characters are thrown into a fantasy world to realize their daydreams.

No Game No Life succeeds in animation and escapism. Additionally, the staggering amount of fan service, references to other successful anime, and overused jokes try to make up for the ... lack of a good plot.

CHARACTERS: they can belong to any other mediocre anime
The two super smart main characters can defeat everyone with their intelligence. This is probably the most universal escapist daydream. Their super brain power reveals itself in games. Other characters are there to get impressed by our heroes or defeated by them. They are usually girls, and they have over-sexualized bodies or cat ears, or both. What they lack in character depth is compensated by fan service. Nevertheless, the anime fails to conceal the lack of any meaningful character development.

STORY: let me sing you the song of my daydreams
No Game adds intelligent shut-ins to a completely new world but fails to develop any kind of interesting plot. The idea of traveling to an alternative universe is not new, but not bad either. The problem lies in execution. No Game is about being smart and defeating everyone. It is being awesome for the sake of awesomeness. The viewer is intended to get impressed and identify with our heroes. Their overpowered brains can overcome any obstacle, which means that there is no serious conflict in the story. From the very beginning you know that the main characters have indestructible plot armor.

ANIMATION: take this eye candy and stop asking for good characters and story
I have nothing but praise for the animation and sound. It succeeds at creating its own atmosphere. Music is also good and catchy.

OVERALL: escapism and fantasies can save the anime industry
No Game No Life is a great success story of an average anime. Although it uses pretty cheap tricks, it can grab the attention of many anime fans.

Aku no Hana is an attack on our comfort zone, everyday life at its most mechanical dullness. The anime quests to find something new, something different that can set us apart from the oppression of the mundane life. The dread of seeing time pass without offering any excitement is a familiar feeling for everyone. Therefore this is an anime we can all relate at some point in our lives.

The main character Takao Kasuga starts with a desire to be different. He reads books not because he finds them interesting, but to fantasize that he is someone others cannot understand. He is pathetic. He also ... has a crush on his classmate Nanako Saeki. He embarrassingly calls her his muse, his angel, his goddess. If the anime just ended with the first episode, he would forever stay a whiny, delusional idiot beyond salvation. However, thanks to his relation to Saeki and Sawa Nakamura, the third main character, he discovers a thing or two about himself.

Sawa Nakamura is the avatar of change. She flouts basic conventions and values of society. She has the role of a catalyst. Without her, wimpy Kasuga would never dare to stand for what he believes or even openly voice his thoughts. Nanako Saeki, the last main character, has her enigmatic side as well. Together these three undergo an experience they wouldn’t do if they were alone.

The art style is not beautiful. It adds realistic features to character designs which naturally make them uglier. But more facial details enrich the characters’ emotional reactions. The background is also more detailed. Realistic details, such as cracks, and other imperfections of the real world emphasize the desire to break free from everyday life.

I watched Aku no Hana because a friend said it was deep. Actually, there’s nothing deep about it. What moved me in the end was how it honestly tries to face the dissatisfaction with our everyday life. It tries to find a way out, something better. But it does not find any meaningful solution. Avoiding ordinary everyday life doesn’t necessarily translate into a better life experience. Characters struggle to reach beyond the mundane but beyond does not promise a tangible alternative. Nevertheless Aku no Hana offers a great perspective to reflect on our everyday lives. That is why rather than enjoyment I felt uneasiness when watching. The anime was constantly attacking individuals’ beliefs that they are unique. At the same time, it was not sure what its answer to the problem was.

Fairy Tail is an anime with nothing special or groundbreaking. If a character is in a dangerous situation, power-ups come to their rescue. If they want to give a motivational speech and get even stronger, they talk about the power of friendship and save the world. Their plot armor is so thick no god can kill them. This is a sin shared by many anime, but Fairy Tail overdid it.

The anime successfully creates its own world, introduces characters with different abilities. One Piece has pirates and devil fruits, Bleach has Soul Society and bankai, Naruto has ninja villages, and Fairy Tail offers a guild system. ... Guild members work shoulder to shoulder trying to save humanity once again. Where the anime fails is the execution.

Fairy Tail’s biggest sin is power creep. Characters continuously power up, beat their foes, save the day, hot girls with boobs of the size of the moon fall for them. Any difference between characters in terms of power is sacrificed for plot convenience. In HunterxHunter, for example, we at least know the limits of characters. We know that even main characters cannot mess with certain enemies. But in Fairy Tail nothing is impossible for the main character. The reason? One of the characters says about Natsu, the protagonist: “Natsu-san gets more powerful when facing strong foes.” This means that there’s no point of enemies and other characters. Natsu just needs to face the enemy in order to defeat them. There is no point to the story.

Fairy Tail tries to compensate for its shortcomings with endless fan service. Big silicon-filled boobs embellish every scene. This is the most fan service filled shounen out there. Unlike One Piece where female characters miraculously grow fatty glands in later episodes, in Fairy Tail they are there from the very start. We are showered with lots of skin. Lots of buttock shots, lots of sexy women. The anime treats its fans like testosterone factories.

Another problem with the anime is that it has a lot of pretty-face characters that don’t contribute to the story. After watching all 175 episodes, I still don’t get why most of the guild members are there. Go and kill half of them, the story will lose nothing. Go kill the remaining half and the anime will improve.

Fairy Tail does everything in the book, throws every gimmick in the book at your face. It fails at most of them. It ends up as a caricature of itself, with lots of wasted opportunities. Plus, it has 35 filler episodes. In other words, one episode in every five doesn’t contribute to the story in any meaningful way.

Hyouge Mono is an anime I do not recommend to anyone. Not because it is bad, but because it is completely on a different level. It is not a flower you can just buy and toss later. It is a fragile one, blooms in desolate lands, and you need a bit of effort to find it. It will never gather an army of fans screaming the best anime ever. It will never get the highest ratings. Most people will not even like it. They will quickly get bored and discard this gem. Then what makes Hyouge Mono great? Not its animation or sound quality. The ... reason is its characters, superb use of concepts, and avoiding a story of the usual struggle between good and bad, black and white. Hyouge Mono is a land of chaos, obsessed not with morality but beauty.

ANIMATION, SOUND AND THE END OF NARRATION

Hyouge Mono has nothing new or excellent to offer in animation and sound departments. Especially the animation has nothing to look forward to. The creators were not aiming to offer an eye candy rendering the story secondary. They had only the story, the rest was simply a medium. I don’t mean that the anime with good animation are bad, but regretfully, visuals tend to play a more important role in getting popularity and a lot of cash. As time passes animation is getting more stunning, and unfortunately past anime age faster than ever before. Perhaps the only way for anime to survive in the long run is not best ever fight scenes, but offering its core: story and characters.

In the sound department the work is solid. Characters are original and voice actors do a great job at fleshing them out.

STORY, PLOT, AND PHILOSOPHY

The main themes of many anime are simple and straightforward. Many shounen are about helping friends and getting all the best women. Evangelion TV series is about coping with existence, how to deal with life at its worst. On the other hand, Hyouge Mono is about beauty, aesthetics. But (this is a big but) it does not present a simple answer. It offers different interpretations, multiple perspectives. It does not bombard you with stand-alone ideas injected into poor characters. Ideas in this anime do not come from outside, but from within. Characters and story develop in such a way that we end up with something totally different. It is not Ergo Proxy giving reference to Derrida, Husserl or Sartre. It is Hyouge Mono that lets its viewers enter the world of aesthetics, ideas, philosophy by offering events, plot developments that lead you there. That is why Hyouge Mono, a historical samurai anime can compete with most sci-fi, post-apocalyptic works, with Ergo Proxy, with Ghost in the Shell.

CHARACTERS AND THE WORLD OF CHAOS

Anime takes place in the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1569-1603), the final phase of Sengoku (warring states). Japan is almost united, but who will be the single ruler of all is not established yet. You can still hear the breath of the past era. Rebellions, conspiracies, and assassinations occur frequently. Fortunes can rise and fall overnight; today’s fortunate are tomorrow’s betrayed victims and vice versa. This perfect situation helps the characters shine. Their decisions can lead to their demise. They have to be cautious at all times. Dialogues are not wasted on babbling. They are there for a solid reason and you can see consequences of what characters talk later. In short, they are not monologues disguised as dialogue. In many anime, especially those trying too hard to be deep, we see characters blabbering. What they say does not resonate well with their characters, or just can be said by anyone. In short, they are ideas masked as characters.

Hyouge Mono begs to differ. Its characters are not one-dimensional, not even two-dimensional. They have multiple sides about them. They sustain multiple relations with each other. For instance, Soueki Senno – a rather reticent old tea master with his own school of art – has to treat everyone differently. He does so many incongruous things that if disclosed to all he can lose everything. And more than all, I have never seen in any anime before of such an old person undergoing such a dramatic transformation.

Senno isn’t the only unique character. Furuta Sasuke – the main character and self-declared aesthetic – is not your usual reflecting on the meaning of life character (I’ve in mind most so-called deep anime). He has flesh: he is in search of self without even being aware of that. He does not change once in the series, but multiple times without losing the grasp of his initial personality. All characters, even the supporting ones that appear in a few episodes, do have few things to offer. They fit their place in the story perfectly. They can even show original development.

Hyouge Mono characters have more to offer other than being multidimensional and developing continuously. They also have intelligence. They are conscious of themselves, of their deeds, they can relate with others at an intellectual level. To put it differently, even characters do know themselves. That is radically different from other anime. Hyouge Mono is on a different level simply because it adds intelligence, self-awareness, not mere smartness to get the attention of viewers.

ENJOYMENT AND ORIGINALITY

Hyouge Mono has an original voice, so original that even if you dislike it you cannot deny its peculiarities. But does it guarantee enjoyment? No. I’m pretty sure that many will not like it. Preferring silence to action, speaking to fighting does not appeal to most. There are scenes in this anime where silence is the main plot device. Reticence has an aesthetic dimension here, holding oneself and not speaking out everything adds to the world of imperfection (school of imperfection is an aesthetic movement in Hyouge Mono). I recommend you to keep in mind that once someone tried to persuade you that Hyouge Mono is a gem so you can revisit it later. Its originality can be better understood if you have watched many anime and undergone different stages of being an anime fan (from calling everything the best anime ever to slowly getting bored, then rediscovering again, and so on). Originality can be better understood if you have already conquered lesser mountains.

The story of Toriko takes place in the Gourmet Age. In that world people live to eat. Wars can erupt over delicious food. The main character Toriko and his partner Komatsu travel around the world to find exquisite ingredients. Toriko hunts, his partner cooks. This is the basic premise and I’ll be honest, it sounds stupid. Teenage heroes of other anime are trying to save humanity, planets, their family and friends from cool-looking edgy evil forces. But Toriko, a twenty five years old adult male, is chasing after food. It isn’t primarily a comedy anime to excuse the premise. Although soon it becomes clear ... that evil people can use rare food for their evil ends, it still isn’t enough to make most viewers take Toriko seriously.

I’d like people to watch it but I will be honest. Toriko is mediocre at best. Despite its simple and not-too-intelligent premise, the story unfolds itself and turns out to be very complicated. For the first time in the history of shounen anime, the main character’s voracious appetite has a convincing reason: some people in this world have gourmet cells which can evolve and ultimately level up as they consume high-quality food. Because these cells demand an immense amount of energy, characters usually eat a lot. This constant need for better food makes the story dynamic. Villains and heroes vie for the best food to become stronger which opens up possibilities of immense change. As they get stronger, they search for the ultimate food that can make one the most powerful. Thus, many different groups, both righteous and evil, clash with each other over food. As the story progresses it gets very complex but nothing is out of control, the anime preserves its integrity. In other words, the basic premise is nicely developed.

The animation successfully creates its original world. There’s a lot of talk on food. The beast and plants of the world are an amalgamation of different species of ours. They often look childish. Moreover, the world is very colorful. Bright colors are preferred for animation. This adds to the childish aura of the anime. Nevertheless, the animation is well done. Colorful scenes make fight scenes more fluid and add an extra dimension. As it’s expected from all 100+ episodes anime series, the budget of each episode is low. But when it comes to major fights it does not disappoint. Nothing top notch, yet well done.

The sound is not exceptional either. Voice acting is well done. It brings out what it aims to do. Music is not so great as to be memorable. It still fits the general mood of the anime. You don’t feel like songs are out of place.

One positive side of Toriko is that it doesn’t have many filler episodes. The number of filler episodes is 18 (13% of total) which is significantly lower than almost all long-running anime.

Toriko isn’t great at character department either. Though many characters are usual clichés, there are some positively peculiar ones among them. One positive thing is that they are older than 21. This is consciously chosen because they usually consume a lot of alcoholic beverages. However, it isn’t used in a meaningful way. They don’t differ much from younger shounen heroes. The main character Toriko is a nice lead. What he lacks, his partner Komatsu provides. They complete each other (sadly, this isn’t a love story). Toriko’s friends Sani, Coco shine in terms of power. The anime does not fall into the trap of overpowered main character standing alone against the enemy, reducing the rest to a bunch of useless spectators who are there only to get impressed by the main character. Also, female characters do not have overgrown breasts, an oddity in this age.

Overall, I enjoyed Toriko. Unlike other shounen, it requires a little more patience to be immersed in its world. But it’s painfully mediocre.

Master Keaton is a great episodic anime eager to offer something new in every episode. Due to its episodic nature, it lacks a great plotline and significant character growth. But this does not make Keaton a dull anime, because of the fact that the original creator pours his vast knowledge of European history into the work and creates something interesting in every episode.

The story feels like the creator really loved history and countries of Europe and wanted to make a story to share his knowledge. Because of that the story though not great is kind of encyclopedic. Some episodes can be easily incorporated into ... the great anime Monster. Main characters of both anime wander mainly in different parts of Europe (although for different reasons).

Characters are enjoyable. Majority of them appear in one or two episodes, and although they are not impressive, all secure their distinct places. Maybe more important, the story and characters excellently merge together, which in return guarantees better enjoyment. Moreover, the viewer learns something new in every episode. That is the main reason I enjoyed this anime. Each character's life is related to some real historic events, and they brilliantly fit together. The main character, Taichi Keaton, has impressive skills. He is an archeologist and war veteran. He travels solving mysteries all around the world. He is likable but not memorable. He is dull. Many times he plays the role of catalyst in bringing characters together and relating their history/story.

Story and interesting facts are the main selling points of the anime. Animation and sound quality isn’t impressive. First of all, this is an old anime. But even in its own time there were a lot of anime with better animation than Master Keaton. Music is fine. You may not remember after finishing it, but while watching I listened opening and ending in every episode.

Overall Master Keaton is a good anime. If you are interested in the history of Europe I can guarantee enjoyment. If you are looking for high-quality animation and sound then this isn’t for you. The same applies to the OVA as well. It is the direct continuation of the TV series.

One Piece starts great. It has original setting for its time, it introduces the best hook in all shounen anime, important characters are nicely fleshed out, the main character cannot one punch every enemy, and the story doesn’t feel like the original creator has run out of ideas. But this was many years ago. It doesn't look like an anime worth watching in 2017.

Since One Piece was first published in 1997 as a manga, and was animated in 1999, it took decades to tell the story. Its creator Eiichiro Oda had just graduated from high school back in the 1990s. He kept writing the same ... story well into his middle ages. I grew old watching and reading One Piece. I sometimes wonder how many fans have died waiting for the story to end. Please, if you ever create a story do end it before your youngest readers get their menopause or other age-related changes. Fans aren’t immortals to indulge storytellers. Even Eiichiro Oda is taking more and more breaks to take care of his health. Otherwise he cannot continue the work.

One Piece has one unique element that is hard to find in other long-airing anime. Its story is solid. It has actually two different storylines which Oda skillfully combines into a single plot. The first is the story of Straw Hat Pirates led by Luffy. The second is the history of the world of One Piece. As Straw Hat pirates continue their adventures they also discover the truth about their world. The pirate king who died decades ago left a great treasure called One Piece which somehow can change the fate of the world. The world government fights against pirates who want to become the next pirate king by finding that incredible treasure. As you can see, the lives of individual characters are more or less related to the world’s history. It makes the story more realistic. More, these two parallel storylines in a single plot make the anime even more interesting when they meet. This double-storyline method makes it possible for the lives of different characters to be intertwined naturally.

In One Piece supporting characters have lives of their own. Every character is also part of the world depicted. They don’t feel like talking heads in the void. Their lives are not isolated from each other.

Because the history of the world is so vast, there’s always something going on behind the stage. Actions of important people belonging to the world of One Piece have crucial importance. They can change the fate of the world. Furthermore, the aftermath of crucial battles does have repercussions for others as well. By careful storytelling Eiichiro Oda succeeds in preventing the main character from becoming an undisputed god in power. Another feature of this method is that there is actually more organic tragedy in One Piece.
Overall, One Piece stands out for its original storytelling for shounen, but sadly, like all long-lasting stories, it got old. Its creator got old. Its fans got old. The world got old.