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Jan 3, 2015
This show essentially looks to answer the age old question: What would happen if normal people were given superpowers? Well, they'd probably just keep being normal people. In fact, the "supernatural" aspect of this show play little to no actual role. Remove the powers and it's still a highschool romcom. But it's a really good highschool romcom with a likeable main character, even if he is romantically oblivious like every other harem lead.
I'm not going to bother giving a summary of the plot, because there barely is one, but I can say that I did not expect to enjoy the show
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as much as a I did. I'm a firm believer that when the credits roll and the show finishes and I still want more, the show deserves a good score in my book. This show ended with me begging for more because it does exactly what every good SOL romcom should do: focus on the characters.
The characters do, ultimately fall into tired cliches, eg. Loli, tsundere, childhood friend, maturity-chan. But they're all great, multi-dimensional characters and I enjoyed every one of them. In the end, they're all best girl, and in a show like this that's the best possible outcome. The MC isn't an idiot, he's actually got some redeeming qualities that would realistically make women fall for him unlike so many harem leads. And if you're not careful you'll be going gay for him so watch out.
Overall, the show gets a 9. Sure, the plot was weak, but it's a subversive show. It's meant to showcase a different side of the classic superpowered action show, and it's supposed to subvert your expectations of what your normal high school students would do if suddenly granted powers. The art was good, I love Trigger's animation style, and the sound was phenomenal. In the end, the characters are lovable and left me with an empty feeling when the show finished. That's a 9/10 in my book. If you're looking for something to watch, I'd 100% suggest this show, even if you normally don't like slice of life romcoms set in a high school. It's a mixed bag with a little something for everyone!
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Mar 28, 2014
Kill la Kill is the most ridiculously absurd, incredibly shallow, quickly paced, and unconstitutionally brainless show that I've ever had the pleasure of watching. The show works, and it works well. Almost every episode has a hype quotient far beyond anything I've ever seen. The reason it's such a great show is because you watch an episode and are constantly fed nonstop craziness, and its just barrels of fun to watch. Let's break it down.
Story: 8
Alright, so normally I wouldn't give a story like this an 8. There's a lot of plotholes, there's a lot to be desired, and the
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story is very typical. At the same time, it's fast-paced nonstop action, mixed in with an absolutely absurd plot with plenty of twists in turns. It helps not to look into it too much. The show is a lot of fun and action, it's got moments of drama and seriousness, and looking into it too much just makes it less fun for you. If you're planning on getting technical about it and bringing the story in for review by critics, you're not going to have a good time. If you're going to watch the show and scream "FUCK YEAH" when something awesome happens and let your cynicism melt away, the drama will be intense and the storyline epic, it's really up to you.
Art: 9
The art is one of the best parts. The backgrounds are beautiful, the characters have nice designs, and the whole show is basically about clothes, and the designs of the outfits were also well done. The art is a little risque at times, but in terms of pure quality, the animation varies from humorously bad to scary good. The fight scenes are outstanding and deserve all the praise they get.
Sound: 10
If you don't like the soundtrack, I'm afraid you may have lost your way. The soundtrack of the show is incredible, the song choices are impeccable, and the music always adds to the crazy levels of hype and excitement that each episode brings. The soundtrack is truly one of the crowning features of the show, with plenty of songs that are amazing outside of the show.
Character: 10
I loved every character (well, loved in a 'they were a good character' way), all the main ones were well-written, though at times a little cliche, but there wasn't really a character that didn't pull their weight. The interactions between them are fun to watch, their motivations and values are clear, and they act consistently for the most part. There's clear development, and they all bring something new to the table. The villains are intimidating, the heroes were endearing and had depth and unique personalities, and the supporting characters were also fun to watch and were given their own personalities.
Enjoyment: 10
Kill la Kill is a show that was meant to be enjoyed. It wasn't designed to make you ponder life, or to make you cry or feel emotions, or to make some sort of political statement, or even to provide a storyline that was intriguing enough to warrant coming back each week. It's pure, unadulterated fun, and at the end of the episode I never failed to want more. It's like candy, light, tasty, enjoyable and leaves you wanting more. There's a reason that the hype train for this show never stops, and it's because the hype never ends, it just gets more intense.
Overall: 10
I don't normally award tens, but I'm making an exception. I thoroughly enjoyed each and every second of Kill la kill. It was crazy, it shoved fan-service into my face, and exaggerated fights as far as possible. In the end, I just wish there was more. The characters were all wonderful, and even a sailor uniform becomes lovable. All in all, Kill la Kill is something you watch when you want to have fun and get excited, and it succeeded so well in doing that that it deserves a ten. I make a point to grade shows based on what they were aiming for or what their purpose or goal is, and Kill la Kill was perfect in that regard. It has truly saved anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Mar 8, 2014
Story: 4
Basically, 10+ attractive, single woman of all ages fall in love with one guy whose only redeeming quality is that he's a "nice guy".
The remainder of the story is as follows:
-Big jiggly boobs
-Upskirts
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-Main male character falls on top of the female character and gropes them, causing both upskirts and boob jiggles
-Clothes disappearing and/or dissolving
Art: 7
If there's one thing they got right, it's at least what the main focus of the plot is. Practically all the effort of the show is put into the artwork of boobs, panties, big anime eyes/hairdos and sexually provocative outfits.
Sound: 7
I mean, do you really watch something like this for the sound? No.
Character: 3
The female character exist solely to fall down, be accidentally groped by the main character and react in an archetypal fashion, whether they're some variant of tsundere, or their your typical shy girl.
Otherwise, they live their lives wandering around the planet occasionally having their clothes torn off or their skirts lifted up.
The main male characters life consists of falling on top of these girls, groping them, and lamenting the woes of having 10+ chicks want his dick.
Oh and the main character is from space but that really doesn't play much of a role past "We need something to happen in between the boobs and the panties".
Enjoyment: 6
I mean, at some point the enjoyment of watching our hero valiantly touch girls in inappropriate spots and then apologize dies out. But as a man, there's at least some eye candy, so the show has that going for it... I guess?
Overall: 6
It's basically just fanservice. But even fanservice can get old after a while. I mean, how many times can you watch Rito fall on top of one of the female cast? Eventually, you start asking questions, like "Why don't the girls catch him?" or "Why don't they move out of the way?" or more importantly "Why am I watching this when I could just watch soft porn and get rid of the crappy story segments in between the fanservice?"
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Feb 16, 2014
There are very few ways to describe Nichijou, because as a sketch comedy/slice of life show its very sporadic. The show is funny, touching, and beautiful. Its appeal can be divided up into three basic parts.
(1) Humor
There is never a dull moment. The show uses hyperbole and over-the-top animation to drive home some jokes, and deadpan dullness for others. It's extremely experimental and a lot of skits are hit or miss. But luckily, the show is a collection of skits, and if one of the skits happens to be a miss, you only have to wait 1-6 minutes before the
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show moves on to a completely different skit. It's fast-paced and funny, which is a great combination because the laughs never stop coming.
(2) Art
The character design is so simplistic that you wouldn't think that this show would get a great deal of praise for is art. Yet, every frame is near perfection. The amount of work that went into the animation of the show is visible in a lot of skits. It's not often you see animation as good as Nichijou's used in a comedy show, especially so often.
And even though the animation is already top-quality, the backgrounds and still shots are equally amazing. The art is simply beautiful and transitions are done by beautifully drawn images of some background, like an apartment complex, a field with a lake, or an elevator. Overall, its some of the most beautiful animation/art I've ever seen in an animated show.
(3) Characters
The show is incredibly cute and fun and the characters are unique. Within the second half of the show, some serious efforts are made to make so semblance of character development, and its actually really touching. Though the show is primarily a comedy, it is able to touch other emotions as well, and overall is an extremely heartwarming show. The characters are also extremely cute and fun, making the show just fun to watch overall.
The rewatch value of Nichijou is infinite. Since the skits have almost no ties between them, they can be watched in any order and still be hilarious, meaning that any episode can be rewatched at any time for some laughs.
I highly, highly recommend this show. Normally I feel as though a lot of humor is lost through subtitles because comedic timing is inherently lost, but Nichijou still manages to be downright hilarious.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 9, 2014
Oreimo is something a little... different. At first glance it appears to be another rehash of the classic brother/sister incest relationship, with some anime obsession on the side. Oreimo, at least the first season, pulls away and offers something more sincere, with comedy at the forefront and dramatic subplots galore, and plenty of cuteness to keep you satisfied.
Story: 5
It's not a particularly compelling story. A brother and a sister who live as polar opposites, one a normal guy who wants things to remain average, the other a model, star student, athletic prodigy, and eventually a notable novelist, act coldly to each other
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due to mutual hatred. One fateful day, the perfect, straight A student Kirino is revealed to her brother Kyousuke as an otaku, obsessed primarily in erotic adult games involving little sisters. The story of the show revolves around Kyousuke giving Kirino advice on how to deal with making new friends that share her interests and giving her an outlet to talk about her obsession by indulging in it himself.
The story isn't handled very tactfully, nor is it particularly interesting. Removing the potential for humor/jokes, the story itself isn't compelling or particularly unique. It's a refurbished version of the rekindling of a broken relationship through a common interest, secret, problem, goal etc. Very little development is made, and episodes eventually drop the story altogether for a more slice of life style show. The brother-sister relationship rekindling is replaced with a look into the struggles of otaku, who are looked down on by society. Once again, the story here is rather lackluster, but the humor is prime. However, comedy doesn't make for a good story, and although OreImo tries its darnedest to remind you that it can be serious every once in a while with a dramatic scene, it fights a losing battle trying to split its time between silly cuteness and otaku culture, and a serious story about siblings who come to understand each other.
Art: 8
The art style of the show isn't notably deviant or original, but its pleasant nonetheless. The show offers a very stagnant style of art. While other shows make use of multiple animation styles to portray a mood or enhance an aspect of a character (cute, serious, dumbfounded, etc.), OreImo consistently uses one style almost all the way through without resorting to the use of alternate styles to make the characters appear cuter or more serious in a scene. This actually helps with the realistic setting the show tries to create.
Similarly, the show doesn't resort to classic animation tropes (or anime tropes), such as bleeding noses, or simplified versions of the characters being used for quicker animations, or a blurred depiction of fast movement. The characters are drawn to look and act like real people, and don't break from that. Aside from the classic blushing lines (which are used almost constantly), the show steers clear of most other stereotypical anime art choices.
The show also pays a lot of attention to detail, and even offers some different opening animations almost every episode, along with different pictures at the ending of every episode. Details like this are what push a shows art from good to very good.
For those reasons, and simply because the art is pleasant to look at in the first place (and since the characters are adorable), the art gets an 8.
Sound: 7
The voice actors seemed to match their personalities well, and they did a good job. The OP is extremely upbeat and catchy, which matches the shows atmosphere, and every episode makes use of an entirely different ending song, which is something very unique.
I can't say much about the background music. While the opening and closing songs were very good, and the voice acting was prime, the background music got old extremely quick. None of the tracks were notably special and overall they were rather average. Best I can do is a 7.
Character: 7
There's a wide spectrum of characters on the show. If I could rate each one individually they would get everything ranging from a 3 to a 10.
The main male lead, a character position that is very rarely done well by romance/comedy anime, follows suit with every other wimpy male lead. Though he's rather refreshing because he's at least sarcastic and apathetic, he's abused constantly, usually for no good reason, and doesn't retaliate, his character remains rather static for the entire show, he's portrayed as completely average and uninteresting, with no stated goals, hobbies, or interests that could give him the slightest amount of depth. Like most other male leads, he's romantically oblivious and dense. And, of course, his only redeeming factor is that he is occasionally kind, and occasionally sticks up for his friends. If it weren't for the fact that he at least had a little bit of a backbone and was willing to reprimand his sister for her bullshit occasionally, he'd truly be another irredeemable, boring male lead.
The main female lead doesn't differ much. Her personality is split between mega-bitch and super-cute-girl. When it comes to anything but anime/eroge, she is a classic tsundere character, turned up to 11. She's extremely annoying, makes no changes to her character regardless of what happens, and is generally difficult to like. Of course, she's adorable sometimes, so she has that going for her, and at least that helps the title make sense. There's also a sense of wish-fulfillment going on with her character. She's a very cliche example of a character who is presented to other characters as perfect/flawless but really has a glaring oddity/flaw that makes her more relatable to people who aren't perfect/flawless. She complains often, is annoying, and makes little to no development unless the director happens to want some sort of drama to happen. This personality is critical to the show, since any other personality wouldn't have made the story work, but is extremely dissatisfying to watch.
The rest of the cast is mostly enjoyable, with a few gems that really stand apart from the rest of the cast. I don't have the time or motivation to write an individual analysis of each one to give you a better idea of what the cast of characters in this show is like, but the personalities are varied and there's something for mostly everyone. Even though the two leads don't always cut it as far as good characters go, characters like Ayase, Manami, and Kuroneko show that the writers do actually know how to write a character that isn't incredibly irritating to watch or unbearably average/boring with questionable motivations that don't always make sense. The moe is strong with all the characters, however.
If it weren't for the strong supporting cast, the show would have flunked as far as characters go. As the show goes on, Kirino and Kyousuke become more bearable and make a good comedic duo with their sparring personalities. There is at least some good to come out of their extreme personalities.
Enjoyment: 8
The show is funny, there's not much else to note here. Neither the drama nor the romance is particularly enjoyable, other shows do it much better. The story isn't very interesting or engrossing, but offers situations in which the characters can interact in hilarious ways.
At its core, the show takes a bunch of adorably cute characters (and the male lead) and puts them in situations where they have to deal with each others' differing and sometimes clashing personalities as well as with the challenges of being obsessed with something society looks down upon. Overall, the humor of the show is the best part, and makes the other, lesser aspects of the show bearable.
Overall: 7
The show almost does a lot of things. It almost offers an endearing story about how a brother and a sister rekindle their relationship through the odd common factor of erotic adult games involving little sisters. It almost offers a full cast of interesting, fun characters with believable personalities that interact in realistic ways. It almost executes jokes without repeating the same ones over and over again. It almost keeps the characters personalities from going overboard for the sake of quick comedy. It almost creates realistic situations in which the characters act in accordance to their personality without resorting to dumbing down a character or changing the way they act to make a story work. It almost offers great comedy without interference of lackluster drama and unneeded plot points. But it doesn't quite reach there. The show could have been great, but it makes a lot of mistakes.
There's two ways you can go about the show taking into account these mistakes. You can either get caught up in them and hate the show, or you can ignore them in favor of laughing at the jokes and choking over the adorable characters and overall cuteness. Personally, I couldn't forgive the mistakes completely, but I easily ignored them in favor of a good laugh while watching. The show could have been great, but it remains only good because of this.
I definitely recommend the show, but your enjoyment of it really depends on you sense of humor (this show deals mostly with character interaction for its source of humor and light quips about otaku culture) and how much you'll get caught up in the poor aspects of the show and its mistakes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 26, 2014
This show serves one purpose: comedy, and in that regard it does very well. If you're looking for a laugh, this is the show for you. Each individual aspect shines (or doesn't) in its own way. Note that (per my username) when I speak of voice acting talent I'm referring to the English voice actors (this won't have much of an effect on the review, but it's worth mentioning)
Story: 3
Alright, let's face it, this section doesn't even need much explanation. The show has barely any overarching plotline, the romantic plotline takes a backseat for most of the show and is instead
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twisted as humor, and most of the episodes form their own little arc. There's not much to say, the story wasn't really there. Individual episodes also didn't explore particularly interesting plotlines, so from a perspective focused only on the actual interest the bare plotline has, the show doesn't do well. Of course, that's not the purpose of the show, anyway.
Art: 9
The art is very refreshing. Though the regular animation and character design are pretty standard (still good, however), the art choices in the show earn it a 9. Backgrounds and shading are done with the help of color-coded dots. As if the show wasn't fun and colorful already, the dots supplement the environment of the show. These dots are a very distinctive art choice and were only jarring initially, afterwards you get used to them. Characters have their shadows color coded when standing, and backgrounds are as colorful as can be. All these bright colors just add to the fun atmosphere of the show.
Other than that, Baka and Test uses animation and art style in a great way. Animation changes from hand drawn, to chibi, to normal when appropriate and adds variety to the different ways to set the mood of the scene. There is a perfect blend of all the different animation/art styles that are used, and they never really feel out of place. Although the animation isn't stunningly fluid or impressive in a classic sense, the use of animation by the art director is consistently helpful to the mood of the scene or the way dialogue is being presented. Great decisions all around and makes for a better experience.
Sound: 7
Nothing special here. The theme song is pretty catchy, and the ending theme is nice, but there's nothing to fawn over. Of course, the soundtrack isn't detrimental to the series. The background music and sound effects fit to the scene well, but it's not anything worth writing home about.
I'll mention voice acting here instead of in the next section. The voice actors do a phenomenal job, I can't think of one voice that I didn't think matched the character. All the voice actors do a great job and there was no lack of emotion in any of them. The voice acting pulls the show's sound up from a 5 to an 8. If you're planning on watching the English dub, you're in for a treat because it's truly one of the better ones out there. Leah Clark has a voice that was practically crafted for tsunderes, Greg Ayres is always wonderful, Brina Palencia nails the androgynous voice of Hideyoshi almost too well, and Terry Doti is superb as your typical bad boy leader.
The sound of this show gets an 10 for the voice acting, but the background music and sound effects get a measly 6,with an average of 8. Take from that what you will. If you don't plan on watching the English dub, none of this is applicable, and I can't comment on the Japanese voice acting, so you'll have to see how it is for yourself.
Character: 9
Characters fit into classic tropes, and a lot of them are represented. There's no point in listing all the tropes that are fulfilled but for the most part the characters are lovable and quirky. Though they may have a cliche personality, the characters are written very well, and regardless of if their main personality is a common anime character trope, it doesn't matter. Stereotypical characters aren't a bad thing, poorly written stereotypical character are, and Baka and Test does stereotypes in a comical/satirical way, bringing each character over the top and beyond with their personalities.
Character interaction is where this show shines. The banter forms most of the comedy, the personalities clash and mix in hilarious ways, and the relationships between different characters is funny to watch. Some minor characters (and Hideyoshi) have unique characteristics that are almost always exploited for a joke. One character gets his own gender, a group of characters punish boys who get into relationships (or get romantic attention from girls) with death, and another is a psychopathic girl who will do anything in her power to get married with her love interest.
Needless to say, the characters are quirky and over the top, but they're hilarious.
Enjoyment: 10
I can't remember many moments during the show when I wasn't smiling. It's just constantly happy and funny all the way through. I came into the show expecting a comedy and nothing else, and got exactly what I wanted. If you come into the show with that mindset, you will leave thoroughly satisfied. If you're looking for an endearing love story, well, you're not going to enjoy it as much. It's jokes 24/7 and I love it for that.
Overall: 9
It's a funny show, and I like to laugh. Overall, there was some repetitiveness and some of the jokes lost their luster over time, but the overall hilarity of the show trumps that and puts this comedic goldmine at a solid 9/10. I highly recommend it to anyone that enjoys silly humor. It's in no way sophisticated, and I love it for that. If you have a generally open sense of humor, you'll love this show, but if you have a very specific sense of humor, you may end up thinking that most of the jokes are just plain stupid or not funny at all.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 21, 2014
The show's English dub makes its lackluster plot and repetitive storylines bearable. Let's be honest, the story is absolute nonsense, every episode has the same basic plotline, and the show relies a lot on the character's making ridiculously poor choices to move along. All in all, without the English dub it's just a crappy show that isn't scary or heartwarming at all.
The reason I give this show an 8 is because the voice actors did an outstanding job delivering the jokes and the writing team did an outstanding job writing them. The show can be enjoyed to the fullest only if you
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have knowledge of American pop culture, as there are plenty of references and jokes that only make sense if you know who people like Christian Slater and other celebrities are. A lot of the jokes are reference based, mercilessly poking fun at popular celebrities, movies, and sometimes TV shows. If you don't watch anything other than anime or have no interest in pop culture, a LOT of these references will go straight over your head and a lot of the lines that are meant to be funny will just sound stupid.
But references are only the beginning of the humor. The next thing that the writers did was turn otherwise uninteresting characters into wacky, hilarious crazies each with their own unique trait that drives a lot of the jokes. One character even has 90% of his lines turned into incoherent mumbling and is dubbed mentally retarded by the rest of the cast, and it is hilarious. Be warned, the cast has no soft spot for sensitive topics. Another character becomes an (extremely) devout Christian, which makes for some of the best lines in the show. So even if you're not into reference based humor, the characters are hilarious, too.
Even so, the jokes aren't reserved to just references and character quirks, some of the lines are genuinely funny and will have you laughing out loud. Scenes are twisted to look like something they're not, lines and sometimes conversations are completely omitted in favor of funny banter, and there is generally never a serious moment in the show. Don't come in expecting a plot, or anything serious at all, because anything that could get serious are starts becoming serious is thrown out the window in favor of a ridiculous script that sometimes isn't even relevant to what's going on in the scene except for the fact that the facial expressions and actions match the dialogue.
All in all, the show is great. It gets an 8 because there's no point in judging the show for its story or its art or its music, because it's really just like stand up comedy. It's joke after joke after joke and every episode brings something new. The only reason this is getting an 8 is because sometimes it felt like jokes were coming in just for the sake of messing up the original script or saying something stupid in lieu of saying something serious. There's a lot of hit or miss humor, and to say that all of it was a hit for me would be a lie. I laughed, a lot, but sometimes it felt like jokes were just being shoe-horned into the script. They could have handled it a lot more tastefully and built up to the jokes, but due to the way its set up you can tell when they're going to come, just wait for one or two lines that sound like they're actually from the original script and you can almost guarantee the next line will be a joke.
So, from my standpoint, while the show was genuinely hilarious, and that's really all that matters here (if you're looking for anything besides nonstop humor find something else), it could have been done a little better, and for that reason it gets an 8. I still highly recommend it to anybody who just wants to laugh.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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