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Note: this is a review of the first season only, I will not watch the second season since from the times when I watched Rupan Sansei Part II in its original japanese - I.E. True - form I don't particularly like children-leaning ca$hgrabs of the prolonged kind, as clearly the second season was intended from the get-go if its terribly downgraded animation is of any indication.

Before I start, let me preface that, contrary to a lot of people in the tokusatsu fandom who don't like him because they want their tokusatsus to be live-action renditions of Dragon Ball, I am a big Toshiki Inoue ... fan (he's currently my third favourite superhero writer of all times). I adore his style of perfectily meshing shoujo storytelling clearly inspired by the titans of the genre like Riyoko Ikeda (you'll always find something quoting Versailles No Bara in both his animes and tokus, think of the French Revolution in Choujin Sentai Jetman or the Yume No Kakera-Romantico tune from Kamen Rider Faiz being reminescent of the 1979 anime intro) and Walt Disney (I'm referring to the lovely Disney Princesses mentioned in every single work of his), subtle social critique concerning the bad results of the mix between the public sphere and the corporate world on the life of the common people (the taxes in Cutie Honey The Live and Ranma 1/2, the accountant at the start of Changerion, the inept soldiers in Tekkoku Mikazuki to name a few of those suggestions), inspiring philosophy concerning the importance of hoping for a shining light to keep us going in the worst moments (maybe inspired by his turbulent relationship with his father, the hack who almost destroyed the Kamen Rider IP during the Showa era with crap like the 1971 Kamen Rider and the nonsensically uberoverrated V3), sexual fanservice that does its job PERFECTLY without feeling forced or contrived and psychedelic imagery you would normally associate with people like Kunihiko Ikuhara or Hideaki Anno, and I adore it even more considering that Toshiki Inoue's style apparently is a direct continuation of the suggestions put forward by none other than the father of the Toei Superhero Tokusatsus Shotaro Ishinomori, at least if we consider the Shoujo-leaning, socially-critical stuff present in Ishinomori's own tokusatsus Seinun Kamen Machineman and Kaiketsu Zubat. For this reason, priorly to watch this series I tried to get into one of the guy's first work as the main writer, the insanely popular (in Japan only, of course) and insanely boring barring Inoue's own style Yawara: a fashionable judo girl, a series that, despite having prototypes of the love triangle present in Choujin Sentai Jetman and scenes reminiscent of Avataro Sentai Donbrothers, was boring because the hack who made the original manga tried to make an ill-concieved parody of spokons with an unrelatable, uber-perfect Mary Sue with genius parents, the kind of which you can find in the terrible Go: Princess Precure anime I previously reviewed on this same site. Luckily, this time around, there are no stupid Mary Sues to speak of so, if you're a fan of Inoue, you can fully appreciate his style once again and you can see elements that will end in his Masterpieces, particularly Changerion and the excellent Cutie Honey the live, as well you will see the Sukeban series influences he mentioned in the 99% perfect Avataro Sentai Donbrothers movie (the best live-action superhero movie of the last thirty years together with the equally excellent Kamen Rider Faiz 20th Anniversary movie, the MCU and DCEU crap can eat it all day all night to him) in the form of the black rose lady, a character which is reminescent of antagonists present in series made a few years before this anime was made like Tenshi No Uppercut and Sailor Fuku Hangyaku Doumei. That said, it's not 100% perfect and not as great as the first part of Death Note (which was penned by the same person) nor as great as his tokusatsus Masterpieces like Kamen Rider Kiva (The best Kamen Rider of all times IMHO), Changerion itself, Cutie Honey The Live, The beforementioned movies etc. etc. but still very good nonetheless, Kamen Rider Agito, Faiz and Shougeki Gouraigan level of good (yes, I liked even the latter, I couldn't care less of the naysayers). So, if you're a Toshiki Inoue fan like me, you will find more pleasure in the first Ranma 1/2 series than in the entirety of Yawara: a fashionable Judo Girl, hence I recommend going down on the former and leave the latter untouched. On a technical side, the animation in this series at least is still very clear and well done, the chara is excellent (particularly the female ranma is as loveable and sexy as it can get, I'm sorry for my first anime crush ever Shampoo - for whom I will always have soft spot nonetheless - but the female ranma takes the cake in all aspects) and the voice acting is stellar, with veterans like Megumi Hayashibara and Kikuko Inoue making a performance as spotless as it can get. The 20 - 21 including the final recap - episodes of the Ranma 1/2 anime (NOT Nettohen NOR the completely useless 2024 remake, both of which I couldn't care less even if I tried) are highly recommended from me.

And to Toshiki Inoue, if you ever read this review, I love you Maestro. Don't care one bit of the haters, they don't deserve you.

Go Princess Precure, A.K.A. the (mostly) well-animated "story" (even if there's no actual plot of any kind here, but whatever) of boring Mary Sues (the three main cures, all geniuses with genius parents who destroy all the opposition by flinching an eye) raised to the square doing fights recycled from the Kamen Rider and Super Sentais in a long line of Mary Sues from the very first Pretty Cure Series (I'm talking about the already perfect in all regards Honoka and Nagisa, of course) doing the same stuff. Boring Mary Sues that are all the contrary of the philosophy of deconstructing Shoujo Mary Sues to ... make them relatable to the public Toei animation expressed from the very first Majokko ever put on screen (Mahou Tsukai Sally) to the unsung and extremely underrated Ojamajo Doremi, akin to the change of heart Disney expresses through their unneeded, unnecessary Live Action, modern-era tailored renditions of their Classic with a Capital C animated movies. What happened, exactly? it is because of the success of the highly-overrated and equally boring Kamen Rider Kuuga - which had a similarly boring, irritating and nonsensically (nonsensically because there was no point whatsoever behind him, unlike the one present in Avataro Sentai Donbrothers) Gary Stu as a protagonist - that Toei decided to take this path? or it is because somebody suddently became enamored with the Usagi Tsukino and Sailor Venus as depicted in the terrible SM manga? I sincerely don't understand it. Check this series (and, I guess, the Pretty Cure franchise on the whole) only if you have a specific case of hard on for Mary Sues being as powerful and as unstoppable as it can get while (again, mostly) crystal clear animation and catchy OST in the background try to cover up for the atrocious writing on display, if you're not that kind of person chances are you're going to be bored to death like it happened with me.

Futari Wa Pretty Cure A.K.A the curse of the first historical 70's Kamen Riders and Sentais strikes again. Why I am making this comparison, you ask? because this is not a majokko but an animated Kamen Rider and Sentai/Super Sentai show masquerading as a magical girl one, and you don't need anything past the typical super sentai/kamen rider "plotline" (or, better said, lack of plotline) and the choreography fights to see that this thing is a 100% product of those tokusatsus and not of Sailor Moon (on itself, already influenced by the Super Sentais) or Ojamajo Doremi barring some slight elements reminescent of those two ... (hell, even the two protagonists' costumes are very similar to a Kamen Rider one). The problem is, if you've ever had the misfortune to watch the first 70's Kamen Riders (Don't do it, start with Kamen Rider Black if you're interested in the IP) and the first two Sentai shows you know that those (particularly the formers) had a serious problem with a repetition that would make repetitious writers from the 60's era (my second favourite era in the genre, and that should tell you something) of american superhero comics like yours truly Robert Kanigher from DC comics look like Shakespeare by comparison, and that's exactly what happened here. It's interesting and well done until the first 30 episodes, then the typical 70's Kamen Rider repetition of episodes being a carbon-copy of the previous ones starts to drag the show down until the viewer simply gets bored and goes directly to the ending, like it happened with my watching of the show, the first thing I ever watched of this franchise. Repetition that is not excusable due to the typical repetition of the tokusatsu source material and it's all due to the fact that the people making this still had no idea on how to mesh well the majokko part with the Kamen Rider/Super Sentai part, more or less what happened with the first Kamen Riders, Himitsu Sentai Goranger and to, some extent, JAKQ Dengekitai that were awful because those making them had no idea on how to develop them properly. Now, I am a fan of both the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai IPs (I even find the Kamen Rider Girls music to my taste) and there are some of those shows - one of which I'm currently waiting a Bandai Build-A-Figure to be delivered to me soon - that I consider 100% masterpieces of superhero medias (hell, I prefer the Super Sentais to any american superhero team a là JLA or Avengers and the Kamen Rider itself to Batman) even with me starting to get on those tokusatsus with the possible worst introductions ever to them, so I surely can cut some slack to this franchise and search for a Kamen Rider Black/Spiderman Toku/Battle Fever J amongst the twenty-something years this franchise has been going on. Still, outside the first thirty episodes and the fact that the animation of this beats to crap out of "newer" stuff produced by Toei like the terrible and completely unneeded Hades Chapter continuation of Saint Seiya, I can't really recommend this show on the whole, like I guess I will completely miss the sequel Max Heart because I had enough of the unwatchable Kamen Rider V3 and the mediocre JAKQ Dengekitai (thank you Sailor Moon Cosmos...sorry, I meant Big One for that!) at the start of my toku journey and I don't want to repeat the experience again. At least it's not as atrocious as the 70's Cutie Honey Monster, but that's not saying much TBH.

Minky Momo A.K.A. a very good magical girl series following the steps (what a surprise!) of Mahou Tsukai Sally (still my favourite second Majokko ever, with Sailor Moon being the first), which means there is no plot to speak of but it's all about the humour and the laughs of each single episode. In this sense, this series accomplishes its goal perfectly, and it's fun and entertaining all the way through its 62 episodes runtime, with the last twelve being an expansion of the original run of the first 50 and, incredibly enough, very reminescent to me of Ultraman Tiga. It's colorful and vivid, the ... music is entertaining, the voice acting as well as the singing numbers by Mami Koyama are very good, there is nothing particularly bad to point out except my personal qualms about the way Momo's secret identity and the link between Fernasinara and earth are treated (I excused it in Mahou Tsukai Sally because it's an older series, not here) but still it's a good series nonetheless. As an ending note, A shout out to Inka-Subs for providing the fansubs for the first 25 episodes before Crunchyroll took the reins is due, I think. I hope the second Minky Momo season will be subbed too soooner or later!

"you can't beat the intensity of the original", says a line from episode 25 of this anime remake of a pretty good tokusatsu show from the 70's that I watched before getting into this. That line perfectly sums this whole experience, meaning this is a pretty mediocre remake allaround less focused on the typical giant mecha stuff of the original and more concerned of throwing at the viewer a series of fights in battle shounen/spokon fashion (to the point of looking more an Ashita No Joe remake with some sprinkles taken from Dragonball and Rupan Sansei part II than a Red Baron one) that are ... watchable but don't go beyond the watchable part. Honestly, I sincerely don't get why the makers of this made such choice seeing that the dramatic angle of the original Red Baron tokusatsu had nothing wrong in it, the original Red Baron Tokusatsu is not a 70's Cutie Honey case of a series taking an angle (the Toku/pornographic one) and screwing the pooch so hard with the ending product that remakes like the excellent Cutie Honey Flash and the Toshiki Inoue Tokusatsu Masterpiece were needed from the get go but it was a good series enjoyable on its own, except for the typical tokusatsu tendency of starting a bit slowly and getting progressively better. Also, I must say the ending with the clone thingy mixed with (once again) stuff that reminds more of Dragonball than of a typical mecha show is really contrived and ridicolous, it makes the boring and overdone ending of the otherwise excellent tokusatsu Ultraman Cosmos series (the only Japanese Cosmos to my knowledge) look like a friggin' masterpiece. What I personally save from this? the voice acting, the clean animation and the character of Marylin, because she reminds me of a mixture of two of my favourite characters (Fujiko Mine and Aphrodite Pisces) with some added fanservice to spice it up and the mechas she makes are indeed reminescent of female mechas from the 70's, but other than that I'd say if you want a mecha anime show with elements taken from Ultraman like it was the original Red Baron toku series (that I recommend you to watch if you're into tokus like me) go with the Ultraman tribute going by the name of Evangelion (which also did the whole organic mecha thing better) and don't bother in the first place with this one, you're not going to miss anything special except the reiteration that the Tokus and animation medias on the longer run don't mesh well, some sparse and very rare exceptions permitted (see the beforementioned Cutie Honey live action tokus).

And so it ended this Candy Candy look-alike saga! Yup, if you didn't notice already from the first series in this franchise, the influence of the failed masterpiece Candy Candy anime from the 70's (failed not because of the content but because of the usual syndication crap about the necessity of making 100+ episodes where the ideas lasted for less than said amount of time, 90 in that specific case) is REALLY HIGH on both Lady Lady!! and Hello! Lady Lynn, in particular in the chara design which is admittedly straight-up copy-and-pasted but also concerning some plot elements. So, both series are mainly targeted to ... fans of that one like me myself and I (episode from 91 on excluded) from the get go and if you happen to be one of them you will like them both, even if on the whole the package is not in the same league of the perfection achieved by the first 90 episodes of Candy Candy. Concerning the series that I'm reviewing in this moment, totally useless FOUR recaps at episode 17-18 and episode 35-36 (????) and one atrocious filler permitted it suffers a bit in terms of predictability, meaning the fact that the emotionality of the ending of the first series is a bit toned down because you already know that Lynn is going to win that friggin' lady necklace whatever it was because almost everybody ends totally supporting her, so it's not unsurprising. All said and done, I still give it an 8 rounding up from the 7,5 I thought of giving it because I had a good time and I didn't feel my time was wasted with these two series. I'd recommend you anyway to watch Candy Candy throught the fansubs available online (the only way as of today to do it) before watching both Lady Lady!! and Hello! Lady Lynn if you've never done it.

Do you know that animation, as a medium, has reached a point where its maturity and ability to discuss important, relevant issues and to inspire people in their daily life is equal if not greater than live-action movies and series? Kanashimi No Belladonna, the Satoshi Kon trilogy of Perfect Blue, Paprika and Millennium Actress (trilogy made by the same company who did this, of all things), Sailor Moon, Cowboy Bepop, Ideon etc. etc. etc. all helped to push the medium out of the sole children's reach (I mean it with no offense for children, who are everything other than stupid) and they're far more relevant ... and mature than so-called live action "masterpieces". By watching this turd and the infinite amount of accolades it has received during the years, you wouldn't believe it. Why? because this is a 100% horny, childish teenager fantasy with nothing relevant, interesting and mature in it, meaning it all comes to tits, ass and gore and nothing else. There's the badass main ninja male who is indestructible, there's the female side character voiced by the always amazing Emi Shinohara (who is the sole reason why I watched this after avoiding it like the plague for years due to its overbloated hype) who serves no purpose other than showing some boobas while being raped (twice) and to contrivedly fall in love/have sex with said ninja male, there's the third old guy who again serves no purpose other than mumbling something about an inexistant plot because who cares of having something resembling an actual plot when you have tits, ass and gore?! and there's the enemy, whose charisma is less than that of a faceless minion trooper in a showa superhero Tokusatsu and, like the female ninja, most of the time it doesn't go beyond the function of showing some nudity. And, mind you, the combination of tits, ass, sex and gore for the sake of tits, ass, sex (ridicolous early sex scene including the ninja clan leader I'm looking at you) and gore can have its moments (even if I would prefer no pointless rape innuendo in them), but it can have them in something that doesn't take itself way too seriously like the first Lady Death Comics by Brian Pulido, where it was clear that was the focus of the guy and, albeit nobody would call them masterpieces in any way, they were fun. On the contrary, this movie takes itself so goddamn seriously that it clearly thinks of itself as the animated equivalent of samurai sagas like the Seven Samurais or the Zatoichi movies when in reality it's a teenager escapade overhyped for no real reason. Again, I question: why? it is because of the technical element? of the pretty good japanese voice acting? I don't get it. A pretty, well animated and well voiced void is still a pretty, well animated and well voiced void, no matter how you make it beautiful on the outside. Avoid wasting your time on this with no remorse whatsoever and, if you're an Emi Shinohara fan like me, watch something else with her in it (Abaranger and Dekaranger, for example?) or re-listen to her beautiful musical albums like I'm doing in this moment, her doing the good job you're already expecting from her with the non-existant material she's given doesn't save this dreck one single inch.
Edit: DEFINITELY watch Abaranger over this anytime if you're an Emi Shinohara fan and you want to remember her as the amazing lady she was in the right way, no questions attached.

Apparently, I should thank my instincts because my instincts in facts of anime are pretty much almost always on the point. Why, you ask? because like it happened with the godawful, unnecessary movie they made out of Trigun ten years after the classic 90's series was ended, my instinct prevented me to watch this completely unnecessary sequel to a pretty good and influential series (except the sixth episode that is, totally unwatchable unless you're into formerly depressed Otakus who believe themselves "profound" and "intelligent" because they employ totally empty religious and non-religious words in a black-and-white, badly-drawn artsy-farty dreck) because I thought this was going ... to be an awful experience. And guess what? that's what this is, an awful experience that starts more or less - except, once again, a completely pointless use of religious tones at the very start - pretty good, with full-on fanservice (made with the overseeing of the same guy who put the concept that sex is unnecessary in his 2000's live-action unwatchable turd Shiki-Jitsu...really?!) and quips to Kamen Rider Otakus who are into Tokusatsus like myself love. And then...then the rest of the series happens, and the hard sci-fi tones of the original Gunbuster are replaced by (boring, in this case) superhero stuff that has no reason to be here in the first place (this is no Ultraman) and atrocious writing not saved in the slightest by the copious throwbacks to the original series and to Evangelion, which are ridicolous to say the least. Oh and congratulation for the reuse of the rape innuendo from the godawful Wings of Honneamise, that was REALLY important in the grand scheme of events...not. If you're a fan of Gunbuster and in particular of the least pretentious part of it (Hideaki Anno at his best ever hands down together with the Daicon III and IV openings and the Return of Ultraman fan parody) rewatch the first five episodes of that landmark series, eventually go down directly on some Kamen Rider series alltogether and avoid this turd with no remorse whatsoever.

And, once again, I see people gratuitously crapping on a very good anime because reasens, and I sincerely don't understand why. What I saw here was extremely good and stylish animation, extremely good voice acting from all parts included (the voice of Sarah is so goddamned sexy it hurts), interesting story perfectly in vein of what the author of the original manga did in other works like Kaze To Ki No Uta and even with less forced moments (and for forced I mean actual rapes, in here there is no rape or violation of sorts), good and enticing OST, what is the problem of people ... with this? because it's not "manga accurate" enough? who cares, this is a jewel of an anime that is leaps and bounds better than the sufficiently entertaining one they made out of Kaze To Ki No Uta, and it's a shame not many people know of it. Watch and rewatch this and enjoy it in full for the piece of art it is.

Do you want to see Evangelion before Evangelion took a definite form? look no further than this series, which is simply a preamble to what Hideaki Anno made with that one, and I mean that it's a preamble in the true sense of the word not only in terms of visuals and scenes copied and pasted but also because it de facto encapsulates every virtue and sin (oh no the christian symbology from Ultraman and Ultraseven has taken hold of me too! help me! No, wait, I'm an Ultraman fan too, everything's OK) of that series, in turn the virtues and sins of the creator, ... who can write enticing and reflexive stuff when he refuses to give go to any pretention of fake intellectualism (hello the Gainax Bounce on Grandis' tits and the nude butt of Nadia/Vegetarian Asuka in the bathtub! Hello final reference to Otaku No Video!) and when he tries to convince you that he's the intellectual that he isn't due to his geek obsession of psychology by inserting a cameo of Goya's Saturn eating his son that has no meaning whatoever or with some kind of word salad/overcomplication that true intellectuals don't use (these ones make complicate concepts digestable for people who are not in their same league, not the contrary) the writing takes a nosedive for the worst, in particular with the all the stuff concerning the Electra complex of Electra towards Nadia's father (Misato Katsuragi and Ritsuko Akagi Anyone?) which literally has no point whatsoever and it is not particularly well written or explained. Oh yes, you can also clearly see that Hideaki was using this series as a way to externalize hard his depression like he did with Evangelion, and again the writing suffered for it, even if it didn't suffer the way sucky and unwatchable End of Evangelion did. So, this being the preamble of Evangelion, the only logical consequence is to give it the same rating I give to Evangelion, a 7. TBH, I still put Gunbuster and in particular the first five episodes over the Eva stuff (of which I'm a fan of certain things only, meaning all the Otaku stuff - I.E. the ladies, the mechas, the audio department and the people behind it - and not the word salad or the uberdepression) which have NO OVERDEPRESSIVE TONE and they're just him and the Gainax guys doing great Otaku stuff for other Otakus like them, but there are far worst Hideaki Anno products out there (totally unwatchable/boring End of Evangelion and trio of Love&Pop/Shiki-Jitsu/Shin Japan Heroes "movies" I'm looking at you). Oh and BTW as suggested by the majority of this anime's fandom I didn't care to watch the filler arc except episode 31, where the penultimate Ultraman fan fanboys like only he could do with no particular pretention, and I'm perfectly OK with that. Thanks for reading! Next in the watchlist for the Hideaki Anno world tour: his preferred thing ever The Return of Ultraman!
P.S. absolutely excellent voice acting and in particular by Akio Ootsuka and Kikuko Inoue in here, if you're a fan of those Seiyuus you'll love them. Kikuko is FAR BETTER employed and with a stronger range of emotions at display than she was in the Ah My Goddess series (my first introduction to her voice), IMHO.