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Keikenzumi is an anime that starts with a premise that as a whole is entirely not original, but that has a small spice to it that makes it different than most of the others one could watch of this genre, which is the fact that the main girl is the experienced one and that already had plenty of relationships, while the main boy is the one that never did anything related to romance. Just because of that alone, there will surely be plenty of people that will hate this anime, because they are unable to see a main girl that is not a pure and ... innocent angel getting the spotlight, however, the ones considering watching this anime should not bother with that, for this is the literal one single thing that it is able to do properly: the interaction between someone with experience and someone without, and how each of them reacts to one another.

That is not to say though, that there are not plenty of others reasons to not watch this anime, because there surely are. From standard romances, it is probably among the worst ones of all, with not only very bad writing but also very bad investment on the anime, giving it ugly (though not the worst possible) animations, cheap style, lack of any significant music, and an horrible direction that cuts very relevant content from the light novel making some episodes utterly nonsensical. If that investment problem was all, it would not be a big issue, for romance animes tend to be less demanding in terms of animation and investment in general, to begin with, however it is not a case in which the quality of the animation sinks down the quality of the writing, it is a case in which both of these aspects hold hands and sink together to the bottom of the seas.

Every single character is extremely shallow and plain uninteresting, with motives that the ones watching would easily wonder if the author even gave it some thoughts before writing it. From common nonsense of characters falling in love after an exchange of 5 words on the stairs, to the famous group of losers that spend most of their day horny and makes that their entire personality, this anime has most of the standard badly written scenarios, and the development of the plot and its attempts to create dramas doesn not fall behind. Each drama that happens throughout the anime manages to be sillier than the one that happened before, to the point that one could wonder if they are really teenagers, and not middle-school children because of such silly mentality, with characters fighting over the most stupid and irrelevant things, and even risking their relationships over reasons so petty that it feels absurd, the type of thing that could be solved by literally talking for 20 seconds with each other. Perhaps that was an attempt to replicate the silly nature that teenagers of this age tend to possess, but it is made in such an absurd and exaggerated way that instead it feels like the show is about kids of 8 years old fighting between themselves because one took the toy of the other.

For those looking for something that simply has cute interactions, this anime may be something desirable, for it does have a few cute moments, but besides that; the fact that it follows well its premise of experience versus inexperience; and a few good original designs that manage to carry on even to the cheap animation, there is nothing else that this anime offers of valor. Every character besides the two main girls has absolutely zero depth, and while these two—Runa and Maria—does have a little bit more going for them, that does not save them from being badly written as well. Every other character—important characters, a relevant detail—is bad to the point that they do not even make sense, and if not straight from the beginning, they will disappoint and feel extremely childish or stupid at some point.

Hive has an interesting idea of picking all the basics for a zombie apocalypse genre and putting them focused on INSECTS, and for those that have some interest in either of these things, it will surely be a great manga to read for sure. While it did not have any big difference besides the insect theme, with popular apocalypse zombie movies and series, it managed to progress the story very well, with the action scenes not falling behind through the course of it and most importantly, with the background behind what happened for this apocalypse to begin, not being forgotten and ignored for the sake ... of putting only more action, a common thing that happens with this genre.

Despite having fights and problems to solve on almost every chapter, the author still progress the mysteries behind the story well, being able to keep interested both those who like to see the struggles to survival, and those who like to see the struggle to solve the apocalypse itself. Some characters have their own sorts of mysteries and secrets too, and while naturally the protagonist has a big highlight, the others characters does not fall behind, each of them being most of the times, very relevant and useful during the fights.

The biggest problem with the manga however, is that while it started looking like a "rebellion of the insects taking Earth back for them", through the course of the story it ended up being more about the wasps and nothing more, with most of the others insects that would appear at the beginning and that were interesting, disappearing and no new ones being introduced, which was a cool potential that was wasted.

Besides that, while not having many women is not really something that necessarily makes a work bad, it ends up being quite annoying in Hive how among the minor and more irrelevant characters, random survivors who are just there as fillers, there is hardly ever a woman among them, which is probably explainable by how, for some reason, 90% of these random survivors are beasts that can only think about sex and raping women, which ends up being quite the exaggeration to see everytime. Despite this problem though, the women that are not fillers and random minor characters, are actually really cool and useful, unlike in most of the zombie apocalypse works.

It is surely recommended for those who would not get disturbed by both lots of blood and lots of nasty "insectish" things, such as green fluids being squished everywhere and huge larvaes and such, and for those that would enjoy a somewhat long adventure through a chaotic world with lots of dangers. The end of this work leaves quite a ton of things yet to cover though, which are continued in the sequel that is not yet translated in english as of 09/04/2023, and this can be a turn off for many people that would expect a more closed conclusion without a cliffhanger.

Buddy Daddies has the main idea of uniting comedy moments with more dramatic and serious ones, all in a single nucleus of story: the found family of Miri, Rei and Kazuki. Two adults that divide their time between their dangerous secret work, and the hardships of taking care of a young child, is not a premise that has not yet been explored, but in this anime, it is made in a quite unique way because the family of the three main characters feels like a very real one, with all of its problems but with also its joys, which makes the anime very refreshing

While it's ... common in the anime to shift to the problems that people living as hitmen would naturally have, they also focus a lot and very well on the problems that one would get upon suddenly becoming a parent, the new challenges, and specially on the changes in behaviour and world views that having a child would cause to someone, and how these world views that may be full of sorrow, can be enlighted thanks to the fun ambient that someone like Miri creates. This feeling, which is actually one of the main focuses of this anime, is what makes it quite distinct, for it makes the family of the three main characters feel like a real one, and the contrast between the life of nurturing a daughter and killing enemies, which Kazuki and Rei experience, serves to make them understand what happiness really is.

Not being there only to be cute and fun, Miri can also end up being very annoying at some points, and such is what children are, but these are exactly the points that makes the interactions between the three of them really fun. Kazuki and Rei, with zero previous experience with children, are now forced to learn and adapt quickly — specially with their complicated work routines — how to deal with a real kid and how to become actual good parents. And their hardships to get to successfuly, and sometimes not this much successfully, do this, is the main comedy element of the anime, and it works very well, being fun, relaxing and light at the same time.

The anime also excels at developing the world views of the two assassins, which as mentioned before, is all caused thanks to the arrival of Miri, and it does that by making them gradually evolve from "caretakers" to real parents for their daughter, as they create more responsibilities and also deepen their bonds together. In the span of the 12 episodes, both Kazuki and Rei confront their own stories, and thanks to the changes that Miri caused on them, they are able to change as well how they choose to see this story of them, and by consequence, how they behave and their goals for their lives.

Even so, the anime has some weak points as well, if only one, that revolves around how sometimes it can get quite exaggerated combat-wise, specially when it comes to Rei. While he excels at combat and was created to be a perfect assassin, in many action scenes it feels more like their enemies are really bad at what they are doing, rather than that Rei is a great assassin. Of course, it is still pictured well how skilled he is during cool fights, specially the ones with less characters involved, but when Rei and Kazuki are in the middle of grand schemes, the huge majority of their enemies except the greater antagonists feel like they never did a single shooting training before picking up their weapons, for they are unable to hit a single bullet with douzens of weapons firing all at once.

That does not necessarily makes these scenes bad though, and instead, makes so that the fights that does not involve some of the big antagonists end up being more comedy focused, with chaos and troubles everywhere for the two hitmen to solve, troubles which are usually tied very well with their other life, as parents, because they tend to be caused by the changes they are experiencing now that they got Miri in their lives. Even so, the anime still has some interesting fights, exaggerated still, but not in a bad way, with a more serious approach that serves to develop the characters and not to only be fun and chaotic.

Considering all of the above, Buddy Daddies ends up as a really great anime, with the bonus of having a closed end by virtue of being an original work, ending which was quite nice and good to watch, and does very well its job of being a mix of fun and relaxing comedy to watch, with its dramatic and more serious moments. It is not an anime focused on fights and action, despite having them as well, instead using most of them as comedy, and it could not be any less focused on romance either, with not a single hint of such thing through the entirety of the 12 episodes, focused on a fraternal and not romantic relation, which makes another differential. It is all about the familiar bonds that the three main characters create, and the anime explores this very well.