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This review will be spoiler free.

Blue Period is an interesting anime to me, because on the surface it appears to be pretty formulaic, but actually has themes and messages that you don't typically see in the art/drama genre.

Let's take this one at a time.

The plot is about the main character Yatora discovering his love of painting and his efforts to make it into the Tokyo University of the Arts, which is apparently notorious for low acceptability rates. Simple and direct.

However, that is more the 'setting' than the plot. The journey is used as a device to showcase a few other things, such as the ... paradox of the institutionalization of art, the effects of long periods of high stress, the tribulations of trans teens, the concept of personal responsibility for one's result, and other such.

I find it very interesting, because the show goes to lengths to show that yes, art (specifically drawing and oil painting) has techniques, and patterns and things to do and things not to do, but art at the end of the day is subjective. It's not interchangable with, say, math or whatever else. It requires a lot of know-how and hard work, but there's a lot of personal opinions that play into it.
So while there are are techniques and patterns, success or failure is not guaranteed. Inspiration can strike or flee. The best student can fail even though they did their best, because art is subjective and people can use vague concepts like 'expression' and 'feelings coming through' to judge a piece as good or not.

To be clear, I'm glad they showed this.

Additionally, I'm very pleasantly surprised at the show's portrayal of stress. It goes out of its way to show how unfair such high stress situations such as harsh college exam period are for essentially children, and shows people deal with stress differently.
However, where most anime (and media in general) would have you believe that someone being stressed is everyone's fault and problem BUT their own, this show tells you that ultimately it's your own fault, and your own responsibility to deal with it.
Becauce it's true. The harsh reality is that unfair or difficult circumstances are common, most everyone has to deal with stress, and knowing how to do so is an important skill. Knowing when something isn't good for you and giving up on it is also an important skill, as the show shows.
At the end of the day, the person who cares most about you is yourself, and the person most responsible for your well-being is yourself. We can betide our circumstances and apply blame, but in the end fixing it can only come from us.

One last note on the story that I'll make is that it wasn't very clear if Yatora and Ryuuji had known each other prior to the art club? The first few episodes would make it seem that they don't, but through the show they act like they've been friends for a very long time, which poses a lot of questions.


With that out of the way, let's move on to art. Animation was good, though nothing groundbreaking.
The art pieces, for the most part, got their point across, though they often failed to live up to the heaps of praise the plot demanded be thrown at them, which is forgiveable. They were serviceable.

Sound design was almost nonexistent, but it wasn't actively bad or working against the show.

The characters are interesting.

Yatora is a good protagonist to follow. He's capable and driven, but also fearful and flawed, with things to overcome and goals to achieve.

The supporting cast for this show is excellent throughout. All characters that appear have a very unique voice and role, are at least somewhat memorable and have a role to play in Yatora's journey.
I will say that the focus on Ryuuji as the secondary protagonist seemed a bit out of place. Ryuuji's story would make an excellent show by itself, but in THIS one, the amount of time of the season spent on Ryuuji's troubles seemed disproportionate to how much it tied back to the main plot. An excellent plotline, but it seemed as if I was watching two separate shows that only vaguely connected.

Overall I enjoyed watching Blue Period. Not likely to rewatch, but I watched it pleasantly and will check out a future season if one does come.
8/10 overall.

Umi No Misaki is seemingly a simple tale about a young man arriving in a mysterious island with strange but beautiful customs, and his interactions with the islanders and specifically the Cape Maidens of the local religion, once his role as that religion's central figure is revealed.


However, that's where simplicity ends. Without spoiling too much, I will say that the plot is contrived, the characters mostly one-dimensional or outright caricatures, with the sole exception of the MC, Nagi, who is alright but nothing to write home about.
The art is mediocre at best. There was no aspect of this story or its presentation that captivated ... me at any point, hence my overall rating.

Umi No Misaki is a series drowning in disturbing implications, hiding under a veneer of cheer and optimism.

Moving on to spoilers.

Umi No Misaki is a harem manga that takes things up a notch or several from the typical harem protagonist who simply has all the girls like him. In Umi No Misaki, the protagonist is actually romantically and sexually involved with three girls at the same time, all of which are aware and approving.

I have no issue with the harem aspect, itself. In fact, I'd say this is one of the very few cases where a harem is not an issue. In Umi No Misaki, the three cape maidens are part of a cult and have been forcibly removed from their families and brainwashed since birth for exactly these events, so the setup is enough to explain their acceptance of the situation.

The characters themselves are ... disappointing. None of the main girls display more than one facet at a time, and generally have a single personality trait before falling in love with the MC and a single trait after. As I mentioned, the MC is alright. He's a good guy, not a moron, believably insecure but not stupidly so. It's a person that most guys remember from when they were 16-17, themselves.
I'm not going to talk about the three girls separately because they are cardboard cutouts whose small differences have little to no actual effect in the end. They're just there.

The character cast could have perhaps been salvaged if Kisaragi-sensei didn't exist. Kisaragi-sensei is a plot device, appearing at specific points to advance the plot in the most egregious manner possible, imparting 'wisdom' in the most invasive, rude way possible and with everyone just going along with it because the plot needs them to.
The worst part is that all the stuff Kisaragi-sensei forces people to realize could have been explored better without her and made for some interesting introspection.
Ignoring all that though, it was just so unbearably unrealistic for a person to be this way and act that way and still be treated the way she was that any immersion (or, indeed, respect) I had in the manga vanished. I couldn't ignore her either, she was everywhere.

And if you try to consider her as a character, she gets even worse. As the only responsible adult not part of a cult, she stands back and lets a murder suicide proceed, knowing it was going to happen. Any credibility she had, any respect or responsibility as a person and an adult is instantly gone.
"Wait, what?"you might ask. "Murder suicide in a harem manga?"

You see, the cult raises the girls from early on believing that whoever the dragon god (our protagonist) chooses, will have to be drowned along with him in order to ... appease the sea? Maintain prosperity? Or something? It's never explained. However, towards the end of the manga we're shown that some part of the cult is based on reality, as some actual supernatural events appear to be happening, expanding the MC's perception. Of course, it could be him finally buying into the whole thing and convincing himself but for the sake of argument, I'll accept the concept of the dragon god as an actual thing. Even with this, it turns out that the dragon god doesn't actually want child sacrifices. If you're a cultist, please try to contain your gasps of surprise.

The girls are being taken away from their families and brainwashed into sexual activities, suicide and murder. The kindly old grandmother of one of three girls oversees the whole proceedings. The outsider Kisaragi-sensei makes sure that everything goes on its merry way towards the murder suicide.

In the end, of course, our protagonist manages to find a new path, barely saving himself and one of the girls and dictating that, guess what, child sacrifice is kinda not cool and is no longer to be followed.

The author also felt the need to include pedophilia when suddenly the 9y/o sister of one of the girls realizes that she's the reincarnation of one of the past shrine maidens who did end up being drowned. Some quite disturbing images are produced from that. It's not like it ended up having any plot relevance, either. Just sorta sick.

The manga ends about as generically as can be, with the MC continuing life on the island among his three (four, if you count the pre-pubescent girl) girlfriends as everyone lives happily ever after.

Thought specific moments were cute or nice, there is no escaping the dark and disturbing concepts of murderous cult activities, sexually exploited underage children and some pedophilia mixed in there just because.

And if ever there was a chance for me to take this seriously or appreciate its good moments, there is always Kisaragi-sensei to ruin those, too.

3/10 for not terrible art, a normal MC and some -few- enjoyable moments.

Ordinal Scale, I feel, stands out from the rest of the SAO seasons, and the main reason why is its single movie status, rather than an actual 13 episode long seasons, which produces massively different results.

For my TLDR ratings, they are as follows:
Story: 6
Art: 10
Sound: 10
Characters: 8
Enjoyment: 9

Let me explain my reasoning for these.
...
Many of the series' problems -such as pacing issues and setting inconsistencies, are more or less eliminated by the simple fact that this is ~2 hour movie rather than 13 episodes. When it comes down to it, I believe that this is why I gave Enjoyment a 9.

Indeed, SAO seasons 1 and 2 could have perhaps fit into a movie or two of their own and been all the better for it.

Ordinal Scale maintains A-1 Pictures' impressive artwork and animation; if not actually improves on them. Again, I suspect that the reason for this is is the fact that this is a single movie, allowing the studio to focus resources and effort rather than stretching them out across a season. Hence my 10 on Art.

The sound and voice acting remains excellent, which includes some singing that is genuinely enjoyable. Hence my 10 on Sound.

Ordinal Scale (OS) addresses some of SAO proper's worst offenders; that is to say needless victimization and disappointing villains. To clarify, OS is still guilty off these to an extent -the latter more than the former. Asuna is still put into the role of the damsel, at least momentarily. Even though it falls to Kirito to save her, she does save herself in the end. In that sense, the series is closer to the first season than the second (whose victimization and marginalization of Asuna remains the series' greatest sin).

No one will ever write words of praise for OS' villains, but they had clear goals with reasoning that made sense, were suitably threatening for a time and were disposed of at the right time and without needlessly dragged out conflict. That's a good thing in itself.

The main cast and the side characters aside from the villains, I feel, were all given a good amount of screentime and were portrayed well. Hence my final 8 for Characters. Obligatory remark of 'yay Asuna fanservice?'

Ordinal Scale's weakest point is its main plot which, no matter how you look at it, is pretty bare boned, coupled with villains that -while better than the series usually does, are certainly not impressive in any respect- ends up earning it a resoundingly average of 6. Simple and quick, as befitting of a movie, but nothing that will impress anyone on its own.

Overall, I enjoyed Ordinal Scale a lot more than I expected. For me, SAO has always teetered on the edge of guilty pleasure, especially after the conclusion of the Aincrad Arc, but Ordinal Scale seems to be a perfectly respectable piece of media that pinpoints and at least somewhat addresses its predecessors' weak points while maintaining their strong ones.

That's why my overall score for Ordinal Scale is an 8. An impressive movie with room for improvement, but certainly a pleasant surprise.

Here's hoping that A-1 learn from this and don't repeat the mistakes of SAO2 or GGO.

So, I've wanted to stop watching this from the first episode, but I do believe in giving a show 3 episodes to sell itself, so I did watch three.

It did not sell.

The story is is about high-school girl Nanami who, after being thrown on the streets due to her (now fled) father's gambling debts, gets tricked by a minor god into taking over his position, and is swift to bind the former familiar spirit to her service.

Seeing the high scores of other people for this anime really surprised me. To you that have rated this anything from 8 upwards, have you really nothing better to ... watch? Did you really consider the plot points of this story and think 'Huh, this is refreshing and well thought-out', or find Nanami's character compelling in any way?

Then again, everyone has equal rights to an opinion. Who knows, maybe the rest of series after episode three really kicks it up a notch (or several) and actually escapes garbage territory. I guess I'll never find out.

But let's take things one at a time.

Story: 2/10
Right off the bat, the story ticks me off. There is not a single ounce of realism to it, to the point where it becomes ridiculous and hard to take with any degree of seriousness.
First of all, the idea that an underage high-school girl would be thrown on the street with no consideration from either the state, relatives or acquaintances. Now, one might argue by presenting japanese law that enables this to happen and go on to say that maybe literally no one knew Nanami and her father. Fine. Whatever. I accept this as the premise.

Then we have Nanami's blase attitude about being literally homeless.

Then she just casually goes along with some creepy dude who kissed her and told her to go a place she doesn't know right after learning she has nowhere else to go. Because making you a god is exactly what creepy dudes who invite you to their place want to do to you.

Then there is the whole, uncomfortable fact of Tomoe's slavery. Because that's what it is. Call it service if you want but that is not accurate, as Tomoe himself did not agree to it, was not willing, and in fact had to be caught by surprise and forced into servitude.

The fact that this is never addressed doesn't matter. It doesn't make it any less of an issue. Despite what anime tells you, being enslaved by a cute high school girl is not okay.

I could go on like this with things from all 3 episodes I watched. The plot for the episode is dreadful, not even trying to make sense or pass its messages with any degree of subtlety or finesse.

In the end, not one single aspect of the Story drew anything from me beyond irritation.

Art: 3/10
The animation on this is lazy. Skirting the edges of outright bad. It's a serious enough issue that I was thinking about it while watching and breaking immersion (though the plot managed to do that by itself). Not much else to say. Seen a lot worse, certainly, but most of what I've seen has been better in terms of Art.

Sound: 5/10
Good opening/closing theme, I'll give it that. But beyond that, the music in the actual episode was practically nonexistent, and most of voice-acting was grating, especially the two spirits, the old narrator (whose absence would have done the show a favor) and even Nanami herself to a smaller degree.

Character: 1/10
Here comes the crux of my issue with this story. Perhaps the only character I even remotely like in this anime is Mikage, the creepy dude who scammed a high-school girl into taking over his responsibilities and potentially getting eaten by demons.

Nanami's problem is that she's not really a character. There is nothing unique about her. She's a caricature. Caricatures are what you find in terrible anime that think recycling tropes is enough to make a story; it's not.

She's the age-old stereotype of a dumb, hapless young girl/boy who, despite not really being good at anything, has a heart of gold manages to win people over with her/his earnestness.
Wow. I've never seen that one before. And before anyone rushes to protest, my issue isn't that she fits this description, it's only that she literally nothing else to say for herself by episode three.

Hell, if something does set her apart, it's that she seems to be dumber than most examples of the stereotype. The first three episodes are nothing beyond a repetition of the same thing: Nanami tries to do something stupid regarding things she literally knows nothing about that will have repercussions and might even get her killed. Tomoe warns her against it, often explaining exactly why the idea is stupid. Nanami does it anyway. Tomoe bails her out. No one mentions how retarded doing the thing was after it happens. Tomoe tends to (for some reason?) get an earful.

This got annoying to watch very quickly.

High-school kids are dumb, granted, so that's not unrealistic, but it doesn't make for a very good show if it has nothing to counterbalance it. Stupidity as a character trait is not bad by itself, and is often used in comedic attempts or as a tool for exposition. But when it becomes a plot-driving point, that's when you have an issue.

Not only that, but Nanami is stubborn and prideful to the point of suicide. This is shown front-and center on episode one. However much you like this anime, however skewed your perception is towards the positive, this is not up for debate. It's literally what happened.

Good for Nanami that she managed to keep her pride but also managed to enslave Tomoe in time for him to save her. I find this particularly ironic, because if the genders were reversed in this situation, I don't think the show would have been received half as well. Double standards, much?

Now, Tomoe I like. I have a penchant towards competent characters, and that's all Tomoe is. Is allowed to be, rather. Competent. At things. In general. By episode three, he hasn't really shown much beyond competence and a plot-forced capacity to forgive both crimes against him as well as sheer, unadulterated stupidity.

The two spirits are nothing beyond exposition dump, with the occasional attempt at humorous skits, which, in my eyes at least, fail quite spectacularly. Their actual role in the story is never explained, so there's not much else for me to think of them as.

Enjoyment: 2/10
All my issues over the plot and the characters and the fact that the show is just a heap of cheap tropes made it really hard to enjoy this. There's nothing that made me feel like watching even this far wasn't a waste of time. If I give it a 2, it's because it's not as offensive a waste as some other things I have watched.

My overall score is 3/10

TL;DR: "Can't you ignore the things that don't make sense and just enjoy the anime, man?"

No.

Nodame Cantabile Finale is the third and final season of the series. This review assumes everyone reading has watched or is at least aware of seasons 1 and 2.

Finale picks up right after season 2, and carries on the plot in the same fast-paced style. The atmosphere changes dramatically, as the series shifts drastically from a music anime with career-focused protagonists to basically a drama anime with occasional short bursts of music.

Honestly, Finale was a massive disappointment for me. The major reason for that was the thrust of Nodame into the sole leading role, to the point of pushing Chiaki to secondary status. ... That means that Nodame gets a lot more screentime, and a lot more time to shine; or not. All seeing even more of Nodame does is accentuate her flaws, which never get resolved throughout the series, and bug the hell out of us with a 'gyabon' or a 'mukya' on every third goddamn word of speech. That was cute character trait when used sparingly, but now that is spammed so much it is just nerve-wracking.

Nodame makes for a terrible protagonist. Her issues with music are not resolved throughout most of the series. Even now, almost 40 episodes later, she still faces the same issue with her playstyle. Mainly, that she is not respecting the score or the people she's playing with, and instead goes off and does her own thing. It's an issue she's known and had highlighted for her since early season 1, but it's still there.

Even her massively successful debut was, in reality, a failure of Nodame's, since she disregarded every rehearsal she'd done with the orchestra so far (in which she kept asking for everyone to move at her own pace) and went off to do her own thing. It was only Stresemann's superb conducting skills that saved the concerto from total disaster, which by rights it should have been. No one will ever hire Nodame. Even assuming they do have someone of Stresemann's caliber on call to save the show after she fucks everything over, why would anyone risk that?

Not to mention, Nodame in season 3 (and 2, to a lesser extent) is a selfish, irresponsible person who's being a dick to everyone around her for no good reason and then cries about her lot in life. Vanishes without a trace for days and weeks, communicates with absolutely no one, making everyone worried sick, gets the best result she could have possibly hoped for, and then is still not satisfied and acts like a dick to Chiaki and even Stresemann.

No, her behavior towards Chiaki in particular has been irritating me during this and even the previous season. In an ironic turn from season 1, it is Nodame that is being thoughtless and ungrateful rather than the other way around. Never answering phones, showing up only when she likes and making it impossible for him to reach her even when he's worried. Hell, making him worried on many occasions when she could have avoided that with a simple message.
That's not the sort of behavior you have towards the man you've been claiming to love for years. That behavior is reserved for people for whose feelings you don't care.
Hell, her friends are asking her direct questions about the same concerns I expressed, and she outright ignores them. Nodame has her head so far down in the sand that only her toes stick out. It's pretty heartbreaking to see this deconstruction of Nodame, especially since season 3 Chiaki is so hopelessly in love with her. Of course, there are no repercussions or even a mention for this, because Nodame is a female anime protagonist and no one holds their dickish behavior against them. This kind of behavior is not okay in real life, especially among significant others.

"I've changed since then," Nodame says. And the hard, painful truth is that no, she hasn't. Never, at any point in either season of the series, has she had a shred of change or character development. Every time she makes progress in any direction, she consciously destroys it not long after. Doubly the shame and the frustration, because Chiaki has come so goddamn far as a character that the comparison is just sad to make.

I liked season 1 Nodame. I tolerated season 2 Nodame because at least half the time we followed Chiaki and he was enjoyable to watch, but season 3 was just terrible in that regard.

With the shift in focus away from music, the sound score itself has gone down, lacking the variety and sheer number of musical pieces from earlier seasons.

Conversely the animation quality keeps getting better, and is certainly a far cry from season 1 when wed only get frames during concerts.

The third season did this weird thing with the secondary cast, where they were prominently featuring in several episodes, but outright absent from the rest of them. It was a bit jarring, and a shame because I liked most of them.

The ending resolved nothing, showed nothing, just a curtain call with typical philosophical poetic with little actual significance.

I can't really say that I enjoyed season 3 of Nodame Cantabile, which a big shame. It was well-made on most of its aspects, but it made me so mad that giving it such a high score annoys me.

Nodame Cantabile is a music anime, centered around music prodigy Chiaki Shinichi and his neighbor, the titular Nodame, Noda Megumi. It spans several years' worth of their lives, starting from mid-university until after graduation and the formation of their plans for adult life.

It explores the world of classical music institutions and the hubbub surrounding them, and sheds light into how such talented people might find gainful employment, all while developing and interacting characters without too much unnecessary drama.

It's not a high-school anime by any means. The characters are not high-school kids, and it shows. They are young adults, with their thoughts full of the future ... and their plans for it, but still not having lost the drive and luster of youth.

Music anime are easy to get behind. Unlike other forms of art being used as mediums for such stories, music is probably the easiest to present on an anime series, and it often works to draw people in. Classical music might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I guarantee that even for those people, Nodame Cantabile will be enjoyable, as the series balances the music sections with plot, character advancement and interaction and comedy rather well.

Honestly, the series hits several of my personal things I enjoy watching. Chiaki, arguably the protagonist, is a capable young man, prodigious but not hilariously, stereotypical ingenius and perfect at everything like you often see on manga/anime. He has his own faults and mistakes that he has to strive to correct, and he does so in a realistic manner and with the help of people around him. He's capable, reasonable, opinionated and flawed. Just my kind of character.

Nodame, conversely, is none of those things. Well, except flawed. She balances precariously on the scale of ridiculousness, with arguably success. She's eccentric; unclean, talented at piano but unorthodox in her way of learning and playing. Still, it works for the story. Nodame and her character play a major role in the story, as much as Chiaki, but her randomness is never pushed into our face as if it's character trait worth admiring, which I respect. Her character arc is arguably more defined than Chiaki's, who knew what he wanted and how to get it. Nodame is troubled, and has to work with some phobias, indecision and bad habits. It all plays out beautifully in the 23 episodes of the series.

The music, is, as expected, superb. Though a person more educated in classical music would probably pick out a lot more of the subtle differences in the various scenes, there is enough commentary by the characters that we get a pretty good idea of what's going on, and honestly it's just a joy to listen to most of the time.

The secondary cast is not weak, but not particularly strong either. We get to follow several somewhat interesting characters and see their progression in the world of music over time, and we are introduced to some interesting families and people, but in the end the secondary cast fails to draw interest without the presence of either of the lead characters in the scene.

The animation is okay. Good, without being particularly groundbreaking. One of my main gripes with the series is that Chiaki is a conductor, but we never actually see him DO any conducting. Just one or two frames with him in a pose and the assumption that he is conducting really, really hard. Conversely, the piano and other instrumental parts are animated a lot better, with details as regarding finger movements, etc.

It's a good anime with a coherent and well-paced plot, decently animated, with (mostly) mature characters, striving to bring their dreams to fruition against various issues and problems. A touch of drama here and there, an abundance of humor and, most importantly, lots and lots of good music.

9/10

Warning: Minor spoilers.

Kaichou Wa Maid-Sama is, as many have noted, not particularly original. It reuses predictable and overused storylines that weren't that interesting even when they were new.

Everyone is paired off by the end, happily solving any chance at meaningful problems even when the possibility is right there. Arbitrary characters are paired up just because, and the main 'rival' for the male lead gets paired with the female lead's kid sister, which was entirely too convenient. As for that, I like to imagine that, 20 years down the line, during a massive fight, one of them will drop the bomb, accusing/revealing that the sister was ... a replacement/as close as the guy could get to the female lead. That's the sort of thing that haunts you down the line.

The conflicts are, at least not including the love affairs, not particularly stupid. There is a point about midway where it seems like the manga is about to head to Stupidville, but it manages to save it. Conflict exists, its not suddenly world-ending, and gets resolved within a reasonable timeframe and with a reasonable but not stupid amount of effort by the protagonists. This was a plus, in the sense that it avoided a mistake, not that it was particularly positive.

On the other hand, the possibilities for meaningful conflict are, as I mentioned, completely avoided. Beyond the possibility of not having someone happily paired off despite having his heart broken and showing that no, sometimes things don't work out and not everyone walks out happy, the manga completely missed probably the best opportunity at some depth, by having Misaki's father's return completely swept under the rug.
There was such potential there. The father is not a terrible person at heart, but he is a shitty, shitty father who missed out on most on his daughters' life and left his wife alone for over a decade. That sort of thing takes more than a month and some words to resolve. So much more could have been done there.

The story/plot is predictable, the conclusion of each arc equally so, and the ending about as generic as it could get, which was very disappointing, while at the same time asking for quite a bit of SoB to accept.

Its artwork leaves a lot to be desired. It's not outright terrible, but enjoyment comes despite it, not because of it.

One would ask then, 'Shouldn't all this make for a terrible manga?'

The answer is no, and the reason are the characters. Kaichou Wa Maid-Sama excels in making interesting characters that manage to dodge most of the anime/manga pitfalls while still skirting quite close to the unrealistic.

The lead couple are the main cause of this. Takumi and Misaki are both interesting characters, competent on their own but performing better when combined, independent but welcoming the chance at company. Both are enjoyable to read about even with on their own, and they manage to be pretty stereotypical in their skillsets and attributes while still managing to avoid becoming caricatures.

The secondary character, or supporting cast, aren't as lucky. While certainly enjoyable to read about, they fit much more snugly into stereotypes and caricatures. Coworkers, classmates, family members, they can all be very easily categorized and, to someone who hasn't seen/read this, likened to other characters from other series to no discernible difference. The protagonists aren't exactly innocent of this, but as they are given a lot more screentime and situations to act in, they have more depth by necessity.

All in all, Kaichou wa Maid-sama is a good series for people who like shoujo and romance and a great example of the genre, but if you're looking for originality or a fresh perspective, look elsewhere.

Most people who review or read reviews tend to be fans of whichever given piece of work, so I don't expect a lot of people to appreciate this. But regardless, these are my thoughts after fully reading Hana to Akuma.

The premise itself is simple. Demon comes to earth. Demon finds child. Demon raises child. Demon and child proceed to get together.

If one part of this doesn't seem fitting, then congratulations, you're a human being with a healthy outlook on what sort of relationship is moral or not, and have a decent idea of the age and conditions needed for a person to have a knowledgeable ... opinion on love and responsibility of making such a decision.

Unfortunately, the author of this work (as well as many fans) does not share these qualities.

Let me get something out of the way first, for whoever hasn't already stopped reading. I'm a hopeless sap. I'm a romantic at heart. I go out of my way to find and read romantic manga, feel-good stories, happy endings, etc. They're what I mostly like to read, because they represent the sort of ideal happy-ending that I know is impossible for real life to achieve.

Because of this, I could not truly hate Hana no Akuma. Despite it's many (and there are many) flaws, I could not stop myself from getting drawn in, at least to a decent degree. That is why my score is even as high as it is. Considering how deeply troubling the rest of my impression of this work is, a 3 is much higher than I want to give it.

Anyway, as I said, the author does not seem to understand how deeply unsettling and even outright creepy his work is.

It's an ode to pedophilia and incest, thinly disguised with terrible excuses and bad explanations. Hana is no older than 14 when Vivi begins making romantic overtures and eventually realizes his feelings for her. Vivi who, as it happens, is also 200 years old. That might sound like a fantastical number so I'll disregard that. For the purposes of understanding this story, Vivi is an adult. His exact age doesn't matter. He's a fully grown adult, already completely established as person before Hana was even born.


There is an argument to be made about relationships with a big age gap. After all, age is just a number after a certain point. That is true, of course, but 14 is NOT that number. Not even close. What the hell. To anyone reading, forget that this is a drama manga for just a second and bring to your mind the last 14 year old kid you happened to see. Does that seem like a person capable of making decisions and life-choices, never mind deciding commitments with 200 year old demons who find themselves attracted to their adopted daughter?

The series tries to fool itself and us with the whole '3 year time skip' thing, but it doesn't succeed. All the feelings already exist, all the characters know what's going on. Hell, by this point they've shared several actual kisses, most of them initiated by the older man between them. No one is fooled.


Which brings me to my second point. Incest. True, they are not related by blood. It's technically safe. That's not the point. Vivi raised Hana. He found her when she was a baby. Hana's earliest memories were of him. He taught her to speak, to walk, to run, to dress. He was there for all phases in her life. He was, for all intents and purposes, her father.


Even the romantic in me could not help but cringe at regular intervals at seeing this play out. When I stopped to consider it it made my stomach churn, if just by its implications.


It's a huge shame, too. The first several chapters, before even the tiniest hint of romantic interest, the manga is at its best. When Hana and Vivi are nothing more than father and daughter, the series hits a level of effortless quality that no amount of cheap drama gags will ever bring it. The entire storyline could have been based on the love a father shares with his daughter, biological or not, but no because this is manga and we need to have romance between the leads, damn it!

The manga could have been something truly inspiring if it didn't fight so hard to stick to conventions and appeal to the very niche crowd that seems to like softcore pedophilia (Oh, sorry. Is 'loli' the right term?) coupled with incest.

There is also the fact that Hana's deep obsession and almost physical dependence on Vivi, would, in real life, be considered actual cause for worry and require the help of professionals to solve. This sort of dependence and obsession (especially as displayed in the first 20 chapters or so) is not healthy in any stretch of the word, even ignoring the incest that will eventually occur.

Beyond the deeply unsettling and creepy backdrop of the entire series, there were several other issues that also helped reduce points. The art was passable, but barely so. It was not good, but not terrible either.

Then, we have the fact that series doesn't even try not to just abuse dramatic cliches to extend itself and create fake drama that everyone knows will be solved without too much trouble. The sort of facepalm-y unrealistic misunderstandings and retarded situations that only occur in fiction because real life doesn't work that way.

Then there was Hana's frankly annoying trend to alternate between referring herself on the third person and the first. Honestly, characters who refer to themselves on the third person are ridiculous and annoying in the first place, but those who aren't even consistent in doing so are even worse. Perhaps that was a translation problem, however, so I won't hold it against the story itself.

There were some decent things about it, however. The Demon King being the prime example. Perhaps the one actually enjoyable character to follow.
Also, there were hints of an interesting setup in the little we learned of the demon world and Vivi's place in it, but that was sadly cast aside for even more ridiculous tearjerker moments.

In the end, for all that the romantic sap in me wants to like this, there are too many things wrong with it. It could have gone for something original - the building blocks were certainly there. It could have done something different, something better than the usual senseless dramatic drivel. There was nothing unpredictable, nothing realistic, nothing that spoke of actual quality storytelling in this manga.

It could have been all those things and more but, unfortunately, it is not.

First of all, let just say that I stopped watching this around episode 6, so my scores and final score are my judgement based on only those.

tl;dr: I know I'm missing out. I just can't watch anymore. The show is probably very good later on, but I shouldn't have to slog through the terrible characterization of the first 10 episodes to get to that point.

Second, I am well aware of how generally well liked this show is, and how high scores it usually receives. I can see why, if I squint. The art is amazing, the music is on-point, and the show has several ... factors going for it, like dealing with themes of motivation, goals, child abuse, and more.

This wasn't enough, not by a long shot. The hints of actual plot were there, and I probably missed their culmination by stopping so early, but I just wasn't in a mood to slog through something I didn't enjoy.

That is to say, I enjoyed it at first. The first two, three episodes were kinda fun, but then I kept expecting the characters to grow a bit, for something at all to change their circumstances after they got to know each other, but nothing of the sort happened, to the point where I couldn't watch anymore.

And I really wanted to like this. I did. I was really interested in the music tag and setting. The premise was very interesting, a retired master pianist with issues is forced to resurface by a violinist girl, etc etc.

I'm not even gonna touch the dramatics or the pacing. Those have already been beaten to death by others, Instead, I'll talk about the characters.

The problem, to me, was the characters. I couldn't get behind them at all. The two main characters, at least. Out of a grand total of four that appeared by episode six. Kosei, Watari, Tsubaki and Kaori. Watari was okay when he showed up, which wasn't often.
Tsubaki was my favorite in this show, but not because she was amazing or anything. She was good, but the others were just worse.

Kosei is the typical doormat protagonist, who doesn't know anything, has almost zero backbone (unless he's been worked over by his 'friends'), accomplishes nothing by himself, and constantly needs the support of others in order to stand. None of his supposed friends respect him, but I can't blame then, because I couldn't respect him at all either, and I really wanted to, because I liked the idea of him.

Kaori, on the other hand, is is about 80% of the reason I had to stop watching. She's the most classic of classic examples of Mary-Sue. Incredibly skilled, amazingly beautiful, always (ALWAYS) right, has a somewhat mysterious/interesting(supposedly) backstory, everybody likes her and when she speaks everyone is hanging on her every word, even if she waxes poetic about stuff that rarely make sense or is getting repeated for the third time. Her dragging Kosei by the nose got old very, very fast, I saw no sign of this stopping by episode six, and I was thoroughly sick of it.

I don't know. Maybe I can pick it up again when I'm in a more tolerant mood. For now, I think a 6/10 overall is more than generous enough.

Disclaimer: Spoilers. Lots and lots of spoilers.

Lovely Complex Review:

The story centers around Atsushi Otani and Koizumi Risa, two classmates and good friends who are renowned around the school as 'All-Hanshin Kyojin" (or something like that) due to their constant arguing and bantering, and their circle of friends. Risa is tall for her age, while Otani is rather short for his. The show follows their last two years of high school, and ends with their foray into the world beyond it.

The animation is well, nothing to write home about. It's not bad and I've definitely seen a lot worse, but it's not up to the quality ... of the likes of Toradora, Death Note, Naruto or other high end anime. It's good, but not amazing. As an aside, it rather reminded me of the early One Piece seasons.

One would think that is a bad thing, but it's really not. I think it works well with the style that lovecom goes for. Speaking of style, lovecom is distinctive for its animation, in that characters are often distorted/animated differently in ways regarding their emotions, conversations, etc for comedic effect. I'm not sure how to describe the technique, but all you need is to watch the first episode and you'll know what I mean. I think this style works well with the light show that is lovecom. However, others might not be of the same mind. If you see the first episode and don't like the style, then know that it doesn't change.

The show is rather light-hearted, in that there is no deeper source of conflict. No one dies, no one loses their house, no one's long lost thought-dead twin reappears to seek vengeance, or anything equally dramatic.
The main plot for majority of the show revolved around Koizumi's attempts to win over Otani in a romantic way(more on this later).
Some might not like this, but to me it's what made the show. It's a romcom, and it does have drama, but nothing eye-rolling like anime tends to do. All drama that pops up is resolved realistically and quickly. All those 'if only he/she got to tell him/her just this one thing' don't happen, because characters on this show do the realistic thing and talk about what's relevant.

As an extension of the above, what really made this show great to me was how smoothly things went. Not in the 'easy' way. I mean that the two protagonists felt like real people, and while anime behavior can't really be avoided, I was pleasantly surprised by how realistically everyone acted. Nothing felt forced. I could see everyone thinking and acting like that.

As for the characters, I liked Otani and Risa. They had real chemistry, and their (eventual) pairing did not feel forced. They had distinctive personalities, different yet similar in many ways and it is obvious how an attraction between them could (and did) develop.

On the other hand, the supporting cast was rather ... not quite bland. Forgettable? Not really given much development? Something along those lines.There is an argument to be made that shows some times take the supporting cast too far, but still, lovecom kind of fell flat there. It didn't bother me, since my interest lay firmly with Otani and Risa, but this could have been better.

Something that I put firmly on the 'Pros' side of the argument, is how the whole plot was handled. To expand on what I mentioned earlier, early on in the show Risa realizes that she has feelings for Atsushi (who is always referred to as Otani by everyone, me included), and for the middle part of it tries to win him over, while the last part is with them as a couple.

The show is interesting because the two of them had been good friends already, and Otani is caught completely off-guard by her feelings. It's classic drama, yes, but I loved how it was handled. Otani just did not see Risa that way. For the longest time he could not transition her from 'best friend' to 'girlfriend' in his mind. It avoided most (if not all) of the cliche drama pitfalls and kept drama to a minimum, while still keeping the situation like that. The show remains positive and uplifting, even when it seems that Risa's efforts are in vain.
For the amount of episodes where it seemed like Otani really could not see her that way, I enjoyed it a lot. Otani tried, he gave it a lot of thought, etc but he just could not see her that way. That's something that I honestly haven't seen before.
Eventually and over the course of a year and a half (or so) Otani does come around to loving her, but the transition is slow and very well handled.

Another good thing was that almost no episode felt filler-ish. The balance of slice-of-life shows is delicate, but lovecom nailed it. Each episode had its own charm, and none were of the 'unique arc that will have no further impact once complete' kind. Each led into the next, and the show progressed at a decent pace.

Having said that, there were some points in the story that just outright did not work. The whole thing with the substitute teacher (whatshisface) comes to mind. That was simply a disaster.

I guess the main negative is that while I enjoyed the show, there wasn't much impact to it. I mentioned previously that the lack of ridiculous drama was a positive. It is. Still, LoveCom never had me on the edge of my seat, never truly inspired strong emotion in me. Its realism, while refreshing, was a double edged sword. We watch the lives of two people over a period of two years, and by the end of it we are smiling, but there wasn't much that stuck out in such a way that I will remember it months/years from now.


tl;dr: LoveCom is a light-hearted, refreshingly realistic romcom with a distinctive style that will probably be hit or miss with most. Very entertaining show, but not groundbreaking. I rate it 7/10.



If you're a fan of slice-of-life and/or romcoms, watch Lovely Complex.