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A refreshing take on the magical girl genre, while also fantastically wholesome.

The big bad first. During my viewing of this anime, I'm always aware of its quality of drawings. This season is full of anime of the action category with solid art quality, Magilumiere unfortunately, does not have that luxury. Its weakness becomes especially apparent during action sequences. The most important action, the magic attacks, are really just the girls staying almost motionless with their wands out and let the passable special effects take over the screen. The antagonist in this story are mostly monsters called Kaii, which mostly have very limited movement and ... almost zero expression. Magilumiere also has this interesting take on how magical girls work, starting their action sequence with this long prelude that is akin to a pest control, which diminishes the sense of threat from the monsters they're facing. To lower the stakes further, the magical girls are never severely injured throughout the anime despite the constant verbal warning that it is a life-threatening job. Maybe it's just the beginning, so the monsters aren't that dangerous yet. Or maybe, this is the viewer-friendly tone the anime is trying to maintain. Regardless, the anime has much room to improve on its action sequences.

Now to get to the good part, I think Magilumiere is clever on utilizing its sci-fi and corporate themes. Usually, magical girl anime only have a few chosen heroines who can transform into magical girls. But in Magilumiere, pretty much any girl can pick up the tools and start working as one. So instead of getting stuck in the old loop of "monster of the week", Magilumiere adds another "magical girl of the week" to the mix. They also expanded the idea of magical girls by adding more roles to the business, with coordinators, engineers, manufacturer and all that. Rather than just monsters, you get more characters into the story, bringing out more personalities.

The best part of Magilumiere imo is the fantasy. Ahhhhh, the fantasy of having a friendly, supportive, respectful work environment. The anime is most enjoyable when the MC, Kana, interacts with her coworkers. You know when the boss says to you "We are all family here"? In real life, that's a huge red flag that could be translated to "Family members should tolerate my exploitative behaviour". But in this anime, the boss, President Shigemoto, says it like he's Vin Diesel. He treats Kana, a total rookie, as a coworker, rather than a subordinate. His orders aren't commands from a superior, but guidance from a leader. He showers Kana with ridiculous amount of praises, and probably only spoke sternly once to her while maintaining courtesy. As if that isn't dreamy enough, he drops the hardest lines in action. Alongside Prez, Kana is also mentored by a senior magical girl called Ms. Koshigaya, who is a super friendly tomboy. Ms. Koshigaya is quite a straightforward character and talks funny, she is the life of the party in the company. Kana also meets more magical girls on her job, who are just as friendly and supportive. I work in a mildly dog-eat-dog industry, morality and courtesy kind of comes in second to profit here, so it's a soothing experience to see the world of Magilumiere where their magical girl profession is treated with so much respect.

Plot wise, not much of the main plot has been revealed yet. The monsters do get stronger and more dangerous as Kana's journey continues, but very little worldbuilding info and history about monsters and magic are given at this point. The backstory of the Magilumiere company too are only surface level. There is definitely progress on both Kana and her company's growth but plot wise, not much is going on due to the semi episodic formula. And that's an okay approach for a first season, to introduce and develop the characters first. It is implied that things will get more serious in season 2, and while I'm pessimistic that the action animation will scale up to that seriousness, I will definitely keep watching Magilumiere for the healthy vibes.

First off, 5/10 but still recommended read. Because it's short, and you don't really have to memorize too much plot points. I think it has something unique to offer, just didn't quite go through the way I like.

I think this manga had a superb start. It's unique, it's offensive, it's morally challenging. It plays what I call the "You wish things are under control, but shit just gets worse real quick, and you cannot go back" story. And like most popular seinen mangas, it gets psychological.

The alien girl is psycho and dumbass at the same time, yet can show human emotions and patience when ... it is convenient. Is this mixed personality contradictory and unbelievable? Very much challenging to deny. But then this manga made it kind of clear it wasn't trying to stick too close to logic, so you just gotta follow the flow.

But there is a point where things get too chaotic, all of the relevant characters turned out mentally unstable. While I get this is the tone the manga is trying to go for, it's just not my liking. Because when all hell let loose, I as a reader kind of just let loose of my expectations too, stop trying to make sense or treat this manga seriously, worse, I lost interest. I believe for chaos to be enticing, it has to be within the balance of order.

The psycho characters end their stories near the end though, then the main plot of the alien girl is resumed. She brings up this theory of common enemy and firmly believes it is the answer to her plot. Of course, I could shit on the major flaws and oversights on this answer or theory, but you know, this manga is a little stupid to begin with, keep reading, man. And it had a decent ending, it illustrates the future of the alien girl's answer.

Is it weird to lose interest because a story starts getting too freaky? I'm a vanilla person after all.

Recently we've had a lot "gyaru"-ish heroine serving as the manic pixie dream girl to save our pathetic MC. I was fully expecting NegaPosi Angler (what a bold name) to play the same trope but somehow... the main girl isn't all that prominent in the first 3 episodes. Instead, we get a "gyaruo"-ish dude to save our male MC, so I guess that's a nice change of pace.

Our main MC plays the not-so-popular trope that is the Suicidal Doomer MC. You see these kinds of MC a lot more in seinen mangas because Japanese men just relate so hard to suicidal MCs. I think they ... introduced this MC fairly well. He fucked up his life pretty hard, lost a lot of money in legal gambling(Ah, average Japanese experience). Many upstanding viewers may not enjoy watching him, but I do, I fucked up my life too, but fortunately my father had the money to help me, I'm something of a loser myself. It's nice to see someone akin to myself, getting help from a hot dude. Granted, this is just fantasy. I've never received help from an angelic stranger so NegaPosi Angler won't really strike as realistic or believable. By the way, I'm not into dudes.

The music is quite funny. Like the hobby of fishing itself, the music reeks of middle age man. It's mainly guitar, quiet, slow and has keyboard sound of the old street performer who only plays Elvis Presley and shit. There are certain scenes with improvised tunes too. Relaxing vibes, flows well with the anime's tone.

I'm sure NegaPosi Angler won't get a second season. There's only so few characters they would focus on. Once the 3 main characters' tragic backstories are told, it will run out of material. Fishing is a boring hobby, you can't possibly make anything much out of it. But it's just enough to intrigue me for one season at least.

I could not like this anime at the first 4 episodes. The number one reason being, the way our main characters talk, is very unrealistic for two person who just met each other, especially for two 17 year-olds. They completely discard the fear of misunderstanding or shame, lay their entire feelings out on the table and analyze them together like some kind of robots studying human emotions. This cursed style of dialogue only happens between our main characters and certain side characters throughout the anime. And it's not like this anime doesn't know how to write conventional emotional dialogues like Makeine. They literally have a ... senpai character(whatever her name is) who talks in a jesting manner very much like characters from Makeine or whatever traditional romcom anime you've watched. Funny thing is, this anime has huge amount of monologues, pretty well written ones too, which makes me wonder if the writer carried that style to its dialogue, because honestly, it does feel like the writer talking to himself with two self-inserted characters sometimes. However, as I finish the series, I believe that this cursed dialogue is beneficial for the story to progress in pace within 12 episodes. It also brings out more of the character's emotions as much as I hate getting used to it.

Second reason why I disliked the anime in the beginning is because of the confused tone between the story and the presentation. This anime plays around the lighting very consciously. But for whatever reason the first four episode looks excessively dark. Morning light could come out of the apartment's window from the right and dies out before it even reaches half the screen. The character sprites are always shaded a little dark even when they are inside a well lit room. To make things gloomier, the entire anime uses this melodramatic ambient music with really slow and heavy piano tunes. Combine this with the cold speaking tone of the main characters and the abundance of silence during their lines, this show gives out a depressing vibe, which doesn't make sense for the story progression in the beginning, considering our main characters barely said anything negative. This depressing tone, however, would work better in the later stages of the anime as our main character develops their inner conflict.

One of the biggest selling point of this anime, is how it tackles the sibling romance theme. For me, this is my first anime that treats this sort of forbidden love or taboo with a solemn manner, so I applaud the originality. Yuuta and Saki are somehow reasonable and matured teenagers, so they have a lot of monologues revising the development in their relationship and emotions. They even go through denial stages, highlighting their inner conflict on the issue. Their progress on this topic is still in its early stage, so how well this topic is handle remains to be seen, in an uncertain season 2.

In summary, Gimai Seikatsu is an impressively unusual anime that approaches a controversial topic without treating it lightly. It has astounding focus on the main characters' development and emotions, using heavy amount of monologues. Saki is hot af and I literally watch this show for her. *vine boom* Unfortunately, the anime comes with jarring tones in its dialogues and atmosphere which lowers my enjoyment as much as they play into their own strength. If you can get past the weird tones, you might appreciate the distinctively solemn approach on sibling love this anime goes for.

Gotta say, it would be spicier if Yuuta and Saki weren't step siblings. Because you know, it's only good when they're blood-related.

Narenare takes the structure of idol or music band anime, replace the theme with cheerleading, and does one different thing: the girl group formed with no grand goal in mind, they just wanna cheer. This key difference may make the anime feel all over the place as it lacks a general direction. The group leader, Anna, would casually say things like getting rich or famous, but she never cared about those stuffs. The lack of promise, the lack of a clear destination, would frustrate the viewers, but it also makes their progress unpredictable and open to wider options. Most importantly, this approach is in line ... with the characters' motivation and personalities. Rather than the competitive, do-or-die, sports-like mindset, the girls in this anime are just happy-go-lucky teenage girls who decided to cheer outside school just because. So whether you would like this anime or not could depend on if you can tolerate the mindless youth vibe these cute girls are going for.

Do mind that, this anime is a teenage drama first, whatever second. These girls may not wanna be top idol or perform live on Budoukan, but they still mean business, they often get into intense dialogues and sometimes get a little bitchy. Well, there are only like 3 girls being bitchy, Anna being the boss bitch most of the time. So, thanks, Anna, for spicing up the drama. The most impressive qualities of Narenare is that its drama rarely feels forced or cringey. The characters' struggle are always laid with reasonable setup, their emotions have a steady buildup, and their responding solution is going back to their theme, cheerleading. Ahh, the classic. The dialogue or scriptwriting has a masterful flow too. In a few instances, there are conversations about cheerleading that smoothly transition to characters expressing their emotions, vice versa. The emotional moments also never overstays its welcome, its duration always matches the weight of the buildup. I usually dislike teenage dramas for how excessively sobby they get, however, Narenare consistently hits the right balance for me.

Spoiler alert, I guess. Unfortunately, the anime concluded with little to no potential of season 2. I am still shocked. I thought the pacing flowed perfectly, and they would run another season to further develop the girls' chemistry. But story ended abruptly with a reason set up since the first episode. In hindsight, it does feel like a Ending B prepared in case the anime doesn't get the green light for Season 2. It's a nice Ending B, but I am devastated. I love the outlandish and hilarious voice acting of Anna, Kanata and Lala. I love the artstyle choice of using coloured outlines. I love the contrast of sadness and happiness this anime shifts around. There are so many good things going for Narenare, it hurts a little to see their journey end so soon.

Half about a photographer's Japanese trauma, half about racing. Overtake! is pretty solid overall. There are some stretched interactions. Like why is the photographer uncle so obsessed with the racing boy? Kinda sus, no? Well, not everything action is reasonable. So we will let the uncle pass this far.

While the anime does talk a lot of technical stuffs about racing, like tires, parts and money, it does lack the heat in music and action. It's one of those anime that sets its theme on something popular like music band and sports, but ultimately spends most of its time developing characters. One anime that I ... begrudge doing this is Beck. There's more talking than music. Like... you gotta have at least 15% of the run time with stuff you advertised, you know? I wanna hear the sounds of engine rumbling constantly every episode. Funny enough, as I am writing this, there is a seasonal anime named High Speed Etoile, that does exactly this.

I guess racing is a boring sports. More boring that football, I dare say. You really need more anime gimmicks to spice it up. Like Meteor Jam! Emperor Time! Kansai Drifto! Revol Bursto! But Overtake! has an try-to-be-real and mature approach, so those cannot fly.

Try to be real, but not real enough. Try to be fun, but limited by real. Overtake! could not overtake itself. It never went full throttle.

This drink reeks of old man. It has the old school writing maturity from 2 decades ago or more. Sorry, whoever wrote this work, but you really reek of old man.
Episodic formula is very prevalent in older shows, I believe. It's easier, shorter, flexible and delivers the punch fast. But of course, we want a major plotline to anticipate the final punch. I think... this anime run kinda fumbled on the last major punch. The ending isn't bad, but I didn't really go crazy either.

A lot of the stories always have an old man yapping his ideologies and beliefs that comes in the ... shape of Sasakure Ryuu, a handsome and robot polite young man. If I were a teenager, I would go "Wise words, old man," and go this is deep af bruh. But I'm past that age, and have seen enough of this kind of delivery to anticipate the catch. So in my view, the whole anime constantly has an opinionated nagging dialogue, no matter how roundabout it tries to spin it.

That's not the fatal point, however. The true problem that this anime fails to excite me is the lack of conflict. I feel... all the questions presented to the viewers are too simple and easy to answer, or rather, Sasakure Ryuu always answer them quickly without fail. So I don't really have the chance to brew in the bitterness before I taste the sweet aftertaste. I think it needs more morally challenging topics or devastating tragic tales. It's just too light to be anything distinctive or memorable.

You want something light while not being overly hahahappy. Sure... Unfortunately, this is not my glass of god.

Ishura has a few weird things.

First thing, certain fights did not last long. It's one of the weird tropes where victory is decided in one or two exchanges. The excuses being, when there is a clear gap between two fighters' strengths, the fight would be settled quickly; and realistic fights, where both fighters go for the kill, don't go on for more than two or three exchanges. It's a very unpopular trope, obviously because we're all here to watch cool action of strong characters trading blows. Like imagine every boxing or MMA match always ends with a knockout in one exchange, no wrestle, no ... dodges, no guard, people would be bored of it quickly. Two characters we've spent multiple episodes being hyped up finally met, and their session ended in two blows. It's quite shocking ngl, because other fights lasted a little longer. The shock value is nice, but it also feels like a waste of time and buildup.

Second thing, Ishura avoids writing likeable characters. Now, we all know likeable characters does not equal good character. I personally enjoy watching flawed, realistic characters, and I think Ishura did pretty well on that front. The main girl is absolutely pathetic and insufferable, but she represents the toxic POV of normal people in contrast to the superhumans, which is important to the plot's theme. Almost every core character in this show is an asshole and it makes sense because in a battle royale, the participants have to desire killing each other. Due to the large number of characters introduced, there aren't any complex or deeply developed characters, but that's not the focus of the show.

Third thing, Ishura has an otherworldly theme that is not introduced properly. "The True Demon King has died. The enemy of the world was defeated by somebody..." Every episode starts with this line, but most of the time is spent on introducing core characters, rather than exploring the lore and implications behind this line. However, that does not directly degrade the viewing experience, it's kind of like a magic trick. There is no urgency to learn the lore because we're busy knowing the current characters and their situation. I think it's an interesting focus of the story.

So far, despite several flops, I still feel Ishura is worth watching out for as it hasn't reached its full potential. Its fights are strategic and engaging. The characters are slightly deranged and interesting to follow. Whether Ishura is worth your time could depend on the next season and if you enjoy the slow burn.

Under Ninja would be my best anime this season (Sorry, Ragna Crimson). There were many points where I was caught off guard by its storytelling and comedy, even though I'm aware that it is one of those wacky Seinen genre manga/anime. Unlike Naruto and other ninja shows, Under Ninja depicts its ninja as human being just as vulnerable to cuts and bullets just as we are, and rather than magic, they rely on scifi gadgets in combat. In fight scenes, the ninjas' analysis on their opponents and situation are heavily monologued, and often laced with the emotions of caution or fear as their odds of ... surviving are never in their favor. There are also a lot of deranged characters in this anime, some just mildly absurd, some creepily funny.
Unfortunately, Under Ninja did not do well. I believe it's because of the lack of sexual appeal in the character designs. The character designs are mostly "ugly", they're not too realistic either. The main character isn't all that interesting either and a lot of the mysteries remain shrouded to the end of the anime.
Still, I'm a fan of wacky titles from the Seinen genre. It's been a while since I've watched one too so 10/10. I laughed pretty hard one certain scene.

Easily the best anime of the season for me. I've watched plenty of sci-fi works depicting how the future would look like with AI or robot developed beyond human intelligence. They usually get stuck up in the repetitive "WHO AM I!? AM I EVEN HUMAN!>!>!!>?!?!?!" idea, it gets boring real quick. However, by using an episodic formula facilitated by Sudo's clinic setting, AI no Idenshi goes around the idea with multiple scenarios and perspectives. There is a variety of characters of different issues, showing wider possibilities of the future AI.

Not just that, the AIs in this anime have a distinct feature that separates it ... from other AI fictions. That is, they are not limited to one type of body or level of intelligence. The majority of AIs in this anime are called Humanoids, pretty self-explanatory, but Humanoids do not have a steel frame wearing skinsuit like we usually envision. Rather, this future has developed some black magic that replicates the human body for these AIs to live within. Humanoids grow, age, fall ill, are physically limited and die in similar fashion to humans. This distinct feature opens up a lot more fresh ideas for the story.

AI no Idenshi also has this conservative flavor in writing its characters and script. Most of the characters are very normal, thus realistic. They don't yap about their thoughts 24/7 or do comedic skits randomly. They don't suffer from the wacky anime tropes. It's one of those old school writing, you know, like Monster. There's just a mature tone to it. It's not entirely cold and boring though. As Risa, a young girl with a cheery and expressive personality, plays a major role in the anime. She is the one who yaps about her thought a little too much, which serves as a good balance to Sudo's cold quiet boring behavior. I love Risa. She's so damn cute. Long twin tails are so damn cute OMFG. I may have overlooked her flaws due to my bias.

Finally, there is one thing about this anime which may be a hit or miss for viewers. With each episode presenting two stories, that may or may not be connected at all, AI no Idenshi almost never concludes its story with a definitive answer. It constantly brings up a question, and viewers will not get a revelation or satisfaction. The objective of the story is to present the possibility, not to send a moral message. AI no Idenshi is extremely bad at hiding this too. The stories can just end without a cool one-liner or musical exit. One anime that's extremely good at closing its melodramatic episode with one-liner is Cowboy Bebop. It also helps that Cowboy Bebop has the hardest ED in anime history. So viewers may find AI no Idenshi's endings abrupt and incomplete, leaving a bad aftertaste. In its defense though, too many one-liners get obviously corny and they don't have a genius to make a banger ED.

"Doug, you're a fantastic speaker. What's your secret?" And he said, "Oh, I always finish with a joke. And that way, people think they had fun the whole time." --Patrick Winston in MIT How to Speak, IAP 2018