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Oshi no Ko is a prime example of how much the fate of a work depends on the soul of its author, and how he can either raise a manga to extraordinary heights through his passion and emotional investment, or destroy it by losing any interest and emotional connection to it.

Some not-so-well-thought-out moments, obvious emotional manipulation of the reader, or controversial things were always present in this story. But for the most part, Oshi no Ko was still a pretty amazing story that combined a rather edgy but still realistically and interestingly depicted behind-the-scenes side of Japanese showbiz with a magically realistic thriller about rebirth ... and revenge. What made this especially work was that the characters were all quite interesting, charismatic, and also had some pretty strong bitter backstories that only made you empathize with them and become invested in the story even more.

Don't get me wrong, Aka Akasaka is a very good writer when he really cares about the work and the characters. Kaguya also showed this, becoming, in my humble opinion, one of the best rom-com manga in history thanks to its incredibly interesting and funny characters, as well as its very smart and thoughtful satire of Japanese romance clichés and the Japanese youth romantic mentality. And in the case of Oshi no Ko, he only outdid himself, because the tragic and struggling characters were obviously more sympathetic and caring about their lives than good comedic archetypes.

But then Aka...just stopped caring. and at some point the story and the overall quality of the manga simply began to go downhill. There are many different speculations about why this happened. Some blame the fact that Aka was simply tired of working on the manga and he completely transferred his attention to other work. Which is really characteristic of him and at one time crippled the aforementioned Kaguya when Aka began writing Oshi no Ko. Others say that Aka simply lost motivation after the publisher and editor flatly forbade him to choose the incest route. Still others generally criticize his burnout and loss of any interest in work.

One way or another, there was a critical moment in the final arc, and the ending completely threw away all the development, messages and ideas of most of the manga before it, so that Aka could soullessly and lazily lead the story in a couple of chapters to the ending that he said he had planned for a long time. Not caring at all about the huge number of plot holes, logical errors on the part of both the characters and the author himself, as well as a very general ending expressed in a superficial montage a la “where are they now”. What really ruined this was that while all these years I, like most readers, expected the characters to finally rise up and get a happy payoff through their pain and trauma, that simply didn't happen. While the story at least somewhat tried to imply that it really wasn't a happy ending and Aka himself teased the ending for a month as being very controversial, in the end fans were simply treated to watching their favorite characters get very badly traumatized again and once again forced to suffer through emotional pain. That is, the work that you have been reading for several years for motivation and inspiration in difficult moments (both from the point of view of the manga itself and the goals pursued by its characters), simply made you even more sad and upset.

And the fact that this was not some clever and well-staged bad ending, but the result of the author's writing errors, makes us sad and angry only more. Because this is all wrong and could have been avoided. Initially, I would like to give this manga 9 points as well as my favorite anime adaptation, but after the ending I’m not even sure that 7 would be a fairly fair assessment on my part. But I will not give in to the negative emotions that the ending of the manga threw me into and will still give it a 7 as a sign of my conflicting thoughts of gratitude, care, sadness and disappointment at the end of everything that I experienced with this work.

As a result, we all ended up with a great piece of work that, at the very end, effectively destroyed itself within a couple of chapters, thereby making its audience regret that we had cared about it all these years and invested ourselves in what seemed sure to always be one of the best manga of recent years and will end on a loud chord. Of course, such a popular and high-quality manga could not help but be adapted into anime and live action, and it is obvious that having received such an ending long before their end, it also greatly affected the motivation of readers to follow all this. How many of us can continue to enjoy a great anime knowing that it will end up being rudely ruined? I can tell you with a pure heart that most of this manga is still one of the best stories I've read. And gave me one of my favorite anime in recent times. So I would really wants like to recommend this to you, but I just can't due to the fact that the ending makes the whole thing literally a waste of time and a way to make yourself feel upset and sad out of the blue. So, read and follow this at your own risk. Being a fan of this manga is like being a betrayed by partner who for several years seemed like the only true love in your life.

Have you ever watched a let's play of some progamer, where he completes a large RPG sandbox at 100% with all the secrets and achievements? Well, that's pretty much what ReMonster is. Literally an anime adaptation of the walkthrough of Dragon Age or Nevervinten Night-like games for 100%.

What does this mean? Well, almost the entire show is just endless leveling up, gaining evolutions and new classes. For convenience, even broken down by day and accompanied by the most unemotional comments in the style of “I killed X boars and received +10 to my strength, after which I evolved into an Ogre Champion.” Of course, ... like all such isekai, this show is chock full of ridiculous action between the OP protagonists and the useless fools unfortunate enough to be his opponents. Which only adds to the show’s let-play vibes of some game, since the action in this show almost entirely consists of one-sided destruction of mobs and periodic battles with “bosses,” each of which looks like a special target in Monster Hunter. And I haven't even told you about the social part of this show, which is reminiscent of some weird fantasy visual novel.

At this point you are probably asking me, but why did I give this 7 out of 10 and mark the review as mixed? The point is that this is all just an incredible example of so bad it's good. Starting from how the whole plot essentially sounds like a lesplay with comments of a non-existent RPG game and ending with the author’s strange fetish for cannibalism. Seriously, the narrative literally spends a significant amount of time telling how the protagonist devoured the opponents he defeated (a significant portion of which were human or simply intelligent beings, by the way), thus obtaining most of his perks. Yes, just like in the cannibal traditions of aboriginal peoples, where they believe that they will become stronger if they eat the flesh of a strong enemy.

Overall, I wouldn't say it's a truly TERRIBLE show. It’s just so sincerely and innocently goofy and silly in its idea of ​​building a fantasy story on such literally conveyed game mechanics that it just becomes incredibly funny and somehow cute. If "Shangri-La Frontier" was Superman, then ReMonser could definitely be Bizaro, even though it's not even an MMO anime. If you like these kinds of unintentionally siily cool wish fulfillment fantasy shows, then feel free to watch it with your friends for an enhanced comedic effect. If you're looking for serious fantasy, or at least solid isekai, then you're clearly better off looking elsewhere.

One Room, Hiatari Futsuu, Tenshi-tsuki is one of those pseudo CGDCT harem shows that adds romance and a male self-insert protagonist to the classic "cute girls doing cute things" four-girl ensemble formula. It more or less works if you want a big dose of sugary moe in a non-all-female anime, but ends up being pretty mediocre if you're expecting at least an average harem show from it.

It's far from a perfect female focused Slice of Life anime, but it does a good job of delivering cute content. All the girls are cute and have more or less well-defined personalities. At least for this type of ... show. I had no problems getting involved in what was happening and I quickly began to care about it, waiting to see how this or that character reacted to the “irritants” that arose. For example, I particularly liked and remembered Noeru with her quirky take on friendship based on Class S or even yuri-ish tropes from an all-female show (again, going back to my comparison to CGDCT above). The main character, Towa, is also quite sweet, her naive reaction to even the most mundane things is written quite sweetly and believably, although a little too silly at times.

Where this anime really starts to have noticeable problems is in trying to be a harem story. Or even have some story in general. While the first episodes tease us with the idea of ​​romance between a human and an angel and all that that entails, and then the difficulties of finding an ordinary person in the spotlight of various supernatural beings (which the anime repeatedly tries to satirize itself), by the middle it all gets thrown into the direction of a very slow cliché development and plotless comedy CGDCT. The central quirks of the characters are noticeably smoothed out and then we actually just see cute girls with some kind of comedic character trait. For example, the Noeru I previously mentioned already after 2-3 episodes almost completely loses her supernatural part, simply becoming a hyper-impressionable girl who is familiar with friendship only from manga and anime.

The same applies to romantic development. If you've watched at least 2-3 harems, you can clearly see where each of the girls expectedly began to develop feelings for the MC, but all this remains rather formal outside of Towa as the female lead and another character with the gimmick of an unlucky childhood friend. Although One Room is one of those harem shows where the male character constantly leads a group of girls in love like a mother duck to her ducklings, the show spends more time on its CGDCT with the male protagonist than it does anything to develop its romantic aspect. Although to be fair, the emergence of girl's romantic feelings that we can see, seems quite natural and reasonable, allowing you to see and feel the MC's chemistry with various girls. Especially with the original three.

Ultimately, I would have no problem recommending this show to you if you want to relax and watch something similar to CGDCT, but with a male protagonist that you can identify with. The show is funny and cute enough to entertain and relax a not particularly picky viewer. But it's not the best show if you're looking for a harem romance or a show with "monster girls", as the show disappointingly quickly stops developing that, concentrating more on the comedic Slice of Life of cute quirky characters.

A fairly classic edgy "Victorian all-stars" detective action show that will instantly amaze you with its incredibly cool combat animation and strong atmosphere in the spirit of Black Butler or Princess Principal. If you like these types of shows inspired by The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, then here you will find everything you could be looking for. Ranging from Victorian homoeroticism (FoYay between Shizuku and Carmilla is one of the best I've seen in an action show) to a full cast of 19th century memetic characters. Although the mention of Aleister Crowley among fictional characters made me laugh a little, yes.

I'm glad that three ... of our heroes were original, so the creator of the original novel did not have to change the biography of someone too much for this. But this does not mean that they work as self-inserts. Tsugaru, Shizuku and Aya play off each other quite well, both through verbal exchanges and detective and combat cooperation. Some of their quirks can be annoying, undeveloped (at least within the first season), or one-dimensional, but it still works, at least for me. What I'm confused about is the rather blatantly hypocritical act of one of the trio in the show's finale, which is quite difficult to explain even within the framework of mental gymnastics or edgy mentality. At some point, even the villain themself legally points this out, which is not something good.

Ultimately, we have a pretty good, high-quality example of its genre or aesthetic that can be recommended to anyone who enjoys the setting and/or incredibly animated character fights with superpowers that aren't just chaotic big explosions and destruction. As I said above, the ending will definitely raise your eyebrows more than once, but this is not the type of show where the mixed ending is ruined whole anime at once. Although it will definitely leave a bad aftertaste if you like to get immersed in the story. So, with a clear conscience, I give this show an 8 out of 10, but within the framework of mixed feelings, and not a full-fledged recommendation.

The second season was an expected life-changing twist in the story that would take the show back to the "real Gundam" side, ditching the much-maligned "high school romantic comedy" format of the first season. And to be honest, the start really seemed promising when the show took the first season finale, which many called "one episode worth 11 episodes of mindless high school nonsense" and ran with it. But unfortunately, having dealt with a number of the problems of the 1st season, the 2nd season created its own.

First of all, it is the pace and writing depth. This is the shortest TV Gundam ever, only ... two cours long and it really feels like it. So much so that the staff seemed to be forced to work at a crazy pace, or they themselves decided to work in some kind of crazy speed competition. The second season is pretty good at creating subplots, especially compared to the first season. Not to mention being true to the Gundam philosophy as a franchise. It explores the use of violence to protect justice in desperate situations, false flag violence, desperation in an attempt to protect loved ones, and finally, the toxic nature of aggression. However, most of this is very badly and disappointingly resolved, often quite formally, as if the creators did not have the time or, most importantly, the desire to bring the intrigue and exciting plot to the end. It's extremely frustrating, especially when you're really involved with the story and care about the characters. Because of this, most subplots seem very formal, as if they exist only for the technical content of the plot. Somewhere in the middle of the season, we will be given two large subplots that will develop over several episodes only to then have everything decided in a couple of short scenes with minimal resistance.

The show is critically afraid of killing important characters or taking the plot in a truly tragic direction. Throughout the anime, countless nameless characters will be killed and a couple of sacrificial lambs who are the villains of one of the arcs and that's it. This further separates the show from the prologue (prepare for the villains to avoid any responsibility and punishment for war crimes and violence thanks to shonen-ish forgiveness and the power of friendship), with its ability to set the stakes and make the death or suffering of characters an important part of the plot. It comes to the ridiculous, in one of the scenes they literally want to cause hard feelings from us after the characters suffer due to the death of a character whose name is literally all the information we know about him. This is so strange that it can even make you laugh. All that important characters can expect is a resurrected version of the old American cartoon "she's in a coma" meme. I'm not at all going to be your typical edgylord who thinks that gloominess and cruelty will make any thing better, smarter and deeper. But with this approach, the show just doesn't work as either a Gundam mecha anime or a political conspiracy show, because it just discounts any bets it tries to make, only making it worse with the solidified formula of "school kids who change the world when adults can't do anything." It was so pointless that for the finale they even had to come up with something like the last boss out of nowhere to create at least some kind of threat to the characters.

Secondly, the second problem, or one might say, the weak point of the show is the relationship between the two main characters, Suletta and Miorine. From the beginning of the show, it was made clear and open that the relationship between the two would be the focus of the show. Regardless of how it ends, it is first and foremost "shoujo-tachi monogatari". This works great if you're involved in their ship and are ready to declare them lovers ahead of time, as many people have been doing since the premiere of the first episode. The characters have quite strong bonds and you can easily believe in the depth and sincerity of their affection for each other. But if you're neutral about it, then things start to fall apart very quickly when you realize that the engagement has not only become an artificial hook to keep them together, but at some point it actually took over every other topic on the show.

G-Witch is one of those yuri shows that suppress as much as possible any manifestation of romantic affection between women, either turning any words of affection between them into the most ambiguous lines, or never going beyond what can be taken as physical intimacy on the surface. To such an extent that until the end of the show or official resources avoided any mention of romance or love as such (with the exception of the American twitter Gundam info, which in an attempt to be trendy even caused several ship wars), and the first time when girls directly spoke about love there were words about love between parent and child in the penultimate episode. Even when the characters finally said things with an almost direct romantic context, it was cut off with an artificial cliffhanger, after which the characters not only did not return to it, but even continued to call each other friends. Even the ending isn't immune to it, muting any affection to a set of hints in speech or character interactions. This, again, is incredibly disappointing and strange for a show with such a central theme, where all the straight characters always talk about their romantic feelings directly and without any ambiguity. Of course, Miorine's words in the first episode about the familiarity of same-sex relationships for their universe remain the butt of one joke, you literally will not see anything LGBTQ in the show except for the described relationships of girls and a couple of some blurry couples (?) from side characters in, again, the last episode. Unsurprisingly, back in the first season, it got to the point where Guel at some point became more popular than both the main girls combined due to his development and a really unpredictable judge, because of which many people even preferred ship Suletta with him (even the usually formal Japanese media wrote that Guel is more interesting to watch, since Suletta is the type of protagonist who is tough and invincible from the very beginning).

This could still easily work for a potential same-sex relationship between the two best friends, and to be honest, at some point the show does try to break off the engagement in order to seem to make the development of their relationship more sincere. But no, we are not only being returned to the artificial status quo, but even covered up with an almost open rationalization of arranged marriages, which actually completely destroys the good development of Miorine before and throws her entire subplot as a character from the first season into the trash(which, if you think about what I described earlier, is especially ironic, considering how their wedding itself ends up being left out of the picture, devaluing all the intrigue of this engagement subplot). This suggests that the show's writer either overdid it with creating suspense out of the blue by censoring the display of affection between the characters in a formally unambiguous relationship, or, returning to the topic of haste, simply couldn't figure out how to write it more deeply, tying them to each other. sincerely not noticing how this destroys the chosen subtle approach to writing the development of their relationship. Which is really extremely strange if you think that the show was never positioned as romance, but at the same time, at the end, it literally completely boiled down to romance, throwing out all the previously declared main themes.

We were initially shown Suletta as a very meticulous person about duty, to the point where she instantly agreed to become Miorina's "faithful husband" only because of a formal engagement in the second episode (obviously at that point there was no talk of real romance on either side yet didn’t go) or perceiving her status as a fiancé as a responsibility to Miorine and a guarantee of their friendship, so such a depiction of their relationship devalues ​​them very much, making you suspect the girls that their love is just a formal union in the spirit of the IBO final (if you think about it, shows are really suspiciously similar to each other, especially in the final part). Of course, this will not be a problem for shippers (many of whom literally follow the show just because of it) who will say that they always knew that the characters were a couple, even if at the point under discussion in question, there was clearly nothing between them yet But if you're not one of them, it's just confusing and makes it hard for you to understand the intentions of the authors. To sum it up, despite the show's writer's huge love for Utena and the cult show's strong influence on G-Witch, Ichiro just doesn't know how to write Nisekoi-type romance, turning the characters' relationship more into a forced-debt and pink promise-based romantic friendship than a full-fledged romance. Especially when next in the season you could see the show Otonari no Ginga with a similar plot, where the characters not only built an unusually relatable romance even being engaged against their will, but also in the end deliberately canceled it in order to get together already on sincere and honest terms.

Remaining problems like Suletta becoming more and more Mary Sue, who can only lose because of betrayal and foul play, excessive superficial copying of other shows, or the degradation of most side characters and themes to tools that return to the screen only to artificially twist the plot in one way or another direction already seem to be secondary consequences of what I have described above.

Ultimately, we got a show that could well have been a great experimental fresh spin-off to one of the Gundam series than a full-fledged new TV show. Ichiro Okouchi is really good at building interesting subplots and creating relatable characters, making us care and cherish them with his favorite over-the-top twists, cliffhangers and trendy writing, but a lot of that goes to waste due to sheer rush and pacing issues due to unusually short time for a television Gundam anime. The weird writing decisions between the girls, which are only made more painful by the fact that at some point the show drops all other topics in favor of just focusing on their relationship, definitely doesn't help matters. I really believe that this could have been a good spin-off, despite the problems I described above. All this would obviously be perceived much easier and simpler if the show did not have excessive ambitions and, accordingly, did not meet high expectations. The show just can't satisfy them, especially because it's overloaded with influence, homage, or even outright copying of old or relatively old shows like Utena, Kannazuki no Miko, the Last Witch Izetta, or a number of later UC Gundams, because of what it claims to be "New Age Gundam" and the second SEED in terms of attracting a younger audience just feels like a local show full of references. And it's kind of weird that people seem to like it, since at one time the more Gundam-like Darling in the Franxx was outright accused of plagiarism due to the similar overuse of nods to old shows.

It's not a bad show and I really would like to love it. I even feel real relief that it's finally over. Even leaving aside my salt with Sunrise's attempt to turn the show into a trendy zoomer bishoujo mecha, or the resulting controversy between old and new fans(ironically, this is one of those Gundams where at the end the Gundams are destroyed for world peace, which really creates implications). But I just feel disappointed at how much it shattered my high expectations, even though it could easily have been avoided. In the end, even if it wasn't my favorite anime, I could at least just like it, it just turned out to be another original show that was blown away in the final stages. Ichiro's traditional abusive twist and cliffhanger writing style, as usual, only reinforces and worsens this, because being involved and then frustrated makes you feel manipulated and emotionally exploited in an effort to at least temporarily get your attention. Now I can only hopefully wait for new Gundams, including previously announced UC and SEED updates, to remove this sad aftertaste. And also with even more excitement to wait for the previously announced anniversary Macross from Sunrise, as this creates a risk that the problems of writing G-Witch can successfully move there as well.

If you have dealt with at least 3-4 so-called "pantsu fighting" manga and the words "near-hentai" you associate with certain trends in ecchi manga, then you do not need to explain what Hagure Idol is. This work is a fairly well-made old-fashioned example of such, you know, the female lead with the soul of a shonen's teenn boy and the hentai heroine's breast fights with grotesque dirty men and lustful lesbians, incidentally falling into scenes that can make Yabuki blush. Two things make this work unique: Misora ​​Haebara, this title protagonist, and unusually weird attempts to declare feminist messages, not only being terribly sexist ... and homophobic, but even directly bragging about the "problematic" nature of work in its original synopsis. In simple terms, it is as if JoJo from the 2nd or 3rd part tried to criticize "toxic masculinity", while also starting to promote itself as "brutal violence for real men".

Speaking of the first unique element, Misora, it's hard for me to resist praise. Although her image of gyaru makes no sense, her naivety and libido with each volume goes further beyond the bounds of mental retardation, she is one of the hottest and coolest female action characters that I have ever seen. Every time you see a hentai or a Baki-inspired fighting scene with her participation, it always captures your eyes and you will love every detail. Even when her logic or behavior will force you to put your hand to your face, it will still be difficult for you to think something bad about her. I can say with a clear conscience that Misora ​​is the most important find of this work or even the entire Rui-sensei career in general.

Regarding sexism and feminism ... oh ... Dude, this is a very weird thing. First "Wait, what?" begins already in the second volume, when the lesbian rape of the main character is portrayed as a joke after the entire first volume was literally devoted to how Misora ​​defended her chaste from men trying to rape her. This attitude will continue even when Misora ​​realizes own bisexuality (that the manga is ambiguously trying to connect with her libido) and directly calls the lesbian and straight experience equal, which, perhaps, for the first time probably made me talk about open hypocrisy in a manga.

From this point on, the author begins to troll you almost openly, at the same time making rather traditional feminist comments against sexual violence or homophobia, and using lesbian sexual abuse as a source of hot fanservice, almost openly implying that harassment or unacceptable behavior by other women is not serious even if the victim herself is queer woman. For example, one chapter plays the deliberate deception of your partner for laugh, including the direct use of her inexperience to manipulate her, the other tries to justify the lesbian cheating by the fact that you are far from your girlfriend and therefore very horny and this is only a small part of this. Should I tell you that when men try to do this, it is perceived as a big deal and Misora ​​always quickly suppresses any attempts to do this?

The only thing that somehow mitigates the negative impression of the two paragraphs I wrote above is the general grotesque of everything that happens. Most of the problematic moments are almost always as ridiculous and darkly funny as toxic, all the relationships depicted are so silly completely sexual and has zero of any romantic interaction or affection that in one chapter they even tell you directly, that physical attraction is a sign of romance and so on. Not to mention that most lewd scenes are so random and weird that it would be funny even in the hentai douji format.

Ultimately, I would definitely not recommend this manga to politically active folks, and especially to people who were victims of some kind of abuse. This work literally enjoys its sexist insult. On the other hand, if you are a big fan of So bad so its good content, this kind of thing simply amuses you with its absurdity and weirdness, or you just don't care, then this can be a great action and / or smut material.

7 from 10.