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*There are no spoilers in this review. Any plot I describe will be laid out in the first chapter. This can also be used to convince you to read the manga.*

Often, when people think of a somber romance stories in anime or manga, they would turn to the critically acclaimed Watashitachi no Shiawase na Jikan and the popular but divisive Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso. These stories may not have touched the hearts of you specifically, but they wrenched the emotions of many, with great success. To my esteemed pleasure, I must say that Magi no Okurimono is of the same quality, and practically perfect. ...

The 24 year old Daichi is the protagonist of Magi no Okurimono, and the manga opens with him walking towards an observatory. Daichi had always been with his childhood friend Akari, who loved astronomy and space. This adoration for the cosmos led her to pursue astronomy at an early age, leading to some fame as the “Super Cute Astronomy Girl.” Always in love with Akari, Daichi, in high school confesses his feelings to her, and she accepts.

Yet, 2 years later, she passes away.

Devastated, Daichi struggles to move on with his life. Fast forward to age 24, and Daichi is struggling to remember Akari, despite the pain he felt and the feelings he still has. As a result, he resolves himself to go to the observatory that he and Akari had spent time at in order to reclaim his lost memories and romance.

As it turns out, Daichi’s loss of memory is not due to his forgetfulness. Despite being dead, Akari is as much of a protagonist as Daichi; we see her in heaven, still pained by Daichi’s love of her, and we also see her constant attempts in order to get him to move on with his life and forget about her.

Magi no Okurimono makes heavy use of flashbacks, to excellent effect. These flashbacks are not shown in a chronological sequence, but thanks to expertly placed, and rarely intrusive, narration, we are never confused as to the order of events in the lives of Daichi and Akari. In the six chapters, we see Daichi and Akari grow up, experience teenage angst, some growing pains, and eventually fall in love. We also see the sheer grief on their faces in extremely powerful ways. Feelings of grief are interspersed with memories of happier times. Dialogue all but disappears for pages, only letting the setpiece do the talking. Magi no Okurimono is extremely adept at drawing out emotional responses, rarely resorting to long, tearful speeches or distressing dialogues. In fact, much of the story takes place in the form of monologues and narration, with Akari and Daichi looking back on what was. Scenes of romance, grief, calm, and even brief humor pervade this manga, and the progression feels natural in every sense of the word. Moreover, this non-chronological order allows us to experience love and loss simultaneously, through the glasses of nostalgia rather than those of melodrama.

It’s safe to say that the manga would not work nearly as well as it does without absolutely amazing artwork, and Komichi Yoshizuki hits it home. His character design is conventional, yes, but he draws them with such care and clean precision that you wouldn’t have it any other way. His attention to detail is also superb, garnishing Akari’s room in heaven with tons of astronomy memorabilia and delivering exceptional backgrounds, time after time. As a result, he can contrast these intricate and lavish pages with almost blank panels and environments by comparison, evoking emotion simply through a betrayal of expectation. Yoshizuki is capable of telling a moving story through artwork alone.

That isn’t to say that the characters are bad in the manga. On the contrary, it’s a wonder how well Yoshizuki can develop both Akari and Daichi in merely 6 chapters. The mangaka characterizes the characters using every trick available to him, ranging from narration, to their interactions with each other, to their interactions with other minor characters to the artwork. Yoshizuki manages not only to develop these characters exceedingly well, but to make them feel like people. There’s no otaku appeal, no tsunderes, virtually no tropes to even look at besides the childhood friend, and it’s marvelous.

At the center of all of this is astronomy. It’s not just a gimmick, nor is it a huge part of the plot, but the cosmos glue the whole story together and elevate it further. The manga doesn’t contain big, sweeping explanations of the planets and the stars. The manga doesn’t relegate it to the background. The manga doesn’t make long winded, esoteric space analogies. The manga doesn’t keep it separate altogether. The beauty is how astronomy plays a substantive, but not oppressive, role in developing both Akari and Daichi. It provides a backdrop to their relationship, and man oh man, does it provide some really nice starry night skies for Yoshizuki to draw for you.

While it may be a recent manga, it’s criminally unnoticed and underappreciated, so at a length of 6 chapters, I implore you to indulge in its story. You will not be disappointed, and even if you don’t lavish as high praise as I do, your time will not be wasted (besides, 6 chapters!). Despite its short length, even shorter than Watashitachi no Shiwase na Jikan and Half & Half, Magi no Okurimono manages to weave a story of impressive depth and emotion. This story of love and loss is absolutely amazing, and you shouldn’t miss it.

Story - 10
Art - 10
Character - 10
Enjoyment - 10
Overall - 10

If you come into The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan with expectations that this will be on the level of the original Haruhi series, you will be in for severe disappointment. To watch this anime, you must be a fan of the Haruhi Suzumiya universe, but you must also leave any such expectations at the door. When you do that, then, and only then, will you be able to enjoy this anime. Somewhat. Sometimes. Maybe?

Nagato Yuki-chan is essentially a “what-if” story. What if, in Disappearance, that world became canon? Or, better to say, what-if the world from The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya was the true world? ... How would things be different? While the titular Yuki Nagato was more fragile in the movie, the anime draws upon that material (as well as Nagato playing games from The Melancholy of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya) to deliver a character that’s different (for the most part, she's in love with Kyon) but not new. Despite being a different entity altogether (and even being written/drawn by someone else), Nagato fits in with the universe for being silly. Although it never reaches an intelligent level of parody like its mother series, Nagato Yuki-chan can be refreshing in how light-hearted it is.

Thankfully the performances of the cast are great. The Haruhi series is famous for having a great sub and dub, and even though the original Japanese version has finished, in this age of simul-dubbing, we get to experience the original dub voices once again. The shoutouts here have to go to Minori Chihara and Michelle Ruff, the voice actresses of Nagato in both languages. Chihara does a great job of making Nagato meek and cute. Ruff takes it in a slightly different direction (since it would be unnatural sounding if she did that much high-pitched cuteness) and she focuses on the shy aspect of Nagato, with equally great results. All the other principal voices return and they perform with the same level of confidence and ability.

It’s unfortunately, however, that all of the good aspects of the Nagato Yuki-chan anime can be described as superficial or dependent on the love of the original series, because the spinoff itself doesn’t have enough strength on its own.

Easily, the weakest part of the presentation aspect of the show is its animation. Admittedly, however, it is tough to tell if this is because the animation is actually below average or if it just is worse than previous entries. Taken by itself, the animation done by Satelight isn’t bad. The only thing that jumps out at me is the fact that there seems to be a lot of white used, and all the scenes look brighter to an uncomfortable degree. Any other complaint, however, comes from a comparison to Kyoto Animation, the typical animator of the Haruhi series. This season, for whatever reason (probably because this is a relatively unimportant spinoff of the main series, or the cynical reason that KyoAni has no reason to promote Haruhi anymore), KyoAni decided not to animate this entry in the Haruhi universe. And while Satelight generally tries their hardest, KyoAni and their animation of the original series is often too hard to live up to. Anything good that Satelight does feels merely serviceable looking at KyoAni, and this is augmented by the sheer whiteness everywhere and the fact Kyon looks like a goddamn middle schooler.

Character-wise, Nagato Yuki-chan is generally alright, but the implementation of Haruhi can get dicey at times. You can’t have the series without Haruhi, that’s practically a given. But Nagato Yuki-chan struggles to find the right balance of Haruhi in the show. Haruhi is the same person she’s practically always been: obsessed with the supernatural, eccentric as hell, and bossy to a fault. If she didn’t take charge, it would be strange. Often, however, the show puts the spotlight on Haruhi and her antics, when they need to take a definitive backseat. This isn’t the show for Haruhi to do weird things; that’s literally all the other Haruhi series (well, except for Nyoron Churuya-san). The show shines when Haruhi does something weird and it’s left in the background or used as an impetus for the principal characters (Nagato, Kyon, and Asakura) to do something; on the other hand, if there’s even a little more Haruhi antics, the show feels like a discount version of the main series. Even at the end of the day, Haruhi is just a hyperactive person, without many of the nuances that made her interesting in the original series.

With the exception of Nagato and Asakura, who are rather interesting in their own right, all of the other characters are very watered down versions of themselves. Since Koizumi, Mikuru, and Tsuruya don't play as much of a central role in the plot, it's not a huge deal, but Kyon plays a strangely odd role on the sidelines, reduced to an occasional straight man gag. In fact, Kyon, the romantic interest, is thoroughly uninteresting in this incarnation of the series, which is a huge drawback.

At the end of the day, despite it being Haruhi characters you know and love, despite the voice actors coming back, and despite the cuteness of it all, The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan is an extremely generic, and often boring, slice of life anime. In fact, outside of love for the original cast of characters and voice actors, there is no reason to partake in it for the actual plot. Episode after episode is a slow cliché slice of life borefest that just makes you want a third season of Haruhi adapting Rampage. Beach? Check. How about a trip to Kyoto? Check. Tanabata episode? Sure, let’s forget the original series and give that a check. To this end, Nagato Yuki-chan becomes a discount Haruhi Suzumiya, often filled with annoying nods to the parent series without any of the edge, and even those who do their best to ignore this find it progressively harder to do so as the series continues.

As a result, the smiles from the cuteness of the show just can’t outweigh the fact that the series is boring, generic, and derivative. The fact that these are well-established characters only goes so far, and ultimately, this would have worked better as a short OVA or ONA series rather than a 1.5 cour deal. Nagato being super cute, while extremely pleasing, isn’t enough.


Story - 3 (Cliche, boring, generic Slice of Life and discount Haruhi)

Art - 6 (Bias for KyoAni may exist, but still only adequate)

Sound - 8 (Good voice acting but only Nagato is amazing; this is because of the blandness of the characters)

Character - 4 (Nagato is cute, Asakura is elder sister like. All other characters are one-dimensional or lose some traits, like Kyon's inability to become the straight man in a good fashion)

Enjoyment - 5

Overall - 5.2 (rounded down to 5)

TL;DR: Rushed as f*ck.

No spoilers here.

Yamada-kun and the 7 Witches was one of the anime that I was dreading this season. Why? Because it was one-cour. The story arc that could be concluded with the manga as it is now is either over 80 chapters in or an original ending, and with the sweet spot of manga to anime adaptation being 2-3 chapters an episode, 80 could be a little too much in 24 episodes, even if filler is cut. Well, for better and for worse, Yamada-kun met and exceeded my expectations.

But let’s talk about the good stuff first.

Yamada-kun and the 7 Witches (which I ... will abbreviate as 7 Witches) follows the titular Ryu Yamada, a second year delinquent who is all alone in a rather prestigious school. When walking up the stairs threateningly near the class genius and beauty, the diminutive Urara Shiraishi, he accidentally falls down the stairs on top of her. To their extreme surprise, they switched bodies. After walking in each other shoes, Yamada realizes Shiraishi is being bullied and, against her will, helps put an end to it. They then discover they can switch back by kissing. Subsequently, Yamada and Shiraishi get embroiled within the contest for Student Council President, create the Supernatural Studies Club, and search for the 7 Witches, who have powers similar to body-swapping.

Premise aside, 7 Witches’ key strengths are its art and extremely ball-busting humor, drawing from ecchi, physical, character-driven, and wordplay based humor. The anime always succeeds here. Linden does a tremendous job in animating here, making the environments of Suzaku High School seem especially grand and high-class. Many girls have extremely strange hair colors (green, blue, pink, whatever), and while they appear strange in the manga, Linden does a pretty good job at making them seem less jarring in the anime. Facial expressions are rendered extremely carefully, elevating the humor, which is usually done right. Aside from kissing, there is some playful fanservice here, and while it does get grating, the anime, in adapting, skips out on some of the fanservice as well, which is actually a plus, especially for those who are averse to such elements.

The true star of this entire anime is by far the voice work. I have to give amazing credit to the characters who generally swap bodies: Ryota Ohsaka (Yamada), Saori Hayami (Shiraishi), Toshiki Masuda (Toranosuke Miyamura) and Maaya Uchida (Miyabi Ito). When the characters swap bodies, each voice actor immediately switches their delivery to match the personality currently inhabiting their character. Hayami, who typically does quitter or gentler female roles, becomes bombastic and crude when Yamada is in Shiraishi’s body. Similarly, whenever Shiraishi inhabits Yamada, Ohsaka delivers in a very terse and gentle tone. Masuda and Uchida also do a splendid job when body swapping is going on, but Ohsaka and Hayami are, without question, amazing.

The rest of the voice cast does an amazing job, because 7 Witches’ voice cast is stacked. To single out some of the biggest names here, Eri Kitamura voices Nene Odagiri, Aoi Yuki voices Noa Takigawa, Kana Hanazawa voices Mikoto Asuka, Daisuke Ono voices Ushio Igarashi, Miyuki Sawashiro voices Leona Miyamura, and Jun Fukuyama voices Student Council President Haruma Yamazaki.

This is where the praise stops, because Linden decided to make this one-cour instead of two.

The original 7 Witches manga had some filler that could have been taken out without too much trouble. A subplot with the girls’ archery club president, Karen Kimishima, was cut out, and ultimately, that does not matter. Some arcs could be cut a little shorter without too much trouble, such as the arc focusing around Maria Sarushima or the arc surrounding Noa. But 7 Witches wasn’t filled with so much fluff to be able to cut much more than this, so the amount of corner-cutting when it comes to plot make certain developments jarring and eliminates the impact of some of the arcs.
(Some subtle foreshadowing sprinkled within the early chapters that reference the ongoing arc in the manga are cut entirely, so if that’s ever adapted, it will seem less clever and more out of left field.)

The final arc of the anime was a rushed and hollow shadow of what was in the manga, which is a severe disappointment. Due to this corner cutting, all characters other than Yamada (and to a much lesser extent, Shiraishi) that had character development don’t have any. Admittedly, some characters don’t have much character development still don’t, like Ito, Kentaro Tsubaki, and a couple of the witches. However, other characters lose both their motivations and screentime, making them hollow shells of people and not actual characters. The best way to describe this is in quick list form.

-Shiraishi loses her dry, cutting humor, making her more generic.
-Toranosuke Miyamura’s motivation in the manga doesn’t exist in the anime.
-Leona Miyamura’s motivation is heavily watered down.
-Odagiri’s, Ushio’s, Noa’s, and Yamazaki’s cut scenes make them more one-dimensional in the anime.

Yamada is pretty much the only major character to come through the adaptation unscathed, but with the other characters being rather weak, it prevents the anime from being a good adaptation.

Many adaptations come in too soon and have to rush or make an original ending. This was not that. Linden’s rushed 12 episode adaptation of Yamada made it lose most of its plot and character based strengths. More than a faithful retelling, it often feels like a highlights reel of the plot. The presentation is beyond stellar, but when the plot and characters are diluted to such an extent, it’s hard to be happy with this anime.

Story - 5 (premise is OK to begin with, anime cuts down on many strengths)
Art - 8 (beautiful animation)
Sound - 9 (music is forgettable but the voice acting is amazing)
Character - 5 (all characters except Yamada are hollow)
Enjoyment - 4 (as a manga lover, this rushed adaptation hurts)

Overall - 6.2 (rounded to 6)

Edit 7/6/15: Decided my score was a tad reactionary.

TL;DR: Plastic Memories had a promising start, but lack of focus prevented it from truly soaring.

Plastic Memories was an anime I really looked forward to this season. Written by the writer of Steins;Gate and animated by the skilled Doga Kobo, it seemed like it would work out. Unfortunately, as a friend of mine described, while not incompetent, Plastic Memories put all its eggs into the wrong basket, investing in its far weaker areas without playing to its strengths.

Plastic Memories takes place in a future where androids called Giftias look and behave exactly like humans. People purchase these Giftia for many reasons, often companionship or love. ... However, these Giftia have a limited life span of 81.920 hours (nine years and four months). When the Giftia pass this life span (which is more like an expiration date) they become “Wanderers,” or violent, powerful, feral androids without their memories. To prevent such tragic cases, the Terminal Service exists; they go and collect the Giftias and erase their memories. Giftias whose OS is erased are reset and then can be implanted with a new personality or trashed. To take care of these Giftias, the Terminal Service operates in teams of a human, called a “spotter,” and a Giftia, called a “marksman.” They need to get the approval from the owner in order for this to occur, which sometimes involves the Terminal Service team to act as pseudo-therapists. Tsukasa, a new recruit to the Terminal Service who got his job through connections, is paired up with the clumsy and reticent Isla. While performing their job, over time, Tsukasa falls in love with her.

I won’t knock the setting. Is it strange? Sure, but I have a suspension of disbelief for such things. I’ll accept the setting, because it does show thought was put into it.

However, after the first half, I don’t know if the creators accepted the setting.

With its odd plot, Plastic Memories had potential. It could examine the fleetingness of life, relationships breaking down, the truth of memories. And those were just alluded to. One segment of Plastic Memories has Tsukasa and Isla working with an officer from another Terminal Service branch, where they (and we) learn that the Terminal Service No. 1, where the protagonists work, is different from the rest. Our heroes perform their job in a personal, caring manner, connecting to their “targets,” whereas the other Terminal Services went in, collected the Giftia in question by any means necessary, and left. Why does Terminal Service No.1 focus on a more caring approach? What are the implications of this? Plastic Memories sloppily addressed this for a few seconds and went on its merry way.

Infinitely more offensive is Plastic Memories handling of the aftermath of the “Marcia arc.” At the tail end of this arc, Tsukasa and Isla not only had to deal with a traumatized young orphan boy and his caring Giftia sister, but also were up against Black Market dealers. Introduced earlier in that episode (how’s THAT for foreshadowing), these scumbags con people out of their Giftia in order to sell them on the black market for cash. After this, Martha becomes a Wanderer and the team has to deal with her, as torn as they are. This mini-arc was masterfully done, and I had great hope for Plastic Memories after this. You have to understand, this isn’t me imposing my expectations anymore – this is what Plastic Memories gave us.
But it seems that the creators didn’t want to give us that anymore.

Afterwards, Plastic Memories becomes primarily a workplace romantic comedy, with Tsukasa falling in love with Isla. Sure, fine, that romantic relationship can happen. It’s not a big deal. But at the same time, it almost completely does away with its setting. All of a sudden, it’s Tsukasa fumbling around on how to ask Isla out and everyone giving him advice. Suddenly, all of the eggs switched from the drama basket to the slice of life basket. This, in itself, is not entirely reprehensible. But then, Plastic Memories forgets its hook – its setting. Yes, the second half, for episodes at a time, all but disregards the setting of Plastic Memories almost altogether. With occasional whispers until the finale, Plastic Memories sunk into generic territory with cliché dramas (Isla and Tsukasa aren’t partners for an episode! But now they are! Isla can’t accept her love for Tsukasa! Tsukasa can’t ask Isla out! They’re an awkward couple!) and hard-hitting episode titles like “Rice Omelet Day.” A workplace comedy is not by itself bad, but when you have such a unique setting, use it.

The cast cannot support this outside of acting out of generic roles. The protagonist, Tsukasa, is exceedingly underdeveloped and uninteresting. He’s 18 and a nice guy, but that’s it. We get some good stuff when he’s sad, like with the Marcia arc or with the expertly handled finale, but hey, that’s it. Isla, as the same friend from above described, is a Rei Amamiya moe-blob android. Yeah, she’s cute. And she makes tea. She’s also your clumsy dojikko who’s afraid about losing her memories. Describing Isla is nothing more than a checklist, because, unfortunately, she is merely a collection of tropes thrown together.

The rest of the cast similarly suffers, and can be described with disjointed sentences. Michiru, I suppose, is the most developed, as her adopted father was a Giftia who she let become a Wanderer (This particular case was also the last case where Kazuki, Isla’s previous partner, and Isla worked together). Unfortunately for Michiru, that’s all she has going for her; otherwise, prepare the tsundere checklist, because she’s got all the tropes. The aforementioned Kazuki is scary and weak to alcohol, but she appreciates her coworkers and Isla. Zack, Michiru's partner, is a teasing young boy. Constance is the new Giftia partner of Kazuki, and he is calm. Kazuki is scary, but she appreciates her coworkers. Yasutaka is one of those casual lazy characters that Rikiya Koyama sometimes plays. Sherry is his serious partner. Eru is a technician who... likes cute things. These characters appear and leave, never developing, and only exist for Tsukasa and Isla to develop off of them. Even there, the show does not take Tsukasa farther than his bland traits nor Isla farther than her robotic moe characteristics.

As far as presentation goes, the show generally hits it out of the park. Shiny hair gradients aside, the character models are nicely done, and the show has a good time working with semi-futuristic environments. Doga Kobo finds a nice balance there, making the show seem futuristic enough to seem slick without seeming centuries in the future. The soundtrack hits all the somber notes well, as well as the (inappropriate) cheery ones. While the characters are bland, the voice cast does a good job with what they’re given, with Sora Amamiya admittedly making Isla very cute.

At the end of the day, Plastic Memories sells itself as a decent romantic comedy, with a finale so well done that you would be tempted to forgive the remaining sins of this show. But you can’t. With bland characters and a jarring tonal shift in the second half from a dramatic futuristic show to a slice of life romantic comedy that forgets its Giftia setting, Plastic Memories didn’t remember to stay focused throughout its run.

Story - 4 (mostly for its second half, barring the finale)
Art - 7 (good but not spectacular)
Sound - 7 (Good but not spectacular)
Character - 3 (Bland, underdeveloped, and/or cliche)
Enjoyment - 5

Overall - 5.2 (rounded to 5)

Note: Spoilers are in this review. I tried my best, but I can't really give a good critique without implementing them.

Furthermore, I could not avoid comparing this to the game. Still, I reviewed this on its own merits. I have played Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker for the 3DS for 100+ hours, so I have a good grasp on the game’s strengths and weaknesses.

I’ve sometimes wondered why Shin Megami Tensei games don’t get adaptations, but then a bit of thinking always leads me to the answer: many of them would be the same. See, since the core SMT series typically boasts multiple endings, the ... studio would have to adapt one, and the one it chooses to adapt would be the Neutral route, as that would probably have the most story. This is why we see more linear games (plotwise) like Persona 4 get adaptations. Devil Survivor 2, the second in the Devil Survivor branch of SMT games, has a tone right in between SMT and Persona. The game is considerably more lighthearted than its parent series and its predecessor, and even though it has multiple routes, they’re very similar to each other. So, how does the anime adaptation work out? Not well, I’m afraid.

Devil Survivor 2 the Animation is based on a manga that is based on the game. It follows the main character, renamed Hibiki Kuze, a bunny-eared hoodie wearing high schooler. After signing up for a macabre site, Nicaea, that promises to show death videos, or clips of people dying, the world seems to turn upside down; a subway train crashes, monsters only describable as demons pop out of peoples phones, and mysterious invaders called the Septentriones threaten the balance of the world itself. Hibiki, who has a greater potential than others, can summon stronger demons like Byakko; as a result, he and his friends are forcibly enlisted into the government agency JP’s (pronounced Jips) to fight against these monsters. Hibiki often comes into conflict with the cold and ruthless leader of JP’s, Yamato Hotsuin. He also comes into contact with a number of different people, most noticeably the Anguished One, an enigmatic being who knows more than he’s letting on and is decidedly not human.

The plot of the original game was never its strong suit (with plenty of dumb anime tropes and stuff like "The Dragon Stream"), and for the most part, the anime doesn’t strengthen it. Urgency and despair are rarely felt, despite it being a Shin Megami Tensei title; honestly, this doesn’t play out as anything other than a disaster-based anime, much like films such as Twister and San Andreas. Where the game did excel, however, was with its characters. A total of 14 main characters rounded out a robust cast in the game, and each character had enough time to be fleshed out. Even Hibiki bucked the trend by being a rather witty hero, calling people tsundere, nicknaming them, and flirting with everyone to no end. The cast was creative.

The anime doesn’t do that. Almost every character is reduced to a singular trait or trope, or even less so.

Daichi? Good friend of Hibiki, and dumb comic relief (A recurring gag has him yelling "My Demons are weak!" which gets old fast).
Io? Dandere who seems to like Hibiki.
Makoto? Serious.
Fumi? Uncaring.
Ronaldo? Justice.

Characters like Joe, Otome, Airi, Jungo, Hinako, and Keita don’t even get an iota of development to make you give half a shit about them. Joe's a guy, Otome's a doctor, Hinako dances, whatever. Not a shred of their personality or motivations are retained from the game. The most we get is maybe one or two stills (quite literally stills, not even a scene) worth of flashback for Airi and a short scene for Makoto. Hibiki might be one of the worst off; after having such a creative personality in the game, and then having the voice actor to be able to match (Hiroshi Kamiya, who also did the manic Araragi from the Monogatari series). Hibiki is reduced to nothing more than a serious shounen hero who wants to save everyone. Hooray for a generic hero.

And, well, it also doesn’t really help that pretty much everyone dies in an extremely haphazard manner. In the game, Death Videos were supposed to be avoided by arriving in a timely fashion. And while the game had time to let you feel the weight of your incompetence, no such element exists in the anime other than Hibiki beating himself about it, as you can't connect to many, if any, of the characters. In one of the early episodes, the character Keita is introduced, only to die in that same episode. The end of the series gets particularly dumb, when pretty much everyone dies in rapid succession.

(Incidentally, during a fight with the Anguished One, Yamato avoids getting killed. Somehow. Despite being exploded upon. Never explained.)

As far as characterization goes, it’s not an entire wash. The Anguished One is roughly the same as his game counterpart, but the clear “winner” is definitely Yamato, who’s roughly the same as he is in the game. However, he’s significantly more ruthless in this anime than he is in the game, and that produces mixed results. On the one hand, Yamato is permitted extra development even over the game, especially through his childhood and his interactions with politicians that led him to his meritocracy beliefs. On the other hand, Yamato is hard to sympathize with on almost any level; the game, which allowed you to join him in his quest for a meritocracy, included a few light moments, made him a much less “evil” character than he is in the anime.

It’s because of this overall weak characterization that prevents the extremely talented voice cast from reaching their full potential. There’s a dynamite Japanese voice cast featuring a very strong list of A-list seiyuus, but bland characters can’t really be saved by good voice acting. No one performance is bad (far from it!), but the only one who stands out is Junichi Suwabe as Yamato, even if his great performance only serves to make Yamato more unlikable.

Ultimately, all of this can be attributed to rushing, only highlighting the plot points. A playthrough of a route, even quickly, can take around 15 hours, and while not all of that is plot all the time, everything feels stuffed into this 6 and a half hour adaptation which focuses only on the major plot points. If I had to appreciate the plot in any way (besides them somehow paying a lot of attention to the fusion recipes: they were all correct!) it would be the fight with Lugh, which was much plainer in the game.

Thankfully, we have some strong animation here. Maybe after seeing a bunch of semi-static sprites all of the time in the game lowered my standards, but the animation is always clean and consistent. A-1 manages to make the demons look terrifying, and the character models by Durarara!! and Danmachi artist Suzuhito Yasuda are brought to life here, with a focus on details. While other aspects of the anime may be suspect, Seiji Kishi does a great job of directing this series, and the cinematography is quite well done.

The fight scenes are a mixed bag, much like the Persona 4 animation; like that, it feels like glorified Pokemon, which is definitely not what Shin Megami Tensei is. To its credit, the fight scenes look pretty enough, but their length, choreography, and character interactions (which is mostly reduced to yelling stuff like “Go Byakko!”) leaves plenty to be desired.

You shouldn’t have much of a reason, if any at all, to watch this anime unless you’ve played the game (or fall into a group where you don’t own a 3DS but like the SMT and Persona series). Maybe for morbid curiosity, but not much else. My main reason to watch this was to experience the Japanese cast, which is unavailable to me unless I buy a Japanese 3DS and a Japanese version of Record Breaker, but thanks to the uninspired characters, even that isn’t a good enough reason. I’d recommend you skip this series. It has its strengths, but its weaknesses far outstrip them. But buy Record Breaker if you have a 3DS.

Score:
Story - 4
Art/Animation - 7
Sound - 7
Character - 3
Enjoyment - 5

Overall: 5.1 (Rounded to 5)

EDIT 6/29/2015: Made a dumbass mistake that Otome was a nurse. Sexism is alive, folks. Corrected to doctor.

I honestly don’t really like sports manga. A lot of them that are super popular (Kuruko’s Basketball, Haikyuu, The Prince of Tennis) just don’t intrigue me. Baby Steps subverts all of that, making it one of the best sports manga I ever took the time to read.


Good - Great protagonist: Baby Steps follows Eiichiro Maruo, nicknamed Ei-chan because he gets all “A’s” in school due to his ridiculously meticulous nature. A chance encounter with Natsu Takasaki, a girl who is aiming to become a tennis pro, coupled with a desire to engage in physical activity leads Ei-chan to join STC as an amateur tennis player, ... often playing against grade schoolers. Over time, Eiichiro realizes his meticulous note-taking and powerful vision to his advantage. A growing love of the sport fuels him to practice hard and aim to become a pro.

While all sports manga necessitate that the protagonists have some talent, Baby Steps ensures that Eiichiro’s talents are far from godly; Eiichiro must work hard day in and day out in order to succeed. As a character, he falls into more of the Ippo category, but while he is shy, Eiichiro is not timid or that self-deprecating; he’s a polite young man who wants to win with his own ability. Eiichiro’s hard work and realistic, relatable attitude allow him to carry the manga by himself.


Good - Avoiding the trap: The common trap of a shounen manga is what I call the “power level” trap. When an antagonist of an arc is defeated, how do you top that? You introduce a villain with a higher power level (or a set of villains with a higher aggregate power level). This always ends up deflating any tension in a previous arc: how can the main characters have the same amount of trouble against both villains if one is stronger? More importantly, how can the main characters beat the villain? With a super new technique. This repetitive cycle of shounen manga decrees the final antagonist be Gods, and that can occur in many sports manga. Baby Steps avoids this because it develops Eiichiro within the sense of reason. Yes, Eiichiro gets stronger, sometimes during a match, but that’s because we see how hard he works. He never pulls something out of his ass like “Misdirection Overflow” that doesn't even exist in tennis, always improving in a realistic fashion.


Good - Sense of tension: Have you ever seen a tennis match on TV? Have you ever played a tennis match? Any sport definitely feels different for the spectators than for the players, and tennis is one of the sports that has a huge difference. Shounen manga tend to slow down the action in order to feel the tension, and Baby Steps is no exception. However, over the course of its entire 200+ chapters that I have read, Baby Steps never loses that feeling in any of its matches. It is capable of keeping the tension at a realistic level throughout the entire series.


Good - About men but not manly: Many sports manga have to ignore the female side, and depending on the sport and style of the manga, it can often drip with glistening testosterone. Baby Steps pretty much only follows the matches of guys. These high school guys don’t have low hanging balls like other sports manga characters do, making it more accessible for people who can’t take the sheer manly musk of some sports manga.


Good - Not afraid to make its hero lose: Not really spoilers; Eiichiro does not win all the time. He’s no loser, but it’s not completely uncommon. Sometimes he is crushed; other times it’s a fluke; and other times it’s because his opponent is that good. Losing is a part of life, and Eiichiro is no stranger to it. Unlike Ash Ketchum, however, Eiichiro is amazing about learning from his mistakes, and whenever he surfaces at a new tournament, all of his previous opponents note how much time he spent to provoke insane growth.

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Mixed - All tennis, all the time: Baby Steps excels in not succumbing to the problems of other sports manga. One of the huge problems that can occur with a sports manga that has its characters in school is that it makes the sport a school sport, intertwining the two. This leads to a multitude of cliché school life drama or slice of life scenarios to pad the time in between matches, as well as giving a bunch of side characters too much screentime. This often adds unnecessary weight to a sports manga, making you wait with begrudging anticipation for the next match. Baby Steps avoids this by making the tennis tied to professional tennis clubs as well as the pro scene, ignoring any school life tainting of the sports formula. But at what cost?

Baby Steps goes to an extreme to solve the problem I just laid out: it’s always tennis. If Eiichiro’s not playing tennis, he’s training for tennis, or talking about tennis, or thinking about tennis, or taking notes about tennis. This manga is probably written with the blood, sweat, and tears of actual tennis players. Having the sport is good, and I’m more invested in the manga because of it, but what about the characters? Apart from Eiichiro, I’m barely invested in anyone, because I know comparatively little about them.

It makes sense for me to know less about certain characters, like many of Eiichiro’s opponents; I know them through the “in-match flashback,” and that’s often enough; giving the characters some dramatic backstory would put a damper on any realism they have. They love tennis, and the manga brings out their personality through their playstyle and monologues. It’s not perfect, but it’s serviceable.

The one important character who doesn’t receive this treatment (and definitely should) is Natsu, the female protagonist and Eiichiro’s love interest. Natsu’s a very cheery girl who plays an instinctive tennis, opposite of Eiichiro’s, and she aspires to be a pro. That’s pretty much it. Natsu is super likeable and doesn’t fall into any typical tropes for a heroine, which makes this hard to notice, but we know so little about Natsu, except how Eiichiro likes her.

The best way the manga could fix this is to give focus to matches that Eiichiro is not playing, but rather follow the matches of other characters and get inside their heads as they go against each other. Unfortunately, that’s also a way to kill the manga; focusing too much on the side characters can devolve into a Bleach situation, where we barely see the main heroes but always see 300+ minor characters’ battles. It’s great that Baby Steps avoids this pitfall, but can’t we see some more Natsu?


Mixed - Passage of Time: For the most part, Baby Steps takes place during the times when tennis is played. That’s part of the reason why it’s all tennis all the time: it doesn’t really try to give a plot during the times when tennis isn’t played. So, through a montage (yes, training montages), the manga skips the drivel and goes straight to the next tennis season. But is absolutely nothing important? It often follows the trend that Ei-chan loses, there are a couple chapters about his tennis, and then it’s the next tournament or next year or something. You sometimes see what the characters are up to during short side chapters. Baby Steps could put in some padding to make the passage of time seem so much less abrupt, and develop its characters! It skips the vast majority of filler and makes you like the characters more!

The other time when "fast forward" is implemented is during a tennis match. Tennis is a long sport, after all. Do we want to see Eiichiro own worse tennis players? Not particularly. We’ll see some frames and then the score. That’s fine. Do we want to see every single return? No, of course not; each arc would be the length of a One Piece arc if we did that. So fast-forwarding is done to prevent us from getting really bored. Unfortunately, it is typically handled in the least graceful way possible; through a bunch of omniscient text boxes. Used sparingly, this is acceptable. In Baby Steps, it utilized to the point that over an entire set of a match can be *explained* that way. It’s far from awful, but manga should take advantage of the fact that it can simply show with characters and facial expressions and not always have to tell. More annoying is how Baby Steps sometimes wraps up a tense tennis match with a text box explanation, instead of us seeing the characters react and think as the Match Point is playing out. In the interest of expedience, it detracts from us connecting more with the match and the characters at crucial times.
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Baby Steps is a phenomenal sports manga. It’s always engaging and keeps you on the edge of your seat since anything can happen. If you need a sports manga to read, you really can’t go wrong with Baby Steps, especially if you love tennis.

Story: 9
Art: 8
Character: 7
Enjoyment: 9
Overall: 8.3 (rounded down to 8)