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Story

Inuyashiki is a story with incredible depth and nuance. It starts out as this series that really rips and tugs at the heart with Inuyashiki dying because of cancer and wanting to never die. The show then shifts gears just as you know enough about him to focus on pretty much anyone else other than our titular character. Being 11 episodes I’m surprised at how deep the story went, you have these incredibly nuanced topics like; death, sacrifice, murder, but along with that we have hope. And hope is something I didn’t expect this series to have so well sprinkled throughout. Just when the series ... gets to the darkest points, it decides to give these moments afterwards a glimpse of hope, resolution that isn’t just more senseless killing or whatever the topic may be. Inuyashiki is so satisfying because other anime at these moments would just forgo the idea of hope, and continue building up these dark and sad moments. But Inuyashiki gives you that hope, yes a cat was ran over and the cat’s kitten is crying out at it’s parent, but Inuyashiki is there to revive this cat and reset the mood, giving you hope and breaking the tension for a much needed respite. In my opinion, this is what makes this series so beautiful and nuanced. It will go and explore these dark topics with an extreme focus on certain points about it, but at the ends we know Inuyashiki, our series hero is there to make it all better. Inuyashiki is a classic hero you’d see from decades past where he is truly good, and because of this he is the hope the series needs at times.

Another aspect I want to talk about is the pacing, and being 11 episodes, it had to be paced in a certain way. The first 8 episodes primarily focuses on Hiro, and really dissecting his characters. Every moment not spent focusing on Hiro is spent on Inuyashiki, and if they are not focusing on either of them then there is some events that helps move the whole story forward and pushes the envelope. In all honestly, this is a 26 episode series jam packed into an 11 episode series. Episode 4 feels like 12 episodes apart from episode 11. The last three episodes in particular has so much stuff just shoved in there that the episode prior feels like the contents of a whole movie. Which is another point I’d like to bring up, that some episodes feel like whole movie ideas. An episode featuring a kidnaped women being rescued by Inuyashiki could be the basis for a movie in itself. It’s just amazing to me that Inuyashiki was able to pace every episode as well as it did without seeming boring or played out. Sure, there are these scenes here and there that feel shoved away to be brought back up at a later time because they just didn’t have the time to either explore that idea or flesh it out further. That is the one big downfall of this series, I personally would have loved to know even more about Hiro and his family, and just Hiro in general. And that’s funny to because Hiro is sole focus of this series by far, almost all the screen time in the whole series has Hiro in it, or mentioned. Inuyashiki is our other main character, our hero, and he never really gets that much screen time which is a shame too. I’d love to see more about Inuyashiki’s past, how he met his wife, why at such an old age did he decide to have kids? Things like that, which sadly never really got answered.

Characterizations

While hope is a huge factor in the story side of things, it’s not so much in the character side of things. This stories characters feel so absolutely real, which I think is just another ism that the creator of the manga has his finger on really well. He knows what kids are thinking all around the world, it honestly feels like he himself is in the trenches along with us. It doesn’t feel like a writer is putting his own personal beliefs into this story's characters at all, but rather making characters out of the times. For example, what we really have here in this story is a classic example of Pure Good vs. Pure Evil. Inuyashiki-san is purely good, he gave his whole life to his work firm, he supports his family, he’s blue collar, hell he even take in a dog. Then he gets his powers and starts healing people, animals, anything that is there he is there to help. But what really makes Inuyashiki more relatable is that he speaks and acts like a real person. His “pure good” is not realistic, but when you start to add on things, like him not understanding how to use a smartphone or as another example him not knowing how to throw punches. He’s a man that with even more development becomes even more human and realistic. It’s not the good qualities that make him good, it’s how human he is and how he wants to be perceived.

Hiro on the other hand is Pure Evil… which now that I think about it may not be as true. Hiro kills and kills and kills, as he is a sociopath. He is disconnected from his own humanity and doesn’t feel like you and I. As an example, he says to his best friend in Episode 1 or 2, he doesn’t care about other people dying, he only cares about his friend only. No spoilers, but even in the end, it seems like he still doesn’t care about the outcome, but only for the people he cares about. This is a huge departure already from Inuyashiki-san, as Inuyashiki is a person who wants to give life back to others, to help rather than take. Although Hiro I feel is what many people today are an example of, how many people do you know who have said, “I don’t care if other people die”. In this day and age I bet you right now for at least half the people watching you’ve experienced someone saying this. And I don’t mean, “Oh it’s too hard to care when it happens every day”. I mean someone who truly does not care. Hiro is a character I both deeply hate and care for all at the same time. I don’t want to see anything bad happen to Hiro, but when he does something bad I want to see the repercussions put upon him. He’s not a black/white character as he’s more of a person who is deeply flawed, what I’m trying to say is he’s a sociopath that may have been created from his own society. That to me is more interesting that a Star Wars or Marvel villian, that to me is truly scary.

Art

The art direction here goes for a more modern and realistic tone to it. I believe they went with this over a cartoon feeling like other anime because it helped set the tone visually that this series is going to delve into some pretty deep topics. But does it work out like they wanted it to? Well to simply answer I don’t think it was anywhere near perfect, but at the same time the story more than makes up for the faults in the art. But let’s get into why that is. The art direction they went for was the correct one to pursue, but I think because of budgeting constraints it wasn’t as sharp or clean as they wanted it to be. Honestly, most people won’t really care for the art, as it’s quality is something that reminds me of Stand Alone Complex, which is a beloved series, but it’s like if Stand Alone Complex was never updated, and the CGI was bad. Background shots are pretty well detailed though, but there was just some episodes where the budget really shows. Characters looking very blurry in the face or losing details and shaders in some scenes. Go in expecting a budgeted art direction, and you’ll be good to go.

Animation

Maybe not the best in the world, Inuyashiki aims for a blend of traditional animation with CGI elements in toe. In terms of an art perspective, these are some great CGI models, especially when you observe the inside of Hiro and Inuyashiki’s robotic chassis. When in movement everything really starts to fall apart. Things look incredibly cheap sometimes, and while nothing is as bad as Black Clover, it gets to points where some things look a little stiff when they shouldn’t be. Animation is not something that will really stand out for being good, but rather looking cheap. Then again, this may be cleared with a Blu-Ray release and a little more work.

Score

Because everyone is talking about it, let’s start the score off with the opening My Hero by Man With A Mission, a Japanese Rock band that in name and look is a homage to Bad Religions album Man With A Mission. The opening song My Hero lends itself to more of the Rap-Rock side of things, but don’t let that fool you. Man With A Mission was able to write a song that fit the story of Inuyashiki. Of course I won’t be analysing the song here, there are others who could do it better than me, but I will go on record as saying it’s tied with me for opening of 2017 with MMO Junkie’s Saturday Night Question. As for the rest of the score, it’s another one of those that’s minimalistic which I can’t tell if it was genius or a necessity because of their budget. But the score is great otherwise, and the last episode really shines as the best the score has to offer. So look out for that in the last episode.

Final Rating

Inuyashiki is a special anime, it’s not perfect which knocks it down some pegs, but it’s still a story that was beautifully told in the 11 episodes it had. Through its limitations it gave us a truly great 11 episodes of can’t miss anime.

Inuyashiki gets a 9/10.

This score may seem high to some, but I thought that the story, characters and visual storytelling all made up for its faults technically with the art and animation. I still felt though that it didn’t hit a 10/10 for those reasons and because it had a score that just needed a little extra push which it didn’t get. And a lot of people may not know this, but anime like Inuyashiki, Gantz, Cowboy Bebop, those are all anime that are my bread and butter, I was raised on anime that told a story first, and did everything else second. This to me stands right up there with anime like Monster when we talk about the story, is it right to compare the two? No, but Inuyashiki found a way into my heart, and because it did it’s already one step ahead of many other anime on the market. Honestly, this one was so close to an 8/10, but I just felt that this one showed the quality of an anime that I saw was a 9/10.

Story

From a story perspective MMO Junkie is a well paced one, it’s just 10 episodes too so it’s such a quick series to complete and get through. And because of its 10 episodes the story really nails down MoriMori pretty well. She’s our main character, and it’s about her really trying to find herself again, and take that next step to find love as well. MMO Junkie takes a bunch of genres like Romance and Slice of Life and somehow takes that and blends it into gaming and creates a romance anime with a modern twist to it. It’s unique because this kind of story ... hasn’t really been told yet either, but more on that in a moment. I really enjoyed this story because it felt natural, and because of that everything was so fluid in its delivery. The voice actor for Moriko was just so fantastic in portraying this character. She’s a spaz, a person who has social anxiety and probably has experienced some really heavy stuff in her life. Mamiko Noto was just terrific in portraying in this character, and it does shine a light on anxiety and other heavy things that aren’t talked about. People don’t understand social anxiety, and as a person who has social anxiety, and believe me legit social anxiety, this anime really understands social anxiety and how it manifests itself in just a small corner of society. Moriko to me is someone I can truly relate with throughout the story because I am right there with her. Everything in this anime she goes through, I’ve at the very least experienced before. So because of this, this anime holds a special place in my heart, and I want to thank Rin Kokuyou for making this story and characters, and for Kazuyoshi Yaginuma for beautifully directing it. And to everyone else working on this anime, thank you.

One of the things I find so great about the story is the fact it’s so relatable and it’s cute because of that. Let’s take for example the use of the MMO in this story, and how they use that to make the character relatable, and more human. Our main character, MoriMori, is a 30 year old woman, yet she plays a hot guy on an online MMO and roleplays as him. Now how many times have you guys or girls done this? I’m going to guess that if you’ve played an MMO it’s likely you have done it at least one time before. The show uses this extremely well known thing in the fandom of MMO to reward the viewers who have played MMO’s or videos games where they’ve roleplayed as a character to make our main character seem that much more relatable. But let’s also take for example some other real world elements that are at the forefront of gaming culture. Loot Boxes and Microtransactions, and no, I’m not here to complain about EA or GTA Online, I’m instead going to not talk about that and tell you why this is brilliant them implementing these elements into the story. Through small moments in the dialogue and sometimes visually, MoriMori will go and buy this points to buy Loot Boxes for the game she plays. There is even an episode where she decides to fix her appearance and she equates accessory prices to how many loot boxes she could have gotten. It’s a great way to endear the character towards the viewer as like I said, this is something that’s been HUGE in the news for the last two years, and right now may be at it’s fever pitch. This story is one that 10 years ago could have never been told, and I’m glad that this story has been told so well.

Characterizations

In MMO Junkie, the characters of this series have to be a key focus of your vision. Not just because it’s a Slice of Life, but because it’s a Romance. You see, I think Romance anime need to have a couple things to be well received. What you really need to focus on first is giving your characters a sense of realism, like they could exist. Because how many anime have you watched that has a romance where the characters aren’t really all there, they’re just hollow bodies and the dialogue they speak tries to fill that void. But MMO Junkie has characters you want to like, you remember their names and their roles. How many character names do you remember in Just Because and Girls’ Last Tour? The last thing I look for with romance though is if these characters grow and change, are they human? This could be something as simple as the character thinking they’re undesirable at first, but as time goes on they realize they are desirable. MMO Junkie has this in many ways, Moriko when being caught with a friend runs away because she thinks that her being around people would cause a burden. And honestly, that hits the relatability factor with me here too, as I have felt this way before. But characters that grow are incredibly detrimental, and there aren’t that many great romance in anime like this, so I welcome it.

Art

The art for MMO Junkie surprised me, as just looking at it you can tell it’s not meant to be this crazy detail filled rich world. But the backgrounds while sometimes just being static images to save on cash, there are also moments where the backgrounds are really detail. For example, in one of the episodes MoriMori is in front of a store, and the windows are blurred out, but just enough to see what’s on display in those windows… handbags! There is also the convenience store in this show which really shows that while incredible detail wasn’t something they wanted to completely focus on, they did it to make this world come to life. Another aspect I loved is character designs though, they are really great for this show. MoriMori’s lifeless cold eyes really shows that her character isn’t in the right head space emotionally, and on top of that her design of looking like a slob with unkempt eyebrows and bed head really fill out her character visually. Even when she decides to change her look there are great moments with the art, as MoriMori only dresses up for certain people in different ways. For example let’s take Koiwai, and Sakurai. MoriMori usually dresses up and goes out of her way to look good for Sakurai, while with Koiwai she still wants to look good, but doesn’t put in near as much effort as she does with Sakurai.

But for the MMO side of things, it looks great as well. Hayashi and Lily’s character designs change throughout the series except for the bracelets which they both vowed to never remove, and are there until the very last episode. Another thing I liked about those two characters thought is that their costumes changed to represent, I assume, their experience level. They don’t remain static throughout the whole series at all, and change pretty regularly. I think this is a nice touch, as you change gear in MMO’s pretty regularly. As for the design of the MMO world, it’s not anything special, and I do wish there was some more depth added to it. As is there is really only one episode where you get a feel for its depth, from then on it’s kinda shoved to the side in favor of the real world and all of that. Overall though, I think the art direction for MMO Junkie was terrific, probably better than a lot of anime this season like Inuyashiki. I would put this right up there with Magus’ Bride though, but that’s not saying too much as there just weren’t many anime that were visually great this season.

Animation

Surprisingly here, the animation is very good for this anime. It fits the comedic style it’s going for, let’s take for example the facial expressions of this series. MoriMori who is playing games practically all day, so to me the way she reacts to things in her facial expressions are really well done here. When Lily-san and Hayashi give each other gifts, she is practically on the edge of her seat, she is invested in this emotionally. Her facial expressions in this scene are exquisite, she is blushing and she’s staring at the screen in anticipation. There aren’t any unique facial expressions here, it’s mostly one of anticipation. Which to me is how I would be reacting in this situation, I’m eagerly awaiting a response just like MoriMori is. In other parts of the show though, we have great moments like Hayashi and Lily under the sea and how things are animated there do seem a little cheap, but even then they put enough into it to make out individual details. Things like bubbles and fish in the background really help make this scene animation wise. Another good one where on paper the animation isn’t anywhere where it needs to be is the scene where they are training against a giant rat or gerbil, I can’t remember which. But they re-use a pretty major key animation multiple times. The animation that’s reused is the one where the rat attacks Hayashi, but instead of this being a scene that’s serious, it’s comedic, so the re-use of the animation doesn’t come off as bad as it would otherwise. Overall, it’s pretty good animation everything considered, but you can easily nitpick flaws in most episodes, so don’t expect Evangelion levels of detail, but at the same time don’t go in expecting something awful like Black Clover.

English Dub

Net-juu no Susume is of course licensed by FUNimation, which means it’s apart of FUNimation’s FUNimation Now program. FUNimation Now is basically FUNimation’s version of Simuldub, which aims to dub anime with only a short delay to when it airs in Japan, usually just a two week delay. For this anime, the dub is basically your standard FUNimation affair, it isn’t bad by any means, we have great talent like; Aaron Dismuke (Chihiro from Sankarea), and Josh Grelle. But I think this anime was just simply miscast. We have Terri Doty playing our MC MoriMori, and it just doesn’t fit her. And honestly, Terri isn’t a bad voice actor and she does a great job acting the lines. But when I think of MoriMori I don’t think of Terri Doty, I think a more matured voice like Terri’s but a little more smooth, if that makes sense. But I think this criticism can be leveled at other characters like Lily-san and Koiwai. The way they were cast, the voices just don’t match what I think they would match in my head. So in my opinion, stick with the Japanese subtitles, as you’ll find it just flows better. But don’t get me wrong, the English Dub is fine if you want to just experience the story without reading, but if you want to go that extra mile for a good experience, then subtitles are for you.

Score

The score for this anime is done by Conisch, who is has worked on Appleseed, Hetalia, Yu-Gi-Oh Zexals! (Hurray for Yu-Gi-Oh). And first off I got to say, this guy did a really decent job with the score. It isn’t anything that will blow you away by any means, but it will certainly impress you. The score for this anime is really calm though, as to fit the comedy style that this anime obviously has. But what surprised me even more is that even during small dramatic scenes, it didn’t really lay in on the score at all. Instead there are scenes where the score isn’t even noticeable until it’s pointed out. I think this was done to give the dialogue more room to breath and have more impact. As technically, the dialogue here isn’t really anything new, as this is a romance comedy. I think scoring it the way he scored it was perfect for the series, and while there were no scenes in particular that carried them, I don’t think it was meant to. This is almost certainly a show that is scored minimalist for a lot of scenes where you’d think otherwise. I think people can really appreciate the opening and ending songs though, as I did too. Saturday Night Question is undoubtedly behind Inuyashiki for best opening of this season. It’s fun, catchy and doesn’t take itself too seriously. To contrast that, the ending song is your more straightforward Alternative Rock style of rock music we’ve come to enjoy from Japan. It even has a kickass solo in it that I love too. So yeah, I really like the score for this anime.

Final Rating: 8/10

Story

Sword Art Online is an anime that has stood the test of time surprisingly well, just 5 years after this anime came out it has spawned a sequel anime and a motion picture film which came out in 2017 called Ordinal Scale. The one thing I found about that film is that everyone liked it as well, which surprised me, since this anime… well the story isn’t so good. And immediately off the bat, the most noticeable problem with this anime is its random pacing. The series starts off pretty well, introducing you to the characters at a pace which is pretty normal for most ... kinds of anime, especially Isekai anime. Kirigaya (aka Kirito) and all of the other people logged into SAO at the time have been trapped in the game, and if they die in the game, they die in real life. Kirito we also come to find out is a master SAO player, being in the beta since the beginning and knowing virtually everything there is to know about SAO. This is all just the first three episodes or so, give or take some minor tweaks here and there. But after these initial episodes SAO’s problem of bad pacing really starts to show. Characters like Asuna are just pushed to the side in favor of building up these secondary characters which have no real meaning to the story or plot later on in the first 12 episode arc. Obviously these characters are featured in the second season somewhat, but I felt this was a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation anyways. Does the show not focus on these characters to instead push forward the main story thread, or do we add these character in for that added effect in Season 2.

I don’t blame them for the decision they chose here, but it can’t be denied that these episodes focusing on characters like Asuna’s Sister (which are not important to the series) was a little too much, and in the end made you feel like you wasted your time. They had no real tangible bearing on events in the anime, sure you can say some of them gave our characters items, but in the end they more or less focused on them romancing Kirito, when you know damn well Asuna was going to be the character they chose. Honestly it all just came off really amateur to me, and short sighted. But continuing on with the pacing, for the rest of the show it’s built around Kirito and Asuna’s adventures together trying to clear all of the towers to somehow make it out of this game. This is where the show really keeps it together and has a cohesive set of characters that are both somewhat dynamic, just enough to keep you hooked, and a pretty straight forward motivations. These episodes are the most enjoyable, and memorable parts of the series more or less.

The parts I really enjoyed about SAO all really stem from them being trapped in this game, it gives the sense that these characters only have one like, and that in turn makes for a very compelling progression for the story. I think something good that stems from this is the relationship between Kirito and Asuna. And okay, sure I get it, I hear your complaints about the arc where they hang out at a cabin, and we’ll get to that in a moment. But Kirito and Asuna’s relationship, I feel progresses at a natural and smooth rate that leaves the viewer feeling satisfied. There is no wait at the end for the big kiss, and there is no shyness around these two characters that keeps the relationship from naturally progressing to extend the series even more. The relationship peaks very early on in the series, and because of this, the viewer doesn’t have to wait until the end, they get that now, and because of that Kirito and Asuna’s characters become so much more important. Kirito and Asuna now have something to live for, and that makes them all the more compelling and human. And trust me, making these characters feel more human, I’m all for, it’s another nitpick of mine, but this series has some pretty robotic characters.

Moving on, the cabin arc is atrocious like I said, it introduces a character that basically lets them cheat in the game itself in many ways. And boy do they introduce that character terribly too, and I can’t say a lot of that because we don’t have enough time to even go into that character. But let me say this, she’s an awful boring and cringey character. Moving on the series pacing ramps up and basically hastily ends the series as we know it 12 episodes in, in a very awesome fashion may I mind you, but still feeling somewhat lackluster. There was no proper build to these final moments, and because of that I felt it was unimportant. Like they had all of the answers all along, and that everything would of course end they way they did, because simply for the fact they’re our main characters. There was no surprise the way it went down, sure it was cool to see in such a dramatic fashion, it was compelling as you were watching it. But that facade slowly went away as you simply just thought about it. Why did this happen 12 episodes in? There must be something better right?


Well the rest of the series is a total and absolute mess and a dumpster fire. Asuna is trapped in a game called again, and they can take her helmet off… yet the game was shut down. This is an EXTREMELY huge plot hole right here. In the beginning they went out of there way to mention on several occasions that if they clear the game, they’re all released. Yet Asuna was never released and awakened… why? Because don’t pay attention that’s why. The show now opts to dangel our main female heroine in front of us like a trophy so that Kirito has something to fight for. But guess what, now there is no romance in the series, so let’s have Kirito’s sister fall in love with him, because incest is cool guyz. And before you mention it, I know they’re not blood related, but it’s still incest. It’s still your sister, do you people have no standards? But the series basically ends with a whimper and a thud rather than ending at episode 12 like it should have. This last half, there was no reason for it to exist at all, it was a complete what of your time, and if you’re going into SAO for the first time, I strongly suggest skipping this part and going straight to the last episode.

Characterizations

Now moving onto characters, the show fumbles somewhat here. First off, every character that’s not Kirito and Asuna may as well be a waste of time. The main villain, the guy who started SAO, isn’t even that important, at least he doesn’t feel important. I believe this is simply because the show is so revolved around Kirito and Asuna at virtually all times, that it really needed to just be these two characters journeys, rather than his sprawling story with revolving characters that they tried so hard to make you care about. Let’s take for example Rika Shinozaki… I’m sure you remember everything she did, right? Right? Exactly, and by the way, she helped make Asuna’s sword and upgraded Kirito’s sword. But I didn’t remember that because she wasn’t important like all the others.

But let’s talk about the lady killer, Kirito. Described as being a lone wolf gamer, he gets literally all dem chicks. Seriously, Kirito in this series gets an incredibly amount, possibly a never ending source of anime babes, and they all love him. He’s also a beta tester, and because of this he knows everything about SAO. And because of this, I’m kinda left wondering why he didn’t do more in this series, and why he had such trouble with certain monsters, but ya’ know, don’t pay attention. Kirito in basically every situation in this anime is calm and collected and knows how to deal with every situation that he may encounter. Because of this I feel his character becomes almost unrelatable if it were not for his relationship with Asuna. It just feels like he never grows or becomes stronger and remains static throughout. Because of this, I absolutely hate Kirito. He comes off as a complete asshole several times throughout the series as well, which really just makes me question why they did this. I’m all for character being evil, but when you’re MC is portrayed as the perfectly good character that fights for his woman and stuff, and then you have him be a complete self absorbed asshole… well that lets me know to never take this character seriously.

Asuna on the other hand is this girl who is basically matching Kirito in skill in some aspects. She’s known for being very quick in combat, and because of this she finds a home in one of the strongest guilds in SAO. She’s also used in the second half as a trophy in a way for Kirito to come and save. She’s literally in a freaking castle at the very top while some generic bad guy who is trying to marry her in real life locks her away and sexually harrasses her. And let’s talk about that, how in the hell is this guy trying to marry Asuna when she can’t even consent? I know that arranged marriages are somewhat common in Japan for wealthy families, but it doesn’t make sense to me. Why keep her locked up in a game and in real life unconscious just so Kirito can come and save her? Why not let her out of the game and marry her anyways? Isn’t it already established she’s being married against her will anyways? Also this whole thing is completely ignored at the end too, so why the hell is this even a major plot point in the series second big arc? It’s almost as if they had to artificially inflate the series so they could get 25 episodes. Ya’ know what, earn the 25 episodes, what about that?

Art

Art for every A-1 Picture that has anything more than a shoe string budget looks amazing, always. And this is no different in this anime either, we have insane art design from this anime that even 5 years after its initial release looks incredible. Immediately from the start I noticed how modern the aesthetic is for the real world and how well it blends into the game worlds fantasy setting. Small things like Taverns and Blacksmiths populate the world, and the cobblestone streets and brick buildings help make the aesthetic come to life. But as well, one of my favorite things in SAO is the world for Elphenhime which is in the second arc. This one is more of a setting akin to something you’d see out of Middle Earth in terms of fairies and monsters. The setting also calls for vast amounts of forest that surround the hub city which gives the feeling that’s it’s a city that’s hidden away in this massive VRMMO.

Character designs are the second best thing about this series though, hands down. While I’m not going to go crazy over Kirito, as his is generic, I will let that slide. As every other character here is extremely well designed. Asuna Yuuki has a fantastic design which makes her look both intimidating and at the same time something to please the… fans if you get what I’m saying. But even the worst characters that aren’t Kirito like Suguha and Heathcliff look fantastic as well. You can tell A-1 really wanted to make this anime the looking anime from that year. And honestly without a list off the top of my head of anime that came out that year, I am inclined to at the very least say it is indeed a very good looking anime.

Animation

Maybe not exactly the most well held of aspect, the animation at times can show its age. Being from the year 2012 it’s populate with the random panning shot to save on budget, which to me is inexcusable. I absolutely hate panning shots for anime that’s not comedy. To me it’s just absolutely lazy to implement it when you’re A-1 and have enough to fund 25 episodes. And look what came out of this anime anyways, it’s a classic anime whether you hate it or not. It took the world by storm and has since made bucket loads of money, so the excuse they didn’t know it was going to be a success to me isn’t good enough. There is a reason there are people who forecast these sort of things in business.

Continuing on the fight scenes in this anime are pretty well made, solid to say the least about them. The first major fight where we meet Asuna in the series is a good example how the worst the series can do, and that’s still a very good scene with lots of great action. The pacing for it is just incredible to see, they don’t really rush any fighting in this anime, and opt to let it build up and have a climax right at the time you’d want it to happen. Things flow naturally in terms of this in every other aspect I think as well. I could name a million nitpicks, but that would diminish the overall quality of this product, even with lazy panning shots.

Score

Now onto the reason most of you probably even give a damn about SAO, the score. And how do I put it, this score is freaking amazing. Probably in my Top 10 anime scores of all time, right up there with Cowboy Bebop, DBZ, and Evangelion. The score here is done by Yuki Kajiura, and she breaths life into this world and story. Yuki has also done anime like; Princess Principal, .hack// Series, Fate Series, and Erased. Being very well known for her amazing scoring in anime, she continues to deliver with this series. The last battle in episode 12 for SAO was an incredible scene because of her score, this whole series is basically carried by her score to at least something watchable. Scenes that on their own are either badly voice acted or just terribly written seem to be brought to life because of Yuki’s incredible score and her ability to seemingly sell any scene. Honestly there is nothing more to say on the score than that, at this point you should get out there on spotify and listen to it right now. Or on Youtuber or wherever you can listen to it. Hell, to me this is a score you should pay money to physically own on Vinyl.

English Dub

The English Dub… well it’s not good, but it ain’t bad either. It’s easily the most notable part of this show that didn’t age well. A lot of lines are stiff and have just awkward delivery. I’m not sure why this is, as this was a pretty decent cast with great voice actors. But somehow the dub here just fails to do anything for me, and for a majority of people. When I first watched this series though, I actually quite enjoyed what the dub offered, then again this was before I had gotten into anime fully like I am now. This was SeaTactics who was 19 and before this maybe watched Attack on Titan, now I’m much more into the workings on things like these. Honestly though, this dub is still completely watchable, it’s not the worst, but it’s not something you should expect great quality from.

Final Rating: 5/10

Shield Hero is one of those going in I wasn’t really sure what to expect since it was based off a Isekai Light Novel series. And at the time I had also just got done reading about 16 chapters Arifureta which was basically every Isekai trope ever. So I wasn’t too keen on reading yet another Isekai, but at the same time I was open minded enough to give it a shot, and also because Condifiction is pretty darn good at recommending me only the best Anime and Manga. But I do want to say right now that this is an incomplete review, the manga ... is nowhere near being finished and these are my thoughts after reading just 36 chapters of the manga. So because of this I will not be giving this manga a score, I will be instead giving this manga a recommendation of a “Go Out Of Your Way To Read It”, “Read” or a “Skip”. Enjoy the video everyone!

Background

The Rising of the Shield Hero’s story is by Yusagi Aneko, who is known for the Light Novel Ore dake Kasereru Class Teni. Originally this manga is actually based off the original Light Novel The Rising of the Shield Hero. And since we’re here already, this manga has a ridiculously long title of “The Rising of the Shield Hero: The Manga Companion”. As you can guess, this is simply another option to consume this series if you want to. I personally have not read the Light Novel as of this time, but I may plan to if there is interest in doing so. But anyways, the art is also done by Kyu Aiya, She is known for; Mofu Men, Code Age Archives and Persona 4 Ultimate manga. Shield Hero’s Light Novel was originally published in 2013, while the alternate Manga version has been published since 2014 in Comic Flapper. Currently at the time of this writing there are 17 volumes of The Rising of The Shield Hero. There is also an anime adaptation announced and is will be handled by the same studio who did Made in Abyss, Kinema Citrus.

Story

Shield Hero is a tale you wouldn’t expect would be so good with the other “Other World” trope that has been driven into the ground in the last couple of years. But Shield Hero, while being an “Other World” manga and having many RPG inspired elements like the mentions of XP and frequent mention of quests. Shield Hero really isn’t taking those aspects and making it the whole manga. Instead, Shield Hero is more about a tale of Revenge and Redemption after a brutal betrayal from an allie. But not only that, it’s about Naofumi finding himself in this new world and raising Raphtalia and Firo correctly as before they were both slaves. I won’t say this story is one of the best manga ever, but I will say it’s one of the best “Other World” manga out there right now. And with its eventual anime adaption it may take the top spot that Re:Zero currently occupies.

Let’s now talk about the most controversial topic when people bring up this series, and that’s Raphtalia’s age versus her actual appearance. So let’s do a little set up here before get into the details. Raphtalia is in reality a 10 year old girl, and because of the way the world works, when leveling up Raphtalia grows in physical age. To put it simply, the higher level she is, the more matured her body becomes. This to me is actually pretty great, it’s a unique character that has the body of an adult, but is a kid in mind and age. But here is where the problem starts to arise and something I hope they don’t do. It’s obvious through the writing on the series that Raphtalia is “the one” for Naofumi. Naofumi doesn’t reciprocate yet in the series, but it’s made apparent that Raphtalia likes Naofumi. Naofumi is 20 years old, double the age of Raphtalia. Now you see the problem and why I hope they don’t go down this route where Naofumi starts banging a 10 year old. This has already made me a little uncomfortable, but depending on how it’s handled it can make or break the story between the two. Because right now in the series their partnership is quite enjoyable, I enjoy their interactions as characters. And thankfully right now these little glimpses of this are very small and hard to gauge exactly where it’s headed. But if Naofumi and Raphtalia start bangin’ when she’s just 10, I may have to lower my final rating once this series is finished.
But there is one thing that I think at the beginning may turn people away. And that’s the fact that there is no real explanation as to why Naofumi is summoned. It seems like the author really just wanted to rush the very beginning because the beginning of Isekai are usually such a drag and cliched. But this one I have a feeling the author felt by doing this he would please the readers of this manga and opted to just go ahead and skip the beginning. To me this is a HUGE problem in the beginning. Now I know what you’re saying “Re:Zero never introduced Subaru and opted to rush past the beginning”. To which I have to say it makes sense with that series, as Subaru’s backstory being a mystery is one of the reasons for Subaru being so compelling. With Naofumi I wanted that little bit of extra characterization for him in the sense of a backstory. I just can’t get fully invested in him, and he’s not a Subaru type. Like I said, it’s a huge problem and it feels amateur and rushed.

But, if you’re into the Isekai genre of manga or Light Novel, then you’ll enjoy your time with Shield Hero. It’s a well paced story with great characters and it knows when and when not to introduce elements or plot point to not rush and overwhelm the reader. But the one thing I do dislike is sometimes the scale of the things that happen do feel a little unimportant when they should be huge altering things. For example, they summon a huge dangerous ass T-Rex that before in the past was extremely destructive. But it doesn’t feel that way, sure they explain what this creature did, but it doesn’t come off as world altering as it should be. But other than that it’s a very well rounded fun manga that has a pretty complex story that in the future will seem to delve into different countries and their own politics. For example, they teased one country that is ran by Demi-humans and uses Humans as slaves. I hope they go to those places too, as I want to see how they’d handle not only from a writing perspective, but from a character perspective as Naofumi has a squad of only Demi-Humans.

Characterizations

Shield Hero though is a surprisingly nuanced series in my opinion, let’s take for example our main character Naofumi. He’s a man that was betrayed at his most vulnerable point, not even 24 hours spent in the new world he was just learning. He was taken advantage of, and because of this the story really revolves around that one pivotal moment. Everything from then on (so far) has the Shield Hero and his companions doing anything they can to get Redemption. Because of this we get to experience some really great moments in the story, for example, I love the first chapters that focus on Raphtalia. She is a young demi-human who has obviously experienced some terrible things in her young life, being tortured, her parents being killed. The things Naofumi takes for granted, Raphtalia cherishes. The first time she eats a full meal, she doesn’t know what to think, she’s confused. She thinks, “Why would Naofumi do this for me?” many times during these initial chapters she’s introduced. Because of this we can really appreciate and get behind this character, Raphtalia. She’s had a tragic history, she’s cursed, it’s not a story most would want to experience for themselves, but a nice underdog story.



Another Underdog story is Naofumi though, continuing on with him like I said before he was betrayed and now spends his time going back and forth on whether to be what the people now expect of the Shield Hero, or be a better man, taking the high road. Morally speaking, Naofumi does some really awful stuff to people, demanding a reward from a poor town that could barely afford it and had to collect money from everyone to reach his demands. But you learn that throughout Naofumi is man that truly has a heart of gold that he grows into throughout the series. Chapter 1-5 Naofumi is completely different from Chapter 20-30 Naofumi so to speak. Naofumi in a way is a character that doesn’t understand his own rage either, this is presented throughout the manga multiple times. Moments where Naofumi is consumed by rage are great because we get to what Naofumi truly feels. This is because throughout the manga the reader gets the sense that Naofumi isn’t kinda an asshole, but at the same time you don’t get the feeling he’s expressing even half of what he truly feels. He’s in many ways mysterious because of this, but mysterious in this way only though. When it comes to revenge and rage, he is 100% transparent.

Continuing with Naofumi, I think his arc is one that so far is extremely compelling. Outcasted as the Shield Hero, Naofumi is forced to grit his teeth and deal with the lies told about him. Even when he seemingly has friends, that may I add visibly show they deeply care about him. He still feels so betrayed by watch happened in the first chapter that he never really opens up at all. Even when he is raising Raphtalia in the beginning he still treats her harshly, and she may be the closest person to Naofumi. He even seemingly takes on the “burden” (saying that in air quotes) of raising Raphtalia as his own daughter. It goes to show that Naofumi is a person that will take on the burdens of others, or just soldier on and try to bury whatever he felt and continue with what he needs to do. It’s a pretty great character in that way, because that’s kinda what being a human is about. You have to just deal with life and move on as best as you can.

Another character we can talk about before moving on is Firo. Now surprisingly this character paper should be one of the worst characters of this series. “A Bird that eventually turns into a young lady and looks like an angel”. Well that doesn’t seem compelling at all, how does that even work? Well her character thought great explanation and writing turns out to be the most fun of the characters. She was an egg purchased from the same slave trader Naofumi bought Raphtalia from who hatched and turns into a legendary breed of Philo Rial that can turn into a human whenever she wants. She has no real tragic back story, and she is the most pure of the characters, which also fits into her design of an angel (which by the way is a great character design). In a way she serves to be the comedic relief of the series as sometimes this manga can get a little dark at times. Later on though in the series her character really does shine in some great moments. No spoilers of course, but Firo has an appetite and Pilo Rial are known to be able to eat almost anything. That is all.

Art

Kyu Aiya does an amazing job with the art direction here. This may be the most crisp manga I’ve read in a good while. Everything is clear, and even in action scenes where it’s ramped up to 11, you can still easily make things out, even distant actions. Backgrounds are even better too, for example there is a pub they regularly go too and every time they go there it’s incredibly detailed. Even simple things like a camp fire shared by a weak Raphtalia and Naofumi is great to look at. You can see how the light of the first fills the panel, but at the same not too much. Giving this scene more depth to it overall.

Character designs are a real treat though, in my opinion, the best design overall is Firo. Firo in her Philo Rial form looks like a fat Chocobo, which if you don’t know, Fat Chocobo’s are the cutest things on to ever be thought up. So Firo kinda follows that example, she’s a giant bird who absolutely loves to pull carts and eats anything organic. In this form, the art design for her is really well done. We can see feathers, her claws which are detailed and her stupid bird face which is totally not a Chocobo you guys.

Raphtalia’s design is great too, she is a Demi-human from the raccoon race, and as far as I’m aware there aren’t too many raccoon anime boys/girls. So Raphtalia having Raccoon ears is a nice little change that’s refreshing. I also feel she’s heavily inspired by Holo, The Wise Wolf from the series Spice & Wolf. She has long flowing hair, a tail and protruding ears, but this is only in design only. In terms of personality, she’s a pretty innocent girl. Also, I like how she looks like she’s in her 20’s, but in reality because of how many times she’s leveled up, she just looks that and is actually just a 10 year old girl. I think this adds to not only her character because it’s interesting but it’s also a nice little tidbit of world building in the art. Sure you can be a 5 year old with a fully grown body if you level up enough. It makes sense logically and also within the world too, which is important.

Naofumi is pretty great too though, he’s a little generic starting out, but later on in the series he does seem to have more of a seasoned warrior look to him. I’m not saying I’m comparing Guts to Naofumi, but I am, and only in the sense that it follows the same progression visually, but much less extreme than Guts. But chapter 30 you can tell Naofumi is seasoned and he’s been through a bit. He doesn’t show scares or anything, but instead through his changing outfit and his Shield. Since his shield has different types depending on what the shield consumes and replicates, it changes the way it looks. So a good example, and a simple one is the Rope Shield. It’s basically as it sounds, it’s a rope shield that’s used to rappel, climb, or possibly tie up enemies. This is great visually though because with the way the art is so detailed with can see the finer intricacies going on here with each type of shield. Thinks like the jewel in the middle of the shield always being a main stay, or each version of the shield having certain visual accents that visually designate what kind of shield it is.


Final Rating

Shield Hero is for me one of my favorite experiences reading a manga. The story was incredibly easy to follow and while being layered presenting you the layers of it slowly enough for you to not be overwhelmed. The characters are great too, I especially love the demi-human characters a lot because they’re treated differently within the world, so they interact to it differently than say, Naofumi. Which is a testament to it’s overall quality in world building. Shield Hero isn’t going to be a revolutionary manga though, it doesn’t need to be it’s an Isekai for christ sake. But in my opinion, currently right now, Shield Hero is easily in the top 3 Isekai series I’ve ever read or watched, easily in some areas better than Re:Zero, which may be the best one. If you enjoy Isekai, then this manga will 100% be for you, and if you don’t enjoy them you may skip it. But I urge you all to find a copy of it or however you consume manga and read it.

The Rising of the Shield Hero gets a seal of approval by me, so read it!

To start off here, I hate to give this a score, I'm not really a Light Novel specialist. So this review score is an 8/10 because it's the Average on MAL.

Anyways, .hack//AI Buster is my first true fore into the ".hack//" series. Before reading this, it's been pretty much since 2002 (this year this came out) since I've experienced anything from this series. But I was glad to be recommended this, this is a FANTASTIC Novel. Mind you, I'm more talking about Vol 1. as that's the best part, but Vol 2. is okay as well, maybe not the best Novel ever though. The reason ... for this is because the first part is one continuous story, and the second novel is a collection of small stories. To some, that may be a very good thing, people do enjoy those types of stories. But to me, it just slowed things down for me. Anyways...

Story - 9/10

Story is great, it follows Albireo, a lone wolf MMO junky. Hokuto, a newbie MMO player. And Lycoris, a player event that strangely has more than meets the eye. Now to start off, the story here has a lot of care and depth. For a Light Novel there is so many little things. Let's take for example, it's care to world building. From the get-go the writing in detail describes "The World" as this fantastical place with rich detail. It even describes MMO centric things like "World Events" and "Player Events", and are easy to understand. As a person who doesn't play MMO's, the explanations were great. Pacing is also nice as well, I blazed through the first volume, as for the second volume it's fine. Honestly, the first volume overall is "fine". It's not really special and feels more like an afterthought.

Art - 7/10

Not much to say to the art here, there are little illustrations. If you like the cover, you like the art.

Character - 9/10

Characterizations are on point. I felt each character could exist in this world they set up. They all have their unique qualities.

Albireo - Lone wolf, Calm and collected, smart long time player.

Hokuto - Younger player, MMO Noob.

It's easy to get behind these characters, because you can relate to them. How many of you have met someone online and have developed some kind of relationship or bond with? Chances are you have at least for one person in your life. And this is really how the characters work here, it's all based off strangers just playing an MMO together.

Overall - 8/10

This to me is a must read for at least vol. 1 if you're a .hack// fan. If not, then read up more about this light novel and research it a little. This is a very good novel, and it earns all the praise it gets.

Life isn’t easy, there are many things that get thrown at you whether you’re prepared or not. But you learn to move one and grow from each experience. Sometimes you find love in these moments life will either give you the worst, or if it works will you give you something that you should cherish forever. But life will keep throwing, and you have to keep catching or the love you have will be lost or even worse. This is what Natsu no Zenjitsu, or in english The Day Before Summer, tries to get across to its readers. It tells a story where a struggling ... artist trying to make ends meet and prove to the world he can make it, and a woman who loves selfish men.

Background

Natsu no Zenjitsu is written and drawn by Motoi Yoshida, she is known for her unique storytelling and art directions. As for other published works, she is known for Koi Kaze, Mizu to Gin (the sequel to this manga) and Kannou Sensei. This series was published in 2008 in Good Afternoon and spans 5 volumes over 6 years totaling 38 chapters. This is also the highest rated manga by far for her, as most other manga released are rated 6 or under on My Anime List, the only thing coming close is Koi Kaze which is around the same rating but lower and was also adapted into an anime of the same name.

Story

Natsu no Zenjitsu is a story that has many faults, but when it’s good, it’s extremely good. And to start off and get the bad out of the way first, let’s talk about it’s pacing. Sometime I feel like this manga bores me to the point of where I want to put it down. There are a couple moments like this, and thankfully they are around 2 chapters here and there. These are usually paced really slow, or just take you out of the story all together. They also tend to focus on singular characters rather than the main characters together like how the story is usually told. It’s not that it’s a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but they do damper the experience quite a bit as these chapters are really long usually. Which, now is the perfect time to talk about another fault with the series. I think that we should have gotten a little more development for Akira. To me if we knew a little bit more about Akira’s backstory like who she was before all of this, and how she got into art, well then I think everything that comes in the second half would have been so much more emotionally powerful. As it stands, she is a strong female character so that’s not exactly a problem, but I found her interesting and what’s even more odd is she probably has the most dialogue in the series.

But moving onto what’s so great about this is just simply how emotional and in depth it is on a lot of topic and ideas. They don’t exactly get developed at a breakneck speed, even for 38 chapters, but once these elements are developed these parts of the series are the absolute best parts and are so satisfying to see. Let’s take for example, and being spoiler free, Tetsuo’s weird code of honor where he doesn’t want women in his life because he feels like it lessens his art. By the end of the series we this character with this idea he has get completely flipped on its and not exactly proven untrue, but develops with it as he becomes more of a man. It’s quite an interesting development that is integral to not only this character, but the whole series. It has extreme ramifications with what’s to come later. And not only this, but for the most part, this series has very good pacing. Most everything flows very well and before you know it you’re 10 chapters in. Not only that, but the series loves to leave you with a hook, so if you’re reading this late… well you may end up staying awake a little bit longer than intended. At least that’s what happened to me.

Characterizations

For the Characterizations, I feel this series knocks this out of the park and back. Every character down to secondary characters are developed and have meaning in the story.

First off we have, Tetsuo. He’s the definition of a poor college student, and a man that has his beliefs. To put it simply the show portrays him as a young man making mistakes and being stupid as he tries to figure out what exactly he means to Akira and she means to him.

Speaking of Akira, she’s a woman older than Tetsuo, but feels a deep love for him. She’s always there for him like a mother, but also wants to be more than just another woman to Tetsuo. She yearns to be loved by someone, and she fears that she’ll be alone forever even though she is made out to be this kind and caring beautiful woman who has it all.

As for the secondary characters, they are of the utmost importance to this story. Some would say integral as without them, there wouldn’t be a story to tell. They are also developed quite well, even though they don’t share much panel time like Akira and Tetsuo does. This is because of course the story is still about Akira and Tetsuo’s love for each other, but these characters are here for a reason, and it can’t be understated not only their importance, but also how well they are written.

Art

I’m going to level with you guys right now, this isn’t an erotic manga, but it might as well be in the erotic manga section. This manga has so many sex scenes with graphic detail, including splooge that you will be wondering if you accidentally started reading something different by accident. So yeah, there is boobs, yeah there is butts, and yeah there is splooge, but don’t be fooled. These panels are incredibly drawn as well with it’s normal, not sexy time panels. It’s such an unique style that I would compare to some kind of scratch style blended with detailed drawing. It’s much like another manga I reviewed by the name of Molester Man, but I think much more detailed even though there is that scratch style. I think the character designs are amazing too, I think Akira’s by far will be the one that stands out the most to everyone. And this is because she’s the character who shows the most emotion out of everyone. From a crying face you can’t tell is cute or sad, to an angry emotional face or even just a very emoji style adorable face anime is known for.

Final Rating

Natsu no Zenjitsu is a very heavy and real romance manga. If you don’t like realism in your romance, then steer clear and never look back. This series will have your heart hurting, and your head spinning by the end of it. It’s a manga that isn’t afraid to do something different, which is important here. I can forgive its faults to a certain degree because it’s so different and refreshing. While it isn’t supposed to be bubbly or even fun to read at times, it still tells a story that should be told more than it really is. Love is really hard, and if there is one thing this manga gets across, it's that love is one of the hardest things to maintain.

Natsu no Zenjitsu gets a 7/10!

Recommended to us by AnimeKoala on Twitter, Clannad is an anime I’ve been aware of for a long time, and for it’s Visual Novel even longer. Even when I wasn’t consuming anime, had heard about this anime, maybe not specifics like if it was good or bad, but just passing words here and there. And now some 7 years later, I was recommended the show and am now finally able to sit down and really view it and take it all in. To be honest, I had only heard amazing things from this show, it has an 8.2 on MAL, and it’s received critical acclaim ... from everywhere you look. So yeah, my expectations were based upon this show being in ways, and out of body religious experience. The fan base for this show is rabid, and they love it, but now that I have completed season 1 of Clannad, I want to view this anime in a completely different, I want to view this anime as, that’s right, an anime. I really want to understand this show and where it’s coming from and hopefully we can all learn one important life lesson from this review, which will be at the end of the review portion of this anime. So thank you to AnimeKoala for recommending me Clannad, and if you have a recommendation then please put it in the comments below, I’d be more than happy to take a look.

Background

Clannad is based off the visual novel by KEY released in 2004 on PC and then on Sony’s Playstation and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in 2008. The in 2015 also received an english port to Steam over 10 years after its initial release. The game was then adapted into a full 23 episode anime series in 2007 by Kyoto Animation, and has since then seen much success even receiving an English Dub, which at the time was a bigger deal than now. The anime series follows roughly the same set of circumstances as the Visual Novel by key, although things are changed to make the anime flow better and not be an over 40 hour mess of plot and characters. The anime was directed by Tatsuya Ishihara, who is known for anime like; Air, Amagi Brilliant Park, Chuunibyou and various other anime. He is mainly known for working on Kyoto Animation projects, but worked on others like Pokemon.

Story

Oh where do I start here, first things first. This series is beloved, it is so beloved there are people who I am sure, will argue it’s the greatest anime ever made. In fact, I am sure some of you watching are some of those rabid, imbedded into the fandom, Clannad fans. Which 100% totally fine, but sadly this anime is just… well it’s bad, very few qualities in this show are redeemable, and the story is not one of them. Let’s get into one of them right away. Tomoya is described as this “delinquent” a couple times throughout the series, yet he shows literally now qualities of this. Not only that, but the only showing of his character in this whole series is that he cares for people and will help him. But what makes it even worse is that the show will like to tell you he is this delinquent every so often. This writing doesn’t make sense for not only his character, but for the story as well. I am told Tomoya is this guy who does bad things, that he is this guy who isn’t responsible. But from the get-go he is responsible, he doesn’t do bad things, sure he may not treat his father well, but by the end of the series that takes a complete 180, even though they only interact a few times throughout the series.

But that is just one small problem this show has, the other is its incredibly convoluted and hard to follow dialogue. You see, I watched both English and Japanese and I could not tell the difference here. The show just had really bad writing, I felt that either characters were immediately jumping to conclusions making the dialogue seem either forced, or just outright lazy. This doesn't do any favors for the show as it’s primarily based upon characters and developing these characters for these crescendo moments, which come with no fanfare at all. I never felt like any of this show outside of only three episodes were important to me. I felt like I was somehow on the outside looking in or even worse like I they were only giving me just less than enough to properly follow this dialogue. I felt like I was honestly missing something and it drove me insane trying to figure out the circles these characters were talking in some times. I honestly don’t think I’ve seen a show with worse writing in my whole life, and to see this from Kyoto Animation of all studios is confusing. If I were a betting man, I’d say something went wrong with production behind the scenes here. There is no way this show shouldn’t have been as good as it has been touted.

But another element of this show that really made me mad, was the harem tropes and sudden shift in genres at times to fit these tropes. Why in the hell in the second half did all of these girls suddenly fall in love with Tomoya, Even a pair of sisters fall for him. It felt so forced and by the next episode it was completely dropped outside of a few mentions here and there. The show is so inconsistent, and if we’re talking about tropes let's talk about how people abuse Tsunehara. He is the token “annoying” character in this anime, and he gets abused by Tomoyo, not to be confused by Tomoya but then again even he abuses him too. But this show seems to try and teach this lesson that if you have an annoying friend you should just beat the ever loving crap out of him for no reason. Is Tsunehara annoying? Yes, but not enough to physically pummel the guy into oblivion. Sure, he does sexually harass verbally Tomoyo in one episode, but at the same time that’s treated at the end as “oh haha, look ain’t this a silly scene”. Honestly it’s kind of disgusting the way they treat his characters and not only that it’s lazy and bad writing.

But speaking of physical abuse, let’s talk about the comedy. It doesn’t play a huge part in this show by any means, but is featured pretty regularly throughout the show. And I must say, it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen. But some of the most annoying elements of this show are trying to either be played off a “cute” or “funny” and neither of them hit the mark. Sure I like some moments like Tsunehara being told there is a cute girl only to run to the door to just see his sister and fall flat on his face out of sheer disappointment, but other elements like Fuko popping up out of nowhere to add not only nothing to the scene at ALL, but to then to help no one even though she says she’s come to the rescue. They do this maybe 4 or so times and every time it’s annoying as you’d expect. Fuko also had the slowest and most boring arc in the show that went on WAY too long and even then she is still shoved down our throats because… “Moe”.

The show also has a little bit of a problem with telegraphing some pretty important stuff or just simply having small moments being overreacted to. Let’s take for example in episode 20 when Nagisa’s dad tells Tomoya that if he finds any info on Nagisa that he should not tell Nagisa. This completely telegraphs exactly what it is, which I won’t tell you here. They could have easily gotten around to it as it pertained to her parents that they could have just had Tomoya naturally go to their parents. For example, it’s like finding out that your girlfriend’s dad was the inventor of the door, naturally you’d go to your girlfriend’s dad, not your girlfriend. Then this show has a problem with overreacting to many things. For example in episode 18, Nagisa gets hit by a fastball and sure those hurt, but EVERY SINGLE PERSON has too look aghast and in shock and all call out for Nagisa at the same time. It came off as lazy and like the show really wanted to get across like this was a huge dangerou thing that could have went wrong, but they kill that idea off when everyone just stands around and does nothing besides Tomoya.

But I’ll give the show some credit now, and it isn’t much so cherish this fleeting moment. Episodes 13, 14, & for the most part 16 are all really fantastic well written episodes from to back. In this case Episodes 13 & 14 are probably some of the better writing not only in the series, but what I’ve seen personally in a little while. Something about those two episodes flow really well and are touching and relatable. Nothing crazy in them happens in terms of tropes or Tsunehara getting assaulted, not even Fuko tropes and outdated jokes. Episode 16 is good because of the second half really which is just a basketball game, but they do such a good job of not only building up to the game, but how the game plays out and the climax of the episode. It’s not perfect per se, but it’s some of the best the show has to offer at this point, it’s also fleeting as these are the only good episodes. Yes, that’s right, out of the 23 episodes of this series, there are only three episodes that I can find not good but memorable in any way. Everything else feels like a copout or just bad and the ending of the show doesn’t feel earned at all. It feels like they stumbled into the ending because at that point it was 23 episodes so just end it. It honestly just felt like a terrible representation of all the great things I’ve heard about the visual novel.

Characterizations

If I were to say this show had good characters, I’d be straight up lying to you. Because honestly the characters here are rarely built up in a way that are distinctly memorable besides Kotomi and Fuko, and that’s mainly because their arcs are so long. Tomoya too for him being the MC which is an obvious one. But the show rarely gets to a point where I feel these characters are presented more than “just another moe girl”. This is manly because the cast is primarily just cute moe girls and nothing else, and to make matters worst three of them have similar colored hair. I actually was confused for a couple episodes because I thought I missed something when Kotomi showed up and on of the twins, the tsundere one, started acting sexual around her. And yes, that’s another thing Kyou acts so sexual around Kotomi and it’s not warranted. She’s either wanting to rub up against or is rubbing up against her in the show. Funny? Not really. Uncomfortable? Kinda.

I’ll give some of it credit though, Kotomi’s arc was really great and really let her character flourish. Learning about her backstory and how she came to be was very heartbreaking and made me sympathize with her character a lot. More so than any other character to be honest, and that’s another point I want to make. I can’t relate with anyone besides Kotomi. Fuko is a ghost of a living person trapped in a school, Tomoya is a delinquent, but he’s not. Tsunehara is to strange to be a real person. These characters don’t feel relatable, it feels like they could solve all of their problems with ease. Kinda like they have the tools to really wrap this show up in 6 episodes instead of 23. When you’re making a show, you want to make characters relatable, this is so we can recognize their struggles better and sympathize with them. It makes their stories easier to get across to the viewers and helps you notice certain things so that later on it doesn’t have to be explained. This show doesn’t really do that. It’s just a bunch of cute girls and a guy who says he’s a delinquent, but in reality is a wholesome guy.

Another thing I’d like to say is that these characters are annoying, incredibly annoying at that. Fuko popping in with her “I’ve come to rescue the day” shtick, TomoyO’s whole abusing Tsunehara, Nagisa’s dad pissing off her mother and chasing after her to apologize with a mouth full of food were fun the first time or at least the first time they were used well within context, but any other time it was used was annoying and made the show even slower. Sure some of these things on paper could possibly work out well, and they had some good things going with these ideas. But to cram them in over and over was really just unnecessary and quite boring really.

Overall it’s a mixed bag the shows characterizations. There are some noteworthy moments here and there but they’re constantly fleeting as the show is nowhere near as consistent as it needs to be in my eyes. Yes, Kotomi’s Arc was great, at least the last two episodes of it, and sure it has it’s moments from time to time. But for the most part this show’s characters would be forgetful if it wasn’t for their character designs and drilling these certain things they do into your head. I won’t be forgetting Fuko anytime soon, but it’s not because I like here, it’s because she’s annoying and has not only the longest arc in the show, but the most annoying recurring joke throughout.

Art

Alright finally I can praise this show for something. The art here is incredible and while it is a little outdated and looks rough at many points throughout the show I can still get a lot of enjoyment from this art. The character designs are are phenomenal and unique. Obviously with it being Kyoto Animation they tend do a lot of “moe” centric shows like Kannon and K-ON. So the characters here fit that bill and remain consistent with past Kyoto Animation works. Characters adorable, but it’s anime so that’s a standard trope throughout the genre itself. I also find how their eyes places and drawn are unique too. I’m not sure how to explain it but they’re bigger than regular anime eyes and they don’t use the same thin face type you’d regularly see in anime. Instead Kyoto goes for wider faces and a more rounded head if that makes sense. To me this makes the characters stand out as “Clannad” rather than just another generic anime girl/boy.
Another thing I enjoy about the art for Clannad is how ridiculously detailed it can be. For example, Fuko’s wooden starfish sculptures has small imperfection marks and little round indents on the front of them. This kind of detail is all throughout the show in every episode. The icing on the sweets in the bakery, the small town they live in’s backgrounds, small things like these really let this world come to life through visual world building. I felt like this place with a real town somewhere in Japan. This is why Kyoto Animation is in the position they are, their art is extremely detailed and unique. So if you’re wondering if Kyoto does wonders with the art here, you will love this show if that’s what you’re looking for.

Voice Acting

Alright back to trashing on this show, both Japanese and English versions are TERRIBLE. The dialogue is all over the freakin’ place it’s so hard to follow. One moment they’re talking about something and then the next moment they change immediately creating a clunky and overall abrasive kind of dialogue and voice acting. There is a lot of talent in both versions so, I think the script was just jumbled up from the start and they probably just took scripts directly from the game and threw them together in a desperate hope that it would work, but sadly it does not. This right here though is the one thing that killed the show for me completely. I could forgive the lackluster nonsensical story, I could, but when you take something as easy as an English Dub and ruin and then you take your original version it’s based off of, and ruin that there is literally no other way to watch this. It doesn't matter with dub you pick, what language you speak, it’s all bad, and sadly this just killed the show. And to add onto that I like some of these voices a lot, but Tsunehara, Mei, Kyou, I could go on were miscast completely. Mei being honestly one of the most egregious of these.

Score

Another great thing this series has, arguably to some the best part of this series is the score. The music is done by Shinji Orito who has worked on; Air, Kanon and Little Busters. His style here thought really shines through. To start off it has this gentle feel throughout, with the Dango Daikazoku song serving as the shows main theme which is featured throughout most of the series. This score is so beautifully crafted, and the reason for this is because these songs aren’t over produced or even featured a lot. It’s very minimalist scoring in the sense that you won’t really notice it unless you want to or unless they want you to. And when they do want you to really notice it, it can really make you wonder what this show would be like if it didn’t ruin it with the story and voice acting. But we also must talk about the opening and ending and I must say they’re some of the best opening and ending songs I’ve heard. They’re well performed and they fit the theme of the show. I know some people hate it but I also like the ending song a lot, the song Dango Daikazoku isn’t really memorable outside of it being a catchy nursery rhyme kind of song, but the version in this show is really catchy and is a really good song.

Final Rating

Alright, I get the love for Clannad, I really do. It’s a show from a beloved studio based on a video game that arguably put Visual Novels on the map for today’s Visual Novels like Steins;Gate and Doki Doki Literature Club. But it’s sad to say this because I really wanted to go into this show and be blown away, I wanted to love, I wanted this to be the greatest thing ever. A Life changing experience that I would tell my children’s children about when I’m old and dying from a broken heart. But I can’t say that happened to me, the show was just bad. I only enjoyed three episodes out of the 23 that are in the standard version of this series. The voice acting was atrocious, some of the worst voice acting I’ve ever heard. Then we have terrible jokes like Fuko’s recurring appearance where she does nothing but hold up the show, and on top of that everyone physically abusing Tsunehara for literally no reason other than because somehow it’s funny. And ya’ know it’s not enough that the art and score are so damn good. It’s not enough when I say that Kyoto really outdid themselves in terms of the detail they put into such little things. But ya’ know what, this series didn’t do enough to begin and end with. It’s a bad anime that on paper should have been amazing, should have been a life changing experience like the Visual Novel supposedly is. But like I said, it’s sad to say this.

It’s sad to say that Clannad Season 1 gets a 4/10.

It’s not every day a subscriber or anyone recommends you a manga of this caliber. You see shortly before reading this manga I read the manga Oretama. But a subscriber has recommended me a manga that surely should be considered a Hentai… yet it is not a Hentai, it is in fact a normal manga with a story. That being said, do not read this if you’re under the age to do so it is incredibly graphic. But I will say this, if you do choose to read this, it’s a short manga that is pretty funny all things considered.

Background

You Are Dirty, My Queen ... is a short 2 volume Manga just spanning 13 chapters and is written by Lynn Okamoto, he is known for; Elfen Lied, Brynhildr in the Darkness, and Parallel Paradise. This manga of course has not been adapted into an anime like the first two manga I mentioned, and I wouldn’t expect it to be. The art though is done by Mengo Yokoyari, she is know for manga like; Haruwaka, Scum’s Wish, Retort Pouch, and the Hentai Manga, Mokkai Shiyo. Besides doing straight up Hentai, her work seems to be more oriented on ecchi, usually the more extremely graphic side of ecchi. Two of her works have been adapted to anime, one being Scum’s Wish and the other being the Mokkai Shiyo into a hentai anime.

Story

The story for this one is a little… thin to say the least. There isn’t a whole lot of story here to be had at all, and the story we do get is to really just basically set it up. Everything else after that is really based on jokes and thinking of weird scenarios to put the characters in. This will never be a story you read just for its plot. This is a story your will read because you get to see a lot of nudity and how funny it is in a ridiculous way. And I guess let’s talk about the comedy as it’s the best part of this series, at least to me. The comedy is centered around basically being incredibly pervy and adult oriented. There aren’t a lot of jokes here that aren’t meant to be anything more than either cringey or raunchy. But the jokes as is are pretty funny, they’re over the top and just kinda pokes fun at sex in general. The dialogue here is absolutely ridiculous too, and is one of the reason’s I find it so hilarious. I can’t repeat is here sadly as it’s not something that’s Youtube friendly and I don’t want to get a strike.

Characterizations

For the characters there is absolutely no development here or focus on any sort of it. It doesn't even focus on the romance aspect of it for any more than a couple of pages. All you really get is that Saitou and Subaru are childhood friends and they love each other dearly, but also Subaru is a nymphomaniac who literally and I am using this term correctly, literally masturbates all day every day. That’s all of the characterizations right there, so basically none is what you get. If you want deep characters this is not it and this is the biggest downfall of this manga.

Art

Alright here is where I kinda have to for the first time ever commend an ecchi manga for its art. The art here is by far some of the most… detailed. Ugghhhh I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s actually good okay. To start off I like the character designs a lot, I feel they’re very well designed and quite unique to the series itself. Then again we really only see two characters throughout the whole series besides our main female leads sister, and no don’t even start, it doesn’t get that bad. The nudity is also another facet of this as well, and while I don’t read or even watch Hentai, I noticed how covered with sweat they all were. I don’t know if that’s good or not, or if that’s just something people like… but there is a lot of it for sure. Also weird mist coming out of Subaru’s mouth is weird, don’t know what that’s about either. I’m not going to judge it too hard based off this, as I honestly don’t know if this is a bad or good thing for Ecchi manga that border on hentai, as I don’t read hentai or Ecchi usually. So I mentioned them here because some may enjoy it.

Final Rating

This is a short review for a short manga, but don’t misunderstand I enjoyed my time with this manga quite a bit. It wasn’t terrible by any standards and it knew how ridiculous it was and just continued to go more and more ridiculous with each panel. If you like terribly over the top fanservice and ecchi, then this is for you. If you like romance, story, characterizations… well this is not for you at all and you should avoid it.

You Art Dirty, My Queen receives a 7/10!

Characters

Starting off with the characters we have Kobayashi, a 25 year old woman living with multiple dragons. She works a normal boring desk job and is friends with Saiyaka, an Otaku just like Kobayashi. Kobayashi also has had a sort of falling out with her family some time ago, not really talking about her family, or even her past. She seems to be melancholic, and a very lonely woman until Tohru comes around, who she immediately takes a liking to. Although Kobayashi does have a problem with expressing the way she truly feels emotionally, she does seem to be a good person at heart and ... only wants the best for not only herself, but her friends. She also has back problems.

Next up is the ever popular Tohru, a dragon living with Kobayashi as her maid. Banished from her family with a sword in her body, she is saved by Kobayashi and since then has fallen in love with Kobayashi. She is a Chaos Dragon one that battles with the Harmony Dragons and is one of the more powerful dragons on her world as she is the daughter of an extremely powerful dragon. She is also friends with Kanna, a young Dragon that also lives with Kobayashi.

And speaking of Kanna, let’s talk about Kanna. Kanna is another Chaos Dragon that had gotten exiled from her world. She is a younger Dragon taking on the form of a young girl. Initially Kanna assumes that Kobayashi seduced Tohru into coming to her world. Kanna also is a unique dragon that uses electricity to recharge her powers. She is also weaker than Tohru and most other Dragons in terms of power, this is because of her age. She is mostly the comedic relief character of this series, and is used well in this way. She also sees Kobayashi as a surrogate mother and frequently refers to herself as Kanna Kobayashi

Now onto the story.

Story

Dragon Maid has simple one of those light hearted, Slice of Life stories most people look for in the genre. Something that bucks the trends of the never ending factory of High School Slice of Life romances. Dragon Maid isn’t a high school slice of life romance though, it’s far from it. The setting is primarily the small apartment complex Kobayashi lives in. To add onto that, Kobayashi isn’t a teenager, she’s a grown adult with adult problems, and she acts like an adult. Does she care about getting best girl? No. So going into this don’t expect something that’s extremely cliched in that sense. But what you can expect is a surprisingly enjoyable story with characters you’ll get connected to with surprising ease. But unsurprisingly, I think the characters most people will connect with and enjoy isn’t Tohru or Kanna, but Kobayashi. While Tohru has her problems that to take lead for a lot of the chapters, Kobayashi’s troubles are deeply human and are problems I feel people from different countries even can relate to.

Characterizations

Speaking of characters though, I’d like to go over the way they interact with each other, in other words Characterization. So to put it simply the series is really solid when it comes to this aspect of the manga. Characters like Tohru and Kobayashi interact with each other differently than Tohru and Elma. These characters have their own unique way they speak with each other, and because of that the series has a really easy time getting important things across through dialogue. There aren’t going to be many times in this manga where you read a character's interactions and it doesn’t match the way that character usually speaks. So if you’re reading this for the characters, then you’re doing the right thing because they’re well made.

Art

Simply one of the better drawn Slice of Life Manga I’ve seen, and while I haven’t read many manga at the time of this recording, and get the feeling this is one of quality. To me the thing I love most about this manga in the way it’s drawn is how unique the character designs are, while still not getting overly ridiculous. Are some of them ridiculous? Yes, but the main characters in the manga have a very good design to them. Iruru and Kanna’s are a tad bit ridiculous, but Kobayashi and Tohru’s are really good and most importantly fun. This translates into most of the character designs, but I do think Iruru’s is a tad bit over the top for no good reason I think. But other than that there are a couple of really well drawn fights in this manga that I really enjoy, and hopefully when Season 2 comes out, they’re animated really well.

Final Rating

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid is an awesome and fun manga that I think people who are fans of the genre should check out. The Manga has great comedy with great characters that are larger than life and are fun, it has a fun and interesting story that doesn’t devolve into “saving the world” or some other overarching evil. But the art is really good too, and have a certain fun factor to them that a lot of other manga don’t really tap into, when we’re talking about slice of life that is. But honestly if you enjoy manga like these, then Dragon Maid is right down your alley. It has quality and the content you want from a slice of life, while also doing something mostly unique that hasn’t been done in the way this one has been.

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid gets an 8/10

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid has easily been the most surprising series all around. From episode 1 I was hooked, and now that the series is over, I am very sad. You see, if I’m being honest here, this is one of the first new anime I’ve loved, truly loved since… I wanna say Attack on Titan which came out in 2013. Now I do want to say that this series may not be as good as a lot of anime out these days, but the fact that for me it came out of nowhere and told an incredible funny, entertaining, lighthearted story in just a ... short 13 episodes. So thank you once again to Megumin for recommending me this anime in the first place.

Story

The fact this anime exists and has the plot it has, the characters, the art style while telling a somewhat deep story about people who are in this fantasy world where dragons can go to and fro from their world and the humans realm, well that’s an accomplishment, one that should never be forgotten. It got me to care about Kobayashi, a boring human character in a series full of colorful, cute, magical and destructive dragons. And it also got me to care more or less about most of the dragons that only have a minor role in the series, for example the series has these two secondary characters with no real worth to the main story line, Kanna and Elma. Now they both have their own kind of storylines if you can call them that, but they’re for the most part segregated to one role. And these roles are more or less there to at most just help the story move forward. Normally these are characters I don’t care about, Why? Because they usually have no personality outside of the generic, basic one. An example of this in something popular is Chiaotzu from Dragon Ball Z, the little guy is completely useless and has no character, and because of that I have no real connection to that character. But this series makes me care about Elma and Kanna, and Elma is featured even less than Kanna is, to the point of where I question her role, and honestly can’t remember if she had one, which is a gripe of these secondary character too, they have no meaningful use in the series. But we’ll get into that in a moment, back to my point, Kanna and Elma, and even the whole weird Quetzalcoatl and Shuto thing, I care about it, which is hard for me to say about some things these day, especially slice of life series filled with cute dragon girls.


As I was saying before, the secondary characters seem to have no use. Quetzalcoatl is the absolutely most useless and questionable addition to the cast, and the same goes for Elma. Now their parts are funny, and they’re adorable segments sometimes, but what really is the point I ask myself, as a writer, I could have found ways to get these scenes in with less characters and make more sense in some points. Now this is really nitpick, as it works for the show, but it felt like a kind of Prometheus syndrome kind of moment, where in the moment it was great, but you think about it for a minute and it felt unnecessary. This is probably the one major thing I found from this series that I found as a problem. And even then, it really won’t harm your viewing experience, and it shouldn't, the show is written well enough to let you not think about these things until after viewing.

Next up I want to talk about how great the story is in just 13 episodes. The whole series is simple, and has a story that feel genuine and real even though… it’s an anime. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched an anime like this, as it’s not often I do, especially anime involving tropes like this. It’s just a well made anime from top to bottom. The things I most enjoy about it has to be the characters interactions with each other. It feels natural for the series, and in no way shape or form does it feel like it’s a chore to see these characters interact. I enjoyed Elma interacting with Kobayashi while Tohru didn’t exactly like them interacting too much. I also licked how, for some reason, there was this recurring joke that Tohru wanted Kobayashi to eat her tail. It was just a little bit of dark comedy, but I found it blended well with the show in every way. Of course Tohru would want to do that, she’s Tohru. You have moments like these in the show a lot, which is a testament to how well the characters are written. After they’re introduced we simply just know who and what they are, and that’s a side effect of using tropes and archetypes to your advantage. I like to use this test, would I want a poster of, let’s say Tohru on my wall. If I do, then that means the series has captured not only my money, but my interest and shows they wrote a character well. And yeah, I’d totally put up a poster of Tohru on my wall.

Animation

Probably some of the best animation I’ve seen this whole year, and we’re not even halfway through it. Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid has easily the most accessible art direction of an anime I’ve seen this year. It’s fun, it’s bright, it’s colorful and it’s cute. You can’t tell me Kobayashi isn’t a cool design for a character that fits her personality and harkens back to a different time in anime. And I also feel the designs for the dragons are great as well, including both versions of their human forms. But also the human character are good too, I think you can’t count that them out. The show basically just goes over the top with character designs and it works for every character. The reason is because the show is ridiculous fun from top to bottom.

Alright let’s not forget about something else that a lot of people noticed. The awesome ass animation for the fighting scene! How could anyone forget? They’re easily the best the show has animation wise, it’s epic. In fact, I think it’s so good that I wouldn’t be mad if they made a spinoff series where Dragon girls fight each other, and specifically Dragon girls, because Dragons fighting are cool, but the animation doesn’t make their Dragon forms stand-out too much in battle for me. I think the human forms for the Dragon girls are the way to go in a series like that. It’s just really well animated in this portions of the show and a lot of people agree with me they want a show using this same art style and animation team making awesome fight scenes against Tohru and Kanna.

English Dub

I’m just going to say this now, I think the English Dub is 100% better than the Japanese Dub. The voices in the english version capture the Japanese version completely, and the only time I don’t see that is the voice actors for Quetz, but even then it’s still an amazing actor voicing her. Other than that, Tohru, Kanna and Kobayashi are casted perfectly, they match the tone and inflection to the original Japanese version, and I think make improvements on it. Not some of you may disagree with that statement, but I feel that the shows comedy helps make that happen. It’s comedy that American to British audiences and understand and enjoy, so when they go to voice act it, it feels natural and easy. There aren't a lot of puns, there isn’t a lot of culture shock involved in the script. Because of this I think it’s in my top 10 of English Dubs ever, and I am very confident in saying that.

Score

The score for Dragon Maid is also pretty solid, probably not a soundtrack you’d buy and OST for, at least for me. But I think personally it's a score that compliments the comedy really well. I noticed it a couple times specifically during the Sport Themed episode, which was amazing anyways, but the score there really sold some moments for me. Also another great episode is I think the episode where I think Kanna and Tohru fight each other in an epic battle that rivals some Dragon Ball Z episodes. The score in that episode really sold how powerful these Dragons are, and how they can destroy anything in seconds.

Final Rating

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid is easily the best anime of the season, and will go down as one of the funniest and cute shows of the year. The animation is perfect, the score is great, and the English Dub is the best I’ve seem in a long time, rivaling some of the best dubs out there. But the show really glows when it comes to the story and the characters, making the audience care for super powerful Dragons that could easily destroy anything. Even when there is no main villain or goal, it creates characters you root for and want to see succeed. Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid is an example of masterful execution of an anime.

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid gets a 8/10