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In/Spectre as a concept could not be more fitting in what's been called the "post-truth" era we find ourselves in. At the crux of the drama behind In/Spectre is essentially a PR/political campaign. Iwanaga utilizes elements of social-psychology to spin narratives that find their grounds in the believable but often not real. It's as much a picture of how PR & political campaigns work as it is a grim look at the state of public discourse in a world full of actors wielding narratives. In the above regard, In/Spectre explores substance that has yet to be dealt with in the anime medium. But while the ... concept is an incredible 10/10, other aspects of the title did not fare as well.

The characters of In/Spectre are a mixed bag.

Iwanaga is the character with the most dimension. Her confidence, pushiness and past are clear and make her an enjoyable character to watch. As the main character of this psychological/mystery, we get a pretty in depth look at her rationality. She possesses sharp logic but the detailed stories she weaves don't account for the components of a potent narrative--namely: that it has to be simple, convincing and all-encompassing. She overcomplicates her stories and operates in an online forum setting among peers but somehow maintains a platform to speak on the subject without getting drown out by other voices spinning their own narratives, making the scenario difficult to believe. Lastly, she puts too much stock into how rational people who believe in ghosts are. Thats not to say that everyone who believes in ghosts is irrational, but a good portion aren't going to be as concerned about bulletproof logic so why rely so heavily on a strength that isn't as effective in that space?

Kurou is a blank slate male protagonist. He might as well be Mr. Plank. For every 100 words Iwanaga got in Kurou got in maybe 10, which works for Iwanaga's character and the role she plays, but I've never watched a show coming away knowing so little about one of the main characters. His family past & powers are given the bulk of the screen time but little can be said about his personality, his relationship with Iwanaga is ambiguous--no idea how he feels about her, or even why he agrees to date her. It may not be needed for this story but I found it bizarre how little explanation is given regarding how half of his power works. All in all, this entire 4 sentence paragraph is literally all I can think of regarding Kurou.

Not much to say about the other characters Saki & Rikka (and if you want to include Karin). Saki - ex-girlfriend cop don't really get why she's around other than for romantic tension & connection to police records. Rikka - creepy cousin that Kurou cares about.

The pacing is horrible.

The initial feeling was that this was going to be episodic with the common thread throughout being Iwanaga & Kurou's relationship, a structure that works well for a brief 12 episode season, but instead we got an exposition dump early on, rushed through character introductions and then stretched out a 2-3 episode arc out over ~6 episodes.

The art/character design for the ladies in the show was decent, Kurou however could've been copy-pasted from any old mediocre anime from 2014-2023.

In conclusion:

Concept: 10/10
Characters: 6.5/10
Pacing: 2/10
Art/Character Design: 5/10
Music: --/10 (I can't recall any part of the soundtrack that stood out enough to rate it)

Overall, I'd give this a 7/10. The concept does 90% of the heavy lifting so if that intrigues you I'd recommend watching. If not I'd say pass. Season 2 has room to make up for where season 1 was lacking, hopefully the production team makes good use of that room by fleshing out characters, relationships and implementing better pacing.

(P.S. This should definitely be marked as either "Seinen" or "Josei" as 1. little of this show is characteristically Shounen 2. this deals with more adult relationships & deeper concepts that Shounen viewers are unlikely to be satisfied with.)

Despite being a far cry from other more notable Takahiro Omori titles (Baccano!, Haibane Renmei, Hell Girl, Natsume's Book of Friends, Hotarubi no Mori e), more than a decade since it's release Durarara!! continues to be a part of the zeitgeist. However, in spite of the durability of the hype surrounding it, I can only think of two elements of this show that make it worth watching.

1) It's aura of mystique - it oozes of rich lore of urban legends saturating the streets of Ikebukuro
2) It's mesmerizing score - an absolute vibe

These components alone are reason enough to sit through 24 episodes meandering through ... who-knows-what. Beyond these two components, Durarara!! lacks the substance to live up to the artistic reputation the show has garnered. The characters aren't particularly likable or developed much (Celty excluded), the character design wasn't great then and it hasn't held up now.

Had this show been tucked away, without the projected facade of an artistic quality, I think I would have enjoyed this show more. But I feel that both the misdiagnosis of a large part of the anime community and the way it's own mystique unveiled proved to have little substance teed me up for little pay off & a surprising disappointment.

All of this said, if you are a long-time anime viewer. I do think this show holds an important place in the transition from anime in the '00's to anime in the '10's. Even if the music or the mystique somehow fails to draw you in, if you consider yourself a committed fan of the medium, it's worth it just to get a sense of where anime was at during this transitional period in it's history.

*The absurdly low ratings of this title are coming from people who aren’t in their twenties so they’re less likely to get it.* (look at the age on their profiles)

KanoKari is one of a few sol/rom-com anime titles where the setting is in college instead of the typical worn out high school setting. Our mc Kazuya is a typical sexually frustrated adult in his young twenties trying to not let down his family. Like many guys in their younger twenties, he’s dense when it comes to girls, holding his life together by a shoestring and still definitely has some maturing to do. --- **People who ... have been through this phase of life get this whereas fresh out of high school teens deluded into having false depth won’t get this.**

If I had to make one comment about KanoKari it’d be this:

**The quality is roughly the same but KanoKari is Oregairu inverted.**

What do I mean by that?
Hachiman has a sense of depth as someone looking for something deeper, more authentic, real in the mundane of ordinary life. He is cynical and arrogant in the face of the safety in the nerfed environment that is high school and he is blind to his real desires.
Kazuya on the other hand, knows what he wants generally: to not let his family down and to fall in love with a good woman. His basic desires are clear and yet he’s constantly losing his footing due to living on his own outside of the nerf world that was his high school and hometown.
Oregairu constantly tries to overcome the mundane fakeness with greater depth only to plunge further into its own mundane melodrama.
*KanoKari accepts the fakeness, it accepts what people have to do to live up to their families expectations and in doing so it overrides the mundane by embarrassingly trying to live up to the mundane.*

This show is grounded, so enjoyable, and so uncomfortable to watch-- it entertainingly confronts the millennial/gen z university experience and societal problems indirectly, critically and comedically.

It’s no wonder that teens who are still in high school or fresh out of high school have such a hard time with this show: they’re still swooning over Hachiman thinking “whoa I’m just like him” when in a couple years they’ll be embarrassed by their own lack of depth and lack of ability in getting their life together.

In conclusion: this is a damn good show. Everything from the grandma’s to the twisted ex-girlfriend, to the new & uncomfortable norm of rental-dating, to the struggling, self-loathing college student with a very basic set of goals is the perfect recipe for the slice-of-life/romcom I’ve been waiting for for a while now.

Time will tell if this series holds up. For now though it’s been a pleasure dunking on trash taste anime fans & definitely is the best title of the season in my book.

FFO: Maison Ikkoku, Nisekoi, Scums Wish

MCPW was either a parody of modern day pop anime, proving that anyone can make hollow content that panders to the worst & widest of the anime fanbase, or it was a KyoAni quality premise that belly-flopped its execution.

I’d like to start by applauding the general concept. MCPW honed in on psychological lessons as the premise for it’s questionably supernatural setting. From the get go, the interesting openings where our mc is sharing a lesson in human psychology grabbed me. Each lesson is unique and sets the tone for the episode in a way that illustrates the opening principle. I’d never seen anything done ... like this before in the medium, which is why it hurt that much more to watch Kyoto Animation plunge into just about all of the most stereotypical anime tropes out there.

The two main characters we start off with, Mai & Haruhiko, seem interesting enough, they have good chemistry and aesthetically pleasing character design. Over the course of the 13 episodes I hoped to watch them develop as characters, draw unique things out of each other, get a clear idea as to how they see the world...you know… KyoAni stuff. But what followed was a relationship that got increasingly shallow, characters that never really developed or revealed any depth, uncomfortably overexecuted fan service, and a new potential romantic rival every episode… you know… *not* KyoAni stuff.

The fantastic colouring, interesting powers and well thought out phantoms really made me want to like this show.

Had this been from any other studio it wouldn’t have stung as bad, but since we’ve come to identify Kyoto Animation as the well established standard bearer for what makes quality anime, seeing this attached to their name was a little much to handle.

At its worst MCPW is a massive wasted opportunity, at best it’s a visually pleasing distraction.

FFO: When Supernatural Battles Became Common Place, Amagi Brilliant Park

ReZero on average seems to do exceedingly well with anime fans everywhere. Unsurprisingly it possesses some of the best parts of the medium with a respectable amount of quality. Psychological drama, romance, Isekai, moe, fantasy, a unique time mechanic, a loose harem element and interesting world with varying cultures and political structures are all found within ReZero. Even if you don’t like every aspect listed above, ReZero will most likely grab you with another facet… which brings me to both the highest and lowest points of the title:

*it does everything relatively well, but nothing uniquely well.*

The soundtrack & jarring moments may stick with you ... as they did with me, but these moments only loosely attach them to the story. Without giving too much away it seems like a pretty major component of Steins;Gate was blatantly copied.

The character design is colorful. While the moe element is too prevalent for my taste, I can see how it’d be just enough to appease most viewers.

The music and soundtrack is powerful.

The story itself is, as I mentioned before, an isekai with it’s most interesting component being ripped off of Steins;Gate.

The characters are meh. Subaru is your average simp going through trauma. Emilia is a mostly forgettable yet pleasant blend of sweet & strong. Rem is… not a lukewarm person. Petelgeuse is what nightmares are made of and Todd Haberkorn knocks it out of the park with this character.

While I think it’s worth seeing because it captures the tone of the current anime milieu, it’s fairly overrated and so I definitely wouldn’t suggest putting this on your “must watch list”.

FFO: Steins;Gate, Sword Art Online

After the Rain is an artistic drama in execution in the same league as March Comes in Like a Lion that suffers from a very uncomfortable premise but ultimately amounts to a wholesome, mutually inspiring professional friendship.

Had I read the description I would have 110% blown right past this title entirely, but the animation style & genre tags intrigued me so I obliviously walked into a show that uses a crush a student & worker has on a manager as an interpersonal mechanism to spur incredibly wholesome growth in both involved without crossing or even seriously getting near any lines.

Both characters suffer from dreams ... they were never able to realize. They essentially resigned themselves to working normal jobs while watching their peers soar high above them wondering what could have been. After Tachibana, a runner, irreparably damaged her leg, she ends up at a restaurant where the manager Kondou offers her some pretty typical hospitality with some passing small talk remark about the weather. That mundane moment affirmed Tachibana at her lowest in a way that sparked the crush she deals with throughout the rest of the show. When she gets a job at Kondous restaurant, her attempts to get to know him reveal the ways he has given up on himself and resigned to working till he dies. Her desire to get to know him better as a person sparks hope in Kondou that produces growth in both of their respective lives.

The psychological nuance and depth of characters displayed in their daily work lives is top notch. The character design is as entrancing as it is comical. The animation effort is put into body language in a way that makes sense not just with the title but scene by scene, what the context calls for. The opening alone is worth your time even if you decide to not watch the show, probably one of, if not the best openings of the year.

I entirely understand why anyone would turn their nose up at this, given the description and the existence of actual garbage out there, but this absolutely isn’t that. After the Rain's biggest weakness is that its premise rightfully scares people off. While I can’t exactly imagine a mechanism that would draw the two together while keeping them at a safe distance in the same way as it’s executed here, I’d have to imagine there *must* be a better premise out there that they could have used.

I wouldn’t have written a review, but this is a piece that deserves a second look with a clear reassurance that if you’re a creep you best be moving on, because there’s nothing but two delightfully professional people experiencing personal growth going on here.

50% SeinenJump approval. (mostly due to the unsavory premise)

FFO: Garden of Words, March Comes in Like a Lion, Working!!

In over a decade of watching anime, I’ve never seen anything quite like ACCA. On top of some of the best world-building I’ve come across, ACCA navigates a political drama through the eyes of a pretty low key, quirky police force.

The intrigue comes from its ability to introduce the viewer to each of the 13 states & their unique cultures through a creative hybrid police-slice-of-life lense while leaving clues everywhere that a coup attempt is being organized.

To my chagrin, our main character, Jean Otus, is swept up in all of this in an unoriginal way. While I understand how he and his sister have ... a key role in the bigger picture, I felt as though there was more of ACCA to explore, more of the local states to get to know, more of how the governing bodies work. Jean's backstory is interesting and may have tied him into the bigger picture, but ultimately it detracted from ACCA’s strongest points as it chewed into what little airtime the production crew had to work with. I get that something had to be a catalyst in all of this, and incorporating the main character into it in some way makes total sense, but his own personal back story didn’t need to consume the show.

While the characters themselves were interesting enough and the music had an appropriate flair to it, the character design felt wonky and the animation was just above mediocre.

As someone who would like to see more political drama in anime, it pains me to say that ACCA had quite a bit of promise, but it ultimately distracts itself along the way with a plot point that takes up too much of the viewers time for me to wholeheartedly recommend. I do still feel ACCA adds something of value, and despite all the criticism it was a fun quick show that anyone who appreciates political drama should find some charm in.

80% Seinen Jump approval.

FFO: You’re Under Arrest, Baccano

March Comes in Like a Lion is a deeply introspective slice-of-life drama that takes *full* advantage of anime as an artistic medium to thoroughly immerse the viewer in a neighborhood of dynamic characters that collectively explore mental health & family relationships in a highly competitive context.

While I can’t say I’m a fan of the cutesy moments in her work, Chika Umino’s character design is on point as always (Eden of the East & Honey & Clover being some other examples of her work). Shinbou Akiyuki (the director of Monogatari, Kubikiri Cycle & Arakawa Under the Bridge) brings his abstract flair and unbeatable strength in ... directing works that fit well within the psychological genre.

Rei Kiriyama suffers, on a dysfunctional level, from a pretty traumatic family past & competitive present. The Kawamoto family enters introducing him to a normal or healthy family life while each of the sisters and grandfather do their part to essentially heal him via the various interactions they have with each other that lead to powerful dreamlike moments where you can see how things are changing for each of the characters the audience gets to know. These moments, as smoothly as they are orchestrated, lead to visible growth in Rei and in those closest to him.

It’s strength is absolutely its ability to immerse the viewer unlike any other title I’ve seen before. MCILAL doesn’t really have any weakness’ but if I had to pick something, a few of the shogi matches weren’t as gripping or as brief as they could’ve been.

100% Seinen Jump approval.

FFO: Barakamon, A Silent Voice, Hyouka

Maeda Jun is known for his drive to make viewers of his work cry. For most of the people who have watched it, Angel Beats definitely has not fallen short of that goal.

Angel Beats is essentially about high schoolers who end up in purgatory due to their life being, oftentimes unfairly, cut short. Things aren’t always as they seem in this strange world though, which translates to plenty of electric comedic moments and thoughtful points of tension between members as the SSS (Afterlife Battlefront) engages with the world as it is presented to them.

For years I felt that nothing had topped Angel Beats’ ... animation, particularly in how Seiji Kishi, Kenji Horikawa & Yousuke Touba chose to knock it out of the park with what is *still* some of the best lighting I’ve seen in any full length show. The sharp character design, strong vocal performance (both sub & dub), worked perfectly for the wide range of action & emotions the story calls for. The brilliant drama doesn’t overshadow the memorably witty humor scattered all throughout the title.

The characters all leave strong & clear impressions due to each of their personalities, diverse backstories & motivations (the memory loss mechanism is used surprisingly well in this area). The show follows the stereotypical “protagonist that episodically helps each character out with their problem” formula for just under half of the show. Where it differs from that trope is that 1) the usual romantic undertone isn’t as present, 2) it has a heavier emotional impact due to what happens when the problem is resolved and 3) it’s actually done well.

For packing so much content into 13 episodes, the pacing is excellent. Every moment is meaningful to the progression of the story, even when it’s made to feel like an ordinary school slice-of-life moment. In a medium that has presented some misogynistic takes on women, the show does an excellent job in presenting multiple strong & unique female characters (none more forgettable in my mind than Yuri Nakamura).

The mellow drama is probably Angel Beats weakest point. It was a high school favorite of mine that I’ll come back to from time to time, but ultimately the content will hit you harder if you’re fresh out of high school.

A decade later, there is still plenty that anime creators in 2020 could take away from Angel Beats. While the quality and willingness to experiment has gone up overall in recent years, stellar lighting, sharp character design and the ability to emotionally suck people in with such powerful storytelling is something that we could use more of in the anime that's to come.

FFO: Clannad, Kiznaiver, Death Parade, Erased, Plastic Memories

Rurouni Kenshin is a historical drama that follows the penitent path of a reformed assassin Himura Kenshin and his martial artist companions. His purpose to protect others paired with his deep commitment to non-violence converge as he and his allies confront post-Boshin-war realities.

The setting couldn’t be more fascinating. Scars are still fresh for many of the people Kenshin & company come into contact with. Japan at the time was sorting itself out and attempting to modernize. Different factions and individuals caught up in the war that have won or lost all have different reactions to the formation of this new government and the reforms ... it implemented.

Each character has motivations that make sense in light of their past and begin to make even more sense as their unique community works together to help each other achieve those goals. Every character's backstory and motivations interplay nicely with each other and with the specific social landscape(s) they come into contact with.

Ultimately RK is about penance, it's about living honestly by non-violent principles and contributing to a better future in the face of much unwanted change, rather than caving to the violent insurrectionist urge. From heavy social issues, to daily life at their Meiji era dojo, to struggling through the inner turmoil of past personal sins, Rurouni Kenshin fleshes out a real community of reformed and growing comrades that the viewer should feel right at home with.

The character design is top notch (coming from the same mind that brought you Shaman King). For having as many episodes as it does, it doesn’t get stale. The opening’s are not great. It catches some flack for being a darker show with some hammy comedic moments, but these moments only serve to further flesh out the characters, making them much more dynamic and believably human.

100% Seinen Jump approval.

FFO: Samurai Champloo, Maison Ikkoku, Bleach, Yu Yu Hakusho