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I had only one reason to watch this anime: I was interested in hearing how Russian sounds in Japanese anime. To be honest, for me, who was not into rom-com anime with school setting, there was no other reason to watch this anime. I am interested in Russian-Japanese relations, I am the author of several articles on Wikipedia about it, and I even wrote an article on Russian language in Japan. So, even though I don’t like this kind of anime, I couldn’t help but watch “Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian” or “Roshidere” for short.

“Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian” actually has ... a very interesting concept and theme, which is why I was initially excited. The main character of the anime is a half-Russian, half-Japanese girl named Alisa Mikhailovna Kujou. She spent most of her childhood in Russia, and now she has transferred to a school in Japan. All the boys at school are infatuated with her because of her beauty and exoticism, but Alya has no interest in them. Because there is one boy she likes: Masachika Kuze, who sits next to her desk. Although Alya does not want to tell him how she feels, he has a habit of expressing his feelings in Russian from time to time. Alya thinks that no one understands her, but she does not know that Kuze knows Russian and understands everything she says thanks to a Russian girl he often played with when he was a child. The anime takes this concept and tells the story of the development of the romantic relationship between these two characters.

The anime actually starts off well and I really liked the first 3 episodes. But unfortunately, the anime starts to become clichéd and stray from its main purpose from episode 4. First of all, I want to start with the characters. The characters are one-dimensional and do not develop throughout the series. Although Alya is presented as a confident and cool person at the beginning of the anime, in the following episodes she becomes a character who has self-confidence problems and loses herself when she gets into difficult situations. When I saw Alya's “padkhod” (teasings) to Kuze in Russian, I said that I will finally watch an anime where the main female character is sure that she loves the main male character. I love such strong, confident female characters in anime. But in the middle of the anime Alya becomes one of the classic tsundere characters in anime, embracing the “no, it’s not like I don’t love him” cliché. Okay, I have to admit that tsundere Alya is cute, but I have to say that I don't like this kind of clichés after such a strong introduction. I also didn't like how Alya's self-esteem issues were exposed and how she constantly needed Kuzey for support. Alya's character development is almost non-existent, as Kuze bails her out whenever she gets into a tough situation. Kuze himself is also a poorly developed character. The anime presents him as a lazy character who sits next to Alya, but towards the end of the series, he suddenly becomes the most capable member of his family.

I don't want to talk too much about the other characters. Most of them are clichéd and one-dimensional. Alya's sister Masha gets a lot of screen time in the anime, but the character doesn't play any significant role in the story. But I think the anime's cast of characters isn't that bad. Of the supporting characters, I would especially like to highlight Kuze's sister Suou, I think she was the most interesting supporting character. Her interactions with Kuze, her role in the story, and her personality were fun. It's true that they still couldn't avoid some of the "cliché" themes between older brother and younger sister, but at least I'm glad they were able to introduce us to a interesting younger sister character.

The anime's story was very boring to me. Instead of focusing on the romantic relationship between Alya and Kuze, the anime focused on boring and clichéd topics like the school's student council and school elections. I don't understand why they left it aside and focused on school politics when they had such an interesting topic. I agree that concepts like student councils, clubs, and elections have never existed in Azerbaijan (my country) schools, and since I haven't had such an experience, it's natural that these topics are not interesting for me. But this doesn't change the fact that the anime's taking this topic too seriously hinders the development of the relationships between the characters. By the way, the romantic relationship between Alya and Kuze was also poorly developed in the anime. Why did Alya choose Kuze when she rejected all the boys in school? Just because he sits next to her? Or because he supports her? The anime touches on this issue very poorly. The concept of Alya sometimes expressing her feelings in Russian also gets lost in these topics. In general, the anime fails to use Alya's speaking Russian as a story element, and when it does, it does it very poorly. Kuze understands what Alya is saying in Russian, and what? At some point I expected that Alya would realize that Kuze understood her and something emotional would happen between them. But as I said earlier, the anime spends so much time on empty and cliché things that it forgets to create emotional depth between the characters. The characters sit and talk about boring things. Kuze hypnotizing Masha and Alya and undressing them against their will was a completely shameful scene. Thinking that such cliché and illogical scenes will make the viewer laugh is a completely illogical itself. The comedy of the anime was also not good and I did not like it. There was almost no scene where I laughed, I can only say that the dialogues of Kuze's sister were funny and entertaining.

I consider the anime “Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian” a lost potential. While it has such a good opportunity to introduce Russian culture to Japan, the anime does not take advantage of it. It neither offers anything interesting, informative about the Russian language, nor does it promise anything to the audience about Russian culture. The only thing I saw in the anime about Russian culture was Russians eat borsch when they get sick and drink tea with jam. That's all. The concept of the anime is good and interesting, but the execution is bad.

The animations and visuals are good, they used pastel and vibrant colors. For some reason, the character designs and vibe reminded me of the anime “Classroom of Elite”. I can't say the same about the music. They have prepared different endings for each episode of the anime, but I didn't like any of them except for 1-2. The opening are same. There are so many songs in the anime, but most of them are bad, and there is no catchy soundtrack. The anime also loses in terms of music. A second season was announced shortly after the first season aired. But I have no intention of watching the new season because it seems from the first season finale that they will continue with this pointless school election theme.

The Goto Islands are an archipelago of 140 islands in southern Japan. Administratively, they are part of Nagasaki Prefecture, and the largest island is Fukue. The Goto Islands are considered one of the cradles of Christianity in Japan: Portuguese missionaries began to spread Christianity on these islands in the 16th century. For this reason, there are many Catholic churches on these islands. The local inhabitants of these sparsely populated islands speak the Goto dialect of Japanese, which is considered part of the Hichiku dialect spoken in western Kyushu. A notable feature of the Goto dialect is its simplified structure and lack of long words. The ... word "Barakamon" is a Goto word that means "energetic/cheerful".

The anime "Barakamon" is based on the manga of the same name by Satsuki Yoshio, a manga artist born on the Goto Islands. Since I am not a fan of the slice of life genre and the theme of childcare, I didn't watch it because I thought I wouldn't like the anime, even though I heard the name of this anime a lot. It's true, it's a biased judgment, but as a result, after watching the anime, I saw that my doubts were justified.

"Barakamon" actually has a very interesting and exciting theme. A young calligrapher who is hesitant about his style, unable to bear being called uninteresting by his work, punches a more experienced teacher and is sent to live on the Goto Islands as punishment. And on these islands, he must find his own style and gain a new perspective. In other words, "Barakamon" is actually an anime of self-discovery. Handa Seishu, who moves from a comfortable city life to a rural life, tries to get used to this new place and communicates with the new people he meets. In fact, Handa doesn't know what he will find and what he is looking for when he comes to these islands, so he arrives on the island with uncertainty and anxiety. What he knows for sure is that he must somehow find inspiration on these islands and prove himself in the world of art again. But Seishu begins to live a very different life on these islands than he expected. Instead of living the life of a reclusive artist looking for inspiration, he finds himself in an environment where he has fun among the elderly residents and children of Goto Island. Among these residents, he especially builds a close relationship with a girl named Naru, and a strong bond develops between them. A very energetic, playful and mischievous child, Naru is truly a character who lives up to the anime's name and becomes a key character in Handa's character development.

Although "Barakamon" has a very interesting theme, for some reason it failed to leave the impression I expected on me and there were many moments that I was dissatisfied with. Although the anime has a fairly large cast of characters, most of the characters are children, middle-aged and elderly. The anime did a great job with the children's characters, and I have nothing bad to say about it. While in most anime, children's characters are usually voiced by adults, in this anime, the children's characters are voiced by real children. This made the characters sound more natural. The children's characters in the anime act like real children, they like to have fun, play, joke, and don't take things too seriously. For this reason, "Barakamon" is one of the few works with children's characters that really make you feel like a child. However, the fact that the anime gives so much importance to the children's characters made me feel bored while watching the anime. This may be an issue from my personal life, but since I find this type of friendly interactions between adult characters and adults more realistic, the scenes where Seishun has fun with children felt strange and unnatural to me. I felt that I was bored a lot, especially in the first 5 episodes of the anime. After the 6th episode of the anime, the second half of the anime was more interesting to me because Seishun started interacting with his peers in Tokyo. In general, after watching “Barakamon”, I realized once again that anime about childcare cannot attract my attention. Before that, something similar happened with the anime “Kakushigoto” and I left the anime after the 4th episode. Of the works on this type of topic, I was only able to like the anime “Poco’s Udon World”, probably because the child there is actually a tanuki and the anime has fantasy elements.

Although the anime tries to balance humor with emotional depth, I didn't really like the anime's humor. Most of the humor in the anime is based on scenes of Seishun's difficulties and incompetence as he adjusts to village life, and is in the manzai style. "Barakamon" has humor based on facial expressions and momentary reactions. There were very few scenes where I laughed at the anime's jokes. Tamako and her BL jokes were too much for me, I didn't find them funny, and I didn't think they fit the atmosphere of the anime.

I must admit that “Barakamon” does a good job in terms of atmosphere and mood, and is able to reflect the transition from the city to the village life well. Although the anime is not visually spectacular, it is able to convey the suburban life of the Goto Islands to the viewer. Many places, such as Fukue Airport, are accurately depicted in the anime. The more you watch the anime, the more you want to leave the city and move to the village and live a quiet life. I liked this iyashikei aspect of the anime. The anime also pays special attention to the theme of community life in the village. Even though Seishu is a newcomer to the village, the villagers immediately accept him and do not treat him like a foreigner. The fact that the entire village life comes to his aid to place Seishu's belongings in the house, and the hospitality of the villagers has a great impact on his character development. This lifestyle of the villagers based on mutual assistance also serves as a source of inspiration for Seishu's final work. The biggest point that I am dissatisfied is the very poor development of the calligraphy theme. The anime doesn't delve into the subject of calligraphy because it spends a lot of time on slice-of-life and comedy. What is the difference between Seishun's old style and his new style? What makes a good calligraphy style? What are the differences between a good and a bad one? The anime doesn't answer any of these questions. I think that a viewer who has no knowledge of calligraphy will not be able to learn anything about calligraphy after watching this anime. The fact that the educational aspect of this type of anime is so weak is a missed opportunity in my opinion.

"Barakamon" is not a bad anime in my opinion, it's just an anime whose characters and comedy don't appeal to me. Viewers who like village life, children, and a quiet atmosphere will probably like this anime. The anime also has a prequel series called "Handa-kun". That anime tells the story of Seishun's high school years and is criticized for being an anime with a different style. But since I don't like "Barakamon," I have no plans to watch anything weaker than it.

Before watching the anime The Apothecary Diaries, I had a slightly different expectation. When I read the premise, I thought that the anime would be about a weak and kidnapped girl who falls into a difficult situation and that I would watch her curing the mysterious illnesses of important people with the medicines she prepared. Honestly, this premise alone was enough to get me excited for the anime. But after watching the first 3-4 episodes of the anime, I realized that I was watching something different from my expectations. The main character Maomao is very different from the female characters we are used to. The ... anime starts with her being kidnapped and showing her immediately getting used to the palace life. Since this situation was introduced so suddenly and Maomao calmly accepted this situation, I was a little surprised and felt strange when watching the first episodes. But as the series continued and new events happened, I began to understand Maomao's true personality and the stones fell into place: Maomao became one of my favorite moments in the anime. Strong, cool, rational, intelligent, Maomao is unique and stands out from typical female characters. Although she appears masculine on the outside, Maomao, who actually has a feminine side, is the shining star of the show. It is rare to see such female characters who break stereotypes in most modern anime. Another thing that makes Maomao an interesting character is her eccentric personality. Maomao, who has a special interest in poisons, conducts poison research on herself and develops immunity to poisons in her body by drinking poisonous substances. If we can say so, Maomao is the mad scientist of the palace. Maomao goes crazy when she sees rare medicinal plants and becomes the happiest person in the world when she imagines the experiments she will conduct. She is also able to show her tough and radical side when necessary. It was quite entertaining to watch Maomao try to survive in this world built on social hierarchies through her intelligence. I agree that Maomao can sometimes make feel like an overly perfect character, and this can reduce the believability of the character, but since I love strong female protagonists, this didn't stop me from enjoying her.

The Apothecary Diaries is a mystery anime. The story revolves around Maomao solving various palace mysteries with her intelligence and skills. The anime has a bit of a detective vibe, as Maomao tries to solve the mystery by paying attention to details that most people don’t notice. In fact, most of the mysteries in the anime are episodic in nature and are solved quickly. Some mysteries may seem uninteresting to the viewer because they are simple and predictable, but although many of these simple cases seem unrelated to each other, in fact, as the story progresses, it turns out that there are invisible connections between these events and the story takes us to a larger plan. I really liked this feature of the anime, the story manages to surprise the viewer by connecting such simple mysteries within the framework of logic, but in an unexpected way. These mysteries gives us details about not only palace life, but also Maomao’s life. Although we don't know anything about Maomao at the beginning of the story, as the series progresses, many mysterious and interesting facts about her are revealed, make the viewer to suggest theories about Maomao's family. But Maomao is not the only mysterious character in the anime. Her mentor and romantic interest, Jinshi, is also a very interesting and mysterious character. Although the story introduces him as a eunuch who became a harem lord, after a few episodes you easily understand that Jinshi is actually hiding his true role in palace life and has a higher rank. Although the anime gives small hints about his role, it does not reveal Jinshi's true purpose until the end and saves the details about him for the next season. By the way, the interactions between Jinshi and Maomao were quite fun to watch. Although Maomao addresses Jinshi as "-sama", they have a friendly relationship, not a master-servant relationship. The anime doesn't want to spend too much time on the romantic relationship between these two characters yet, and manages to entertain the viewer by using more humor in the interactions between the characters. One of the things I like about The Apothecary Diaries is that it has an interesting ensemble of supporting characters. I agree that some of the supporting characters feel underdeveloped in the story, but the interactions with Maomao and Jinshi manage to arouse interest in those characters in the viewer. The palace concubines play an important role in the story, and many of the mysteries that the anime tries to solve in the story are related to these concubines. I really liked how the concubines are different from each other in terms of personality and appearance.

I want to talk a little about the anime's magnificent visuals and animation. Their use of vibrant colors perfectly reflects the "colorful" palace life of the concubines. In general, the character designs and background details related to the palace are amazing. Attention to detail creates a fluid and well-groomed environment in the anime, which fits perfectly with the anime's historical setting. In particular, the attention to plant and flower details, and the extensive use of green color perfectly emphasize Maomao's identity as a pharmacist and her interest in medicine. I especially liked the vibrant character designs of the palace concubines and prostitutes. Whether it is the makeup details, clothing and accessory details, they both distinguish the characters from each other and emphasize the work they do. The big-eyed character designs reminded me of the shojo style. A very good job was also done in terms of animation. The Apothecary Diaries is a joint work of two studios (OLM and Toho). Although it's rare for two studios to make an anime, I'm happy with the result. The animation is fluid and kinetic. I really liked the use of chibi designs for the funny scenes.

Yofukashi no Uta is a great choice for those who like to walk alone nighttime and those who are tired of traditional vampire anime. Night hours usually mean full of unpredictability for people. "Yofukashi no Uta" is about the characters who try to discover the fun and interesting aspects of the night and escape from the realities of the day.

The anime is directed by Tomoyuki Imamura, who directed vampire-themed anime like Monogatari and Vanitas no Karte. Imamura has reflected his style in other works very well in this anime. I often felt like I was watching the second Monogatari. In fact, there are many similarities ... between the two anime: vampire characters, directing style, heavy dialogues, empty streets, aesthetic backgrounds, wide-angle shots.

Sometimes animes try to come up with something by mixing many genres and styles, but they end up messing up. Yofukashi no Uta is not one of those animes. Although it is a romcom (romantic comedy) anime, it also works well in the mystery and supernatural genres. Usually when you say vampire anime you expect something fighting, something bloody. But surprisingly, there are almost no fighting scenes in this anime, and blood is rarely seen. Overall, I really liked how the vampire theme was handled in the anime. Anime vampires do not immediately present information about their characteristics, powers, anatomy, but show it slowly, and manage to arouse interest in the viewer by keeping some details as a mystery. Most of us know that vampires drink blood to feed and create new vampires, but this anime also shows that when vampires drink blood, they also have sex. A "victim" can only become a vampire if he has also fallen in love with a vampire.

I have to start talking about the characters with Nanakusa. If I had to make a list of my favorite vampire anime characters, I'd probably put Nazuna at the top. He became a character that I liked very much, both in terms of his character, his way of speaking, his difference from other vampires, and his character design. Nazuna manages to be serious in important moments as well as being very sweet and humorous. Her relationship with Ko is also interesting, Nazuna, unlike other vampires, does not want to make boys fall in love with her, create new vampires, but for some reason, there is something that binds Ko to her, and she herself tries to understand this reason. It was great to see the relationship between the two, started out just to drink blood, gradually strengthen. With Nazuna and other vampire characters, the anime tries to answer the unasked questions about vampires: when does life become fun for vampires who have lived for decades? What does love mean to vampires who are forced to make people fall in love with them in order to feed? Can vampires make friends with ordinary people?

As for Ko, I have mixed feelings about him. One of the main criticisms of the anime in general is that Ko is 14 years old and is depicted as having a romantic relationship with a vampire who is much older than her. For this reason, there are many people who say that anime promotes pedophilia. This detail didn't bother me in the anime, frankly, because we've seen that kind of thing a lot in anime anyway, but I also think they could have made the main character a bit older.

The anime moves at a slow pace, in the first 4-5 episodes we almost only see Ko and Nazuna, the first episodes are based on the dialogues between these characters. Yofukusa no Uta is full of heavy dialogue. But the dialogues between the characters are interesting. The anime's comedy is also quite good, the jokes are not corny and help you relate to the characters better. The anime contains a lot of erotic elements, with Nazuma often seen making erotic and 18+ jokes. It's no coincidence that they show lemons in the ending theme ("lemon" is an anime term for chechi animes). While some have complained about the amount of fanservice in the anime, I personally wasn't bothered by the amount of fanservice in the anime and it didn't bother me enough to distract from the main story of the anime.

The visuals, background scenes, color palette of the anime are excellent. Purple color suits the anime very well. In some scenes, the color changes depending on the situation are well done. The music is great. Whether it's the OST, the opening, or the ending, it gives a great vibe and perfectly reflects the atmosphere of the anime.

Story: 7/10
Art: 8/10
Music: 9/10
Characters: 8/10
Enjoyment: 10/10
Ko and Nazuna: 9/10
Overall: 8/10
Favorite episode: 9 and 11
Favorite Character: Nazuna (of course)
Recommendation level: high

I think it's an overrated anime for its score. I don't think the anime is a bad anime, it's a good anime to watch. It has fun scenes, good animation and music. But I couldn't find anything special in the anime.

There are many illogical scenes and moments in the story of the anime. Raising orphaned girls and using them as weapons is a very controversial topic in itself, but I found it strange that no one touched on it throughout the anime. Little kids hacking a huge organization with ease, schoolgirls fighting terrorists (what's their goal?)... things like this are far from realistic and cliche ... for an anime like this. At the end of the story, the scenes with the antagonist seemed to me too far-fetched and illogical.

As for the main characters, I have mixed opinions about them. Chisato and Takina are characters with contrasting personalities, their friendship was great to watch. But I think Takina was overshadowed by Chisato in the story, her story could have been made more interesting. Her character developments stops. I didn't like the yuri scenes between these two characters, it is nothing more than a cheap tool to attract audience

Story - 5/10
Art - 8/10
Sound - 8/10
Characters - 7/10
Enjoyment - 5/10
Chisato and Takina - 7/10
Overall - 7/10
Favorite episode - 4
Favorite character - Takina
Recommendation level - Medium

To be honest, I was suspicious about the anime Girls Band Cry before I watched it. I don't like music anime, I haven't watched music band anime at all. So I wasn't sure what to expect. When I started watching, I was quite surprised that it was a 3D anime. I haven't watched a 3D anime in a long time. Although the first 1-2 episodes of the anime didn't turn me on, as the story continued, as I learned about the main character Nina's pain, as new members joined the group, I began to like the anime, even love it, and I understood why it ... received such a high rating.

Although the anime is a musical anime, it tries to show the problems faced by teenagers through the point of view of the main character Nina. Difficulty expressing oneself, fear of moving to a new place, depending on family expectations, avoiding meeting new people, bullying problems, etc. anime has managed to win my sympathy by focusing on such important topics. I also really liked a lot of the songs that are played in the anime. The relationships between the characters were also very fun and interesting. Personally, when I watched the anime, I wished that I could form a music group like that. The relationship between the characters amused me a lot, the jokes didn't come across as clichéd or trite.

As for the negative aspects of the anime, I think the ending could have been more exciting and interesting, I regretted that they didn't give a more interesting ending. Another thing I didn't like was that the characters often left the group. In particular, after Momoka created the group, she repeatedly left and returned several times. In general, there were a lot of pointless in-and-outs in the anime, which I didn't really like. Some characters' backstories were left unexplained. In particular, the story of Tomo and Rupa, the last two members to join the group, could have been covered more. Rupa was perhaps the most obscure character.

A lot of people have complained about the anime being 3D, but I wasn't bothered by it, even I can say that I liked it.