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Be warned - This review is the epitome of subjective. I'm purely rating this based off my personal enjoyment of this series.

So, I've been meaning to read the manga for a while, never got around to it. In late september my friend and I, on our weekly anime-watching-session, gave in to our curiosity, because the preview picture of this anime has been intriguing us for weeks at that point. So we decided to just try one episode, to see what exactly this anime was, and were surprised it was five minutes long. And then, without realising it, we ended up watching all sixteen? seventeen? episodes ... that were availabe back then.
It really, really sucked us in.

Story - 8 Points
Now, don't let this high score fool you. Bessatsu Olympia Kyklos is not a deep show, at all. And it doesn't try being one, either. It's comfortable being a weird couple minutes of content sandwiched between its OP and ED, and does that well. It's a story about a young man who does amazing pottery but sucks at painting occasionally time travelling from his small, Ancient Greek town into a more modern 60s Tokyo; essentially, to come up with a sporting event for his town. One, that rivals the Olympics, even! There's also the asshole major, a very intelligent dolphin (who's a better painter than him), a girl he likes; an old Japanese man who helps him, his family; spartans, the threat of war...
It's not a show you go into, expecting something deep and meaningful. It's a few minutes of sillyness, and that's what I appreciate about it. It doesn't try to be anything more than that. I like that.

Art - 9 Points
Now, this one might be where opinions differ the most. It's not a regular anime. It's claymation, paper cutout looking things, figurines, paper, real people sometimes. A lot to take in, and something that blew me away. Because it's creative and fun, giving it a charming low-budget edge. Think early 2000s adult swim, the more.. avant-garde things. The Greek characters are made of grey clay/plasticine, clearly giving off the air of an ancient statue. Their enviroments are made of miniatures. Whenever the MC interacts with the drawn Japanese characters, in drawn Tokyo, he looks off in a stylish. Zeus is straight up just a real-life guy in the sky. The opening works with Greek paintings on plates, lots of colors, more of that wonderful, fun stop-motion, the Endings (plural!) include not only everything I mentioned before, but cheap animation (on purporse) and more real people, stock images/videos, and so much more.
I love the decision to do it this way. It's eye-catching, fun and allows for an odd way to make it more dynamic. It's really just fun to look at!

Sound - 10 Points
This is what blew me away the most! The voice acting is good. Daisuke Ono as the MC was something I didn't expect, and he does a good job like always. Actually, all the voice actors are doing great! But that alone wouldn't have landed those 10 Points. The SFX aren't to "blame" for it either. It's the OP (the Willhelm Tell Overture, recreated solely by singing "Ba"/"Da") and the endings.
Every single ED is different. A bard is serenading is about a certain Greek word/custom somewhat related to the episode, and they're all so, so fun. Only about 30-40 seconds a piece, they all are just a bite-sized bit of crazyness, which I love. I'd even recommend just checking the EDs out, they alone already are just fun to watch.

Characters - 9
The characters aren't it's biggest strenght, but I still enjoyed them. Demetrios is a fun MC, his dolphin friend is never explained and still fun as well. Everyone is just.. fun! I'm sorry, there really isn't much more behind them. This entire anime is supposed to be fun, and it does it's best at that.

Enjoyment - 10
I wouldn't have binge watched it if I didn't like it as much as I did. Best to watch with a friend, but even my rewatch alone still made me laugh. It's two hours of weird, fun, colorful stuff and I looked forward to each new ending. I'll definitely rewatch it again at least once. Probably more.

Overall - 9
Objectively, it would be more of a 7. But I truly loved this little show, and I feel comfortably giving it a 9. It was a dark horse that pulled through, and what it did just worked for it so well. I truly wish for more anime like that.
I definitely recommend it to everyone. Like, really. I think everyone should give this one a try, simply for how.. out there it really is.

When I first watched Elfenlied, I was twelve, the year was 2006 and I watched the entire show on youtube, split into three parts each episode, in horrible 144p quality and with very badly added subtitles.
Gore- and anime-loving little twelve year old me was in heaven. I loved Elfenlied, and for a while, it was my favorite anime.

Then, a few years later, around 2012, I watched it again. Older, not particularly wiser, still gore-loving and still anime-loving.
And boy, it definetely didn't age well.

Now, after this little prologue of sorts, let me preface this by saying that this is not at all objective. It's my personal ... opinion on how this anime failed to evoke the same emotions it did when I was twelve, and how that has to do with actual better anime having been available since then.
Y'know, opinions and stuff.
Also, this isn't particularly spoiler-heavy, as I haven't watched it in five years, it's just the gist of what this is.

I totally don't mind if people like this anime, it's just... yeah,something I wish wouldn't have gotten worse since I was a kid.

Story - 3/10
What started off strong with a fun idea about a girl with immense powers escaping from a a research facility that experimented on here, with lots of gore and violence. It's something that could've been really good, a story about a girl reclaiming her own life, with lots of battles and stuff like that.
Unfortunately, she gets "anime-DID" and gets a second personality, and becomes a kind of creepy little girl in the body of a young woman. Which makes the sort-of harem that happens with the guy and his cousin who take her in sort of weird. Honestly, if it hadn't been for that, I might have been able to enjoy rewatching it more, but the way Lucy's second personality is portrayed, and how cliche it is (even for back then when it was written IMO) just make it hard to actually rate the story any higher.
Towards the end, the action picks up again, which would've and could've been cool, if it hadn't happened in such a predicable way. But oh well.
The overall idea and setting still deserves a few points, because it genuinely was something new, and the idea is still something I enjoy.

Art - 4/10
Now, this one is particularly subjective, because art style is something that depends on the person. I personally find the art style just... not very interesting. It's not bad, it's not like the anatomy is all over the place, or that the animation is bad. No, during the fights in particular it's great! The problem is that the artstyle itself is just... bland. It might have to do something with the fact that I generally dislike most of the art styles anime in the early 2000s used, but to me, it's just replacable. It has no particular quality making you think "Yes, this is a character from Elfenlied".
However, the art in the OP and ED is great, paying homage to Klimt. I liked that a lot, it was a fun idea, and really paid off IMO.

Sound - 8/10
The opening is amazing. Like, geniunely really good. It's something I still listen to occasionally, something my mom made her ringtone after hearing it once, and together with the OP's animation, it's just really, really cool and refreshing.
The rest of the OST is fine too, the voice actors were alright (even though "Nyu? Nyu!" gets really old really quick), but damn, that OP.
Whoever was in charge of that should get a raise. Yes, I know I'm 13 years late, but it's damn good.

Characters - 2/10
From my praise for the OST to something more negative.
The character's were bland at best and annoying at worst. I've said it before, but Lucy's second personality is annoying and weird, and the others aren't much better. I can't even say much about them. Like, I want to, but even as a kid, when I loved the show, they just barely left an impression on me.
However, I loved the design on Lucy with her helmet on. That was really cool. If she had stayed like that for longer, as in, how she was in her first scene? Damn, I would've loved that.

Enjoyment - 2/10
The action scenes couldn't save this anime for me. If little me would've wrote this review back in 2006, they would've said "8/10 it's so good I love it" probably, but if asked about it, I'm pretty sure even back then I wouldn't have been able to name what actually made the show good, aside from being an anime and having gore.
I still enjoyed the gore. It was cool, it was bloody, the invisible arms made it interesting. But the rest on the anime? When rewatching it, I was bored at best, hoping for the episode to end at worst.

And that kinda sucks, growing to dislike something you liked so much.

Overall - 3/10
There are some things I still like about Elfenlied. I like the OP, the first few minutes of the first episode too. I like the OST. But other than that? It just became bland and boring to me. Something, that was cool in 2006, like emo clothes and that "I made you a cookie.... but I eated it" everyone used, but a few years later it's just... yes, I said it before, but it's fitting: bland.

TL,DR:
Pros: Cool idea, good OST, really good OP, nice amount of gore
Cons: Predictable, bland characters; boring art, kind of bad plot along the lines

So, yeah.
I'm not attacking anyone who liked the show. I get why someone would like it. It's probably not one of the more well known anime there are, especially from that time.
It's just.. really not for me.

Not for not-12-year-old me, at least.

Before I start this off, please know that this review is entirely based on my own enjoyment of the anime, and so it's heavily biased. I suppose reviews are usually like that, so even if you just wanna read reviews if you personally disliked the anime, you might enjoy seeing a different viewpoint.

But now let's get to the actual review. If you plan to watch it and don't want spoilers, don't read past this, though. Cause I'm gonna take this apart a little, and there's gonna be some little spoilers.

At first, I wasn't gonna watch Juuni Taisen. It was in the "New episode"-section whenever I ... went to my streaming site of choice, and I didn't really notice it. That was until my friend, a sworn lover of Battle Royale anime texted me some screenshots, telling me to watch it as soon as possible.

So me, bored and having wanted to pick up another seasonal anime just said "ok, sure" and I went to said steaming site of choice and checked out the first episode. I'm not a big fan of Battle Royale stuff, usually. It's cool in wrestling, but in anime? Eh, I had yet to find something I enjoyed.

I definetely enjoyed Juuni Taisen.

Story - 7/10
A lot of people call this show "predictable", and they're not wrong. If you know the chinese zodiac, or know the story of "the Zodiac Race", you'll know who'll win the anime. Hell, if you watch the ending or even pay attention, you know who'll win. And after two episodes, the old "Backstory equals Death"-cliche kind of makes it easy to know who'll die, too, so if you want to be surprised about who dies... Yeah, this probably isn't for you.
So why did I still give it seven points, even though the story was predictable and the deaths were mostly unpredictable? Well, the backstories were interesting, the reason the "Juuni Taisen" was held was kinda cool, and it was exciting to wonder about who would kill the victim the of the week, how they'd die, etc.
Towards the end of the show, there's even a little plot twist I genuinely didn't expect. I can see how the last episode made people get mad, by the way, but I found it bittersweet, and I like the idea of the winner's wish having been just that.

The reason it's still only seven of ten, is the fact that sometimes the flashbacks slowed down the flow, alongside some minor stuff, but it's still pretty good in my opinion.

Art - 8/10
Art and animation are definetely pretty well done. There's a lot of CGI, but to my surprise, it wasn't bad. Sure, sometimes, it was a bit weird on some characters in particular, but the action scenes definetely were made really dynamic at times because of it. The art style itself is pretty nice, making the characters look colorful and expressive. I also find a lot of the designs very attractive, which is a plus, if you're a shipper like me.
Backgrounds were fitting too, usually the city the tournament was set in, a lot of battlefields in the flashbacks, sometimes more domestic stuff. The characters fit in them well, and interacted with them a fair bit.
The way the "camera" moved helped making the shots more interesting too. All in all, the art was good, and I liked it a lot.

Sound - 9/10
The music, OP and ED included, was honestly really good. Especially the opening is something I listen to on a regular basis now (and the art in it is real good). The OST is all in all enjoyable, not forcing you to pay special attention to it, just setting the mood for the scenes. I can't even say a lot about it, it genuinely just was a good soundtrack. But I'm also known for not knowing music, so this is particularly subjective.
The voice actors did a great job as well, having just the right amount of ham for some of the characters. I can't really think of any character who didn't have a fitting voice, so kudos.

Characters - 8/10
Gotta admit: The reason I didn't rate this higher is because my favorite character didn't get any backstory, and I'm salty about it. But they still were a colorful bunch, and I loved them.
The girls, while all sexy and most of them wearing revealing stuff, each had their own personality without being reduced to a single character trait and being only there for the fanservice. The guys were equally fun, having a range of different body types and age ranges. A lot of them were "edgy" (especially Usagi), but that made them more enjoyable to me, because it's the type of edginess that makes something more fun. I liked the weird outfits everyone was wearing to look more like their zodiac sign (Tiger's fake ears, striped bikini and boots and tail-collar thingie, Boar's little hair-buns looking like pig ears and her tusk-earrings, Dog's dog ears and fur-cloak, Rabbit's.. everything), and the overall designs.
Their powers also were really cool, even if some of them lacked proper explanations on how the hell that would work. So.. yeah. I liked those characters.

Enjoyment - 10/10
With all the edginess, the gore and the crazy action, I found myself really enjoying this show. I'm a bit of a gore-hound already, and Juuni Taisen just really indulged me, giving me rolling hands, impaled torsos and a bulking abomination of reassambled flesh.
It wasn't a perfect show, but just something you could watch and enjoy the crazy violence and weird plot twists from time to time. I honestly had a lot of fun, even if there's shows I like more.
It was, what it promised to be, a colorful, crazy gorefest. And I'm glad I watched it.

Overall - 8/10
As I said, it's not the best show ever. It's got its flaws, it's predictable (if you don't like that) and it was edgy, but it was just really, really fun. I get why people wouldn't like it, or why they'd drop it, but it's a fun watch.

And this marks the end of my super subjective, really biased and kinda messy review. If anyone who hasn't watched this read this until now, and found themselves thinking "Wow, that sounds kinda fun, I might check it out", I'd tell them to give it a try. Maybe they'd decide to drop it after a few episodes, or get mad at the sorta cop-out at the end, but.. yeah.

Juuni Taisen definetely made my autumn a little more fun. I'm glad my friend made me watch it.

Dive!! is...
Well, it's an anime. A sports anime. About diving.
I wish I could say more about it, but it hasn't left much of an impression on me, despite having watched all the episodes that have been aired at the time I'm writing this.
It's probably not the best idea to write my first review on this rather.. forgetable anime but hey, I can do what I want.

And that's what I'm gonna do.
Keep in mind that this is very subjective, though, and I don't mind if you don't share my opinions. But let's get this over with.

Story - 3/10
Sports anime often aren't anything new, and ... that's okay. The story of some underdog team or player fighting their way to the top is good enough usually, but Dive!! really doesn't offer anything in that department. So the diving club will close down if they can't show results, a new coach comes to teach them, they've got their goals set on the olympics.
That's cool. And really, that's it. Nothing really... happens. Now, lots of sports anime either tend to show a lot of sports related stuff like matches or training sequences (Kuroko no Basket for example) or focus a lot of the friendship, rivalries and so on of the characters (Free! to name one). Some like to do plenty of both (Haikyuu!! does it well, in my opinion). Some anime try doing both, but kind of fail at it by cramming it into the too short timeframe (Yuri on Ice, I'm sorry, but you could've done better).

Dive!! doesn't really do either. Sure, there's some training shown, a competetion, the characters talk to each other, but it's almost as if the anime tries using those to hide the fact that a lot of the episodes consist of exposition (and not in the "Let's explain the sport to the viewers"-way) and... filler. It might just be me, but nothing really goes on a lot of the time. With a training-camp arc of sorts coming up, things might be get a bit of a jumpstart, but so far, the story itself just is... dragging by.

Art - 5/10
Where Free! and Kuroko no Basket have their colorful, attractive characters and Haikyuu!! and Ballroom e Youkoso have the interesting anatomy and more down to earth but charming (and no less attractive) designs , Dive!! again has... neither. It also lacks the dynamic animation those anime have.
The style itself is easy on the eyes, though the anatomy is somewhat weird to me. During the surprisingly well animated diving scenes, the characters' long limbs and lean muscle look good, but a lot of the time the characters just... stand there, lacking a lot of detail. The backgrounds however look nice, and I enjoy the somewhat realistic (in a sense of "This looks like a place that could exist") environments.

Sound-7/10
This might be my personal bias, but Dive!! has to offer some great voice actors. Which... is why I gave the anime a 7 on the sound department, because the rest of it isn't that great. The BGM is... also there, and it's decent enough. It offers a nice backdrop to the animation and isn't overly in-your-face. The OP's chorus is a little catchy, but the song itself is forgetable. So is the ending. But, I mean, the voices are mostly good, and the voice actors did a solid to good perfomance on most of the characters

Characters - 4/10
The good voice actors don't save the characters from being boring to medicre, though. None of them really stick out. Sure, it's nice to have the protagonist be more on the cute and introverted side instead of being brash, but ultimately, his character is pretty... flat. So is Yoichi, the stoic prodigy character who comes across as patrononizing without having much of a personality beyond that.
The coach is headstrong and strict (I guess to have the only important female be more than just squealing eye candy?) but doesn't really have much to offer either. The only character who seems somewhat refreshing is Shibuki (who's apparently sixteen or seventeen but looks like twenty-five to me), the wild young man who doesn't want to play by the diving-rules.

Overall, the characters are just... boring, most of the time. They don't really stick around in your head, and even I, who tends to latch on the characters for shipping reasons and fanfic, can't find much enjoyment in them. They lack the bond of friendship and comradarie present in most sports anime, and honestly, I don't even remember their names aside from... three of them, as compared to the entire casts of Free! and Haikyuu!!

Enjoyment - 5/10
I don't... hate it.
I don't really like it either.
Unfortunately, I still have to force myself to watch it by promising myself that I'll see the characters who's design I like and who I want to know more about. But otherwise, the anime unfortunately is so slow and mediocre to me, that watching it feels like watching TV and waiting for your favorite show to come on, so you watch whatever is playing before it to not be bored.

I will finish the anime, sure, and I'm hoping that it'll be more fun during the training-camp arc - cause hey, I like those!- but for now, it's just the epitome of mediocre to me. It's not so bad that it's good/funny or something I hate so that I can watch it and be mad. It just.. lacks impact.


Overall - 5/10
And that sort of sucks.
The first episode sort of promised a summer-y anime about a more uncommon sport, and it could've been good, but due to the slow progression and the long stretches of nothing happening it's ultimately just boring to me. Pair that with the one- to barely two-dimensional characters and often lackluster animation and you have an anime that tries to make you feel like going out and jump from a diving platform but fails to do that.

I might update this once the anime is over, and I might even read the manga to see if the writing is better in there, but for now, I just have to say that Dive!! manages to be a mediocre anime through and through. It's not bad. It's not good.
It's right there in the middle, watchable and passable. Nothing that deserves hate, just something that fails at really doing what it wants to do.

And that's too bad, because I feel like more could've been done with it.