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It's most unusual for an anime to be about, and involve a topic, that the target audience already knows. A first line that makes you think "Well, I don't know how to plant rice, so that sentence is wrong".
I'm not talking about planting rice.
But this story isn't about planting rice alone, of course they plant rice and sometimes fight demons as the synopsis says, but that's assuming that planting rice isn't an activity humanity has done and improved on for ages, a span of time so long that took decades of arduous progress and development until the current state which doesn't even remotely resemble any ... of the techniques you actually see in this show, but if there's 1 thing that was necessary for that to happen, it wasn't ingenuity, or creativity, invention, progress, all of that comes after.

I'm talking about patience.

This is a story about patience and hard work, simple as that, and those themes are replicated into almost any facet of the story and characters, excluding developments that specifically occur to discuss the other side of the coin involving too much patience, or conformity, which I won't discuss because it involves heavy spoilers, just know this is one of those shows that argues against it's own messages and themes to truly dismantle them into a genuine exploration of the topic. -This is what good writing looks like, beyond storytelling and logic, even a bad story with a good thematic heart creates an outstanding product.
I can confidently say that this is one of the best videogame anime adaptations.

Sakuna's characters are honestly VERY annoying at the start of the show, they complain too much, they don't do anything but loaf around, and they actively act against their current situation. Being that 4 of the 6 main characters are children (albeit one of those a god), it's expected for you to hear them whine and display a lack of responsibility. THIS DOESN'T MEAN THE CHARACTERS ARE BAD, IT MEANS THEY HAVE A LOT OF SPACE TO DEVELOP.
I'm absolutely tired of the 2024 anime landscape where characters have to start off already strong, yes they can throw a ball 1000 meters with no training, yes they have effortlessly ridden the world of a horrible menace, but in the end, all it takes is for them to be immediately likable, and for secondary characters to constantly remind the audience about the character's supposed "weakness". Development for these characters is then forced and unnatural, where the writers simply create the illusion of progress without actually letting it feel earned.
Sakuna is not that show, in a breath of fresh air, these characters actually develop throughout the story into important roles for the survival of the group, they all get past their biases and past mistakes/incorrect assumptions. Come episode 12, I realized this show could make me emotional for the characters even with no more than those 12 episodes, because I've seen them grow and can compare the difference between their original selves and their new, better selves. I was happy and satisfied to see these characters grow with a real journey behind them, unlike the characters from most modern anime who use their "appealing personality" to carry their entire arc.
THIS is how Sakuna rewards patience. The characters grow slowly and steadily, mimicking the rice harvesting process, which is a ridiculous theme-story connection, but only a show about planting rice could do it successfully.
Not only that, but even if you remove the growth aspect of the equation, this show's characters have pretty simple yet interesting backstories, one of the characters is a 3 year old who has regressed to their 1 year old self due to severe trauma, and I think that is insane, trust me when I say that's far from the only surprise this cast has in store.

Being an adaptation of a videogame, the story is admittedly a little awkward, while I didn't feel it to be rushed at all, the plot has a lot of holes that are clearly explored in the source game and not in the show, it seems the writers preferred to focus on the great characters, losing some of the story in the process. I am more than fine with this, because as I already mentioned, this character driven show does that aspect spectacularly. The story too, is quite simple, Sakuna the brat is banished to the island where her parents met, so she can clean the island of demons while planting rice, because she's a harvest goddess so well cultivated rice increases her power. It's a simple premise and the execution isn't far off either, the first half of the show dedicates it's time to the story of the crew learning to harvest rice, with a few character-grounded episodes in between, while the later half explores the necessary steps to go deep into the mountain to destroy the evil demon within. The simplicity of the story is one of those aspects I find agreeable, so if you are reading this to figure out weather you want to watch the show, consider the story itself is simple, with the characters being the focus. That doesn't mean this story isn't emotional, I was genuinely surprised at how much the show managed to deliver emotional beats. Similarly, that doesn't mean the story is senseless, I was just less often surprised at how much plot points interconnected, tho I must confess they are often thematically relevant in discussing the virtues of rice farming as well.

We love us some fantastic animation, and I cannot say this show has "fantastic animation". I lean more towards "golden", it rarely feels unfinished or unpolished, but I won't pretend the most ambitious shot in the show isn't in the opening. It has some CGI rice, which off putted a lot of people out of watching the show at the start, but it's honestly not a big deal as the CGI doesn't play off the 2D animation too much, it's easy to dismiss it to the background because it's unimportant.
Where the show truly shines visually is the designs. HOLY are some of the designs in this show great! The main cast all has a different build and palette, which is one of the elements that originally attracted me to this show, watching the character of Tauemon be chonky next to an overgrown baby truly shows the range. Then you got the demon designs, including the absolutely cute bunnies and other animal monster creatures that are inspired by Yokai, I can say some of those design are a little uninspired, including a recurrent enemy that just looks like a Stalmoblin straight out of breath of the wild, but any important design tends to shine a lot more and express a ton of personality, that totally makes up for the mid-budget animation. This of course also applies to the general environment design of the game giving everything a pretty unique sheen as well.
I also appreciate the large amount of bunnies and unnecessary details that bring a lot of charm to the animation, despite it's limits.
I think sound is pretty much awesome. It's not the peak of sound design, but it doesn't stay short. Great soundtracks, and generally good voice acting, tho I imagine some people would be bothered at some of the squeaky voices and accents.

Ultimately, this is a show I'd rate pretty highly on characters and themes alone, all those aspects play off within eachother, making a satisfying watch that rewards those willing to get past the initial appearance of the characters, because they are an absolute highlight in a landscape where stories rarely dare to make through development without resorting to storytelling tricks.
It has souch an appealing and tranquil vibe but knows when to turn away from it to deliver on the experience, I believe it transmits the experience of growing rice through it's story, phasing and atmosphere, truly one of the biggest anime recommendations I can give!

Viewers of the first season should watch this one immediately, it's even better. And the show works best with all 24 episodes.
Look, Birdie Wing is one of the best sports shows out there, BUT! You need to have some tolerance for storytelling that goes fully to the “Awesome” side of the scale. It's not a show that is illogical or has big mistakes surrounding that awesomeness; it sets up a universe and world much like our own where these awesome things could happen, it doesn't come out of left field at any point, but it is NOT accurate to real life.

If you want a golf ... show that bothers explaining the technicalities of golf, you might not be in love with this show.
If you want a golf show that has the characters screaming the name of a special ability they might have inherited from their estranged father, then shoot the ball a metric of “over 270 yards”, while they have a flashback about their mother's infidelity to some other man…
Yeah, this show would be for you.

It's very ridiculous, but it's also very good! They try to mix the emotional core of the characters with their golf abilities, often putting focus on both at the same time in a rather peculiar manner that feels natural. The characters all develop around these events in their life that could be comparable to something from a korean drama, yet their stories and the tone isn't completely in disregard of the show's golf focus. It's still trying to remain grounded in having the characters golf using cool moves. It has more than a few moments where you and the characters will, as they say, “pop off”.

If you were distraught by the first season's drop of plot points like the mafia ones, do not worry! This season will continue those plots, which makes the ultimate complete product, including both seasons, feel several times more natural. It also evolves in a rather interesting direction, splitting the characters to make the challenges they will face more logical to their skill level. The show establishes both protagonists as incredible forces to be reckoned with, but then has them face off against believable opponents, explaining why these opponents came to be as good, or better, though not as completely as other shows who make properly memorable rivals. They are good, but I wouldn't say memorable…

The animation isn't top-notch, but it does generally look good. There are a few cuts that get repeated every few episodes, and then occasionally you get some of the craziest perspective shots you'll ever see. Many shows renown for their great animation should learn from this one about making good animation by picking unusual framing and perspectives. Too bad those shots aren't a large portion of the show. The rest looks alright, I suppose, unless it's golf related, almost all the golfing stuff is very well animated, both the balls and the character's anatomy and movement when swinging.

The rhythm of this season is more satisfying than the first, as the show takes on a more standard direction for development, establishing goals for the characters to achieve and then showing what occurs from that. If you didn't like that the first season didn't have tournaments or opponents after a certain point, be glad they are back!
Everything else is very similar in quality to the first season. The characters do repeat a few things a few times more than they should, and sometimes the writers don't take the more complex path of figuring out new solutions for the way the characters overcome a challenge. Heck, sometimes the challenge is done as a means to be poetic, which ends up on the shallow use of tropes.

It's far from a perfect show in terms of writing, it commits many mistakes and uses more than a few tropes. Still, the issues are minor when you consider the show puts Awesomeness over realism, which I still believe to be an incredible approach to the show's storytelling, and I recommend you look into it, even if remotely interested.

Ooofie, I think that's a very effective way to describe how this 10 episode collection of Ousama Ranking related side stories comes off as; While it can be really enjoyable to spend some more time with the characters outside the drama and plot of the parent series, it really had me wondering… “Why”?
Why did this need to happen?, were people so starved for Ousama Ranking content that 10 episodes of random shenanigans that happened off-screen was really worth our time? The answer is no. A BIG no.

This is NOT season 2 of Ousama Ranking, so don't get discouraged from watching the main show over ... this spin-off's rating or reviews.

So it's a 10 episode journey through different moments of the show, mostly on what happened alongside those moments. Which range from showing us how Ouken, a mayor villain of the show's first season, came to be, to episodes where the entire show's continuity and established world are disregarded to tell cute and wholesome stories. The problem is; these stories do NOTHING, they don't change how decisions the characters make come off, don't give any more information about a character's motivations or background, and it doesn't have anything to say about the world. It occasionally does one of these, yes, but it's rare and won't be likely to really affect the main show in the long run.

Couldn't we have gotten a look at the broader Ousama ranking world? Other kingdoms or characters who won't get as fleshed out in the manga series or the anime? New original stories? When it doesn't work, it feels like a wasted opportunity to really get into many interesting topics of the series, instead, it's just reestablishing things we've already seen. And when it works, it's not telling anything too new, just expanding on old ideas again.

The Characters? None get arcs because there is no overarching plot. This also makes all of them less appealing.
The Animation? Not as clean as the main show's because they evidently have less budget and fights hint at conflict, which this spin-off avoids at all costs.
The Music? Uninteresting.

If you're a certified Ousama Ranking enjoyer like me, check out the show with freedom to skip any story you don't care about, you'll miss nothing on almost every story told here. You'll like this show more than the average person if the flowers and spice and the everything nice is enjoyable to you.

If you just like ousama ranking or lower, then skip this, it won't be worthwhile.

Crazy Diamond's Demonic Heartbreak is by far the most solid jojo spin-off that has released to date, it's got the same style as Purple Haze Feedback does, where it feels like you're just getting jojo if Araki wasn't being a menace to strangeness at every chance he gets. As would be expected, since Kouhei Kadano is back as the lead writer.
And honestly, it turns out it's not far off from something you'd see in jojo itself, with its approach being really creative, as it attempts to mix the sort of fights you could see in parts 3-6 with the rhythm and phasing of the storytelling ... in Part 7 and 8, honestly, I believe their "attempt" was extremely successful!

So that's for you all who are asking about how this compares to actual jojo; It's a more grounded version of jojo, led by a writer who tried their best to match the style and personality of jojo but doesn't quite get there only because the style it's mimicking derives a lot from the author's personality.

Now onto the actual manga, besides comparisons (tho I will mention things about the callbacks they make to part 3/4).
The story is fairly simple, the surviving members of Dio's henchmen, several years after the events of part 3, take up the job of finding a parrot that was trained alongside Dio's very own Pet Shop. As it turns out, not only does the parrot have a stand capable of creating extremely realistic illusions, but it's also residing in part 4's Morioh, leading to an unlikely team up between Josuke Higashikata and Hol Horse. And for how basic it seems, just putting together two characters that Araki himself wished to write more about, the result ends up being a really cool dynamic between the two.
The story isn't really that crazy, and it doesn't have a lot of plot points, but that's something which definitely works on its favor; They focus on the character interactions rather than some complex stand dynamics. The fights are absolutely solid in giving a tactical yet fun experience, with the character abilities being used in many creative ways, so it's interesting. But I must say the plot and fights are somewhat predictable, particularly because they are straightforward. It seems like the quaint duration of the chapters and overall manga is leading to some things being far too simplified, perhaps so in favor of the fan service.
On that note, a positive and negative thing about this comic is that it sorta expects you to be familiar with jojo and the characters, so new audiences might have trouble really understanding what's going on, while, on the flip side, old audiences don't have to get through redundant explanations. They do explain stands, there was an attempt, but they give you the most bare-bones explanations, and that's fine for what it is, to be fair.

The characters all really shine though, they avoided this sense of "the jojo part team" by having the characters be strangers with the same goal, it leads to unique interactions and drama being created. The new set of characters created exclusively for this comic are incredibly interesting, such as Ryoko Kakyoin, who is, in fact, good ol' Kakyoin's cousin. She's totally a highlight character in this comic, not only is she SUPER fun to read, but she's also filling in that void that has been filled for all the other part 3 character's, by showing their legacy and futures somewhat. I absolutely adore her design to boot. She's trying to figure out what the heck happened to kakyoin, and I think they have done an amazing job at making this a mystery, even when part 3 writers/viewers already know what it was about.
The focus here is not kakyoin, but rather, Dio. Dio is an important part of this manga, as the old members from his team live in perpetual fear of him, even if they are aware of his death. This built a fascinating approach to revisiting these characters, some feeling remorse over their own weakness when confronted by him, others feeling regret at how following Dio turned out. So the characters are really cool, they are just like you might remember them, but with a few new traits to highlight how 12 years have passed.
There's a few minor part 4 characters here that didn't get enough time in part 4, so it's nice to see the writer being mindful of those characters and details.

Tasuku Karasuma of No Guns Life fame is the illustrator for this comic, and while the images he's drawing for Demonic Heartbreak aren't as impressive as his work on his own comics, I think he did a fantastic job overall though, the fusion between his own style and the jojo style was really pinpointed, and some panels and scenes look more than amazing. The way the environments and characters are drawn is incredibly detailed and precise, oftentimes capturing the essence of the scene and characters perfectly.
I particularly enjoyed that the panels are made with some cinematography in mind, giving the readers some unique pieces. I like that the panels help make it all easy to follow by not jumping too broadly, but the lack of movement dynamics do affect the fluidity of the manga. Besides some occasionally misplaced bubbles, there are no mayor mistakes.
It's just gorgeous to look at in general, the artist gets to shine through while giving us a different way to look at the jojo art style.

So yeah, of all the jojo spinoffs, I'd recommend this one, partially for having an overarching plot, partially because it feels genuine to the source material. I would not be surprised if people started taking this as potentially cannon, it's that clean.
I love the fan service, we really are getting more content on stuff we've always wanted to see, and the writer being a clear fan of jojo can help make this a memorable experience.

TLDR: No Kars in the moon so far, so I'd say give it a go.

Alright, I'll say it: I think FLCL Alternative is a really good show.
And this next one is gonna break some of your brains: I think FLCL Alternative is Objectively better than FLCL.

Now's when explosions happen and the anime opening starts.

It's just a generally better built experience, from the characters to the comedy. And it's not at all unfamiliar or different from FLCL, it's simply a more grounded look at the themes of the original, removing unnecessary plotpoints and actually linking the events that happen throughout the story, all without going ballistically experimental to help audiences pretend like it's smarter than it is.

Here's a big example: ... Medical Mechanica.
Medical Mechanica refers to the corporation responsible behind the absolute massive irons that just happen to be there. It's such a striking visual image seen in FLCL as well as basically the main antagonist of the FLCL franchise; it's only natural it came back. What in FLCL was a funny gag used to bring forth senseless concepts, Alternative used as an extension to it's senselessness. What had a vague purpose in the original FLCL was made into a massive plot point here, a plot point which utilized the idea FLCL came up with and actually made something out of it. Tho I won't say exactly why to avoid spilers.

This is something you'll see all the time here, they naturally evolved the ideas from FLCL to build an actual story instead of an abstract landscape.

One of my favorite things about Alternative is how it escalates, what begins as a boring and mundane slice of life story slowly becomes more ridiculous and unrealistic as the episodes go by, eventually ending on an absolutely ridiculous ending that rivals that of Madoka Magika's. And this is reflected through all of it's aspects, be it animation, writing and plot development.... but most importantly, through it's characters.

You know how FLCL would have all theses metaphors to adolescence and growing up that ultimately often amounted to "Haha, Boner"? Okay, so how about actually adding themes involving the coming of age? That's what Alternative is here to do. At it's core, FLCL alternative is about adulthood, what it means to grow up and the way it feels. The characters have realistic stories and development despite all the chaos, and little to no focus is made on crushes or adolescent drama; You're watching the story and metaphors from FLCL be done in a more mature and logical way, looking at characters who need to learn to take responsibility and be as close to adults as they possibly manage, all of a sudden, it's genuinely amazing. The tone and style of FLCL was used properly to highlight how overwhelming and disruptive that change can be, all whist avoiding going off the rails for the sake of a cool visual or half baked plot point.

Music by The Pillows is also used much more appropriately, what seemed like a style choice in FLCL was once again made better by being properly blended into the show, they built around the music instead of slapping any old song by the artists like Progressive did. It actually feels like the music belongs where it is in most of the scenes featuring it.

What I did become saddened about is the animation in general, whilst it's nothing BUT glorious, it's true the experimentation from FLCL is completely gone, mostly shoved to side pieces like the environments without many other visually peculiar things, although a few show up, particularly near the end. Sure, that's probably done once again to bring out how ridiculous the situation has gotten between episodes 1 and 6, but some more experimentation would have been great for the show. THIS is the only aspect that FLCL actually has over Alternative.

I love animation, but an animation without a good story is not appealing to me, I like fiction more than raw animation. If you have a brain that enjoys being able to follow a story instead of a weird artsy circle jerk, then Alternative is going to be way better than FLCL for you, and I think more people need to learn to value one of the best coming of age stories out there. It's such a shame it mostly gets shafted because people have a nostalgic N. O. for the original FLCL.

if FLCL was Foolishly cool. FLCL alternative is cool foolishly. Perhaps because people don't let it be Fully Cool. Okay, I'll stop now, sorry.

TLDR: Anyone who calls this mediocre or a bad sequel to FLCL is not just wrong, but also stupid. Thank you very much.

Ask me anything; I'll be the first one to tell you I love danganronpa, for a long time now too, I wanted to make a Fanganronpa by the time 2 came out. BUT, if there's something I find redundant is excusing mediocrity trough legacy.

Right of the bat, you can tell that everything here was created with a purpose: Promote a high budget game by a popular group. Because this anime is nothing more than a marketing campaign, to the point where they slap a QR code to their main site -front and center- in one of the first episodes. Anyone who has ... seen the promotional material of tribe nine can easily tell a lot of budget is going into the game, and it's mobile nature will easily lend itself to monetization. This anime is only here to boost the game, because it doesn't compare in Visual or Written quality to anything realistically passable, and I can only hope they believe the game will do a better job at it all.

Story:
So, it's a story about a new Extreme baseball, right? It'd be logical that they explain what is still the same as in baseball, and what is new to this modality, but they never bother to. Suddenly you got people scoring points for touching first base, then next episode, the sides aren't changed once a team accumulates 4 outs, next episode, NOW they respect conventional rules.
I don't know anything about baseball, couldn't name a single team, but if I can tell something is off from the most basic knowledge I got from Wii Sports, you've done something wrong with your sports anime.
They never even tell you who's on first most of the time. But the story itself isn't especially bad, you're at least going to be entertained, and it's very consistent, so there's no parts that are especially good or bad.
Note; that's just the bare minimum.
There's no giant tonal shifts or unbelievable moments within the scope of the story, and nothing struck me as out of left field. That also means that it's mostly predictable, and the unpredictable parts are more often than not just the characters being dumb and doing illogical things for strange reasons...
On that Note about characters.

Characters:
And the characters, they become smarter or dumber for whatever the plot finds accommodating.
For example, one of the characters tells another that 1- They're terminally sick and need to drink their medicine for it, and 2- "I'm going to raise a death flag" then proceeding to give out a will...
And yet this other character doesn't bother to do anything about it, it's like the dying character decided to die and the other one allowed them, because the plot would see it fitting. No insistence.
The few characters that have arcs kinda work, but most of them don't have anything going for them, they are very inconsistent too with their personalities and ideas, but I'll let you decide weather or not that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Sound:
But you know what's INFINITELY more horrid? SOUND DESIGN.
I swear to you, I can't recall a single anime with sound design so bad, it's actually adding difficulty when watching. I've seen some things like the damn Bible Black dub, which actively attempts to be bad, and yet it's still better than this.
Masafumi Takada, composer of this soundtrack, IS A GOD, he makes the best music, but I don't understand what COMPELLED them to mix the music at the same volume as the vocals!!
That's right!
If the characters are having a big emotional moments, all you can hear is Takada's viper slamming on the table.
Again, all the respect to the composer, but you actually have to tune your ears to listen to the japanese audio.

WATCH THE DUB.
If you value the ability to listen, avoid the japanese version at all costs.

I'd regularly say "well, the seiju are [this] and [that]", but I can't properly listen to their work under the hellscape that is my brain during the watching experience. it's distracting and disrespectful to the voice actors, yet such a basic concept that it's unfathomable to mess it up. If people on youtube can slap a compressor on their background music, I don't see why an anime studio can't

Art:
Now, here's the commendable part, right? The designs are really good, right!?
No, but also yes.
Look, I can complain about the plethora of characters that look like danganronpa redesigns, in fact, I call most characters stuff like "Kaito 2" and "Chihiro 2", but that's not the anime's fault. If anything, I'm glad to see the character designer is actually making characters that don't look like "X 2".
By themselves, they are probably the best part of this anime, colorful, memorable, one of them is just a chubby human pikachu guy! (later a moropeko) It's not anywhere near bad. If the animation was up to par, there would be no complaints, but of course, most art is very 2 dimensional. that's not to say the more ambitiously animated scenes look bad and have huge mistakes, but it's fair to say they are at least pretty jagged, so don't expect the prettiest animation. If the characters weren't as nicely designed, then there probably wouldn't be any saving grace for a lot of these visuals. There's a huge missed opportunity with these cyberpunky environments getting boring background art.

I'm down to watch anything Tookyo puts out, I like the people working behind the projects, I know they have what it takes, they create amazing stories, but I'm sad to say this story is simply not one of them, go watch akudama drive instead if you're looking for something more on par with danganronpa.
Overall it's very average, and it's bound to be better received trough it's legacy, but I personally see a lot of the things the show does that are inexcusable, and any positive review is probably attributed to the legacy of danganronpa, their creators, designers and writers.
For it's own merits, the show does not stand as anything good, it's fun, but "fun" can be 300,000 different shows.

This might not be worth your time if you're not interested in the game this serves to promote.

You know, madoka magica came with a curse, and that is: all other similar shows just feel like rehashes of the same concept and ideas. Oooh the magical girls are all killing each other!!
I thought this anime was just another madoka magica ripoff, same as most other people who left reviews, and yet, a few years later, I start to realize how decent this anime is beneath it's premise.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's original with it's way of handling the exact same idea, but it just executes it in a FAR superior way. Maybe it's the characters, or the situations they put ... them in, but I'm damn sure this anime can perfectly classify as an horror show because you actually TENSE UP when watching it. Something about the way it's built made me come out of most episodes with a serious case of the shakes, something which no anime has done, even when they are supposed to straight up be horror anime.

It's probably the most raw anime in this subgenre, where the characters attempt to kill each other in a realistic and brutal way, minus the magical girling of course, they don't use giant guns or become threatened by giant monsters, instead they stab and shoot eachother in a generally mundane way. There's a certain death where the killer is throwing bullets and bombs for over 2 minutes, not freaking out, just coldly but surely. It seems more like a battle royale than a magical girls killing each other show, with less than 3 deaths being actually results of magic.

It also has an amazing set of characters, particularly Swim Swim, I think she might just be one of the best anime villains in retrospective. What at first seems like a controlled yet ruthless character turns out to be the most sadistic and uncontrollable character, not because she's very brutal in her actions, but because you can sense an order to her lack of control. Not exactly calculated, just orderly.

The other characters are also great, a lot of them have great backstories and determination. I like that the show made itself a little premise before the premise too, they could have easily fooled viewers to think the first episode was a normal magical girls anime because they made it seem like a completely logical premise for a show like it. The protagonist is the typical wimpy girl, but she is never consolidated nor does she ever develop any backbone, this leads to her constantly being put down, the other characters act like she's an idiot because she IS indeed an idiot, it's strangely different...

So while I don't claim it's perfect, it DELIVERS when it comes to emotional impact, even characters with predictable plot and arcs manage to drive an emotion out of you thanks to the music and character writing. if some of it isn't special, I can at least say I've never had the same experience with any other anime before or since. An achievement for sure.

Takt Op. Destiny is a show that has no tact to it.
And I'm not talking just about the 'waifu bait' people keep bringing up, I'm talking about everything else that it represents. It's by far the most generic trash anime that I've seen in EVERY single characteristic. Sure, there's the whole part with using music as it's main theme, all music anime have some sort of ground to stand on even when they are accumulated crap within a clogged toilet, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The art... It's NOT GOOD. I'm tired of people assuming that these studios animate well, when in ... fact they do the bare minimum. I get it if stuff doesn't look perfect, but everything here is done in the cheapest way possible; The cut corners everywhere... They end up making triangles out of their walls. And it's not even a thing that happens rarely, it's in the DAMN opening. Art looking zoomed in for no reason, backgrounds with inconsistent lighting, Characters with missmatched framerate in the same shot, characters teleporting after 3 smear frames of them in their initial position. Nothing has bounce, or look, or style, or anything for that matter, except an abundance of trash frames -or lack of them, randomly-. It's trying to trick you into thinking it's got good animation the same way they often do. They try their hardest to make everything MOVE. More movement doesn't mean better animation! The fact that characters move from one spot to the other in singular frames 5 times in a row doesn't make a visually stunning scene, it only makes for some confusing visual trick that gave 5 frames to something that needed 20. If I can't tell what's going on during the battles, you've done a bad job as a story teller. Maybe you animate real good, but making stuff clear is the bare minimum.

The characters? the protagonist: Generic guy, looks like Joker from Persona 5 which is SUPPOSED to be generic. He lacks an arm during most of his appearances, because apparently symmetry is not a concept this anime understands.
The main girl: Silent robot girl with white hair and red highlights and she likes to eat sweets a lot. Wow, that's unexpected, her personality must be so deep!
The other main girl: She looks like a boring version of Athena Sykes, except she's even more slapped on to the story.
The only character I enjoyed was a dude named "Lenny", and mostly because I'd make fun of how his abs are designed so badly it looks like he's got four pecs.

And if the characters are bad... Do I need to tell you what the story is? Probably, but I don't feel like it.

The only thing that is kinda commendable in this show is the sound design, at least the piano recordings are human, which just means they probably got it from a stock music place, because classical music is so common, you don't even need to get new assets. I guess the 3D animation team did a great job syncing the piano sounds with the hands, but of course, that won't get any recognition because it's 3D....

I'm was bored of this show after 2 episodes, now it's been 5 and I'm just uninterested. This isn't an enjoyable show, it just banks on trying it's best to make everything seem larger or more impressive than it is. Don't be fooled by the studio names on the credits, this is a cheap product made by people who know how to make cheap products that don't look cheap.

So cop craft is an anime about buddy cops but there's some racism involved because the main duo is a human and a magic elf/fairy teenage girl.

You see, cop craft does the white cop, black cop trope but without a black cop and magic, it's honestly a pretty generic setup but the anime works with it surprisingly well, it's an enjoyable experience that has some flaws but it's overall very well rounded. I think the highlight is probably the world, as it's very well defined, to the point where fake languages sound believable and characters are as varied as they are in real life. Heck, ... even the signs mostly written in English as this anime is heavily directed towards western audiences.

Which is one of the reasons to watch the anime by the way. I think the highlights of this anime are it's opening cuz it's a bop, well animated, and the text (which is in English) is incorporated into the scenes nicely and the analogies for racism and communism in universe.

The characters are pretty cool, although most of the characters in the opening straight up don't appear for more than 3 episodes. But that's because the show mainly centers on the two main protagonists and doesn't pay much mind to other characters. That doesn't mean the other characters don't have personality, but some of them lack even the smallest bit of development, however, because of that, the main buds manage to have a very polished arc which you'll prolly enjoy.

The music never stood out for me, except for the opening and ending songs. It's not the best music, but it's also not unpleasant.

So what's the biggest flaw of this anime? The animation, by FAR the animation. There are just a few too many stills and very little going on in action sequences, if the animation of the whole show was like that of the opening, it would probably have been one of the best anime this season! Sadly, it isn't too great visually, they try to keep the stills interesting, but it's just not enough to satisfy the animation standard that good anime is taking recently.

So, you should still watch the anime. unless you don't like buddy cop stories, you'll enjoy it! Don't expect the best thing you've ever seen, but do expect a great narrative and universe.

People need to stop saying OPM Season 2 is bad.
Don't get me wrong, I understand why that happens, season 1 was so amazingly outstanding that fans where up for disappointment, but it isn't bad.

Here's the thing, for my review I'll compare season 1 to season 2, and show exactly my thoughts.

First, the story, the bread and butter: Season 1: 9, Season 2: 8
Well, One Punch Man is not the best show for it's story, because there really isn't much to see in there, both seasons handle it similarly, however, season 2 has odd phasing and it's still good it doesn't quite flow the same way.

Art: ... Season 1: 10, Season 2: 7.
This is the big hit that leads people to shit into this anime, it looks.... not like season 1. That's about it. it's not outstanding, but it's clear that they tried several times to reach a similar quality of animation even if they fail a bit sometimes. Yet it's way too safe, the characters almost always look on model, unless for a gag that is literally the "OK" joke or trying to mimic the original web comic. It's not bad in quality, just not as good.

Sound: I don't talk about it, but the Opening in S2 is not as fire. No one will ever shout "Hero" to refer to this opening... So yeah. The song has something going for it in the chorus though.

Characters: S1: 10, S2: 10.
It's just more cool characters, just like season 1 had, except maybe some are a bit more bland, regardless the way they handle the characters is just as good here as it was last time, you'll still like they characters and they are still portrayed perfectly trough design and animation. No complains here.

BTW, I find this season just as enjoyable, even if not as good. You watched season 1? Then by all means watch this one.

So TLDR; Not as good as season 1, but still has great quality and charm, just has less flare and normal animation.