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Hallo hallo o/

Sorry for the late-ish reply but good luck on your upcoming exams \o/ I know in Germany you have final exam in February as opposed to us Americans which are usually in December/ May.
I see that you're enjoying Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, it's my favorite anime so I hope it treats you well and might I tell you that the last few episodes are damn near perfection when it comes to story telling. It's well written and stay true to the manga as well. If you have not watched the original FMA you might have robbed yourself of a good experience since the order of shows should be FMA and then FMAB. Although both are two different shows aside from the first few episodes, FMA is great but pales in comparison compared to people who have completed FMAB.
I added Re: Life to my plan to watch but I am not sure when I'll be getting to it .-. However since you mentioned reliving youth, I'd suggest Non Non Biyori since the show gives you an idea of what it feels like to be a kid again and is an all around pleasure to watch.
As for Winter 2017; aside from Konosuba S2 and eventually watching Tales of Zestiria S2, I have not found much interest in this seasons shows. I might watch the Little Witch Academia series soon but I have been enjoying some really good shows from the past 2-3 years.

I have a couple other recommendations I can pass your way you can look into if you have time/ need shows to fill a void in your list:
Akatsuki no Yona (Yona of the Dawn): Amazing story with an enjoyable cast of characters. You'll like this show if you grew up reading storybooks of kings, queens/ princes/ princesses. Take a couple episodes to get into since it's a progressive adventure but I'd say 6-8 episodes should suffice.
Boku dake ga Inai Machi (Erased): Very interesting story with amazing cliffhangers that will make you wish you schedule in more time to watch it. Although it is short (12 episodes), they will pass by so quickly. Within 2 eps if you're enjoying it you'll feel like completing it immediately.

Anyways, once again good luck on your studies and don't feel obligated to respond until they are over \o/
Take care and stay well ~

Of course of course ^^
Hope 2017 is treating you well
Hmmm now that I think of it, I might have some series to recommend to you. Recently I finished Akatsuki no Yona and found it to be quite the watch for comedy, romance, and adventure. I’d suggest giving that a shot since it became one of my favorites halfway through the show. Most/ all the characters were likable and the episodes just flow from one to the other which gave me reasons to keep watching.

But I agree on Fall 2016 being a letdown. Aside from Yuri on Ice and Haikyuu S3, I didn’t find any shows worth he time. Hopefully some of the stuff from Winter 2017 surprises me and gives me a reason to watch.

Take care o/

Hope you had a wonderful new years friend o/

Take care and enjoy the new year :)

Stay warm ~

Hello hello friend :)

It’s quite alright, I’m not the best at responding on time either especially recently due to work but I appreciate the responses regardless. And ouch double-shifts is no fun but I guess you’re still getting compensated for it (or at least I hope you are)
And oh boi oh boi I love hearing about Kimi no Na Wa since every person I’ve recommended it to have either raved about it or told me nothing but good things.
I see where you’re coming from with the criticisms since I myself initially thought the movie was a 10/10 but I slowly scaled back and saw some of the flaws/ minor details that brought me to a humbling 9. The story did feel like it was getting crammed in a lot of the time. Since I try my best to avoid summaries of shows and movies before watching I knew nothing about it going into the first viewing. At first seeing Mitsuha touching her breasts up waking up made me think “don’t tell me it’s hyped for all the wrong reasons.” It took me a couple minutes to grasp what was going on and halfway through the film I felt it was going to end and was hoping it didn’t. It only felt that way because so much had happened prior that I couldn’t tell how much time had passed in the movie. But that’s not a problem for me because it shows I was fully invested in what was going on and didn’t want it to end.

I wrote a review for the film on MAL (self-promotion :) ) but I heavily praised the OST. Radwimps knocked it out of the park in terms of what a good soundtrack should sound like. I have some of my favorites downloaded and listen to them way more frequently than I should on my way to and back from work or if I’m just relaxing. The soundtrack alone has a good mix of upbeat and relaxing and alone is enough to make you feel like you’re in a different scenario depending on the song. I really like how if you try to remember the part of the movie the song came from you can imagine what was going on perfectly since it was edited into the movie so perfectly. Crying on your way to work shows that regardless of language or tastes, things can reach you and change how you feel going forward with your day. If the movie finished and I didn’t feel any different at the end, then I’d say I didn’t watch attentively or it wasn’t my preferred kind of movie. Overall, Kimi no Na Wa did justice and deserves the rating I gave it.

When it comes to the story, I think I mentioned in my review that it wasn’t the strongest but it was still good. However, it was something I’ve seen before but I think this movie took it another step further. The characters were enjoyable, albeit the way they were drawn kind of made them look a bit generic and like other anime characters but it’s just a small blip in the whole spectrum of the time and space that this film takes you through. I really enjoyed the first half of the movie where they were just living out lives in each other’s bodies because I know many people wish “oh I wish I could be that person for a day” and in this movie something similar happens. Except the difference is that you don’t know whose body you’re in. There were several moments in this movie where I went “noooo not like dis” because things just got really bad and I didn’t want to see the characters go through it but I knew it had to be done for the viewer (me) to care. I was invested in their lives and hoped that they succeeded in making things work upon waking up in the others body. I also really enjoyed the process of them finding out more about the person through their surroundings and how people normally approached them.

The film did run into some troubles of finding a time and place to go over the various other aspects of the 2 MC’s lives in each other’s bodies I think it was handled properly through time lapse’s + music. Sure the time constraint did hurt the movie in terms of what else they could have done with it, I’m glad they kept a pace (although a rapid one), it kept me invested the whole time. I made sure not to look away (also cause the subs were kind of hard to read) but I needed to know what was going to happen next. Although Taki had a date with his co-worker, a part of me was like “oh…nice” but at the same time “but she’s not in my OTP.” I’ve watched some other stuff by Makoto Shinkai like 5 Centimeters Per Second and The Garden of Words but I think Your Name (Kimi no Na wa) is his best product yet. The other two were alright but significantly shorter. I will say that I did not enjoy the other two as much mostly due to story, although the art work in both were amazing. However, Kimi no Na wa had the time, the story, artwork, music and everything else in between to make it stand out of the bunch.

I plan to rewatch this eventually because the first viewing wasn’t high quality and it was littered with watermarks and various other text which kind of took away from the visuals in some scenes but I didn’t penalize it for that. I’m pretty sure if I had seen this in HD with plain English subs I would have no complaints anyways.
The pleasure is all mine to know you enjoyed my recommendation: D I look forward to recommending you more stuff when the time comes and I find some good shows/ movies to send your way. Thank you for the compliments and I hope to hear from you soon ^^

No problem :)
I saw your long response and thought “oh it’s about time I get to write a lot on someone’s wall again.” It was fun writing about a show because it felt more like analyzing/ reviewing the things we liked and didn’t like about the show. Toradora is one of the more popular Slice of Life shows that gets brought up a lot. Aside from Shigatsu I think Toradora is one of the most talked about among my friends and most of whom have watched it said they really enjoyed it.

Yes, please do check those movies/ show out because I really liked them and want to hear about what other people think about them as well. Although the descriptions were short (1 sentence; if anything) but I tried to give the best spoiler free overview of it.

Also I see where you’re coming from with Clannad. I usually watch a show based on feeling/ desire to watch the show. Some days I’ll wake up and think “today I want to watch Fairy Tail,” or “Today I feel like watching some Slice of Life.” Usually when I complete a show I like to look up stuff about it and if I find something I didn’t catch the first time I go back into the episode(s) to confirm. Also if I don’t end up doing that, I re-watch the show a second time (preferably with a friend) mostly to tell them “look at this amazing show I watched.” There are some spoilers I’ve heard about in Clannad but they are a bit hazy in my memory so the longer I prolong it, maybe the memory of the spoiler will go away.

As for shows like FMA/ FMAB; how’d you feel about them? Cause I watched FMA first and then FMAB and I appreciate both series; although FMA had a weaker ending I still enjoyed the humanistic approach to it whereas FMAB took a more fantasy/ religious route. It is still my all-time favorite show because I have yet to watch another show that left me feeling as empty upon completion as FMAB did. A lot of people dislike shounen but FMAB was something special and it gave me very few reasons to dislike anything about it and if I did it was to get me engaged and immersed into the characters/ show.

It's not stalking if it’s there :) I’m glad to know people read my bio because I try my best to read other people’s when I go on their profile but I wasn’t sure if people bothered with mine. I have a bunch of friends who are INFP and yes the descriptions are sometimes scarily accurate. They do try to generalize some of those descriptions so it can fit a broad variety of people. Most of whom have took the test and told me about it have said that the results are pretty accurate and very few diverge from the result. I like to take it every year to see if I have changed in any which way.
Personally I was given ISTJ for the first few years but more recently I got swapped over to ENFJ which I kind of disagree with. Sure I’m a bit more social but it all depends on who I surround myself around. I still think I’m an ISTJ at heart but ENFJ could be the road I’m headed towards. Another way of putting it would be, I’m an ISTJ but I want to be like an ENFJ.

Regardless, hope all is well ^^ Hope to hear from you soon o/

Heyo o/

I remember you dude :) I’m glad your thesis is complete now and you finally get to take the weight off your shoulders. Getting date from regions outside your own can prove to be quite difficult. I had a professor who had to attain data from Indonesia while still in the sates and even that was a very long and strenuous process. I hope everything related to your thesis went well and you can now relax, sit back and watch some shows. But yes I do recall out conversation about Toradora. At the time we last spoke I was only a couple episodes away from being halfway through the series.

My general viewpoint on Toradora is that the first half of the show did not really peak my interest and I kind of watched to mostly eventually get to the good stuff. It’s hard for me to compare slice of life shows sometimes because they all bring out different emotions from me all based on the show. Toradora has a plethora of funny moments but many of them were not really stand out for me and the humor kind of seemed a bit too childish for me. However, I was immersed in the big story points such as family, friendship, companionship and loss of loved ones. I mostly watch anime late at night, usually right before bed and that’s mostly because it allows me to digest and think about the show right before I sleep. I have also seen Anohana and will say certain lines and actions made me cry from the show but for the most part I wasn’t as immersed and interested in the characters. Clannad is a show I have heard a lot about but I have not given it a show mostly because it is THE sad slice of life anime that everyone talks about and I want to save it for later. So far I have seen Shigatsu and Wolf Children (the movie) both of which have left me feeling all sorts of ways upon completion. I know you have seen Shigatsu but I do think you should give Wolf Children a try.

Animation wise I cannot speak much on it but I had no issues with the way the characters were drawn. Everything seemed fine with me and I liked the colors used to differentiate the main characters. Those are some small/ big things that can help a viewer remember who is who and also just refer to someone easier if you forget the name. I’m not a huge fan of “moe” as well and I found Ami to look great. I found Ami to be great looking and Minori was also adorable. Even Taiga, the MC, was drawn to be cute looking.

I think where we differ in opinions has to start with Minori. I actually loved her character and appreciated how hard working she was. She’s the kind of girl that gives up a lot of her time just to make sure her family and friends are doing well. Working several part time jobs, playing sports as well as on top of doing school work is a lot to handle. Although she was kind of annoying but her personality is supposed to be that best friend a person has that is the total opposite of them. Unlike Taiga, Minori is complete loose cannon when she’s talking and can tend to go on and on about nonsensical chit chat and jibber jabber. Ami is the perfect example of a girl who is insecure and needs attention and other people’s involvement in her life to make herself feel important. The moment her character archetype was revealed in the restaurant during the “double date” I saw exactly who she was. I did not hate Ami because I’ve seen plenty of girls who are similar to her throughout my ears of school (probably not to her extent) but they are sort of like hollow shells. They need other people’s compliments and words to fill them up and make themselves feel important. Ami did show throughout several scenes in the show that she can care for her friends and have their back but sometimes her ego/ jealousy kind of gets the best of her. Ami is by no means a genius but she can come off as manipulative, kind of like Taiga except Taiga does it to either better her relationship with others while Ami is mostly in it for herself. Aside from Ryuuji, I will say that Ami is actually quite the mature character and I don’t mean that in a physical representation but she has the most “real world” experience. I felt bad for her during the whole stalker episode and as someone who lives in the city, those kinds of people are the worst and really need to re-evaluate their lives.
This is a very unpopular opinion among my friends but I really liked Ryuuji’s mom. Not from the sense of physical attraction but as to how much she put up with just to provide for her son. Single moms deserve way more credit and attention along with how her parents felt about her just made me feel sad inside. Although she came home to fall asleep and relied on Ryuuji to cook/ clean, she was doing her best to keep the roof over his head and Ryuuji was very appreciative and willing to do the housework. When she was telling Ryu to go to college I saw that her intentions were never clouded and had a plan for him to succeed all along. Like I mentioned earlier, family is a huge factor for me in this show and I think the writers did an outstanding job at portraying both family tension (Taiga) and support (Ryu) through the MC’s. Inko on the other hand, I’m different about. Regardless of whether Inko was in the show I wouldn’t really care too much if he was gone but he did nothing to change my views on the show. It’s some points for humor to be added but I was not invested in the show for humor.

Now finally we come to the main characters. I will speak on Taiga first because her character took some time to grow on me. Coming into the show I knew I was going to expect a short, tsundere, sparkplug. What I got was exactly what I expected. Taiga came off as bossy to me and seemed like she was mostly a school bully trying to push her weight around to get what she wanted. However, when I saw her love interest, I instantly knew “this can’t happen.” There were too many signs pointing to the fact that Kitamura was interested in someone else. First off, he came off way too nice and when it was revealed that he asked out Taiga in the past but got shut down I figured it was not going to happen. When the whole Kitamura and school president incident started, I knew Taiga was going to have to back off. The way Taiga’s character warmed up to me was through her lifestyle and when Ryuuji took a tour of her house. She lived alone and most of the funding came from a dead-beat dad that only came around when he wanted to “check up on her.” Students like Taiga are often labeled as kids who come from “bad homes” but to be fair she didn’t even have a home. Living in an apartment alone is not someplace I’d call home, it’s just a residence. When she starts coming over to Ryuuji’s place for meals I knew that it was obvious she just needed someone to be around. Even though she was always over at Ryu’s place whether be to go over plans or hang out, it was building up the relationship between them and the inner fan in me was screaming “they have to be a thing by the end of the show or I’ll be disappointed.” Not to mention when she also tried getting Ryu and Minori together I was hoping it wouldn’t work out in the kindest way possible because I did not want to have both characters to feel bad coming out of it. Overall, through family hardship and her relationship with Ryuuji, Taiga became a memorable character. Her actions and explosive attitude are engraved into my memory.

Now, for Ryuuji. The character I related to the most. It is no lie that Ryu is a hardworker evident from his concern for friends, mother, Inko. But all the small things add up and complete who he is. Cooking, Cleaning, Sewing, etc. The guy is the total package for what I’d say a great guy is. I’m also glad the creators of the show did not go for a bad-boy school romance character. I was not interested in looking for the MC of Grease in a show like this. Ryu is the guy who has a tough time saying “no” when someone tells him to do something. Overall, it’s a terrible trait to have in the long run but it fits because he’s a helper and enjoys the feeling of having helped someone. He did not have to make lunch for Taiga everyday but he tried his best to make sure she stayed healthy and also got to know her through making meals for her (favorite meals, diet, etc.) The one-line that really resonated with me was towards the end when Ryuuji is on the street and Taiga is behind him and he says “I just don’t know what to do.” That is one line that stuck with me and really hit hard at home. I used to find myself looking up at the sky at night and just thinking to myself “where do I go from here?” or “am I even doing everything right?” From the outside it looks like Ryuuji really has his bases covered when it comes to succeeding in life and I felt the same way from what others tell me but there one too many times where I just don’t know. I’d say that episode along with the Christmas arc and school trip arc that really changed my views on the show (also I love snow).

Overall the show had a great ending I really enjoyed reading your view on the show. Sorry for taking long to respond but there was no doubt that I had to respond to you after all the time you put on this. I wanted to just match that and show that I really agreed with a lot of your points and disagreed with some but that’s fine since we both came in looking for different things left satisfied with the results.
As parting recommendations; I’d suggest checking out:
-Wolf Children (I loved it since it was focused on family and struggles of making it through tough times)
-Spice and Wolf (Great romance with a basket full of economics and fantasy)
-Kimi no Na wa (Beautiful animation with a OST and story that’ll make you cry a bunch)

Take care friend and I hope to hear from you as soon as possible o/

Captain

I like that. Sounds like a solid regiment. Keep it up friend :D

I am currently halfway through Toradora, let me know how you're liking it :) And welcome to the club by the way.