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Please keep in mind that I am consuming this anime without prior context. I have never played the visual novel it was based on. I have never read a manga based on the material. This anime was my first and only exposure to Clannad, so I am reviewing it as a standalone structure and introduction to the world of Clannad based entirely on my own experience.

Story (1/10): Okay, so here's the deal. The story premise is basic. Boy meets girl, boy gets to know girl, we're treated to a story about these characters, then we hit some kind of high point, then we're immediately put ... back to a low point and it's really that last part that makes the anime such a drag. While there is a ton of promise in each story we're introduced to, it really doesn't feel like any of them amount to anything because as soon as we hit any type of resolution, we're put back at square one. It makes any type of emotional investment in the series exhausting and you quickly learn to stop investing your emotional resources as the series progresses... Whatever their idea of progressing was meant to be. The entire series ends up being a hodge-podge of things that ultimately didn't work together. This was the most evident toward the end of the series when they have the protagonist hook up with one of the girls. You think, well, there are only 3 episodes left. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try investing a little. Boom. It's the final episode and our protagonist is with a new girl with no build-up and minimal context. Huh?! Whose bright idea was that?! That isn't to say that this couldn't have been a better anime. I think that a lot of these stories could've co-existed cohesively, but they didn't know what to do so it ended up being a hot mess. Moments that should've been moving ended up being flat.

Character (2/10):

Tomoya: I will give credit where credit is due. This is probably the first anime I've seen in a long time where the male character is actually likable enough that I can see why he accumulated a small harem. Despite his deviant status (frequently being tardy, skipping school, and overall being disinterested in his own future, which all seem consistent with depression), he is generally kind and he doesn't appear to be fake about it. Most of the time when he's helping others, he doesn't really seem to have an end goal for himself in mind. It makes him seem selfless or, if nothing else, like he's using these situations to give his life some meaning by experiencing happiness vicariously through the girls that he helps. Either way, he's a gentle enough presence that fits well into the world of Clannad. With that said, there were severe blind spots in his development and his characterization, despite having a good core, ended up being stagnant. Bringing us back to square one, never really exploring his future potential in any meaningful way, and never even really exploring his home life in any great detail lead to his character falling flat, which is disappointing.

Nagisa: There isn't much to say about Nagisa. She's cute, she likes silly songs, she shouts out the names of things she likes (eg. food) when she's nervous, she's sickly and frail, and our main protagonist must protect the cutesy kawaii moe girl-chan at all costs. Her characterization as a gentle, kind, largely submissive presence will probably come as a surprise to exactly no one. To note, I don't mind any of the traits I've listed in a character, but she doesn't develop much at all, which leaves her in a similar boat with Tomoya in the stagnant characterization department.

Tomoyo: Of all of the girls, I initially expected to like Tomoyo most. She comes across as being bold, knowing what she wants and doesn't want. This makes her character seem like she might be the easiest to follow in terms of what her motivations are, but unfortunately, it doesn't end up working out that way in practice. Her story and motivation regarding the conservation of a small neighbourhood's cherry trees makes perfect sense, but her overwhelming need to coddle Tomoya doesn't. First, she's harassed by Youhei while Tomoya serves as a bystander and while Youhei's actions aren't exactly Tomoya's fault, since he doesn't say much, it enables Youhei's continued targeting and harassing of her. Other actions don't exactly end up pointing to a logical progression toward being an aggressive mother figure. It reads as different from Tomoya's uncomplicated kindness toward Nagisa because he hadn't given Nagisa any type of negative impressions or associations. It's hard to point to exactly what he did to get Tomoyo's interest, especially because her goals happen to align with the things he wants to do for Nagisa and not her. Guess she's totally cool with being Tomoya's rebound option if he doesn't get to be with Nagisa.

Kyou: The tsundere. Her tsun tsun mode shows in her highly protective behaviour toward her sister, Ryou, and the resulting hostility she shows anyone she suspects might have caused her any type of distress, and her dere dere mode shows the instant she suspects that someone might have a thing for her. I guess it's supposed to be endearing, but she's just a tsundere from beginning to end and doesn't develop at all, so she ends up with the same problem as everyone else.

Ryou: Basically Nagisa, but she likes to tell fortunes badly. She exists solely as a foil for Kyou.

Kotomi: Despite being one of the better-developed ladies, she's also one of the most unrealistic. She is characterized as an awkward genius, incapable of the most basic of human interaction and this is a thing, but it's the portrayal of this that makes her difficult to digest as a character. For one thing, she's portrayed as learning the violin as a child, so the assumption is that she should have some very basic competence, but then she's older and is fascinated by the violin, which she's now not just incapable of playing, but can only play badly. When younger, she's also portrayed having basic conversations, but then gets to a point where she can't even introduce herself properly. She recognizes Tomoya, with whom she apparently has a history, and can't bring herself to engage him in any meaningful way. Are we to assume that the adults in her life were perfectly okay with her communication skills degrading for years? She's almost ready to graduate from high school at the time of this story. Do teachers excuse it because she's a genius in other areas? That just reads as neglect. And her avoidant behaviour around her guardian reads like she's been abused. With this in mind, the resolution of her story becomes a lot less impactful. True, she may finally receive some closure and that's great, but how is the gross neglect and/or other abuse supposed to be addressed? I will also note that going from short, awkward sentences to complete monologues in less than an episode is disorienting. To clarify, it was a single scene. There was no significant amount of time passing or implication that she had come to terms with anything, had time to practice, or somehow felt comfortable enough to communicate when she didn't before. She never again has communication issues after this.

Fuuko: I initially appreciated Fuuko during the first story arc because she was awkward to a darling degree. (As a fellow awkward, that part was fun for me.) Ultimately, she was sweet, determined, and fun, but also sad and it was easy to see why the other characters adopted her, doted on her, and supported her. However, after the initial arc, her appearances became pointless to the point of obnoxious. She halted important moments for jokes that were already done to death by the time this anime came out. It also sends strange character signals when you have a character featured in a serious story reduced to just a joke.

Youhei: Youhei is your typical shit-disturber. I say this because his behaviour frequently provokes other characters and I'm not sure I can buy into him being unaware of how what he says and does affects others. His willingness to pick fights results in him getting into trouble and that trouble being played for comic relief. It works out with moments of catharsis, but ultimately, it doesn't amount to much. His character doesn't really develop at all either.

Sound (7/10): The music in the series is a treat and the SFX were coordinated well enough. The voice acting is hit or miss.

Art (7/10): Okay, so I don't like the art style at all. It's not that I don't like cute, big eyes, it's just that the proportions are so exaggerated that they cease to be endearing. However, it would be wrong to use that as the sole metric when judging this series. The animation, especially during the illusionary world sequences, is absolutely stunning, so I've taken that into account in the final score.

Overall (3/10): Unfortunately, the gorgeous animation and music aren't enough to save this series from being a slow, confused mess.

Okay, so I had high hopes for Your Lie In April, not because of the high community praise but because a friend of mine (who I suspected had a similar taste in anime) found the ending to be particularly beautiful and tasteful. And while I wasn't expecting anything groundbreaking from a story about a pianist rediscovering his passion for music, it still sounded like something I would enjoy as I am a creative who has frequently hit struggles with my craft. In other words, while I wasn't expecting to perfectly align with any of the characters, I expected to see at least a few parallels. ... Plus because it's a serious anime with a lovely art style, I expected that there would be elements of romance or romanticism thrown in.

Here was my final takeaway:

"I don't mind being treated terribly as long as the woman mistreating me is hot."

And make no mistake. The main character literally says as much:

"I'm a moron. She's ultra-violent. Her personality blows. She leaves the worst impression. But... she's beautiful." - Arima, Kousei

Okay, except this leaves very little in terms of substance. Let's start from the beginning.

STORY (5/10):

So, the premise of the story isn't actually one of nightmares. The idea is that Kousei is processing the loss of his abusive mother who also happened to be his piano instructor. This translates into his perception of music and colour. The lack of colour or music became associated with struggle or dulled feeling and the burst of colour or music became associated with passion and happiness. It's corny, but beautiful and if that were all there was to the story, I'd probably have a lot more positive to say about it.

Unfortunately, no.

I'll start again with the mention of Kousei processing the loss of his abusive mother. The portrayals of the abuse Kousei endured are vivid with him being beaten, yelled at, denied social time, denied sleep, etc. It's all very ugly and you'd think that it would amount to more than it did. Instead, we're treated to supposed lifelong friends literally beating on Kousei (kicking him, punching him, throwing things at him, crying to manipulate him) being played for comedy, then the immediate juxtaposition with the abuse he received from his mother. It felt reductive and tone-deaf. Violent slapstick as comedy does not work when you're trying to make a point about violence being mentally and physically harmful.

With our setup now underway, Kousei meets the beautiful and talented violinist, Kaori, who tries to shoehorn him back into the music world by force. She never makes any effort to learn about Kousei, much less his trauma. She barely even looks at him. (In one of the episodes toward the end, Kousei even comments that most of his memories of her are of him viewing her from behind, which really tells me all I need to know about her character.) She ends up taking advantage of him and seeing his labour, his intelligence, and even his LIFE as expendable to her own ends. With this in mind, I don't understand how anyone can romanticize this series.

That isn't to say that it didn't have a chance to be a fulfilling piece. What would have been required would've been sincere character development on behalf of Kaori where she comes to appreciate and work with Kousei to understand his needs and help him break through the mental blockade put up by his mother. If not, then Kousei realizing that he deserves better and putting his foot down. It doesn't need to be a hostile moment, but it needs to be a moment where it's very clear that he values her in every conceivable way, but doesn't appreciate her abuse and will no longer continue to hang around as long as it happens with dedicated follow-through. Any time she tries to abuse him following that, he would simply walk away. This type of resolve would have added far more to the story.

Instead, Kousei is told to see the results of his abuse as a blessing. Yes, really. And he ends up kowtowing to his mother and Kaori both in this way. This approach has the added bonus of making it never really feel like Kousei reclaimed his love of music. He's playing because he has to and has nothing else. Yuck. An entire series built on romanticizing victim-blaming.

CHARACTER (3/10):

Kousei: Here's the thing. I liked Kousei. Of all of the characters in the show, he's probably the most well-developed and sincere. I found that pretty much any character details I could find likable were all attributable to Kousei. For one thing, he's a child who is regarded as a prodigy with intelligence and maturity reaching well beyond his years. Some may find his monologues unrealistic because they sound far more refined than what a child might normally come up with, but I feel like that's kind of the point. He's already faced a lot of tragedy in his young life and everyone is holding him to a ridiculously high standard, so he likely compensates without realizing he's doing it. As a character, he is generally passive and yields to the stronger wills of other characters, which is consistent with a character who's been beaten into compliance. I will note that it's not inherently a bad trait to accommodate and follow others. Humans are a social species, etc, etc. Unfortunately, this willingness to constantly yield leaves him vulnerable to ongoing abuse that the series never addresses in a meaningful way. Adults, who should be recognizing his patterns and actually helping him, end up enabling his continued abuse and internalizing of previous abuse. This leads to the whole tone of the series reading as one big, long "suck it up, buttercup" and "if you just beat the depression out, it'll be fine." And ultimately, his development - despite being the most of any character in the show - still ends up being hollow and not really belonging to him. Every one of Kousei's "victories" is a victory for one of his abusers. That's it. Imagine writing a character and their only development is "I'm going to do what my abuser wanted me to do and I'm going to thank my abuser for giving me the knowledge/opportunity. I will also ask for my abuser's forgiveness while I'm at it." This line of development reads more like a tragedy than one capable of a happy ending. It would have been different if he dedicated himself to reclaiming his past, choosing to love music in his own way, moving on without his mother in the picture, etc. but that's not what happened. Oh, well.

Kaori: As you're probably already aware, Kaori is beautiful and a highly skilled violinist. No one is taking that away from her. But here's the thing: you can be beautiful, highly skilled, and also a horrible person. You could almost feel the writers scrambling to give her an ounce of something sympathetic by making her physically frail, but here's another thing: being frail still doesn't give you a license to be a horrible person. What makes her so horrible? For one thing, she has zero interest in actually being friends with the friends she's portrayed as hanging around in the series. They are strictly a means to an end. There's zero sincerity on her part. She doesn't care for Kousei either. She constantly uses him, screams at him with no provocation, throws things at him, forces him to do things against his will, etc. But while the show tries hard to frame it as her doing things for Kousei's betterment, she's really doing it because she stands to gain from him. Every. Single. Time. Her goal is ultimately an exercise in carving out some type of immortality for herself, which is not inherently some great evil, but instead of working to understand Kousei and create something they can both be proud of in this world and the next, she forces Kousei to yield to her demands. Toward the end of the series, she even reveals that everything she knows about Kousei is superficial. Well, whose fault is that exactly?! It's not like Kousei is a closed book. In fact, she spends the entire series feeling entitled to Kousei and at the end of the series, she fires a parting shot that could only be motivated by wanting to cement her semblance of immortality with no accountability for the drama it would cause and the people it would hurt, but at least she won't be forgotten. I guess remembering someone for being horrible is something?

Tsubaki is Kousei's childhood friend. They are portrayed as having a long history and growing up together. Supposedly, no one understands Kousei better than Tsubaki and this is true to a detrimental degree. By this, I mean that perhaps some actions could have been overlooked or even forgiven if coming from someone who didn't know Kousei well. The reality is when looking at what she does, it comes off as a deliberate effort to cause protracted suffering. At first, it's mainly to do with kicking/hitting/throwing things at Kousei (which doesn't come off as endearing when shown against his background of childhood abuse trauma), but then she spends too much time egging on Kaori. At no point does she try to protect Kousei despite seeing him as her "helpless kid brother" and ends up looking more like Kousei's bully. Things get worse as the series progresses and I'll spare you the suspense: she's selfish. She feels entitled to Kousei. She's basically Kaori with added history and no music. Watching the progression of both Kaori and Tsubaki made me want to ask the writers who hurt them, because geez. Both girl characters with the most attention ended up being horrible people.

Watari: I don't actually have much bad to say about Watari and you might think that's a good thing. Well, brace yourself because... I have nothing bad to say because Watari doesn't really have a character. He's just a womanizer who attempts to support Kousei at different parts of the story. He appears either blissfully unaware of Kaori's and Tsubaki's abusive natures or if he knows, then he doesn't try to intervene. He just kind of lets things go wherever and that's fine, but it doesn't make him memorable at all. The only mildly memorable thing about him is that he looks like a better character from a different anime.

Seto: She is shown to have a significant role in Kousei's life. She knew about his mother, his abuse, and his breakdown. Unfortunately, this doesn't really amount to anything. She is one of the adults in Kousei's life and the most prominent in the anime, and she is the biggest pusher for the acceptance of his abuse. That she is shown with a child with her honestly makes me worry for the child. Good job, writers. You had one adult and she did exactly nothing to actually help Kousei. The anime will try to paint it differently, wrapping it in a pink motif with a sparkly bow, but no. Internalizing abuse may work temporarily, but Kousei is most likely going to need tons of therapy once he's an adult. Frankly, I just want to know how Kousei is going to be able to resolve her having been a bystander in his abuse. What's that? They don't deal with that at all? Ahhhh!

The best I can say about the rest of the characters (Takeshi, Emi, Nagi, etc.) is that they're the only ones who don't actually end up hurting Kousei in any way. What a concept.

ART (3/10):

While the style we are familiar with is no doubt beautiful, the animation is... atrocious. The usual chibifying of the characters while they yell at each other, etc. was hideous to look at when put right next to the style the show was actually going for. Even when in their regular mode, characters were frequently off-model. And while I could complain about the panning shots, I won't because I get it: animation is expensive and I don't get to say anything when I was able to enjoy Tsubasa, which was a far worse offender. However, with inconsistent appearances, points needed to be docked from the overall art score.

SOUND (9/10):

I suppose the sound was supposed to make up for the atrocious animation. With a music score comprised mostly of classical music, the episodes were a treat to listen to. The voice acting was also solid enough.

OVERALL (4/10):

It's not the worst anime I've ever seen, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, even if they're already fancying watching it. I will find other anime with better story execution and characters.

Anohana was initially recommended to me by people who also recommended Angel Beats. Having seen (and been largely unimpressed by) Angel Beats, I should've assumed that this show would probably be average at best. That isn't to say that I was turned off to the idea entirely, just that my expectations weren't very high to begin with so it's not like I boarded a hype train for a series that didn't live up to the bar set by the community. Angel Beats had already thoroughly broken the pattern for tear-jerking hype.

But having gone through a hard time recently, I actively sought out a tear-jerker, figuring ... it might redirect my sadness into something a bit more conducive to ending my cycle of grieving. My point is that I was ripe for crying and this series couldn't do it. I got more out of watching Pikachu cry for five seconds in the first Pokemon movie than I got out of this 11-episode series, which is being pushed as a tear-jerker. Yes, really.

And to clarify, I am not one to turn down stories for being perfectly trite. Boy meets girl, boy likes girl, flirt, awkward confession, whatever? Nah, it's cute. I can get behind cute.

Anyway, I digress. Let's move onto what makes this anime such a disaster.

STORY (1/10):

Unfortunately, it's difficult to avoid spoilers here, but I will do my best. What we have is a character, Menma, who is at the absolute centre of every occurrence in the anime. This would be all well and good except that she is unforgivingly annoying.

To be clear, I have watched anime for actual decades by this point. I am used to people throwing around the word "annoying" when talking about any character that has a high-pitched voice or is more energetic than a dead car battery, so trust me when I say that I don't use the term lightly. Menma jumps on people, hits people with minimal provocation, throws things around, talks incessantly while other people are talking, talks ad nauseum when the other character is clearly not interested in engaging, whimpers or cries at the drop of a hat, makes other people do everything for her, and overall, her mannerisms become actively distracting. Somehow, this is supposed to be endearing, but no.

Wait, we were talking about the story? Okay, so, as mentioned, this character is at the centre of everything. It all starts with a wish that she can't remember. I won't drag the amnesia concept for being over-used (I'm sure there are enough reviews already doing this), but I can't imagine that someone would go through all of the trouble of re-entering the life of someone they haven't seen in years only to forget what the wish is the second someone doesn't use scrambled eggs in their ramen. It feels pointless and contrived. They try to wash away multiple series discrepancies in this way, using being "absent-minded" as an excuse. Absent-mindedness is a thing, but the issue compounds when the character that she's paired with has all of the exact same blind spots. This results in melodramatics that could've been easily avoided, which makes the melodramatics seem actually pointless after the fact, and makes it difficult to invest in anything to come later in the series.

What this amounts to is Menma running others around to try and figure out what she wants (instead of, you know, figuring it out herself), manipulating them (try telling me that "maybe that's my wish" any time things aren't going exactly her way isn't manipulation), and reveling in watching the drama unfold because she's trying to bring five largely incompatible people who are clearly at different stages in their life now back together.

It gets worse.

So much of the early story build-up emphasizes that their complete reunification is a prerequisite for her wish to come true. Guess what? This ends up being entirely meaningless once you find out what the wish actually is. Literally, only one person was required for wish fulfillment. All of that screaming and crying for nothing. This series practically trains you to cry for no good reason using shouting and crying characters. I'll go back to watching the two Pikachu from Mewtwo Strikes Back slap each other. Thanks.

CHARACTER (1/10):

This brings me to the second part of the review. I believe I've said all that needs to be said about Menma, so I'll move onto Jinta.

Jinta exists in-world as an ideal. Basically, everyone who knows him immediately associates him with who he was when he was younger, which became incompatible with his current reality over time. This causes a lot of anxiety on his part, which makes sense, but it also leads to weird romanticism coming from other characters, including characters who openly put him down. The reality is that as a character, he isn't anything special. He presents as a hot mess that at least one girl gets hot over for seemingly no reason and he gets hot himself for a dead girl. (And don't lose any sleep. The writers didn't forget to point out that dead girl's boobs hadn't developed. Classy.)

Anjou, despite providing the basis of what could've been a lovable darling of a character, doesn't make any sense when held up to the slightest scrutiny. The story initially tries to take her drama in the direction of others sexualizing her inappropriately (ironic given all of the crotch shots the animators decided to include of a girl going through puberty), leading to someone attempting to assault her, then someone else attempting to take advantage of her. This might've had the opportunity to go in the right direction, but instead, we're treated to a backstory where Anjou is jealous of someone else's beauty. She's jealous at the beginning of the story and she's jealous at the end. She has an opportunity to explore or build her character during one interaction with Tsurumi, but that never goes anywhere. The resolution seems to be that she wants someone to call her out and patronize her for being easily influenced. I still don't know what she wanted that to achieve or how that would help her grow into a more confident character, but okay.

Matsuyuki is creepy. Before I continue, if you want to see a non-creepy version of a man cross-dressing as a dead woman to process trauma, I would recommend Fushigi Yuugi. You're welcome. No, Matsuyuki isn't creepy because he cross-dresses as a dead woman. He's creepy because he actively sexualizes her. Note also that by this point in the series, he's a teenager and she was a young child when she died. His experience of her is entirely in his attempts to possess her and not some well-meaning but misguided thing he's trying to do because he believes it's in her best interest. He keeps a wig that looks like her hair and smells it. He dresses up in her clothes and runs around, which... I'm not even sure what that was supposed to accomplish. The boy seems to recognize that he's not well at least, but you think it stops him from picking on others who have also been negatively affected by her death? Of course not. Matsuyuki walks his line through the whole series with next to zero consequences for his bullying and jealousy. The one time Tsurumi attempts to give him a consequence is entirely selfish in nature and we aren't lead to believe that it amounted to anything other than maybe a few girls being less interested in dating him. Big loss. He never had to atone for anything, which made him entirely scummy and irredeemable. Yuck.

While I wish I could have something positive to say about Tsurumi, I really don't. She is perhaps one of the least relatable, sympathetic characters next to Matsuyuki. She acts like she's on a pedestal, looking down her nose at others while enabling bad behaviour whenever things don't go her way. She is not above using blackmail to manipulate and if she can't do that, then she'll use it to set a fire and watch the flames. She doesn't have shame for what she does and mocks Anjou while being subject to all of the same pitfalls, including being easily influenced and catching a case of petty jealousy at every opportunity. This would be all well and good if she wasn't portrayed as being part of the protagonist group. Her laundry list reads more like it was meant for an antagonist, but she's yet another character with a stick up her rump who is cool with burning things down, then doesn't have to face consequences afterward. Cool.

Hisakawa is probably the only somewhat redeeming character in the main group in that he's probably the only one not exhibiting a case of "I want to bone him/her, but I'm mad/jealous because I can't." Which is what the rest of the characters amount to. Hisakawa still frames his outlook as being selfish since he wants to act to clear his conscience of guilt, but if you watch the series, you'll quickly notice that he is fundamentally different in that his "selfish outlook" centres Menma's needs! What a concept. His selfishness is by far the most sympathetic and forgivable.

HONOURABLE CHARACTER MENTION:

Atsushi Yadomi, Jinta's father is a gem at the bottom of a barrel of pig feces. I wish more characters were portrayed as being understanding of their depressed/anxious youth. If I were judging by just this character alone, the character rating probably would've been a 9/10.

ART (6/10):

Nothing about the art left me with anything negative to say. It's an okay style, not my favourite but easy on the eyes, and the animation is fine. With that said, it wasn't exactly memorable either.

Sound (7/10):

Again, no complaints. The voice actors did their job, the music was very nice, and the SFX were all well-placed.

OVERALL (1/10):

Why so low? You have what is supposed to be a tear-jerker with a bunch of characters who are either annoying or acting on petty jealousy. The characters have barely any chemistry whatsoever and the story is banal. I normally don't show up to drag anime through the mud, but I sincerely don't understand why this one got so popular.

If anyone asks, I will tell them to find something better.

If you're looking for suggestions, this one isn't exactly a tear-jerker, but I would still recommend the movie When Marnie Was There.

To note, I've watched FLCL and other similarly over-the-top anime, so I'm no stranger to the format.

But thank goodness for me that I watched this anime with my friends. Since I got to hear their reactions, this anime wasn't a total waste of my time.

However, I will say that despite laughing a fair bit at the absurdity of some of the events in the anime, very little ended up sticking out as good.

Let's start with their tactic.

Their tactic was simple in that they were trying to desensitize the audience to the fanservice so that they would get fanservice fatigue and start to take the series ... more seriously toward the end. Sounds reasonable. The problem is that it doesn't actually work and anyone who spends even a second dwelling on it will see it for the gimmick that it is.

They just wanted to appeal to people who already have a propensity for drawing underage girls in revealing outfits because if you break it down, the moral of the series ends up coming down to this: the only way to win is by letting the vampire cloth molest you and drink your blood.

Yeah, really.

This anime positions itself as a spoof, poking affectionate fun of what makes anime terrible and tries to subvert it by using it as their chosen tool of storytelling. The issue is that the things that make other anime terrible (misplaced comic relief, interrupted fight scenes, the introduction of serious storytelling out of nowhere, over the top fanservice, etc) also end up doing the exact same thing to this anime and it ends up being just another dumpster fire that excuses itself because "it's a joke."

Sorry, Kill La Kill, but the joke's on you.

I would also like to add that the camera spends so much time following people's ass and underboob around that it's actively distracting because of the stark difference in movement. The animators want movement when there is sex appeal, but then when you get to a character talking, they're basically just a still frame with moving lips.

The only one who actually manages to keep a consistent use of body language and movement when she's not in battle is Mako.

Story (3/10): I give the story a 3 because while it's nothing special, it isn't actively horrible either. There were some unique ideas brought to the table, but the plot twist vibes very much with what we've come to expect from "I am your father" type media.

Character (1/10): I have a hard time rating the characters so poorly because there is one thing that I can say - with confidence - about them that seems to be lacking in other anime I've seen lately. Ryuuko and Satsuki are extremely motivated and their motivations are made explicitly clear.

Where Ryuuko is concerned, there's no beating around the bush. She is straight up from the first episode and though it takes longer to learn about Satsuki, at no point in the series does she ever feel like she's just doing things for no reason. With that in mind, both Ryuuko and Satsuki are a breath of fresh air.

And the despicable characters aren't romanticized, though I still wish that there was less eye candy built up around a situation that basically amounted to sexual abuse.

Those are the only good things I have to say and you'd think that that would amount to a lot more than it actually does.

Unfortunately, outside of Ryuuko and Satsuki having strong motivations, no one really has a personality outside of that including Ryuuko and Satsuki.

Every character in the series is a means to an end and I really wish they would've had less fanservice and more uninterrupted character development instead of short-handing them into over-the-top-stereotypes.

As noted earlier in the review, the things that frequently plague other anime became their storytelling tool here to great detriment.

Art (6/10): I know that people have been complaining about the style, but I don't actually have a problem with it. I actually wish more anime would think outside the box where their character designs are concerned. They don't all need to be "pretty."

Sound (6/10): While I'm not handing out any awards for sound design, I didn't actually find any issues where it was concerned. There were a lot of inappropriate tone shifts, but that was already built into the writing. No amount of good sound design could've salvaged that.

I would recommend skipping this one.

Y I K E S.

Before I go further into detail, let me just say that I enjoy a good romance. Romance frequently happens to overlap with the magical girl genre, which I also happen to enjoy and it was through consuming Cardcaptor Sakura, another CLAMP property, that I was able to find out about Chobits. I won't go into the problems I had with Cardcaptor Sakura here since I already wrote a review on the matter, but Chobits turns all of the issues I already had with Cardcaptor Sakura up to eleven.

Let's start with the fact that Chii is presented as the titular persocom, a ... Chobit. Because she isn't actually human, it's difficult to make the case for her having a character whatsoever. A computer does what a computer is told to do. End of. And to be honest, the writers may have actually benefited from subscribing to the notion (see: episode 24), but they tried to shoehorn a character into Chii anyway, so let's start with that.

Chii is presented as not being like other persocoms so she is effectively The Chosen One. She has a learning AI, so when Hideki gets her and turns her on (by molesting her), she gets to work learning to navigate the world in such a way that makes Hideki happy similar to how a puppy might. Cute, but also trite and boring.

Here, we're introduced to our Chobit and already, her entire world revolves around this creepy man who doesn't stop fetishizing her.

This would be all well and good, except that it's passed off as... funny and charming?

Without going into too much detail, it's worth pointing out that the writers also rub friendly shoulders with incest both in the relationship between a young human boy and a robot he made to look and behave like his sister and a smarter Chii clone spirit thing who was obsessed with Chii losing her virginity and her papa.

Uh, okay.

If we weren't already getting problematic enough, let's glide back on over to Hideki. When he's not fetishizing Chii, he's fetishizing his coworker, fetishizing his teacher, screaming randomly in public, or playing the "woe is me, I'm so poor, feel bad" card.

And again, all of this is played up to be funny and charming.

As our story carries on, not only do our main characters develop painfully little during the course of the show, but so does their relationship. Like what's the major difference between the first episode where Hideki touches Chii and the last episode? That she's awake? Much character development, wow.

And all the while, we're supposed to be bonding with either Hideki or Chii, which means we're either bonding with a creep with no redeeming qualities or a computer who ultimately behaves like one despite their desperate attempt to give her a personality. (See: Something more than saying "Chii".)

In reality, Chii is just a catalyst to other character stories which pan out to be more engaging than the main plot.

So what does this all mean?

Despite having a lovely art style, this show is much too problematic and mediocre for me to recommend to anyone, so here are my recommendations instead.

Are you coming here from Cardcaptor Sakura, hoping against hope that Chobits will be better? Try Princess Tutu or Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

Do you want a movie with a cute girl robot who learns things but isn't sexualized by creeps? Metropolis.

Do you want a half-decent show with a harem romance? Fushigi Yuugi.

And if you aren't ready to give up on CLAMP just yet, do you want to try another show where the main female lead loses her memory and isn't immediately groomed/molested by a creep afterward? Tsubasa.

So, with the JoJo hype firmly worn off after multiple disappointments, I suppose my brain finally realized that the JoJo series was going to remain weak. However, I am a completionist at heart, so I slogged through this final section to at least finish the Dio arc.

With that, this season got itself an unusual honour. It ended up being a fine sleep aid!

At least I can say that this season ended up being good for something after all.

Good.

Story (1/10): What the heck was that? They spend the better part of 48 episodes building up to an anticlimactic fight scene. What's more, did Dio just suddenly ... lose all of his abilities from the previous season? Maybe he just traded them in so he could go Super Saiyan.

It's also never explained where Stands come from or why characters suddenly have them outside of the Joestar family that uses the plot contrivance that is Dio's curse.

[Spoiler, but the writing holes are so bad that it should stand to reason that Joseph and Jotaro lose their Stands once Dio's gone because the curse is supposed to be broken, but Joseph is seen using Hermit Purple right next to Dio's corpse? AHHH!]

I think the writers stopped paying attention to their own nonsense at this point.

The only thing that I can give this season any credit for is that it was slightly better paced than the first season, but that isn't saying much because the first season was mostly filler.

Character (1/10): Most of my character complaints from my review on the first half of Stardust Crusaders still hold, but now...

Enter Iggy, the antisocial fart joke.

I wish I knew where to begin with this being one of the most awful things to plague Stardust Crusaders, but the reality is that Iggy ends up being Joseph from Battle Tendency as a gassy dog and ends up being unlikable for similar reasons. (See: Zero compassion and merciless heckling of his companions.)

In true JoJo style, they wait until the very last second to try and salvage his character, then fail miserably. They would've done better to start 20 episodes earlier.

As for the rest of the characters? Well, we're 48 episodes in and none of them have developed. Some died, but they're so 1-dimensional and forgettable that it didn't leave any impact.

Art (6/10): Continues to be what we've come to expect from JoJo.

Sound (7/10): Same as the art. Some may complain about the tone shift in the background music near the end of the series, but I actually like it. It is best enjoyed without the series attached, though. I know I keep saying that in my JoJo reviews, but it's true.

If you still have a chance to save yourself, do so because it does not get better.

Okay, so I don't have much to say other than I was waiting for JoJo to get better and it didn't. If anything, it got worse because everything that I already didn't like about the series ended up getting dragged out in the form of unnecessary filler.

Story (1/10): The story is about as straightforward as it can get. Our heroes must band together and defeat the villain.

Fine.

But what this entire season amounts to is the Monster of the Day formula of the 90s. I think someone forgot to inform them that the format doesn't work in 2014 because everyone is binging just about every anime ... online.

All it's missing are some magical girl transformations to pad out an extra 2 minutes to save on budget.

I joke, but I don't. By the end of 24 episodes, it seriously feels like our heroes aren't any closer to reaching their goal.

Why did I waste my time then?!

Episodes to watch if you really want to, but you also want to skip the nonsense: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 21, 22

Character (1/10): Okay, so the characters of both Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency weren't anything special, but at least I can try and justify their flatness by the fact that they didn't have a ton of episodes to tell their story.

This season doesn't get that excuse.

With 24 episodes dedicated only to building up the great battle ahead, you have Joseph (old man America still negatively impacted by his portrayal from the previous season), Avdol (your generous helping of at least 22 stereotypes), Kakyroin (emotionally constipated Japanese uniform), Jotaro (power fantasy who mistreats the weak), and Polnareff (overly impulsive fashion disaster).

All of these characters come out at the end of the season the same way they went in. Instead of taking their time building the characters, they basically slammed these characters together and then decided to follow with their Monster of the Day format.

That's it. That's all this season is.

It's also Jotaro being a broken record with three sentences that basically amount to calling women bitches, variants of "shut up" or "you're annoying me", and "good grief."

Art (6/10): The art is still what you would expect from season one. There aren't any major updates to the animation or style.

Sound (8/10): The background soundtrack was actually quite nice going into this season, so my recommendation is to save yourself some time and listen to the music without the series attached.

TL;DR: If you must watch this season, only catch the episodes I listed above, duck out of the Monster of the Day nonsense, skip right to the last 11 episodes of Stardust Crusaders, then use the time you'll be saving to watch a better show.

Trust me when I say that you will have missed nothing important.

So, everyone knows the meme and the whole "is that a JoJo reference?!"

Yeah, I guess I wanted to get the references, too. I understood going in that meme culture frequently oversimplifies and removes the nuance to make things more shareable. This isn't always the case, but I've seen it happen. Understanding that JoJo was likely reduced to just one or two jokes, but that the subject matter that spawned it was massively popular, I suppose I was expecting a bit more substance. This series just ended up reinforcing that sometimes memes should just stay memes.

Story (2/10): I initially watched because, despite the characters being relatively ... bland, the opening was strong and intriguing. It was to the point that I accepted that the series committed itself to being more adventure and plot-oriented than character-oriented, which was fine. You can only share so much in two helpings of 13 episodes, especially if you're trying to share two separate stories.

The problem was that, ultimately, the writers had dragged themselves too thin and it left very little in terms of substance. Plot conveniences, predictable elements, and stereotypes were the storytelling tools that they used to constantly shoehorn one event into the next. They were trying to be quick and shorthand as much of it as possible and I had at least one moment in the series where I felt like I missed something because of how much they were rushing.

It's so bad that fights that are seemingly important are interrupted with grandstanding gloats, monologues, and exposition that they really should've placed better. (I actually find it ironic that this is a major complaint about RWBY with people's attitude being "shut up and fight already", but you think anyone says the same thing about JoJo? LOL.)

It gets worse because everything ultimately feels like it amounts to very little or nothing in the end, which felt inexcusable with how they set it up.

Character (1/10): A problem I've frequently had with other shows is when new main characters are introduced and they end up being annoying and unlikable. That's exactly what happened here.

With 26 episodes to tell your story divided between two main protagonists, you're stuck trying to either force character development or leave your characters 1-dimensional. The time skips in this series actively interrupt or erase all potential meaningful character development and they end up as husks.

What you have are Jonathan (your 1-dimensional hero), Speedwagon (street thug they decided to shoehorn into the adventure despite it ultimately turning him into a flower on the wall during almost every fight for the rest of forever), Zeppeli (magical hype man), Erina (love interest), and Dio (antagonist).

Unfortunately, I had settled in to accept the fact that they were just flat, but not actively annoying despite the amount of unnecessary screaming. I say "unfortunately" because if they had been actively annoying, then I might've been able to talk myself out of giving the series a chance to get better.

Enter Joseph Joestar. If I could get a refund for the time I put into the series, this is right about where I would've asked for it. JoJo goes from being an adventure piece with themes of inner strength, loyalty, love, and honour to being about an edgelord brat with a chronic attitude problem.

I know that people will try to argue that Joseph developed, but he really didn't. He was selfish when he was first introduced and he was still selfish right at the end. The way he regarded actual Nazis was about the same way he regarded his best friend, who himself justified working with Nazis because they were allies of Italy at the time. Both of these men were just selfish brats who didn't use their powers to protect anyone but themselves and maybe one other person in their life. (Protecting anyone outside of their circle ended up being entirely incidental or unintentional.)

To note, a character doesn't necessarily need to be selfless to be likable, but when the only likable aspect of his predecessor (who also failed to develop any further after the first few episodes) was that he was selfless, then he's followed by a brat with zero likable qualities, you can't really be surprised when the one meager expectation is some semblance of humanity.

Instead, you get Joseph who ended up valuing strength and honour more than humanity and substance. He also ended up extolling all of the toxic aspects of what it means to be a man. This wouldn't be an issue, but you think anyone ever called him on it and tried to help him be a better person? No.

Does Joseph ever even imply that he wants to be a better person for other reasons? Not really.

The other characters from the second half ended up only serving as plot point props, so I don't feel inclined to mention them.

Art (6/10): I know that some people aren't a fan of the style of the series, but I actually didn't hate it. While the style and animation aren't anything to write home about, there weren't any issues where those things were concerned. Of course, this series could've had the greatest art and animation under the sun and that still wouldn't have saved it from its awful storytelling and characters.

Sound (7/10): Again, no complaints. If I had to point to the one truly enjoyable aspect of this series, it would've been the background music, but the background music can be enjoyed just as well without the series attached. The voice acting had no complaints from me either.

I would recommend skipping this one because I can confirm that it doesn't get better in the next season either. If anything, it gets worse.

I initially heard about the Fate series over a decade ago when there was a sudden fervor to create content from the manga, video games, and the anime. It dominated the anime sections of online quizzes, Google Images, art websites, comment sections, and so on.

Given that I had been drawn to anime by that point, it comes as no surprise that I was interested in checking it out. Unfortunately, I didn't have the means of getting my hands on the series. When I saw it become available on Netflix, I knew that there was no longer an excuse to wait. It was finally time to ... watch.

I looked up how others recommended the series be watched by newcomers who hoped not to be confused by the large, shiny, and daunting ensemble cast that dominated the big screen. More than one article insisted that this was the place to start and I, who lacked any prior engagement with the series or visual novel, was the target audience. Lovely. Thank you, Internet.

While the high-quality artwork, animation, and acting were all quick to stand out to me, the painful, often cringe-worthy, flaws were as well.

The series immediately pushed off on the wrong foot with a giant information dump that lasted two episodes. (Approximately 44 minutes.)

Don't get me wrong.

It's not unusual to have a series set things up before jumping into the story, but there is a difference between engaging exposition and what is essentially an ongoing lecture with points repeated so many times that you want to roll your eyes at whoever decided to make this the curriculum.

And even points that aren't repeated end up being memorized not because they were compelling, but because they were delivered in such an unnatural way that viewers can't help but laugh at how hard the writers must've worked to insert it.

You would think that between long, arduous information dumps, there would be some type of character development. Disappointingly, just about every conversation in the first season ends up being a non-starter that doesn't give the viewer any interesting information.

When characters die, there is never anything lost. For a series that seems to revel in portraying tragedy and torture, they really don't try to leave any lasting impact on the viewer. Deaths end up being anticlimactic or, worse, pointless altogether.

By the end of the first season, you're left still unsure of most of their motives. With war being so serious, you would think that there would be some kind of explanation, but less than half of the characters had even a superficial explanation by the end of the first season. It really makes a person wonder what the point of continuing is.

In my case, I continued into season two because I was held to the reputation of the series. Season two expanded on multiple characters, yes, but by the end of season two, I knew the names of maybe two characters in total and they weren't especially memorable either.

On the bright side, if you're looking for a drinking game, here are a few:
- Take a shot every time a character coughs/vomits up blood. (And if you make it into season two, add a shot for every time a character gets held by their neck, choked, or strangled.)
- Take a shot every time Waver whines or complains.
- Take a shot every time that there is an information dump. Two shots if the information dump was uninteresting or pointless. Three shots if the information dump was in the middle of a fight.

To summarize, the story itself is pretty basic and that's fine, but if it's going to be basic, then it needs more interesting characters to drive the story. It needs characters with proper development and motivation, not just a whole bunch of human and spirit props that the writing team can't even juggle.

Pros:
- Gorgeous artwork and animation.
- Nice music. Mostly appropriate usage.
- Solid acting.

Neutral:
- There was some wonky mingling of different art styles at a few points, but nothing that actively ruined my immersion.

Cons:
- The characters talk too much about nothing. It's so bad that they even interrupt violent fights for information drops.
- How can characters talk so much but develop so little? By the time any development occurs in season two, it's already too late to form any meaningful bonds with any of the characters.
- The series supposedly targets people new to the Fate franchise and does a poor job of it.

I don't recommend this series.

At the risk of echoing other reviews, the story is pretty basic and doesn't offer anything groundbreaking. As movies are usually given around 2 hours, this would likely have been padded out with more explanation if it had been given the time. In a way, I wish it would have been since what was there already had potential, but given that it wasn't with its 30 or so runtime minutes, I would rather judge this less like a movie and more like an episode or OVA.

Looking at it from the perspective of an episode or OVA makes me feel far more positive about it in ... the context of the series. It might feel like an afterthought if you're watching it years after seeing the original series and for this, I don't blame you, but given that I saw it not long afterward, I didn't feel that I was left waiting for something that didn't deliver. It actually fit in with the style of the series storytelling quite well and could've easily passed as another episode. If that had been the case, I would've easily considered it one of the best episodes.

The art was excellent with a vibrant colour palette and the animation was smooth. The panning stills people complained about? Gone. There are scenes where they used shortcuts (obvious if you know what to look for), but they still made the series far more visually appealing than pretty much anything in the original series. Their fight scenes were far better choreographed and it looks like they had access to a better team with far more reference material and experience.

The sound quality was fine with excellent voice acting, but what even was happening with the music? It was so out of place in certain scenes that it actively broke immersion. If the music mixing in the episode could be touched up, it'd be basically perfect.

As for the characters, they expect you to pretty well know everyone going in so you don't learn anything new about them, however, their characterizations are vastly improved in this movie. Body language had been an issue in the original series where the characters themselves were pretty much as static as the still shots. Here, characters have a larger range of emotions and expression with weight added to their interactions even if we're not learning anything special. Though they aren't going to win any awards, I was still happy to see Fai do more than close his eyes and smile at everything.

Overall, nothing groundbreaking, but an enjoyable experience nonetheless.