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Noir (2001) is an anime original story helmed by Studio Bee Train. Key staff include Koichi Mashimo as director, Yuki Kajiura as composer, and ALI PROJECT doing the opening theme. It is the first in Bee Train's "girls with guns" trilogy. As for a synopsis, you can look at it yourself cause it's time to get on it.

At first viewing, Noir seems rather unimpressive. The narrative at first seems like your typical episodic storyline with each episode featuring a new hit for Mireille and Kirika to accomplish. The direction also seems incredibly flat, with a ton of exhaustingly slow camera pans that show up ... 10+ times an episode. And even though it works in the shows favour for the most part, the incredibly slow pacing and self-seriousness of it all can be draining at times. However, Noir's strength relies almost solely on it's thematic depth, along with a kickass OST by the kickass Yuki Kajiura.

Most of the show seemed entirely dedicated to portraying themes of human error and lack thereof, emotion, fate (I can't really delve deep into the use of fate in Noir as that would involve spoilers), etc. Instead of typically building characters and story, Noir uses the characters and story to create a rich thematic atmosphere that was thoroughly impressive. Of course, this was mainly captured by the two main leads, Mireille Bouquet and Kirika Yuumura.

Mireille, while a competent assassin, is also shown to have a life beyond that. She is often shown gazing outside store windows that have interesting fashion, eating and drinking at cafes, etc. Despite this, she is normally a great assassin. However, it is well captured that her higher emotional capacity gets her into more situations that her partner, Kirika. Kirika is often depicted as a much better assassin physically and mentally, using her surroundings and her smaller stature to her advantage. Opposite to Mireille, however, that seems to be all she really knows how to do well, and lacks a lot of the emotional capacity that Mireille has.

These two work off each other incredibly well. While change in both of these characters happen, there are no big eye-opening moments that develop these characters. It's the slow buildup throughout the runtime of this series that allow these two characters to grow, and in turn creates a fairly simple yet empowering way to show off the themes of emotion and human error.
Kirika and Mireille in terms of personality are pretty uninteresting, however, and aren't the most memorable of characters because of it.

As was mentioned before, Noir contains a lot of single-focus episodes, and although they seem pretty run of the mill at first, they too all connect to the main themes of the show. Most of them focus on either Kirika or Mireille seperately, and almost exclusively shows one or the other being challenged to keep their emotions in check when handling their jobs. While the stories themselves are contained, the influences they have on the characters remain throughout the length of the series.

The anime enjoys revealing bits and pieces of its story throughout its runtime, and as such I can't get into the main villians without large spoilers. The villians are interesting, if not very captivating. They add a feeling of mystery and tenseness to the show that was very much needed to keep the show from feeling boring.

With that being said, as much as I can praise this show for being thematically rich, the themes themselves provide little to the actual enjoyment to the show. A lot of it is how the themes are presented, but a lot of credit has to go to Yuki Kajuira. Her soundtrack added a lot of emotional mood to the show. My favourite songs are easily Canta per me and Salva Nos. Another thing of note is Kajuira's brilliant usage of the choir track in Salva Nos. Salva Nos is normally used for the action scenes, but sometimes the choir part of Salva Nos will be used in different ways to create different moods. Sometimes it will be used without any accompaniment from instrumentation in more sombre moments, and in some moments the choir track was edited over itself, if that makes any sense at all. You would just have to watch the show to get what I mean, most likely.

Another thing that is relatively surprisingly good was the dub. I personally prefer watching dubs when shows are not explicitly set in Japan, even if there is a tradeoff in quality. Luckily, the tradeoff was very minimal if at all. Everyone's performance was very subdued, which fit the tone very nicely. This is probably my favourite performance by Monica Rial (Kirika), who I normally find grating to the ears.

One quick mention in the sound department goes to ALI PROJECT. I'm only mentioning them cause I normally despise ALI PROJECT. The 'Another' opening theme is probably my personal worst opening theme ever. However, this is one of the better openings I've heard in a while, and easily the best I've heard by ALI PROJECT. Like the voice actors, ALI PROJECT's vocals are toned down quite a bit here, so I don't need to subject myself to awful high pitched ear-destroying sounds for 26 episodes.

I could go on and on about the art and animation about Noir, but in short, its the worst part of the series by far. The background art is pretty nice, but the character designs and the colour palette is all very bland. The action scenes are pretty stiff too, and would be more of a detriment to the show if Kirika wasn't such a total badass. Even though tons of people die, barely any blood is shown, and in the first 10 episodes of show, muzzle flashes weren't even shown when a gun was fired. And as previously mentioned, the direction is for the most part completely flat, with the main offender being the copious amounts of slow camera pans that put me to sleep.

However, mediocre art and animation can't really put a dent in an otherwise really good anime. Normally, thematically rich shows like these have a hard time keeping myself enjoyed all the way through, and despite that, I probably would have liked this show considerably less if Yuki Kajuira didn't deliver such an amazing score. And while the extreme focus on thematic depth took a toll on the actual characters and story, it only amounted to a slight negative. Overall, while a large group of people probably won't enjoy Noir as much as I did, I still have to give it a pretty high recommendation. At the very least, listen to the soundtrack once, and I'll be fairly happy.

A little late to the party here, but better late than never I guess.

When looking at seasonal charts to decide what anime I want to watch, it's easy to look at something like Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry and say "oh fuck, another shitty light novel harem ecchi battle series" and pass over it entirely. And granted, that's exactly what I did. It's easy to lose faith in light novel adaptations with the abundance of rather below average ones cropping up nearly every season. However, it really isn't right to judge a book by it's cover, so I gave Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry a chance finally ... to see if the bad reputation of it's brethren follows suit.

I've seen a few reviews praise this show for twisting around some of the tropes that normally follow this kind of show, especially with reference to the characters. And while I believe that there are some notable changes to these that warrant praise, they aren't much more than additions rather than total changes. It's building off the base of these tired old tropes like the underdog, the tsundere, the ice cold loli, etc. and adding new things to them, sure, but they aren't changed enough to tell them distinctly apart from their foundations.

EDIT: I wrote this review at 2:00 in the morning, so I inevitably didn't really explain my major point very well (that being the characters still being basic tropes with some fairly superficial additions), so I'll explain it in more detail by using the main character as an example. The most well known trait of generic light novel main characters are that they are obscenely overpowered (see Kirito from SAO, the MC from Mahouka, etc.) and don't face much of a challenge from anything. Ikki Kurogane is a little different, getting some worthwhile adversaries that do end up giving him a hard time for every fight. However, it doesn't change the fact that he is still insanely overpowered and wins fights against the strongest characters presented in the series, sometimes based on sheer willpower. While this character fits well with the general message that the anime is trying to portray (i.e. sheer talent doesn't get you anywhere without a little hardwork), it doesn't change the tropes around enough for him to be a standout main character in his own right.

I'll get the absolute worst part about this show out of the way. The world-building is pretty awful. A lot of these terms are thrown around to suggest a bigger picture, but so many things are never explained in full enough detail to actually make any sense. For example, the main character, Ikki Kurogane, wants to show that his lack of magical talent is made up by his intense physical and mental capabilities by becoming a Magic Knight. The thing is, we have no idea what a Magic Knight actually does. This doesn't actually detract from Ikki's character at all, as his motivations and goals are expressed decently well throughout Cavalry's runtime, but it feels hard to latch onto this goal when we don't even have a semi-clear picture of what's at the finish line. This happens all the time with stuff like the main heroine Stella Vermillion coming from some country to go to this prestigious magic school in Japan. We are to assume this is the real world since the setting is still Japan, but an explanation on how this country came to being. Was it because of this World War we heard about once, but once again, never was cared to explain? I could go on forever about this, but there are some actual positives of this show I need to address.

Firstly, even though the animation wasn't all that great, you could really tell that the staff was really trying with this show. Shin Oonuma, the director of Calvalry, as well as my favourite romance anime of all time, Ef: a tale of memories, really loves using colour (and, in some cases, lack of colour) to set the mood of the scene and the characters at any given time. Although I think he did it to much greater effect in Ef, he still did a good job here with it. There are also some really ambitious camera angles and movements here, and while they can be fairly jerky from time to time, they add a cool perspective and dimension to the fight scenes, which probably would have been fairly lackluster without them.

Even though this is kind of a basic thing, I really do appreciate that the powers and character designs actually correlate to the personality of any given character. Take Stella Vermillion, for example, who is a very forward and passionate person. Her more western-looking broadsword, her extremely hot flames, and even her bodacious body type all emphasize this. While, like I said earlier, the characters are still fairly certainly basic anime tropes with a slight twist, these details really help to add depth to these characters where they otherwise wouldn't be.

As for the romance, well, I can't really say it it did too much for me. It progressed way too fast with not enough justification as to why it was moving at such a breakneck speed. I can't not say that it wasn't nice to see a romance ACTUALLY PROGRESSING IN AN ANIME, but the novelty wears off after a while if there isn't much substance to back it up.

I also have to call attention to the fanservice briefly. I have to give major props to this show for making the fanservice at least slightly relevant to the plot and characters (for example, once again, Stella
s body type working off of her personality, etc.) of Calvary, rather than it just being what it says on the tin. There is A LOT of fanservice here, and the fact that it is sort of justified in some scenarios doesn't change the fact that if you don't like fanservice, you won't like it here, but I appreciate the effort the staff made to keep it kinda classy.

And lastly, the absolute by far best part of this show. The fucking opening is baller. The first time I heard this thing, I getting an air of familiarity from the vocalist, only to find out that Sakai Mikio did the opening for Planetes over 11 years ago. I liked the Planetes opening well enough, but this outclasses it easily, with the fast-paced instrumentation, the uniquely deep vocals from Mikio, and the overall jazzy vibe from the thing.

Honest to god, this show tried. It really did. The interesting directing choices, the design choices of the characters making actual sense, and even making the fan-service relevant. However, these things still just cover up a lot of the problems that many of these types of shows have. The story isn't that interesting, the goals and motivations of characters are handled decently, especially with Ikki, but are loosely represented because of the basic tropes of these characters, and the world-building, once again, is really bad. The thing is, though, while this show doesn't really hold up as far as the general anime landscape goes, as far as the type of show it's categorized under, it excels past many of it's peers. So if you are specifically looking for a show that fits under light novel ecchi harem (okay, it really isn't a harem, but whatever) battle series, this is probably one of the best shows you will get. Seriously, I give the staff major credit for not trying to make a by the books generic LN adaptation like so many others seem to be, but they still fell a little short unfortunately. A decent in-between watch, but nothing memorable really at all. Still enjoyable in many cases however, and considering how lackluster 2015 was for anime, this actually stands out as one of the better shows.

Hunter x Hunter 2011 is a show that I am eager to talk about not only about the actual content within it's quite daunting 148 episodes, but also because of the stigma against long-running shounen series. It's easy to stray away from these types of shows because of the effect that other shows grouped into the same demographic and genre have on it. I was of the consensus that if you have seen one, you have seen them all. Dense main lead where all he wants to do is become the strongest in the world, every single female having at least DD breast size, the ... one exception who has a small chest size for comic relief, etc. Hunter x Hunter 2011 is interesting to talk about, for me especially, as it almost completely takes this stigma and punches it to the outreaches of the cosmos.

Gon Freecs is a boy from the secluded Whale Island, and has high aspirations to become a Hunter to find his father who left him at a young age to persue his own Hunter related dreams.

While this is Gon's main focus of becoming a hunter, the focus the anime is the various experiences and people Gon meets throughout his journey. The lack of focus on the end goal keeps the journey fresh and exciting during the whole runtime of the anime. One of the biggest positives of Hunter x Hunter 2011 is that it utilizes its 148 episodes to it's utmost potential. Each story arc and character, even a lot of the really minor ones get a lot of characterization and development. Even greater of a feat is that all of these characters and story arcs still manage to capture a general feel of adventure and wonder. You can't point to a specific arc or episode and say "That isn't Hunter x Hunter", even if that arc or episode could be focusing on completely different things from the last.

Another thing that the long runtime of Hunter x Hunter 2011 allows is for a gradual buildup of it's more darker themes that arise later on in the series. With all the time spent with the main cast during the tonally lighter earlier episodes, you can't help but get emotional when shit starts hitting the fan later on. And all of this could not have been possible without any other lead protagonist.

I can't think of any other character that would fit the lead role of Hunter x Hunter 2011 better than Gon Freecs. His optimistic and sometimes naiive personality work incredibly well in both the lighter and darker moments of this anime. When you see him excited about something and he gives off a massive smile, you can't help but smile with him, and vice versa. Viewing the world of Hunter x Hunter through his eyes makes the show feel more like you are on the adventures that himself and his friends are on rather than simply watching it on a screen. Gon works so well with the show because of his simplicity in both design and and personality, since Hunter x Hunter as a whole is a simple extremely well executed show.

Killua Zoldyck is a harder character to talk about simply because he is more complex than Gon. The relationship between Killua and Gon is one of the main focuses of the show, and it pays off extremely well. Their personalities are so different, but their relationship feels so natural in both the intense and comedic moments of this anime. Killua himself arguably has even better character development than Gon, but I won't go into any of that for spoiler reasons. Killua gets a lot of screen time as well as Gon, and as much as I like Gon as a character, Killua is a very welcome addition as he adds an extra viewpoint to any given situation that Gon's personality simply does not lend himself to. Killua's more analytical ways at looking at most everything adds more dimensions to the topic at hand, which was greatly appreciated.

It would probably take me a full day of writing to talk about all the amazing side characters in Hunter x Hunter 2011. The ones that are meant to be focused on are focused on enough for me to be satisfied with almost all of them, which is a big accomplishment considering the sheer size of the supporting cast.

The group that I will talk about in most detail will be the villians. The Phantom Troupe, The Chimera Ant King and his Royal Guard, Illumi Zoldyck, Hisoka, all of them are amazing villians for their arcs. The only villian, and really the only character in the whole show who was underwhelming was the Bomber from the Greed Island arc, but even he had some degree of complexity to him. These are some of the most enjoyable villians I have seen in a long time, and I'm not really going to say anything about them as you should experience them, and the whole show, in your own viewing time.

Honestly, I would expect that during 148 episodes, the quality of animation would drop at least a few times during it's runtime, and even though it's Studio Madhouse we are talking about, it's still amazing that they managed to keep the level of quality high from episode 1 to 148. Granted, the animation never really reaches an extreme high point except for one amazing fight scene rather early on, but it's still worth commending.

Another random point I would like to add is the emphasis of strategy rather than brute strength in the world of Hunter x Hunter. Strength is still very much an asset, but it was thoroughly enjoyable to see thoughts running through various characters' heads as they think about every possible explanation for what may be occurring at the time.

The soundtrack is, again, of very high quality. Not the best I have ever heard, but certainly up there. My favourite tracks are the probably the more upbeat ones from the earlier parts of the show, but each track fits the part of the show that it is meant to fit. The OP, even though it never changed once for 148 episodes, is still as high octane and energetic as ever, and even some of the ED's piqued my interest.

Lastly, big credits for the voice actors and actresses. Some of the best voice work I have heard pretty much ever, especially with Megumi Han as Gon Freecs. Amazing work from everyone in the voice cast.

Throughout this review, I have been giving almost unanimous praise throughout, but that's because I simply couldn't find many important flaws in Hunter x Hunter 2011. Everything from the narrative buildup to the characters to the animation and sound was handled so well that it's hard to not fall in love with this show. The best praise I can give Hunter x Hunter 2011 is that it makes 148 episodes feel like 26 or even 13 episodes. Not the best thing that anime has to offer, but pretty damn close. One of the few shows that I would consider essential viewing for any consistent anime fan out there.

I think I can count on my two hands how many reviews don't have One Punch Man rated as a ten (at the time of writing this review, anyways).

One Punch Man, airing in the Fall 2015 season, directed by Shingo Natsume of Space Dandy fame, and headed by the ever fantastic Studio Madhouse. The show follows Saitama, a self-proclaimed "hero for fun" who can, well, kill all enemies with one punch.

I didn't really go into this series expecting much other than cool fights and a funny parody of the shounen genre, and for the most part, I got what I wanted. The action certainly ... is a marvel to look at, utilizing great depth of field, interesting camera angles, zooming shots and harsh lines to create visceral shots of pure excitement. There isn't a bad looking fight here, and on that front, I didn't leave dissapointed.

However, I felt the parody aspect got weaker and weaker as the show progressed. It worked a lot better earlier in the series when it matched the more lighter, fun tone, but as the series got more serious, the parody lost a lot of it's steam. Even though the fight scenes were still top notch, they just weren't as fun because of this tonal shift. I couldn't accept the lack of tension in the fight scenes as I did earlier because the comedy was nonexistent during these later episodes except for the inbetween moments before and after fights, and, to me, it started showing signs of the type of show it was trying to parody. The comedy was so funny in the first half or so that I was really missing it throughout the second half of the show.

That being said, there are a couple of interesting themes portrayed in One Punch Man that I truly didn't expect a show like this. Stuff like society's over-reliance on numerical rankings elevated this show from a straight parody. Themes like this were the bright spot during the more serious second half, and even though they were a nice surprise, I wish the comedy was balanced a lot more with those themes to satisfy both sides of the proverbial coin.

Saitama is a fun enough lead, especially in the early episodes. He's certainly a great way of parodying the battle shounen genre. Even with his character design, for example. As opposed to spiky hair like literally all battle shounen protagonists, he's completely bald, which, along with his facial expressions, is a nice way to complement the parody it was going for. Also, Pairing him with incredibly serious Genos adds a nice dynamic to both their characters. Overall, a very solid fit for a series of this stature.

The two most focused side characters, Sonic and Mumen Rider, were decent additions as well. Mumen Rider in particular was also a bright spot in the latter half of the episodes, with his selfless and headstrong personality. The rest of the characters of the bureau really need a second season to be fully realized. Of course, Madhouse has a reputation for not having more than 1 season of, well, anything (come on now Madhouse, Btooom! literally ended in the middle of the story, you gotta complete it!). The large variety of these characters did help them a lot, because a lot of them were just random stereotypes. I get that that's kind of the point, but if there were fewer of these characters, this fact would be way too noticeable, so I'm thankful for that.

Oh, I guess I can't really review this show without talking about the opening. It's pretty hype. There. I talked about it.

Overall, even though the second half of the show wasn't nearly as enjoyable as the first, the overall product is still worth the watch. The shift in tone would have been a lot more welcome had it figured out a way to keep interspercing comedy to keep it fresh, as the comedy was one of the best parts about this show. Even then, the action does help accommodate for this, even though the serious tone makes the lack of tension less bearable. Could've been better, but could've also been way worse.

The mystery genre is one of the most rewarding genres of any medium in my opinion. However, it is normally very hard to get it right, especially in anime. I can probably count on one hand, maybe two, the amount of generally well recieved mystery anime in the community. So, how does The Perfect Insider fare?

The first thing that struck me right off the bat was it's pacing. For an 11 episode show to only introduce the core mystery at the end of episode 2 indicates just how slow this show is. Surprisingly though, nothing really feels rushed even with only 8 or so episodes ... to complete the mystery. The mystery is exceptionally well-realized, and the slow pace adds to the atmosphere that the mystery and the characters build from the ground up.

The mystery itself is very effective. If you pay enough attention, you might just be able to figure out the mystery yourself. It's a mystery that is fairly logical, works well off the characters, and the answer isn't obvious. It creates one of the best things a mystery anime can do, which is keep you guessing to try and figure out the mystery for yourself. It's not perfect, as there are a couple things left to plot convenience and the reliance of the incredibly smart main characters, but those moments are thankfully few and far between.

As for characters, the two leads work off each other very well. They have fairly unique character interactions with one another, good backstories, ideals, and the like. They were interesting leads to follow, and reacted to the core mystery in a way that makes sense while never breaking the tone of the show as a whole.

And then we have Magata Shiki, undisputedly the best part of the show. Her take on human life alone makes her a worthwhile character. So many things, big and little alike, encompass this character to create a wholly 3-dimensional person. I'm not going to mention much more than that as she's a character better left experienced by the viewer rather than some random internet twat telling you about her. :)

The biggest flaw in the show also resides in the character section, and that is the side characters. None of them were really that interesting at all, but when the main characters have as much depth as they do, it doesn't really take away to have lackluster side characters.

The art is very well done as well. The character designs are top-tier, but the thing that really struck me the most was the amount of white that was used, both as light and in the colour palette. This again adds to the more surreal atmosphere this show emanates. Overall, a step up quality wise than what A-1 pictures normally puts out nowadays. The soundtrack has both a calming and eerie feel to it, which worked very effectively. I wasn't a big fan of the opening for a while, as it really doesn't fit in with the show at all. And while I stand by that statement, the song by itself is pretty damn catchy.

As far as mystery anime goes, The Perfect Insider is certainly one of the better ones. The core mystery engages the viewer with it's simplistic premise, and keeps them engaged with it's more complicated innerworkings. However, it's the unique yet intriguing main characters and their interpretations on the main themes of The Perfect Insider that really hit it home for me. And I mean come on, Saikawa fucking moonwalks in an episode, so it's worth the watch just for that. Certainly one of the better shows to come out of 2015, and I'd say if you don't mind the slow pace, give it a try.

D.N. Angel is quite the strange topic to talk about, really. There are so many things both wrong and right with this show that it kind of blurs the line between good and bad. I don't have anything else to say really, so lets get right on with it.

The first thing I will mention, and it is by far the biggest flaw this series has, is the narrative structure. D.N. Angel doesn't really have an overarching story, nor does it have an episodic storyline as it tends to jump between the two. The problem comes from the standalone episodes that have nothing to do with ... the main story or the main romance. I don't have a problem with episodic stories; I actually find them vast with wonderful stories and characters even with only 22 minutes or so. However, D.N. Angel fails to capitalize on this.

First off, the standalone episodes aren't interesting to begin with. They could have been, but a lot of them come off as very stilted and jarring, and doesn't really leave any impact on the viewer after the episode. Second, they make the overarching story and main romance way more rushed then it needed to be. So many episodes and even characters could have been cut out to focus on the stuff that was actually good in this anime, but with over half the episodes being stuff that rarely mattered to the main storyline that weren't even good, we are left with a very underdeveloped story.

However, the stuff that is good can still keep enjoyment levels fairly high. For one, the romance. Although not much happened until the latter half of the series, the two romantic leads have fantastic chemistry together, and I really bought them as a couple. I'll give you a fair warning though: even though this is classified as an action romance, the action here is fairly limited. This doesn't bother me that much as the romance was particularly strong, but if you want good action, I suggest you look elsewhere.

Another strong point, although it made little to no sense, was the setting. What I mean by this is that the town the characters reside in is European in nature, with all the houses and various artifacts being German or something (I apologize if I am horribly wrong with that statement). However, it still states it is set in Japan, with is kind of awkward. The setting is still cool from a story perspective, but I wish they didn't have to mention the real world at all in the series, so that way I could suspend my disbelief a lot easier.

There are a lot of strange logical errors in D.N. Angel if you happen to catch them, but they are more nitpicks than anything. For example, Daisuke Niwa's grandpa looks and acts like he is in his 70's or 80's, but based on the information we are given, he is only 54. Doesn't really matter, but it's just kind of amusing even it's kind of dumb.

Also, the actual overarching story, or what we get of it anyways, is fairly unique. It's a unique twist on the family rivalry kind of story, and it delves fairly deeply into various types of artwork and how strongly it can affect both the people creating the art and witnessing that creation, which was pretty interesting.

Now, the characters, oh god the characters...

There are some really good characters in D.N. Angel, and there are some trash tier ones as well. But let's start off on a positive note. The main character, Daisuke Niwa, is a very likeable protagonist. You make think of him as very by the numbers (which many people do by the looks of it), but I think he's a step up from the usual cookie cutter protagonist. Yes, he is your typical nice but kinda clumsy dude, but there is quite a bit more to him than that. His love for drawing (which kind of interferes with his family's business in an interesting way), appreciating the beauty in nature and artwork, and most especially his interactions with Dark, Hiwatari, and the romantic lead, are very well handled. I especially liked how in the early episodes he felt he was completely overshadowed by Dark (LOL SEE WHAT I DID THERE SO FUNNY) and his acceptance of him as the series progressed.

Dark as a character isn't much to talk about. He's just cool and that's all he really needs to be I guess.

Hiwatari is probably my favourite character in the show, mainly for the position he is put in. I'm not going to spoil it, but he is put in a situation that he never really agrees with, which creates an interesting relationship between Daisuke and him. I guess I also have to quick mention how much effort the creators put into creating a yaoi ship between those two. Guess they wanted to turn the shoujo demographic into a bunch of raging fujoshi's, but hell if I know.

Riku Harada also isn't much to talk about, but that's mainly because of spoilers. She's a good character for the role she is put into, and once again, that's all she needed to be.

Now let's go to the fucking godawful. Risa Harada... I get goosebumps remembering all the times she pissed me off. I have not been this annoyed with a character in a long time. She is the most bratty, fangirly, disrespectful, superficial and downright douchebaggy character in any show I have ever seen. They try to give her character development in the last fourth or so of the show, but I plain don't give a damn. She was just so cringeworthy.

And speaking of cringeworthy, let's talk about Mio Hio. Holy shit, the engrish on this character was so bad. Her role in the plot was laughably bad, and before that came to light, she was also just incredibly annoying.

All the other characters are pretty okay; nothing special.

The animation is nothing to write home about. The designs are serviceable, the 3D camera movements weren't awful, but they certainly weren't that great. They re-used a ton of those shots as well, especially the goddamn downwards pan of the school. Pretty meh, but still hold up generally well even over a decade later in my opinion.

The OST is also not that memorable. The opening was quite decent though, even though the vocalist doesn't really sound like he's trying all that hard. That might be part of the charm, I don't know, but it was weird all the same.

Lastly, the voice acting. I'll be completely honest, the reason I started watching D.N. Angel was because I saw that Greg Ayres was voicing a main character and I was like fuck yeah! (I have a soft spot for the guy, I just like his unorthodox voice I guess) However, I only managed to get through 2 episodes of the dub before having to go to sub, and the funny thing is, Greg Ayres as Hiwatari was by far the best sounding of the main cast. Daisuke in the dub sounded godawful, and the supporting characters even worse.

But what I find incredibly astonishing is that, even though it's better than the dub, the Japanese voice acting isn't really that good either. Niwa's voice actor is incredibly annoying, especially when he shouts a name. Riku's voice actress also wasn't that good, but fared better than Niwa's VA. Once again, Hiwatari's VA was the shining star in the sub. It is incredibly rare to find a sub that isn't that good, but unfortunately, I found it.

Crunch time. Is D.N. Angel worth your time? Honestly, I have no idea. There are so many problems structure wise, half the episodes aren't even that interesting, and Risa and Mio are some of the most insufferable characters in anime history. There are some really good parts too: the other main characters, the themes, the setting and what we got of the overarching story, etc. I just don't know if that is good enough to give it a pass. Personally, I had an experience where I knew the overall product was more bad than good, but there was something about it that kept my enjoyment level at a consistently decent mark. In the end, I'd probably say watch a few episodes, and if you don't basically what is going on, skip it. There isn't enough here to warrant a good recommendation, but I can't deny that some people have and will like this show a great deal more than I did. But for what it was, I had a good time.

Quick Disclaimer. Due to the nature of the show, I'd highly recommend you at least watch episode 1 of Gakkou Gurashi if you haven't already, because in able to talk about the plot and stuff, it is near impossible to talk about this show without spoiling the twist that happens in the first episode. So be warned.

People give the moe artstyle a bad rap. Yeah, sometimes it is nice to have some grittier backgrounds or character designs, but if it fits the setting well, than there really isn't wrong with it. It may not be your thing, but it isn't inherently bad. However, there are ... a select few shows that take this artstyle and subvert it by making the viewer think you are watching a "cute girl doing cute things" anime. Gakkou Gurashi is definitely one of those shows, and for the most part, it makes it work.

The best thing about this show is that it uses it's artstyle and it's slice of life moments to amplify the serious nature of the show. You could interpret the slice of life scenes in Gakkou Gurashi to be just that, slice of life. However, I think the major purpose of the slice of life scenes is subtly hinting that the characters are trying to put on a facade in a bad situation. Try to put a smile on your face to hide the fear that you have. The artstyle works in the same way. I wouldn'tve been as creeped out if the character designs were more realistic or the artstyle wasn't bright (it does tone itself down when it needs to). When comparing the light and fluffy stuff like this to the stuff that is actually going on in the plot, it makes for some really unsettling scenes I could just be optimistic about this, but this is what I think the creator's intent was, and except for a few parts in the last 3 or so episodes, it works brilliantly.

This setup with the artstyle and designs would not have worked if there weren't any decent dramatic and tense moments to accompany the slight hysteria that the former brings. And while these moments were a little few and far between, just a little, they actually work at making you feel a little uneasy, something that anime horror just doesn't do well most of the time.

One last thing about the setting. I really appreciate the fact that the creators focused on the characters and their experience within a zombie apocalypse instead of actually focusing on the zombie apocalypse. The zombie genre is so overblown nowadays that we know basically what happens: get supplies, run from zombies and bad people, watch people you love die, etc. Gakkou Gurashi realizes that you know the basics of the zombie apocalypse setting and can jump right into the stories of the characters without needing to info dump about zombie apocalypses.

The characters are a little bit disappointing honestly, but not by much. The characters aren't actually bad, but I feel that since there were only 5 actual characters that needed developing that they could have done a better job with them.

The main focus, Yuki, was handled well, and how her whole dilemna surfaces, as well as how she deals with, was handled tactfully.

Mii-kun really wasn't much of an interesting character, but her development was handled decently enough. Her backstory episodes were incredibly well done, though.

Kurumi is easily the fan favourite of the series, and it's easy to see why. She kicks zombies asses with a shovel, what else could you possible want?

Megu-nee was a decent character, but I feel her "twist" was handled poorly. They foreshadowed it so much to the point where it was obvious 4 episodes before it actually happened. Subtlety is definitely one the shows weaker points, which is evident with this character.

And Yuuri Wakasa. Honestly, there isn't much to talk about with her. She is the least focused on and therefore the least interesting character. She has big knockers though, so who cares!

Since I've basically already talked about the art, let's move onto sound. The soundtrack really is not memorable, except for one absolutely heartwrenching song that replaces the ED in episode 4. It's a brilliant sendoff for that particular episode, and the song itself is both bleak and beautiful at the same time. It sounds like that slow 50's music, and it is just amazing.

And I guess I have to talk about the opening as well. The song isn't really that great, but I have to give credit to Lerche for changing the animation for the opening as the anime went along. When a major key plot point arises in an episode, most likely the anime will accommodate for it in the animation for the next episode's opening sequence, which was a nice touch.

Gakkou Gurashi does something that horror anime rarely does right, which is make you feel scared. When a dramatic scene pops up, you can feel the uneasiness come over you, at least a little bit anyways. This is one of the few adaptations that I can say improved over the manga in at least a few spots. Lerche did a great job adapting it up until the last 3 or so episodes. Those episodes felt either too rushed or too heavy on the SoL to really be that impactful to me. Also, there was way too much reliance on Deus Ex Machina for me to really give praise to the ending of this anime. There haven't been many good anime that have come out of 2015, but this is definitely one of them. Second Season please.

This topic comes up all the time when talking about seasonal anime, but I need something to start off the review with, so bear with me :P

When viewing seasonal anime, there is always that one anime that receives immense popularity, whether that be from the source material, the genre it comes from, etc. However, a lot of the time the most popular anime is hardly the best one the season has to offer. It might be thrilling with good animation or a good soundtrack, but a lot of the time basic writing devices are thrown out the window (char. development, pacing, etc.) for shock ... value. So what does Shokugeki no Souma, the most popular anime of the Spring 2015 season by far, do to make itself worthy of it's popularity?

Well, my answer is simple really. The thing that makes this show really compelling and a ton of fun each episode is the food. Shokugeki no Souma is really just a battle shounen, but replace the battle with food. Food is something we can all relate to, and not one single person hates a truly delicious meal. So to see these characters bite down into something that not only looks delicious, but the characters go crazy for, is the only reason I can fathom to explain the amount of excitement this show brings me. It makes you want to be there, enjoying that top class food yourself.

If this weren't the case however, all we would have is a completely repetitive shounen where the main character wins all the time. And while that is certainly the case (the latter certainly can and will bother some people), it manages to keep your interest despite this. I could give you the story structure that defines every arc in the anime, but that would technically be spoilers. It amazes me that despite this, Shokugeki no Souma manages to be keep the level of entertainment consistent throughout, which is an achievement in and of itself.

Let's talk about the cast, which is damn humongous. This is a problem that a lot of shounens, particularly long running shounen, have. You know, the one where you the side characters have their moment in the spotlight and then they never see the light again for 200 episodes. And while the spotlight is placed firmly on Yukihira Soma and his endeavours, most of the cast keeps relevant throughout the runtime (some more than others yes, but it's a step in the right direction). This might change in the future (if this show doesn't get more seasons than I will be thoroughly amazed), but let's hope it doesn't. I'm gonna take the time to go through the main characters and the supporting ones I liked or I think are interesting to talk about at least, so bear with me, this will take a while.

Yukihira Soma is pretty run of the mill as far as shounen's are concerned. He's hotheaded, hates to lose, and has the red, spiky hair to show it. Yet I wouldn't have it any other way really. If any other character was taking the spotlight, the show wouldn't have been as fun because of it.

Megumi Tadokoro is the character who is very doubtful of her skills as a chef, and is incredibly timid. While she isn't the best character to do this, she does have great growth in her character, from going from the supporting chef of Yukihira to a great chef in her own right. This development handled this way has been done a million times, but it's development none the less, so I can't fault it too heavily for that.

And of course, we have the big bad bitch herself, Nakiri Erina. I honestly haven't hated a character as much as her in a while. I can't fault the anime for it, because we are pretty much supposed to hate her, but my god she's an insufferable asshole. All high and mighty, and won't accept being wrong even though she knows she is, etc.

And here's a quick rundown of the supporting characters of mention. Megumi is wonderful, and is best girl for Soma, even though it will never happen (the Karaage Arc was one of my favourites). The Yandere girl introduced later in the anime needs mention too, and the way her character arc ended was really quite hilarious.

And of course, my favourite character in the series, Ryo Kurokiba. When he is first introduced along with Nakiri Alice, I knew he was going to be my favourite character. He is normally incredibly clumsy, and talks with a noticeable disinterest of everything around him, but when he puts on his bandana, watch the fuck out. Such an interesting and fun character to watch, and I hope he gets his own distinct character arc at some point.

Lastly, I'll talk about Akira Hayama. In the opening, they give him such a distinct place in it, signalling that he will be some really tough opponent for Yukihira, but I was really underwhelmed with him. He doesn't have much of his own personality, his backstory was only briefly touched upon, and he wasn't built up nearly as much as I hoped he would.

I guess I'm obligated to talk about it, so might as well get it over with. Yes, there's foodgasms, hooray.

Well, to be honest, there wasn't nearly as many really obscene foodgasms as I thought there was gonna be. The fanservice in general really wasn't that prevalent, which was kinda surprising to me. I'm not the biggest fan of it (haha so funny) but it at least makes sense in a show about over the top reactions to food. The animation in general was kinda limited, but what really mattered was how good the food looked, and the facial expressions on the characters, and they both were brilliant. The character designs (apart from the aforementioned incredibly obvious hothead symbol that is Yukihira's hair) were handled very well.

I honestly didn't pay much attention to the soundtrack, but one thing I noticed was it's energy, which definitely added to the cooking scenes and their intensity. What really was the star of the show, however, was the voice acting. There's no point in having a show like this without having over the top yelling to conjoin with the reactions, and I have no complaints. Even Yoshitsugu Mastsuoka, who is almost always noticeably Kirito from SAO, sunk into his role perfectly. I never once thought that the guy playing Soma and Kirito were the same person until I looked it up, which is rare for him.

While I enjoyed Soma throughout, I cannot with good conscience give it ridiculously high praise. Do I think it's one of the better shows of it's genre? Of course. And I really like how it was able to take all these elements that plague both battle and long running shounen, and turn them into either turn them into positives, or overshadow them entirely. However, that still doesn't make for a masterpiece of a show. Even if negative elements are largely overshadowed, they still exist. And no particular element was really balls to the walls amazing, even if almost everything was at a higher quality than most shows. That explains the somewhat run of the mill score, but I'd still highly recommend this show to someone who just wants to marathon a fun, entertaining anime with minimal bullshit that normally plagues most shounen anime.

One of the best things about anime and what sets it apart from other mediums of entertainment is the sheer amount of creative freedom you can have with any particular show. No matter how ridiculous or impossible a premise may be, anime can achieve it. However, does anime work the other way around? Despite it being animated as opposed to having actors (excluding voice actors, of course), can an anime that is so deeply rooted into reality as we know it still work just as well? All it takes is one word to answer this. Nana.

In a broad sense, all Nana really is is two ... girls living their lives in Tokyo (circa 1998-2001 or so). What makes this show really worth it's fairly long runtime is the great characters, their interactions with one another, how they react to said interactions, etc.

This anime really knows how to make use of it's 47 episodes. The first 5 or so episodes focuses mainly on the two main leads, Nana Komatsu (or Hachi as she is referred to in the anime), and Nana Osaki and their backstories (this is one of my favourite parts of the anime btw, as it indirectly shows the key differences and similarities between the two using only their individual, unrelated backstories alone, which I thought was brilliant). As time goes on, more and more characters are introduced, and around the 3/4 mark, it almost turns into an ensemble cast. The focus is still on Hachi and Osaki primarly, but this structure leads to having this decently sized cast of characters to all feel like real people.

Speaking of, the greatest quality of this anime is how real the characters feel. Each main character has so many different quirks, different ways of adapting to situations, etc. that it not only makes it feel like this show could have actually existed as a real life story, but it makes you feel like you are there, living this experience with them. You feel happiness when a character is happy, and you feel sad when a character is sad. There were points where the drama got so deep that it was hard for me to continue to the next episode. This is a testament not to how melodramatic the anime is, because if anything, even though the drama is heavy, it never feels out of place because of the raw emotion these characters bring. It's a testament to how much the story impacted me on an emotional level that it became to much for me personally to handle. I just want to emphasize that this isn't a negative on the shows part at all, it's just my own personal take on it.

I'm not going to take time discussing these characters as it would take forever to talk about them because of how multilayered they are. Also, and I know I say this a lot, but it's best to really experience these characters for yourself to have your own take on everything.

Although there is so much good stuff going on with these characters and these ingeniously crafted situations they are put into, as far as I can tell, it isn't an incredibly deep and and profound story. Yes, there are overarching themes throughout Nana, the biggest one being the theme of regret. This once again isn't necessarily a bad thing, just don't go into it thinking you going to get something like Serial Experiments Lain or Evangelion or whatever.

One last thing I would like to mention story-wise is the rather copious amounts of inner monologuing by our two main leads. This is the only thing that could be counted as a negative in my opinion. It does lead to some much needed insight into these two characters are thinking and their take on any given situation, but sometimes it just gets too, dare I say, pretentious with some of it that it sometimes doesn't even feel like these two characters are thinking these things. Not to say these characters are stupid (although you may come to the conclusion that one of them is), but it just felt out of character when some of these lines came up on the screen. This isn't anything that really takes away from an overall amazing experience just because of how great everything else is, but this is a review after all, so it can't be all praise. :P

Nana's artstyle succeeds in giving a very grounded feel to everything. If an anime that was trying to be very realistic had some moe or something in it, it would totally ruin the tone of the anime. I'd call the character designs an improved version of the CLAMP style of designs. They really are great. The facial expressions are of note too, as those can be very fundamental to giving some much needed information about a character, and the animators handled them well.

The soundtrack didn't do too much for me, so that's all I'll say about it. The OP's and ED's fared much better though. The voice acting was also top caliber, especially with Romi Park's take on Nana Osaki.

Nana really is something all anime fans should watch at some point or another. While it might not be 2deep4u, you won't get this amount of raw emotion anywhere else in anime. Like I mentioned before, I didn't talk about specifics regarding characters, nor their goals, personal strifes, etc. as I want you all to experience those for yourself. Just let it be known that all of it, from Hachi's struggle with relationships to the struggles of BLAST and their relationship with Trapnest, of whom they have close (and not so close) ties is all brilliant works of storytelling.

When you think of Japanese humour (or at least this is what I think of when I think of Japanese humour), it normally boils down to being over the top and ridiculous and every way possible, which is the only way I can properly describe Noucome in a single sitting.

The best part of Noucome is undoubtedly it's comedy. It's formula for laughs is incredibly simple: have the main character be forced into situations where he has to choose between two or three different choices given to him by some deeply-voiced unknown guy. The actual comedy stems from two things mainly: the absurdity of the choices ... and the absurdity of the characters. I can barely think of a joke that missed it's mark in this anime because they were so damn funny.

There is one particular thing to note about Noucome, and that is it's length. The length of this anime is a measly 10 episodes, which is both a good and a bad thing. On a positive note, since the anime is so short, the jokes don't overstay their welcome, so you can make sure that you can laugh from beginning to end no problem without feeling any sort of repetitivity. However, many of the elements of the story and characters don't get explored much at all because of time constraints, making the anime feel extremely rushed. There was so much more that needed to be completed to get a full sense of closure, and it just didn't come to fruition. I mean, you get introduced to a character like Karasu Yumeshima, who seems incredibly interesting and crazy and could add a lot to the comedy, but he is barely in the anime for 5 minutes, which is ridiculous to me.

One last major negative point I had with this series was the drama. Whenever a dramatic moment popped up, it totally ruined the fun atmosphere that the comedy provides. Thankfully, these moments were few and far between, but the addition of this poorly written drama was unnecessary and straight up jarring.

The characters here are something you don't see all the time, which is a good thing is this case. Basically, they are all nutheads with ridiculous personality traits and quirks that add to the comedy as much as Absolute Choice does. I do wish that they were more fleshed out than they were, but that doesn't really matter in the long run as this is a comedy anime, and as long as they make me laugh, that is all that matters. I still wish that some of them had more screen time though.

I won't go into detail for any of them except the main character as it is better to just experience them for yourself. Even then, the only thing I will say about the main character is he is the only thing in this show that really has good character growth and a good character conclusion. Although he wants to get rid of his Absolute Choice, he doesn't want to do it in a way that isn't true to himself and/or hurts his friends. And while that is cheesy as fuck, it's a nice way to round out his character and is a nice little message to send out to the viewer.

As for animation, let me start off by saying that there is A TON of fanservice. The fanservice did actually add to a lot of the comedic moments in Noucome, so I don't have any problems with it in this case. The animation and art itself was solid. Nothing was particularly groundbreaking about it, and nothing was gutwrenchingly horrible about it either. It was good, and that's all it needed to be.

The soundtrack here is not memorable at all, so there isn't much to talk about there. The opening theme served a little better, as it is catchy and matched the fun and crazy feel of the anime well. The best part of the sound by far was the voice acting. Everybody did a top notch job here, but my standout performance was easily Furano Yukihira played by Yui Kondou. She needs some more roles, because played both sides of Furano's character extremely well.

Noucome is one of the best comedy anime I have seen in a while. Even though the whole thing felt extremely rushed and the drama just did not work, it made me laugh on numerous occasions, and if a comedy anime can do that, that it receives a recommendation from me. If you like the over the top craziness that Japan seems to be known for, then definitely check this show out. If you just want a laugh, this show will still do you just fine, even though there will be parts here and there that might irk you as it irked me.