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The original Shirobako is, maybe a bit oddly, one of the most original and unique experiences I've had with anime over the years of being a fan, despite not offering a complex plot or well-developed characters. What it offers is a really simple but endearing story of people working in an animation studio. Not much more, not much less. It uses its simple setup to tell very effective personal and collective stories and does so in an interesting, realistic, and fresh setting.

And here we are today, with a direct sequel of the original Shirobako at hand. A sequel that didn't feel needed. After all, the ... original story was finished. Nonetheless, the announcement was definitely welcomed, and I really felt that it could be a worthy successor of the original series. So, is it a worthy successor? Well, one thing is for certain:

Shirobako Movie should've never been a movie. It should've been a 2-cour series with a similar structure and pace the original series had. Only that way it would've been able to realize its potential to the fullest. The plot is simply too thick, focuses on too many characters and too many ideas to fit into 2 hours worth of screentime. The original series already had a problem with making a case that anyone besides the main few characters has their name worth remembering. With that said, most of them were simple enough to succeed in their purpose - showing how many people it takes to create anime, how hectic and hostile can the studio atmosphere be, and most importantly, why people go out of their way to make anime in the first place.

The movie has these ideas as well, but because every conversation, every idea, and every sign of personal struggle is so obnoxiously rushed, they just don't come to fruition. Which is a very big shame, because as far as potential goes, I'd say the movie has a core idea that in theory offers a more complete and interesting experience than the original did. At the start of the film, the studio is at their lowest, the original cast of characters scattered, but in the end, they all come together to work on a passion project they always dreamed of. If realized, this could've been amazing. But it's not.

Together with execution problems, the show also has certain plot elements that I thought weren't good to begin with. For one, I kind of dislike how the movie goes to incredible lengths to make literally everyone from the old studio come and work on this new anime. Most people? Sure, but it's been several years since the main series. People moved on and started living different lives. I would've liked to see some people who just straight up refuse to come back, for whatever reason they may have. I think it would've added some sense of realism to the movie, that otherwise just ends up feeling like a utopia of sorts.

There is also a really stupid plot about another animation company who is, for one literally not doing the job they were under contract for, and for two holding the copyright rights to this very same job hostage, so that no one else could do work on it. It feels like the movie honestly could've ended 10 minutes in, if the Musashi Animation producer knew one thing about how to handle a situation like this and sue people for not respecting contracts. Something they end up doing anyway, at the end of the movie, after about half a year of in-anime time! Amazing! All in all, it just feels like the movie picks the easiest route of having a clear bad guy on whom all blame can be shifted. Which is something the original series did as well, but here it feels even worse because our heroes are so clearly supposed to be in the driving seat of their arguments with the villain company, but the anime acts like they actually aren't.

While the fast pace made the plot suffer significantly, the lack of screentime is especially rough for many of Shirobako's characters. The main series focused on the motivations and lives of many people, but it also had a core main 5 whose old friendship tied many aspects of the show together. In this movie, it's very much just Aoi being the main character, and we see almost everything through her eyes. Almost all other characters, main or side, appear so little that it doesn't even feel like they were really there, more like they showed up to make a short cameo appearance. What did Erika do to deserve this?

It's also important to note that the movie wastes a lot of time on aspects that could've easily been cut in favor of putting more time into the actual story, characters, or slowing down the plot a bit sometimes and making the work feel more atmospheric. The movie barely ever takes a breather, and almost always feels like it's just rapid-firing dialogue in order to quickly get to the next conversation because there's simply too much to be said.

Its production values feel fine, but not amazing for a movie either. Its animation is very comparable to the main series, the character designs still look as colorful and gorgeous as they always did. The movie has a few nice and funni insert songs, some of them straight-up feel like PA Works are just doing their best Walt Disney impressions.

Long story short, Shirobako Movie is a story of unfulfilled potential, much like what Chikai no Finale is for the Hibike! Euphonium franchise. What could've been an interesting twist on the original story, using a very similar structure but introducing new ideas and themes, ended up being something I can't but be disappointed about.

Yes, it's fine. But this wasn't supposed to be fine.

It was supposed to be amazing.

Despite being a spin-off to one of my favorite pieces of fiction ever, Little Busters!, I didn’t have high expectations coming into Kud Wafter. VN into anime adaptations are always scary, even more so when they’re getting adapted as movies. More so, Kud Wafter was never thought of as quality work in the first place, and Studio Key in general doesn’t have a good record when it comes to spin-offs. I'm looking at you, Tomoyo After.

Surprisingly enough however, the final product we got here turned out to be much better than I ever would’ve expected. The movie starts out in a very lighthearted manner, aiming ... at providing classic Little Busters! comedy content, which is very much welcome. The whole group of characters is back at it with more jokes, banter and just being themselves. All of these characters are simply wonderful and manage to be incredibly hilarious at all costs. The only sad part is that the best girl, Rin, has probably the smallest role out of anyone in the movie. 2020 hasn’t been sad enough apparently :(

The biggest question marks with Key shows are always their transitions from comedy to drama, which can often be sloppy, rushed, and overall poorly executed. This is sadly the case here as well, as the movie at one point randomly decides it’s tired of being a comedy, and in a matter of few scenes totally changes its tone and narrative, without much explanation as to why. This very strange and unnatural transition is definitely the biggest weakness of the movie, and if it were half an hour longer and used that time to patch this hole, the end result would also be much more satisfying.

After such a poor tone-change, one would expect the whole dramatic side of the movie to crumble. Surprisingly enough, that isn’t necessarily the case, as the movie manages to pick itself back up. That is achieved mainly by keeping things simple and in-line with what the original Little Busters story provided. The movie fully capitalizes on the fact that it doesn’t have to build a new conflict from scratch, and instead works as an extension of a story we already know. Thanks to that, the only thing it can focus on is the execution of said extension, which is why, even though with very limited time, it does manage to tell Kud’s personal story relatively well. There are no glaring weaknesses when the drama is in full swing, and some interesting direction elements help to keep the movie fresh and interesting.

Kud’s character doesn’t go through much we haven’t already seen her go through in the original show, although the ending of this movie does give her side of the story a more complete closure, which is definitely a good thing. The ending scene overall is quite sudden but incredibly important and powerful, while also managing to be very sad without really trying too hard to appear so.

One area Kud Wafter definitely could’ve been better at are the production values. The animation oftentimes feels sloppy, despite the project only being about 50 minutes long and also getting postponed a few times. Not only a bigger budget would make the anime look more consistent, it would also help to produce some interesting direction choices and elements into their fullest potential. But, we can’t except that much from a crowdfunded project, I guess.

Which is honestly why I’m even more surprised that this turned out the way it did. Sure, this movie definitely ain’t no masterpiece, and it also is more silly and fun than legitimately meaningful and profound, but considering what kind of project it is and what I expected of it, I really have no reason to dislike the work presented here as a whole.

It’s funny, sweet, it has Kud, and it does considerably well in its dramatic parts as well.

Hence I can crown Kud Wafter as a success.

If I were to describe Tsurezurebiyori with a few words, I'd say it's a story that thrives in its original simplicity.

What I mean is that nothing this manga does or symbolizes is new or unique. It's a simple story about a simple life of four high school friends. However, it doesn't take long to realize that, as far as execution goes, Tsurezurebiyori is a rather unique title for the yuri genre.

First of all, Tsurezurebiyori is not yuri at all for most of its run. There's barely any romance until the very last chapters. Instead, it's much more a story about friendship and what these girls ... mean to one another. They go through their daily lives like normal high school students do, lazing around, doing nothing in particular and just enjoying their time together. This might seem boring for some, but stick with me, because thanks to its great execution Tsurezurebiyori is one of the sweetest and most entertaining slice of life stories I've experienced in a long time.

One of the reasons why is because it doesn't use generic and done-to-death plot elements you mostly get to see in similar stories. There are no school festivals and no class trips. There is not even much drama present, and the one chapter that is heavier on drama is still rather well and uniquely executed. The manga really is just a simple story of a simple life that focuses its strengths in areas other than complicated plot. One of those areas, is atmosphere.

Tsurezurebiyori understands its atmosphere in a way few yuri titles do. One of my problems with the popular yuri manga Girlfriends was that there was an absolute overdose of dialogue. Those girls just never let you take a breather, which is, in my opinion, a rather important element of creating good ambiance and getting the reader immersed in a story. Tsurezurebiyori is different. Its dialogues are very simple and there are many pages that have no text at all. Sometimes there will be a page with a character sitting alone in a room, looking out the window. Sometimes there will be two friends sitting next to each other and just quietly appreciating their time together. The author follows the idea that 'words are not everything', and these quiet moments magnificently help to create a rather interesting and pleasant atmosphere that made the manga much more likable for me than it would've been otherwise.

But the atmosphere isn't just soothing and pleasant, it also can be very nostalgic, empty, or even lonely at times. There is one particular chapter where one of the girls, Nanaya, is alone for a day because everyone else is out of town. She has nothing to do and realizes how important it is to have people around her. Through great paneling and understanding of simple human emotions, the author manages to paint a picture of how sudden loneliness feels on a very impressive emotional level. This is the kind of atmosphere building that sets Tsurezurebiyori apart from its contemporaries.

And it helps the characters of the manga too. By themselves they're a very fun bunch of high school girls with some great dialogue and banter. They can play off of each other personalities quite well and they give off the feeling that they're getting to know each other more and more as the story goes on. But again, it's the subtle moments that show their feelings that make them so human and likable. Sometimes they're loud and happy, sometimes they're a little sad and sometimes they're just quiet - but it always feels that they're not empty and there is emotion in them, whatever one it might be. Throughout 19 chapters, these characters show many subtle faces, while stile maintaining their usual fun personalities.

All of this is supported by very decent art from the author, Hamuro Kei. I'd again like to point out their great use of panels and the structure of pages to make the atmosphere stand out.

I must say that, although I'm not exactly a very big reader, Tsurezurebiyori is the most fun I've had with any manga in a very long time. I'd even go as far as saying that it's the most fun I've had with any anime, manga or novel in a very long time as well.

It's a story that doesn't try to do too much, nor does it feel like it's doing too little. The author had set small boundaries of what they wanted to do with this manga and decided to push those boundaries as far as possible, while at the same time never overstep them to do something they didn't want to. Thanks to this great understanding of what is and what isn't possible to do with this simple story, Tsurezurebiyori brings just the right amount of everything to the table for it to flourish beautifully.

You won't find much originality in Tsurezurebiyori, but at the same time, its qualities are something you'll rarely get to see elsewhere.

To meme, or not to meme?

This question is not necessarily directed at the people (potentially) reading this. It is a question for myself. Should I go along with the memes and pretend Okaa-san is something that it isn’t? Or should I keep it serious? Who knows.

Okaa-san Online is about our main character and his mom who both get transferred into an MMORPG world whose main goal is to fix broken family relationships. Cool? Cool. Now forget most of that and just focus on one thing. Mom. More specifically THE Mom, aka Okaa-san, aka Mamako the Great. This show is about her and nothing else matters ... even slightly.

At least that’s how I understand it. But the creators, well, they seem to think a bit differently.

First of all, this show was bound to be a parody. And it actually is just that for the first 2 episodes, until the creators run out of jokes to make regarding other shows of similar setups. These 2 eps are decent, they are everything everyone asked out of the show. There is Mom, there is satire, and there is entertainment. After they pass by, satire is gone. The show suddenly has no idea how to make fun of its contemporaries or itself in a smart-manner, instead, it starts to re-use the most oblivious “haha we’re self-aware” jokes in the book. Parody is gone, so is the show’s soul.

Because, even though Mom can be a pretty fun character to watch, she’s also mind-numbingly one-dimensional. Her character is literally: an overpowered obnoxious mother who somehow always ends up in fanservice situations. And although I honestly liked her at the start, she became boring quickly, because of the fact that her moments didn’t bring any innovations over time. It was always the same formula placed into different situations that were quite unimaginative themselves (tentacle monsters, slime monsters, you name it). Even then, her character is still by far the best part this show has, and it is a huge mystery to me why didn’t the anime just focus on making good Mom content. Instead, Mom suddenly disappeared for big chunks of time to make a place for the “cool” MC and the other “cool” characters. I don’t think I have to explain how that ended up working.

The jokes and gags aren’t keeping the show afloat either. They’re incredibly dull, always make use of the most generic anime and isekai tropes and feel like they were written by a 5-year-old. The only two exceptions I can name here, aside from the first 2 episodes, are Porter’s bag-on-the-head jokes and a “flat as an ironing board” joke in the 11 episode that was honestly very well-timed.

All in all, Okaa-san eventually becomes the very thing it wanted to make fun of. It is the perfect resemblance of that Star Wars meme that goes “You were supposed to destroy the Sith, not join them”

But honestly, the worst part of Okaa-san comes in when it tries to play the serious family relationship tones. It wants to make you feel like there is a message to be told and it focuses quite a lot of screentime on these things. But it never works. How could it anyway? These moments are so shallow, boring, one-dimensional and dull they can’t even work on their own so they have to be supported with yet another dose of Mom fanservice scenes. It honestly makes you wonder why didn’t they just make a few Mom shorts and cut everything else. I still wouldn’t call it a good show, but it would at least be its own show all the way through.

Because the thing Okaa-san disappointed me the most in is that it didn’t take pride in what it was. Trash shows can be fun and they can un-ironically become very good if they appreciate their trashiness and make the most of it. Just look at Summer’s Sounan Desu Ka? A survival/fanservice show that knew exactly what kind of content it wanted to produce and built an incredibly sincere, fun and fresh anime around it. It was maybe still trash, but it was 100% self-aware of that and wore it like an armor. Okaa-san didn’t do that. It didn’t want to continue being a parody. It didn’t want to be about the very thing that defined it. And it didn’t want to bring anything new to the anime trash scene either. It just wanted to run on the wave of isekai hype.

Which is sad, because Okaa-san really had the potential to be a great satiric piece making fun of the incredibly generic and dull isekai anime.

Yet, in the end, it is nothing more than yet another weak clone of the genre that wants to run all the way to the home base with one defining idea.

Sadly it didn’t realize that the ball it hit wasn’t a home run, but a fly out caught on the 1st base.

Simply looking at the cover of LaidBackers can give you enough of a clue to what kind of movie it is. Lighthearted comedy built around a cast of cute girls that may or may not be fighting against someone. Who're they fighting against? Is Kizuna Ai really singing the theme song? And is that Papika from Flip Flappers?! Tons and tons of questions everyone has to be asking themselves. But the only question left after completing the movie is: "Was it really worth it?"

The story of LaidBackers seems much more coherent on paper that it is in practice. Despite the premise of a group of ... friends fighting against a demon-like creature being interesting enough to pique my interest, there really isn't that much of a story in the movie. It starts with a random fight sequence, follows with 40-minutes of basically nothing, and ends with another fight sequence that this time at least has a position in the story. There are bits and pieces of individual struggles and character psychology scattered throughout, but it is all on such a small scale and basic level that it never seems to go beyond the surface. Ran, a demon lord turned into a loli, says a lot of stuff about wanting to change. But it never feels genuine enough because she always talks in the same monotone throughout the whole movie. There's not even a hunch of emotion in the way she comments on her mistakes, so where is our emotion supposed to come from?

Granted, a lot of these rushed things can be blamed on the length of the movie, which is only about 60 minutes with credits, but still, it seems to me like the creators don't really know how to get their ideas into the watcher's head. Maybe focusing a bit more on Ran rather than some of the other characters would be enough to do that, and I would personally approve of it because there are at least 2 characters that should not even be in this movie, let alone be given any significant time.

Have you seen a moe show before? Good, you've seen these characters before. There's really nothing going on for this group of 5 girls as individuals, besides the idol character who's potential dilemma could be exploited well given more time to work with and Ran, the devil who got turned into a loli. That said, the characters work together well enough so that their encounters are fun and pleasant to watch. How much of that falls onto the back of Harami, who really is just Papika from Flip Flappers pulling out a Wreck it Ralph move, is a question in itself, as her energy and overall positiveness carry a lot of moments that would otherwise be quite dull. There are 2 other characters, Kumi and K, that really add almost nothing of value to the movie, and I'd rather see them cut entirely. But K presents some yaoi manga jokes so hahaha everything's forgotten I guess. Also, the dog character. Jesus, just never speak of her again.

Given its presentation, one probably wouldn't expect that this series also tries to present and work with a deeper message. Well, deeper, it's not like this movie will make you think about something for more than 5 minutes, or in my case, for more than the hour I'm writing this review, but I certainly find it an interesting topic to talk about, despite the end result being as shallow as it is.

The message and concept the movie is built around is that people can change with time and everyone deserves a second chance. Which is not a problem in itself per se, the problem here is how it executes this message. Namely, how "in ya face" it delivers it. We're constantly reminded every 3 minutes that the dog character hates Ran because of the thing she was in the past. The same kind of dialogue comes back so many times over and over as if that was supposed to make the message more powerful or whatever. Meanwhile, we never get to see how Ran really changed her ways from being a cruel demon, it just happened along with her transforming into a loli and that's it. I fail to find the subtlety in all this, and so an interesting, albeit overused, concept ends up being quite simply undeveloped, despite being the only part of the movie that had enough time to work well.

The animation of this movie is not something that would leave me in awe. It is certainly better than your average TV series, but we need to remember that the production process is quite different for movies and our standards should be set higher. Considering this, I came to the conclusion that the visuals of LaidBackers are simply very average at best. The character designs bring nothing new to the table whatsoever. The animation itself is fluid and consistent, even during some of the action shots, but the background work for example to me seems like it was totally half-assed. The movie also presents a bit of CGI in some of the battles, to which I just say meh (just like to every CGI except for one show). The only comment I'd like to make about the sound part is that they should've muted the screaming. It honestly damaged my ears.

But despite all the complaining, I don't want to make it seem I was struggling through the entire movie, because I was not. In fact, if I wasn't watching it at 8 AM at a convention hall with horrible sound quality and people interrupting the experience on a minute basis, I'd say I even enjoyed the experience. That said, there's very little, if anything at all, this movie does on an above average level. The only thing it has going for it is that it picked a funny concept and characters to build the movie around.

That does save LaidBackers from the abyss of anime production, but at the same time, it alone cannot save it from being just another mediocre movie out there that will be forgotten by everyone a week after they've seen it.

You know, there's an argument to be made that being forgettable is worse than being bad. I think there's some truth to that.

"Most shoujo female protagonists tend to be weak, so let's make ours the strongest willed person to ever walk across this god-forsaken world."

I guess this was roughly the general idea when creators were coming up with the premise of Akagami no Shirayuki-Hime. And I'd gladly support that under normal circumstances. Having a female character who doesn't blush every three minutes does spark a lot of interest and promise in an otherwise very average piece of fiction. Sadly enough, the show is not able to capitalize on its strong premise and instead gives us a world full of empty characters and meaningless emotions. Which is a ... shame, because this anime really wasn't doomed from the start.

It doesn't take a lot of time to realize that the supposedly strongest aspect of the show, that being Shirayuki, is actually the one bringing it down the most. Why? Well, let's start the actual review, shall we?

Shirayuki is absolutely perfect. She's strong-willed, intelligent, beautiful, caring, kind, brave, considerate, moral, gutsy, useful, cute when drunk, cool and I don't know what else. Everybody is obsessed with her. It doesn't matter if it's a kid, old woman or a prince of a country, everybody is astonished because of how perfect of a person she is, and how uniquely red her hair is. The first prince fell in love with her just after hearing about her beautiful hair. That's right, he hasn't even seen her at the time and he already knew she was the prettiest girl alive. The second prince fell for her just after a first glance at the striking red of her hair. Random people casually show up out of nowhere just to kidnap her because her hair is just that fabulous. I really do throw around the word 'hair' a lot. Well, watch the show and see for yourself, there is legitimately not an episode that would go without someone admiring Shirayuki's bEAUtIfUl hair.

Back to her characterization as a whole, I thought she was a pretty endearing character at the start. She is different than most females in shoujo romances, and that is a welcome change. It really seemed like the creators genuinely cared about making her a strong character. However, it only took a handful of episodes to realize that it was just a tricky bait. Shirayuki's writing goes nowhere. She's presented as strong in will and never in any other way. Basically every single episode adds just another positive personality trait to her already admirable arsenal. She's never portrayed as a character who's struggling, never makes a bad decision, always comes up with solutions for problems. She is just that amazing. Maybe she could be considered a 'strong' character if we were to talk about her strength in personality. However, she is not a strong character when it comes to writing. Strongly written characters are believable, which means they have flaws. Every human being has flaws. Shirayuki doesn't. She's perfect in every sense of the word, and I find that disgustingly sickening.

Well, now that we got the main point of this show out of the way, you could basically look at any other shoujo romance review because the originality of this show ends exactly when you stop talking about Shirayuki.

Her male counter-part Zen is, surprise surprise, the manliest male in the world, exactly how it tends to be with shoujo characters. Just like Shirayuki, he's perfect. Almost everything I said about her can be said about him. He's also an amazing prince who genuinely cares for all his peasants even though every other politically active character is presented as arrogant and greedy. He's amazing, absolutely flawless. Even his obsession with Shirayuki, which could technically be considered a flaw, or at least weird, is made to be a positive trait in this case because why would the writers of this anime want anyone to have flaws?

Well, that's a pretty convenient question actually, because once we move aside our main 5 characters (of which 3 are not even worth talking about) suddenly its pretty normal for people to have them. Almost every episode presents multiple characters that could be thrown into a pile called "horrible people". Shirayuki gets kidnapped by evil guys on daily basis, people who act selfish and arrogant are that much more normal. The point is, these people only exist so that the main two characters could seem that much more incredible. There's someone acting like a douche? Well, be sure that Shirayuki is close enough to start yelling at him and show her strong demeanor. There's someone talking bad about Shirayuki? Well, be sure that Zen is close enough to hear all that and start protecting his end-all-be-all love. It's ridiculous just how perfect the two main characters seem compared to everybody else. I've legit never seen a show so bad at portraying evil. Random people showing up doing bad things with zero IQ just to serve as a foundation so the main characters can act cool and complex for a while. Pathetic writing honestly.

In which we get to a very important point of Shoujo romances, or just romances in general. That is, of course, relationship development. Well, nothing to write home about here either. Okay, fine... I admit. It's true that the show creates a lot of space for Shirayuki and Zen to properly develop feelings for each other. Good job there. However, the way it goes about it feels very artificial, at least from Zen's point of view. He gets obsessed with Shirayuki basically the second he sees her. It's not rare for him to go out of his responsibilities just to see her pretty face. It doesn't matter if he has tons of paperwork to do as long as Shirayuki is close to chat. It's like that all the time. Whenever Zen pleases, he goes to see her, while never caring about his responsibilities as a prince. Speaking of that, he sure has a lot of time to play around with his love for someone who is part of a royal family. I always thought people like that would be short on time, but apparently, it's no problem for Zen to visit Shirayuki like 15 times a day or spend the night with her somewhere. It's also no problem for him to start freaking out every time she gets into trouble and such. My point is, that this "love" doesn't feel anywhere close to reality. I've been in love, I know how things go. Sure, you do think a lot about the person in question but responsibilities always come first, even more so when you are in a position Zen is. There is absolutely no subtlety in his feelings because all he ever thinks about is Shirayuki. We never see him getting involved in royal matters, we never see him doing casual things, all we see him do is talk to Shirayuki or think about her. Now that I think about it, we know basically nothing about him besides how much he loves her. If that's what's called 'raw emotion' nowadays then I'm probably very old-dated for my own generation.

Shirayuki's emotions are, in this matter, much more respectable, as we see her engage in more things beyond just socializing with Zen. That bit of humaneness on her part is enough for her feeling to be justifiable and no matter what I'd said about her as a character, her side of the relationship growth was pretty decent. If the show kept some time to portrait Zen's life the same way as Shirayuki's maybe I could view him as something more than just "a guy who likes a girl with red hair".

To not come off as a douche out of this, I also need to mention some of the things I like, though they are pretty modest in numbers. Shirayuki's character was really interesting the first three or four episodes, it's sad that her writing and development later on was shit. Animation remains fairly decent for the most part. I also like the half fantasy/half historical setup for whatever reason. Two midsection episodes containing flashbacks of Zen's past are actually not bad at all. Sadly enough, they are also the only two episodes in which Zen becomes a real character and actually develops a bit, which once again proves how horrible at writing characters people who made this are. You simply cannot throw a couple of flashbacks onto a shallow character and expect him to look better. Development shouldn't be happening in the past. It should be happening in the present.

That about wraps it up. It has been a long time since I last wrote a review for a non-seasonal show, but I guess that perfectly shows just how frustrating of an experience this anime was for me. What started out with tons of promise quickly faded into generic nothingness. Perhaps that is a sad fate for all shoujo anime.

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Akagami no Shirayuki-Hime is really good at one thing. At tricking people into thinking that it's better than other shoujo anime. The sad part is that it really could've been one. If the interesting world and intriguing female lead got supported with good development and writing, I don't think I would be sitting here writing this negative review. The bitter taste in my mouth won't go away for a while.

Bad shows are just bad. Bad shows which wasted its potential are a general disappointment.

Oh, my dear Amanchu!, what happened to you? I don't remember you being so messy. I don't remember you being so unrelatable. And I certainly don't remember you being so mediocre.

Amanchu! Advance is really a textbook example of how sequels should not be made.

Before we start, it is important to express what does the original Amanchu! mean to me. I've always been a fan of Slice of Life. However, it is always very hard to find a SoL with good characters, healing atmosphere and, most importantly, enough entertainment value. Amanchu! had all of those and to this day I consider it to be the third ... best anime of this genre I've seen. So, you can guess that I was really looking forward to its second season. And it hurts me to say that it left me disappointed.

The daily stories of Amanchu! were one of the things that made the original series so good. If they were dramatic, comedic or both, they always managed to be impactful and brought a message with themselves. In which we get to the first huge problem of Amanchu! Advance. That it refrains from doing things the same way as before. The first hit comes very early on, with an episode about dreaming and flying on a broom. Oh no, Amanchu!, ghost stories are really not the way to go. Sadly, the show doesn't think so and decides to continue. Which is a decision that comes back to haunt it immediately. The dream stories are not very interesting, drag on for a huge amount of time and the fact that everything is a dream also makes them feel less touching, meaningful and nowhere near as impactful as before. In comparison to the daily stories it presents at the start, they are a huge dropout, both quality and entertainment wise.

This is not where things end however. The character department is also a place the creators wanted to add in. And so we are presented to a couple of more and less important newcomers to go along our original core five. First of them is Kokoro-chan, a tsundere-ish kid trap... *sigh* Do I need to say more? ; Actually, let's keep this unbiased; Kokoro is a beautiful case of a character who gets a lot of screen time yet ads absolutely nothing to the show. His only role, despite appearing in most of the episodes, is to fall in love with Pikari and act like a kid. What I always liked about the characters of Amanchu! is that they all had their purpose. They were helping Teko with her diving training or they had their own little moments here and there. If Kokoro hasn't been in the show, literally nothing would've changed. Hell, he doesn't even bother telling others that he's a boy, even though he knows that everyone thinks of him as a girl. If you really had to add a childish character, as if Pikari herself wasn't childish enough, you really could've done a better job. Like with the other new character Kodama, Pikari's little sister. She has layers and overall felt like she brought a bit of common sense to the group, even though she appeared very little sadly. If she got all the screen time the show wasted on Kokoro, maybe I wouldn't be writing this review.

Another area I didn't expect would happen is the yuri-bait feeling. As far as I remember, the first season didn't have any moments that would bait you into shipping characters. Because of that, it remains a huge mystery to me why do characters suddenly battle for Pikari's heart now. Why not leave them just friends? Do the people behind this seriously believe that the cringe-worthy dialogues about who loves Pikari more add anything to the show? Well, they technically could. But not when you know that nothing is ever going to happen. You know that nobody's going to ever express their feeling, you know that they'll stay just friends in the end. Then why all this battling for Pikari's heart? I just don't get it. The yuri-bait cliche which arose in the last couple of years is really starting to annoy me. And that is coming from a guy who normally very much loves yuri.

It's also important to talk about the satisfaction factor this series brings. Because of all the things mentioned above, the original Amanchu! is one of the most satisfactory shows I've had the pleasure of seeing. At the end of every single episode I had a wide smile on my face and was genuinely happy. With Advance, not so much. There are a couple of episodes that focus on everyday's life, and these are all very good. However, as I said, the ghost episodes in particular feel very weird and not like something you can relate to anymore. Their purpose in general is very questionable, as I don't think there is any particular reason they were thought up in the first place. That as a whole brings the satisfaction factor of the show much lower than I wanted it to be.

The animation and sound both stayed very much the same as in the first season. Character drawings are still very good, though I think they used chibi cheap faces way too much this time around. Backgrounds are still good, everything looks clean and sometimes it has very nice shots. I could very well be lying right now but I think the OST stayed almost the same as in the first series. Which is not a problem, because it is still generally very good and atmosphere fitting. Other than that, everything good.

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Believe me when I say that I have nothing against adding or changing things for the greater good. I really don't. However, why did the creators decided to add elements that were destined to worsen the show lies beyond me. It hurts me to say, but Amanchu! Advance is a failure of a sequel. It's the same show deep in heart, but the things around changed so much you have to dig way deeper than before to find its real value. And that's a shame, especially for a small-audience show like Amanchu!.

Why do yuri fans have to suffer so much?

When I was stumbling upon this year's spring anime, Tachibanakan Triangle immediaetly caught my interest. Wait a minute, is this yuri? And a comedy without any nerve-racking drama *cough cough Citrus*? And potentially ecchi? Omygosh omygosh omygosh! Can such a perfect thing even exist?

Turns out, it doesn't. Well, I thought for a long time that it does, but two weeks prior to it's start a shocking message about the length of this anime arrived; Duration: 3 min. ; Internet was once again able to break my heart... Seriously? A freaking short? *sigh*

Anywayy, now let's talk about what ... this anime really is. A disappointment. Tachibanakan Triangle is an adaptation of a 20+ chapter long manga of the same name. I have read through the manga prior to watching the anime and it's important to say that, unlike the anime, the manga is actually good at what it does. It's light-themed, has laughs and fanservice moments. Sure, it's just a stupid yuri comedy, but if you come into it expecting that, it can't really disappoint. The characters are also very likeable as a whole, even if they follow the very basic patter of personalities diversity.

Now, does the anime has any of the things I mentioned? No, it doesn't. In a fact, the anime completely abandons everything the manga tries to accomplish. The episodes are so filled up with random content that before you're able to appreciate any single scene or moment the anime already moves on, throwing more poorly animated and non-sense making things at you. The whole fanservice part is also very disappointing. The shots are pretty much the exact same as in the manga, but they lack spirit. They lack the effort. Which is the problem of the whole anime, to be completely honest.

The manga plays with it's characters and with it's environment. Sure, the things happening in there are mostly random too, but they have their purpose. You can tell that the things characters experience are somehow related. Not in the anime however. The scene selection itself makes no sense and even when it decides to adapt somehow important things, their sole purpose is nowhere to be seen. Also, relationship growth is an imporant aspect of the manga, as there is a clear love-triangle between some of the girls later on. But once again, the anime moves so quickly and unlogically that you propably wouldn't even know which of the characters are truly in love if you haven't know beforehand. The characters themselves have absolutely no chemistry, you can't even tell apart their personalities. Their sole reason for being in the show is because they just have to be there. You wouldn't want to believe that these girls are friends, students or even real people.

Be ready for the real deal, the production values. Like I already mentioned, the pace with which the anime goes at is incredibly fast, even for a short. Sure, they tried to adapt as much as they could, but I would rather see a bit less content filled anime which would make a bit more sense than what Tachibanakan decided to go with. It's hard to follow, forgettable and all episodes blend together into a huge pile of randomness.

The animation is, kind of a big deal. I actually wonder how small of a budget this anime had. If you decide to make a short instead of full series because of small ammount of funds, I would expect that the animation quality of the short would atleast be respectable. Sadly, it isn't. The arstyle itself seems very messy, and it's kinda funny how little is actually animated. Most of the scenes are either static images or 'chibi' animations.


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You know what's funny about Tachibanakan Triangle? Even though it's short, poorly animated and the yuri fanservice is also disappointing, I can't bring myself to hate it. It's a show I created a bond to and I seriously wanted it to succeed. Sadly, it didn't. And even though I'm in no position to tell you what to watch and what to not, if the only thing you're looking for is yuri fanservice, go check out Sakura Trick instead. And if you're interested in Tachibanakan Triangle in particular, go read the manga. In both cases, you're gonna end up with a much better experience than this empty shell of a real anime.

One of the things that can really tackle down my enjoyment of an anime is when it present itself in an original matter, but falls into the classic pattern of it's own genre once it actually starts. Kimi no Koe wo Todoketai is also one of those cases. A well made slice of life movie, pushed down by it's unability to make itself different.

But let's start from the scratch. I was really looking forward to seeing this after reading the synopsis, which seemed a bit inovative compared to all other slice of lifes. I expected a story about how broadcasting can change lives of a ... lot of people and I thought the movie is gonna focus on the bigger picture. In this case, on all the people that can get to listen to our main heroine's voice. Did that happen? Sadly not.

The movie itself starts off almost the same way as every nowadays movie does. It's end of the year, summer vacation are coming and our presented friends are planning on what to do. However, on her way home, Nagisa, our main heroine, stumbles upon an abandoned café. She tries to explore it and finds an old radio station. She can't resist and makes her very first broadcast. Sadly, that's where things start going down.

Not down in the matter of quality, but in the matter of how is the story presented. Until now, even if only in details, a lot of things seemed a bit original compared to others. The girls are playing lacrosse, Nagisa does a lot of personal things like shouting her problems into a ringing bell and, of course, the plot is about broadcasting. Honestly, was this idea ever even used as a main plot device? Even if yes, you can't but say that it sounds interesting.

However, what the movie does is, instead of focusing on the broadcasting itself, it goes down to the classic cute girls slice of life. Nagisa is maybe the main heroine, but in about the third of the movie, membership of the "radio club" suddenly jumps up from two to six. And with that, the plot losses a lot of it's originality. It doesn't feel like something impactful anymore, it seriously feels like just another school club setup, which wasn't the case early on, and shouldn't have been the case even later on, if you ask me.

The characters themselves, while having decent chemistry, act in a very generic matter. We have the maid-like girl who serves café and says dumb things. We have the Tsunderish aggresive type that always wants to compete with her childhood friend even though she's better at everything. Then there's the obsessive girl, and the always calm one. You see, I don't tend to brag about originality all that often. However, this movie really doesn't do a very good job at making characters diverse. Or original, for this matter.

A big problem that relates with the characters not being top-notch comes up when they want you to feel for them. Actually, talking about emotions, the whole movie doesn't do a particulary good job at making you care when it matters. For the most part, it's pacing is quite good. However, there are about two or three moments which drastically change the set tone just in order to make the characters shed some tears. Not only these moments feel indredibly forced, it also damages the impact of the last minutes, which, looking from todays perspective, was the only time tears were supposed to pour.

Also, while it's almost a necessity to end up a slice of life in a happy matter, this whole movie was one of the most straight-forward I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. That in itself isn't really that big of a problem. However, I have a hard time not critisising the movie for it's predictability when I could literally picture the ending scene 10 minutes after it all started.

Art is, on the other hand, an area in which the movie pleasantly suprised me. Every scene looks very clean, polished, some of the background shots were borderline beautiful. Even moments that tend to be very sloppy, like bike riding, were animated in a respectful manner and added to the fact that is all is very nice to look at. Sound was OK.

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I took this review from the negative side of things more often than not, but please, don't let it mislead you! Kimi no Koe wo Todoketai is definetly not a bad movie. Just a one that ended up a bit bellow my expectations. And that has to affect my rating in one way or another, no matter how much I wanted to love it.

It seems to me that people are expecting something a bit different coming into this movie than what it really ends up being. If the problem lies in it's confusing synopsis or tag selection lies beyond my area of interest. But please, when deciding to watch Hana to Alice, keep in mind that this movie is seriously not a mystery, or much of a drama. Rather, is it a very well made slice of life.

Hana to Alice's story starts off in a very mild manner. Tetsuko, one of the two main protagonists of the movie, had just moved with her mother to a new house ... and transffered to a new school. Like almost every new student, she has problems of fitting into the class collective, which seems to her as rather weird. Soon enough, she finds out that a year ago, one of the former students has been murdered. As she tries to understand the situation a bit more, a connection between the victim and Hana, Tetsuko's neighbour that doesn't go to school, leads her in front of the scarry Flower House. And so, Hana and Tetsuko (now nicknamed Alice) meet for the very first time and decide to solve the mystery behind the murder.

The story of Hana to Alice, is where the opinion of people differ the most. Like I already said, despite the mystery tag, there is not much of a mystery really going on. Not only isn't the murder the main point of the show, it's investigation takes a background place for most of the time, in order to let the slice of life parts of the movie shine and lead. Frankly, instead of making the mystery and it's conculsion as much complicated as possible, the movie rather focuses on building up chemistry of the characters, which then enables the revelation to feel satisfying. It also does a remarkable job at making things simple and not over-exaggerated, like many other mystery movies do. Instead, it puts both girls into, maybe random, but certainly believable situations, which make it feel very realistic.

Talking about realism, that is propably the thing I liked about the movie the most. Not only the mystery itself, but also the mindset of Hana and Alice seem incredibly believable. Before deciding, they ask themselves several times if they really want to go solve things out. Frankly, their attempt does really feel like something a teenager would do. From the very beginning, they don't have much of a belief that things will really work out, and every decision they make feels very spontaneous, not like it was all written beforehand.

Hana and Alice themselves feel very realistic too. Especially Alice. That is because the movie focuses a lot of it's time at showing random, daily events from her life. Now, I know that somebody would't find that very appealing, however I thought it was a positive contribution to the movie overall. Some of the scenes, especially at the start, can maybe feel meaningless, but they only add to the fact that Alice is just a normal girl living her own life. There are scenes where she chats with an old friend, meets her father or just practises balet in her own room. They may be a bit dragging, but are essential to the overall atmosphere the movie builds up and to the ending, which only contains a short dialogue reflecting that these two girls are just normal students.

I don't tend to brag about art all that often, but in case of Hana and Alice, I need to make a bit of an exception. The overall art could be viewed as very messy. The backgrounds look artistic and abstract, but the CGI animation of the characters doesn't bond very well with that. However, even if the art itself isn't the best, the movie doesn't change it's main intention. And that is to animate the characters as much as possible. They are constantly moving, their faces are constantly changing, every step they make is a bit different. Their movement feels like that of a human being, and despite the art lacking quality wise, I just couldn't stop watching the incredibly realistic character animation. All of these things make the whole movie feel very much alive, which is a thing uncharacteristic of anime, and is a welcome change.

The OST is also of a very good quality. It has strong pieces, the one I particualry remember was a violin/piano composition playing somewhere in the middle of the movie, which take some slightly touching scenes to another level. That is not saying that the whole OST is that great, but it certainly had it's high peak moments. The thing that I found lacking was however the voice-acting. The main duo was fine. But some of the side character voices really missed the mark to me. Most of them sounded plain bland and uninteresting, and even way too chill at times. Frankly, it wasn't that much of a problem, but I have to critisize the movie about something ya know.

And saying the word critisism, I think I need to clarify some things right now. As of now, I've pretty much praised the movie for everything, but it needs to be said that it also has some shortages. Like, for example, the art. Sure, like I said, the character movement was excellent and it made me to watch the movie with pleasure, but the overall art quality was just not very high. Also, while the story wasn't bad and I mostly liked the things it bringed, it also wasn't very captivating either. The same could be said about the characters, because Alice was very good, but Hana felt somehow left out. It just feels like even though the movie does most of the things right, it also doesn't do anything more than that. In the end, it's just a movie for warm evenings, when you make yourself a tea, lie on the couch and watch a chill movie, that is good overall, but doesn't blow your mind with anything.

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Hana to Alice is a simplistic, yet impactful movie. It tells us a story of two girls becoming friends and going through lifetime experiences. If the mystery stayed behind the curtains for most of the time lies beyond me, the slice of life parts were enought to make it worth my time. And it was a pleasure to watch.