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Stop me if youve heard this one before: A young, naive boy of 14, pitifully weak, has a fateful encounter where he is saved by a slightly older, beautiful, blond-haired swordswoman admired by everyone, and falls in love with her and decides he wants to be like her. After this encounter, despite being a weakling, the boy is granted a super rare "skill" that lets him grow stronger at an exceedingly incredible rate. He becomes adept at swordsmanship as well as magic, and gets stronger in attributes like strength, dexterity, speed, etc. complete with his own skill sheet that lets others view his progress and ... all of his attained skills. the boy goes on adventures with parties and fights monsters as well as the occasional evil person, while occasionally have encounters with his idol who clearly likes him more then any of the other men who pursue her. The story is basically a 2000s era harem where the main character gets incredibly sheepish around women.

That's right, you've found Danmachi! I mean Training regimen of the World's Strongest Women! Despite the damn near blatant plagiarism, This series manages to outdo its predecessor by having a main characters thats slightly less insufferable, and a supporting cast thats significantly less insufferable. The story also has better pacing, and while danmachi's plot always feels disconnected from previous arcs of the series, this series story does a better job of building upon itself to deliver a more interesting narrative. It' not ground breaking or anything, and you're not missing anything amazing if you decided to skip it, but it's surprisingly a fun read, worth an afternoon if youve got the time.

Tora wa Ryuu wo Mada Tabenai is a rare manga to get nowadays. An original concept with a unique premise. In the world of this manga there are no humans, and the world is completely wilderness. The characters are all animals with the ability to shame shift between their full animal forms and semi-human forms. The story centers around Dragon and Tiger, as Dragon is Tiger's prey and is quite literally caught in her jaws. Tiger plans to eat him because the legend goes that consuming a Dragon's heart will make you immortal. If you can't already tell by the title though, The Tiger still ... won't eat the Dragon, she chooses not to eat him after he passes out and reverts to the size of a human boy.

This wouldn't stop most predators from eating him regardless, but Tiger is not ordinary even for the characters that make up this world, and that's why the story works so well. Both Tiger and Dragon are wonderful characters with great chemistry, and are unique enough to carry the story. Thank god too because the two of them do the majority of the heavy lifting. Seeing them bounce off each other while navigating the harsh animal world they live in is a joy. There are a couple of side characters that get thrown in to keep things fresh when needed, but the core of the plot is strong enough to make this manga immediately interesting and fun to read. I recommend giving it a try.

If you're here, I'm assuming you want to know if its a worthwhile sequel to the original work that came out over 20 years ago and was one of the best manga to come out of that period.

It is. and its great. It was supposed be a sorta middling rehash by an out of practice author but 9 chapters in and it's better than like 95% of the shonen out there. It feels just like the original but with increased stakes that feels natural. all the characters are back (or are in the process of coming back) setting up some really hype return moments. Yea, ... you should read this

Enen no Shouboutai, also known as Fire Force is a show with a slow burn for a start but quickly turns into a raging fire. You'll have to pardon the pun.

Written by the same author as another favorite series of mine, Soul Eater, Enen no Shouboutai is an action shonen that carries over the same quirkyness yet lovable nature you'd expect from Ōkubo. Brought to you by the same studio that has revived and is adapting the JoJo's series, David Productions bring their A game to Enen no Shouboutai. The animation is kickass from episode 1, and never lets off the throttle. Every fight in ... this series is a feast for the eyes. Something also has to be said for the sound design in this series as well. Everything sounds exactly as you'd think it would, but better. The opening for the series' first cour, Inferno by Mrs. Green Apple is also amazing. I'd also recommend you skip opening 2 for the first few episodes it's out as there is a spoiler in there.

The art style is as wonderful as ever, and looks great thanks to a dedicated and talented animation staff. All of the character designs are snappy and memorable.

If I may be honest for a moment, however, my love for this series was not immediate. My score for the series was around a 7 for a while. The first several episodes, while good, felt as if they had a few holes; things missing. A quick check of the manga tells me that it was actually a fault of the original material, and not the animation team. You can definitely feel that Okubo was finding his footing with the series at the start. Not all the humor lands, and again it feels like things we should have seen for context were not given, and the show is good but not great.

If you make it past the first 7 episodes the show ramps up and becomes an undeniably addictive story. Okubo does indeed find his footing and really gets into it with both the story and the characters. Suddenly ALL the jokes are hella funny, and many made me audibly laugh. The fights become more intense, and are always character driven. The final fight of the series is both wonderful in its dramatic tension and amazing in its technical skill. At the core of the series is a tale of finding family and people who you can share both your hardships and your laughs with.

Okubo and David productions bring a worthy successor to Soul Eater with Enen no Shouboutai and get my highest recommendation.

Assassin's Pride proves to me once again that a strong enough premise can completely carry a show. Assassin's pride is not well animated, the writing ranges from ok to downright terrible, and the characters never move past their basic archetypes and tropes. However, Assassin's Pride's premise - while not totally original - is a strong one.

Kufa Vampir (real name) is a crack assassin for the guild White Night. What are guilds exactly, and how precisely do they function you ask? We'll never found out (get used to that with this show.) Anyway, he is a top assassin tasked with being the private tutor for a ... noble family's daughter who shows absolutely no promise in combat whatsoever, and is completely unable to use magic, which is of grave importance to the caste system of this universe. He is to train her to be a top-combatant, however if he determines that she has no potential, he is to kill her instead - and is about to actually do so - when he witnesses her strength of character and just how tragic her story thus far has been. Indeed, it was none other than her own father that ordered the potential hit on her.

Kufa Vampir (real name) then decides to perform a secret and forbidden ritual to give her his own mana in hopes she can become a magic-wielding warrior and have all of her hard work and effort actually be rewarded. However if it comes to light that he did this, both him and the girl will be put to the sword. Thus begins Kufa Vampir's adventure of training this girl to be a strong magic warrior while keeping hidden the nature of her growth from both her family, the noble community at large, and his own guild, as well as a few secrets of his own, less they both be found out and killed.

Now that probably sounds like a good time. And it is, for a few episodes. But as the show goes on it's problems only become exacerbated. The art and animation only diminish in quality as the show goes on. It's not the ugliest anime ive ever seen, but it's not good either. The music is forgettable, and the sound mixing is decent at best.

But the show's biggest flaw by far is its writing. or lack thereof. The show takes place in what APPEARS to be an apocalyptic word where lighting can be so bad that completely shuts down all transportation between cities, and in fact most of the landscape is uninhabitable. I say appears because we never get any backstory on the world and whats going on. The political hierarchy is never adequately fleshed out, which is increasingly disturbing as the nature of the kingdom the story takes place in only ever increases in importance to the plot, yet we never are given an explanation to the details. There is a power-system in this show, something about mana and classes, again never fully explained or given form or structure. Which is a real shame too, because all of this would be very interesting to learn about, if only the show had enough faith in its audience to be given these details, yet instead episodes are filled with anime girl giggles and some poorly animated action scenes.

Episodes fly by with no explanation and are never fully fleshed out. This is nothing to say of the show's weird imouto fetish it has going on. Little girls aren't sexualized don't worry, but for some goddamn reason every girl in this show has to be a little sister to somebody else. Even characters that were better when they weren't.

Despite all these issues, Assassin's pride actually managed to hold my attention till the end. Again, mostly based on the strength of its premise that kept the plot moving and story just interesting enough to keep me going. Thats really what this show promises. It's not great by any means, but something can be said for a show that is at least mildly interesting. if you've got literally nothing better to be doing and just want to watch some anime, check out Assassin's pride. Otherwise you could be doing something better with your time.

Goblin slayer has quickly become the anime communities most beloved yet at the same time most hated anime of the season, yet, even after watching all 4 episodes released, reading every available manga chapter (so far the anime has been pretty close to it), as well as the first and second volumes of the original Light Novel, I cannot help but think to myself that the show is neither as bad as the haters make it out to be, yet no where NEAR as good as the people who would give it a 8+ would have you believe.

Please, make no mistake, goblin slayer is BAD. ... It's not too well written, full of mind-numbing action, shock-factor murder and rape scenes, and it’s pretty ugly to boot. Characters all look painfully generic, the action is poorly animated and not all too engaging, and if you make my mistake and watch this show right after seeing a show like the also-premiering Irozuku Sekai no Ashita kara - also known as The World in Colors - Goblin Slayer's background and foreground art make you want to gouge out your eyes with a hot iron.

Goblin slayer takes heavy inspiration from rpgs and video games. adventures get ranks based on precious metals, they take on quests at a guild, hell, the characters even have classes that determine the roles in the party. Our starting party includes a Priestess, a Mage, a Martial Artist, and a Fighter who serves the role as the party tank. This is all pretty irrelevant however, as within 10 minutes they decide to take a quest to eradicate a goblin nest in a cave, and all get brutally murdered, or, in the case of one, raped by some goblins in a scene so hilariously over-the-top it makes you question if it was supposed to be even taken seriously. As the Priestess, our main female protagonist, is about to meet her untimely demise she gets saved by the titular Goblin Slayer (not before she wets herself mind you. Classy.) a stoic badass who's here TO SLAY SOME MOTHERF*CKING GOBLINS BITCH. YYYYYYYEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

We then watch as Goblin Slayer man systemically kills all the goblins in the cave, wielding knowledge and expertise of someone who's been doing this for a while. This brings some questions to mind, that I can tell you as someone who reads ahead, never get addressed:

How did these kids go into this THIS unprepared? You mean to tell me there wasn't a single book or guide or person they could go and see or read to help them know what to expect? These people have lived in the world for 15~ years and have seriously never dealt with goblins before? The show would have you believe that goblins are CONSTANTLY threatening villages and the like, so SURELY these kids would have some knowledge of goblins BEFORE undertaking this mission right???? From the rest of the story onwards, everyone from old people, to other adventurers, to kids, all seem to understand that goblins kidnap and rape human women to reproduce, SO WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE SO SURPRISED?????

The entire draw of the show is the catharsis of watching those little green rapist shits getting their just desserts at the hand of the goblin slayer. That's it. If that appeals to you, go crazy my friend. The action isn't particularly well animated - in fact it's mostly downright awful- usually involves just a lot of slashing, burning, and gore. The show's biggest flaw is without a doubt its animation. The team clearly didnt care about this property too much, and it shows. The show looks like absolute shit from start to finish, and would have highly benefitted from actually being properly animated.

The characters include Goblin Slayer man, Goblin slayer's main chick Priestess-girl, Goblin Slayer's side chick Farmer-girl (who's personality squares solely in her large breasts), Guild-hostess girl, an elf, a dwarf, and a lizardman. To, you know, really complete that fantasy feel. A little digging says that the characters weren't given names deliberately because that author wanted to capture the feel of his D&D games. This show is literally just D&D fan fic.

I am giving Goblin Slayer a 3 and not a 1 or 2 for a reason though. For as much shit as I give it, it IS pretty entertaining watching Goblin Slayer man kill the goblins, even if they make for some pretty weak villains.

That's kind of what Goblin Slayer is all about. It's just mindless entertainment, giving the audience some kind of catharsis watching Goblins receive biblical justice. Gone are the days of interesting or morally gray villains like Griffith, Father, Emperor Charles, Meruem. Goblin slayer isn't saying anything, nor is it trying to.

what was more fun than watching the show though was watching Goblin Slayer gain an audience by promising an unusually and uncharacteristically dark fantasy show with its first episode, only to devolve into a generic fantasy show in the end, with just a tad more metal. Bait-and-switch has never been done so well.