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A fans memory is very important one judging anime. However, memory is not always shed of the true subjective, but more of what the fans remember fondly. Pokemon XY is one good example of that. Fans considering the XY series as one of the best in the longtime Pokemon anime, and I did too. However, when I rewatched the series, there were parts where my memory failed me. Were this series were THAT half baked? People tends to remember the good stuff, and that’s why fans might not remember the half baked parts of the XY series. It also can be that they remember more ... of the XY-Z series, which is another case.
Do not get me wrong, XY series did a lot of things RIGHT. But it doesn’t mean it was perfect one hundred precent all the way through.

In this review, I will try to pinpoint where XY succeeded, where it failed, or wether, it was just half baked.

Let’s start with: Plot.
The plot of Pokemon XY is the same as almost most of Pokemon anime - Ash starts his journey in a brand new region, Kalos, which inspired by France. It doesn’t take so much time to see, though, how XY differs from other seasons. Already on the first episode, you can see how XY try to renew things. As a matter of characters and plot, XY presenting more mature and different line of story. Not THAT different, but enough so it will make Ash journey in beating gyms and collecting badges a unique experience.
With that being said, I’m referring to more character development stories, as Ash, once again, feels much more like the senior trainer in his group. Much like his treatment from DP. And there’s also a great story of Ash and his Froakie, which takes much more room than even Pikachu in the series plot.
But all that doesn’t remove some bad stories that XY have. While the pace is essentially better than other seasons, the quality dropping a lot when fillers starting to appear. And it seems that the creators really had bad time thinking of those. Do not get me wrong, I do not think there’s “good” fillers on Pokemon, last time I watched the Johto season, it was dreadful watching. The whole format of “Ash and gang meeting a Pokemon and its trainer” had lost its taste long time ago. But in previous seasons, you could still feel there’s some creativity in them. in XY you can feel how the creators lost its creativity and struggle making those.
That’s actually where fans memory is bad on, mostly because Pokemon is not used for rewatching. But when rewatching the series, when I got into those episodes, I felt cheated by my good first impression of the series. While those fillers ARE common, the plot of the canon episodes is just BETTER, and that’s probably the cause for the XY fillers to be forgotten from people hearts.
Truly enough, the story is getting better as the series is coming to its last third. Mostly it’s due giving Serena a plot to revolve on. And also for giving more themes and plot for the series to rely on. You can really feel how the writers change of heart toward the last third of XY. But utterly, this gave XY the half baked definition. The ups and hills of XY feels like a game of minds of the writers, as you can really feel how the canon episodes are much better, and maybe the best in the Pokemon overall anime. While the fillers feels like an afterthought, losing any creativity the writers ever had in previous seasons. But then, closing to its end, the plot quality getting a real 90 degrees change.

Next is the character.
To be honest, some the characters in XY could be hit or miss, and mostly, it’s hit.
Ash returned from its infamous childish nature in BW to it mature nature of DP. His confident coming alone with great ideas for pokemon battling, and his bond with his Pokemons are one of the greatest. With almost any Pokemon he catch in this series he have great plot and theme, and the one most importantly is Froakie, who leaves Pikachu in much more side character than main one. Ash and Froakie plot can be felt as a reminder of Ash and Chimchar for the most part, but toward the end of XY, their relation feels like entire different story of trust and bond.
Clemont is probably the best Brock replacement up to date. Where Cilan tried to copy Brock girls thingy to other area of expertise, and Brock with his girls stuff, were anime original, Clemont gimmick is game original materials. Yes, he can annoy sometimes with his inventions, but those can be much more fresh than what Cilan or even Brock could offer.
The hit or miss character is probably Bonnie, Clemont’s little sister. Last time we had fourth character for the gang, and also in the shape of child and sister/brother, was Max in the Advance series. At that time Max felt fresh at start, but his affection over the series had been fading slowly into being side walk character. Now, it’s not only because Max was filler character, while Bonnie is actually based on her game appearance, that her character succeeds in the series. But in the way of her introduction and characteristic, she were much more fitting into the group. Truly enough, you can feel how this was hit or miss, but in the overall she’s just a hit. It’s something about how - even in the episodes the focus is away from her - she felt much more natural. Truly she can be pushover sometimes, but unlike Max, where I just wanted to punch him in the face sometimes, Bonnie was more native. This great and delicate balance the writers gave her, that makes Bonnie little more memorable.
The half baked character in XY, is actually Serena.
Truly enough, Serena is another Misty replacement, and the writers seems to push her in a different way to makeover that rule in a brand new way. And so, Serena is much more like May in the sense that she didn’t went out to her Pokemon journey due her love for Pokemon or something. However Serena had been given a twist - she wanted to take that route because of Ash. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m one of Serena X Ash shippers as well. But in the long time test, you can feel how her character falling apart slowly. Where the writers gave a lot for her to follow Ash as a fellow trainer, something that resembled Misty, it fails where they wanted her to shine. Her emptiness in that area lead the writers, only in the last third of the series, to give her a gimmick similar to May and Dawn, in the shape of Showcase. No, you didn’t got it wrong, Showcase, not contests. While it felt once again more like a side story, as much as May’s contest, than Dawn’s. It did gave Serena the right push to her development, even to change her design and characteristic a bit. While this change was lovable to see in her, the fact the it took her so much time to get there, is enough for criticism. Truly, the writers gave her a lot of depth at the start, but until they didn’t fully used it in the last third, her character were just that, half baked character. And also where fans memory might failed them, as they remember Serena fondly due to her start and end of the series attitude, but forgotten most of her middle one.

But that’s not all where fans remember fondly the XY series, and that is coming to this review last part - Art and animation.
Truly enough, the animation in the XY was probably one of the bestest the Pokemon anime could provide. Finally gym battles felt realistic and freely, and maybe even more shounen’ish. Despite trying to fit the game mechanic, this is truly where XY series got lot better. While it’s not “too bad”, this animation improvement wasn’t through the whole series, but in the important battles. This isn’t making the animation of XY anyway wrong, but it’s also support why fans may remember more of those parts better than other.
The art, on the other hand, is probably between BW to SM treatment. I won’t deny that XY had good art, but compare to the BW more “round” design, XY feeling little more “square”. That’s probably what OLM tried to fix in SM designs, only to squashing the design to feel not square at all, and where SM art felt lacking. And where XY succeeded little more in that area than SM, though the more fresh and stylish designs - square design isn’t necessarily bad. And as I could think of, XY art is Probably the best the series had ever was before going Journeys style (where it fixed SM art. but on that, in future review).

While all that being said, it’s only for the XY series. The XYZ series, on the other hand, is entirely different issue, because it improved and fixed a lot of where XY hadn’t fixed, as I mentioned in this review. So as for XYZ, it deserves its own special review in the XYZ entry.
On that note, see you in the XYZ review.
To be continue.

Sometimes, when you describes a story of manga with “pretty words”, it’s more of an attempt o advertisement than presenting the truth. There are rare times when those words reflect the story to the fullest. The manga of the Hikaru no Go (HnG, for short) opening by the fact Yumi Hotta took some plain old board game as the centre of the plot, and used her storytelling skills to get the rest.
Extraordinary as those words seems to praise the story HnG presents, amazingly it’s pretty much one of those rare cases that the exact words are presenting the plot and story of HnG. It’s not ... about the old Go game, it’s about its story.

Strange as it sounds, yes, the Go game sure is played in the series. Yes, the characters are playing the game. Yes, the dream of the main character is to become the number one player in the Go world. But is it about the Go game itself? Doe people who don’t understand the rules, nor understand why that guy put that black piece on the board and the other were saying “Oh! That move! It’s changed the whole game”, do those people cannot watch this anime? Surprisingly, the answer is Yes. So how the hell is an anime about game can be possibly enjoyed, if It’s not even about that game? The answer is what I said before - Yumi Hotta, the mangaka of HnG, truly is masterpiece at storytelling, and that’s where the the anime succeeding at. Not at action based games and such, but pure storytelling that it’s sucking you into the story right in the minute you start watching it. Words like “rollercoaster of emotions” are pretty words. HnG will make you regret you ever started watching, because from the first minute ‘till that last episode, you won’t wanna stop watching it for anything else. It will addict you to the deep bone of your soul. So if you really wants to watch HnG, make sure you are on vacation of week and/or so.


Story & Character

As strangely as it is, yeah, the main character is, surprise, Hikaru. One day he’s going to search merchandise to sell at the attic of his grandfather. What he doesn’t know, that in the next few minutes he’s going to change his life from ordinary one, to anime on. Specifically on the Fantasy genre. He finds a hunted Go board by an evil spirit, that had been banished from this world in accusation of cheating in Go game and by doing so he were drowning himself so he could hunt people to make them play Go, and when those people won’t hear, he makes them vomit, so they have no choice but to get stick to this horrible plain boring old game, ’till they get sick, and then the ghost will hunt the Go board again, ‘till the next worthy victim will appear.
But that would be if Hikaru would get into Seinen anime fantasy, like Breserk. Since he isn’t, the ghost that hunt the Go board is a nice one, that the only thing he needs in his life is only to play Go. His name his Sai. And yeah, he does make Hikaru vomits, but not because he’s evil, but because Hikaru won’t listen to Sai full of heart request, so Sai’s sadness makes Hikaru get sick. Oh, and Sai hasn’t cheated, his tactless but honest behaviour is what made him banished from his lord too many years ago.
So in the end, Hikaru had answered Sai’s pledges and takes him to play that boring board game Go. He finds himself at Go salon, and surprisingly instead playing an old man, he meets some another boring-to-death kid who decided playing Go from some odd reason. His name is important, Akira it’s his name. He decides clearly that Hikaru is innocent not-knowing how to bore himself to death with Go game, so he took him to play with him with the chance that it won’t get hurt to spend the time with some real friend expect the Go board. The most dangerous thing could happen, he thought, is that Hikaru will decide it’s boring to death game and he will never return by the power of his (Akira’s) great power in Go.
What he doesn’t know though, that Hikaru had made a contract already with a legendary Go instructor ghost, that Hikaru himself doesn’t even know that yet, and he whispers the moves to his ears. And by those he wins that clueless child Akira, that doesn’t know his soul where that kid come from and where he absorbs masterpieces skills at Go, when it was only his first game at this bore-to-death-game. And by that he decides to chase Hikaru, interrogates him with his intense methods, and extract the secrets that makes him invincible.
Just joking, we are in Shounen anime after all, and like Naruto chases Sasuke, Ash trying to be Pokemon Master, and such, Akira is setting his foot to chase Hikaru. As Hikaru himself learning how to be shut-down kid like Akira, and studying the great quality of the boring-to-death game known as Go.

Though I used lots of graphic sentences and words, to be honest, the so-bored-to-death Go game, isn’t so boring in HnG at all. In fact, Pierrot adding a lot to the manga game that is already so good, with some changes from the original manga to improve the already good story. That doesn’t mean they are cutting stuff out, only changing the events of things to make the story with more impact.
As I said before, the story is sucking you to it from the first minute. The Go game itself might be “boring to death” in real life, but the way the anime is presenting the storyline, you won’t even know what they playing. You will see the characters putting stones and getting astounded by each other skills and such, and though you won’t understand, you still will be glued to the screen. Because as I said, the storytelling is so good, together with steady character growing development.

Yes, you will love Hikaru the more he grown on the game. It’s not called Hikaru no Go for nothing. The story isn’t growing Hikaru for nothing. It’s not the Go skills he’s achieving but more the maturity the more he’s getting stronger. Yes, he might be annoying from time to time, and though to get more mature the more he grows, he still is a kid.
For that are we have Sai. Though he’s the most not-effecting character in the whole 70 and so episodes on the “materialised” world, he’s serving the mentor Hikaru needs to survive the harsh world of go. And by thus he’s balancing gratefully the immaturity of Hikaru with his own maturity.
Akira, on the other hand, honestly and though some might love his character, never liked him in any way. Yes, he has good determination. And yes he might have good qualities of his own. Never the less, he’s crossing too much bonds with his fanatic Hikaru “addiction”. At some point he’s get over that addiction. The problem is that he’s getting back to it at some point. Conclusion: when you trying to recover from addiction, don’t stop drinking Cola (I used much strong word for this, but to prevent misleading I corrected it to Cola addiction. Yes, the one I had myself), but go to rehabilitation centre. But since it’s serving the plot so well because Hikaru and Akira chase are inevitable from the beginning of the story, and needed to serve the main anime plot (as I will continue to say soon), Yumi Hotta doesn’t send him there.
On Hikaru, on the other hand, the chase after Akira is making him stronger. The mere chase after Akira is what makes the plot twisting around to plots that you will be surprising seeing in game anime. Hikaru chasing after Akira is what makes him grow. It’s not addiction or disease, such as Akira has, but more of the great target of the main character. And though to be ordinary shounen one, Yumi storytelling makes it’s very interesting and unique. And again, it’s not pretty words, it’s what makes HnG special.

There’s a lot of characters, a LOT of, a TON of (well, not as much as LotGH as lol). HnG doesn’t stop being some randomly odd setting with the primary characters as much as other game or sport anime. There’s sure are following characters from the start ‘till the end. But HnG is breathing its exciting and interesting plot ideas from the mere facts of new characters, with interesting and variety of personalities. Though to have some hit and miss here and there, Yumi Hotta knows fine how to be the puppet master, and use those hit or miss for the favour of the story.
For that point I will repeat again and say - HnG strength isn’t in the Go gaming, but the storytelling. And as I said, the characters are the main meal for the plot. And when you think it’s time for deserts - Yumi smartly using a new plot lead or character to drive the next arc. So yeah, there’s no real deserts. Only a meal you will never want to stop to eat.
So yeah, talking about the whole cast of characters will be pain. So I find myself to write only the main ones. Those who wants to enjoy and experience the full details of great writing characters, will skip this review and go to watch the anime.
No wait, I didn’t waste my time to write this so you can go away. Hear me out ‘till the end please. It’s going to be long journey ahead in this review and we only at the half of it.
Please bear with me.

Back to final note about the characters. My only complain is (except for what I already said), lack of girls. Yeah. Though in general the anime industry is suffering from bad writing in those characters. And if there are good ones, those are mainly the main characters and will mostly surpass even the male characters. Yumi Hotta knows fine how to write those. So why is there a lack? There are 2 active girl characters in the story, which are fine by any scale. I very much like Akari’s cuteness and non-selfish personality, with the usual stubborn women characteristics to do good in the world. And there’s also Asumi who has some potential. But both don’t get much screen time to show what they worth of. Though the general complain, Hikaru and Sai are felt pretty much to be the meat of the series. The rest (maybe expect Akira) are feeling more of vessels to direct Hikaru in his grand Go adventure.

And though I have said earlier that Go is boring game. This is only the first impression someone will have the first time he will hear or see about it. On the same manner that if I would have watched baseball in real life I wouldn’t think twice to watch it in anime. But here I was watching the entire Major anime with great pleasure, since anime knows how to make some boring-to-death game very interesting. Though honestly you don’t have to understand the game much the enjoy the series (as I clarified earlier), the mere existence of the Go anime with its great plot will make you wants to try and play game yourself. And as the anime made me do it, I can guarantee that the game itself not less addicting than the anime.
The “study Go” section at the end of each episode, also cheering you to try yourself the game, and realise it’s very smart game.
But if you watching the anime and trying to play the game, don’t be disappointed if you won’t love the game as the anime. After all, anime has always unique stuff that the real world doesn’t have. Fortunately or unfortunately for us.

Here I wanted to make big fuss about fans complain on some part of the anime. But since it contains too much big spoiler, I was afraid even tagging “spoiler” in the review will make people attempted. So I decided to take the easier and shorter route. So even if some of you haven’t watched but run over some word accidentally, it won’t ruin your pleasure from the anime. But I still suggest not reading it.

~Major spoiler ahead~
If you are a fan, you might know the usual complain about the big downhill that occurs in the late episodes of the series. But though I’m agreeing with the downhill I’m not agreeing with the reason. It’s not Hikaru that take the quality of the series with him, but I believe it’s the mere director decision to make it that way.
Those 10 episodes that don’t feel like the rest of the series, is suffering from the moment they decided to use side story. Yes, those side stories are canon. But the director used those to slow down the pace, that even Isumi’s arc after that suffering from some slow pace.
So though overall this arc is the biggest downhill of the series, it’s sure not because of Hikaru. The minute the series get back to it’s fit, though the missing, the quality is back like it used to be. So as I said, the downhill is due the director choices. Both in managing those 10 episodes, and in directing in slow pace the important ones.
~End of spoiler~

As some people might know, or those who aren’t. Hikaru no Go isn’t adapting the whole manga. And those who might read this and say “SO WTH DID I READ ALL THIS? TO READ INCOMPLETE ANIME?” Hear me out.
True that, there might be some official excuse for Pierrot finishing HnG in the form of “the anime got close to the manga” reasons. But as a fan that loves how its end, and also read the manga. Not from the point the anime ended but from the mere start. I believe the end of the anime is great by it’s own due two main reasons.

1. Like some other unfinished adaption. Like HxH2011. The anime is ending at ending point event. Though the story heavily hinted for some futuristic event, the main anime end have its own event, that can be connected from the start of the anime to finish. And it’s lucky that this event is canon and not anime made unlike unfinished adaptions. So, like in HxH2011, though there’s more ahead, the end still felt end-like, HnG is the same. And the anime not even trying to do something of its own “ending”, the source manga has the same feeling, as it goes to kind of “part B”. True that the sequel special is continuing where the anime left of the manga. But the special itself isn’t perfect (specifically from the reason 2). And its well aware that the anime left of where certain plot events occurring. And the special itself isn’t adapting the whole arc it’s started.
To conclude this reason. It’s may not make HnG full adapted anime. But it sure feels that the anime ends in the point that the anime can proudly says it ended what it started.

2. This reason, to be in fact. Is been said by manga reader, who may felt like others who wanted to continue the manga where the anime left off, slightly disappointed how Yumi finishing the story. And not only that, but seeing the differences between the manga and anime adaption. Not to be exactly bad, THERE IS difference between the two versions, as usually there’s. But as usual the manga have the upper hand over the anime, HnG anime by Pierrot is one of those cases where the anime have its own level.
It’s not necessarily means that the anime is better, as I’m gonna expand on the ‘Art’ and the ‘Animation’ sections. But in term of telling the manga, directing, and as well the OST (as I will talk about in it’s own destined section) are making the story justify in the anime level. The anime is balancing right and delicately between the sometime overdoing comedy of the manga, by putting little more seriousness. And also putting more Go than the manga shows. Where the manga is showing less the Go board, if to rush the plot or highlight the characters actions, either by the limited manga 19 pages format, or by the fact that the manga have its own closure on the story. The anime have its own version how to show the games. Though ultimately those who don’t understand much the game won’t get much from it, the mere direction and pace are helping the tension and the plot to be more directed. So yeah, HnG isn’t perfect by all means to be one-on-one adaption, but rather setting it’s own version to the story. In term of story and direction, it’s for the best. In the other terms, check the Art, Animation sections. And as well the OST section, where I think the anime had great success in it.

And so, though the special sequel kind of trying to continue the story where the main series left off, you can see already the change. Not in the anime direction, but in the story direction. The special is enjoyable as the anime, but it’s just shows that the story going in the way the anime kinda tried to avoid.
To be exact, it’s not the arc right after the anime end that is bad, or even the last big main arc, but more the execution of it. I’m myself may had enjoyed some of it, but its not the best end for the story to be.
So in the end, I recommend very much to watch the anime. As I said, the anime has its own level and quality. If you are satisfy by the ending, you may leave the anime as it is and not even interest in the manga continuation. If you do though, and wants to know how the story ends, it’s more recommended to read the manga all from start, to see the slight changes in the direction. It’s really not much, but if you will notice those, you will understand my main point of the direction I mentioned above, you might appreciate the two versions alike.
I myself like very much the anime version. And although the manga is addicting as much as the anime, the anime has its own qualities to be proud of, as I mentioned already, and will mention on the ‘OST’ section.

Story - 10
Characters - 10

Art
(Usually I’m combining the Art and Animation in one section. In this review, since I’m gonna be critical on both (for good and worse) , I separated those. Specially due HnG manga artist :o )

This is actually where the anime made big hit or miss, and the latter is more true. But It doesn’t mean it’s bad.
First thing is, there might be those who might know already, but for those who don’t know - the manga illustrator is no other than Takeshi Obata. Yes, the one who joined Tsugumi Ohba making Death Note, Bakuman, and their latest production Platinum End which its quality is arguable by the the duo fans. So never the less, those who know Obata’s art well enough, know of his high level art on the manga. Though even through the manga itself his art is pretty well evolving, after all this is Obata’s first long term manga, matching his art in the anime is already pretty well known to not succeeds. So talking about Obata’s art adapting to Hikaru no Go, have it’s own discussion.
So it’s true, Pierrot artists weren’t able to match Obata’s art, same as other Obata’s anime adaption. But it still not complete failure. True that in some sense they don’t have the full detailed art Obata is known for, but Pierrot manages somehow to have some of Obata’s skills in the anime. Such as the characters growing, and some detailed backgrounds and building, are not making any shame to Obata’s work. True that, in the end lots of details are lost in the adaption transmission, but Pierrot’s artists doesn’t go too low in their job. Much as MadHouse treatment to Death Note. Though the comparison Is really farfetched, those who will check Obata’s work on Hikaru no Go will see what I mean. Only in the latest parts of HnG Obata went to the same art level as Death Note. It’s not means that the rest aren’t, but more as Obata’s art developing along the manga developing with the art. The same treatment may be seen in Bakuman as well, for those who read.
So yeah, ultimately Pierrot doesn’t come close to Obata original work, so it worth to check the original source. But otherwise, they still makes good art on their own. Though that it’s worth criticise Pierrot for making the Characters little “square” from the manga, and for the “lighter” mood of the art compare to the manga, on it’s own Pierrot making pretty good job. And as I said earlier, some of Obata’s original work isn’t completely lost. And even Pierrot style somehow fitting little more to the light story theme than Obata seriousness. As it seems in the manga itself that he fought over his art to match the light story themes. Pierrot did fine in making that.

To summarise this. Yeah, Pierrot does not follow straight to Obata’s work. In some ways it may be blamed for the year. And as rereading the manga I come to have though that modern remake may make more justice to Obata’s art (and also the animation, as will followed).
It doesn’t mean that Pierrot made completely bad job, as been clarified. In fact, at some point (episode 20 and so, I think) the art getting major upgrade. It may not be a revolutionary upgrade, as the character designs pretty much stays the same. But those with good eyes and great quality (as myself have the series in BluRay quality) the upgrade in the art sure makes great deal to the anime.

Art: 8/10

Ahh, if only the animation would be good as the art…

Animation

Don’t get me on this part, mostly due the fact that I most had saw couple of glitches in the animation, nor animation problem, that I were checking very closely every movement. In fact, HnG doesn’t need that good animation, and maybe if I weren’t checking it closely, or rather wouldn’t have good quality to observe them, I wouldn’t have my complains.
After all, there shouldn’t be any problem to animate characters playing Go. There’s no fast or action movements that needs too much of it. So basically the animation is pretty much getting the least budget while the art and OST much more.
Plus, as I hinted in the Art section, the year may cause it. And so Hikaru no Go, though to have good treatment overall from Pierrot, is may lack only in the animation area. It doesn’t mean it’s bad, but as you would expect from kind of board game anime, there isn’t significant and outstanding animation to shine on. Basically from the main reason I said earlier. The problem in the animation to my taste at least, is where animation lags that was common in the 90’s anime, occurs also on HnG. To be honest they are quite rare, but since I went and looked for them, they are annoying to see in 2001 anime.

Still though, it doesn’t mean the anime had bad animation. As I said, pierrot doesn’t need much investing in the animation as much as other anime like Naruto or Bleach. In the modern vision that I can see in my head (see Art section), the animation could be much more fluid to match up some of the drama and tension. But as for the 2001 version, HnG could do little better. Only slightly better. Apart for the rare animation glitches that shouldn’t be even if it were released 2 years earlier.

Animation: 7/10

What they did invested very much in, and did probably the best decision in the production area, is

OST & Songs

I’m excited that I finally got to this part of the review. This is actually where HnG anime shines, and where the anime superior over the manga. Hikaru no Go OST is maybe not the best and modern music production there is, but it reaches for me the high level of music such as Death Note in term of fitting the moments, the tension, the playing, and more. The simplicity of the OST is just the best thing Pierrot did for HnG.
Even upon writing this review, the guitar OST of HnG is playing again and again in my head. I have been addicted to some OSTs before, such as Death Note, but not in level that HnG makes me addicted. HnG OST surely knows how to make simple but addicting music tracks, to make sure by the mere long chance that if you won’t get glued to the HnG by its story, the OST will force you to.

Hikaru no Go songs also doesn’t have any bad ones. Sure there are more likeable and less. But every each opening end ending songs in HnG have uniqueness on its own. Music Is My Thing was the best ending out there, going. Bokura no Bouken makes my body shivers anytime hearing it. And those only the ending themes. Any opening theme have its own specialness in drawing you to the anime, starting with Get Over that makes me never get over on the song. To Fantasy which makes me cry, since the opening starts 16 episodes before the anime ending.

So in the OST and songs area, Pierrot did masterpiece of work.

OST: 10/10
Songs: 10/10

Overall/Enjoyment

For this last part of the review, I will share my journey with Hikaru no Go over my youth. It’s all started when this anime had been aired In TV. Luckily, unlike the other anime that had been aired over TV, HnG wasn’t dubbed but with the Original Japanese audio and localised subs. Watching the series made me closer to the anime culture. Both because the anime itself is connected to the Japanese culture, but also for it’s addicting storyline as I went in this review to explain. After the anime had finished sadly to be aired, and at times where I started watching anime more seriously on my PC, I had rewatched this anime. And ‘till those days I’m rewatching this amazing series. So personally, this anime feels kind of coming to age journey. Both in the part that HnG was part of my youth, and also the fact that Hikaru himself growing in it. His character is enabling those who watching the anime connecting to his coming to age story through the Go world.

And that’s where HnG is better than other game anime, such as YuGi-Oh and such. Where the main plot is lying more on the playing of the game rather than the character growing. True that there might be other doing this, but Hikaru no Go is special above them, because the anime simply is not concentrating on the Go game itself but by the mere storyline, which focus solely on Hikaru grows, as well as other characters in the anime growing with him.

So I believe, that Hikaru no Go is one of the basic anime that the average anime fan will enjoy. Its uniqueness above other anime highlights its own importance. This anime is meant to be watched by everyone, and is very addicting and fun not less than the modern and popular ones. I would say, it’s hard not to enjoy by it. Even though it’s kind of old one, it’s one of those anime that being unique even by long time, and the more time passed and more anime created, that Hikaru no Go gains its own good name. Either by its anime or by its manga.

Personally, though the anime is good by itself, and as being said makes its own special version compare to the manga, I’m recommending reading the manga as well. It’s no matter if before or after. That way, you might realise some of the points I myself pointed out, where the anime can be on its own dependant on the story telling from the manga. So by that you can enjoy the anime on its own qualities, though to have some disadvantage over the manga. And still enjoy both media, by reading the manga.

Hikaru no Go sure is, one of the best and important anime that got released in the 2000’s. Make sure not to miss it. And don’t deny the anime for glueing you to the screen.

Enjoyment - 10/10
Overall - 10/10

In fixed world, you won’t kill your neighbour because he ate your lunch, or kidnapped you daughter, but if he will threaten to kill, you might do that as self-defence, or even to kill to save other one. But when it comes for murders after the murder happen, usually the question if he’s deserved to be killed is divided, not because he’s not worthy of living but because he can kill others. Thing is, most people are afraid of dirty their hands, no one would wants to kill him, but if there would be psychopath that is ready to do that, would you ready to ... give him the right? Or you on the other side of the map, that prefer that man to live in prison.

Wether what’s right or not, Death Note (in short DN, I will use it from now on) is attending that question, but not answering it. It sure presenting the two sides of the equation, but it either not answering it and nor trying to, the main story of DN is on another dimension, a mind game between two genius minds - Yagami Light and L. About the question above? Rather than DN isn’t attending to answer that it’s leaving to the watcher the choice to wether cheer on one of the sides and decide for themselves. Yes, there’s going to be dark sentences as “The world needs a better way”, and for the other side “Justice will always win”, but in the main story dimension it’s really doesn’t matter, there’s much more than psychological question for DN and that’s the mind game.

And that’s what really makes DN story being notable, if the story would revolve about “who’s right” the answer would be too much expected as the story is published in Shounen magazine and not Seinen one, those who would want this kind of stories that mixing the two dimension of psychological question what is good and what is wrong plus the mind game dimension, can find it in Monster which is in my opinion feels like Seinen version for DN. But since DN isn’t concentrating on that level, it’s letting the two sides being favourable at the same time without worrying that “why am I cheering for the bad side”, in the mind game level the only difference is whether on what level the other side will use, and that’s what make the suspense of DN roll.

Light for example, though to be the “dark hero” isn’t bad because he wants to kill people for the “Utopia” thingy, Ohba made his character being convincing enough that his way is sure the “good way”, he isn’t evil but have true ideology (though to have some evil aura around him). MadHouse truly succeeding in making Light background opinions clearly as being a high class student without any competition on the class, their introduction they made for us make us more recognise and realise where his ideology came from. One of the thing that’s so likeable in his character is mostly his believing in his action, some people can say he’s doing the wrong or good thing, but the way he presenting his ideas and making his “world” without evil making him deep enough character for anyone to love his writing (I was being careful not saying people will love his ideas, but how he’s wrote).

L on the other hand, felt to me much less the other side character, it’s not that he isn’t but the way he’s presented making me less feel his ideology - I will try to explain. L is the world best detective, once recruited for the Kira case he doesn’t really showing his ideology, he may be in the “light side”, but unlike Light who had worked hard convincing us he really thinks he can be the “ruler of the world”, L doesn’t have much to answer that, he just good and that’s what he is and doesn’t gives us much else on that, just being in the other side of the map. Though that being said, L character is still interesting in his own unique way, and perhaps Ohba felt that “weakness” I mentioned in L character so he went ahead making him with unique personality - goofy and seriousness mix with good balance that makes honest and true character that will be close to our heart. But still, the difference in the ideology “building up” felt missing in L.

In other two characters though, seems that Ohba didn’t had to sweat so much. One is Soichiro, the top detective of the NPA which doesn’t need to do much convincing why he’s on the other side of the map of justice, and besides have the feel of the more mature and adult character, these maturity is felt by his ideas and opinions, he really doesn’t need much to convince us why he’s sure in his way, and his actions along the series going through his “recipe” though lots going to happen.

The other is Matsuda, though to be really side character he still have the most interesting balance of ideology, which in one way he isn’t sure he’s against Kira but still being in the other side of the map, all the together with his comedic personality adds a lot of spice to the kinda heavy of the series. He’s maybe not the most bright person of DN, but that’s why he’s one character to develop a lot and add a lot to the anime, and the fact the he’s “side character” adding that a lot.

Might be little mention for kinda important character, but though Aizawa feels a true vessel in the detectives side, he have the more average feeling of them all, he have his development and good opinions alright, some major development his character alone is carrying along the story, but from all the characters he feels the more “stable but average” character. It doesn’t makes him bad, he sure have deep writing but he just feels like the more ordinary characters from all in DN. Though that’s to been said, I truly love his design along the series and how he can steal the show from time to time.

The true pearl of character in DN though is Ryuk, his true goal in DN is only to have fun and seeing the mind game from the sideline, his character design together with half funny and half serious personality truly takes the story in interesting ways, sometimes for his side notes and sometimes for his helpless in the development of the story. His natural side is what makes Ryuk great addition to dark and serious story to lighten the mood and feeling less tense, his appearance also can from time to time to bring the watcher another view of the things.

The first part of the story really makes what counts and how the story will be unfold in the next arc. Ohba truly does make great job balancing in delicate way of the supernatural of the Death Note with Light smartness without being seems like the Death Note itself is what makes Light crossing his obstacles on his way but his puzzle and detective mind. The more the story continues, the less the Death Note powers being used to his plans and more and more the mind game is unfold, ’till the first arc reaching it’s peak on ep10. Though the series is good after this point too, the first part will be reminded by everyone where DN truly makes Light and L shine.

The next arc though, has the first feeling of downhill on the series.

*spoilers alert from now*

Well, it’s not that the story is being bad or anything, and it more like a feeling of the continuity that makes the 2nd arc feels little differ from the first one, especially with the appearance of new character to the cast Misa.

It’s not that she’s bad character, but the way she were made at start let anyone feel little unease at start, her light and different style makes a lot of difference in the theme of the anime, and the way Ohba made her to be light minded and useable might angry some people. But as her characters makes twists in the story and makes Light work much harder, her unique characteristic start paying off, and as the story continues her character starting developing a bit though not being changed much she’s donating much more to the series, making her character maybe not the favourite but important and necessary.

But apart of her appearance and her actions in this arc, the thing that maybe makes the “downhill” feeling is probably due the less crossing obstacles that was the main first arc theme to more detective like them. Apart from that, the cat and mouse mind game is still on. The best part probably is Light and L friendship being strengthen, levelling up the whole mind game story, which have once again a great peak of it’s own.

The whole Yutsuba arc is doesn’t bad so much either. Sure, there ARE problems with this arc, but as climax of it comes it seems Ohba used it only as a ladder to the true meaning of all. Higuchu as Kira isn’t the best, but the story made us know already what kind of Kira he’s gonna be - lust for money and fame, Ohba made it out that Higuchu will fit to the rule fine, and Hugichi doing it great and steal the show with his cunning personality. The other Yutsuba members serving fine as business men, but it’s kinda pointless to write a lot about them when the anime didn’t cared but to so few of them. The story of DN was never the problem even in the Yutsuba arc. No, not here is where Death Note having bad problem, the problem starts with the appearance of Mello and Near.

The story here runs very fast, and though MadHouse did great job compressing the “Mafia arc” into small 3 episodes, its still suffering from the fact it isn’t the same story ‘till now, the director of the anime realised it well, and so the anime continue to run into the bad arc anyone knows as Near arc. It’s not that it’s bad, but it’s just not the same DN anymore, and the amount of build-up Ohba is making in the manga is stretching it’s limits, the anime made it kinda shorter somehow, and though to be better somehow it’s still suffers from the big issue - Near.

Mostly the most annoying character of the anime, though somewhat being “L” replacement, his personality and his method isn’t as L at all and makes the story run on straw rather than deep storyline like the first part of the anime. Though that even Light’s personality kinda changed in this part, Near personality can mad elephants, and the story he brings with his actions doesn’t feels the same deep feeling the anime gave us ’til now.

Though all that being said, the “ladder” feeling that the Yutsuba arc is feeling here as well, and as the anime came to it’s reach, it’s all kinda worth it. Though Near feels as Ohba’s tool to get there, we can somewhat forgive the deep downhill in the Near arc as the true story unfolding.

There’s also Mello, but the anime treated him as tool too, it’s hard worthing mentioning him. In the manga he have his potential fulfilled, but as the anime just ran ahead to make its point his character doesn’t show much of use. Still though, it’s not bad thing, the anime in the 2nd part of the story just seemed to wants to take the good part of the story. So yeah, though the anime kinda have miss or hit here, its doing best in doing that.

Story - (10 for part 1, 8 for part 2) / 10
Characters - (10 for part 1, 9 for part 2, 5 for Near) / 10

A good thing about DN manga Is Obata’s work on it, the seriousness of his art is inserting the much of Ohba’s story to different level, and honestly, MadHouse’s art for the anime isn’t even close to Obata’s quality. And have no doubt, I’m doubting there’s a studio out there that can really match the level of Obata’s work, but still MadHouse doesn’t say “failed” and give up, the serious tone is still there, it may not be Obata’s high level of work but it somehow still bring life to Obata’s seriousness story with good dark and serious tone to the colours of the series that gives enough justice to Obata’s work.

But as with every anime, there’s no 100% anime that doesn’t have flaws in animation and art, DN is one of them. There are one and more of those episodes that seems the animators tried their best, but some proportion weren’t as usual and effected some of those. But make not mistake, though those episodes still exists, it doesn’t effecting the overall animation and art of the series as those are very few. Exists and annoying, but very few.

With the animation and art dark and serious tone MadHouse gives there’s also a fitting OST to it, and one freaking OST that gives me the chills every time hearing it. There’s even a fitting OST to the more detective scene, mind game scenes and the mad scenes of the anime. It gives new meaning to each and every scene from the manga to be the exact tense it supposed to be. In this are, you can say MadHouse truly served the purpose of “anime” adaption to the manga, matching the seriousness and psychological tones of the manga in perfect animation and OST.

And while the 1st and the two other endings of the series are fitting the overall theme MadHouse succeeded giving to DN, the 2nd one feeling much less connected. It purposes are understandable to those who knows the series “mad” scenes, but no. it felt to me kind of hit or miss. While the 1st opening did serve great as opening to the series, and the two ending surely have lot of thoughts of being more than average ending compare to other anime. I still somehow liked the 2nd ending better.

Animation - 9.5
OST - 10

You know those shows (even not anime, drama movies and such) that have some mind blowing twists, and while the first watching is very entertaining, rewatching it is hard. Why is it? The twist was so darn good and all, but that twist have so main purpose in the story that in the second watch you just wait it to happen. Let along the show is good and so the rewatch is worth it for the good acting (in real shows) and directing and such, but the enjoyment from the story isn’t the same. I ran a lot to those kind of cases, Death Note on the other hand isn’t like this. Even rewatching it in the 10th time, the excitement and the depth of the story is still there, it will never bore me. And though I know already what’s going to happen, it’s still exciting as the first time.

You might call me obsessed, maybe I am, but I still haven’t found good anime like DN. it’s depth, it’s characters, in my free time I’m listening to the anime OST and songs. The quality of DN is something I haven’t found in any other anime, and it remains my top favourite ‘till those days. There’s those calling DN “gateway anime” and such, but while watching lot of other anime, I still haven’t found story with depth Obata gives to the characters and story. I may gave away Monster is like DN Seinen version, but even DN itself isn’t complete shounen with it’s dark and mature scenes, and while Monster is masterpiece of anime so is DN. In fact, MadHouse giving DN almost the same treatment they gave Monster, but it feels there’s much more to it with DN’s OST and such.

Still, DN is masterpiece of anime though all it’s downhills and such. It’s weak parts considered for me weak in term of DN, compare to other anime out there, even those weak parts are better. And MadHouse gives a lot of justice even to those weak parts.

Overall: 10/10
Enjoyment: 10/10

Dragon Ball Z (or for short DBZ) sure made the merchandise called Dragon Ball (or for short DB) the most popular anime merchandise in the word. It starts from manga, 2 anime adaption (DB and DBZ), couple spin-offs (DBGT, DBS), lots of movies and lots of games, and it seems that this merchandise that exist for over 30 years now doesn’t going to fade soon, with every other year new item in this merchandise is appearing even though the story is so old and in fact so unuqdated that even the general opinion seems divided by two major opinion (by my eyes at least) - ... The first, the fans who are still loving the story no matter how much time will go, it’s still will be saved in their hearts as their childhood series or rather great anime of all times. But the second opinion is realistic, and sees that though the anime had made his move in the world, the world has advanced, and there’s much better anime that had been released since the world has know DBZ who are much better.

Though there’s clear answer for that opinion - DBZ is what actually made most of the anime those days, it was what made the shounen battle anime so popular and mainstream, sure it doesn’t have so much of a story and not that deep characters than most of new anime, but since in the time DBZ was masterpiece, it’s not relevant to compare it to newest shounen anime. But that answer is actually the words of a fan, in true face of the critic that opinion is right, doesn’t matter how much DBZ effected the anime world ‘till those days, the lack of story except for “fight the strong guy”, lack of character development except for few, and a lot of plot holes and plot convinces and plot armours, doesn’t does good to DBZ.

But those critic points is actually what makes the truth on the other face of the truth - Enjoyment. What actually makes the so old anime, is not some complicated story, strong ideology characters, but actually the simpleness of the those points is what makes the anime so damn addictive, with good tense and characters with simple dilemmas your can recognise with, and not some deep narrative with three dimension characters. The simpleness of the story and the characters are what making DBZ so great so the watcher doesn’t need much to just enjoy Toriyama’s ideas and nothing more, so the story is just running ahead without need to understand big and complicated staff, in critic eye it’s bad, in enjoyment eye it’s what makes DBZ rolls.

What’s all that gotta do with the remake Dragon Ball Kai? It’s all directed to one big question when one watching Toei so-called “remake” of DBZ alone ‘till cell arc (the 2nd part DBK14 will get a little treat later on), why they called this remake at all?

And I will explain. Usually remake (at least in my eyes, but I’m sure others will agree) is taking the manga that had been done for it one anime series in the past and adapting it from the start, the likely reason to do that, is the old anime had reached some point and ended, because it reached the manga and the producers decide to end it, or doing original anime end, and because the manga finally reached it end, the producers decided to come back and do justice to the manga again. Usually, those remakes are redrawn, and not just being retold without any change, but taking the direction of the anime in some new way to entertain the watcher in new way of direction even though it’s the same old story. The famous examples for this kind of remakes we saw in FMA03 that got FMA09 (or in the more famous name FMA: Brotherhood / FMAB) and HxH99 that got HxH12.

Dragon Ball Kai on the other hand is kinda far from being such remake. What Toei had done is basically taking the old 1989 DBZ, cut the filler scenes (and there’s a lot of them), reformatting them to HD scales, and presented it as “Remake” in new name “DBK”, new opening, new ending, recorded again all the voices, renew the OST, damaged frames were redrawn, needed frames were drawn, and that’s it. Something new from old DBZ? Not at all, on the surface it’s presented as “Remake” but in reality it’s maybe looks newer and sharp (due the HD reformat) but apart from that we just got again the DBZ, only in shorter version.

Though all that, there’s still kind of Remake here, that the non-fillers idea, and the shorting of the episodes due the fillers, do makes a feel of remake here. Who watched the old DBZ would know what I mean when I will say, that DBZ though to be great and exciting anime, had it’s own very much problems, either from fillers and either from longevity, and that sure effected the experience of Dragon Ball story, for best or worse. Exciting moments, felt much more exciting in the anime, but some battles and situations, got too much length, some of them are the famous “5 min” battles. While in DBK, all those are changed. Remembered what I said about DB simpleness? Well, those are magnified in DBK, mostly due those samples I talked about. The “5 min” battles though to be still long got improved a lot, and the dragged story in DBZ is more more directed and connected to the events. On the other hand, some of the exciting moments in DBZ that were magnified by long moments, felt much less exciting but directed. So yeah, though DBK isn’t real remake in term of retelling the story but cutting the fillers scene, but it’s still remake in term of how to present the story, rather it would be for good - because that’s how Toriyama wrote the story, or bad - because it removed the more exciting moments DBZ managed to make, the simpleness I talked about earlier have much better impact, so DBZ never had been more exciting and enjoying to watch.

But with all that being said about DBK remake being “free fillers” isn’t that accurate. In fact, there are still some fillers in the series, some of them are true needed, where Toei filled some materials that fills Toriyama’s world with more spice. But while those are showing there are still some fillers who felt untouched, some of them even non-manga readers can observe them immediately for the long moments of characters doing nothing and feeling of dragging, and some that manga readers can notice them without a problem, some of them are additions to the battle where Toei inserted useless extra fighting, true that some people love the extra violence in DBZ, but in true eyes it’s dragging. For those fillers, there might be true reasons for Toei to keep them, some because if you delete them the original story material will be damaged (mostly the dragged content), and some for filling hole for the episodes minutes (mostly the extra violence). All what I said right now might seems petty, but in some point it seems that Toei didn’t care anymore but left entire episodes without cutting, maybe some here and there extra fillers stories, but when seeing extra useless dragging in version claiming to be “free fillers” it’s makes bad impression, especially after they cut some fillers dragging that actually made good impact in original DBZ (as I mentioned above) those full dragged episode untouched felt really unnecessary.

So yeah, though Toei shortened long 199 episodes (Frieza-Cell sagas) to 98 episodes is sure impressive, and make it worth to rewatch DBZ again (and I will talk later for who it’s worth), it’s not perfect “free spoiler” version.

Story: 8/10

All that “what they cut and what they didn’t kinda made me headache, so let’s talk about something that sure make our mind much busier than minuteness - the HD converting.

In that area Toei sure made great job, especially since DBZ is old anime, the year 1998 isn’t that close and the animation back there had lot of good things but also bad things, but animation unlike movies, since they are animation it’s easy to make good quality of them when you have the source, and Toei made great use of the HD. In my version I have at last - BlueRay 1080p - the colours are looking sharp and colourful, the fact that in the BlueRay version that scale is 4:3 and not upscaled is making good effort for them for the HD conversion.

The problems start - at least for me - in the redrawn or fixed framed. As stated earlier, Toei didn’t made new computer animation but used the old hand drawn one, and one of the good parts about the hand drawn animation is it’s for deep colours and shapes quality, true it’s have disadvantages but the deepen hand drawn factors making the animation much deeper than the new computer drawing, and at the most cases Toei made new frames with that system the comparison between them are noticeable. True that some of them are might be good though the comparison, and some even only by double checking I noticed it’s redrawn scene, but most of them seemed to be drawn so fast and unprofessional in all areas in animation - starting with the lines to the colours and movements, there might be more excuses than reasons for Toei to do that, DBZ is one of popular merchandise in the world, money shouldn’t be in short. Time is pressing - but a second ago there was great redrawn scenes. The most acceptable excuse is maybe for me to say that I watched this in great quality and the 1080p made the huge different between those.

Animation/Art - 9/10

Now, for the OST, it’s hard for me to say from obvious reason, that DBZ I watched as little kid and it was almost 20 years from now, and apart from that it’s known for the DBZ community that the OST is changed from dub to dub. But what there is to say is about the renewing, Toei took some old OST and made it sound great on modern speakers without old noise and great quality of sound.

The opening, though being replacement of the good old cha la head cha la, doesn’t try much being replacement but have good rhythm of it’s own and very addictive as well, living the same hype as cha la was. My problem starting actually with the English dub which choose to make every couple of episodes (like 10+) a different singer from the vary cast, the idea is fascinating as it’s not allowing the song getting old (though when watching the Japanese dub it didn’t happened to me, but it’s still good idea), the problem start as they bring new singers which just doesn’t seems to get the excitement in the song or too much excitement, that all this “changing singer” thing only made me get old of the idea itself.

The ending songs are pretty good themselves. But in term of comparison I must say I liked the first one much more, it had really catchy words and music, while the second ending felt too much generic and unexciting for me.

I won’t start talking about the English or Japanese dub, mainly because it’s depend on opinion and matter of choice of the watcher what to choose, and since I watched DBZ as a kid in the local country dubbing, I don’t have much to contribute. But I will do say something as a matter of fact as manga reader, and that though the Japanese dub is considered unlikeable among DBZ fans, as knowing Goku character from the manga, it’s Japanese dub is much fitting his characteristic and personality, than the heroic voice in the English dub. But as I stated, it’s really matter of opinion and preferences.

OST - 8/10

Talking about character and story are needless, you can find those in DBZ own page, also about the original animation check it there. (Characters: 7/10)
So let’s start finish long review, with final notes:

First final note:

So in fact, what rises above all is for whom DBK had been presented - for the old fans or new ones? And I will explain.

On the surface, DBK is marketed and referred as “remake”, be a remake or not as we said, the way it presented is seems targeting new fans as they can just start and watch DBK with it’s shortened length and won’t have to watch the old 199 episodes anime. Problem start where Toei showing signs it’s not for new fans by putting big-main spoilers in the opening, old fans might love it to anticipate what Toei will do when the “so-called battle” gonna come, but new fans might be annoyed by big stuff revealed as it’s something they should know long time ago. The profit for old fans are may be better than new fans - they wants once again watch their good old childhood anime and DBK saves lots of effort by making that easy to them, though not saving some of the excitement of some moments as I say earlier, they still be watching DBK than watching DBZ all over again. New fans however, might be suggested because of those moments to watch DBZ, and even if they would say they don’t care old fans might be annoyed the new generation of people won’t know the old DBZ. However, even new fans have lot of room to seeing this first in the simple claiming DBZ is just too long and DBK supposed to be remake to be for them.

The conclusion is, though DBK seems to be perfect for new fans to get into the series, and if they would start the series they might even watch the old one as well. Toei intentions aren’t clear either, as old fans will be annoyed by this so called “remake” for obvious reasons I stated, but will enjoy short version of DBZ. So it’s unclear for which audience to recommend this series.

As an old fan I really enjoyed DBK, it get me back to one of my childhood favourite anime and in the dragged part of DBZ they did great and justified work. DBZ may not be the best anime around those days, but even without it’s importance it’s simpleness of story and characters still addicting. So thinking on new fans might be hard for me, and anyone would do what they think best. I myself cannot recommend anyone DBZ because I remember dark times in my childhood frustrating about the famous “5-min battle”, full episode about one of the evils transformation for almost whole episode seeing lightning and hurricanes, as a child it was very frustrating though the tense some of those make, and DBK makes great work on saving those frustrations.

So maybe the conclusion to this question is indeed let newcomers watch DBK and let them see some of the spoilers Toei putted in the opening and endings, the experience might be worth it after all.

Enjoyment: 9/10

Second final note:

Here I will talk about the sequel DBK14, the simple reason not wanting to write a review for that series itself because I don’t waste my time on that, it was big FAIL that’s what that is, and I will explain it very shortly.

First thing first, beyond the reason for the international release to add more 10 episodes to the series, it failed seriously being “free fillers”. Lot of episodes felt untouched, sure there are couple of fillers that “needed” they let exactly like first DBK, but lots of episodes felt really untouched of filler cut, dragged all over the place, they let out big plot-holes that the manga didn’t even had. In general it’s seems they didn’t even cared to make this one good as DBK, and the long skip in the years between them proving. For comparison, the Frieza-Cell arc ended in ep199 in DBZ and in DBK they made 97 episodes, the Buu arc that DBK14 is adapting, is for 91 episodes and got shorted to 61 (74 in international count) episodes, only this comparison can tell you much about how this is “free fillers” cut.

The HD converting isn’t that good either, not because the converting itself but the fact that even the BlueRay version had upscaled the original 4:3 ratio to 16:9, which means the ratio not only natural but part of the screen is cut and the picture itself is bigger, so even the HD converting isn’t good.

Remember what I said about Toei giving spoilers in DBK? In DBK14 all sort kind of spoilers is in the opening, revealing too much to the watcher that even older fans will be annoyed by scenes from the last anime battle (!!) is showing already in the opening. Even in the transition scene there’s big spoilers, like Toei didn’t even care anymore. Those spoilers making DBK14 even less clear for whom this series is for, new fans will be spoiled the whole series, and old fans will be annoyed by the fillers and spoilers as well.

The only good thing to say about DBK14 is the songs, the opening might be little downgrade from DBK opening, but the ending is addicting as hell. But that’s only the songs, the OST and effect sounds itself in the episodes often sounds like the old DBZ OST that adding to the frustrating enjoyment from DBK14.

DBK14 - 6/10
Because though the all annoying stuff, it’s still DBZ. Though I really hate the Buu saga…

Final note:

And really final, about the English dub.
I will make it short. Maybe it’s because I’m not that a fan of English dubs of anime so I’m not experienced well with it, but I noticed a very annoyed thing about the dub being in much lower voice than the OST what made me raise the volume very high to the point where there’s effect sounds or OST sounds much more higher than the dub itself. The reason for that as I guessed is because they recorded the voices on the OST and effect sounds already there, but it’s still not excuse to annoy the neighbourhood with high volume.

In the Pokemon anime series, it’s common among the fans about the quality of each series that varies and changes from each other, where it’s lowering from the Indigo season to the Johns season, starting picking up a little with Advance, goes higher with DP, dropping low in BW and then going back high with XY. So when I started watching Sun and Moon (SM for short) it’s inventible to ask if it continued XY quality, or dropped it. The answer Is kinda surprising: it’s neither.

To understand why I’m saying that, I will explain some introduction - Pokemon SM games were actually the first for ... a long time in the Pokemon franchise that tried to do something new - making “new” format with the games. New format doesn’t mean there’s no Pokemon training but spinoff kinda thing, but taking the games in another way of presenting the old familiar adventure - not only the region structure, but the game drastically changes the adventure. Instead of going from town X to town Y, the player needs to go through varies a variety of challenges and trials scattered along the islands, and though of course it's about Pokemon and battling, they present another way of handling our beloved creatures in more challenging and interesting ways presented in the trials, in other words: there are no gyms here, only “final boss” in the name of Kahuna of the island. In the map area, there are no more towns but 4 islands where the player is gonna play a full play time on them. So when OLM went to adapt the games, it was inventible to make a new format for the anime as well - Ash once again reaches our new region Alola which contains once again new Pokemon, new friends, new challenges and etc , but as the game map isn’t big as mentioned, you can’t handle the same way of travelling in SM but creating “new” format for the games. The producers of the anime probably were sitting hours in their planning meeting to know how to handle the less adventure “feel” and the smaller map of Alola to create a long-run Pokemon anime, and then they reached a kinda silly conclusion - why don’t we send Ash back to school?

Yeah, it’s just as you heard, now that the map isn’t big, and the same element of adventure can’t be done, there’s need to create a new format of Pokemon where Ash goes back and forth to the same place during the time he is supposed to train, catch, make new friends, and learn about the new generation of Pokemon. The only way they found how to make it works is getting him back to Pokemon school after he almost won the Galos league in XY, to learn about types, evolution and stuff that all of us know already from the age of 6 when we watched the Indigo season, and surely Ash does know already. Kinda ridiculous isn’t it?

But is this ruining Pokemon? It’s actually not, Ash is still training and catching some Pokemon, aiming to be Pokemon master by winning the challenges, battling the Kahunas, and spending his time with his Pokemon of course (how can Pokemon be without that?). Obviously Ash makes new friends. In fact, the main cast in SM is the biggest yet, if ‘till now he traveled with groups of 3-4 people now he have 5 new friends to the main cast besides the recurring returning characters, so there’s lot of room for character development for each of them. So though there’s a new kind of format for Pokemon episodes - Ash maybe stays in the same place and doesn’t have much of “Pokemon adventure”, but he still does his Pokemon training and catching thingy like all Pokemon series. So, what wrong with SM?

To explain it, I will start with what is good in SM - in fact, though the episodic format, SM have maybe more story arcs than most of Pokemon series, the first of them that features the legendaries Pokemon - Ultra Beasts in fact, was one of the best to my taste and made a really good impression, and there’s more of them, some of them maybe not in the level of the first one but still entertaining. Well, maybe except one which made me cringe so much. Ash still behaving as he should be after the XY series, though he kinda acts like he is in vacation from time to time, he still makes a good impression with creative training (literally) and variety of Pokemon that we haven’t seen him holding yet.

The problem is maybe the common episodes in every Pokemon series - the “fillers” of the Pokemon anime were never really good, they always had some formula of the same pattern, some trainer and his Pokemon, annoying team rocket and stuff, unless there were good events in those episodes that developed the characters or the story they were always average. You would say - in SM it would be the same, average episodes and all. But no, SM taking a new level in “filler” episodes, making the most bizarre and strange stories about what’s not. even in the lousy Johto season there wasn’t that low level of stories. There’s truly here and there some golden ones, and even in the strangest episodes there was one good cute or funny moment, but those episodes was my no.1 cause to watch SM in very long times with lots of breaks, mostly due the feeling I’m wasting my time. And I won’t even start talking about the Power Rangers thingy they made, true that the some stories of the Ultra Beasts were good but the Power Rangers approach was really annoying and pointless.

Thing is, those low level quality episodes don’t come at any specific time like they usually do, they are scattered all over the place, between the story arcs and sometimes even created long run of those episodes without stopping. This situation made me think that the writers of SM were not the same for the whole series. Unlike previous Pokemon series, yeah even the bad ones, had consecutive level of writing, SM doesn’t seem to have this, there’s some really good high level stories here and there, some good story arcs, there’s the usual average episodes, and there’s some really low written episodes like each writer took turns to write his own episode.

So the above question - is SM continuing the level of XY, or is it lowering it? Answer: neither, it has some really high peaks in the story with good training and battle episodes and some good story arcs, but some stories and even one arc that makes you cringe, SM truly has more ups and downs than most of Pokemon series.

But still, the good stories of SM are what is holding it so it won’t go down, whenever I remember the good character development and some arcs, and some of the battles that remind me of the XY battles, it makes me think good of SM. So though all the complaining, I still like SM story, though it's not one of my favourites for being inconsistent.

Final note: about the Z-rings in SM, though I really appreciate how OLM has done them, but they had the annoying thing of clashing moves together from the first seasons, and instead of using the Z-moves in interesting ways we would except, they are only doing them for the thrilling blasting and stuff and not for the real purpose, making Z-moves feel like useless addition and not tactical and powerful attacks. Some of the Z-moves battles were okay though and the problem is starting only little later on in the series. Still, the Mega-Evolution in XY was much better used than Z- moves, while in the games Z-moves are supposed to be a better upgrade than Mega-Evolution.

Story: 6/10

As I mentioned, Ash definitely doesn’t change a lot in SM from XY, his design maybe returned to be childish and caricature, and sometimes acting as he is in vacation, but he still has lots of confidence and love for his Pokemon, training and raising them with love and care, and aiming of course to be the strongest and the best. Maybe he’s not the same kind of mentor he was in XY, but he didn’t dropped to BW lvl1 trainer. The only complain on Ash is the usual complain of being corny and cringe, in XY since he had some “mentor” rule that characteristic kinda disappeared, OLM made sure In SM that we will remember he still has that.

Now, as I said, there’s a really big cast of characters, I will try to say the important stuff on the important characters, though there’s literally a lot, so I will mention only the regular ones.

Prof. Kukui - it might sound surprising, but yeah. Prof. Kukui is not only the professor in SM but he is regular and main character here, his part in the series is not that big but he’s interesting enough to steal the show from time to time. What’s making Kukui special In SM more is the fact that he’s kinda serving as father-model to Ash, which is adding quite a lot to the anime. (Especially for the fact that he doesn’t have a shirt...)

Lillie - Lillie is actually the only character in the anime that is actually based on her character from the game. The only difference is that they took her in some other way at the start of the series, at start it was a little strange but that direction actually made her character deeper than in the games, not only at the start of the series but also later on she has the most deep characteristic and the most development in SM, so I gotta give credit to OLM to how they handled her character, though I would love to see more closing to the game adaption than this (in terms of ideology), and maybe less annoying.

Gladion - Must say about Gladion, he makes the show pretty damn good, at least when he’s showing up and acting as Ash’s rival in SM. He is definitely raising the series level when he’s there with his style. But his uniqueness in the series kinda fades away toward the end, really too bad but still one of the good characters here.

With the follow characters, the anime took some of the anime characters from the trials and made them main characters, some of them were a hit-or-miss, some went pretty good. In the anime version they are acting as Ash’s classmates and friends to the region:

Mallow - Kinda good character, she has good development but not much along the series, and though to be non-annoying she’s my least favourite due to her very little role in the development of the anime.
Kiawe - Truly one of the annoying characters, but still better than the next one. Kiawe truly feels more like Ash’s rival in the series and still keeps being likeable unlike Ash’s previous rivals, he has development and golden moments here and there, but it felt as he had unused potential that turned into annoyance.
Sophocles - Yeah this one was totally pointless, had a kind of development along the series, but his childish behaviour and goals just doesn’t make sense to me in the Pokemon world. I understand the need to adapt his character, but OLM really failed in this one.
Lana -She’s actually my favourite character in SM, she had true goals, some good Pokemon battle scenes, good development, though not to be kinda deep as Lillie, she still was one of the best characters here.

Oh and I can’t forget - Team Rocket, Jessie and James and Mewoth feel much less annoying in SM, and have some serious comedy upgrade that ‘till the end made me laugh with tears. They might still wants Pikachu, still want to annoy anyone, but they are doing a much better job on that in SM that makes their appearance being comparable to their BW appearance, though I still like their BW role more. The annoying thing about Team Rocket in SM is their motto being replaced, wish they hadn't done that. I understand OLM needs to renew things but that was really pointless and not catchy.

Characters: 7/10

The art at the start might be intimidating, it’s not clear at first if they wanted higher animation and art quality or making it more childish. The truth is, after a couple of episodes you start to get why they chose this “light” art, though to stand out on the other Pokemon series it’s great and engaging, and though Ash looks again child and Team Rocket designs look weird, it has the best art the Pokemon series can offer (‘till SM at least, didn’t watched Journeys yet).

The animation get upgrade as well, there’s still some annoying reused frames, but some or even most of the battles are animated well enough to show how Pokemon anime adaption should be.

The OST is still great (to Pokemon), and even surprising at times. The openings were weird though, I understand the need to fit the “Alola” theme and all, but they didn’t feel as a Pokemon opening, it’s not making them less good though.
The voice cast was okay, except for Lillie’s English voice that was annoying (and maybe what made her annoying to me). Kinda weird at the start to hear Ash’s “mature” voice in his new design, but as I got used to the animation I got used to this as well.

Art & Animation - 8/10
OST & Voice cast: 7/10

Overall

SM is truly one of the good Pokemon series, it may have serious problems and have the most downhills and inconsistent story in the Pokemon long running series, but the good stories, the animation and the OST are making SM one of the good ones. For me at least it’s better than BW and Johto season, but it cannot be compared to XY/DP and even the Advance series where Ash is really developing, in SM he maybe still continues to get stronger as a trainer but he doesn’t develop much from when he was in XY and kinda feels stuck in a region of kids in school than taking challenges and forgetting his goal, even the Pokemon league wasn’t serious (in the term of league I mean, the battles were great). But after all, it’s Pokemon, and I’m fan of it and I enjoyed it, so who am I to complain? Those who love Pokemon have to watch SM, and even when strange and bizarre stories such as Power Rangers style gonna show up, true fans will stick to it ‘till the end where more good stuff are showing, it’s worth the effort of 146 episodes.

Enjoyment: 6/10
Overall: 7/10

There was some time, long ago, when I watched Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, it was in 2012, and then after a long break I wanted to go back watching Pokemon, but didn't want to rewatch but complete the series I have started watching from my childhood and completed DP later, so I started off completing the Pokemon anime with Pokemon BW - Best Wishes in Japan, Black & White in the International Dub, it was in 2018, long time after finishing DP, and when I watched Black and White I totally enjoyed, I mean, Ash maybe went back to learn basics, but as I remembered ... Pokemon with lots of useless episodes and stupid stories for most of the times, Black and White came to me with lots of Pokemon catches, lots of battles and importantly the series didn't took much time from Gym to Gym. I was completely enjoyed from Black and White, that was until I decided I do want to rewatch Pokemon from the start, and when I did rewatched Pokemon and reached for the Advance and the DP which took Ash to more mature places from each series I felt that my first impression of BW were cheated by my the mere long time it took to me to watch the BW series after DP.

First of all, the DP series concentrated much more on Ash and Paul than beating Gyms and Contests, more on character development than story, and when reaching the league we all kinda felt cheated by that troll character who invited to prevent Ash going to the Champion League, so Ash forced to return to Pallet Town, and for what? to visit a new region while vacation, not because he needs to be a Pokemon Master, but to purely enjoy himself, it's not taking much time for Ash after Legendary Pokemon attack to be convinced to stay in the new region for another Pokemon journey, and then he meets the fake Paul under the name of Trip, which is trying so hard to be Paul, but before of that, did we mentioned that Ash forgot how to damn-how-can-you-forget-obvious-things-you-learned-in-4-different-regions - how to catch, types matches and important of all good battle tactics you so invested on the DP series, the writers didn't just lowered Ash level to stupidity, they lowered him down to the start of the series, yeah the same Ashy boy that doesn't know what to do in battles and sometimes just having luck due to his Pokemon loving, the only thing is that he knows he traveled in far away regions. great example for that is the scene that is shown in DP where Ash is thinking about strategy, there in DP he concludes he will believe in his Pokemon and that's it, and that was very fitting for Ash in DP as he combined his believing in Pokemon in his strategy, but when scenes like this appear in BW he says clumsily "It will work out somehow, like always!" I believe that there's no need to add much... As a joke I told myself this - between Kanto and Johto Ash didn't had time to relax at home but went away immediately, same with Hoen and Sinnoh, but then he stopped running away from home and stayed, so Pallet returned his stupidity.

Now that I finished with the Ash stupidity, we will go to the more burning issue - seems the writers had been replaced, and knew that DP story was great, so why not rewrite it in Unova? let's create the same model only with some addition, and so Ash has another *hem*fake*hem* rival named Trip, and he's so much alike Paul that Ash is encountering now and then, making their rivalry like Paul and Ash in DP, the problem is that Trip is not Paul, while Paul has some kind of training ideology, Trip doesn't have, he's more like Gary in look-like Paul, the writers so tried to make a "rivalry" like Paul and Ash that they forgot that, what made Paul and Ash rivalry was their argued ideology, Trip on the other hand is only thinking that Ash style is lame and he has better (mainly since ash got a restart from the writers so Ash really feels lame compared to Trip). their rivalry is maybe better than Ash and Gary, but it's nothing compare to Ash and Paul rivalry. the problem is as I said - the writers just went with it and made their stupid rivalry for the entire BW league arc, some of their encounters are very good, but the feeling of forcing their rivalry is devastating, and again Trip is not that interesting and should had got Gary treatment to show once in a while instead we get a rivalry theme for the series which is not catchy or serious. so yeah their "rewrite" had ultimately failed.

What's more bad about BW characters is the replacement for Brock which survived 2 regions, Brock though to lose his "role" in the first series over the seasons, still felt necessary for the series for two simple of reasons - one which Brock who was a gym leader has a lot of information about Pokemon and battles which contributed a lot for Ash's benefit, secondly is that Ash and the second teammate doesn't know much about surviving in the nature which is the most of the journey, especially in the food category, so his appearance seems essential even though to have some chicks problems. but then he's been replaced by Cilan in BW, in the start Brock's replacement seems rational to hold the above commitments - he himself is a Gym leader from the first gym and the gym itself is kind of a restaurant which makes him immediately the new cook for the gang, he declares when joining Ash and Iris (which I will write about her in the "good" section) that he's aiming to be a better Pokemon Connoisseur, which his job his to evaluate Pokemon abilities, he's aiming to be class A, which are actually better ambitions than Brock's breeder ambition which seems he have gained it long time ago. but that's only for the start. Cilan quickly shows a different problem which Brock had, if Brock had problems seeing-girls-without-starting-with-her, Cilan is quickly claims he is Connoisseur for everything that moving, and it's annoying, very annoying which I will not even start to explain why but only to say that guy doesn't have much of a life if he can't find one thing to concentrate in and every couple of days saying "IT'S CONNOISSEUR TIME" for stupid things like trains or "IT"S EVALUATION TIME", which is very annoying hearing it very each episode, even Team Rocket motto is much more bearable. my only thought of "why did they do this?" has come with simple answer - Piplup with his annoying "pip-lap pip-lap" cry had been out, they wanted another one.

After so many bad things, there's some good things, though not to "save" the BW series from being the worse, they makes the series more bearable.

First of them is Iris, which is the Misty-May-Dawn replacement, the first good thing about Iris is that she's written much more tomboy than May and Dawn and reminds a lot of Misty whom liked a lot to tell Ash he's a kid not-literally, Iris doing the same only literally, and I mean she literally calls Ash "you're such a kid", no wonder though she's calling him that way after the restart the writers gave him. And that's not only in the beginning, the more the story continues the more we learn about her and her love for Water-sorry, Dragon Pokemon, and her ambitions are to be... yeah that's right, a Dragon Pokemon Master, Misty anyone? I won't deny for Misty to be one of the best characters, but Iris just has to offer much more than Misty - there's really a lovely story between her and her Axew which develops along the story, and her mature attitude on Pokemon (unlike Ash in this series) really makes you grow on her, so if there's really great pearl in BW is Iris.

Another great change that everyone loves, is the change of Team Rocket, and no, they haven't became less annoying or less "let's catch Pikachu", but they finally seem more fitting to their mature age, doing secret missions for their Boss Geovany. this great "change" making them first of all less annoying by the fact they are not appearing in every episode anymore, and secondly to make "Team Rocket" how they should have been done in the first place in the anime like in the games - the Player is encountering the evil team in the region doing their schemes and sabotage their scheme but not enough to catch them, and finally it's done in BW with Ash and Team Rocket. Their BW special appearance is continuing 'till the lousy Decolora arc, and might be their best appearance in the series, their characteristic may not have changed much though their mature work, but that's how we like them, only in much better performance.

Another thing which is good in the series, is the fact that though Ash is acting like he never battled a Pokemon battle in his life, he's catching much more Pokemon in BW than the rest of Pokemon seasons, BW will be remembered by me as the first series when Ash caught more than 8 Pokemon per series and actually request to change his 6 Pokemon team much more often, which can make you be surprised from battle to battle, he is also not afraid much to evolve them, though some evolution treatment reminds me the Johto evolution treatment he still has a variety of Pokemon in BW. Also, though the complains about Ash's stupidly restart, seems he hasn't forgot to treat his Pokemon with good training from time to time, one of the best moment in the series is when Ash actually goes to Pokemon fitting gym to train them, or rather training their new moves so Ash is not completely lost cause about Pokemon training though he is clueless about everything else (which is a really big contradiction for his training attitude, but I will not go further this since BW is bad enough). add to that the fact that like the Advance and DP series the gym leaders development before the actual battle is kept which makes things better.

Something more that makes the BW story bearable, is the fact that the battle tournaments are much more often instead getting fillers episode style "the gang meets a trainer with his Pokemon bla bla bla", in some way it's making BW much better because after all Pokemon is about Pokemon battling, and we have that a lot here, making Ash battle more than only Gym battles, but it also has the other way around - though to be more interesting it feels like the writers didn't know how to stretch the story anymore, and because there aren't contests anymore they are filling the holes with more Pokemon tournaments, maybe to once again make BW resemble the way of DP that did this kind of tournaments but it just seems forced.

Before we end this long "Story & Characters" section, I will talk shortly about two rather supportive characters that feel like "Paul" fakes but not for Ash but for Cilan and iris, one of is Burgundly who is rival with Cilan and Georgia who is rival with Iris as she calls herself "Dragon Buster", the two make good interesting points in the series, but they get similar "Paul" treatment like Trip for Iris and Cilan which is in another word a pain in the butt. there's also Bianca which is a replacement for Barry from DP to adapt the character chibi from the game, but has annoying style though to still add some story to the anime.

Story: 6/10
Characters: 7/10

Thing that may making the BW a little better from DP is the thing with Art and Animation, finally the moves don't look stretched and old but more like the attacks from the game, don't get it wrong, there is still used frames, but they are now looking much more refreshed and new than DP reused frames.

The art getting serious update as well, some may complain about Ash's anime style eyes and looking as a child with those, but the general idea of the animation is completely fresh making huge step from DP.

The OST as well making some changes, first of all, to use many of the games sounds is a great idea that used well especially since the BW game sounds are much more cleaner than the old GBA sounds, and secondly those are used more smartly.

All these great upgrades in the OST and animation really made me wondering loudly while writing - why they couldn't invest their brains in the story like they invested it on the OST and the animation? though that treatment came in the next franchise series XY it's still making the OST and animation pale in comparison to the DP's story quality which I'm preferring more on rather good OST and animation as BW.

Sound: 8
Art: 8

Despite that the BW is maybe the worst series in the Pokemon franchise, precisely from the story and characters problems mentioned, it still has the more filler clean story than the other Pokemon series which must be brought to point together with the other good points, but it still disappointing to see BW right away after the good DP, so those points only make the series to be bearable, and not that fun to watch.
There's a good potential in BW and I will admit it, like Iris, some Characters and the Gym leaders development, and especially with Team Rocket that too bad they didn't continued to be like in BW for the rest of the franchise, the problems are those bad points, the too much trying to resemble the rivalry of Trip and Ash to Paul and Ash and above all the stupid restart of Ash after great development in DP, all that together making BW worse as Johto arc. too bad OLM didn't used the good potential, especially since the game is one of the best in the franchise for me.

Enjoyment: 5/10
Overall: 6/10

One of the things Major2nd did, is not being the original Major, instead concentrating on hot head skilled baseball player Goro, it is focusing on his son Daigo who unlike his father doesn’t have a lot of skills in the destined sport, and though S1 already gone with it, S2 is still with it, Daigo is still not the shiny player in his middle school team, though to be the captain, the focus in this season is not at his relationship with his childhood friend Satou Hikaru that the first season concentrate on building up In the first season, the 2nd season concentrate on something ... Major haven’t done until now - character development.

It’s not to say that the rest of Major seasons doesn’t have them, but in most of the season the focus was on Goro and his playing, the rest of his team gets less attention, and sometimes, only chosen from there elected to be developed, in Major2nd S2 the focus is only, but only, at every member of the Fuurin team, it concentrate so much on each of the members that even the usual rival team characters don’t get the usual attention, even Daigo who supposed to be main character, feels like any other members on the team.

Story - 8

Those who watched already S1 of Major2nd, know already the story not going the same old way of the Goro’s Major series, but going in little different way, as we said, Daigo is not the best baseball player, and though he improved his catcher skills, he doesn’t care to let others takes that spot, and so we get a story of Daigo being important character as a captain of the team, as he needs to raise it to win the tournament.

One of the first things to see at the start of the season is there’s a kinda of time skip between the seasons, at first I thought - what happened between them, and how actually Daigo made to be the captain, but the anime actually fills it later, but that’s not the important stuff - by time skipping without filling the anime actually shows us it doesn’t matter, not yet - there’s more important stuff that we should notice and know, and that’s how the season start like S3 of Major - there’s no enough players, and Daigo needs to gather more few players so his team could enter the tournament.

In fact, I found that this season comprised to S3 of Major, where Goro takes school without baseball team, and though he manage to build one, it’s a weak one, and Goro needs to raise it to succeed, though there’s a lot of similarities because Daigo does need to train his teammates to win the league, Fuurin team is not that bad once players are gathered, it’s actually team that have a variety of players, each with his own skills, and unlikely in S3 of Major where Goro hold the whole team, Daigo only leading them to do their best.

So if the base of the season is not Daigo raising weak team, what makes the S2 ticking? As I said earlier, it’s the characters here, because as for the story, it’s like every other sport school club anime, and like every such an anime making sportively and competitive, S2 succeed in it’s character development, and to add more to the picture, most of the team is actually girls, which actually make the anime in more style of women sport anime, but still can get of it’s own in term of story like Major can do.

And that’s what make the story of S2 more appealing, not only on succeeding and be the best but also concentrating more on:

Characters - 9

We will start with Daigo, which gets the main focus on the series, not because he’s the much important, in fact, as said, Daigo gets the same treatment as the other team players, the reason however he’s the main focus, is because he’s the captain, and there’s not a match that the team doesn’t need the captain to lead them, I think that is actually his treatment due the rules in this seasons to develop any character on the team, and because Daigo still haven’t found yet his destined position on the pitch, he gets to stand out only as the captain, to let other characters evolve.

Sakura for example, gets much more upgrade in her role, if In S1 she got kinda the main supporting character, here her effective is much crucial, she’s not only member on the team, but also gets important position, and also as we saw in the first season, have some kind of one side crush on Daigo, that gets little development in the season.

What I meant earlier saying that the character development in S2 is much more than usual, it’s mainly because in the other seasons of Major the other characters gets little of them, but in this season, each new character gets his own stage in each game - Nishina, Chisato, Sagara, Sawa, Kabashima and those not all the team, and each and very one of them gets their screen time to develop, and that’s what really ticks the season, there’s a lot of sport, and like S1 there’s a lot of explanations and training, but those not for the sake of the sport, but for the sake of each character development.

Animation - 7

One of the things about the animation of S2 is that I believe have 2 sides - good, and bad.

The good is - it’s much more cleaner, much more realistic and refreshing than the animation of the rest of the seasons, the colours and the lines are well drawn, there’ll be those who will criticise the character design to be little different, but I actually think it didn’t changed that at all, but because the new animation style it looks different.

The bad side, is not that bad actually, but more of a hunch, the new style let the anime feel of slice of life, though the anime doesn’t lack it it also doesn’t have the general feeling of Major, and though that in good quality it’s sharp and all, OLM kinda let the anime feel like their other series - childish feeling, it’s not ruining at all, but it’s also not letting me feel the old Major feel, and though the season doesn’t try to be Major style but have it own style, it let the feeling that it’s less sport anime.

Music - 8

The OST of Major is highly improved, and adds a lot of intensity to the games.

The 1st opening is easily one of my favourite and make good impression, and the 1st ending and 2nd ending as well, and though the 2nd opening is very good, It lost a little the originality of the 1st.

Enjoyment/Overall - 9/8

Major2nd S2 truly takes kind high risk in doing some things the other seasons haven’t done - concentrating on character development of the main team and less on the rival team, though in some important cases it does, it doesn’t forget about who the anime is, and OLM did great job directing it, though to be little weird season compared to the other seasons that their full focus is on the sport, in S2 the sport is good as the rest, the tense, the excitement and the ambition to be the best team is still there, but the theme of the season is changed, and Daigo is not Goro and only the captain, really no more than that, but it still Major and does it in great way.

The minute I started to watch the 2nd season of Major that goes to the second arc of the anime, I started to fall in love again with the anime - the sport, the characters and the development, everything stayed in the same place the 1st season left it, I actually found the 2nd more connected after watching the movie but it's not necessary unless you really love Major, so what could be a problem in the 2nd season?
The problem is not the 2nd season actually has a down point, it's not the fact that the slice of life genre isn't here, there isn't really ... something wrong with the story either or in Goro (though he has issues of his own, he's our Goro after all), the problem is that the 2nd season doesn't try in any way or wants to be the 1st or even be an average sports anime, not to say it's worse or bad, but it's lack of two things that makes a sports anime tick: climax, the reason for that is that though the 2nd season presented as a separated episodes from 1st it doesn't live for it's own, to make it clear I will call this season "The Build Up season".
As it sounds, the series from the mere start until the end of it has entirely purpose not to make Goro going to beat some freaking powerfull team but to simply make himself being Goro and be the best for beating Kaido, how he does that? train! and then what? more train! Does he get some major win in this season? no. in other words as you see, the season not consecrate at Goro being the best, actually, he is, but he doesn't do with it nothing in the end, he indeed plays a "grand" game at the end, but it's not for this season nor for it's story, it's for the next.
as people might guess, yes, the 2nd season covering (most in the second part of the season) the training arc in the major anime, apart from the first part ('till episode 13) Goro goes to make himself kami... hem, great baseball trainer, is it must watch? of course, though to be training, it's still important part in making Goro what he is supposed to be ... in the next season.
that's not to say the 2nd season is bad, it just the feeling along the season isn't the same as the 1st one, the slice of life genre may not presented much, but it's still Major, and it's great, fun, exciting and intense.

Story - 8
As I said above, the story in the 2nd season is divided by 2 parts that are also 2 arcs - the middle school arc (that started with the movie though to be filler) and the high school arc that will continued to the next season.
The middle school arc is actually makes comeback of the characters from the 1st season, good and all, Goro once again going in the way to become a pro baseball player with the baseball club, like any other anime sport there's some obstacles and interesting stories, but most of the baseball are fast forward to lead to the next big target of Goro shaped in the way of Kaido, powerfull baseball team, maybe the best, leading Goro to actually a great twist.
Now, don't get me wrong, the middle school arc was fun, we get to see a good baseball team and good games, but nothing catch my eye, though Goro as usual goes with his team to break through his obstacles and confronting the challenge, the "felling" of the arc not was the same, when I watched it I kept asking myself - why they made this arc feeling like this?
The answer turned out to be in the second arc, which I'm not going to expand since it's already a huge spoiler, but I will say this - there isn't much of a story, well, there is a story, but it's really a sports genre one, if the 1st season won my heart with good slice of life story, here it's only sport, it's not bad but also not remarkable, there's really an important and crucial part here on Goro's growing, there are also some good characters' stories, but nothing beyond that.
With this I will return to say what I said earlier - there's not a real big climax here, the anime pretty much going in the straight way to leave the big climax for the next season, though it's not bad, if we separate the season from the previous or the next, this season is only build up, and it's not that good.
don't get me wrong though, it's not making this season less exciting, tense or interesting, it's the same major, it's just have different lead.

however, if there's something that made this season a better season from the 1st one, it's the characters, and I'm not talking only about the comeback of some characters as Shimizu, Komori or other new characters, but Toshi.

Characters - 9

Toshi doesn't have a small role in this part but a major and influencing one, he's promoted to main role here and in the high school arc he changes the whole flow of the story, there's actually full episodes only about him and Goro, if in the 1st episodes Komori was the side by side character for Goro, Toshi takes his place and taking it to another different place and it's great to see him developed this season.
the big problem is Goro, we know him already from the 1st season to be arrogant and shounen type character, the problem is that then we loved him, here all what made us love him is gone and he is acting like a total baka and it getting worse from each episode, though I accepted his behaviour at some point, it's still annoying, only at the end he reminds us why to still love him.
And there's again, a lot bunch of characters who are important, there's Komori and other good characters at the start, but the other though fully introduced, not developed much, mostly because they are gonna get replaced, and their replacement get the same attitude, though usually it would be bad here I really didn't care since the whole season is to develop Goro, when needed they developed them well and made them shine.
through all that, if there was something that I missed a lot is Momoko and Shigeno that being pretty plane here, it seems that they also forget Sawamura, and though to have a lot of screen time, Shizumu is still my favourite character, and I wanted to see more of here.

Art - 7
Little disappointing, but the art didn't improve much, the art is still plain and simple and except the main characters the other don't have much details and some of the "inventions" really annoyed me, I'm not talking about shape and stuff but really creepy faces and eyes, not to talk about that some characters seem to be a lot like another old one only with a slight change. anyway, though to be most unchanged it's still good.
the animation also not touched much from the 1st, maybe after the movie I felt like it's old school, but it still made the work well.
the backgrounds on the other hand I can't judge, not because it's bad but because the quality I had (tv rip), but from what it seems, it didn't change much and mostly realistic, though problems I had with some of it hasn't fixed.

Sound - 9
Believe it or not, the OST actually improved a lot, though most of the good soundtrack saved for the crucial dramatic parts, when it's on I felt it completely made the scene and enjoyed the excitement in the air.
It took me a while, but the opening theme really makes a good song for Major, though I still think that the theme for the 1st is better, it made the work well to fit into the Major series.
About the ending themes, I will be honest that I haven't found them special, I think the second ending theme was better but didn't found it lies in my heart entirely, don't get me wrong, they were good, but not too memorable to stand out.

Enjoyment/Overall - 9/8
When I summarise things up, I actually find that the 2nd season is much enjoyable than the 1st, not because the 1st is not, but because it has what a sports anime needs, but it still not makes it better, the season doesn't live up for it's own and don't be afraid to feel like it.
But it doesn't really matter, if you enjoyed the 1st of Major you will enjoy the 2nd too, just don't expept too much.

I don't know what was wrong with me but it took me time to watch Major though to be a sport genre anime sport which is my favourite anime genre, and no, it's not the baseball game, I already learned from Cross Gamer that baseball have great deep playing than tennis soccer or basketball and specifically because of that it is very enjoying sport, it was not also the length of the franchise - the more the anime is long I more love to marathon it, and still I don't know what kept mo so long to watch Major.
The minute I finally went and get ... the 1st season episodes I already marathoned the first 4 episodes, the story and the characters just got into me, I couldn't wait and I watched the whole 1st season in only 2 days, the story (though to be a normal shounen story about kid who wants to be a pro baseball player there's some twist I will explain later on) the characters development, some of the comedy and the excitement of the baseball build this awesome anime.
This first season of the major anime series is actually containing only 2 arcs of the whole story - the Kindergarten arc and the Little League arc, the studio actually went and split the 2nd arc to two stories - the training sub-arc and the tournament sub-arc by the ending theme, when I first noted that there's so much arcs in the anime series I thought that how could 26 episodes to contain so much, I was wrong totally.
The episodes of the first arc though to be out of the ordinary - the story isn't even about Goro but his father, some of those episodes even made me feel i'm watching a movie and not a 20 minutes episodes, though to be more drama episodes than sport episodes, those episodes is what makes Major to be so good - Goro is not going to be just ordinary pro player because he want to, but because his father wants him to live the enjoy of the baseball, this point isn't dead once the arc is finished but escort Goro to final arc, he don't play baseball to live it but to enjoy it, that's all, the way to being pro is not just to win and being the best but to really live up the baseball game.

Story
like I said the story is split by two arcs, the split isn't only about being in kindergarten or being able to play in the little league or not, the whole genre is different - if in the first arc the main character is Goro father Shigearu Honda and his teacher Momoko and their love story, even the few baseball had been seen in this arc is not that serious except the last, the story isn't just change drastically in the second arc but even have a feeling of another anime series, but the connection is clear as I mentioned.
though couple of episodes in the first arc are quite more melodrama than you except, the anime doesn't let itself feel the emotions but let the watchers to feel them, unlike the 1st episode of Cross Game that want you to cry with it Major let the emotions out of the box, it's sound little strange on writing but that really made me feel the pain of the character when needed, even the dialogs aren't talking about the emotions, the emotions just came out on me.
though I would love more development on some little character, the anime didn't let much of it but left them untouched, the director or rather the mangaka doesn't care about them much, they are not the what's matter and the story should evolve on something else, though to be little cruel I like that a lot - it made the story being clear and smoothy than get stuck on every point in the story.
the second arc on the other hand is completely different, the genre is completely sport 'till the end, the goal is clear - while the first sub-arc is about creating a team and training for the tournament the goal of the second sub-arc is actually not about winning the tournament but to beat the Yokohama Little team, the pace and the baseball playing is made well that even the little story about Momoko between the lines isn't disturbing but actually make a little break episodes.
the training sub-arc on the other hand is much more consecrating on the character development and Goro's abilities than the games itself, there are some games but they are not that high level as the tournament games.
the story on the tournament sub-arc is consecrating more on the baseball games and the obstacles, though to be some anime materials in some of the obstacles it's one-time and actually make a good learning for the Dolphins team, in fact once the baseball games is starting the pace of the games is totally well and the depth of the baseball is what makes for me this anime better than Cross Game, Goro is not kami (yet) and the Dolphins team make a good enjoying baseball team.

Characters
While Goro is the basically shounen sport boy character with over-confidence and good skills he is not the best player yet, and his growing over the 1st season is a notable thing, though he have some understandable up and down characteristic the enjoying of baseball learned from his father is leading him in the right way, some of his obstacles on the series were quite excepted but the way he get through them were notable for how well they made, Goro sure hold his main love for baseball for his character and everyone will like him as he is though to be ordinary shounen boy.
his friends on the other hand have some issues, some good and some bad, I don't want to extend more than needed so I will just say the important things:
Toshi, Goro's first friend actually make me like hime in some way, the way of he is developed to be good baseball player by the start touching hand of Goro really make him good, though not to be so main and important along the series he sure have a good story.
Komori though feeling like "Toshi replacement for Goro" is actually my favourite character in this season, his characteristic and his smartness really leads him to be a good baseball player and a supportive manufacture in the season.
Sawamura on the other is my least favourite character in the series, even when he changes his attitude he still not that likeable, he feels for me more like the troublesome character than supportive, though in the advanced episodes I got start really pity him he still don't that good.
My favourite character is to be Shizumi, you can call her the heroine if you want, for me she is the most important character here, not jut her development but how the mangaka wrote here to be essential character to the team and to the story with probably important rule to the follow season, her love for the baseball that developed along the series and her honesty and intentions to be a good player make her to hold the whole team, though Goro to be the supporting pillar of the group Shizumi seems much more important to raise her group moral and to be successfully team and the most of that is mainly because she is a women baseball player she have much more to prove than the others.
Momoko and Goro father's friend Shigeno though to be a supportive rule in the second arc, have some development of their own, though it's good to see an adults developments in series that consecrate on kids their development in some times are not that interesting, only in the interesting part they get more show screen and when they does it is well made.
apart from the above there's a LOT of characters, I only wrote the important and the lead ones in this season, but as for the other characters, like the couch and rivals, I will let who wants to watch this series to enjoy them as I did, except maybe one dummy father...

Art
it may be the year or it may be the fact that this is a baseball series, but the character designs isn't that notable, but if there's something worth noting is the fact that most of the characters designed by their personality.
the animation is very good, especially in the matches, though in the first episodes the baseball field seems quite plain in the important matches the field looks good, and the background aren't that bad either, in some episodes they quite plain but endurable.
I didn't like though how they designed some stuff like the cars - every time I saw one in the series even if had lower quality I could see they aren't that detailed, it may be for once for a while but it still annoying and I don't want to hang it on the year, I saw better detailed animations in that year in anime, but again, it's not that important to say it's effecting the entire series.

Sound
for the OST the series have great moments, I especially liked the OST in the last episodes, though in most episodes the OST isn't that felt there's a great one here, as I said above the series don't get to emotional in the sad parts but let's the watcher feels them, the OST is directed by it as well.
in the start I really didn't get the opening but as I sticked to series the song grew on me to be a good baseball anime song.
the ending songs on the other hand are quite different, while the first ending was quite good to second didn't fitted to me so much, actually, since it came in the late episodes of the season it might be me to not grew so much on it but I still think it's not fitting so much to the anime, on the contrasty I liked how it came to split between the two sub-arc.

Enjoyment
I will say again what I wrote in the start of this review - I don't know why it took me so much time to watch Major, once I started it I thought immediately - why I didn't watched it yet?! the drama, the sport, the comedy, truly one of the best Sport anime there is, I didn't even thought I will finish it so soon before getting the other seasons, but it was so fun ride I can't wait.
I will finish with this - if you are a fan of the sport anime genre, what are you waiting for? if not, put it in your PTW and when you have some time, this anime just be for you - the way I see it the first season theme is "enjoying baseball", I haven't watched real baseball in my life and it's not my country main sport anyway, Major take this sport to the most enjoying experience there is.

Though the movie is titles "sequel" to the FMA2003 (in short FMA03) series, it's not really end the series as the series went by but gave "end" to the series than continue it.
The reason for that is, what I so loved about the FMA03 series that made me love it so much was the character development and the alchemy theory which didn't went easily without further explanation, so sure, the series has end with some points to continue - Ed looking for way back to Amestris world with rockets to space and Al learning all over again alchemy to find a way to return his ... brother with his memory lost and some other points that left open, but the movie didn't care a bit not only about those points but also make some other plot holes and placed some characters in a way that the series didn't putted them there.
When I saw this in the movie I had told myself that maybe the movie will explain, continue as the series went to explain how things moved that way, not only it didn't happen but took course of things that the series never went, through the movie I asked myself: "why?" but as the movie continued to failed and disappointment it was clear enough for me - the movie didn't care really what was in the series, I mean, if the movie should had go the way the series went in the same "conqueror of shamballa" storyline, it would won't end with only one part of movie but two or even three, but the movie don't care about how-things-were-in-the-series but to give the expected end, even if it means to smooth things up without really clear explanation or even reasonable actions, the movie wanted to do the expected end and it's not a spoiler - to reunite Al and Ed, in what cost? it doesn't matter if it make sense or unreasonable, the important things is that it will happen.
Don't get me wrong, the watcher can "understand" why alchemy in the Other World is suddenly can be done or what happened to some character, but the way the things are in the movie is just not how the series will deals with, the series will give much more explanation about Mustang, Wrath and Hoenaim than just jump through things, the way of the movie dealing with is more close to FMAB way of "if this 1 and this 1 so that's why this 2", in FMA03 on the other hand I would expect much more to end the open stories.
Now that I had cleared myself I would say this - this movie though all I had said is actually a good movie, unlike usual FMA style most of the story is mainly based on the Other World that based on the WW2 Germany side of hating foreign nations, and the story takes good advantage of that to create the evil side of the movie, so yeah, there's one good story here besides the Ed and Al looking to be reunited again, but then again, this "Other World" story though to be good isn't much explained as much the fans of FMA03 will want.
Without the Story part, the art and the OST went really well to take a different and dark theme in the movie, I really loved the ending theme than the opening theme, can't get it of my head.

I will just finish and say - though all I had written, the movie isn't bad, it's really interesting with some good action battles (though the last battle could be written better, it's not the art but the way it's written) good animation, excellent OST and good story, My only bad point really is that the movie disappointment me in the way it's continue the series, I don't complain about the end (that was expected) but how the movie took the way of the sreries.