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The theme of this review is the "illusion of hard work". The anime itself is a mediocre soulless isekai-like that isn't worth watching, in case you want a TLDR.

A very interesting phenomenon that I observe regularly is that almost every person will complain about how hard their life is or how hard they're working. In most cases this is not true though, therefore illusion of hard work. This happens because "hard work" is universally seen as a virtue in all societies and there is something truly fascinating when hard work is rewarded, because it often isn't. This idea also found its way into the anime ... culture, which is to be expected from a country with one of the highest number or work hours per day in developed countries. It gave birth to the "talentless hard worker" character archetype, which is now relatively common.

The main character of this anime - Rick, is basically that. The talentless hard worker... which is completely not real. Just like in reality all the hard work people are usually fake, in anime there is no hard work. It's all power fantasy for losers. About as soon as episode 4, we find that Rick actually has an overpowered skill. Did he actually work for it? Nope. While spending the first 3 episodes on depicting hardcore work/training that he went through, all of that is invalidated completely in a single moment. This obvious disconnect between what the anime claims to show and what it really shows is insulting to my intelligence as a viewer.

The first example of a fake hard worker that comes to my mind is Naruto. The show follows a similar pattern, depicting Naruto as a talentless loser and then the convenient fox power saves the day every single time, something that he never worked for. It even ends with him literally being 1/2 Jesus, chosen child of prophecy all along. Other notable examples - Deku from My Hero Academia and Asta from Black Clover (I'm seeing a trend). In all of them, the hard work is an illusion. Basically the only anime that shows REAL hard work over time with actual no talent is World Trigger.

The rest of my criticism is just all the usual baggage that most anime today have, especially light novel adaptations - the whole world exists only to blow the main character, the antagonists are cartoonishly evil, the other support characters have no value to offer as well. The second most important character is literally a maid. This honestly is just H fantasies of the author. Also, screw the gaming stuff, I want my pure medieval fantasy back.

This anime is incredibly awful. Characters are non-existent. Story makes zero sense. This is main hero D riding distilled to its pure form. There is absolutely no reason to watch this. If you do, then you'll forget about this waste of human labor in a month at most.

The first season had some actually funny moments at the start, considering how ridiculous it was in handling literally everything, to the point that it made me think it's a parody. And then somewhere around ep 4, I realized it's actually taking itself seriously. This is when I knew that humanity is doomed. I have no idea how ... we got here, but we actually live in a world where this level of anime is allowed to exist.

Yes, I know. You want to be overpowered and bend reality with a snap of fingers. Cool story bro. If you watch enough garbage like this, maybe one day you'll discover your inner super saiyan (and lose that extra 50 kg). Don't let haters like me tell you otherwise. Waste your life the way you're meant to do!

Power fantasy isekai just upgraded to a new level of trash that was never seen before. Hopefully, people will soon start to realize this, break free of this curse and return to the fantasy origins where other things happen besides the whole planet metaphorically riding the main character's D.
This is the one sole purpose of this garbage and you, yes YOU should be ashamed if you're enjoying this anime. I would appreciate a good hentai over this because at least those are honest and straightforward. Basically, I'm saying that beating your meat is a better time investment than watching Iseleve.

Do you care about a story ... with a message? Do you care about interesting ideas being explored? Complex characters? Or maybe want just some good action? Comedy? You get none of those because you came to the wrong place. This is the garbage dumpster. But hey... I know... Since you're already a degenerate that watches isekai, you might be primed to enjoy even the stupidest stuff on this planet, however there's an abyss that you should never sink into - it's this f-ing anime. I'll be really honest, but if I could send myself a message back to 2012 saying that "Sword Art Online is a decent anime by 2023 standards", the 2012 version of myself would laugh out loud and think this is as probable as AI doing better art than humans. And he'd be right because both happened.
It's incredibly important to understand that the more we, as a species, engage in garbage isekai anime, the more garbage our genome will accumulate and hopefully this demographic stays virgin, because you don't want to pass these genes to the next generation.

Now where was I... Iseleve... The message of this anime is extremely simple and it is - The incels are correct. If you're fat and ugly, then your life will be miserable. If you're handsome enough, then your life will be instantly fixed in 2 days. You will stumble into pussy as you sit and breathe and pray to God you don't have to go out of your house because a 10/10 girl might instantly rape you and then ask for a date.
For obvious reasons I think not only that this message in wrong, but it's actual brain rot. The truth is life doesn't work this way. There definitely is some degree of truth to the idea that handsome people have it easier, but it's definitely not anything close to whatever this dumb anime shows. Don't ever let this cancer be inserted into your brain or you'll suffer the rest of your life on incel forums and discord groups.

Another poison that isekai anime inject into one's soul is this idea that you need a major change and life will get better. This is literally what happens in this anime and many others. But in essence, life is a grind. A slow and sometimes painful one. There is no cheat code to lose weight. There is no cheat code to making every woman want your sorry ass. It's all actual skills and work. The more one stays watching this garbage anime, the less time they've got to improve some skills, get to the f-ing gym and build social groups. If you ever thought in your life "If I'd just go to another world or some shit" you're on a bad path and you seriously need to eject this thinking.

I'm honestly struggling here to say anything about Iseleve. We've all seen this trash play out 1000 times in other isekai. The one distinct feature here is that the main character can travel back and forth between the world. This exists exclusively to further the power fantasy and if you expect any interesting plot point with this, it seems you've not been paying attention to what I'm writting here. And I can confidently say that there will never be any interesting plot here, because this garbage was written only for one sole reason and it's not for a compelling story.

So the main idea that I'm trying to communicate is that a normal well adjusted person is not capable of watching this anime. Don't watch this anime. Seriously. Have some love for yourself.

Dororo is interesting. At the very least, I can guarantee that it's not a copy-paste trashy isekai and actually tries to explore some themes, which for an anime from 2019 is quite impressive on its own. Unfortunately, the execution process of said themes is flawed towards the end. But despite these flaws, I believe it's absolutely not a waste of time.

The story is about a boy whos body (or most of it) was sold to demons by his father, in return for a kingdom's protection from wars and natural disasters. The boy then grows up and embarks on a journey to defeat all the demons ... to get his body back and as he does this, the deal with the demons becomes null. Disregarding the obvious impossible scenario presented (it's fiction you dummy, who cares), the big overarching theme/question presented is the following: Is it morally acceptable to make trades like these and how justified is the sacrificed person to screw everything and put their own interests above those of thousands of people. I personally love questions like these mostly because they have no easy answer and depending on your moral framework, you can get to completely different answers. I'm inclined to say that a society that sacrifices a small portion of the population for the benefit of another is not functional and fundamentally everybody is justified to fight violently for their own freedom and self-determination, but you can easily make an utilitarian argument that sacrificing half a body for the wellbeing of many is totally worth it.

And what is the answer that Dororo arrives at? Well... Kind of like mine...? Maybe...? My main criticism is that Dororo doesn't seem to have an answer at all and jumps from theme to theme in a very unorganized manner. Starting with a great conflict between the 2 solutions that were presented, we jump to "bad things are bad" to "it doesn't matter, as long as you stay human" whatever that f-ing means, to blaming everything on demons and only one line was said that maybe a kingdom built on someone's sacrifice is not a good kingdom. This is honestly very bad and represents the most important reason why I can't give this anime a higher score. Furthermore, it's incredibly annoying how at the same time the main characters are acting in weird ways and change their minds from one second to another. As the characters go in with a goal in mind, at the end literally everyone relevant ends up changing their minds completely.

This is very important to outline, because for an anime that tries to explore some themes more seriously, the conclusion is paramount. It's what everything moves towards and this is where all the impact is. When executed correctly, it makes a masterpiece. And this ain't it. To draw a parallel, I'll talk about Shinsekai Yori, another anime which explores several big moral themes. In that anime, there is a very clear line the author moves you on as you explore ideas. Funny enough, it's similar to a journey every person takes in real life from "the world might not be as it seems" to "there's a lot of unfair stuff happening" to finally culminate with "there's a reason why things are they way they are, as uncool as they are" and "things just aren't easy to fix" and FU, you don't get a good ending, there is no good ending (damn, I love that anime). There aren't any inconsistencies regarding this narrative thread and even with the many different events that happen, the theme persists and is slowly moving towards its natural resolution. This is what Dororo is missing in its final several episodes, despite an excellent buildup.

And ending aside, that buildup is truly amazing. The anime throws Hyakkymaru into tragic situations, which depending on how you argue, might even be his own fault. It makes you, the viewer, see the gravity of the situation and how horrible the consequences of his actions are. Another theme that was explored very well is how Hyakkimaru gains his body parts one by one and starts exploring the newfound world and more importantly - his own emotions, just like a child. The anime is not afraid to paint him in a negative light as he goes into fits of rage or is plainly egoistical, to the point where the one that seems way more mature is the actual kid that's with him. This feeling is constantly reinforced, as characters around him are concerned whatever he'll end up being a force for good or not.

The supporting cast is not bad and contributes nicely to the main themes. The only thing that isn't centered on what I already mentioned, is the story of Dororo, who is the second main character and the evolution of the friendship between these 2 mains. This is also executed well enough and I like the final conclusion that Dororo's subplot arrives at. I can honestly think of a few things that I dislike about this part of the story, but overall it's decent.

I'm also forced to mention the great work that studio Mappa did. The animation quality might not be consistently stellar all the time, but the direction, pacing/flow, timing, music... and just literally everything else you might think about is close to perfect. Go ahead and check how many views on YT the first opening has. It's great.

So in the end... I'm always glad to see anime that actually try something great and fail, instead of your average braindead stuff. This is why you should go and watch Dororo. And if you like this kind of theme exploration and don't mind a slower pacing (and gay stuff), go for Shinsekai Yori as well.

Danmachi is bad. If you can't think of at least one reason why I'd say that, stop reading and do whatever. I'm not writing this for you.

Now that *hopefully* some people were filtered out, let's start the real discussion. I sometimes wonder how many people ever asked themselves "Why do I like the things I like?" or "Why does my media consumption looks the way it does?". It might be that you have a good answer or you don't, but whatever the case may be, the people generating the media you consume know that answer better than you do. So for people that watch anime, ... the formula has long been established.
1. Create the most bland character so that anybody can relate to him. Since it's mostly guys watching anime, it's going to be a guy almost always.
2. Put him in a world with game-like mechanics, since most of the people that watch it will also play games.
3.1 Fulfill as many fantasies as possible. Start with a harem. There is no better power fantasy for a man. Just always remember that monogamy is the default for most people, so it all must be platonic.
3.2 He must start as a loser, since everybody feels like a loser in real life (especially gamers). But since it's a power fantasy, he will become stronger and stronger until he saves the day every time.
This formula is so omni-present in anime, so I would lie if I said that I'm not sick of it.
Why is a power fantasy bad? This question is harder than it seems. In essence, there is nothing bad about it on its own. However, everything comes at a price and in this case it's going to be originality, the quality of the story and characters, especially the main one. Ultimately, everybody watches stuff for whatever reason they want to and don't let me tell you what to do. But at the same time, I demand more from stuff I watch. So yeah... I had my finger on the forward skip 5 sec button while watching Danmachi.

Focusing back on the anime in question, it follows the formula 1 to 1, shamelessly so and from the very start. Every season is just the flavor of the week addition to the harem with a simplistic story slapped on and the main character solving the problem in the end. What makes Danmachi different from any other power fantasy isekai? Nothing really... I never understood why some things get popular and other don't. Maybe animation quality or some initial traction from the source material... Who knows.
As you might already suspect, there aren't many good things I can say about this anime. I can't name a single character that is well-written or interesting, the general story patterns easy to follow and way too obvious, there is no important theme being explored. You got a hero. Hero does heroic things. B-ches be loving heroes.

All that being said, there is one thing about this season that stands out from the rest. Even with all my lack of interest towards this anime, it pulled out just one nice thing. Unlike the previous seasons, this time there was an actual sense of danger present. Once the previous set of episodes ended, things were looking very desperate and this season managed to carry this feeling on for a while. This was the first time where Bell actually had to overcome something. Unfortunately, in the end, everything plays out in the same obvious formula. There is some kind of dissonance that happens in my brain when Bell is barely able to kill a basic enemy in the area and later proceeds to kill the final boss in a duo with another heavily wounded and barely moving companion. All while being more exhausted and generally not learning anything new. This is just bad writing, end of story.

Another half of the season is spent following the supporting cast. And to be honest... I don't know how anyone cares about any of them, so obviously it feels very filler-ish. There's at least 5 things I can name of the top of my hand that made no sense regarding their decision-making process as a group or the story surrounding their trip, but this would get us into spoiler territory. In the end, everybody makes it out alive and well no matter how much the show hypes you up for huge difficulties. And even if some huge drama someone dies moment happens, nothing would change since again who cares about these characters. Another filler-like segment was the Astrea familia past, which again isn't very relevant to anything and who cares. It's not like you can flesh a cast of good characters that die a tragic death in 1-2 episodes worth of screen time.

Final verdict: I want this medium and fanbases to grow up, but this most likely will never happen. We will drown in a sea of soulless mediocre copy-paste stories that only differ slightly by flavor.

I come from an era where "THE BIG 3" anime were the biggest hype that existed in this community. Back when watching anime was still the top nerd thing one can do. Among these anime, Naruto was easily the best, but it already started declining and the next big thing to break through was Bleach.
Bleach had everything a fighting anime needs. Good action, cohesive enough world building and most importantly a large and interesting cast. The overarching theme - a group of teenagers going up against the unfair society / stuck up adults is one that resonated with me a lot back then. However, after ... the first big arc reached its conclusion something started to happen... something so bad that the whole fandom noticed. Kubo ran out of gas. The "rules" by which the story plays and the actions of the cast started making less and less sense, the new characters were way less interesting and the poor attempts to give them a short backstory made it even more visible. The story had extreme copy-paste moments that were impossible to not see. The final arc was so uninteresting that I don't even remember most of it at this point, besides the swastika memes.
There were many reasons why this happened with the most obvious one being the horrible exploitative conditions that the manga artists have to work under. In any case, this was not something new and a lot of other manga/anime tend to drop in quality as time goes on. Naruto is also a great example of that, but not to this degree. The only long running show that didn't follow this trend is obviously One Piece, since it was shit from the very start.
Sooo... the anime was done, the manga had the rushed final arc out and Bleach died off. Then we get to the present day and the final arc is announced to be animated. And holy shit the trailer is a banger. This thing was so good that even I was getting goosebumps, despite reading the manga till the end and pretty much knowing all of its baggage of problems. The quality of animation looks gorgeous and with a trailer so good it's entirely possible that they might catch some of that cool style stuff that made the Bleach start so good.
The conclusion is sad, but expected. The anime looks very nice, but it did feel like trying to put a bandage over a dead body. Even with great animation quality and really not bad direction, when the source material is garbage it's still hopeless. The fights were good, but nothing made me care about them. It was just a contest of flashy stuff with zero substance. The good stuff was lacking. There is no sense of importance to anything, despite the grandiose presentation. Even worse, when the important stuff is supposed to hit, it's extremely lackluster. Ichigo's emotional journey started and ended in the soul society arc and every new reveal about his identity or dare I say, evolution as a character, has zero impact.
At this point I'll start repeating myself, but every problem I have with Bleach can be summed up into 2 big categories: nothing makes sense and no proper buildup for emotional impacts (or sum them both up as - the plot is shit).
The first part is mostly technical and not that many people seem to care about it, but I will keep stressing how important it is for the viewer to understand what can and cannot happen in a show. There is a point at which things get so ridiculous and/or random that you start to understand that the author can add in any crap at any point, because there are no rules. This is the moment when I stop caring, because any bs can fly, so everything that happens feels cheap. Fiction generally works not because of the magic, but because it resembles reality in some way and the viewers can clearly understand what is happening. This is why characters that are considered good are usually complex ones that resemble real humans as much as possible.
As for the second point... There is a certain rhythm to great plot points (or fights for this genre). First there must be an emotional investment in what's happening - buildup. Then there's a confrontation, a problem that needs to be solved, best if that problem is slightly obvious due to the buildup naturally leading to it and finally there's a resolution/conclusion. Every problem in Bleach completely lacks any buildup, which makes all other parts very cheap... maybe because it's rushed or maybe because nobody cared about writing an actual plot at this point... Especially with gems like Mob Psycho in the same season, the stuff that's happening in Bleach is as whatever as it can get.
One more thing to mention is that many anime focus on one main character. This happens a lot in fighting anime where it starts with a larger cast and then the main character becomes way stronger than everyone and is the only one that matters. Bleach does the same, despite having a very large cast. This in itself is not necessarily a problem, however it's important to keep in mind that it can potentially create two big issues - the rest of the cast becomes way less important and the way you handle the main character will have extra added weight. Where I'm getting at is that Ichigo is a very meh standard character and because there's nothing going for him, it drags the show down even more.
My final conclusion is that nostalgia will wear off and after some time, Bleach will be remembered as the mediocrity it actually is or forgotten (or a good case study for nerds like me). If anyone reading this has at least the feeling that what I say makes some sense, go watch World Trigger instead.

This anime is bad. Really bad. At this point this seems like a fundamental universal truth like math axioms. Almost every review is critical of it and an average score of 6.6 on MAL is pretty much a certified garbage label.
But here's a thing. Season 1 was just as bad, however the reception was way more positive. The writing is consistently dreadful throughout both seasons and the characters have the IQ of 6 year old kids. There is absolutely nothing interesting happening and the revenge subplot from season 1 was handled so poorly, that I have issues expressing how bad it was. So why did ... this happen?
The answer is that the second season committed the CARDINAL (pun appreciation moment) sin of being boring.

As a fellow anime connoisseur, I noticed that my tolerance for bs is way lower than that of the general public. In time, I got significantly more chill and was able to watch and to some degree enjoy actually bad anime. As long as it is able to provide some level of entertainment with passable fights or style (ex. Jujutsu Kaisen) it was fine. This anime however was too much for me and I ended up fast forwarding through all episodes and I'm confident that I didn't skip any relevant information.

The problem is that Shield Hero provides absolutely nothing. The plot is a generic isekai that everyone here has seen way too many times with extremely poorly defined mechanics and worldbuilding. Every character is a generic copypasta without any defining qualities. It's literally just - the good character, the bad character and the mind-numbingly dumb character. There is nothing outstanding in any other aspect of the show to compensate for the dreadful writing and to be honest there isn't much room in this script to add an actual well choreographed fight. It is still hard to say which villain is more poorly written, but I know for a fact that everyone enjoyed the princess from the first season as a lolcow way more.

In general, the first season was the hilarious kind of bad. The pacing was significantly faster and the amount of stupid stuff happening per minute was high, just enough to not make anyone fall asleep. This is the only thing that made it watchable as a "so bad it's good" kind of anime. But too bad... when it takes you about 3 episodes just to get to anything happening at all, you f-ed up. There is no way around it. Nobody ever cared about any of the characters, it was always about a comically dumb mf-er getting owned by the god introvert main character that is perfect in his perfection just like every otaku on this planet and his little harem, provided to him, as usual, by the author's grace in random encounters.

To summarize, anime was a mistake. Stop wasting your time on this and go touch grass instead.