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If you enjoyed the main show as much as I did, then this comes as a nice surprise. It’s basically just a little peak into an alternate reality where Yuuri and Chito try their best to explain and talk about some of the events in the show. It’s comparable to the extra panels in the manga that explain the world more, but done in a more humorous way. Each episode follows that episode of the show, so this can be watched either alongside the main series or afterwards.

There really isn’t much else to say. If you liked the main show, and just want a little ... bit of a goofy off-shoot, then this will be enjoyable. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it doesn’t really need to be.

Oh boy. This was an experience. And not the good kind.

Let me start by saying that I am very biased when it comes to P.A. Works. They are probably my favorite anime studio out there, and everything I have watched of theirs has been enjoyable at worst and masterful at best. Unfortunately, with every good basket of fruit, there’s got to be that one with a worm inside. And this is a huge worm.

I understand that this anime was created as a way to make money. Cygames have a lot of sway, and their funding has led to more than a few anime projects being ... created over the years. Uma Musume is no different, being based off a mobile game of the same name. I understand the limitations that that provides, and I understand that when making this anime, the writers and designers were likely limited in how much they could flesh things out. But this felt like they were told exactly how to handle it with no freedom at all, and it resulted in quite possibly the worst anime this studio has ever put out.

The story of Uma Musume is very simple, but not in a charming way. In fact, you could say that the story finishes after the first episode, because once our protagonist arrives at the academy where she is to be trained to become the “best horse girl” like no one ever was, the story makes nearly no progress. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue if this were a character drama, a slice of life with the intent of hanging on a particular moment in time. But this was trying to tell a story. This was trying to be a moving sports anime about horse girls training and running in races. The world itself is also set up very poorly, failing to explain hardly anything about these “horse girls” and how society functions differently because of them outside of races. However, I blame the majority of the story on the lack of any real characters.

While yes, the characters are meant to be the focus here, it seems to me that Cygames made a long (too long) list of characters that all needed to be featured equally. This is normally not an issue when you have time to develop them all properly, but none of the characters received any meaningful development through it’s entire duration. The designs of the characters themselves are interesting in that they are based on real-world race horses, but those references are only skin deep once they start interacting with each other. All of the “bonds” and “friendships” forged along the way feel forced and unbelievable. It’s clear that they were all written only deep enough to give potential players of the game a surface-level attachment to them. By the end of the show, I found the sleazy coach to be the most relatable character, and he was pretty terrible. Not to mention he was the only male in the entire series, not counting audience background characters. Not that I am against all female casts, but in a setting like this, it simply makes no sense. I’m talking about the birds and the bees here. I guess they just spawn from giant gacha machines– I mean they just somehow get born from human mothers.

The art is very good, probably the only good thing in this entire show. P.A. Works always deliver on the art front, and it seem that even in a show like this their record holds true. The backgrounds are vibrant, the characters are well animated (minus some of the really awkward running shots), and the colors pop.

The sound design is fine. Some of the sound mixing, especially during one particular episode, felt unprofessional and rushed, and the sounds of the crowds often felt far too loud. The music was unremarkable, and while I think the OP and ED song were pretty decent, I feel that the rest of the soundtrack lacked anything memorable.

I can’t even say that I’m disappointed. I knew that this was going to be weird going in. But I didn’t expect it to be this shady and gross. The story is a wash, and the characters are complete garbage. While the art is great, it’s wasted here. The best thing that came from this show was funding to go toward future projects. Here’s hoping this is the last I have to see of the horse girls.

This is a review of just this season of Gintama. It’s not Zura, It’s Katsura.

Understanding how I feel about Gintama is difficult. Explaining how I feel is even more difficult. It manages to combine some of the most hilarious jokes and self-referential humor with some of the most interesting character arcs I’ve seen in a shonen show, and somehow jumps between these two things in the same episode without it feeling jarring. It manages to combine sci-fi, comedy, historical drama, action, slice of life, and parody into one tight bundle. I suppose the only real way to explain this show is to not try. It’s ... weird. It knows exactly what it is and embraces that to the fullest. It isn’t trying to be anything else. And for that, I’ve got to give it credit.

The overall story is very much a background element of the show, more there to set the stage than anything else. Edo is invaded by aliens that advance their technology to the point that otaku culture has become the norm. But none of that even matters. If that sounds strange, it is, but Gintama makes it work wonderfully. One of the most refreshing things I found about this show was that unlike most long-running shounen anime, the arcs here are so short and standalone that the series can almost be viewed as a collection of smaller stories. It isn’t quite episodic, as several of the arcs end up lasting 5-6 episodes, but those are the longest and are often the more serious ones [though not always]. Because of this semi-episodic structure, the show never feels like it’s treading the same ground. The stories are always fresh and unique, and more often than not exist to make fun of other shows as well as itself. Unfortunately, not all of the stories offer the same level of quality, and there are a few arcs that felt a little bit unnecessary and drawn out, but these are few and far between. The majority are excellent.

The art here is tricky to score. On one hand, it does it’s job well, conveying some of the strangest faces and emotions I’ve seen in anime. The backgrounds are decent, the effects are decent, and generally things look just that... decent. While I’m not going to penalize the show too harshly for the art direction, given the nature of it’s story, it is something worth pointing out. It’s nothing bad, but it doesn’t strive to go anything beyond expectations.

The characters are one of the highlights of the show. While most characters are completely off-the-wall bizarre, they all feel strangely relatable. The characters that get the most screen time are well fleshed out and developed, and even the characters that don’t end up being used as self-referential jokes, making fun of the fact that they have only been present in a handful of episodes. Most of the characters are completely aware that they are in an anime, and this leads to some of the most comical moments of the show. But despite the goofy premise and mood, the characters can all get serious when the time is right, and I found some of the more tense character moments to be genuinely enthralling and moving.

The audio design does it’s job well enough. The sound design is nothing too special, though there are a few standout sounds that are used as long-running jokes. The music is also decent. Nothing spectacular, but it gets the job done. Some of the more comical songs on the soundtrack lend to the mood perfectly, but at the end of the day it’s still the clever writing that does most of the heavy lifting in these cases.

The most important thing that Gintama does right is that it understands how to make comedy fresh again. There were basically no jokes in all 201 episodes that missed the mark, and they were all cleverly executed for their specific moments. Even the jokes that get reused are given new comedic life as they become their own joke because of the reuse. Only in a show like this could you have an entire episode (multiple times) of a static shot of a building while the characters inside discuss what to do during the episode just to waste screen time.

Gintama is truly an anime for anyone (with a sense of humor). The references to other media are always a treat, the serious arcs are always well paced and executed, and the characters carry it through episode by episode. While not every story arc is perfect, the show as a whole is very enjoyable and perfect to just throw on when you feel like turning your brain off for a bit.

Fantasy and adventure are things that I am often skeptical of when it comes to anime, not because they are inherently bad things, but because of the number of times I have been burned by wasted potential in those particular genres. Fairy Tail is, unfortunately, one of the worst offenders here, especially because the things it does right it does so well.

The world that this show sets up is fascinating. The idea of mages and guilds and the laws of magic are all very interesting and have lots of potential, but like most things in this show, that potential is wasted.

The story of Fairy ... Tail, or rather story arcs, are vastly varied in quality. Some of the arcs feel like genuine character pieces, but most feel like badly written filler to boost the comedy factor of the show. These inconsistencies gradually wear on you as you watch, and by the time you are reaching the end of this first season, things start to feel like a drag. The few good moments really do stand out, especially some of the backstories, but they are muddled by bad writing and even worse pacing.

The characters here are just as varied as the magic they use, especially in quality. Some of the characters develop wonderfully over the course of the season, as motivations change and truths are unveiled. Unfortunately, this makes up maybe 25% of the cast, the rest remain completely static. Most of the visual design is great, unique costumes and looks, though the faces of almost all of the female characters can be copy/pasted between them and nobody would notice a difference. Personalities vary in quality as well, ranging from believable and relatable to downright insufferable. It’s usually the side characters that are the more interesting as well, which does not lend itself nicely to a show that primarily focuses on the main group of wizards. And don’t even get me started on the terrible ecci fan service this show flaunts around in your face to hide the lack of originality in some of the characters… It’s bad, probably one of the worst out there for forced fan-service.

The audio in this show is perhaps the main reason to give it a try. The music is fantastic, written by one of my favorite anime composers of all time. It is classic fantasy action music at it’s finest, and one of the closest things I’ve ever found to folk metal in anime [we’re still a long way from that, but this is a good start]. It’s one of the best soundtracks in anime hands down, and it’s always a joy to listen to.

The overall mood of the show is fairly jolly, with darker elements thrown in during more serious arcs, but the atmosphere is almost always killed by bad jokes and poorly executed attempts at humor. When the rare joke does land, it’s often quite good, but this is few and far between.

Overall, Fairy Tail is disappointing. It has potential to be perhaps the most enjoyable fantasy anime out there but wastes this potential to follow things it thinks are trends. The characters are hard to care about, the stories are far too varied in quality, and the wasted world all come together to turn this anime into a classic example of something that could have been great, but settled for mediocrity. While this is mostly the fault of the original source material being a waste, I feel that even a radically different adaptation would have suffered the same flaws. I can see people really liking this show, and I’m happy for them, but to me, this is a clear reminder of why this genre often requires such caution from me. I’d rather avoid things that more often than not leave a bad taste in my mouth.

“Gather around, gather around, it’s time for Yami Shibai....”

Yami Shibai is complicated to review. It’s obviously got problems, but I find that overall it is enjoyable as pure entertainment at the very least.

Season 3 is, in my opinion, the highlight of the series. It contains (light) continuity throughout the episodes, though they aren’t fully touched on until the finale, and the themes presented were more interesting to me.

The stories here were varying in quality, as is the usual case for this show. Most were unsettling, and the ones that weren’t acted as great comedy, even though that may not have been the intent. The ... final episode is by far the highlight in my books, as it manages to do something the rest of the series hasn’t touched since, but I’ll leave that to your imaginations.

The characters are very hit and miss, especially because they are only given 4 minutes to develop. Most of them are tropes and are predictable, but in a series of this nature, they don’t really need to be anything more. Surprisingly, this season makes the series only recurring character, the mysterious masked man, into more of a character than a simple narrator, and he is the standout by far.

The sound design, as always, is great. In any form of horror, the audio design is the breaking point, and Yami Shibai once again delivers, with excellent sound selection and execution. You could watch these episodes blind and only listen to them as radio drama and they would be almost entirely as effective. The music is also great, adding to the mood nicely. The ED has managed to make it’s way into my favorite ED’s of all time. It is both very catchy and very unsettling at the same time, and the constantly built-on animation of the masks whispering into innocent ears truly makes it a standout.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with this short show. It does it’s job well, for what it’s trying to be, and honestly serves as a great starting place for anyone who hasn’t yet watched anything in this bizarre series. If you are curious about Yami Shibai as a whole, and have yet to dive in, this is a great place to dive in. Stay safe tonight, and if you hear whispering, it’s probably nothing...

Oh Tokyo Ghoul. You have been on a steady decline since your inception. And this season marks the depths of how low this show is willing to sink to.

I’ll keep this brief, the opener of the show is perhaps the worst opener I have ever seen. We are plunged straight into a battle between a confusing number of characters, all of which seem to have unexplainably changed sides at various points throughout the show. This goes on for several episodes before the show completely changes mood into more of a slice of life for a bit, and then jerks right back around for more battles ... that manage to be overly complicated and overly simplified at the same time. The point is, the pacing, story, and general plot points in this show are a mess, and the opening few episodes alone were enough to set the tone for me.

The characters are largely the same as previous seasons, though various changes in situations and motivations have caused some mix-ups with who is fighting who. Though, at this point in the journey, I had already lost any interest in almost all of the characters. Most characters are laughable at best, and can be described with only a few words. There are a rare few standouts, who are the only characters that got any sort of genuine emotional reaction out of me, but they were far from main characters.

The music is fine, nothing wrong here. Sound design was also completely fine. Nothing amazing but nothing bad. It does it’s job. The OP is quite good, but I am fairly biased toward anything done by TK or Ling Tosite Sigure do, so I can’t really credit the show for that.

Overall, this show felt like it was trying to stop a train-wreck, but ended up making it worse by shoving too many mediocre things into a small package that could have had potential. As this series has progressed, my interest in it has dwindled, and thankfully I won’t have any more to trudge through.

Complaints aside, I am sure there are many out there that would enjoy this show. If you can get past the bad writing and pacing, the confusing between-season story elements that are never explained properly, and the generic and annoying characters, then there is something here to enjoy. But I couldn’t look past all that.

“Nyanpasu!” - Roughly translates into: “This review is for the series as a whole.” It’s a very rough translation.

Non Non Biyori is a special kind of show. It somehow manages to make you feel as though you are still living through your childhood. I think the key word to describe it is simple. It is a simple story about simple people doing simple things. And it has brought me more joy than any other anime by a landslide. This show is therapy for a tired soul. Let it do it’s work and relax a bit.

The story of the show is something we have seen before, ... someone moves from the city to the countryside and has to adapt to a new way of life. However, what this show does so well is it makes that seem new. It truly conveys the feeling of pure wonder that a child feels when placed in a new location. Most of the stories that unfold in this new location are about teaching this set of fresh eyes how the world works around here, sometimes leading to comedy, sometimes leading to genuinely touching moments.

The cast of characters are an eccentric group of local children who seem completely separated from the busy and stressful life of the outside world. Almost everything they do seems bizarre to those on the outside, but to them it’s just the way things are. Each character is distinct, and while some may fit into certain character moulds, they all do it in their own ways that make them truly stand out as hallmarks in character design.

Visually, this is a masterclass on how to make the viewer feel as though they are actually there. Detailed and beautifully drawn backgrounds, lush plant life, and rich colors all decorate the majority of the scenes in this show. The background art is truly a sight to behold, and is one of the first things the show presents to you. All of the details in the leaves, the flowing water of a the streams, and the shimmering of the rock speckles in the sunlight are all taken care of wonderfully. The character animation is equally expressive and really punctuates each of the characters unique quirks.

The audio in this series is fantastic. The sounds of the countryside are well designed and thoughtful, truly pulling you into their world. Cicadas, birds, flowing water, footsteps, rustling leaves; every sound is careful and intricate, and truly aids in the believability and world building.

The music is also top notch. It provides a perfect blend of relaxing atmosphere, goofy jingles, and comedic punch to go with the simple but ridiculous antics that the characters get up to. There isn’t much more to say about it other than that it fits perfectly into the atmosphere of the show and does it’s job well.

Perhaps the most important thing that this show does is how it establishes a mood and lets that mood soak into your soul. There’s never a dull moment, and when things slow down, it leaves room for reflection and relaxation. It’s the perfect thing to throw on after a stressful day, the perfect thing to relax to when you need to unwind and forget about your own problems for a bit. In my opinion, this is one of, if not the best anime in the entire iyashikei sub-genre. If you haven’t given it a shot yet, try to get past the first episode without becoming instantly attached to this charming and oddly relatable cast and world. You’d be surprised at how much a little “Nyanpasu!” can brighten your day.

I will be avoiding any plot details at all, as spoilers will ruin this show. Aside from some essential episode 1 world building information, I will be as vague as possible.

Shinsekai Yori is ultimately a fantasy story that shows the complex ways that humans will adapt to their situation in order to survive. The show starts off right away with setting the scene for us, a world that is far different than our own current world due to various events. Civilization has basically restarted, and the world as we know it is no more.

Our main characters live in a small village in the wilderness, ... going to school, living their daily lives, and training with a form of magic that all people seem to have. Time goes on, and we are shown just how their lives unfold differently based on their situation. I won’t go into any more plot details at all, as I don’t feel they are necessary to explain why this show is so fascinating to watch, but I will say that not everything is as it seems.

Visually, the show is more often than not fantastic. There are a few episodes where the quality takes a noticeable dip, but to me, it didn’t take too much away from the overall experience. Backgrounds are vibrant and enthralling, and the use of color is outstanding. If anything, the colors are what truly make the visuals of this show stand out. They are always intentional, meaningful, and chosen to convey very specific meaning. The actual animation is fluid and expressive, though the art-style of the characters could be a turn-off for some, though this is heavily subjective.

The audio is well done all around, the music especially adds to the mood. The most iconic songs from this soundtrack feature choirs of children, fitting given the subject matter, but all songs do work where they are placed. A few of the more upbeat/battle songs seem a bit more on the rock spectrum than I would have chosen for this particular show, but they are certainly not jarring or out of place.

The characters are essential to the story, but are surprisingly the least fleshed out of all the elements in this series. While there are a few exceptions within the main characters, most of the characters presented here don’t stand out more than their roles need them too. While I didn’t find this to be a problem, and in fact I think it adds to the message of the show, I could understand some people feeling a lack of character growth or personality. To me, they filled their roles within the story well, and perhaps it’s the fact that most of them are such normal and everyday characters that I am alright with that.

Overall, I think that this series is a must watch. I believe that even the slight flaws that the show has actually compliment what it is trying to say very well. At the end of the day, it is a story about adaptation to truth. It is a story that tackles subjects of class, truth, history, racism, and settling for the best possible solution to problems even when there doesn’t seem to be any good options. It shows many sides of what it means to be human, both the good and the bad, and offers a very intriguing take on a dystopian future.

This review is for the series as a whole. I will be avoiding plot details other than necessary information.

Mushishi is an experience. It’s something that rattles your brain with such unique and well executed ideas yet still manages to leave you feeling relaxed by the end of most episodes. It strikes a fine balance between peaceful, mystical, unsettling, and sometimes terrifying on a metaphysical level.

In this series, we follow a Mushishi named Ginko, someone who acts as a sort of bridge or doctor between humans and mushi. Mushi are strange and mystical creatures that few are even aware of, and they are able to ... change the physical world in ways that can be both helpful and dangerous.

The first thing to note when watching the show is the structure of its narrative. Almost all stories wrap up in a single episode, and most episodes are fairly disconnected from each other. There are some slight continuous elements, but for the most part, each episode can be enjoyed on its own. The stories themselves vary in subject matter, depth, and atmosphere, but they all work to show off the differences between many kinds of mushi and many kinds of people. It’s one of the few episodic shows I have ever seen that manages to have every single story just as interesting and thought provoking as the last.

The audio design is another very important factor. All of the sound design is on point. The mushi have very distinct and ethereal sounding effects, making them almost sound like music. The music itself is perhaps my favorite part of the series. It is captivating, atmospheric, mystical, and always captures the spiritual nature of the stories perfectly. It ranges from calming lullabies, tense and borderline horror soundtracks, and sounds that seem to come from another world entirely. It is truly one of a kind, and is one of the anime soundtracks that constantly finds its way back to my ears even after the show has finished.

Ginko himself, as a character, is quite fascinating to me. He is fairly straightforward at first glance, a calm and collected wanderer seeking to learn more about the world of mushi. However, as we learn more about him and his past, we are shown just why he is truly the best man for this job. He is able to assess a situation in believable and rational ways, and is one of the most human characters I have ever seen. Perhaps his most identifying trait is his sheer respect for the world around him. He takes nothing for granted, and appreciates things for what they are.

All in all, Mushishi is a show to make you think. It doesn’t have any complex narrative structures or complicated metaphorical stories that need to be pieced together like a puzzle. Everything shown is fairly straightforward and on the nose, and that’s what makes it work so well. It manages to captivate your mind and your heart in ways that few other fantasy shows can, and I believe that among the plethora of stories it has to tell, there is something in here for everyone. This is not one to sleep on.

I’m going to try to keep this review as vague and non-specific as possible, as I truly believe that this is a story best experienced blind. To put it simply: this show makes me very happy. If I’m having a rough day, just putting on the soundtrack will instantly make me feel better. The world presented is interesting, the characters are precious, and the entire presentation is a constant reminder of happier times. This is a show about growing, about loving, about accepting, and most importantly about the value of change. And it is absolutely worth your time.

Story: 9/10
The story here is fairly straightforward if ... you look past the fantasy elements. It’s about a group of children going to school and dealing with social drama. But it’s so much deeper than that. Without spoiling anything, the story takes a massive shift halfway through the show that really hits you when you least expect it. It’s hard to talk about without giving details, but the biggest themes here are acceptance and change. While the story is not necessarily a thrill ride (not that you should expect one from a romance/drama), it is certainly emotionally thrilling. Lots of ups and downs; smiles and tears. Perhaps the only thing I can really dock the show for (and barely dock) is the lack of full conclusion at the end. Don’t get me wrong, it has an ending that I am very satisfied with, but I can’t help but feel that maybe a 1 episode special showing off what happens afterwards might be nice. But this might just be me wanting more.

Art: 10/10
The art here is absolutely beautiful. There is a reason that I consider the town of Shioshishio to be my #1 favorite location in all of anime. The peaceful atmosphere and unique location mixed with the slightly isolated and eerie feel make it truly stand out as a place unlike any other. Backgrounds are gorgeous throughout and really fit the mood of the show, especially once the tone shifts in the second half. The animation is smooth and intentional, and the character expressions are some of the best I have seen. The lighting is intentional and very well directed, especially in some of the underwater and winter scenes. The color direction is perhaps the strongest asset of all the visuals. Obviously bold blues are very much a visual theme here, but they are complimented fantastically by everything else in any given shot, most notably by torches, the sun, and the snow. This is one of the few series where almost every single background frame can be viewed as a fantastic standalone piece of art.

Sound/Music: 10/10
The soundtrack to this show is tied with Shiki for my #1 anime OST of all time. The music is relaxing and soothing; it truly makes you feel like this world is real and that you are a part of it while you watch. But it can also be unsettling, giving you the feeling that there is something more fantastical and melancholic lurking beneath the waves. It is simple but intentional, and conveys the emotions it needs to perfectly. If you ever need music to simply calm down to, this is the perfect place.
The sound design is also very well done, especially some of the underwater effects used to really immerse you. Some of the foley work still has me scratching my head as to how they managed to get such crisp and beautiful sound for something that in any other series should be grating on the ears (those of you that have watched will know the underwater sounds in the last half that I am referring to).

Character: 10/10
All of the characters in this show are precious. That’s the simple explanation. As mentioned earlier, one of the biggest themes in this show is love and change. Some may make jokes about this show having a “relationship dodecahedron” with how confusing it initially seems, but I feel that it is completely accurate to the flaws and immaturity initially present in the characters, especially the main cast. From the start, we can see that they all have very distinct personalities, for better or worse, and these differences only further show themselves as the drama thickens. Middle school children are not always good at handling social situations, and these characters are no different. However, due to certain circumstances in the story, some of them are forced to change radically while others stay exactly as they are. The character development, mixed with the general drama of the whole thing, really keeps you interested and actively concerned about the well-being of all of the characters, even side characters that were originally thought to be unimportant. It’s rare for a show about this many characters to keep me actively invested in all of their issues, but this show manages to do it.

Enjoyment: 10/10
If it isn’t apparent already, I love this show immensely. From the first minute of episode 1 I was hooked, and by the end of the series, I knew it was a favorite. I just recently re-watched it after a few years, and found that I enjoyed it even more the second time, despite already knowing the story.

Overall: 10/10
I am incredibly biased when it comes to this show. The beach and ocean is my favorite place in the world, and now living far from it, this show brings me back to those days. But even with my strong bias to the setting, I believe that anybody who is a fan of romance, drama, fantasy, or just being happy should watch this show. By the end, you will find that is something truly wonderful. The emotions that this show brings are strong. It’s melancholic. It’s childish. It’s innocent. It’s everything a show about a group of children forced to deal with something larger than themselves should be. And yet it still manages to keep itself grounded.
If you want to watch a show that will make you cry, watch Nagi no Asukara. If you want to watch a show that will make you laugh, watch Nagi no Asukara. If you want to watch a show that will make you smile from ear to ear for the next week, watch Nagi no Asukara. It’s truly a wonderful experience. You are missing something magical if you choose to skip it.