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This season abandons everything that made the first season have its own identity, in favor of throwing every tired battle anime cliché into your face as aggressively as possible. It brings nothing interesting to the table, instead serving you dish after dish of uninspired, bland shonen battle after battle.

Every tired trope is found here, and to make matters worse, the silly and whimsical nature of the show- which worked to its benefit in season 1- works against it. You can't take the villain seriously, and all the intrigue is lost when every episode ends with a conversation behind the mastermind and a character you're ... used to being the punch line of every scene she's in. And this isn't even taking into account the drastic, severe, and jarring tone shift and genre change from the first season.

Even if I hadn't liked the first season, this second one would still have not been worth watching. It is bland battle manga drivel that deserves to be forgotten. It contains no innovation, no interesting story, no stakes you would take seriously, nothing that makes a traditional battle anime good.

Time after time, this season sits something in front of you and asks you to take it seriously, but you just can't. Ominous old guy who rarely opens his eyes, sitting the shadow, closing out every episode with a "kekeke"? It's so cliché it hurts. If it was at least trying to be a parody, it would be enjoyable, but this is just pure cringe.

I dropped it after episode 5. I was hoping there was some of the spirit that used to be in the first season still left, but episode 5 was the point where I realized it was so devoid of soul that I found it sucking mine out instead.

Watch this if you can turn off your brain. Otherwise, pass, and watch a better battle anime. I recommend reading Rokudou no Onna-Tachi, which has some similarities, but does it a million times better.

A great painter can make a masterpiece out of anything. This is essentially what Nakamura Yuuji has done with this manga. It blends elements of a harem anime, slice of life, battle shounen, and gag manga into an absolutely beautiful story. Its opening is basically that of a gag manga, with the mystery of the supernatural situation completely undercut by the humor, then quickly shapes up to be a plain old harem manga, BUT NO! The main character, the titular Rokudou, will not allow it! In a completely character-driven plot twist, rather than live it large with his new harem of fiercely loyal delinquent girls, ... he instead determines to use his power for good, to achieve his dream of a peaceful high school life.

This is basically the extent of the plot. It isn't very deep, but it does not suffer for that in the least. Instead, it shines brilliantly through the amazing canvas painted by the diverse and genuinely interesting cast. EVERYONE gets character development in this series, even the background flunkies to some extent, and it just feels so natural. Nakamura uses the tools he is given, and manipulates them in an absolutely masterful way to create a truly engaging story. At multiple points I have remarked aloud to my friends just how much better this manga is than I keep expecting. It's better than it has any right to be, frankly.

The ONLY way in which I would say this series suffers is the art. It isn't bad, but it definitely isn't high-quality either. It's just passable.

So my number score for this series is as follows:
Story: 8 - This manga doesn't really have a story per se. The only overarching plot is Rokudou making the school a nice place, and the main focus of each arc is generally detached from it. These individual arcs are wonderful, however, and so net it an overall very good score. The last few chapters (I'm currently on 288) have finally presented a more concrete overarching goal, which also contributes to the score, but prior to that, it's mainly propped up by the characters.
Art: 6 - It's not bad, but it isn't anything special either.
Character: 10 - An absolute solid 10 in this department. Everyone gets an arc, and every arc is resolved in a satisfying way. Really, truly great.
Enjoyment: 10 - I have to admit I am a little biased here, though. I have a thing for strong girls, and this manga is chock full of them. I also have a thing for making interesting stories out of a premise that is in some way gratuitous, and this manga definitely, certainly does that.
Overall: 9 - I can't say it's my favorite manga of all time, but it's definitely very high quality. I would give it a 10, but I'm too conscious of my own aforementioned bias to do that. So a 9 it is.

This manga is tragically underrated. It takes most of what makes the main Hero Academia story great, and adds a different charm by following a group of street-level vigilantes looking to make the world a better place, rather than the heroes in the limelight. Our main character is one of those lovable everymen, who, though not the brightest guy around, wishes to help people with a charming and earnest innocence that makes him honestly one of the most endearing characters I've encountered in manga or anime. You just can't help but root for him, and every victory he earns is that much sweeter.

It's safe ... to say that the characters are the strongest part of this manga, much like the original BNHA series. The supporting cast is very different from our hero, but no less nuanced or lovable. They form a very colorful cast that manages to really feel like individuals. Side-characters are also given a great deal of development. It's clear the author puts great love and care into crafting all of them. A villain from one issue will usually become a recurring character and even receive their own small character arc. Before you know what's happening, a character you used to hate has now become one of your favorites! It's truly impressive, and every chapter bleeds its creators' love and care.

But this isn't to say that the story is lacking in the slightest either. What begins as one character's personal vendetta slowly but surely becomes a huge part of the big picture, actually tying very closely into some key aspects of the main BNHA story. It's little wonder the main series has canonized and adapted some of the ideas presented in Illegals! The transition is also smooth and subtle, going from street-level to history-changing at such an easy pace that you hardly even notice until it's already happened. There's one particular turn the plot takes (no spoilers) that ties in clearly into the main series, but it's done so subtly that you might not even notice it until halfway through that arc!

I really can't overstate the case for this manga. If you love BNHA, you will love Illegals. If you're craving a fix after reading the latest chapter, or watching the latest episode, you NEED to pick it up. And if you're already caught up on both ends, well... Welcome to the club.

Let me preface this review with a word to those who haven't watched Vinland Saga yet: Start from episode 6. Now stop spoiling it for yourself and start watching. But seriously, skip the first 5 episodes if you want to fully enjoy the good parts of the series.

Maybe it's because I haven't read the manga, but my feeling after finishing this anime can be summed up with the word "disappointment". I feel like the first 5 episodes belong to a different anime from the other 19. It sets up a character arc that doesn't happen, and several concepts that have no pay-off. It sets ... Thorfinn up as the main character, but he clearly isn't. And unfortunately, it took me until the last 3 or 4 episodes before I realize that fact. Every episode I kept expecting Thorfinn to stop being the edgy little snot he always is, and every episode ended with me wondering why it hadn't happened yet. This unfortunately hamstrung my enjoyment of the show. If it had somehow made it clear from the start that Thorfinn was really a side-character and that Askellad was the main character, I would have been able to enjoy it. It really is a good anime, but the message it sent at the beginning was too strong, and by the end I just felt disappointed. I had invested 24 episodes into a character I not only didn't like, but actually liked less and less with each passing episode. I actually hate him. I don't even want him to be redeemed at this point. He had at least 3 opportunities to redeem himself, so why should I care when the 4th comes along? I'm interested in Knut's story though, so again, it isn't all bad.

I also think the grittiness of the story brings it down. There's "not being shy about the grim reality", and then there's gratuitous cynicism, and Vinland Saga falls entirely in the latter camp. There are no good people in Vinland Saga. The only good person gets killed in episode 3 with no payoff, and everyone else is awful. The vikings are brutal, the Christians are either weakling wusses or hypocrites, and every single reference to the God of the Bible is some sort of apostasy. No happy moment isn't undercut. No good deed goes unpunished. This is isn't gritty realism, this is a crapsack world, and it ends up crossing over from engaging to unrealistic and edgy as a result.

These two factors- the denial of expectations and the exaggerated cynicism- made watching the show an actual slog for me. After 10 episodes with Thorfinn still not redeeming himself, I was just forcing myself to keep watching at that point, just to see how it all ends. And while there was a good payoff to Knut's story arc, it came at the tail end of an- if not quite painful- at least uncomfortable and irritating experience.

I did not like Vinland Saga. If the story had just started after the timeskip after Thors' death, it would have been better for me. I think it really is a good anime though. Episodes 6-24 would have worked just fine, it's really just the intense conflict between what's set up in the first episodes, and the rest of the season that bring it down.

If you want to tell me it does pay off, because you've read the manga, that isn't going to cut it. Season 1 has failed as a season, because it isn't cohesive, and isn't enjoyable as a result. I have honestly never disliked a 'main' character as much as I dislike Thorfinn. Maybe it does get better later on, but that doesn't retroactively make the beginning good or fun.

This anime is, simply put, FANTASTIC. Definitely one of my all-time favorites, easily. The story, while slow, is intriguing and gripping, the world- my god, the WORLD- is deep, mysterious, beautiful, bright, and dark all at once, and I think the selling point of the series. The characters are very likable, and you truly care and are shocked when one of them dies. Like George Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, characters are devoid of plot armor, which truly gives it a more gripping progression as you realize that your favorite character may not last until the end!

The entire progression of the anime, ... rather than the development of a story, is the slow revelation of the nature of the world the characters live in. There are battles, there are mysteries, there are conflicts, but all of these, rather than focal points, are vehicles through which the characters discover more about the history that led them to where they are now. And yet despite this, the obstacles really do matter, and when peoples' lives are on the line, you truly do feel the fear and anticipation involved.

The designs are utterly breathtaking when you take the time to appreciate them. From the characters' clothes to the creatures and monsters, you realize that, to make this anime, the designers completely threw real world designs out the window, and created things from the ground up. The innovation and creativity they showed, just with the protagonists' clothes, is wonderful.

The characters themselves are very real, even despite the surreal world they happen to live in. Their interactions are interesting, and their journey is engaging. The only part of their interactions one might not enjoy is their very sexually free views. As such, we see some yaoi and yuri that some viewers may not be comfortable with.

The magic, while a central aspect of the world, is not the focus of the story, just another facet. The fine details of it are difficult to pin down, and it maintains a sense of mystery even at the end. The characters appear to have near limitless power, and yet manage to fit into a world without seeming overpowered thanks to the lack of focus on this aspect.

I thoroughly enjoyed this anime, and highly recommend it to viewers over the age of 18, as the subtleties of the show may be lost of younger viewers. If you love shounen manga, and can't enjoy an anime without battles, then this one isn't for you, but to everyone else I say watch it! You will thank me!

***THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS***

My experience of this anime can be summed up by the word "meh". I went into it hoping for a nice twist on the seven deadly sins being the good guys, and some awesome fight scenes, and ended up sorely disappointed. Sure, the characters are known by their sins, but rather than be actual embodiments of said sins, they were simply granted them as derogatory titles, so they fail to stand out as shounen manga characters in that department.

The characters don't undergo any sort of development across the series, and for the most part are bland and boring. Ban is pretty fun ... because of his aloof yet silly attitude, and the rest have some decent humor, but this is definitely not a high point of the series.

The combat was especially mediocre. The fights only ever focus on Meliodas and Ban 99% of the time, with the rest of the sins just acting as accessories. This is especially frustrating after so many of them are hyped up as 'the strongest of the deadly sins', or 'the prince of fairies'. I particularly was looking forward to Diane kicking ass, but we only ever really get one awesome moment out of her when she punches through a supposedly unbreakable barrier. The rest of the time she's either sleeping, 40 miles away, or has a hole punched through her chest and has to act as a damsel in distress. Ugh.

We do get a couple of good battles in, but the majority only last a couple of seconds, due to the characters' (see: Meliodas and Ban's) overpoweredness. Only two or three fights really give any true sense of danger, and one of them was ruined for me by how easily Diane went down. But that's just me.

I kept watching because I expected a more even playing field eventually, with all of the sins being equally capable, but that unfortunately never happens. Meliodas and Ban are, throughout the anime, just complete male power fantasies, while the rest of the crew just gets swept under the rug.

I don't hate this anime, but I don't recommend it. It's not bad, just decent, and really not worth your time. It lacks any aspect that really stands out, and ultimately just falls flat, lost amidst a sea of better, more entertaining shounen anime.

It started off good, with an excellent premise and setting. I liked the entire cast (except Miyuki) at first, and I liked the idea of the Bloom/Weed prejudice, even if it's nothing new. But as the show went on and conflicts arose, it felt like I was watching Rhett and Link's "Rub Some Bacon On It" given anime from, with Tatsuya Shiba being the bacon, and with all the humor removed. (Saying "Rub Some Tatsuya On It" in response to my friends' problems has become an inside joke among us.) Every time a conflict arose, precious Onii-Sama would always erupt on the scene and solve ... it in a matter of seconds. I liked the idea of a talented Weed closing the gap between the classes, but as the show went on, I felt like it was just a half-baked attempt to make him seem sympathetic or flawed. To top it all off is the fact that he's so humble about it. I'd like it if he was a conceited, smug jerk about it better than this bland, uninteresting cardboard cutout.

I hate Miyuki just as much, but for mostly different reasons. True, there was the whole "that move is difficult to pull off even for experts" thing, and the "she's so overwhelmingly powerful that she made the EMOTIONLESS GIRL, the RUNNER-UP in the competition, CRY" thing, which are bad enough, but mostly, it's her creepy incestuous obsession. I'd take Suguha's love for Kirito over this any day. It was still an eye-roller, but it didn't feel nearly as... revolting as Miyuki's. I'm usually a huge sucker for protective older brothers and cute younger sisters, but this pair honestly makes me want to retch every time they make eye contact. Miyuki is one of the most one-dimensional characters I've ever seen in an anime. Everything about her is just "Onii-sama" this and "Onii-sama" that, with no hint of any motivation beyond making life easier for her precious Onii-sama.

Then there's the rest of the characters. First off is Takeaki Kirihara, probably the only character I started off not liking, then liked more as the series went on. After episode 5, he becomes a sympathetic, capable and pretty cool guy, but his transformation, to put it bluntly, was bull. He attacked a girl with lethal magic and force under the pretext of showing her that magic would forever be superior to non-magic, then later states that he did it to bring out the best in the girl he attacked. His excuse is pathetic and tacked-on, resembling something I wrote when I was making my own manga at the ripe old age of 13. And even THEN, I realized what a bad move that was. He would have been one of my favorite characters if he had just been introduced for the first time in episode 6, but as he stands now, I only like him a bit.

Pretty much the entirety of the female cast is uniform in my eyes. I liked them a lot to begin with, each with their own charms and quirks, even if a lot of them were just re-applications of old Tropes (Rei expies are always good, though). As the story went along, however, almost every one of them followed Miss Yandere in falling in love with precious, wonderful, perfect Onii-sama. Being near that man is enough to make any female cast member blush. EVEN THE EMOTIONLESS SHIZUKU! THAT'S RIGHT, EVEN THE REI AYANAMI CLONE! Her and Mibu falling for him were the last straw for me. The whole reason why people love Rei clones is entirely because of their stoicism! Having one blush and smile when alone in a room with the perfect main character whom everybody loves just shows how blatantly the creators don't understand the archetype! If a character that previously never uttered sentences longer than six words in length is suddenly talking in full paragraphs to praise almighty Onii-sama, then there is clearly something wrong with this picture! Honestly, at that point I was convinced they were just doing it on purpose.

The male cast members, at least, are alright, because they can't be attracted to him. Still, all of them (except Katsuto Jyumonji and people that hate sweet, precious Onii-sama) seem to rely on him to solve every single problem. I would go so far as to say that the majority of all of the characters exist SOLELY to provide means by which Onii-sama can prove that he is the very best like no one ever was.

However, amid this sea of Onii-sama-worshipping zombies (and I'm not talking about the fanbase) there are still a few good characters. Mizuki Shibata and Erika Chiba are so far, two of the maybe three female characters that have gotten any focus to not show any romantic interest in him. Erika is very much a standard tsundere, but I think both of these girls have potential, and I wish they could have been the female leads instead of Miyuki. Katsuto Jumonji is probably my favorite character overall, as he's powerful but holds back quietly, leading well but not stealing the show like someone else. His quiet nature makes every time he opens his mouth to give a command its own small moment of awesome. In my opinion, anime could use many more characters like him. (To be fair, he reminds me of Onua, one of my favorite characters of all time, so I'm biased here.)

Looking at the male characters unobjectively, Mikihiko Yoshida is probably the best. His magic is genuinely difficult to use but has much potential, is much more mysterious than the other forms, and he as a character has seen more growth than any other by the point I stopped at. I think he could have had IMMENSE potential as a main character, and I would certainly watch a spin-off show about only him.

Moving on, in the inter-school competition, their student council seems so confident of their superiority that they're dissatisfied just having someone with half as many points as them. On top of that, it seems like only the girls get any focus while the guys are apparently only performing moderately well, which shows a thinly concealed (if even that) excuse to just focus on the pretty girls. Oh, except for Tatsuya, of course.

To reiterate: Why don't we see any of the male competitors? Because the viewers want to watch their waifus dominate. Why are the male competitors doing so poorly? Because we need Tatsuya to fix everything so that the girls make up for them.

At this point, the show is unwatchable for anyone with common story writing sense and self-respect. No dedicated author who knows his stuff could watch this show and not come out of it feeling dirty by the time they've gotten to around episode 9.

As an added thought, a lot of people praise the ingenuity of the magic system in the show, but I feel it is over-hyped, and not really all that spectacular. It's original, and I by no means dislike it, but I feel like people put this aspect up on a pedestal, and some even give the show a perfect rating purely due to it, which, with an anime this horrible, is a crime of the highest degree.

A part of its mediocrity is the fact that, to this point, the magic battles are hardly spectacular. You don't get the sort of trading of magic attacks that could be found in, say, Fullmetal Alchemist or Fairy Tail. I wouldn't attribute this purely to the magic itself, of course, it's simply that the most spectacular aspect of the battles is the physical part, while the magic either just adds a sparkly, mystical side to it, or otherwise provides a simple and easy way to just end the battle before a real exchange of blows has begun. This aspect alone, I would rate 7/10 at MOST. Intriguing, but nothing to write home about.

And now we come to Suzaku. Or whatever his name was. I liked this guy, and even though I didn't think for a minute that he could pull it off, I still hoped he could pull Onii-sama down a notch. True to my expectations, he failed, despite getting close. Some might argue it was good that he technically beat Tatsuya, but the moment was so short it took away all of the potential. Tatsuya immediately heals himself and unleashes a sonic boom, ending the match. I lost interest after the student council finished discussing it and stopped watching there entiely, deciding to pretend Tatsuya stayed dead and everyone lived happily ever after.

"But it gets better later!" some say. To which I say "Later is TOO late!" If you want a good series, you need to start off well and keep it there, something this show failed spectacularly at. Onii-sama sucks any sense of danger out of the story, and Miyuki layers a load of revolting incest on top of the show's desiccated remains, resulting in a mess of utter garbage. Now, I am by no means an expert, and the pool of anime I've watched is shallow, but as far as my experience goes, this anime is the worst I have ever watched, and I would give it a solid 0, it is just that bad.

There IS one way to salvage the show, though. First off, kill Tatsuya, then make Miyuki commit suicide. With the two of them gone, the rest of the characters should become capable of standing up without Tatsuya designing new legs for them. Of course, we all know this is never going to happen, so with that I'll end my rant here by saying this show is a cesspool of everything that can go wrong with a good idea, and that I can't understand how anybody could possibly give it a rating of more than 5/10 after watching past episode nine.