Guyver is basic shonen adventure dreck (extra emphasis on "basic") where a mediocre high school student dons a suit of alien power armor to fight an organization called Chronos.
It was boring and terrible, and I watched it to the end because apparently I am trash for this kind of thing.
The source manga has not aged gracefully, and the anime would have felt dated and backwards even on its initial release over a decade ago. Characters don't seem to have strong personalities to distinguish them from the basic outlines of the tropes that were molded from, and the overall flatness of these characters cause the "serious"
...
Oct 3, 2020
Appare-Ranman!
(Anime)
add
Appare Ranman centers around a cross country car race, and it generally relishes in its own over-the-top silliness. The characters and the cars that they drive are all presented in day-glow colors, and their antics are overwhelmingly absurd. This is not a realistic series at all.
The working relationship between the three lead main characters is a bit contrived, especially in the early episodes. I honestly found it hard to believe that they would stick together long enough to eventually race together. I also found the tech savant to be difficult to warm up to, but this is balanced by how likeable the samurai character was. With ... 
Sep 25, 2020
Kami no Tou
(Anime)
add
Tower of God trims the fat and gets straight to what an average shonen battle fan truly desires: flashy character fights with weird powers. This necessarily comes at the expense of some of the world building and character development that its peers have, but better planning could have allowed the show to get more mileage out of what is here.
This is especially a problem in the first half of the show where characters that are barely introduced advance through arbitrary challenges with only the vaguest of motivations. For these early goings, the conflict feels hollow since nothing is fleshed out properly. The dull lead character ... 
Sep 5, 2020
Kaijuu no Kodomo
(Anime)
add
Children of the Sea's high commitment to pretty nonsense, both visually and thematically, results in an unsatisfying viewing experience.
Children of the Sea might be worth watching for the sheer verve of its occasionally resplendent visuals. The raw, complex lineart gives the depictions a real sense of texture, and the shear density of the aquatic wildlife in the frame is impressive. Much of that wildlife is rendered using CG, but it is generally integrated pretty well enough so that way that the high fidelity of the CG art contrasts with the more impressionistic traditional art reads as an artistic flourish. However, integration of CG is much ... 
Aug 10, 2020
Kanata no Astra
(Anime)
add
It's fine.
Kanata no Astra's central premise is fine: A school camping trip gone horribly wrong, in space. Characters are fine, even if they are a bit two dimensional; even if the way they are fleshed out can feel a bit clumsy. The technical aspects are fine. However, the anime tries to go beyond its simple central premise with some world building and some plot twists, which are overwhelmingly silly and do little to change up the immediate stakes of the characters. And Kanata no Astra even has the gall to end the series on one of these reveals. Between the information being oddly inconsequential, and the ... 
Aug 9, 2020
Accel World
(Anime)
add
Accel World was never going to be groundbreaking: It is as much a generic otaku power fantasy as you would expect given that it centers around gaming as very serious business - with all of the well worn tropes in tow. I should at least give the anime credit for making a good first impression, though. It's opening story arc successfully introduces the premise while making efficient use of its small cast of characters. Particularly, the innuendo-laden, one sided teasing between the lead pair is fun (although I never could fully buy the in-universe justification for their budding romantic relationship).
However, after the climax of that ... 
Aug 3, 2020
Tenki no Ko
(Anime)
add
Weathering with You is well within Makoto Shinkai's wheelhouse of the adolescent romances of generic teens. It is rightfully compared to his previous work Your Name due to obvious aesthetic and storytelling similarities (he worked with the same character designer and composer). Most people seem interested in whether Weathering with You is as good as Your Name, and I suspect that this is partially to assess whether Makoto Shinkai is a one hit wonder. That may feel like an unfair question, but Weathering with You shares many of the same storytelling and character issues as Makoto Shnkai's previous filmography.
The director Makoto Shinkai at least shows ... 
Jul 26, 2020
Mob Psycho 100 II
(Anime)
add
Mob Psycho 100's second season seems to fall into the same trap that many other anime have fallen into in the past - the author has fallen in love with the lead protagonist. This is unfortunate as it results in the titular Mob losing many of the flaws that made him an interesting character in the first season as he is required to become a bland receptacle to uncritically espouse the author's world views. And given how passe those opinions are ("pacifism and friendship are good" isn't exactly revolutionary), this certainly wasn't a fair tradeoff.
Part of that might be due to the escalated stakes. The ... 
Jul 26, 2020
Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na!
(Anime)
add
Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na! has an unusually high willingness to delve into the specifics of anime (and animation, really) as a process, which gives it a feeling of authenticity. However, this wasn't enough to suspend my disbelief at all times, as I questioned how two school girls (tall girl does not participate in the actual grunt work) are able to develop and produce several animations in a relatively short amount of time.
The three lead characters have a fun dynamic. Tall girl's no-nonsense approach to her friends is a necessary contrast to the starry eyed idealism of the other two. I think my ... 
Jul 26, 2020
I should probably stop taking recs from anime youtube people...
Oreimo is a slice of life with a fairly low key premise: The lead male character Kyosuke has a younger sister Kirino who is in the closet about being an obsessive otaku, and he is coerced into helping her navigate the social stigma of her hobby. Given that Oreimo is a slice of life anime without a strong plot, the your enjoyment will likely depend almost exclusively on whether you can connect with the characters. The female lead Kirino is extremely bratty, and the antagonism between the lead characters is exciting at the start, but this dynamic ... |
