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I loved season 1 of Eminence in Shadow, so much so that I was able to overlook the bad animation and production. Season 2 however, I found that the poor production actively hurts the show and the material. The arcs in season 2 just weren't as good as the 1st, and without any of the fights looking good, it's just frustrating to watch sometimes. I think I just have to accept that the studio just isn't going to take any time to animate it properly, and we're going to be stuck with fighting stills throughout the show. It's a shame because I think the voice ... actors in this show are amazing and really endear me to their characters, I hope their talents are given better in the future seasons.

Delta Best Girl

Spy x Family started off very strong in part 1, but started to stall plot wise towards the end of the season. Part 2 unfortunately continued this decline, and if I hadn't enjoyed part 1 as much as I did, I would have dropped the show half way through this season.

Spy x Family started off as a noir spy thriller that was very funny and had great characters, it turned into a slice of life episodic show that relied on the power of Anya to carry it. The biggest sin I feel the show has committed however, is what has happened to Yor. Yor ... had the potential to be a great character, but she was completely sidelined to being a housewife whos biggest problem is learning how to cook for Loid and Anya. She started off as a cold blooded assassin who could be an equal to Loid in terms of skills, but did absolutely nothing after the first few episodes.

The show is not bad, and maybe in the future the source material addresses the problems I had with part 2, but I can only judge what I have seen, and part 2 is a letdown.

I started watching season 1 a few months back after hearing that people were very excited for season 2 coming out. I didn't think it was bad, but I didn't think it deserved the hype and praise people were showering it with. I decided to give season 2 a chance because I heard the hype and anticipation coming from the fandom. But, just as with season 1, I don't think it is a bad show, just that it fails to live up to the hype that the fans of the LN put on it.

I would say my biggest problem with this show is how ... the show presents itself. It presents itself as a battle of wits between geniuses, but the author just withholds information from the audience until the end. No plan that any of the students have come up with is very smart, we just don't know all the details of the plan until it's been executed.

Another big weakness of the show is the characters. There are too many, and none of them after 2 seasons have any depth at all. The MC is an emotionless sociopath who is always floating above everyone else, I just find him one of the most boring and dull MCs of any show I have watched.

Episode 11 kind of soured me on this show, when the main antagonists of the season, literally tortured a girl. I found that scene to be really off-putting, not because of the torture or that it strains credulity, but because the whole premise of the show is supposed to be a battle of wits. It just felt like the author wanted to do something to make the MC look and feel more epic, but it just felt cheap.

To me this is a good, not great show. Maybe because of the fanfare and hype surrounding it, I judged it a little too harshly.

Season 3 of Kaguya-sama is a bit of an enigma, once episodes 12 and 13 have aired, it will have the 2 best episodes of the series in it, but it will also have a lot of the weakest episodes as well. One of the reasons for this is it has spent more than half of the episodes this season building up to the finale, and as great as the payoff will be, there will be a majority of the season that doesn't quite live up to seasons 1 and 2.

Having said all that, Kaguya-sama is still 1 of my favorite anime of all-time. ... Even if I feel season 3 is the weakest of the show, it still has amazing art/animation, voice acting and humor. It is still the king of romantic comedies and I just hope that the rest of the manga gets adapted. There is still enough chapters for 3 more seasons and I think the best material has yet to be adapted. 9/10

Part 2 of season 1 of 86 is difficult to score. This season was plagued with production issues and there were multiple episodes delayed by a week, then the final 2 were delayed 3 months. There were times where this caused episode quality to dip as well, so watching as it was airing was very frustrating. Re-watching this season however, changed the experience and allowed me to focus solely on the story and the characters. I found myself much more invested and as a result, the final 2 episodes have become 2 of my favorite episodes of anime.

Story- Part 1 did a lot of heavy ... lifting in setting up the story, season 2 changes location and introduces a lot of new characters. At the end of the season though, all the threads from both parts 1 and 2 come together to end the season perfectly. 10/10

Art- Art is good, the only problem visually with the show is the use of 3d animation for almost all of the action. It's fine once you get used to it, but I still don't really like 3d in anime. 9/10

Character- The cast is very strong. After season 1 where a lot of cast members die, season 2 went the opposite and felt like everyone had plot armor. This took a little of the anxiety away, but no one wants to see any of these characters die. The main 2 characters really are the heart and soul of the show, their conclusion to the season is one of the happiest I have been watching anime. 9/10

Overall- 9/10

After watching the first 8 episodes of Demon Slayer season 2, I just continue to find myself frustrated and confused. This show has some of the best art, animation and sound in anime, but almost everything else about this show is frustrating. I really feel that the show is just being carried by Ufotable at this point.

The dialogue in this show just goes on and on and on, while not accomplishing anything. 15 of the first 16 minutes of the most recent episode were just pointless inner monologues and conversations that added nothing to the characters or the story. Personally I really hate characters that ... scream or cry all the time when the situation doesn't warrant it, and Demon Slayer continues to be one of the leaders in this department.

The writing I think is very basic on all levels, but I have been angered by a couple of choices the author made this season. On top of the usual things just happening out of nowhere with no warning whatsoever that we saw in season 1 and the Mugen Train movie, the complete 180 change from a villain this season out of nowhere just left me baffled and angry.

This show has the same problem that Jujitsu Kaisen has for me, the humor is not funny, it is mixed in with serious and dramatic moments that just take away from the moment and every joke is the same one note joke. At least in Demon Slayer each person has their own 1 joke that they beat into the ground, whereas JJK everyone beats the same unfunny joke into the ground over and over again.

After seeing how popular the Mugen Train movie was in, I went in hoping for something epic, but it was just average with amazing animation to me. After 8 episodes of season 2, I feel the same way. Demon Slayer is not a bad show, but it has bad elements mixed in with amazing production. Maybe if I wasn't bothered by these things in anime, I would really enjoy this show, but they do so I can't be with the people who think this show is a 9 or a 10.

7/10

After seeing the high score here on MAL and seeing it appear on a lot of peoples list for the best anime of 2021, I finally decided to watch Ousama Ranking. This show has been praised by the people who have seen it, and it has been talked about as a clear cut above almost all the anime that was released in 2021. I am not criticizing Ousama Ranking or saying it is a bad anime, because it is not. I do think it is being overrated by people who are putting it in their top 2 or 3 anime of the year though, and ... so far after 11 episodes I think it has a way to go before I can consider it a masterpiece.

The story is a pretty generic Shounen so far, with a lot of tropes that have been done before.

The art style is unique and has a different vibe than most anime out there, but I am personally not a huge fan of it. It is very basic and lacks any detail whatsoever, and so far there has been only 1 scene with good and fluid animation. This is more subjective with the art style and there hasn't really been a need for top tier animation so far.

The characters, their backgrounds and motivations are so far the strongest part of the show for me. Every character so far has had some motivations and reasons for making the decisions that they do. People do awful things to each other, but we later find out more information that lead them to their actions. I enjoy the relationships that the characters have with each other and I hope they continue exploring them moving forward.

As I said earlier, I don't want to criticize this show, because I did like a lot of it. I just feel that it is being overrated by a lot of people and has large shoes to fill in the remaining 12 episodes if I am going to consider it for even my top 5 this year.

7/10

Just finished season 1 of Komi-san and I just felt frustrated watching the last episode. I feel frustrated with the show as a whole, but a few things about this show really bug me.

I know comedy is subjective, but the jokes and gags in Komi-san are one-note, repetitive and are so absurd, that they just got on my nerves after a few episodes.

The characters in this show are some of the least interesting and one-dimensional I've seen from an anime in a while. They just have this 1 personality trait and that is it, there is no depth, they are just there. One ... trait all characters have in common though, is that they simp for Komi-san to the point where it just wears out its welcome very fast.

Since it is a slice of life, I don't really expect much in terms of story, but by the end of the season, I just felt that nothing really changed from episode 2 to episode 12. There was no growth from any characters, just the same unfunny jokes and gags but in different settings.

I thought this show had potential, it has good art, some good animation and a decent premise. Maybe in the upcoming seasons there is some development for the main cast (mostly Komi and Tadano), but based on these 12 episodes, I just found this anime more annoying than funny or endearing.

6/10

This show can be a little polarizing because of the main character, who is a 34 yr old reincarnated at birth in a new world. Because he is 34 yrs old mentally and retains his memories of his previous life, his degeneracy can be too much for some people, especially when his lewd thoughts and actions are directed to underage girls. There are people for which this is a deal breaker, and will either drop the show because of it, or they will never be able to set it aside and enjoy the show because of it. These are perfectly fine opinions to have of ... Mushoku Tensei, but if you are able to accept that the main character has some very serious flaws as a human being and continue, you will be rewarded with one of the best stories ever told in anime form.

What sets Mushoku Tensei apart from other Isekais is the care put into it by Studio Bind, the production on this show is nothing short of S-tier all around. The art and animation is some of the best you will see in anime, the voice acting is incredible, the visual world building immerses you in the world, the soundtrack is amazing and the attention to the little details show how much time and effort has gone into the show. This would be wasted on a series without an equally well written source material, luckily Mushoku Tensei has that as well.

I have read up to Vol 18 of the novel and I won't spoil anything, but the story just continues to get better and better as it goes along. We have only began to scratch the surface of the main story and the world, and since Studio Bind was created just to make this show, the story should get the time and resources to bring the source material to life and get a full adaptation.

Story-10
Art/Animation-10
Sound-10
Characters-10
Enjoyment-10
Overall-10

With all of the Isekai that are released, I need something to interest me about the show in order to watch it through. It can be a different spin on the genre, amazing art and animation, a very well written story or just something that doesn't follow the same tropes that we see from so many generic Isekais these days.

I looked at the score on MAL to see if people thought it was good enough to start, and to my surprise it had a fairly high score of 7.76. I read the description and thought that maybe the idea of having his parents come ... from the other world he's transported to could be a nice difference. So I started watching and hoping that this could be at least a solid, maybe interesting show. As I kept watching, I found myself coming to the realization that there is nothing about the show that is above average. This show not only checks the box of every Isekai trope that has been done hundreds of times already, but it does it in a remarkably average way.

To be fair to the show, there does seem to be some plot for the next season setup, but the show gave me no reason to be invested in any of it. I'm genuinely curious, what was it about this show that caused a lot of people to give it a score of 8 or higher? The show isn't bad, but it is so generic and mediocre across the board and includes every Isekai trope there is, I can't see how this show is any higher than a 5/10.

If you like Isekais or you haven't seen too many of them, you may not find this show to be as disappointing as I did. If you feel the same way I do about them, you're not missing out on anything by skipping this one.