Back to bossmann-dan's Profile bossmann-dan's Profile

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have not read / watched / listened to the source material.

STORY:
Mekakucity Actors is an anime about a group of teenagers that have been granted supernatural powers due to various accidents. The story is told on various fronts, and details from the distant and recent past are told in flashbacks at strategic points. The entire present portion takes place over one day – if I’m not missing something.

The first episode makes for a great hook, but for the full effect, you need to watch the next one or two episodes, as they happen at roughly the same time from different perspectives.

There ... is a lot of talking, so prepare yourself. I had the same problem with this anime as I did with the first season of the Monogatari Series (Bake-) which was that there was really no cool off for the tension, so watching felt very tedious. There is some action, but it’s really nothing special and is generally over in a few seconds.

There are a few emotional moments but they lack a real punch.

The story itself isn’t that hard to comprehend, but by the end there were some major details left out. All the skipping around can be tiring. Towards the end it seemed as if everything would be wrapped up quite well, but in the last two episodes there was too much material for the allotted time.

ART+ANIMATION:
The background art is great. There is a lot of metaphorical meaning behind the backgrounds ranging from sterile, repeating industrial elements, to average looking neighborhoods and schools, to chaotic traffic signals and power lines. If you have seen works by Shaft before, you will recognize it immediately.

The animation is also very Shaft, with the over-the-top neck craning and interesting idle animations to fill the ocean of talking. There is one scene that uses horrifyingly bad CGI but it is just that once.

I won’t pretend to know anything about the source material, but from what I hear, Mekakucity Actors is based around the music videos of each of the characters. The music itself is great, but the lyrics are so dependent on the story that out of context would seem a little weird – at least that’s my impression based on the likely cut versions included occasionally in the show. The in-show background music is mostly absent in Shaft style, but what is there is generally somewhat dreary.

Sound effects are good.

CHARACTERS:
The characters in Mekakucity Actors are various teenagers who have been unconsciously intertwined in each other’s fates due to the events of the story.

The characters all have decent depth and major archetypes are all but absent. Most of the character development happened over the course of time between the chronologically first flashback and the present day. Every character is given time for backstory.

Character design is very good. The characters are meant to look video-gamey. There are a few scenes where they wear school uniforms, but otherwise they wear more casual clothing.

The voice acting is top-notch. There are a few big names present, as well as a few of my favorites from Shaft’s other projects.

ENJOYMENT:
This show looked to me at first as if it would be really exciting. I loved the Monogatari Series as a whole, with the art and various story-arcs. I was hoping for a similar feeling of involvement in Mekakucity Actors, but by the very end I had too many questions. The ending feels quite rushed and full of BS. Had the show been given another episode to get everything to properly stick it would have been much better. Alternatively, they could have spent a little less time on some of the less useful conversations and mood-setting in order to invest more time in the end.

I first heard about this anime through character art, mostly of Ene. I really liked her super-hacker theme, but was disappointed when she and Shintarou took a backseat in the show.

There was large amount of talking for the sake of backstory and huge build-up to the underwhelming end - of course I was left disappointed. There isn’t much humor to lighten the mood either.

The music videos were enjoyable, even with the occasionally edgy lyrics.

OVERALL:
A great exercise in character building and metaphorical art. Overall very well produced, but left feeling disappointed in the end.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have not read the manga/light novel.

STORY:
Poyopoyo is a seinen 4-koma short anime about a family and their spherical cat. The major focus is on daily life issues and occurences with pets – mostly cats, and how they bring people together.
There is somewhat of a continuous story as the events are portrayed in order over the course of a year or so. But being a 4-koma, most skits are able to stand on their own. The transitions between each one is quick and well-done. Each skit has either a somewhat informational or comedic purpose.

ART+ANIMATION+SOUND:
The art is a very basic scratchy style ... that is neither bad nor anything special. The animation is similarly basic, but it has the occasional impactful moments to fit with the humor.
The intro song is cute and catchy. The in-show music is pretty basic but matches the light nature of the show. Sound effects are basic.

CHARACTERS:
Poyo is the titular cat whose life the show primarily revolves around. He is spherical in shape and is therefore constantly mistaken as various different things.
Poyo’s owner and main caretaker, Moe (haha) is a 22-year old girl who lives in the country with her student brother, Hide, and bad-ass, farmer father, Shigeru. Moe is generally obsessed with Poyo and anything that remotely looks like him. While her father likes Poyo – with somewhat of a façade, Hide and Poyo do not get along very well, especially at first.
There are other animals and neighbors that appear constantly in the show, a few which have their running gags, but there is a surprising versatility among the characters. They bring plenty of possibilities to the anime.
Voice acting and character design are pretty basic, but the ‘voice’ of Poyo is Ootani Ikue of Pikachu/Chopper/etc. fame. There are a few other big-ish names in the cast as well.

ENJOYMENT:
This anime is very enjoyable for its cute moments, as well as the somewhat more mature themes and impactful humor. There are a few references thrown in as well.
Including characters of many different ages gives the show an interesting dynamic, along with the various pet owners and their personalities.

OVERALL: Silly and cute 4-koma about pets for more mature audiences, great to binge or to watch in chunks.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have not read the manga. **But after I finished watching, I started reading.

STORY:
Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou is about a guy who transfers to a magical school to become a high priest. His motives are somewhat important and mentioned later in more depth, but essentially he wants to make the world a better place. Along the way he meets and interacts with various girls of different – yet common – harem archetypes.

The universe this anime is set in is quite varied with many magical – or otherwise – based powers. Demons, witches, heroes, and a futuristic imperial army are just a ... few of the many inspirations.

Overall, the story is somewhat reactionary and convoluted. There is a lot of concepts being tossed around and I was confused at times, but the real issue is that there is too much material for one season. The story itself is fine, but I must have blinked at some of the wrong moments, as it took me a while to grasp what was going on. The families and various underdescribed factions are the main source of blame.

The failings of this anime are almost certainly due to the limitations of what can be portrayed well within a 11- to 13-episode season. It would have undoubtedly fared better if more time had been spent on clarifying the positions of the gods, and the structure and intentions of the various factions.

I have to hand it to them though, the mood felt well balanced, with silly and sexy moments almost as often as the crazy fight scenes.

As expected of a rushed ecchi-harem-shounen, there is some BS strewn throughout, and many characters are lacking in justifications for their feelings, but I don’t weigh that in as heavily for lighter hearted anime.

ART+ANIMATION+MUSIC:
Animation is befitting of an action anime. Battle scenes are very well animated with high frame rates and few static scenes. One episode partway through the season stands out especially for looking like a scene out of a major series. Day to day animation is fine but doesn’t really stand out otherwise.

Art is good but it is not my favorite style. It draws from the pointy arched hair styles of the 2000’s that I’m not really fond of. Plus, what’s with all the crazy hair colors? I know it helps you distinguish characters from each other but ehh…. green and purple…. bleh… I just can't stand the overly saturated color palette.

There are some nude scenes, and plenty of panty shots with compromising angles. The ecchi theme isn’t too outrageous though – most of the girls have average sized chests, which is somewhat fresh.

The electronic / rock mashup music in-show and in the intro are good. The outro is a cutesy song that is also good.

Sound effects are fine.

CHARACTERS:
There isn’t much depth beyond the generic character types.

I wish some characters got more showtime.

With the variety of character styles and powers, I’m getting a One Piece vibe – witch girl certainly helps with that. That being said, I strongly dislike the school uniforms.

ENJOYMENT:
Heavily enjoyed this show. I recommend watching the uncensored version if not for nips, then at least to avoid having lightly clothed rear-ends patched over. The censoring is not too annoying, but if you have the choice, just go all out.

The harem interactions aren’t anything really new on their own, but I must be a slut for stuff like this because I enjoyed it enough.

The battle scenes caught my expectations off guard. Had this show come out with today’s art style (Re:Zero, Shuumatsu no Izetta), it would be in my favorites.

OVERALL:
Great battle animations, standard harem humor, somewhat convoluted story – likely thanks to production limitations. If you like most action harems, you should love this.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have not read the manga/light novel.

STORY:
Ore, Twintail ni Narimasu’s story is an exaggerated personification of internet fights about waifus.

The story itself is about a guy who love twin-tails – the ever popular anime hairstyle. One day he and his childhood friend and neighbor – how original! – meet a strange woman who gives him a bracelet and telling him there isn’t much time to explain. After some time-wasting, she teleports everyone to another location where aliens are attacking girls with twin-tails in order to drain their ‘attributes’. Souji – the hero, uses his bracelet to transform into a little girl ... with crazy strength and twin-tails in order to defeat the aliens. Later on, more girls become heroes as well.

Yes, it sounds extremely ridiculous, and it is, but the best part is how all the aliens are obviously parodies of otakus / weeaboos. The entertainment value lives on all the crazy stereotypes. Considering the nature of the show, I was expecting it to be heavily ecchi, but it has pretty low amounts of it, which is somewhat refreshing – not that I dislike ecchi or anything...

The majority of the storyline is following the girls around the world battling the aliens. Each time they gain a new member or some kind of power that helps them to fight off increasingly tougher and weirder aliens. Towards the end, things take a slightly more serious turn, with some power justifications.

There is so much BS flying around and the characters are all too accepting of what is going on, but this clearly isn’t meant to be a serious show. It’s trying to be a comedic parody with all of the reasoning and ridiculous battle scenes. For example, the only thing the heroes stand to gain from defeating the bad guys is to avoid having all the twin-tails taken from their world.

There are plenty of discontinuities.

ART+ANIMATION+MUSIC:
I really like the art style, but the quality is inconsistent.

The battle animations are good, while the rest of the show animations range from fine to poor. The exploding bad guys are quite well done for whatever reason.

Music is average.

Sound effects are mostly overused stock sounds ranging from average to bad.

CHARACTERS:
Not much depth of characters, but each has their own distinguishing, yet overused, personality traits.

The main character, Souji, transforms into a little girl he names “Tailred”. He is a standard fare male lead in most regards. He loves twin-tails to the point of being unable to defeat anything with twin tails.

Twoearle is a woman from another planet who is intending to stop the spread of the aliens. She is always trying to seduce Souji, but with the show lacking the ecchi element, it is a lot less annoying than in some other anime.

Souji’s childhood friend, Aika, has a crush on him and is constantly fighting off Twoearle. She eventually becomes a hero as well. She is overly self-conscious about her small chest and most of her additions to the show revolve around that and her violent tendencies.

Erina is the class president, a cute rich girl who collects hero figures and has an obedience fetish.

All the support characters exist to perpetuate the ridiculousness, especially Souji’s mom, who is immediately 100% okay with everything that is going on, and even invites Twoearle into her house knowing full well that she is trying to seduce Souji – even supporting her in that regard – despite Aika’s resistance. On multiple occasions she even accompanies everyone into the secret base that Twoearle built under their house anytime the heroes are called into action.

The bad guys are all reptilian/insectoid/etc. personifications of the various sub-focuses of otaku/weeb culture and have unnecessary character development in the style of One Punch Man, where you learn all this backstory only for them to last maybe a portion of the episode. Here it is not nearly as well done for the OP comedic aspect that OPM has, but it’s entertaining nonetheless. Their backstories are essentially just what their favorite ‘attributes’ are, such as “little girls hugging dolls,” “back of the neck showing,” and the more typical “big boobs” and “small boobs” war.

The aliens are not inherently evil, as they feed off of these traits and enjoy them similar to the people that they are parodying. Many of their interactions with each other and the heroes is hilariously mundane. My favorite example is where they have a jenga battle in order to determine who will attack Tailred.

The character design is reminiscent of other girls-in-battle-suits anime but manages to be less ecchi than average. The exception being Tailyellow, who always receives the more compromising camera angles.

ENJOYMENT:
It’s so ridiculous that it is funny. Having the various mundane anime fetishisms explicitly mentioned and personified is something new to me.

Twoearle’s pushiness, Aika’s chest envy, and Erina’s innocent puppy delusions are nothing super original but they are entertaining.

A lot of the jokes are intentionally made to seem sexual but are actually referring to twin-tails. Other jokes actually are sexual.

One bad guy complains about the death of true literature as opposed to what anime today has become. This is one of the few shows I have seen that gets (a little bit) political with its jokes, something I miss from American adult cartoons.

And of course the gender-bending plays a strong part in the show. I found it entertaining at least. Souji seems to brush it off without much thought, unlike other shows where they immediately start groping all their new parts. It happens eventually, but in a more entertaining scene.

OVERALL:
Anime-culture mocking parody, with over the top battle animations, but bad story – it wasn’t the focus anyways. If you can take yourself less seriously and enjoy the childish humor, it will be enjoyable.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have not read the manga/light novel.

ART+ANIMATION:
Backgrounds are good, city/ village design is good, strong level of detail and nice 3D layering of the artwork. Has a slightly dated to feel but it makes the humor scenes more entertaining for feeling out of place.

The animation is generally good, main character battles have amazing choreography and rarely have any static scenes. Some use of abnormal viewing angles. Mouth-flapping scenes are still present but are kept to a reasonable level.

The sound effects are good. In-show music is very good, but at times it seems too loud in the mix with voices. The first theme ... song does not follow the run-of-the-mill format of most recent action anime. It is similar to the music in the show and is orchestral and quite fluid in structure.

STORY:
This may be considered a shoujo with the vast number of male characters, but it doesn’t really hit that point until halfway through the series. The show feels quite gender neutral with scenes enjoyable by those on both sides, but nothing too ridiculous. It feels most similar in spirit to the Last Airbender series, with a good balance between battle scenes, character development, and light-hearted material – the music and setting also have a lot to do with that. Of course they don’t have bending, but there is a parallel.

The story follows Princess Yona, a spoiled princess who has never stepped foot outside her castle. One night, she is caught up in the murder of her father, the king and is forced to go into hiding. Along the way she is told to gain the support of four specific people to aid her. What she didn’t expect was that she would end up being caught up in an ancient legend from her kingdom. While out exploring the kingdom, see realizes much about the world around her and wishes to bring the happiness that she once had to her kingdom.

The first episode starts calm with some character background but ends with a great hook and cliffhanger that immediately draw in the viewer. From there we get a decent amount of backstory, and then continue into the first climax where our heroine has her awakening.

Great balance of easy-going humor with a few running gags, varied character building, and amazing battle scenes leaving me on the edge of my futon. Some serious character building scenes are broken up with silly moments, but all are either purposeful or reasonable. The pacing is well done. Nothing is rushed, and adequate time is taken to explore the important characters’ backstories.

Despite the main antagonist’s plans being made well-known not too far into the series, I found myself wondering why he choose the plan of action that he did. Of course, he too is only human and it made for a good story.

CHARACTERS:
The characters are well rounded and it is easy to feel invested in them.

Princess Yona goes from being a spoiled tomboyish girl having never ventured outside her castle, to choosing to fight on her own to protect others - seeing herself as the reason everyone else is in trouble. The in between stages are believable and well displayed. During the princess’s steps of growth, she doesn’t inexplicably gain new skills, even in crisis situations. Her burning awakening is realistic in that she isn’t thinking about much else as if she were some all-knowing OP superhero. With some prompting, she wants to try on her own to learn more about her situation She spends much of her time practicing on her own whim, despite not being all that smart or skilled. Critically, she still retains her old personality mainly for comedic effect - naïve, snarky but honest.

Even seemingly flat and weak supporting characters have quite a bit of depth a reason behind them.

The ‘reverse harem’ dynamic is pretty standard and adds to the humor. It’s hard to call it a reverse harem though considering the lack of romance going on – I’m glad they chose that path here. That’s not to say there isn’t anything that could be portrayed that way though, but our lovely princess doesn’t seem to think of those occasional situations in that way.

The ‘bad guys’ of all levels of the food chain show good reasoning abilities. There are one or two cowardly lord-level baddies with little depth more than preservation of their own standing. The story is mainly a struggle over how the path to the goal should be taken, with very little true bad guys, only disputes. The main antagonist is possibly the best example of this, where he had to do something unforgivable to accomplish what he saw needed to be done.

Overall character design feels standard but fits. Many of the stronger characters stand out and that is taken into account while the group tries not to draw attention to itself during their travels.

The voice acting has above average casting, with good display of emotions. None of the stereotypical annoying crying in serious situations.

ENJOYMENT:
I’m surprised that I have never heard about this show before, as it is truly deserving of more attention. I found myself constantly thinking of it as the Japanese version of the Last Airbender / Legend of Korra series. Other than the obvious similarities between the two, the story-telling itself is what I felt stimulated that feeling the most.

The humor never skips a beat and is used to break up the less exciting moments of the less serious scenes. I love the way they give the humorous moments their own art-style. I smiled or laughed at most of them.

Princess Yona’s growth as a heroine had me cheering her on the whole way, and she might just be my new favorite female lead character.

There are many quotes within the series that I like. My favorite - “I’m immortal. Actually, I can’t afford to die.” Others are more serious and applicable to real life.

OVERALL:
A very good semi-short series to watch if you are looking for a well-balanced and well thought out story with compelling characters. The humor is a welcome surprise in an otherwise serious looking concept. May be a shoujo, but it feels quite neutral.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have not read the manga/light novel.

ART+ANIMATION:
The art is good. Animation is all over the place with it’s crappy moments but it remains at a standard level overall with a few good scenes. Seriously, some scenes were so good I wish they could extract them, erase the rest of the season and start over with those as key points.

Sound effects are merely average. The in-show music is quite good and it fits the mood and theme well too. The theme song at the beginning is pretty average, but I like it.

I watched both censored and non-censored at the same time. The ... censored versions are generally a minute to a minute and half shorter. One improvement this season is the use of chibis and spell-circles to spot-cover instead of the annoying full screen blocking light beams.

STORY:
With the first episode or two, the story seemed to be going in an interesting direction. But towards the end of the first arc everything started going downhill. There was a brief moment of redemption at the beginning of the third arc, but once again it fell flat on its face. I was seriously wondering if this was some random ridiculous 80's cartoon but with more recent animation.

I was given the impression that the story would give more attention to the details behind Basara's lead plot armor, but that hope was quickly stomped out. Similarly, I was excited to finally learn the true identities of particular individuals, but when they were introduced with completely new elements to the story and then promptly forgotten about... sigh.

The first fan service scene had me hoping for good things to follow in the sense that they could continue building their trust as justification, however almost every other scene felt extremely forced and awkward.

Plenty of discontinuities, and new useless characters and elements. Some important details that were avoided in the first season are finally mentioned, but again we are given mention of new ones which are then glossed over. Many actions had no realistic reason behind them.

There is still plenty of material set up for a third season. Unless it is done under a new studio or director I wouldn't bother.

CHARACTERS:
Did I mention they introduced lots of new characters? And that they served no purpose? Well it certainly felt that way. Some new characters looked cool, others were immediately forgettable. Otherwise none of them were at all interesting.

There wasn't much character development going on. The main characters are almost exactly same as they were at the end of the first season minus some new powers here and there.

The voice acting is average. You can assume how a character will sound by looking at them.

ENJOYMENT:
The art was probably the most enjoyable thing. There were also some really epic animated scenes tossed in. Of course the one or two good fan service scenes were enjoyable too.

The harem got too crowded and friendly to be interesting. I liked it better when it was just Yuuki and Mio, and they hated each other’s guts.

The biggest blow to enjoyment was the annihilation of the concept I had in my mind of how the story would progress. In the end, they resorted to making all sorts of awkward groping and introducing so many new things as to give me a headache. Thanks to all the new things being horribly underused, I spent a lot of the time wondering how they would interact with each other, only to find out that the studio forgot about them.


OVERALL:
My god, this series had the potential despite the weak concept, but it was handled so poorly. Many random scenes were legitimately good, but the overall connection was weak. I would have rated this better had it continued going the way I thought it was going with the first two episodes, assuming it took a similar structure to the first season.

Going to the demon world was a huge mistake with the seemingly thousands of new characters and elements indiscriminately tossed around. They must have grabbed a handful of mismatched junk and threw it at the wall to see what would stick.

The humor is just about gone after the first arc, and the show results in random awkward chest rubbing scenes to fill in the spaces between the mostly pointless character 'development' and confusing battle scenes.

I'm thinking about checking out the manga / light novel to see if the way this season turned out is the fault of the studio. Not gonna bother updating if I find out.

TL;DR:
Major disappointment when compared with the first series. One or two good fan-service scenes are worth watching - the best one isn't even (fully) censored, but the story is disjointed and tedious.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have not read the manga/light novel. If you like going into anime without knowing anything specific about them, I suggest skipping the STORY and CHARACTER sections, and go straight to ENJOYMENT after reading ART+ANIMATION.

ART+ANIMATION:
Animation is good, but nothing to put it in its own category. A few scenes were notably lacking in smoothness while a few others were noticeably smoother than average. One or two scenes were worthy of being called epic.

Art is good, interesting real use of shadows on characters that I haven’t noticed in the genre before - its a really little thing, but it made it feel slightly ... higher quality. The ultra-form-fitting clothing and lifted chests is no big surprise, but is not overdone.

The in-show music is good and matches the theme and mood. Sound effects are good but not amazing. Theme song is standard-issue.

The version I watched was heavily censored to the point of being annoying. Some uncensored scenes were arguably more worthy of being censored than ones that were. Considering the audience and purpose of the show, I don’t really see the point of rays of light or chibi characters covering half the screen whenever those scenes occur. With all the moaning and other noises, the censored version isn’t all that more appropriate than the uncensored for those below the maturity level. Uncensored version shows all the tongue action, nips, and panties.

STORY:
Could be best described as a demon-ecchi-harem with above average plot and battle sequences. The concept itself isn’t all that interesting. The focus on ecchi thankfully isn’t so strong that everything feels stupid or forced. There are quite a few generic motives used but they are not unrealistic or rampant.

There is some BS for the sake of sexual humor and fan service. Basara has some pretty strong plot armor. For a light-hearted anime such as this one I’m willing to overlook some of the BS. There are no major discontinuities, but there is some withheld information in the beginning that made the lead’s easy acceptance of the events to be hard to believe. At the end of the season it is still not certain what that information is.

It was never made clear why some demons choose to be peaceful, but one can assume it is because there are non-violent ways to obtain magic or power. As in other series, the demons may just be a magical race that exists in the world of humans but aren’t necessarily evil.

Battle choreography is good, but surprisingly communication within battles is better than most. The mood of battles is done much better than others in the genre that focus mainly on putting the hotties in the most compromising viewing angles possible. Characters in the battles are not simply forgotten about or wasting opportunities like in some less thought-out series.

The scene to scene mood shifts are handled pretty well and there is a good feeling of tension in the right parts.

There are some meaningful quotes made throughout the show. By the end, it feels as though almost every interaction had a story-driven purpose behind it.

Basara makes a strange turn of character towards the very end – maybe to avoid showing that side to the others. Thankfully the season ends overall in a light-hearted way, with a perfect draw-in to a second season.

CHARACTERS:
OP hero lead, tsundere demon girl, loli succubus, and hero girl are the main characters. They are not flat, with a decent amount of proper backstory and justifications for their actions and feelings. The overly-conscious male, tsundere, and pusher dynamic is nothing new but considering their roles and backstories it doesn’t seem too unreasonable. Being a mix of heroes and demons, the main characters are subject to enemies from both sides.

The lead and his father have been exiled from their hero village due to the son – strongest boy in the village – causing a huge accident. This allows some other hero characters to come in later holding grudges against him. This doesn’t, however, explain why one particular hero he is reunited with doesn’t hold a grudge but instead is quite cozy with him. The lead is inexplicably able to free himself from even the strongest mind control or sleep agents, and has the ability to nullify or deflect close to all magic with enough yelling and face-scrunching.

The demon girls are attractively designed without being too overwrought. Male demon designs seem underwhelming. The heroes all have a similar uniform but otherwise look like more normal people.

Voice acting is good but nothing special.

ENJOYMENT:
My inner 15-year old likes ecchi-harems with action, so I enjoyed this. There were moments where I was rolling my eyes from the lack of justification or plot armor, but the humor allowed me to overlook many of those. Helping to prevent it from feeling tedious is a decent balance between the everyday lives with humor and fan service, the character development, and the battle scenes

The battle scenes are nothing compared to my absolute favorites, but they are enjoyable enough here. The characters change enough during the season to feel invested in them.

OVERALL:
Most of this anime’s traits lie just above average for the genre. The concept is a little weak in my opinion, but the story aside from its occasional unrealistic justifications is enjoyable as long as you aren’t looking for a psychological thriller masterpiece.

The story is ever so slightly too fast-paced but care is taken to properly portray the moods.

TL;DR:
All around better than average action-ecchi-harem about demons and heroes. Feels slightly forced as is the norm, but is light-hearted and still full of fan service – especially uncensored.

FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a repaste of my review of the first season, since the series is so short I reviewed both together. The differences are at the bottom. I have not read the original 4-koma. I strongly recommend watching this as it is really short and enjoyable.

ART+ANIMATION:
It’s a 4-koma based anime, so the art won’t be amazing. That being said, everything looks purposeful and there are no outstanding omissions. There are moments within the story with strongly different art / animation to match the situational comedy and they all work well.

The animation is standard-issue for this genre. However, there is one episode that uses ... its own dreary feeling animation style for a character development flashback - I think its use was well-suited. There are even a few scenes where the animation functions well as a metaphor for the situation.

Nothing worth mentioning about sound or music. As is the norm, the music merely fits the moods.

STORY:
The story is about a mid-20’s couple consisting of a nerdy guy and a ‘normal’ girl. Thankfully, the husband’s nerdiness for the most part only influences his personality so that it doesn’t get too old too quickly. It’s very episodic with the general contents of each episode not having much effect on the others, but there is also a lot of continuous building of the plot.

Of course most of the episodes are about their antics or daily life activities, no surprise there. What’s new at least to me is that the situations are much more interesting than the plethora of middle-/high-school student SOL, thanks to the mid-20’s couple. Being in that stage of life, many of the situations are relatable to me personally.

CHARACTERS:
The character design in a SOL 4-koma is very basic, but I like the faces and expressions. Definitely moe-style but here it’s not a bad thing.

As fitting for a 4-koma, many of the supporting characters exist only to suit a certain running gag or two, but nothing is too overdone. There are some other good, normal interactions within them and the main characters.

Despite being episodic, there is some real character development going on, and some of it really hits home hard. Both husband and wife have real life problems, and you learn that the wife is not nearly as normal as you were earlier led to believe.

Kugimiya Rie is a voice actor in the show (not too often) – I like her in case you can’t tell. Aaanyways… the voice acting is well-fitting to the characters, so no bad marks there.

ENJOYMENT:
There are some pretty good jokes and references included, and the way some of them are portrayed in such a mundane setting makes it even more entertaining. Of course, some references fly right over my head either since I’m not Japanese or familiar with many of the reference material, but thankfully I don’t feel too left out.

Despite the episodes only lasting three minutes each, they are not sped way up to fit everything which was the right decision for the content and mood. Having a show of this format include some pretty serious character development was a welcome surprise.

OVERALL:
Great short story with some good character development. The humor is right up my alley. The art is nothing special but the focus is more on the main characters than anything else.

COMPARED WITH 1ST SEASON:
Humor is just as good, but the story turns more episodic with a general focus on the couple becoming ready for parenthood. Feels more somber, first season was better.

TL;DR:
Cute, funny, with some deeper, young couple topics. Watch it.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have not read the original 4-koma. I strongly recommend watching this as it is really short and enjoyable.

ART+ANIMATION:
It’s a 4-koma based anime, so the art won’t be amazing. That being said, everything looks purposeful and there are no outstanding omissions. There are moments within the story with strongly different art / animation to match the situational comedy and they all work well.

The animation is standard-issue for this genre. However, there is one episode that uses its own dreary feeling animation style for a character development flashback - I think its use was well-suited. There are even a few scenes where the animation ... functions well as a metaphor for the situation.

Nothing worth mentioning about sound or music. As is the norm, the music merely fits the moods.

STORY:
The story is about a mid-20’s couple consisting of a nerdy guy and a ‘normal’ girl. Thankfully, the husband’s nerdiness for the most part only influences his personality so that it doesn’t get too old too quickly. It’s very episodic with the general contents of each episode not having much effect on the others, but there is also a lot of continuous building of the plot.

Of course most of the episodes are about their antics or daily life activities, no surprise there. What’s new at least to me is that the situations are much more interesting than the plethora of middle-/high-school student SOL, thanks to the mid-20’s couple. Being in that stage of life, many of the situations are relatable to me personally.

CHARACTERS:
The character design in a SOL 4-koma is very basic, but I like the faces and expressions. Definitely moe-style but here it’s not a bad thing.

As fitting for a 4-koma, many of the supporting characters exist only to suit a certain running gag or two, but nothing is too overdone. There are some other good, normal interactions within them and the main characters.

Despite being episodic, there is some real character development going on, and some of it really hits home hard. Both husband and wife have real life problems, and you learn that the wife is not nearly as normal as you were earlier led to believe.

Kugimiya Rie is a voice actor in the show (not too often) – I like her in case you can’t tell. Aaanyways… the voice acting is well-fitting to the characters, so no bad marks there.

ENJOYMENT:
There are some pretty good jokes and references included, and the way some of them are portrayed in such a mundane setting makes it even more entertaining. Of course, some references fly right over my head either since I’m not Japanese or familiar with many of the reference material, but thankfully I don’t feel too left out.

Despite the episodes only lasting three minutes each, they are not sped way up to fit everything which was the right decision for the content and mood. Having a show of this format include some pretty serious character development was a welcome surprise.

OVERALL:
Great short story with some good character development. The humor is right up my alley. The art is nothing special but the focus is more on the main characters than anything else.

TL;DR:
Cute, funny, with some deeper, young couple topics. Watch it.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have not read the manga/light novel for this.

Based on the MAL average scores I was hoping for a more. I like fantasy-action-ecchi-harems as much as anyone else, so I see anything above a 6 and I'll give it a shot. However, I also like my shows with some humor.

ANIMATION + ART:
The art itself is standard fare for the genre. Nice scenes and backgrounds, standard hotties, etc. The character designs are good, but not the best in the genre. I particularly like the building and city designs.

The overall animation is 'meh' though, with some of the battles entirely replaced with little chess ... sets showing the strategies. This wouldn't be a bad thing on its own, but the fact that the actual battles are shown mostly using this method makes them underwhelming. Other battle scenes are replaced with 3D CGI – I wouldn’t want to animate hundreds of horses either, but with some better scene placement it wouldn’t be necessary. It's clear that resources were cut here.

Some notable person v. person battle scenes stand out from the rest of the show, but in the big picture they are only average for this genre. Together with the character designs, it gives off a bit of a Fire Emblem vibe.

There are many other shows out there with more mouth-flapping scenes, but something of this genre deserves more attention in that regard. There is not quite enough time spent on the individual battles in this show, so I’m lead to believe that the studio was trying to cover far too much material in a short 11- to 13- episode season. Comments on the series seem to back this up, claiming that the anime skipped out on a lot from the manga/light novel.

Sound effects are decent, though I'm not really a fan of either intro or outro - that's just my taste. Half of the in-show music feels off-theme but matches the moment-to-moment mood.

STORY:
I like anime that is able to answer all or most of my "why"- and "how"-questions as I follow along, and this one just doesn't do it. There is so little justification for anything that is going on. And when it does come, it’s just too late.

Dropped into the story knowing very little and in the important early-episodes period I really don't sense any motivations from anyone except for the generic "I want to save my homeland" lead, the "I love you because you are sooo skilled and you killed my soldiers, but who cares!" hotties, and the "I'm evil so I want to take over the world" 1-D bad guys. The characters bring in slightly more depth later on, but in such a short series it comes too late.

Many transitions are thoughtless and weak. Whenever a new plot element comes into play, it is just dropped right in with very little information presented beforehand. Even if some of the circumstances had been subtly mentioned in the background it would have made a huge difference. It feels as though the author did not have any plan whatsoever when beginning the story – though more likely it’s the fault of the screenplay director here.

Despite the microscale interaction and macroscale battle tactics, there is very little mention of the politics of the numerous name-dropped nations, cities and locations. I had to go on to the fandom wiki in order to put meaning behind any of the various dropped-names.

The material is condensed in such a way that there is little build-up for twists or climaxes, leaving the story dull and tedious. The animation is lacking in little detail scenes that so much other anime has and gives the impression that no thought was put into controlling the tension.

Even with the occasional ten seconds of mourning, there is a lot of needless death that is just completely glossed over. The mood is far too desensitized to seem authentic in a history-strategy sense. Here the lack of higher justification makes the characters unrealistic.

I'm no tactician, so I can't say much about that, but they seemed somewhat passable. If you like tactics and can deal without a harem, I enjoyed "Nejimaki Seirei Senki: Tenkyou no Alderamin" much more than this.

With the setup of the final arc and the number of unused characters, the show demands a second season. In that case, the fact that all of the material was condensed in such a way leads me to believe that the anime adaptation was meant as a desperate money-grab. It’s sad really. If the beginning had been better justified, it would have been a much better series. After taking a break before watching the last three episodes, the show was much more enjoyable with the end of the season feeling much better written and more purposeful.

Oh, and the final showdown is pitiful. Oh, so is the rush ending.

The plot itself is not awful but the handling and pacing really mess things up.

CHARACTERS:
Standard forgettable hotties and standard OP lead. Some good screencap material but not as much as you would think. Most characters are super flat and predictable. Voice acting is nothing special. Character depth appears to increase somewhat towards the final arcs, but nothing is different with the characters in the end.

The harem itself is weak too. Nothing makes it stand out from notable others.

A great show doesn’t need to spend too much time directly giving you information to build that characters but instead is constantly subtly conveying to you the information necessary to make your own judgement. This show just has the characters saying generic statements that clearly reveal their archetypes.

ENJOYMENT:
The tactics are somewhat interesting, but as I said before, there are more interesting tactical displays elsewhere. I like the Fire Emblem-like feel of some parts.

The harem interaction only occasionally plays out but it is too strongly forced and unjustified for to be enjoyable.

This show's next strongest demerit is its lack of humor. I honestly think that low budget productions shouldn't bother to take on stories that try to take themselves so seriously. Ecchi-harems do much better with even basic humor to the point that otherwise weak stories can be enjoyable for me (Trinity Seven), but this one just doesn't do it.

The last arc or two were the only ones I found enjoyable – decently so, well… at least until the insulting final showdown. It’s too bad the earlier arcs were as weak as they were.

OVERALL:
The lack of humor was the final straw. A darker direction with much more thought put into it could have been a good alternative. I would be much more invested in the characters if they would open up in at least some kind of way beyond the easy preset pathways.

In absence of other merits, the story just isn’t strong or well-thought out enough to be fully interesting. If it wasn’t for my completionist nature, I would have dropped after the third or fourth episode - hence the need for a stronger introduction phase.

In a short season, it is not a good idea to cram lots of intended material into one space if the characters are to have any depth at all. More time should be spent developing the reasons behind individual characters’ justifications. The details count.

Fear not! There are better options out there!

TL;DR:
Too much material, too little time, no tension, semi-lazy animation, shallow characters, and weak harem, but decent tactical display and art. If you’re in it for the hotties, then go for it. If you are impatient, just watch the last arc or two.