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This is not just another "hyped up" anime. It's not popular because it's the "I'm not a furry, but..." anime. It's popular, because it's good.

It's so much more than what you immediately see--CGI animals in a high school setting in a mature Zootopia-type anime. Prejudices, stereotypes, segregation, justice and fight for equality are all heavy themes in Beastars. An ironically realistically built world that explores these concepts and the dark side of society is a compelling story for any kind of audience and will grip you from episode one.

The way the show captures both sides of a conversation, showing both parties' facial expressions, from a ... miniscule eye-twitch to a baring of fangs, there is so much to be deducted from the visual potrayal of every character. Where dialogue is absent, body language and facial expressions fill the blanks in a much more powerful way. You're drawn in to the reactions to each new dramatic revelation, every dark turn, you crave to see the physical reactions of the cast. It is uncomparable to a 2D anime. Truly mesmerising animation.

The characters are somewhat built based upon how they're perceived from ourselves as humans, and seeing these ideas be characterised and given a living, talking form is fascinating. Characters with their own backstory, how their past made them who they were, their motives, aspirations, how they navigate through a world of predator and prey begs you to follow them. You follow individual stories of self-discovery full of epiphanies of the society these teenage animals live in, and you can't help but want to know the conclusion.

If there was one thing I wish could've have been different is the sound. The music was awe-inspiring, perfectly capturing the emotions and thrill of the scene it was orchestrated to convey, but it was the sounds itself that left me feeling slightly deprived. In a world of animals, you would expect to hear the powerful trademark roar of a lion, or howl of a wolf, and yet I felt this show missed an opportunity to include these sounds. I feel as though it would've created a deeper effect of realism to the characters, instead of trying to almost completely portray them as human, save for their physical appearance. This could purposely be left out to signify the laws of the world, and that all animals must refrain from behaving such a way, but I think that would've been a great adition.

Overall, I give this anime a 10/10. Cannot wait for Season 2. So much left unsolved, and so much more to discover.

I chose to watch this anime as I've started going through a huge phase of loving the history of the bakumatsu period of Japan. First glance, the show looks colourful, the boys look pretty, and the plot line doesn't sound so bad. But that's where it gets you. You can see all my comments on kissanime and how much shade I give it every episode, eventually my comments saying "Me watching this show is now a running gag I have with myself." And that's exactly what this show was; a joke.

Playing with the element of time in any show has to be done well. It ... can't be done in a way where the protaginists stumble upon an obsticle, overcome it, only for it to be restarted with the villain going back in time and replacing that obsticle once again MULTIPLE times. There's no advancement to the plot, the episode feels like a complete waste, and there is no tension built. Not once did this show leave me feeling jittery in anticipation of what was to happen next. All predictable and nothing left to the imagination of the viewer.

All throughout the episodes there are many things that don't make a sliver of sense in the way of logic. You could probably define it as ridiculously OP plot armour, or laziness on the writers' part. It frustrated me the amount of times the makers believed they can get away with not addressing some problem, or even how a resolution came to be, by literally putting it on the backburner and moving on to the next tihng without question. Even characters' intentions were blurry and hard to understand 70% of the time, or why even certain characters existed when they literally did nothing the entire series.

Overall, a waste of time. If you're looking for good story, action, tension and all the good parts that entices an avid anime lover to fall into the trap of "just one more episode" at 2:30am, you won't find it here. I literally only watched this for the ability to write my first negative review, and I have to say watching 12 terrible episodes over 12 weeks while it was airing, albeit leaving me in a laughing fit in disbelief of how terrible this show is, it wasn't worth it. Don't do it to yourself.

When you watch a movie you know is going to be about terminal illness, you expect there to be some heart-stopping moment where the story suddenly takes a drastic turn. Unfortunately for me, I didn't experience this throughout this film. There weren't any particular scenes that really stood out to me, and it felt like it seemed to go for maybe twenty minutes extra that it didn't need to. In summary, it's no Your Name or A Silent Voice. Despite this, there were elements to the movie which I found particularly enjoyable that kept the experience worth the movie ticket.

STORY - 7/10.
Very The Fault In ... Our Stars-ish, except the guy isn't sick. The basic plot of the movie is that Sakura Yamauchi wants to do all these things before she dies with a boy she by chance met at their local hospital. The start feels a bit slow, but it's about the middway mark that starts to get interesting. But, like I said, there aren't any heart-stopping moments that leave you dreading what's going to happen in the next few minutes. The main boy does quite a bit of narration, giving exposition to scenes that I think would've been much better to show, not tell. For me, this definitely lost a few points.

ART - 8/10.
The animation was beautiful, I thought. For it being your regular 2D anime, the method of animation made it feel more 3D, adding a spec of realism to the visuals. The colours were bright and beautiful when it was supposedly a happy scene, which would appropriately change to dark and gloomy when the scene called for it.

SOUND - 6/10
Soundtrack was nice, but I honestly didn't find myself straining my ears for any particular score that stole my heart, and I'm a HUGE music lover and am always listening to instrumentals. The voice acting suited each other the characters well, the students speaking like what normal students would in a normal school setting. For this, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't WOW, you know? It was just... fine.

CHARACTER - 7/10
Probably my favourite part of the movie. The protagnist is your typical emo-boy with black hair in a school setting that's very monotonous and unsociable. Despite the cliche, his character growth and development throughout the story was very pleasing to watch and see what's happening in his heart. The girl, Sakura Yamauchi, doesn't change very much though. She keeps the same kind of personality throughout the entire movie. I would've liked to see more development from her, as she was one of two main characters.

ENJOYMENT - 6/10
Some movies go for longer than they really need to. There were a number of points in the movie where I was getting ready to leave, thinking "this is where it ends." But then it just seemed like another scene would keep on playing. It can be hard with movies to cover everything that needs to be covered in an amount of time where the audience isn't starting to think "when is this going to finish?" Because it's at this point that attention is beginnning to be lost. But, that being said, I was happy with how it ended. I feel like everything was tied up well and left no questions for the audience.

TLDR; It's good, but it's no Your Name or A Silent Voice.

Often with the "high school romance" type anime, they're pretty similar with one another -- the love interests, the rivals, the occasional misunderstanding and then eventually the story comes full circle and everyone gets the ending the audience anticipated from the beginning. Orange is incredibly unique in its own way, tackling the sub-genre in such a way that's imprinted on me and how I view the world.

STORY
Incredible storyline. The plot is somewhat relatable to me as a high school student, and the emotions portrayed are very real. It's about stepping beyond your comfort zone and being courageous enough to take the steps you know are ... for the better. This anime shows this in the main characters, particularly Naho, Kakeru and Suwa. It was a thrill to watch their development as people of a story from beginning to end.

ART
I'm gonna be blunt -- not my favourite thing. I even took screenshots of scenes where the art of faces, background images or other things that were so hilariously drawn it looked unrealistic. While I can appreciate scenery, I really think the character expressions and even the fundamental facial structure was a bit all over the place. This definitely bugged me at times.

SOUND
The voice acting sounds so natural, not the kind that is obviously someone reading from a script. It sounded like real-life recorded dialogue in an everyday setting of high school friends, though at times the strong emotions portrayed in the voices may have been a bit overkill for some scenes. The music is beautifully ambient and creates an atmosphere that leaves you always wondering "what's going to happen?"

CHARACTER
As far as high school romances go, you can only do so much to make each character uniquely distinct from everyone else, especially when you don't have the same freedom as a "fantasy" genre does. While the focus was on 3 out of the 6 main characters, there wasn't really anything that drew you in to like the person-- the challenge this anime presented me was to try and appreciate the characters in their ordinary-ness.

ENJOYMENT.
While this was a great anime to me, I'd read the manga a number of months before the anime was released, and there are obvious bits and pieces that the manga does much better. But watching the manga coming to life in animation was a thrill in itself to watch and am glad it became an anime, where music, voices and colour can all be added to the paint tin to create an even more beautiful masterpiece.

A story about a group of friends who send letters to themselves 10 years in the past to themselves in high school in hopes of fixing unfixiable regrets. It is because of this series that I journal often to myself, and even write a yearly letter to my future self. This show opened my eyes in so many ways and really put things into perspective for my own thought life.

Absolutely watch this if you're into the high school romance stuff, but also read the manga. The manga is worth your time <3

I was wondering why I wasn't hooking onto this when it seemed everyone else was, and then I noticed it was classed as a "slice of life"-- my least favourite genre. I was anticipating its release, but unfortunately I've been watching anime that look great, only to disappoint me with poor plot writings and portrayals.

STORY: 6/10
As far as story goes, I liked the concept. But because it's a slice of life, there is little progression, which I can understand is the general nature of the genre. Still, this anime didn't feel like it should've been a slice of life, and could have had so ... much more added to the plot. There were things added that I didn't think were completely necessary, which actually led to me skipping some scenes that I knew I didn't have to worry about skipping through boredom.

ART: 6/10
There was nothing really distinct about the anime's art style compared to others for the season, but it was still nice. Colours were portrayed well, and usually I think magic-genre'd anime needs to use visual effects well to immerse the viewers into the world of surreal happenings. Don't have much to comment on art, but to summarise I didn't really have any issues with it.

SOUND: 4/10
Music variety is important. The show didn't have a lot of variety, and many tracks were played over and over. Some scenes I couldn't handle the music in the background-- not because of intensity, but because I don't think it needed to be there. Some tracks are quite beautiful, like the main theme and some piano renditions, alas it was not a key feature for me in this show.

CHARACTER: 5/10
There were a number of characters that were introduced that, in the end, didn't hold much important by the season's finale, especially in the second half. I was constantly thinking "so why did that person appear?", when they weren't contributing much to the story. However, I really did like Elias' character, as well as Chise and Ruth-- basically the main three. Chise was given a lot of character development, which I thoroughly enjoyed baring witness to, but Elias wasn't given enough. I feel like personal questions he had throughout the series weren't answered or catered towards, because the series was SO focused on Chise's change. If an anime is going to add characters, they have to either be important to plot progression or undergo some sort of development.
[b] To summarise: Not enough charac. development was shared around.[/b]

ENJOYMENT: 7/10
When you watch a certain number of episodes for an anime, you start to have an appreciation for it, because you learn about the characters and share their pain/happiness with them. Watching a 24-ep anime usually does this for me, and so I can't help but give my enjoyment score a higher number than the others. I like the world that was introduced to me in The Ancient Magus' Bride, and if more stuff was released for it I would probably watch it. But still, the other factors come into play and so they lower the score for my enjoyment because im nit-picky. but yeah.

OVERALL: 6/10
A score 5 or below for me means I didn't enjoy it at all-- I'd be lying if I said I didn't think this was a cool anime, despite the things I've picked out and said I don't like, so I gave this just above a 5. There will always be something we don't like in a show, but overall I really liked the show for its world. If this was portrayed in a different way, I can see its potential and how much better it could be.

But yeah.

The first thing that captured my attention of this brand new anime was the art style. The track for the PV was also enough to get me on the edge of my seat, searching all areas on the internet for a release date. Alas, it was one of those that wasn't as great as I had hoped it would be. That being said, some aspects were just so beautiful to me that I urged myself to write a review. Here are my thoughts-- SPOILER FREE.

STORY - 5/10
A very unique storyline-- one I cannot compare to any other anime (mind you I can't say I've watched ... over 100). However, there were some episodes were I started feeling a little bit bored with the exposition. Things were becoming predictable, and I felt little to no tension built. If you you're looking for action-packed with suspense after every episode, this wouldn't be what your looking for.

ART - 9/10.
Breath-taking is the only word to describe it. I've never seen anything like it. I rewatched scenes after nearly every episode because the visuals were so stunning. The colour palette was quite beautiful too. Not much else to say, but I really loved the visuals of this show.

SOUND - 9/10
BEAUTIFUL soundtrack. The vocals were so elegant, matching the visuals in every scene. I will say that in some scenes I felt that the track was not fitting for the feeling that was to be portrayed in specific scenes. But I'll definitely be listening to this over and over again for a pick-me-up.

CHARACTERS - 5/10.
Didn't feel as thought many had unique traits about them. The main girl, Lykos, was a very boring character for me and I didn't enjoy her at all. One of the characters I didn't think was so bad was Ouni, who has a rather emotionless demeanour which I'm not a big fan of, either. My favourite character would, unfortunately, be one of the last to be introduced in the final two episodes of the season. I didn't grow any emotional attachment to a character in particular, which is always something I hope to gain from an anime. Bit of a swing-and-a-miss in this category, I must say.

ENJOYMENT - 6/10.
I had a hiatus with this anime after the 7th episode, to which I finished today after 41 days of time going by. I felt like it was becoming an effort to watch, and the only thing keeping me watching was the visuals and the music (I am a very creative person, so music and art are things I thrive on).

TO CONCLUDE: Don't have high hopes for this one. But if you're like me and are fans of pleasing visuals and soundtracks, give it a go and see if you like it.

This anime was my first "samurai" genre'd that I have watched, and if you can't tell by my score I thoroughly enjoyed this. I started watching the series yesterday, finishing season 1 the same day as well as starting a bit of season 2, and here i am, 12:00am, writing my first anime review because I think this deserves it.

STORY: 8/10
The tension was constant and never lacking at any point for me. I was constantly on edge, the last episode of this season making me sit up instead of laying down. However, I won't lie-- a lot of the times it was hard to follow ... what on earth was happening and what was taking place where, also bringing up how I found the last episode to be very briefly ended for me. That being said, I know there is still another season and two movies to watch. There were lots of names that I wasn't familiar with to the point that I had to google some terms, but in the end this contributed to my enjoyment. This series has showed me that not all anime are "easy" to watch and just breeze through, making everything clear. This challenged me, and I haven't had a series do this to me before.

ART: 10/10
The art was gorgeous. Even though the time gap is quite different in terms of airing date, I couldn't help but be reminded of my first anime I ever watched "Inuyasha". The style was crisp and clean, but was really reminiscent of the time period the story was set in. Amazing.

SOUND: 10/10
I am a huge fan of music. I was listening to tracks from this series before I even started watching this, and I was instantly in love. The sound effects were well done, too. Combining these two elements, I truly felt immersed and part of the experience.

CHARACTER: 9/10
With any anime, I expect there to be characters executed well enough that I can establish some sort of personal, emotional connection with them, and this season really nailed that. From Season one episode one to Season two episode ten, I felt it. The character development and how each individual of the Shinsengumi were affected by the turns of events took a toll on me, too.

ENJOYMENT: 8/10
I gave this the same score as story as it is what brought down the score for me at this point. I can't just brush off how confused I was, but even so I somehow have come to love this series enough to finish two seasons in 36-ish hours. It wasn't confusing enough for me to be completely lost, but there are parts where I sighed to myself as I let the narration try to make sense of the events for me. Alas, I still enjoyed it very much.

OVERALL: 9/10
To be honest, I first gave this a 7/10 because I was being harsh, but then I said to myself "No. This series cannot have this affect on me and all I have to give it is a 7." So if you're looking for something to get hooked into and really be thrown into the midst of it all, I definitely recommend Hakuoki. It even had a sprinkle of "romance" in it, which is often what I look for in the genre section (romance was not a listed genre for this series). This anime has broadened my horizons, and I have loved it.