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Love My Life is pretty easily summed up in two words: sensitive & minimalistic!
(Review complete, really? I can sleep?! jk)

I really enjoyed both the content and art style of this manga, while the style of drawing faces is possibly a little inexpressive at times, Ebine Yamaji is outright masterful in how she illustrates bodies.

I wouldn't say that it's a particularly deep dive into an understanding of homophobia and Japanese LGBT lifestyles, more a slow slice of life that places you gently into the characters' lives and allows you to experience a small piece of it together with them. The focus is on love, family ... (whether that's a nuclear family, found-family, or a couple planning a future together) and sensuality/sexuality, so it's important that the main character's love for her girlfriend and her somewhat unusual family really comes through! The reflective style of the manga was a really great choice on this front.

The characters really were the strong point for me. The author does a fantastic job of very naturally providing a basic outline of character motivations without throwing the reader into chapters and chapters of exposition for exposition's sake. We're told exactly what we need to know about each character. Minimal in a very very good way!

Love My Life is a horizon-broadening manga for those familiar with yuri, and perhaps an interesting entry point to manga for those who are perhaps a little more familiar with western LGBT comics.
I highly recommend this if you're looking for a mature and relaxing LGBT-related read!

anthologies are a little hard to review, but I'll do my best here because I feel like this anthology could really use a review so people can decide whether or not to pick it up


RATING BY STORY

the theme of this anthology is actually a pretty interesting one: the rivals, bystanders and confidants in BL stories are often women and girls. they run the entire spectrum from mean-spirited to girls so loveable they could be shoujo manga heroines in their own right, however, fan response to them is generally poor as they're seen as being 'in the way' of the main BL storyline.

overall, Joshi BL meanders ... happily around the very fine line between being a rare book that humanises BL characters, and being one of many with way more voyeuristic tendencies. I was personally more into the former, bear that in mind when reading my ratings.
it's very likely that you will find in Joshi BL stories that you adore, and those that you dislike or even find distasteful. it's a real mix!

Shoujo C by Hideyoshico (5/10)
main character is cute, main pair have interesting personalities

Tamaisan, Koi to Yuujou by Shimura Takako (5/10)
I usually don't like 'siblings but not by blood' pairings, but this was a good read with a gentle pace. the art style is cute and rounded!

Donyoku no Hana by Nishida Higashi (5/10)
the only one with a classic 'yaoi artstyle'. not my thing. I really didn't like the main pair because the personality of one of the guys was kinda.. a dick. but the main character was great! she's a tolerant person, but old-fashioned when it comes to PDA

Watashi-tachi ha Byplayer by Harada (7/10) (EXPLICIT)
this is one of my favourites of the bunch. the art style is unusual but very pretty and delicate. the characters are nice and varied in looks and the use of solid blacks really makes it stand out.
pretty much everyone involved has a bad personality, but the lighthearted tone makes it enjoyable and you genuinely sympathise with most of them at some point.

Michi Dzure/Fellow Traveller by Ichikawa Kei (3/10) (EXPLICIT)
the art really wasn't to my tastes, but messy, dramatic adult relationships can be interesting! rated lower because I really don't think it fits the theme of the anthology that well - the female character was totally sidelined.

Natura-turaly by Ichikawa Kei (7/10)
my favourite! a really nice coming-of-age sort of thing. it's about a pair of twins (male and female) who are extremely close (verging on too dependent on each other) being interrupted when a schoolmate confesses to the brother. the characters are childish and don't deal with everything flawlessly, but you feel like they've grown up a little by the end of the story.

Stockholm by Itoi Nozo (2/10) (EXPLICIT)
I feel like others may enjoy this story more than I did. it's really bleak, though. it's absolutely what it says on the tin - a 'romantic' take on stockholm syndrome and characters gravitating back towards abuse because it's the only thing they know. if you're the type of person who enjoyed reading Killing Stalking, this may be for you.


OVERALL (5/10)

my overall enjoyment of this anthology was dampened by how bleak the last story was, to be entirely honest. I think maybe the stories would be better read out of order. it was reasonably well curated, with a few exceptions.

I'd recommend Natura-turaly and Byplayer (if you can handle the very silly/embarrassing explicit content) but the rest didn't make much of an impact.

I'd like to keep this review brief in order to allow people to come to their own conclusions about Garakowa.

there are aspects of this movie that I really liked, and really enjoyed the handling of. the first few minutes are like being taken on a stunning, surreal ride through absolutely beautiful environment design.

however, the writing of the characters really let it down for me. given that a central theme of Garakowa is how reality and sentience/humanity can arise from AI, the girls were not at all compelling human beings. it's an incredibly interesting theme, but if you can't write a compelling and realistic sentient human ... girl, you cannot show the transition from AI to sentient human girl.

this together with the beginnings of some fantastic worldbuilding that was just never completed left me overall dissatisfied with the movie.

it makes me feel that at some point, as with Madoka Magica, making the characters marketable as merch became more important than pursuing the themes of the story.

ok, so I gave myself a little time between finishing this series and coming back for a review, but I actually think this is a series that would be better reviewed by watching it more than once. there was abundant foreshadowing that I, and many others, may not absorbed all of on first watch, so bear with me.

vague spoilers throughout



STORY (6/10)

firstly I'd like to draw attention to the length of the series. 12 episodes is by no means long, and the show accomplishes quite a lot within its relatively short run, but falls flat in certain areas. it's pretty typical that a 12 episode anime ... with an ambitious timeline should fail to impress at times, but not entirely excusable!

the story is definitely above average when compared to most anime, time travel isn't a particularly uncommon subject, but it isn't common either due to the difficulty in handling it well. ERASED is a long way off handling it well, but in my opinion, the short term flow makes up for the weaknesses and plotholes in the over-arching story, save for the major achilles heel: the time travel. the time travel, despite being core to the plot... is never really explained. if you can suspend disbelief enough to get caught up in the action and drama, this isn't so much of a problem. if you were hoping for some hardcore sci-fi/fantasy worldbuilding, you're out of luck, ERASED completely and utterly does not have you covered in that respect.

secondly, the motivations for the main antagonist are never really explained beyond 'eh, they're a sociopath or something', which, again, is fine if you are happy with the action and drama alone, but in my view disqualifies ERASED from the mystery genre. (seriously, we should remove that mystery tag..)

aside from these major flaws, ERASED isn't particularly shy to touch on difficult themes, abuse and neglect of both children and adults are explored in varying depths and in such a way that you truly empathise with the characters in question. that being said, a lot of the nuances of such situations are portrayed in very subtle ways that can be easily missed, or in carefully neutral ways.

notably this occurs in the parallel existence of two single-mother families in a low-income area, both mothers face hardship, but the ways in which they deal with their circumstances differs vastly: while one chooses to perpetuate a cycle of abuse, one becomes perhaps overly forgiving. the series largely leaves it up to the viewer to decide whether the abusive mother is a victim of her circumstances, or fully accountable for her actions, which could definitely be considered a cop-out, and for some viewers might weaken the story arc completely. I personally liked the ambiguity. the idea of parental narcissism and 'keeping up appearances' was a huge theme during the abuse arc and it made me think a little about abusive parents and the ways in which they will justify their behaviour to themselves.

all in all, I think perhaps I'm being pretty generous with a 6 here.. but I don't believe in excessively punishing series that shoot for the moon and don't quite get there. the mini-arcs were coherent enough.



ART & SOUND (9/10)

ERASED was absolutely beautiful to look at, the art style is somewhat reminiscent of AnoHana, albeit with duller palettes, and the animation was (mostly) smooth with no obviously rushes or low budget episodes. the music cues were great, and the OP and ED fit the mood of the series well, with the OP personally being my favourite! the last time I actively listened to asian kung fu generation was during the early series of Naruto, so it was a nice surprise to come across them again.



CHARACTER (7/10)

this is a topic that I think will vary greatly depending on who reviews the series. anime fandom in general doesn't tend to favour 'emotionless' characters unless they are presented as straight up dandere/kuudere moe fuel, and a lot of the characters, especially the children, seem to be a little under-expressive. the main character is pretty cut-and-paste, we don't learn an awful lot about him as a person, he's more of a means to carry other characters' development which.. for once is actually pretty fitting to the series. this guy does not put himself first, for almost the entire series. he does not concern himself with his own future, and his 'revivals' (time-hops) are almost always for the benefit of other people, we can tell he very much sees himself as this lone hero figure, and this character 'flaw' is actually addressed later in the series. it's not a particularly novel character type, but as in many other series, it works in ERASED. I did enjoy his character progression, especially the implications of his one final revival (last episode - watch for the blue butterfly!), but felt like it was perhaps too delayed and would've benefited from more thorough exploration throughout the series.

the supporting characters.. were pretty great. from Kenya, who struggled to understand his suddenly-mature friend, to Kayo, whose home situation left her unable to connect with her peers and to express her affection and distrust alike with the heartbreakingly parroted phrase 'Are you stupid?'. the main character's mother was a personal favourite for me throughout the series - you could definitely see where Satoru gets his strong moral compass and empathy, and she dually acts as a sort of unchanging anchor throughout the time-hops and a source of lightheartedness.

a couple of the 'antagonists' were definitely lacking. Kayo's mother was explored a decent amount, but her current boyfriend seemed to flicker out of existence in other timelines. the main antagonist was also more than a little lacklustre, as mentioned. they were foreshadowed well, in my opinion. adult viewers will easily pick up on the obvious clues, but from the narrator's position (and partly due to the power dynamic in play), they were small inconsequential things that should be explained away easily, which fit perfectly with the characters' relationship at the time, and the setting.



ENJOYMENT (8/10)

I did not come to this series expecting a good mystery, I came into it hoping for a story with an overall feel-good message and simple moral, so I enjoyed it immensely. the action and emotional drama paired with the characters and animation were fun, and I loved the moments of suspense between episodes. I definitely think the mystery tag is misleading, and it's not particularly psychological either. what ERASED is, is a simple good vs evil overarching plot with less simplistic mini-plots woven in. which I personally really, really like. not everything absolutely has to be an edgy deconstruction, sometimes it's fun to just get caught up in the simple things.

I personally really connected with the handling of the dark subject matter - as someone who has seen abuse, and been through abuse, it was nice to immerse myself in world where a child might magically obtain means to win over evil just because they are a Good Person. I don't think this trivialises the suffering of children and adults in abusive relationships - it's never portrayed as easy to handle - but it provides a fairytale-style escape from the real world.



OVERALL (7/10)

don't come into ERASED hoping for deep mystery solving, and you'll enjoy the emotional rollercoaster for what it is. oh, and watch your step, there's plotholes.

a harem anime! it's not that often that I watch or review these things, but Magic-Kyun was something that I picked up purely because it looked tropey enough to have a laugh at, and actually ended up enjoying!


STORY (4/10)

mehh. I had fun with it myself, but in the end the actual interesting parts of the story and worldbuilding were really poorly paced. the origins, cultural impact and uses of magical arts should really have really been explored more, but this exposition was almost entirely sacrificed in the end to allow more screentime for the interpersonal bits and pieces between the characters. with the setting being ... a prestigious school, there is no shortage of varying stories of high-achieving kids struggling to meet expectations, so I did at least enjoy that and in my opinion it does still pull it off well enough to be enjoyable overall.

another series I had this problem with was AoKana, and that did not have the slice of life/romance aspects down well enough to get away with neglecting worldbuilding in the way that Magic-Kyun has.


ART (7.5/10)

the art has its weaknesses (the female characters in particular can veer off model or look a bit lopsided at times) but the style is overall really bright and charming. the boys were all drawn beautifully and fairly consistently, the scenery is colourful and well-designed, and the magic sparkles are truly gorgeous.. I've heard a lot of other people compliment the sparkles and I'm totally here to join that chorus. the 2D animation for them is incredibly smooth, in some cases 3D is used and that works nicely as well!


SOUND (5/10)

with there being a relatively nice insert song per episode early in the anime, I can't exactly rate this lower than a 5. however, the music is absolutely not to my personal tastes.. the OP is energetic, very typical anime OP. the ED I enjoyed slightly more, very corny lyrics but again, fun and energetic with a more lively beat and a little catchier. something that soured my enjoyment of the vocals is that Teika, the character who is supposed to be Amazing At Singing, is not in any way notably better sounding than the other boys.. in fact I actually prefer some of their voices over his. not a huge deal, but a little immersion-breaking that the group songs are better-sounding than his solos.


CHARACTER (7/10)

probably a rating that many will disagree with but I actually found the side characters to be really endearing in this series! while they are obviously tropey, I really enjoyed that the boys not only got along, but also seemed to genuinely care for and support one another. it's refreshing to have a harem setup where the suitors aren't all at each others throats constantly. the rivalry is played for laughs a couple of times but it doesn't really get in the way of anything else and isn't there so often that you get tired of it. there are plenty of other

add to that the presence of Juri, Kohana's best friend (who I totally chose to read into as lesbian/bisexual) and you have a winning cast of characters for me.

coming back to the poor pacing.. due to the focus on the boys at the start of the anime, it's actually a while before Juri or Kohana see any character development, but when they do, it was pretty good. Juri is a charismatic wingman for Kohana throughout the series, really coming into her own towards the very end of the series where her love (platonic or otherwise) for Kohana, emotional side and jokester nature become apparent.

Kohana herself is what you'd expect from a reverse harem protagonist: kind, hard-working, a little naïve, self-conscious, with big dreams. she spends the early part of the anime changing the lives of others just by being so darn sweet and supportive, and... sees all of her own character development crammed in at the end. what was touched on was pretty good, sticking with the series until the end rewards you with a closer look at Kohana's personal insecurities and distrust in both her own abilities and the compliments from other people. while she's far from a well-written character, she's a refreshing take on an otherwise cheerful girl suffering from impostor syndrome.


ENJOYMENT (7/10)

I'll be honest. I got hooked on this extremely corny anime. I feel shame. but I accept the shame and would absolutely do it all again if by some miracle this anime gets a second season.


OVERALL (6/10)

this is an extremely situational overall score. if you're a reverse harem connoisseur, you'll probably find this enjoyable enough but it's perhaps not something that will stand out. if you hate reverse harem anime, this show likely isn't good enough to change your mind about it.
if you're apathetic, give it a try for a couple of episodes, it could be a fun way to kill some time and for me it sits right on the boundary of 'so bad it's good' and 'a genuine - if slightly guilty - pleasure'.

I'm going to preface this review by saying I am probably not the sort of person this anime was made for. In terms of the typical male-focused coming-of-age/first love stories, I'm probably pretty far from the demographic that it'll hit home for!

It's a strange thing to compare it to, but the Disney-Pixar movie Brave likely had a similar effect on its audience - some people just lack the life experiences that make it easier to relate to the story and characters.


STORY (3/10)

Hyouka being a slice of life, it was never going to have a particularly complex story. Even so, I felt that the lack of ... consistent pacing and character development actively prevented me from fully enjoying the series. The story is by far the weakest aspect of Hyouka - it's not quite long enough as an anime to get away with dropping arcs significant to the main characters and coming back to them later, but it does this anyway. Pseudo-'filler' arcs all follow the same theme of Chitanda being impressed by Oreki, and Oreki becoming more interested in Chitanda, with the (not particularly interesting) mysteries serving as a means to that end. Chitanda is curious, Oreki tries to avoid her, Chitanda is a bit dense, Oreki is dragged into the mystery and solves it, Chitanda is impressed and maybe gets up close to his face, they both blush, Oreki is now more interested in Chitanda. The result is a story whose pieces are actually better enjoyed individually than as a whole. Pulling out the arcs with actual character development in them, watching those, and treating the fillers as OVA material might add to the enjoyment factor a little?


ART (9/10)

As ever, KyoAni knows how to make an absolutely gorgeous show.
The character designs are simple but distinctive - little details like Chitanda's hair's unmistakeable rounded silhouette and Oreki's morning hair make them memorable. Even side characters benefit from this treatment! the attention to detail is fantastic, moments of relative quiet allow viewers to notice small accessories, fleeting expressions and background animation, and as ever KyoAni has the nostalgic, historic school setting down to a fine art. The second opening and Oreki's theories and daydreams are vividly animated, especially the moments depicting how he is captivated by Chitanda - those had me partially conviced that the series has elements of magical realism woven into it and that Chitanda does in fact wield a sort of bewitching power!


SOUND (7/10)

Wonderful music choices throughout, the Bach cello piece especially is used to great effect and helps give the series its nostalgic and somewhat magical feel. Actually, there's quite a bit of Bach in this series.. In terms of original soundtrack, the OPs also align really well with Oreki's character development, with the first being slow (almost lethargic) and the second along with its video tying in with some of those themes of Hyouka's mundanely magical atmosphere. The EDs are fun but a little less good, largely focusing on the girls pining over the guys, being adorable and looking into the camera with huge doe-eyes.

Voice acting was good quality and fit the characters. All the voices were suitably expressive, though maybe not as distinctive as the characters' visual designs!

Perhaps I'm being a little harsh in this section, but I weighted it towards the original soundtrack slightly and the OPs fitted so well with Oreki's character development that I was hoping for something better for the girls, or even anything for poor Fukube.. Regardless, a score of 7 is still really good, and subjectively I definitely go back and listen to the soundtrack sometimes!


CHARACTER (4/10)

Pretty much everything said in the story section applies here. A slice of life's story is only really as good as its handling of the characters, and Hyouka is a fairly weak in this area. the characters were actually likeable, though! the main flaws were in how they were handled throughout the story, and how at times they could become a little tropey. Fukube is pretty interesting and could use more screen time; Oreki is an albeit, more nuanced, look at the standard apathetic male protag; Ibara is a textbook tsundere childhood friend; Chitanda fits neatly into the manic pixie dream girl archetype and takes a good while to develop outside that. I did enjoy seeing Fukube, Oreki and Ibara go about their respective hobbies and excel at them, and I wish Chitanda had had more of her personal interests and hobbies depicted outside of just sort of.. Being Oreki's motivation.

It's implied and stated throughout that's she's pretty book-smart but lacking in the life-smarts department, but the focus is largely on the cutesy-ditzy aspect of her which sort of makes her stand out a little less as a character for me. And her more serious moments exploring her devotion to her family nearer the end are fascinating and I'd have loved for more of the series to touch on that!


ENJOYMENT (3/10)

Eck, sorry Hyouka fans. This just didn't do it for me.. I think if I had picked out the specific episodes to watch that were suggested to me and ignored the others, I would've enjoyed it a lot more. As it is, this series took me literal years to finish because of how generic the fillers felt.. This section is always so so subjective though, so don't take this as an absolute 'I do not recommend this anime'


OVERALL (5/10)

While the visuals and the sound were stunning, Hyouka's stories and characters left me wanting more, in a bad way. The pacing really killed it for me. I think perhaps I'd feel differently towards this in movie format with some of the filler cut out, as I really enjoyed Garden of Words which is also beautiful but slow!

ohhh, AoKana. it's almost impressive that an anime about a flying sport which features sideboob as a prominent part of its uniform could be this dull, but here we are. I haven't played the original game, but even so, it's painfully easy to see when something is riding on the coattails of its better executed predecessor.

vague spoilers throughout, but the plot is so thoroughly guessable that I really doubt there will be any mindblowing revelations here!


STORY (4/10)

so first of all, despite its eroge roots, AoKana has virtually nothing to do with romance, or even interpersonal relationships. it's basically your average sports anime with the genders ... reversed: cute girls go about their daily antics and training while a couple of male side characters stand around to encourage them from the sidelines occasionally. I'm sure the intention was to give a little more insight into the girls' relationships with each other and provide a bit of eyecandy for the viewers, but the end result is an alienatingly-bland male character where most viewers were expecting a lead, and shallow interactions between the girls that are never really anything more than cute-ish.

the worldbuilding was lacking (which I think largely stems from this being an adaptation and the series relying on its existing fanbase being interested) but as a newcomer to AoKana, I found myself wanting to know more about pretty much everything that wasn't happening in the anime. grav shoes, 'membranes', flying circus, the side characters, the antagonists - all of them managed to be much more intriguing than the main cast.

that said, if you could look past the tedium of the poorly handled character interactions and the tiny amounts of actual character exposition, the long term plot was a sweet little story about the importance of enjoying yourself and taking part. which, while cliché, is at least uplifting, I guess?


ART (3/10)

eck. well, they tried, at least. looking into the original game, the style is still mostly intact, with the heroines retaining their vibrant colours and cute appearances, but it just seems like the budget wasn't there. the animation is horrifically inconsistent, with entire episodes of off-model characters and decidedly wonky faces and liberal use of repeated animation, to the point where it is actually funny sometimes. some parts of the dogfight sequences are beautifully animated.. until we get a closeup of a face and the features are, well.. not where they should be.

the character designs are still lovely, but I'm not really sure this anime, as an adaptation, deserves credit for that.


SOUND (6/10)

the music was pretty solid throughout, lots of inspirational, dramatic incidental music during Flying Circus matches, the opening and ending weren't terrible, the voice acting was pretty nice. no complaints here!


CHARACTER (2/10)

for me this is the area in which AoKana fell flat the most, which is bizarre for a series seemingly made to show off its characters. the characters start out as pretty flat archetypes, and finish up as.. really inconsistent combinations of archetypes. with the girls, charm points are picked up and dropped again at a moments' notice, Misaki in particular is a total mess of stereotypical cute anime girl traits. one moment she's a narcoleptic slacker, the next a tsundere, a jealous childhood friend, a catgirl, then the reliable older sister type, depending on what is convenient for the story at the time. the main male character had interesting backstory which was neglected in favour of Asuka inspiring everyone with her upbeat personality and everything being magically resolved that way.

relationships between characters popped up from nowhere, and vanished as quickly as they arrived at times. at best, the viewer might be able to look past this and take away warm fuzzy message of the importance of good sportsmanship, at worst, they might find the characters incredibly annoying.

the antagonists and side characters were probably the most interesting, and I did enjoy what little exposition they got, for what that's worth!


ENJOYMENT (3/10)

the further I got through this series, the more I realised that this is just an optional extra to the original game. it provides nothing that new and interesting, and it's not an exact remake of the game either, which leaves me thinking: who was this made for anyway? I can't really see fans of the original being too enamoured with the anime as it lacks so much, and I'm not entirely convinced that it'll be memorable enough to net any new fans.. it did get me a little interested in the manga and game to see if the subject matter is handled any better there, however.


OVERALL (3/10)

I think, even objectively, AoKana was super ok. someone might enjoy it as a way to kill a few hours, and for the spectacle of the FC matches, but nothing more. subjectively, I really didn't like it. it felt like a halfhearted attempt to put out more content and nothing more, with utterly lazy characterisation to boot.

give it a go if you like stuff that screams 'just go play the original game!'

well, this series certainly packed more of a punch than I thought it would!
for some reason (probably the cute art style), I thought that this would be a light and fluffy story, but I was only half right. I ended up enjoying it thoroughly regardless of that, but be warned that this manga does cover themes of homophobia and I guess mental illness as well? not exactly the lightest read!

vague spoilers throughout


STORY (7/10)

it's a pretty standard setup: two fated lovers end up meeting due to something shared between them. in this case its a name, injury and starsign, pretty unrealistic, but I suppose it's novel! ... reading this, I feel like Lonely Wolf, Lonely Sheep (LWLS from this point onwards) could really have done with a longer run. the pacing definitely isn't bad by any means, but there was a lot that was left aside after only being explored a little. one of the most noticeable examples for me is the shared starsign and their emailing back and forth which disappeared a little later on. their phones could've been a really lovely tool for exploring their feelings throughout the series, I was hoping for late night phonecalls between the two..

the struggles faced by the two women weren't particularly explored for that long, either, little Imari's problems were largely solved when her friendship with big Imari started, and we never really saw how big Imari's workplace issues panned out. on the one hand I'm grateful for that as there are tons of tragic lesbians out there, and the lack of attention given to the characters' pasts helped keep the tone of the series light overall, but on the other hand, I'm really attached to these characters and find myself wanting to know so much more about them! it really is a double-edged problem.


ART (7/10)

the cover art for LWLS is gorgeous, I love that the theme of stars (starsigns!) carried over, and the images of the two heroines floating in space connected only by a red string is beautiful and fitting for the series. the actual manga uses a much more simplistic style, which I also adore, it's expressive and the screentones used for characters are usually very light, with only a couple of exceptions. the main downfall is the extremely clumsy use of background/atmospheric screentones.. the artist really loves their dark black blobs, and this clashes horribly with the light and delicate style of the linework and even overpowers the characters at times. apart from that, all very pretty and easy to follow!


CHARACTER (8/10)

as mentioned earlier, I completely fell in love with these characters and my only real complaint is that I wanted to see more of them! the heroines were both very charming in their own way, I especially found myself falling for big Imari a bit (she's so dashing!), and really empathising with little Imari. I was really curious as to how big Imari came to be in a position to be manipulated as she comes across as so confident, but maybe I'm missing a little cultural context in that I don't know what it's like to be lgbt in Japan.. little Imari to me was someone I could really sympathise with, she's really the classic picture of an artist who has reached the end of the road in a career they thought they loved, and is now having a little bit of an identity crisis. her struggle really moved me, and it made me feel totally warm and fuzzy to see her start to find peace with herself. side characters were basically nonexistant, and though I hated her, I really wanted to know more about Fujimi's circumstances and personality, which I suppose is a good sign in terms of character writing, but bad in terms of story writing.


ENJOYMENT (9/10)

I pretty much adored this manga, it was short enough for me to read in a little over an hour, and follows my golden rule of enjoyment being at least proportional to time investment! I'm very very tempted to write a fanfic or comic short of this series as my only major criticism is that I'd love more of the same.


OVERALL (8/10)

I highly recommend it to anyone who loves yuri, romance, or is looking for a mostly-lighthearted story about grown-up overcoming real personal hardships. it really resonated with me, and likely will do for young adult yuri fans who are also in this difficult and chaotic stage of life where we feel expected to know what we're doing with our lives!

massugu ni ikou is a tiny little series from many years ago that I stumbled across while looking for cute, relaxing things to watch, I wanted a short series to fill the time between doing other things, and at 4 episodes of only 20 minutes each, this anime totally fit that description.



STORY (6/10)

the series did have some sort of loose plot, but mostly ambled along at a pleasantly slow pace, focusing on the lighthearted adventures of the main character, a mixed-breed dog named Mametarou and his friends! each episode fits a pretty standard pattern: Mame and friends are curious about something, they end up ... having to somehow resolve a problem, usually do so with the help of one of their human friends and a lesson is learned at the end. sort of like mini aesops! throughout the series Mame is worried about his mixed-breed heritage, and how to break this news to his girlfriend, a purebred Kishu, but it's not explored consistently, rather it features as a character quirk before finally being addressed in the last episode.

all in all, it's a sweet little story that's simple enough for children to follow, or for an adult to watch whilst multitasking, nothing special on its own!



ART (6/10)

so I personally would've liked to rate this a lot higher because it's the sort of late 90's-early 00's elegant shoujo art style I really love, but objectively, it's definitely not the best out there. I feel like the colours of the characters were supposed to be 'muted and pastel', but especially for the humans they ended up a little muddy in the end. the dogs were pretty consistently rendered in a very charming and bright way, which is a plus! many animators on shows like this actually struggle drawing dogs, but all of the characters were stylised nicely, and apart from the abundant chibi scenes, were rendered in loving detail (even the nails and pads on each dog were drawn semi-realistically, as well as detailed leashes and collars!), which was super important in this case because so much of this anime is still scenes or scenes with very very limited animation. where massugu ni ikou really shines, in my eyes, is how its scenery is handled. everything is rendered in vibrant watercolour, and it's an absolute joy to watch.



SOUND (5/10)

in terms of incidental music, there was nothing that really stood out to me, bad or good. the opening theme was a little lacking, with no real catchy or consistent melody, but the ending theme is a lovely, slightly jazzy tune that really fits the pace of the series. the final episode also had an insert song, which was nice for such a short show.



CHARACTER (7/10)

the characters' roles were pretty simple: provide cute and lighthearted entertainment, and to this end, most characters were simple archetypes applied to dogs. despite this, Mame was still an endearing protagonist, Hanako and her love of melonpan were very sweet, and I found myself genuinely wanting to know more about them and their friends! it's established pretty early on that the human characters are relatively minor, and aside from Mame's master Iku, made to be generic school students, as opposed to the usual shoujo trope of pets bringing their masters together. this isn't something I had a massive problem with since I came to the show wanting cute dog adventures, but if you like all of your characters in a series to be fleshed out, then it might bother you. I gave this section a 7 regardless because I feel like the show doesn't actually set out to do that much with most of its characters in the first place, and having relatively little character development and drama worked very well with its theme of being a slow-paced 'anime for the summer holidays'



ENJOYMENT (7/10)

as a fan of shoujo, josei, slice of life and similar, I'm a big fan of the idea of 'ma' - the intentionally storyboarded time between important plot points, or significant action by the characters, seen often in the form of real-time scenes of character doing mundane things, pans across beautiful scenery. it gives the audience time to take a breath or two and think about the underlying emotions of a scene. massugu ni ikou is definitely no ma masterpiece, but it does use its slow pace to great effect, and prompts the viewer to just enjoy the beautiful scenery and lightheartedness of the series. this series is far from perfect, but it can make a perfect accompaniment to a lunch break, or cup of tea at the end of a long day.



OVERALL (6/10)

I completely adored massugu ni ikou, and I highly recommend it for shoujo and josei fans who are looking for something that isn't a massive time commitment. though I've been reviewing it from the perspective of a grown-up fan, I would also consider it a good series for young children who like animals!

this is another one of those series I enjoyed perhaps more than it deserved purely because I really like yuri.

firstly, the art style is fantastic, really minimal lines give every page a cute, clean feel. the characters have pretty varied figures, and faces to an extent, by manga standards, and the pages read well. the main heroine is entirely made up of rounded and cute curves that give her something of a classic shoujo heroine appeal with perhaps a slightly fuller figure.

I personally found the characters pretty endearing, though nothing was delved into too deeply. I really enjoyed reading the main trio's interactions, they have ... a cute little home life set up and it's always nice to see affection between characters. other readers might find it a bit odd that this universe is largely populated by somewhat polyamorous lesbians, but I'm personally happy to suspend disbelief that far because, again, I really like yuri.

I'd class this as a 'plot? what plot?' sort of manga. the story sort of ambles along and is periodically forgotten in order to give side characters more exposure, or for more polyamorous lesbian cuddles/kisses/sex, again something I am totally ok with, but readers hoping for more of a story focus will be very disappointed.