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Hinata to (and) Mikasa is a short but sweet collection of fragments of Mikasa and Hinata's high school lives. Its chapters follow a mostly chronological structure, but each chapter can be read as a short story with something of value to take away from it.

The story addresses the nuisances and struggles of social interactions at an awkward stage of life, with awkward wounds from early childhood that at this point in life are either scarring or developing. It is generally a feel-good story with a hint of comedy, especially through the interactions of both of the main characters, who have very contrasting and clashing ... auras.

The story hints at Mikasa's past social struggles, and only gives brief and ambiguous context of her present situation at home. Towards the end of the story, there's also a brief but light-hearted open ending that insinuates a development in Hinata's and Mikasa's personas, as they both inherited each other's best traits over time.

The author presents the reader with art that is not only alluring, but also adequate to the comedic aspect of the story. Overall, the story is short but beautifully wrapped, giving the reader a very pleasant feeling along the read through a graceful take on friendships in the early years of life.

To put it plainly, Platinum End is… misunderstood.

There’s a lot to say about Platinum End – its concept and execution, its characters and their quirks and intricacies, its art and animation, its social commentary and outlooks – yet, Platinum End’s biggest flaws are Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata.

The two authors – story and art, respectively – of Platinum End. Chances are that nearly everyone that has read or watched Platinum End did so knowing, or perhaps solely for the reason that these two are the authors of Death Note. Platinum End will inevitably always live in the shadow of Death Note, considering its masterly writing ... and cultural impact - and it simply doesn’t have what it takes to break free from this label. This, however, is not to say that Platinum End should be seen as a successor to Death Note, which is what pushed so many people away from seeing Platinum End as what it is: its own story.

Back on track, Platinum End tells the story of Mirai Kakehashi, our MC, and eleven other god candidates - regular people that for one reason or the other, had given up on life and were on the verge of suicide, only to be rescued by their guardian angels, literally. Before you misread my tone, let me just say that I think the concept of Platinum End is brilliant: 12 people of different ages and contexts, all with their own unique struggles, dejections, and delusions, faced with a predicament of unprecedented severity, as only one of them is set to hold the very future of humanity in their own hands. Perhaps cliché, but brilliantly set up.

As the story goes on, we are presented to more characters and villains, each with different motives and goals, as rivalries and alliances begin to form. Characters like Mukaidou and Kanade give us compelling yet justified perspectives on a convoluted mess, while characters the viewer is more familiar with, like Mirai and Saki, show us a side of the coin which may not be as enthralling, but show a sense of humanity and composure that the average Shonen viewer might not be ready to embrace. Characters’ motivations are often simplistic and one-dimensional, yet they’re cleverly presented in a way that reminds us that humans are simple-minded beings. Nowadays, many shows will try too hard to find glamorous meaning behind characters’ actions, to a point where characters lose their authenticity. However, Platinum End succeeds in telling us an extravagant story, where the characters are nonetheless human.

The category where Platinum End truly fails to bring out its fullest potential, is the animation itself. It pains me to see Obata’s art in Death Note, animated by Madhouse, 15 years ago, look so alluring compared to whatever ‘Signal.MD’ (who?) put together for Platinum End in this day and age. Thanks to Obata, the art and characters in Platinum End look great… as long as they stand still. Not only is the animation subpar, but the studio somehow managed to use every tool in the box to make characters that are on the brink of their demise look even more lifeless than their own rotten souls.

Other aspects of the production of Platinum End are satisfactory enough not to hinder the viewer’s experience. The soundtracks and background art are sometimes somewhat dull, but they complement Obata’s art well enough, and the opening and ending sequences are surprisingly amusing, particularly the opening, with the second ending being an upgrade from the first. The occasional fight scenes are nothing to applaud, but they keep the tension high and are backed by adequate sound effects and soundtracks.

Overall, I think Platinum End deserves credit for giving the viewer a story that surprisingly manages to keep them on the edge of their seat, with well-timed cliffhangers and skillfully maintained tension throughout the length of the show’s run. Some aspects of its production weaken its impression but are backed by solid story writing and well-founded characters and contexts that keep the story fresh, and the viewer engaged.

Story: 9
Art: 6
Sound: 7
Character: 8
Enjoyment: 9
Overall: 8

Here is my very own, humble, spoiler-free take on Sonny Boy:

Sonny Boy is an anime that had a lot of promise, and quite frankly, it absolutely delivered. Likely inspired by The Drifting Classroom, Sonny Boy is the surreal story of a class of students that is sent adrift into a void-like alternate dimension. With a touch, but not much focus into its fiction, Sonny Boy explores the relationships between charismatic, captivating characters and the inner challenges they face along the length of the story.

Admittedly this anime is not for everyone, but it stands out from the bunch. Watching this anime weekly the pace already felt ... fast, and each chapter was very plot heavy: I can’t even begin to imagine what this anime is like when you binge it from beginning to end. It has its quirks, and it’s not easy to follow. If you dislike open endings or having to make your own interpretations of events or even themes of a story, you may want to watch a purer drama or psychological show instead.

Art: 10/10

The art in Sonny Boy is magnificent, the artists skillfully use colors to express a flurry of emotions and the polished animation is reminiscent of the old Madhouse we saw years ago in OPM or HxH. Madhouse is back in full force, with APFTTU being the only anime of such excellent quality that they’ve produced in a long time, that I can think of that is.

Sound: 10/10

The OSTs that Sonny Boy uses are outstanding, I can’t help but use the OST in the beginning of episode 11 as an example of how well Madhouse does to use sound that fits the scenes to perfection. Even background sound and silence are used as tools to evoke a mood or another. Additionally, the ED is an absolute banger that reflects the themes of the anime itself very well and is a great listen outside of the anime too.

Characters: 10/10

Sonny Boy presents a variety of characters with different stories and motives, which make the anime miles more compelling than it would be without them. Characters like Nagara, Nozomi and Mizuho as well as less influential characters like Yamabiko, Pony and Cap are characters with real problems many of us have or will face and can relate to, and the way that the authors write the story so that every minor event and other characters around them affect their struggles and perspective is short of fascinating.

I appreciate the fast pace of the anime because it allowed us to be introduced to plenty of different characters, stories, and contexts, all meaningful to the resolution of the story. This is something that I can say about very few anime, if almost any.

Acting (VA): 10/10

Acting is always an area where I see points being dropped in MAL reviews, and I’m guilty of this too. I was going to rate the acting a 9 or an 8.5, maybe even an 8, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that I really had no reason to. The voice actors in Sonny Boy are very experienced and talented, not only did they adapt to the characters very well, but they also generally fit their personalities, looking at their past projects. I’m not Japanese nor do I speak it, so I won’t get into the tidbits of it, but the VAs were able to adeptly personify the individuality of each character and bring us closer to understanding each one of them, and that’s a magnificent performance in my book.

Story: 9/10
The story itself is the hardest thing to review from this anime, not only is it complex and often confusing, but it can’t be treated the same as most other anime. We’re presented with a simple enough premise: a, well… “Drifting Classroom”, but it quickly starts to spread in all directions. It would be easy to criticize the storyline and other notions like the powers each student has, but ultimately each event was meaningful and gave personality and quirks to each character, and overall, I believe the story delved into interesting concepts in each and every step of the way.

What I can say with full confidence, is that this is *not* a rip-off of The Drifting Classroom, as many (myself included) first described it (I really wanted to get this off my chest, seriously, I don’t even know why, just really bothers me for some reason), I hear this ALL the time, and it couldn’t be further from reality. The premise is shared, and it would be foolish to deny that, but Sonny Boy is much more than “haha classroom go zoom, bad copy lol 3/10 gottem”.

Enjoyment: 10/10

Sonny Boy is a wild ride, if you’re able to ride along a somewhat complex and confusing story and make your own out of it, you will be fascinated by what Sonny Boy has to offer. Sonny Boy is nothing less than a modern masterpiece in my eyes.

Therefore, overall: 10/10

*This is a reupload of a review I wrote before, but it was taken down cause apparently it was too early. I added a couple updates.

Well, here we have this season's how-the-hell-is-this-not-labeled-as-hentai.

Megami-ryou no Ryoubo-kun (Mother of the Goddess' Dormitory) is another one of those anime where I have absolutely no idea whether I should rate it a 1 or 10. From the very first frame, this anime blatantly shreds any form of correctness, decency or morality. An innocent middle school kid, devastated by the sudden loss of a family and a place to call home, is thrown into a hellhole of raunchy, horny barbarians.

I have ... not read the source of this anime, but I can only assume the author did not put any more than 10 seconds of thought into the plot of the story. However I'll give it the benefit of the doubt as we're only 1 episode in (Update: This point still stands). The art and sound are fine but not remarkable. The art clearly resembles every other blatant hentai and does well at it. The voice actors actually do a pretty good job at representing the character and context they're in, and by that I mean they resemble horny barbarians very well.

The characters are a reincarnation of every stereotypical character in harem/romcom, but as I mentioned earlier I'll give it the benefit of the doubt because one episode isn't enough to show any development (which I doubt will happen but whatever) (Update: There have been some minor developments in the relationships between Koushi and the others as well as Atena's situation with men. It is however rather bland and tropey and my hopes aren't too high. This still pretty much applies).

If there's something that this anime does well, it's staying true to what it is. It doesn't try to hide it's blatant deplorability and goes all out in the shitshow that it is. For that reason I actually gained some respect towards the show. Therefore, my opinion is that this anime is fantastic because of it's ability to not give a single shit and present itself as a disgusting, despicable sexualization of a middle-school kid with no remorse.

Thus:

Story - 5 (Mediocre)
Art - 7 (Good)
Sound - 7 (Good)
Character - 6 (Fair)
Enjoyment - 10 (Outstanding)
Overall - 10 (Masterpiece)

I will keep updating this review if anything changes, but I strongly doubt anything will.

Also, yes, this is my first review on MAL. What about it?