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I want to iterate this before all else being it’s important: This is not nearly as gimmicky as the synopsis puts it. Not only is it arguably one of the most fascinating and culturally relevant anime that has aired in the last decade or so, but it’s a show that contains genuine character exploration and growth.

I can’t blame you for thinking that sounds impossible based on the surface level display this show gives off. Though it’s simplistic and very much adapted from a light novel, it’s fully aware of both its audience and the landscape of anime similar to it. It demonstrably stresses the ... importance of self-improvement, but primarily it's biting against irrational subconscious anti-social mindsets that cause people anguish.

Fittingly to this narrative, Jaku-chara Tomozaki-kun opens with a scene that can easily be interpreted as generic and a meaningless interpretation of a gamer, but in actuality is one half of communicating the entire message of the show. Tomozaki is ranked 1 in TackFam, the universe’s depiction of a popular fighting game. Up against Nakumura, a regular classmate of his and someone far beneath his skill level, he easily destroys him. But Nakumura is arrogant, he blames the game, the characters. He resorts to blaming the matchups. Tomozaki proves it's a matter of skill, talent, and effort. He beats him even with the worst of matchups. A low level Marth player would still get destroyed by a top level Fox on FD, to put it into Smash Bros. terms, the game TackFam is based on. Tomozaki takes pride in his devotion to the game, and won’t accept baseless slander from someone who hasn’t put in the work he has. When we contrast this to the other half of the basis of the show: Tomozaki’s first interaction with Hinami, we become aware of what the major focal point actually is. When it comes to “real life”, Tomozaki is Nakumura in TackFam. He blames others for his own personal woes. (The ‘characters’) He believes there is a sort of social hierarchy he can’t break free from (The ‘game’), and that some people are just born better than others.(The ‘matchups’) It’s the exact same whiny and arrogant point of view he himself rebuked being directed towards TackFam. It’s blaming others when it's your own lack of effort that has you in the position you are. Why can’t it be any different when it comes to reality? Tomozaki is proven hypocritical.

Make no mistake—this isn’t just about someone growing into a socially viable person, it's a show that’s directly criticizing the type of self-loathing and presumptuous belief that it’s others—
not you— culture that anime itself tends to glorify and coddle those with a similar mindset. This was remarkable, and as a devout anime and light novel adaptation consumer, I was legitimately shocked that a show like this could exist in the climate of modern anime.

Even though I was already sold after the first episode, the show continues forward with a main character who receives proper development, and a cast of side characters who are used to explore other plaguing mindsets. If it isn't already clear by now, this is more of a character driven drama rather than a rom-com with hyperbolic tropes of a gamer and normie popular kids.

Tomozaki is directed down a path of social improvement by Hinami. This isn’t just basic advice, however. It's a decisive strategic motion to make friends and create interest in oneself. Easily said, the key to getting to know people is by showing interest in them or their surroundings. People won’t care about you if you don’t care about them. Yuzu likes Nakumura? Help her find ways to appeal to him. Mimimi wants to run for student council? Ask her if you can support her bid. Let people in, share secrets with them, gain their trust and become someone they can rely on. Fuuka likes a certain author? Read their books. When a time comes where you can ask her out to see a movie adaptation of the same author, you have both an excuse and are giving the other party respect by showing admiration to their interests. It’s physical improvements as well. Get a haircut. Stand up straight. Speak louder and stop looking so grim. Take care of your appearance and dress well. This show talks the talk and walks the walk.

Of course, it can sound problematic to see interest in people as “goals” or for your own sake rather than by genuine curiosity and the desire to get to know someone, but the show has answers to this. Gradually throughout, Tomozaki gains his own agency. He realizes that being himself makes the other person more comfortable. Perhaps it was only through deliberate effort and a push from the back that Tomozaki was able to form relationships, but eventually he grows past the need to seek orders. He changes.


The side characters are real people, not bloated tropes. Anime has a tendency to demonize “popular kids” and make them one dimensional bullies solely for the main characters to ultimately dunk on. I can assure you that with the exception of one single character in one scene, none of the characters in this show are like that at all. Yuzu, Mimimi, Takahiro, and Nakumura are vulnerable in some way. Deconstructing what commonly “popular characters” appear as in anime in a show like this seems even more important when it’s all about demonstrating the importance of having and maintaining relationships. As showing what would be the formidable unapproachable characters in other shows as real people, it’s encouraging and a reminder that we are not so different.

Frequently I was struck at how overwhelmingly positive the show could get. Tomozaki would relish in and internalize his growth. He described the feelings of successful social interactions as “primal” like a necessary need. He grows if only a little bit each and every episode. It’s fun watching him gain the trust of others. It’s heartwarming seeing others take interest in him and care for him. He quickly becomes someone you can route for and support.

It’s a rarity of a show. It manages to be mindfully indulgent, bold, and have meaning. And even if it's not as well-written as other more culturally influential anime, it’s accessibility and ease of entry may give someone what they really need.

All Rom and no Com. RikeKoi couldn’t fully cement itself as a really good show for two reasons, its inadequate comedic directing and unfortunately containing the anime classic, the cringey, contrived drama towards the end to create a more...memorable finish? (Seriously though, why does every show feel the need to do this?)

Just like the number of negatives though, there are two things that do make RikeKoi a pretty acceptable experience to watch. The first is the charming cast of characters (besides the Manga-ka girl, obviously) and the other is the actual romantic progression that is decently fleshed out. RikeKoi is a show about scientists, and ... that is where the comparison to scientists ends. The way our scientist friends are presented is about exactly how you would expect someone who maybe took a few science courses in college and decided to give writing a manga about “science types” a shot. That doesn’t mean to say they are overly obnoxious stereotypes, and a lot of the science tie-ins and references relating to love isn’t shoved down your throat, they are actually quite playful most of the time. The author does in fact have some fascination with science, but it definitely isn't obsessive Otaku-like. If you were expecting a more accurate depiction of science type people falling in love, you probably would have been stopped at the door judging by how hot all the characters look. The show's humor mostly relies on the wacky hijinks our main couple get into, they want to prove love can be analytically determined, and that's the joke, because obviously it can’t. This may sound like it gets stale, but to me the worst part isn’t the style or the continuous set-up of the jokes, it has to be the comedic directing and timing. Of course, some blame also goes to the original creator of the manga. Lets face it, RikeKoi just isn’t very funny, like at all. You will chuckle every now and again, but it’s not even close to being hilarious. You would think that would be a death sentence to a Rom-Com manga adaptation, but in its case surprisingly not. The cast of characters are fine without being funny. They manage to have a good chemistry together, whether it be the main couple Himuro & Yukimura, or Yukimura & Kanade, Ibarada & Kosuke etc. etc. This is mostly because they all have certain archetypes about themselves that work well when clashing with others in the lab. The real main character is easily Himuro, she does a good job containing the joke of the show inside of her character. She's a devoted scientist, but she can’t shake the feeling that she's in love. It isn’t like she’s not honest with her feelings, more so she literally just doesn’t know how to process them. Yukimura is all in on the idea he can “prove” whether they are actually in love or not. Kanade is more of the normal emotional thinker, so she can straight man them. Ibarada and Kosuke are a cute little side relationship. This setup managed to be amusing and simple enough for me to want to watch the show to completion. The character design is also very pleasant. One of the best ways to create an engaging couple is to make them look even better when they are next to each other. RikeKoi gets it.

The show was going well… obviously until the end. They introduce a character in the later episodes that is only there to manufacture a conflict. To RikeKoi’s defense, this seems to be a trait in far too many anime, the rush to produce a dramatic ending. As a result, the “drama” is almost always terrible, almost always cringe, and almost always means ultimately nothing in the end. At a certain point, I was so invested in Yukimura and Himuro you could have given me ANY ending that gives a good meaningful push in their romantic relationship, and I would have been sold. I’m sure most people could agree. So why give us the hardest possible ending to sit through? Ahh, it's just so disappointing.

Final verdict: If you’re interested, go for it. You will be rewarded, but also punished.

Perhaps the difficulty of understanding yourself is equal to the amount you feel alive when doing so. Fruits Basket understands this. Character driven and dramatically told, it is able to embed its most important themes inside of the story and characters.

What starts as a girl finding out a secret quickly becomes understanding the reality they shoulder.

The Souma zodiac secret, transferring into one of the zodiac members when hugged by the opposite sex, is a means to tell a story. Of course Honda Tohru wouldn’t have forged a relationship with them without discovering it, but more importantly it contains single-handedly the most important theme the show ... pertains—People are born with burdens. Each and every Souma carries some form of ache. But surprisingly enough, their issues are not foregin to what are real problems that real people have to overcome. Having no place to belong, holding resentment towards others because of one's own uncontrolled circumstances, parental issues, losing loved ones, not being able to get along with others. Each of these complications get conceptually visualized through very unreal means, but at their core are not unreal problems. It is this balance between a larger than life setting, but with a core focus on reality, that gives the show its charm.

Fruits Basket is about many things, however, and probably just as important as having burdens is about how to live and move on from them. This is mostly presented through a character, Honda Tohru. To the Soumas, she is exactly what they needed. Inspired by her late mother, Tohru is driven to be compassionate with a way of words. She learns to understand all of them because she understood her wonderful mother. She's kind, caring, and always seems to know what to say to them. She can inspire them with her words or actions, and manage to crack all of their shells to become friendly with all of them. Is she too perfect to be believable? Well, that is sort of her point, because she is in fact vulnerable and flawed, it just isn’t necessarily clear. Her “perfection” in a way feels its adding another layer to the show. Honda Tohru is extremely romanticized as a person, but that doesn’t mean she has no core issues. We learn she is naive, absent-minded, and often forgetful. But the show doesn’t necessarily present these flaws as a means to simply make her cuter. They are real with real consequences. She wants to believe the best in everybody, she wants the moments she loves to last forever, out of fear of not having a place to belong, again. This is only to a fault, because eventually—like everybody else, she will have to face reality. This is best displayed when she is called back to live with her Grandfather. But more important than any one issue the the show gives her is how she views herself. Even though most of the characters in the show (and probably most viewers) can admit she is doing all the right things, she doesn’t necessarily think she is living up to those expectations herself. This excerpt was one of my favorite moments of the show, an analogy Tohru uses to cheer up Kyo:

“If a person is a rice ball and what’s great about the person is a pickled plum, than maybe your plum is on your back! Maybe everyone is the world has plums on their backs, of all different shapes, colors, and sizes. But since they can’t see their backs, they can’t see the plums they have. They think they don’t have anything—that they’re just plain rice. Even though that is not true at all—even though they really do have a plum there. Maybe the reason we get jealous of others, is because other people’s backs are easy to see.”

It’s almost like this was written to describe how Tohru is projected to others. It's an important lesson, however, that we all have doubts about ourselves, no matter how perfect we may come off to others. This is how dynamics between characters in the show are formed. Through both understandings and misunderstandings about one another. Characters hiding things about them, or not being totally honest to themselves or others. It is surprisingly realistic.

The original Fruits Basket TV anime aired 18 years ago, so this rendition surges greatly in its animation/art/sound quality(though not necessarily the music pieces themselves can be compared, however). I can imagine, however, that there will be some loyal towards the original (just like some people are more loyal towards the original FMA and not Brotherhood) If you are looking to watch the series modern day and haven’t watched either, it is hard to not recommend the 2019 version. It is important to mention that just like the original Furuba, the way its assed will likely be polarized. Of course, like most drama anime, this series isn’t free from melodrama, or black/white conflicts every now and again. Not every character is well put together, and not every episode contains something special. But what I found always consistent about the show is how it remained faithful to its wonderful themes.

Fruits Basket is an impressively layered show. It manages to be both character driven and contain a relevant plot, all while never losing focus on its core themes. The characters, while possessing supernatural phenomena and having issues arise in a rather unusual way, contain familiar troubles that are very real. It's in that way the show tries to tell you no matter how distant a person feels from you—we all have to carry the burdens we get for simply existing.

To describe Kaguya-sama: Love is War as a battlefield of love, between two prideful geniuses, who see confessing as a sign of “weakness” is well—sort of misleading.

Not because these type of scenarios don’t happen throughout the show, but more so because I’m not entirely sure that it is accurate to describe the characters as “prideful” or even “geniuses”; and that might be the biggest issue the show has.

Kaguya-sama begins in a very direct way; the whole idea of the show, everything about Miyuki and Kaguya, and their relationship is thrown at us through a narrator. There is no build up of their relationship, we are ... told they are in love and we are immediately expected to care. As a result, I found it difficult to ever form a sort of solid connection with the characters, to ‘root’ for their romance, to think their ridiculous antics were always funny. Miyuki and Kaguya have little chemistry. It feels like I am missing something. With more care given to the characters, this show really could have been something special.

I can imagine this could have been salvaged, if the characters proved themselves so charismatic and fun that they would eventually become completely endearing. But the characters never really had a consistent personality. Because let's be honest, Miyuki and Kaguya are not always ‘prideful’. The are constantly shown as vulnerable, embarrassed, and shy. Highlighting those parts about them were easily the worst bits of the show. When they were smart, cunning, devious, it lead to the best and most hilarious moments. The author probably did this to make them more relatable and cute, but I ultimately think it negatively impacted the show. Some of the situations Miyuki and Kaguya go through are so trivial and childish that only sheer ridiculousness of their characters could have made it genuinely hilarious. When we know that the basis of their resistance to being open to one another is rooted more in shyness than pride, it makes the situations come off as more silly than potentially hilarious. It should have gone all in on making them scheming egomaniacs, for the sake of the humour.

Sometimes the show did have moments where the characters acted the way I hoped they would—and it was funny. Various moments of the show proves itself as creative, enjoyable, and worthy. Chika and Ishigami served as good side characters, although it may have been a little too obvious that sometimes they were just there to steer the direction of the joke. The art style was bold and outwards. Over time the show starts to get a bit more ‘normal’ looking, but I do appreciate shows taking a step outwards to make it more memorable.

Many times I was left feeling like some potential was being wasted. The show does stick to a formulaic way of having a ‘winner/loser’ in every bit, which didn’t always work. Sometimes it seems like the direction of the joke was radically shifted for no other reason than to just create a winner or a loser. I never found the narrator useful, and at worst he was just annoying. The show should have been more free, less confined to one particular style. Often it came off as settling.

The most disappointing thing about the show is how good it could have been.

Apart from the quintuplet gimmick and the pretty colors, I can’t really tell you what Gotoubun no Hanayome adds to the harem genre.

Inside of it is full of all of the things that make up a relatively generic harem show, but only this time with a group of five sisters. Standard anime archetypes, boring/bland main character who all the girls magically fall in love with, overrun harem tropes, you name it. People have called it a more “wholesome” harem show with less fanservice and a less insufferable main character, but I fail to see how it is even better than other harem shows with similar ... qualities.

There is nothing inherently wrong with being cliche, but Gotoubun fails at creating interesting characters within their archetypes. Miku is just a kuudere with an affection to Japanese history. Yotsuba is just a genki girl. If Nino is the tsundere, than Itsuki is just a lighter version of her. The reasoning for all of their personalities is the same, they love each other and act they way they act because of that. Without the cliche archetypes, none of the girls would be different from each other at all. The ironic thing about this is they all are strangely distant despite being sisters. Ichika is actually too embarrassed to tell her sisters that she is a actress. Nino is too scared to request help from her sisters when she gets locked out of their apartment. These type of trivial situations that actual siblings wouldn’t care about get dragged on forever and make the show incredibly uninteresting. And about uninteresting, there is nothing of note about the MC. He is standard to the harem genre. Self insert, dull, helps all the girls for whatever reason, and they all end up loving him. (bonus for even being voiced by the harem king himself, Matsuoka.) Sometimes a good group of female characters can carry a harem show if the main character is stale (OreShura, Saekano, A Bridge to the Starry Skies) and sometimes a good MC can make it all that much better (Seitokai no Ichizon) but Gotoubun fails on both sides. This is crucial.

I am aware the character design is quite a bit different from the manga, and as a result many situations were poorly adapted. Any time a joke or gag was to infer the sisters look alike, was downright laughable for all the wrong reasons. Because obviously, in the anime, they don’t look alike. Why they didn’t scrap these jokes I have no idea, and I’m not even really sure why they changed the character design from the manga to the anime so much. The art overall is super inconsistent. The colors are beautifully done, and many of the close up shots and backgrounds are nicely drawn, but there a tons of wonky shots and weirdly drawn faces. It got to a point where almost every time the show cut to a faraway shot I would cringe at how wonky the faces would look. The type of huge inconsistency between how good the show would look and how bad it would made this so incredibly noticeable.

While the general idea of the plot did have potential to be interesting, teasing that one of the girls does in fact marry the MC into the future, (although it is pretty obvious Itsuki is the ‘main’ one) the show itself is just a sort of collection of cliche harem happenings. Fireworks festivals, characters getting sick, getting locked in a shed, having to pretend to like each other, etc etc. All of this has been done before in more interesting ways. They even throw in that the MC knew the girls when he was younger, and has a sort of “fated love” with one of them, that he can’t remember. This felt totally shoehorned in and unnecessary.

Helplessly generic, boring, standard archetypal characters, and a “go read the manga!” ending. It isn’t the worst thing ever, but just meh work.

“Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai” does one thing very well. That is, taking the commonly done and quite stale school drama and turns it into something much more interesting with its usage of ‘Puberty Syndrome’, a supernatural disease that visualizes the characters social issues in a more creative and engaging way.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a lot to praise after that.

On the surface— this show, based of the title and artwork, is not what it seems. But with that being said, it doesn’t make the show better than what it is.

The biggest problem is the characters. Immediately we are presented with the ... main character Sakuta being incredibly brash and quick witted. This makes sense at first, but the show doesn’t waste any time in abusing this. Sakuta constantly comes off as fake, forced, and incredibly out of place. It was clear he was an attempt at a sort of larger than life character, but the writing utterly fails at producing this image. When you compare him to other characters in a similar situation, like Kyon from The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, or Araragi from Monogatari, the world built around them is much more suited for the way they act. In Kyon’s case, he is surrounded by complete weirdos, in every sense of the word. Him being the only normal one, the show was able to execute his “straight man” behavior in a hilariously unique way. In the case of the show more compared to Bunny Girl, Monogatari, the whole world is built on the character interaction being a sort of battle for the high ground. In Bunny Girl, there is no ‘battle for the conversational high ground’. It is just Sakuta imposing his incredible wit and intelligence on everyone else, somehow always having a quote worthy response to any situation. Nobody else is like him or responds with retorts that actually live up to his. The best example is the scene where he gets into a fight with the dudes harassing Tomoe. Not only does he end up winning the fight in the most ridiculously contrived way, but he shouts out a cringey line that nobody seems to care about. The show constantly does this with him. I never cringe when watching anime. This show made me. The other girl characters are mostly just flat and forgettable. I will say that Mai is decently written, but the other girls really never get a chance to stand out in any way. They feel more as just ploys to the narrative, especially Tomoe and Nodoka. This isn’t really a bad thing, but it certainly doesn’t make them memorable.

The writing has seen some criticism in its “pretentious” way of describing the Puberty Syndrome by linking it to the workings of quantum physics. I am not going to pretend like I understand quantum physics in the first place like others have, but I will say that it adds a layer of confusion that didn’t need to be there in the first place. I don’t really want to be lectured an extremely hard concept to grasp fully just to understand why Mai is disappearing. Even people who have praised the show called the quantum physics tie-ins B.S.

The art and character design is very lackluster. Sakuta and his male friend have literally the exact same haircut. The color of his hair is almost identical to Tomoe. There is a random character that looks exactly like Futaba at the end of one of the episodes. Mai and Shouko look way too similar. The school uniforms are just brown and ugly. The art in general is dull and uninspired. Just your typical stuff.

The sound in the show is alright. There are some good piano tracks, although they play one of them all the time, you probably know which one I am referring to. The OP is weird. The actual song they use is great, but the problem is the actual animation that is going on behind it. Random shots and CG crowds is not a good look. The ED is great, and the touch with having the different Seiyuu sing it was nice.

The experience with Bunny Girl Senpai (which the title still doesn’t seemingly have any meaning) is a sort of strange one. It does things nicely, particularly the endings to each arc, but has too many downfalls to become anything more than just mediocre. I really wanted to like this more, because the setting is so easy to watch and enjoy.

It is obvious that this show tries everything it can to become an instant classic, and while that is respectable, it just doesn’t get the job done.

Unfortunately for game anime adaptations, they have a steep hill to climb to recapture the magic you get from playing through them.

Persona 5, another addition to the long time SMT/Persona series was a huge success in both the west and in Japan. It won 2017 Game Awards “RPG of the Year” And was ranked at was of the top games of the year by many gaming outlets. Even with that, the anime was considered a disappointment from the start. With its cheap animation, off-pacing at times, and generally its lack of what made the game special.

However, my expectations played a part in the viewing experience. ... It was clear from the start that this wasn’t going to be like the game at all, as most game adaptations never are. Persona 5’s stand alone story is not what made the game special, rather just one factor. I wasn’t coming into this expecting what I got from the game, and neither should you. As I do see where most the criticism comes from, the root of it is from people who compare to the game, this probably isn’t a fair way to look at it. The game was made by thousands of more people, have had years to develop, and is generally taken more serious. This was a direct result of poor animation, bad pacing, and cutting out parts of the game. The anime should be given some slack in that regard.

With all that being said, I am not trying to defend the bad parts of the P5 anime. They are noticeably apparent, and part of why it led to widespread hate of the P5 anime. The animation is sometimes shit. The CG usage was often bad, especially in the background characters walking around. The faraway faces are sometimes laughable. And although the pacing is considerably better in the second half of the show, the beginning is way too fast. Usually I wouldn’t give these issues a pass, but like I said since it was mainly being compared to the game I do. People who haven’t played the game probably won’t see that much of an issue in these.

In many cases however, what likely appealed to you in the game should transition into the anime. If you like the characters, they will translate nicely. And of course, the music does as well. Chances are you didn’t complete everything in the game unless you played it through multiple times, so some of what you will be seeing from the characters could be a new experience. The character development was taken from the ‘confidant’ system so if you didn’t complete everyone’s confidant or maybe just were not paying attention you could be seeing new content. That along with the actual anime exclusive scenes, like seeing some of the characters in new situations, or seeing them given more backstory like showing them as children, gives the anime merit to watch even if you have played the game, a common criticism.

There isn’t always something to say about P5TA. Largely because it is just doing what it was supposed to. There are both good and bad parts. If you want to experience the game but don’t want the time investment of playing through all of it, (and trust me, the game is huge) than this might be for you. If you are a fan of the game, than this might be for you. It doesn’t necessarily show everything the game has to offer, but doesn’t do anything too bad to diminish it either.

You shouldn’t think too hard about this one.