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I went into this show with the expectation that I might like it more but I ended up liking it significantly less. There are way too many things I could say, I am going to make it short. This will mean a lot of my thoughts will probably be not delivered as well as I wish but it is what it is. My main takeaway is that I actually do not like a single thing about this show.

Don’t confuse this with dislike though. The first time I thought I appreciated its artistry, the show is factually well produced but when it comes to actual ... appeal, it doesn’t appeal to me whatsoever. The art is well drawn but not aesthetically unique or interesting. The colors are 90s, they aren’t vibrant, they aren’t flat. They are just colors. The character designs are cool and make sense for the setting (Faye is questionable but idc) but they do not appeal to my aesthetic sensitivities. The Ost is there. I overall liked 3 tracks in the entire show, and with liked I mean noticed and enjoyed greatly. The rest was unnoticeable or unimpressive. So basically, decent but nothing I will list in my favorite OST list. The plot – I honestly doubt there even is one. Yes, yes, there is the thematic core of Spike’s character arc that eventually reaches its climax by the end, but I felt it wasn’t overarchingly as important as other shows, especially plot driven ones. This show is a tale of a few characters, hence why it is episodic, but I failed to see relevance or major takeaways in the episodic stories towards the characters or even to just worldbuild the world. In the end it just ends up being a space show where things happen to people. I know that isn’t really a sentence that describes anything nor is it not something that could be said about everything but it is the rawest way for me to state my particular feelings towards this series. Over the span of 26 episodes, I thought 7 were good at best. I didn’t count but it was definitely not more than 9. And with good I mean good, not great not amazing. The rest was either bad, dreadfully bad, unamusing, or okay.


Spike is a character that barely reacts to his surroundings so I don’t ever know what he thinks or worries about, so when his arc ends, I am just kinda… okay? I did enjoy Faye’s character backstory the most, the tape scene being the most emotionally engaging. I don’t understand how the syndicate relates to anything in the universe, or how bad they are in that universe etc. I am not ashamed to admit I do not understand some things in this show but I don’t “understand” them in a personal way that would connect me to the overall narrative in a meaningful way, not in a plot-understanding way (nobody will understand this sentence lmao). I also think Vicious is extreme toast bread villain. All he does is look ugly and quote some poetic nonsense, Spike does that too sometimes. The quoting went out of hand towards the end. All these things are still mature in a way, like they don’t offend me or are pretentious, but they are really underwhelming in many ways. When it comes to a “main” character involved in a rivalry with a villain that is actually good, Psycho-Pass is better at that. It is also better with its “episodic” narrative to expand the world, and I think PP’s worldbuilding isn’t the best.


Speaking of episodic, having a “driver” MC react or engage with episodic people’s tragedies, Kino is way better at that than Spike, though Kino is a non-actor (usually). Also took away more lessons per episode in that show than I did here. Then OST and aesthetic; I have a myriad of shows I like more than this. VEG which I don’t like much because of its last few episodes also had me way more emotionally engaged than this show.

I am saying all of this to justify my score basically. I am not giving Bebop a 5 because I think it is average as far as anime on a major scale go. As I already said, it is at least mature about the things it is doing, I just have seen shows that do similar things way better than it, and I am not into those shows either. I wasn’t emotionally engaged or entertained. There is not much to criticize about it as an anime production because at the time they were high tier, but they aren’t appealing to my tastes. The characters are fine but I don’t “like” them. I don’t find their team interactions special. The pacing is also egregiously slow I felt. In any case I would even say it is the exact same show as Dandy, but a bit more “mature”, but Dandy had overall more episodes I “cared” about.


The last 3 episodes were honestly great. I really liked the tone, the OST was the best it ever has been and it tied the knots of the very minimal plot we have gotten so far together really well. However I still feel like it doesn’t entirely excuse the lack of consistency until this point and it also failed to round out these characters in non-trope ways. Julia just kinda represents this weird male gaze masculine power fantasy for the male character of sacrificing yourself for your loved one after they have passed, but before you do you take revenge. Basically, the plot of any B-type action film where the wife dies at the start of the film. I don’t see how this is any different. It kinda just bores me at this point.


Either way, I think I heard the shot now, and this will be the last time I ever watch this show again. I am glad if you got some great catharsis from any of the character arcs, but I just did not. This wouldn’t be the first show that is a bit “older” that I watched and my main takeaway was “it certainly was monumental for its time” and it probably won’t be the last time.

Considering the excessive amount of love Furuba as a franchise has been receiving, it would almost make me think most people haven’t watched an actual great piece of fiction and especially not one that handles abuse. Which would be a wrong assumption to make, considering HxH and Sangatsu are also in the Top 100 which make a way better case for themselves. To forefront, my feelings towards the franchise have developed negatively. I think it doesn’t present abuse in any nuanced ways, and even goes out of its way to forgive abuse without an attempt of amends from the abuser’s side. Not just only that, ... but the many couples in the franchise are cursed with a ridiculous age gap, imbalance of power dynamic, or both at the same time but since all the characters are so 2-dimensional, a normal viewer doesn’t seem to be inherently bothered by these issues.


This movie is not an exception of that. Aside from 1/3rd of the “film” being just recap of Kyo’s and Tohru’s relationship, the rest is about a middle school girl that has been ostracized from her family as she entered a rebellious gangster phase and persuades a romance with a way older man. It cannot be concluded from the film itself if she was ostracized because she became a gangster or she already was and therefore became a gangster and therefore the ostracization intensified. Either way, she meets Katsuya, 21 years old at the time, as her “teacher” – meaning imbalance of power – and then he grooms her into a relationship. The actual romance between Katsuya and Kyoko isn’t showcasing any abuse, it does actually look healthy as far as it is shown. The characters in Furuba aren’t really that deeply written so we stay at a comfortable sea level. However, that doesn’t mean grooming didn’t occur. If you do some basic math, you can determine that they married when Kyoko was around 15 years old and birthed Tohru when she was around 18. I have my reservations about this. Child brides, huge age gap… We love to see those.


It is fairly common in real life for adult men to “rescue” young girls from their toxic households into a “better” life to then later become very controlling abusers themselves. Usually, those men are way older and are making use of their assets like money and housing to keep the relationship in control. And since the original support system of the girl (family) is out of the picture because they are awful people and will not try to reach out and help her, they can do whatever they want. The same pattern occurs here, the difference being Katsuya never becomes a control freak or abuser and is “hot”. This is a very common trope in shoujo unfortunately and showcases the way toxic masculinity is rooted deeply in our society. Adult women will write stories about older men saving way younger girls and gifting them unconditional love. I assume it is the desire for a man that has assets and is accomplished loving you for the way you are, no matter how miserable, completely ignoring the youth, power and innocence aspect he gains from such a kind of relationship. Wish real life was this way, but it isn’t most of the time. It is a really questionable choice for a story, especially considering how often it happened in this franchise.


And that is my main concern with this story. They kinda live together, it is happy go lucky, Kyoko has no other emotional support system besides Katsuya until Tohru is born, more or less. Eventually Katsuya dies from a basic cold (that was odd) and Kyoko has an intense mental breakdown. I have to admit that these scenes were rather enjoyable and got to my most basic emotional vulnerabilities. The voice actress also did a decent job delivering the emotions here. She eventually releases herself from her slump because she has Tohru to take care of, and then the film ends with her death again looping back to Kyo and Tohru being happy again. Kyoko’s wish was for someone to make Tohru happy, so she got this, I guess.

Overall, the film is mostly filler and presents a one-dimensional romance with heavy problematic undertones. It is audiovisually completely unimpressive and the music, just like in the TV show, is way too loud too many times.


Characters were very depthless especially Kyoko’s parent household.

I did enjoy the more emotionally heavy scenes. I didn’t hate my time with it necessarily, but it was disappointing just like the rest of the franchise. And we as a society really need to let go of these toxic aspects that have been ingrained in all our souls since birth.

This will be a semi-review and I will try to be as general and spoiler free as possible. If there are spoilers I will mark them inside [ ]

Pandora Hearts has earned it's rep of being a beautiful and complex story that earned most of its praise through the plotting and recontextualization.
To give some backstory, I own 15 volumes of PH in german of which I read 8 of 10 years ago. I also watched the anime even earlier than that. I never finished the story because it was still publishing at that point and I didn't complete manga that went over 13 volumes in ... general (Black Butler suffered the same fate).

So I am not completely new to this series or utterly ignorant to some of it's story. Therefore the rumored confusing start wasn't much bother to me. I went into this story completely unspoiled of it's entire second half, however. This will be kinda semi-relevant for a point I will make later down this text.


Plotting & "Recontextualization"

I have a plucking feathers to do on this one. Pandora Hearts is a throughout erratic story, focused on one central event that defines the entire plot line and several characters existence in result, and all information regarding this event is cluttered and strayly presented in the narrative. Most information is told through expositions by recently or completely fresh and new characters. The series relies on relentless info dumping. It gives you zero hints, you just have to sit back there and watch it unfold. Other mysteries start with a 0 point, an objective and then an investigation to find out the "whodunnit". PH is one of these narratives that start out with minus information and you get very little bread crumbs as you move forward into the story. There are several aspects of the worldbuilding that are simply never explored or fleshed out in any way, and suffice as mere plot devices. (This will be adressed again under "Worldbuilding")
Reading PH was to sit through a wave of characters being introduced every other chapter, them info dumping the main cast or directly to the viewer (extremely minor spoiler in this bracket: [there is a segment in the ch 40s~ where Duke Barma basically expositions something to the duchess at length, and it was definitely a direct exposition to the viewer rather than to this character, who acted as a gateway]). The mystery is characters hiding information, revealing only concepts (minor spoiler for the last arc: [Echo's chain as example only got really relevant in the last arc, and was done over with in the same time span.]) or information the moment they have to be relevant for the current arc. Extreme lack of foreshadowing and the foreshadowing that exists is very low dosed.

Throughout the narrative directly lies to the viewer by marking red harrings, making it seem like a character is narrating themselves meanwhile it's the thoughts of someone completely else, or making it look like characters are connected through the panelling. All false narratives. A recontext is hardly possible if the context was a false truth to begin with. A context that was never established cannot be recontextualized. Information is dumped on your head when it is relevant, not long before introduced and to matter long later. All meanings are pretty direct unless it was a "well actually".

I at least give PH some compliment on showing past panels when they call back to some events from long way back, since the story is so dense with information it helps keeping track of some of it.


Plot Twists [Major Spoilers so skip the section unless you've completed the story]

Here is where my "I went in blind" paragraph is relevant.

The twist that Jack is actually the baddie was rather predictable. He was too angelicy framed from the start and I am not a beginner to story telling. The narrative did not a very good job at hiding it's intentions because of mentioned issues in the story telling above.

The plot twist with Oz however, I actually really liked. I also liked the reveal that Vincent opened the gates to the abyss. How these twists influence the story? Eh, it makes Oz a rather unique concept for a main character but Jack's entire character motivation doesn't really develop beyond what he narrates over and over. Man was obsessed with Lacie, which in return acted rather abusingly towards him. This is not really ever adressed much I had to notice.
I also have to say that I didn't enjoy the arc from ch 40-70 at all. It has tonal whiplashes and the plot twist with [name spoiler: Elliot] was not executed well in my opinion. I liked his character too, it is a shame. It fails because of the flaws in the plotting as mentioned in the section above.

Character motivations

In the middle of the story it seems like major characters like Gilbert take a huge step back to then come back in the climax to really "do something". Oz is about to go mayham but gets hold back by Alice, several times. Will mention this later down. Vincent also was framed more cunning and dangerous than he ended up being in the climax. He was actually seriously pathethic. I understand it makes sense in relation to this character motivation but seriously, this whole baddie personality just feels like another red herring.

[Post-plot twist spoilers: The Lacie, Glen and Jack triangle works for the most part, but overall I find the execution clumsy and the narrative text mediocre. Also prior mentioned Lacie acted a little abusive which was never really adressed imo]


Characters [I mention character names]

This manga has outright character stereotypes I dislike. There is this weirdo Jack obsessor around the 50~ chapters who just felt tonally inconsistent with anything else going on, and was just a pain to watch for me. I also dislike the edgy loli that Lilly is, she isn't good and I consider her completely unnecessary. I enjoyed Oz, Vinc and Gil but all of them kinda get shafted at points and mishandled because of the erratic story telling. I think Oz's first arc's existentialism gets forgotten and overshadowed with the last two arcs reveals. Jack is okay. I understand the motivation but I don't value it that highly in the grand scheme of stories I have already consumed. I tried to enjoy Echo and her arc but I honestly have to say it felt like another Rei Ayanmi rip-off, and also suffers under the plotting issues. By the end, I ended up being disappointed in all of these characters journeys, that I cannot say I really have a favorite. And I consider Elliots arc mishandled as well, he was top 3 for me until that point. [Major Spoiler: I especially didn't like that Leo became a Glen vessel and less of his own character, until the climax when he tells Glen to fuck off...]

Alice I didn't like much. She is kind of a punk. I am neutral mostly.

[ Major Spoiler for Oscar: Towards the very end of the story Oscar, Oz's uncle, gets some of the limelight and I thought his chapter was outright corny and misplaced. Way too late into the story for a character that barely set foot into it. He is not much of a relevant character. I understand the emotional implications, but he hardly a rounded character for him to come this late into the story and pull up a heartfelt family moment. All the dialogue in that chapter was cliche and I didn't enjoy it. ]


On a more positive note, I think the character with the best arc was Break. Easily the most consistent and satisfying one for me.

Worldbuilding

[Spoilers]

At first I thought the children of ill-omen that have red eyes get mistreated because of some prejudice, but apparently they are related to the abyss and that's why they get shit on. This is never really explained further than how it relates to the abyss. Why do some kids just get born with red eyes? Who determines this? Something with Baskervilles. Please explain.
There is also the abyss and how it works from a political standpoint in relation to other states ... though the abyss is an only-this-country thing, there is no mention of the outside world and what they think of it. I don't expect a "where did the abyss come from", but the world seems so tiny because of this, which bothers me a lot. Think of FMA, that seems like a properly large and fleshed out world breathing life from all corners.

[/]

Comedy

Fans will probably hate this topic but sorry it has to be done. [Very minor spoilers I guess]
I wouldn't say the comedy is outright awful, but I think it gets worse over time as the story becomes more serious. In the middle Oz is about to go berserk like 3 times and Alice interrupts him each time with a comedy routine. I understand it makes sense for her character and there are reasons to not go berserk, but it really took out the air of the tension and made me facepalm. It is an anime cliche to do this and I fairly dislike it.
Imagine in Houseki if Bort comes in to save Phos, but they do it in a comedic way. It takes you out fo the tone and therefore the tension. Of course that makes no sense for Bort's character to do so, but this example is to show how whiplashy that feels.

Especially in the climax these comedic interruptions were bothersome. Please just take yourself seriously to the end, you can do it!

Panelling & Space

People seem to have complaints about this. I pesonally, don't see an issue with the panelling itself, except when it is used to confuse the reader into another lie of its narrative, but I have my issues with the lack of establishing of space. PH has very little backgrounds and it's kinda its detriment. In the middle Oz and gang enter a room and apparently it's a trick with mirrors, but you don't actually see the mirror until the second Oz points at it. What's the point? The entire space in the moment was unreadable or ununderstandable for me as a reader. Action is outright bad. Who aims where, where did they come from, how big is anything right now; it is not good at determining space and it makes it a rough read.

Art

The art is really good. Except the lack of backgrounds, I really like the clothing, the hair, and the character designs. I think the manga looks good. Color pages are flat out gorgeous. The story has several moments of tonal whiplashes and the art doesn't reflect the tone it's going for. You can see the pattern.

Climax

I think the last set of chapters are a proper climax and put a good lid on the pod. It was a proper ending and if you were really invested in the story up until that point you will not be let down. Though I have my reservations with the buildup up to the very last moment of the last chapter.


Conclusion

Pandora Hearts at it's heart (haha) is a story about not being able to let go of the past, grief and people seeking love. It doesn't achieve its themes to the best of its abilities and makes things purposefully perplexing and disorderly to look more complex, and I think it has too many flaws for me to give it the benefit of the doubt. In my very honest opinion, there are better stories out there with better plotting in a long shot that don't exhaust me as much as this one has.

My overall score is a 6.5/10

Rental GF is the next entry in my Despair Saga and as usual it has taken a toll on me.
If it wasn’t noticeable by the already highly upvoted influx of negative reviews this series isn’t good by any criteria of requirement.

The romance genre in anime is vast and popular. In recent years however it seems to have become the trend to adapt more “incel” type stories. Yes, I will not beat around the bush here, Rent a GF is an incel anime. This is not to insult anyone who potentially gets enjoyment out of this series by implying they are such, but the main character ... is the splitting image of a self-destructive virgin in denial of their own toxic masculinity that you typically find on reddit. If you have any mercy, a good personality or hope left for humanity, you might go into this show with the potential outlook of character development of the main character, for him to eventually realize his toxic flaws and slowly overcome them to feel worth of a woman’s grace
Well, good luck because you will not find it here.


The show starts out with immediately fishing for sympathy for the main character, Kazuya. After 21 years of his life as a virgin loser his first girlfriend, Mami, dumped him rather ungracefully and now he is in despair. Therefore Kazuya decides to go on a date with one of these “rental girlfriends” – which is an actual service in japan, more or less – to numb the pain a little bit. He does this without actually reading the terms of agreement and using his common sense, which would make him realize that yes this is a professional service and “fake”, he instead decides to go on inner monologues to stroke his terrible self-esteem to even worse proportions and starts shaming himself and the rental girlfriend for doing this. The series sets a certain tone right from the get go with this. Rental GFs are just fakers. It doesn’t outright disrespect the profession and make one or the other social critique on it – which would make the series perhaps better if it had – but instead tortures you with an utterly pathetic display of a main character. Because of dumb anime-circumstances that connect both Chizuru’s and Kazuya’s grandmothers they accidentally present themselves as a couple to them, and therefore Chizuru has to play the actual fake-girlfriend for Kazuya the whole rest of the show. It’s a very typical fanfiction like premise and I promise you the fanfic writers did it better.
To come back to Kazuya’s behaviour towards Chizuru for a moment, he does get put into his place after he goes on several rants in front of her by complaining how fake it all is and other incel nonsense, but the series doesn’t commit to this in the long run. Chizuru scolds him a few times at the start of the series, making valid points all over the place, calling him out on his unprofessional and disrespectful behaviour towards her, but she sadly also is just a victim of the narrative and the narrative demands her to become dumb and meek and eventually fall for him for no reason whatsoever.


Rental gf does nothing exceptional in the romcom category whatsoever. It’s not that funny, the MC is not likeable nor does he grow or redeem himself over the course of the series and the rest of the cast is nothing to write home about either. Kazuya stays a piece of shit and the show lets you know it. He runs around in circles in his inner monologues how he is not deserving of a girl like Chizuru (he isn’t) but it’s so clearly presented as sympathy fishing it actively offended me.

Rent a gf is one of the few shows where sex is an active motivator and characters are “shown” to participate in sexual activities, only in Kazuya’s fantasies though, but it is present. In other series characters doing or wanting to do the deed is generally something I consider a positive, in this show however it feels more like a torture method. Kazuya gets left by his gf at the start of the series and after a while he starts fantasizing on how she might be fucking other dudes by now because he didn’t get to fuck her yet, this makes him jack-off. Yes, we kind of see this dude jacking off. And even when we don’t, most of the time when we get introspective shots into his apartment, tissues just lie around all over the place. The show’s direction actively point your eyes towards this as well. It keeps focusing shots on used tissues and I’ve never felt so grossed out in my damn life. It’s not subtle at all. It’s not even implications. It’s just what happens.

And even though the show is not categorized as an ecchi series, some of the shot compositions reminds me of such. Sometimes shots are flat out pointed towards breasts or ass (typically ass) Legs too. It’s almost always distracting. But I understand that it is shot this way to really show off how hot the girls are which is… depending on the taste of the sight of the beholder.


Chizuru is by far the only decent character in this show. She declines in character writing later too but she is the most bearable and by far the prettiest character. Which the show will remind you of constantly. The girls in this are specifically glossed up at all times. I have to give it to the production team, while the show lacks in various areas, the character art at least in close ups is pretty gorgeous especially the eyes. There was some effort put in there and the character artstyle in general is pretty cute. The coloring is kind of eye-candy as well but there is a certain problem.


The show is ugly. Which sounds contradictory from what I just said but I will explain. It is true that the character designs and art especially the fashion sense (except Kazuya which you might expect) is pretty sleek, well drawn and nice looking but the moment the shots shift away from close ups to more far distance shots it becomes an offense to art. The backgrounds especially have to be among the worst I’ve ever seen in my life. The outlines are so shaky it feels like they commissioned someone with Parkinson's to draw them. The art itself isn’t good. They aren’t well drawn. They don’t fit well with the characters. When there is a wide shot, the characters pop out like paper cut-outs. If your production is actually good, this wouldn’t happen.

But not just that, the moment the characters are in a wide shot their heights and proportions are just fucked. I hardly ever notice height differences feeling off putting, but this show managed to make me notice. The character art also becomes the exact opposite of sleek, well drawn and nice looking. It’s clear to me that the production struggled with these rather taxing and demanding character designs even though the last episode was among the best looking ones, which only other one would really just be episode one. It’s not good.


The OST is also to put it bluntly: Fucking garbage. Except one track which I like to call “the sexy saxophone” one, the OST is more geared towards a video game like sounding one, which is confusing because nothing in this show warrants this type. The tracks are always distracting and loud, overplay scenes and are unintentionally hilarious. A character will scream at another one and a Tetris type beat will start invading your eardrums. How am I supposed to take this seriously? The answer is I don’t.


Rental gf is just full of problematic writing. Mami turns out to be a femcel and talks shit on her private account on twitter behind Kazuya’s back while leading him on here and there for her own self-satisfaction, semi-implying a typical incel “all women are out to betray you” type relationship which kind of gets shafted less than halfway through the show. Which is funny because it is honestly the only interesting subplot this series has to offer.
Chizuru gets roped and black-mailed into a fake relationship-turned professional relationship against her will, gets stalked by the main character for an entire day, even his grandmother tells another rental girlfriend that she has fallen in love with Chizuru. Literally. Not to mention the various times of accidental sexual harassment, like how he flashed a boner because he hid with Chizuru under a blanket in episode 1.

The other later introduced rental girlfriend, Ruka, who is underage by the way, meets Kazuya by all typical-anime-bullshit running into him and flashing her panties. This however makes her heart rate go up and therefore decides that she is now in love with him.
There is a whole backstory montage rushed in an ED explaining how she has a heart condition and it has to be among the dumbest backstories I have seen in all of time.

Besides that, even though Ruka shows clear romantic and sexual interest in Kazuya he continues to ignore her because of his now crush on Chizuru. He does this by gaslighting Ruka consistently, even telling his family that she is a pathological liar (pretty hard accusation) and they just believe him. Even though Kazuya is so pathetic and everybody knows it he gets away with so much crap it would make anyone with common sense rage.


This all wouldn’t be such an issue if there was actual character development of Kazuya. But there just isn’t. If anything, he gets worse over time since he just gets enabled left to right by basically everyone. Chizuru even humors the thought of him just being a sadboy, misunderstood “nice guy” by the end of this season. Even though you know… disrespected her profession, stalked her, sexually harassed her and all that. It hurts to watch.

There is so much crap in this, ranging from a bad production to toxic relationships. It is not a good time. All this show has to say is that no matter how big of a piece of shit you are, if your ideologies and personality are somewhere in the “nice” area, you pass.
Spare yourself.



Overview

Story: 1/10 – Absolutely terrible
Art & Animation: 4/10 – Ranging from good eye-candy to ugliness incarnate
Sound: 5/10 – The OST is terrible, the voice acting is really good, the general sounddesign is competent to say the least
Character: 2/10 – Awful
Enjoyment: 1/10 – I do not enjoy a single minute of this show
Overall: 2.0 (range: 1.5 -2.5, light 2)

This review will be about s3 ultimately but is heavily based on the experience of the series as a whole.

As we at long last have reached the apotheosis of Oregairu’s, I’ve to look back at all developments and regretfully admit that I’ve never understood Oregairu and its intentions with its commentary essentially. Oregairu has touched a lot of people’s hearts, and at some point, in time I, too, was engaged in Hachiman’s social loneliness endeavours – yet I stand here confused and appalled by how shallow everything turned out to be.

This season was easily an ultimate snorefest if I’ve ever saw one. Outside the ... occasional decent character interaction - which are sparse to find – the entire season focuses on one central task and the resulting conflicts that come with this task. Summarized as the following: The main 3’s relationships as a group, Yukino’s mother problem and Hachiman choosing his waifu. The first two leave room for exploration, yet in a span of 12 episodes the results are deficient.
This task at hand being a prom. Yes, you’ve heard me right. This entire season is focused on planning a simple western-themed prom which is a completely different event organized separately from the other school events. This event is commissioned by Iroha as it is her wish to do a prom and for it to be this year.

Why is this so hard? Because Yukino’s mother, the menace, the villain, the antagonist so to speak – at least as far as this series is concerned – is part of a committee that generally oversees these types of events and because of reasons do not approve this prom to be held. Why? The series never really goes in depth or any details really, on what the exact reasons are for the disapproval and we do get is really vague and odd. One such wishy washy reason is “they didn’t like the images on social media”, but the solution to that is to simply not allow the students to upload any photos to social media then? Right? Sounds easy to me. But no, that is not enough. The committee wants it to be cancelled and done for. Because they are depressed boomers or something.


Henceforth this whole conflict lasts us 10+ episodes where the rest of our time is spent with the characters roaming together the – very easily forgotten and mostly irrelevant – side cast to help with the task and Yui and Hachiman hanging out.

Speaking of Yui, I don’t understand her either. Not her infatuation with Hachiman and Yukino, nor why she is so focused on her “I am a greedy person who wants everything” shtick as if it’s a morally detestable wish or why everyone treats the act of Hachiman choosing his waifu as some act that will ruin the entire dynamic. By the end of the show they make it such a big deal for Yui to arrive to the clubroom yet when they actually meet it is just… fine. Obviously! Because there was never a reason to be concerned about all that to begin with! Yui for the most part in this season runs around in emotional inner monologues that are really corny and cries fat hot tears. And that’s really all she does. She is emotional support and consults Hachiman in his “Yukino won’t speak to me because she wants to do everything on her own now” problem but that’s all there is. Besides that, you would be a fool to think there was ever a chance for Yui to begin with. This whole rollercoaster was a hoax. Simply looking at the first volume cover spells out the answer to the “Who will he choose” question for you, like almost every LN. Don’t let anyone convince you Oregairu is not part of the mold. Yui has always been a third wheel in the romance aspect and as much as the series tries to persuade me that this is not the case, it hardly does a good job in actually executing so.

In regards to Yukino’s mother, the series has been teasing Yukino’s conflict with her for a long while, but it essentially only ever resulted in teasing. This season is allegedly the first time she actually is forced to face her and it ended up being an utter disappointment. I honestly expected a more intense arc about how her family has been imposing very strong authoritarian values about leadership onto her as she is a rich girl coming from an – implied – influential family of some sort, and how that has psychologically ruined her in ways that hinders her to interact with other people. The series tries to imply all these things, and with trying to imply I mean it is vigorously stated - and narrated - by almost every character, that Yukino is socially inept, just like Hachiman, but of a different kind.
Since I have already mentioned it in passing, it is not just that, but literally every character has something to say about the love/friendship triangle. It honestly seems like every single person in this school is highly concerned with the dynamic of these three teenagers. It is repeated ad nauseum and makes up 70% of the runtime. Nobody ever states their relationships and relations to other people as often or even at all as many times as Oregairu characters do it. It is bizarre.


Anyways, what really makes me scratch my head is the presentation of Yukino’s mother and older sister. The older sister especially just seems to appear to spout some pretentious dialogue, pseudo-psychoanalyse the main cast and then leaves with a smug smirk being happy in her accomplishment in making the characters uncomfortable. It’s very lame and obnoxious. She is irritated by her upbringing of having to try hard for her accomplishments and I guess feels insulted by Yukino getting help and support by friends. Boohoo. So sad.

The mother is presented as an ultra conservatist. She has her hair up in a traditional Japanese hair bun, she arrives anywhere she goes in a kimono, she is forcefully friendly and threatening. But that’s it. That’s all to her character. She never insults the characters; she isn’t really that rude. The final – and only, really - confrontation Yukino has with her mom this season is where she tells her that she seeks to continue her father’s business (we don’t even know what these people’s work is) and the mom just… accepts it. It makes the big sis mad but the whole scene was reasonably calm. What are the consequences here? Is Yukino’s mom simply strict? Is this really what tortures Yukino so much? I don’t understand.

And of course, I still don’t understand whatever horrifying implications it would bring to rely on your friends and ask them for help occasionally, but this series makes it a really big deal that helping your friends is somehow awful. I can understand that letting your friends handle all your real-life problems is bad, especially if these real-life problems are rooted in abuse, but it is hardly presented in a mature, understandable way. Hell, we don’t even know if there is any abuse here. The only way I can tell that this hurts Yukino in any way is by the show telling me constantly, as well as Yukino acting like a kicked dog anytime Hachiman takes initiative in any way. There seems to be zero psychological consequences otherwise. So basically, inconsequential. As are most conflicts and headaches in this show.

The dialogue is – unironically – pretentious and on the nose. Episodes will end with puffed-up monologues leading to title cards so pompously worded it almost never not made me erupt in hysterical laughter.

The characters range from archetypical to bland background characters - basically anyone except the main 3. The series wants to act like the side characters actually matter to the plot and anything that happens in it, but no matter how many key visuals with 15 characters on it you throw at me I am aware of the truth, and the truth is they are accessories at best.
Oregairu was always very ‘anime’. The characters are very typically ‘anime’ and the drama is predictably ‘anime-ish’. A little over the top drama has never hurt a good man but it will become repetitive and exhausting if the drama comes from presumptions and alienating thought processes by the characters. Season 2 already pushed the limits of my suspension of disbelief and this season has put the final nail in the coffin. Oregairu has to have the roughest mono- and dialogues in any anime I’ve seen. It edges on poetic parody.

Nobody talks like this, especially not teenagers. All in all, I can only describe watching Oregairu as an alienating experience. Nobody communicates in human ways, nobody words things in human ways, nobody is even socially awkward in ways that are believable. Characters have weird, up-their-arse life philosophies about the world and feel morally just or superior in comparison to other characters because of shallow non-explored reasons, because this is only highschool and not an epic thriller like ‘Monster’. Essentially it results to barely any commentary in regards to anything. Conflicts are completely inconsequential to anyone psychologically and do not impact their life significantly whatsoever. It is true that eventually Hachiman becomes a more likeable person, but I also think Hachiman was occasionally right in calling out people on their bullshit.

And then there is the show’s production too. Hand on asscheeks: It looks like shit. This anime has the worst lighting I’ve seen in my goddamn life. Especially modern productions. The series manages to completely overlight scenes and any light emits light from a 3k Watt source apparently. Imagine opening your phone in the middle of the night, now imagine that feeling but it’s the middle of the day from several different spots around you. That’s what it looks like.

The backgrounds are generic rubbish: Badly drawn, pseudo-realistic, plasticy, generic buildings inseparable from any other, use of CG chairs, and such a heavy blur over the entire thing, it feels like you forgot to clean your glasses. Everything is orange. Am I wearing glasses with an orange filter or is the show like that? I can guarantee you it’s just the show. This Oregairu season is simply hideous. The only saving grace is that the character art isn’t off model for most of the characters and general lack of animation errors but dear god is it ugly. So damn ugly.

The female characters have a constant blush effect on their cheeks and below their eyes (you know the rosy spot), glossy lips and shiny eyes. The show is just “shiny” now, but not in good way. You can tell they are trying to gloss up the girls so you just think “They are so pretty OwO” the whole time. This overpolish actually diverts your attention away from the serious intentions, and when compared to every male character just looks jarring.

Music and voice performances are all generic, forgettable, nothing to say about these. One track sounds like it is straight from animal crossing. Another from Clannad.
One tiny thing I also wanted to mention is the teacher. She is Hachiman’s mentor character and has a few scenes with him in this season as well and I consider her role in the story kinda odd and problematic? In season one she hits him over the head a few times, and there are semi-romantic implications between them. In the last episode they dance together and she – deadass – falls on-top of him. They don’t touch but I very deeply clenched my teeth together at that scene. She seems to be there to up the harem factor more so than anything.

And with that I am at the end of my review. I do not like Oregairu. I do not like this season especially. In fact, I would even say I hated it. Whatever anyone says, do not be fooled by anyone that Oregairu actually does social commentary, love triangles or highschool drama well. If you want a cynical MC watch Hyouka. If you want a great RomCom watch KareKano or Love is War. If you want better romance, especially watch KareKano. If you want a good highschool show all these 3 are miles ahead of this one. Or you know, watch this whole 7 year long built up disaster and judge for yourself.

Overview


Story: 2/10 – Boring, pretentious, self-important. Inconsequential conflicts.
Art & Animation: 3/10 – Ugly as fuck
Sound: 5/10 – Mediocre
Character: 3/10 – Nothing humane.
Enjoyment: 2/10 – I absolutely hated it.
RomCom: 1/10 – It speaks for itself
Overall: 3.0 (range: 2.5 – 4.0)

For some reason 22/7 has little to no negative reviews even with this relatively low MAL score so I thought I would take it upon myself to justify why it is the way it is.

For one, 22/7 has a ridiculous premise. I will spoil it right here, so here we go: The reason why all 8 girls were summoned to become an idol group was because a giant Wall (yes, WALL) that an entire secret facility was build around on spit out a golden plate that said so.
I want to inform anyone that might not know this, but 22/7 is a real idol group. ... Which decided to make a promo anime. With a magic fantasy wall that spit out the absolute order that these girls are the key to form the ideal idol group. If this isn’t a promo that shows you are a little too full of yourself, I don’t know what is.

The wall’s orders are all absolute, truthful and all just work successfully every time. Meaning this series has no stakes. No stakes they might fail or any other emotional stakes because the series doesn’t bother to invest into any other element of a story.

The entire show is the characters doing some idol shit, implying they are struggling, instead grotesquely succeeding because the WALL is just the baddest boss ever and giving every single member an artificially emotional and dramatic backstory for the viewers to feel for them. Because this is how we write anime.

I don’t actually know if every member of this idol group has these backstories in real life, but I honestly doubt it by how anime and predictable they were.


Aspects I liked about the show were the strong production values. Having Yukiko Horiguchi as character designer on your team as well as a director or episode directors that bump out several great layouts is in your favor. Though since this is not Kyoto Animation, most of the effort put into the animation falls relatively flat because this studio isn’t all too well equipped to draw the taxing character designs of Yukiko as well as the script not being tight enough to actually justify any of the creative decisions. I wouldn’t say much is off-model but some scenes look more cleaner and better polished up than others. All the characters are but only pretty character designs of specific-archetype-number X with fake emotional backstories to back them up, that are so artificially crafted most people couldn’t fall for it if they tried. Though the reviews and almost 7.0 average score are telling me that it worked for some folks for sure.
I would be lying in denying that I didn’t enjoy the emotional core of episode 7, which not only striked me with its incredible storyboard layouts and fairly good plot, but I cannot say so for everything else in the show. All backstories, even the one I somewhat enjoyed, were just raw templates ripped out of the book “How to create a mediocre anime” and make no actual sense in context of the interal logic of the series. I will tell you a secret: Giving every character in your show a backstory isn’t going to make them get fleshed out or feel more authentic, especially when all the backstories are badly written and dishonest in their emotional core. The show is of one cour length, you could’ve made a competent idol anime out of what talent they already had on board by having a competent script writer just write idols be idols and fleshing them out with having to handle the struggles of the work and in their interactions with their group, but all of these aspects fall short because half of every episode has to be backstory time.

And if that wasn’t the worst aspect: I don’t think some members can sing. Some sound completely tone-deaf and to that are terrible voice actors, some are a little more authentic. Overall making the idol group voice act their “character” was not a smart idea, as they mostly sound bad. Especially the performances are underwhelming. The melodies are generic and forgettable and the lyrics are self-important and pretentious. Especially the debute song is a pack off ass. Singing about “Life is so hard” – urgh, just makes me sick.


So overall what makes 22/7 not great is the badly written script, artificial and bland characters but having a generally great production even if the team cannot handle it like a KyoAni would. But what made it really bad was the finale. The finale just flat out made the anime say to the viewers that they don’t care in explaining the Wall at all. The last episode was actually hilarious, I recommend watching that one at least.

This anime didn’t give a fuck. For sure some of the production team did, because I consider it a good production, but the actual product is an empty husk and creatively bankrupt piece of “art” that serves exactly one point – promo for an idol group.
They didn’t care to write an authentic, genuine and emotional script, they just wrote some “anime bullshit” premise and then threw in emotional backstories to sway any uneducated viewer easily.
Also let the characters grow to love being an idol seemingly off-screen and make them all emotionally invested in the job right before the last order of the wall is delivered towards the end of the show, then let the plot commence and leave the show end with a “bang” – all to promote an idol group. One of the harshest industries there are. And they glorify this work in this anime as well.

22/7 sucked and was among the most banal and shameless promos I have seen, while wasting some great animation talent in the same process. Truly shameful.



Overview


Story: 1/10 – Absolutely terrible
Art & Animation: 7/10 – Really good with great layouts. Not on a KyoAni level, though it felt like they tried with having Yukiko on the team
Sound: 4/10 – Terrible voice acting and pretentious and artificially emotional lyrics, falls in theme with the show. It did have a decent OST and sounddesign though.
Character: 2/10 – Nothing humane.
Enjoyment: 6/10 – I did have a good time even if some of it was laughing by how dumb it was
Idol: 3/10 – It speaks for itself
Overall: 4.0 (range: 3.5-4.5, strong 3 to light 4)

Ishuzoku Reviewers is an amazing ecchi anime with a top tier seiyuu cast, excellent production and extremely tasteful ecchi-series. You might think “What the hell is tasteful about an ecchi / borderline hentai about banging monster girl prostitutes?”
How is nothing you said tasteful?
Generally being an anime fan, you eventually have seen ecchi harem series or maybe it even was your get-into when you started anime. Over the years or even always, most people fall out of love for this genre and even if they watch it they consider it a funny time passer or entertaining trash.

I for one, have started to really appreciate ... the ecchi genre again in the recent years. At least ones that are worth their damn money and don’t sexually harass the females in the most back handed ways to give the MC, the author, but definitely not the viewer, some kind of sexual gratification.

But thankfully the monster girl genre is here to save us all. I want to add that I am a rather big fan of monster girls and I think monster girl ecchi series will literally save this ecchi harem genre that has been doomed since half of the last decade now as not a single above 2 / 10 ecchi show has come out that isn’t a sequel to an already beloved franchise.

Ishuzoku Reviewers is in bad luck for coming out at a time where these kinds of series are kinda frowned upon and looked down at sight, but because it also is one of the best in its genre and in my opinion – the best ecchi series ever made – it also is in favor for people like me, who like this kind of stuff as as long as it was created with love and care.

The motto of Ishuzoku is “If you like pervy things you are one of us”, as proclaimed in the Opening. And yes Ishuzoku is damn horny. If you want a lowkey ecchi, this ain’t it.
Every character in Ishuzoku – well most of them – get to fuck. And everyone enjoys it. The girls enjoy the sex, the boys enjoy it, the hermaphrodite angel enjoys it, even the seiyuu sound like they enjoy this job– Ishuzoku is enjoyment on all fronts.

You can feel the animators are having fun too, as every aspect of this anime production is top tier.
The girls all look thick and shiny and every fold possible on an attractive body is animated with so much care my heart blooms. It’s better produced than the best animated hentai or ecchi series I’ve seen for sure or even most anime this season.
I really enjoy the a little thicker than usual outlines and round-ish but very well designed character designs of characters all genders.
The OST is also hitting with more medieval kind of tracks but also more classy melodies you normally hear in more serious shows.

Ishuzoku Reviewers is about 2 guys and an angel fucking through any kind of brothel this masterclass of an author could think of, and not a single monster girl or concept is missing.

Slime brothel, literally on fire salamander girl buffet, gender switch brothel, a species where all their sexy parts are emitted by light (parody on the typical ecchi censorship I assume) and many many more that I could’ve never imagined myself.

The series gets infinitely creative with the brothels and species and subtly fleshes out details of the species and other worldbuilding in one smooth scoop.

I am not exaggerating in stating that this is the ultimate and most perfect ecchi series. Everybody gets to have fun; its educational, genuine and creative, looks the part, is charming and the characters are all super likable. And most importantly: They actually fuck!
If you are not a spoilsport or shy or a highbrow that thinks this “trash” is not high art enough for them – though it is high art for sure – I cannot recommend this series enough. Obviously don’t watch it if you hate porn and ecchi.
But it’s far away from trashy. It’s an erotic masterpiece.



Overview

Story: 9/10 – A complete package of fun and clever worldbuilding and ton of creativity for a fantasy world
Art & Animation: 9/10 – Stylistic, refreshing, very animated and looks just gorgeous
Sound: 9/10 – Enthralling soundtrack and amazing sound effects and voice acting
Character: 8/10 – Fair character motivations and solid characterizations
Enjoyment: 10/10 – Rewarding uncensored and weekly watch
Ecchi: 10/10 – The Best
Overall: 9.5 (range: 9.0-9.5)

Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu, or also called BOFURI is a new quirky and colorful entry into the “accidentally OP” MC genre of MMO/isekai or alike anime - and I am genuinely in love with it.

Any educated viewer might slide their eyes over the poster and premise and immediately shudder in horror or smirk in a condescending disgust to have spotted another shlocky, bland and generic MMO “kinda isekai, but not really” trash that the anime industry has served us. Yes, the character designs look like SAO rip-offs, specifically Maple’s main armor looks like the armor set the ... dying girl - Konno Yuuki - wears in Mother’s Rosario, or the Great Shielder, who literally looks like Klein from the same show – but do not be deceived because; Bofuri is actually greatness in disguise.

I do not consider Bofuri high art nor a means to an end time passer to ramp up my completed anime count on my anime list. Many other anime serve these purposes, but in Bofuri I see a fun, quirky show that fills me with joy every time I watch it as it fulfills my MMO gamer heart.

There are certain parameters I rate isekai/MMO shows by. One of these are the setting and level designs, character designs, level or skill system, variance in spells and an assessable power scale, entertainment factor in watching fights unfold; and like any other show – how enjoyable it is to watch its production (It is not very enjoyable to me if it looks like ass).

Bofuri excels in creating an awesome setting design, with pretty great background art with different fantasy vegetation and monster designs for each level and fairly memorable bosses that have a overseeable and logical skill set for their species. The noob town spawns you right next to a multiple-branch waterfall tree and the houses have giant green leaves on top. The forest is riddled with apple bunnies (Japanese like to cut their apples in the form of a bunny) and the multi-branched trees and some other plants have a glowy ball that emits light in the middle.

I was immediately invested in the series as a production seeing this in the first episode, because it showed me that there was put specific thought and care into a show that looks disappointingly generic on first sight. The second level’s city is only made out of grey rocks and the third level is a mechanical steam-punk area. The anime focuses mostly on PvP events, forming alliances with other players and creating a guild later so we get to explore a vast collection of different game areas and building structures no matter if caves, green flatland or snow lands.

The series also explores the deep-dive VRMMORPG technology a little bit in Sally and Maple visiting a magical night-sky-restaurant with drinks and food “from the sky” that change your eye color and food you can really taste in episode 3. The whole scene has a beautiful starstruck night sky as a background and was fairly creative as a concept.


Watching Bofuri is like actually going into an MMO as a first timer, winging your skillset and beating a boss with a friend and exploring the different areas and climates the developers created. Bofuri on the other hand doesn’t infodump you on any system mechanics, at best it explains the effect and purpose of a skill by the player reading out the skill for you, but otherwise you are on your own figuring out this world with the characters.

The ways the players, mainly Maple, gain skills is very interesting and mostly funny. In the first few episodes Maple has to fight a poisonous Hydra and ends up eating it, gaining summoning rights for the Hydra, becoming invincible to poison and to that – the scene was hilarious. Who even has the idea to just eat the boss? I’ve seen this mechanic used in MMO isekai manga before but none of the characters who started to eat their enemies were still of the human race, so it was ridiculous and fun to watch a small, teenage-anime girl with a high-pitched voice starting to bite away at a giant not-CG 3-headed snake monster.

There is also really good effect work in this show. The 3D-CG elements are well implemented when there are any, and the Hydra is made out of sparkly purple digital effects that looks great animated, and I tell you this show is fairly well animated - and threatening at the same time.
I wish to not have this 3 headed monster targeted into my direction.

The sounddesign of the show is also really decent. Great explosions don’t bust out your bass like recent Fate incarnations do, no one’s microphone is broken (I am looking at you, Carole & Tuesday) or voice is annoying and the soundtrack has some banger tracks in it too. I really liked when they played the song “Good Night” at every SOL-like activity as it is a very funky but beautiful and chill song. Since I binged a few episodes, it felt like the track was overstaying its welcome, but it is not the only track in the OST and the OST otherwise is noticeable and gets its job done.

The voice cast is pretty stacked with Klein-rip-off (his actual name is Kuromu) being voiced by Shirou Emiya’s seiyuu aka Noriaki Sugiyama, the sword-samurai-princess with an honorable personality Kasumi is voiced by the soft voice of the lovely Saori Hayami, the totally a shut-in traps-specialist nerd of one of the opposing guilds is voiced by Akira Ishida, the Nr. 1 player of the entire game and white knight Pein is voiced by Kensho Ono and our quirky and fearless heroine Maple is voiced by Kaede Hondo, which is funny because Maple’s irl name is Kaeda Honjou. There was a certain intent in this casting.

Speaking of skill-sets, the already mentioned mechanic of eating your enemies to gain their skill-set is funny but isn’t overused, because only Maple knows of it. Everyone else as well as Maple gains skills through quests and events. Other players like her best friend Sally, who acts as Maple’s second-hand and veteran helper also takes the role of the second main character in the show, specializes on speed and melee combat; while they also have a constructor and a summoner on their team, as well as a great shielder Kuromu who has a demon armor that grants him a special passive that I will not spoil, but the moment was cool. We occasionally also see other guild players use classes all cross the board, like the pure fire-user Mii, the trap specialist Marx, the healer priestess Misery etc. None of the actual classes names are audibly mentioned, but anyone who has ever played an MMO for a little bit and watches their skillset and character designs will be able to tell. Being able to figure out all these by simply watching the show and experiencing the fights is very enjoyable and rewarding to me. Unlike other anime that will make the main characters audibly speak out the other character’s class and limitations and therefore unnecessarily info-dump you. The show flat out shows you several spells that I’ve never seen in other anime before. One guy was able to split his sword in 10 parts and telekinetically aim them at his enemy, how cool is that?! Same with the Hydra summon and Maple’s later forms. All of these are probably overpowered but the anime is aware of this.

There is one funny moment where Maple roams a city and encounters a crying mother at her childs bed, the mother starts to notice Maple and a quest begins. Maple is a little overrun and weirded out by the NPC-mother overly dramatic dialogue as her child is dying and watching Maple fairly easily beat this quest while the NPC is so stressed and serious is hilarious, at least to me.

In this game there seems to be no element limitations, so even though Maple gained a dark-element-class spell she can still use other skills from the element light. If there are actual class-elements that one is limited to, it at least isn’t established in the anime by text, but I do not consider this a flaw. It made the anime a little more enjoyable and fun to watch. It is though established that the game is kinda broken and the developers, that are shown in cute avatars from time to time, as well as people in chat rooms or other players occasionally comment on this fact. Especially the developers are voicing their concern about Maple exposing too much of their flawed game design, which makes them slightly despair on-screen. All of this is comedic and shows what kind of series Bofuri wants to be. Definitely not a life-or-death game MMO or something that takes itself all too seriously.

Character designs can look stupid (or unoriginal like prior mentioned designs) like the black-green and white-pink combo of Yui and Mai - but while actually watching the show it didn’t bother me much. In more anime-like MMOs the designs some people can go for do look way too bright, colorful, dumb. So, I will give it a point for realism. Otherwise they are all fairly decent and logical character designs even if generic - and not overly sexual. I don’t feel second-handily sexually harassed by the characters. My favorites have to be Mii, Kuromu with the demon armor and Maple though.

From rating off all my parameters, Bofuri checks off all the boxes. It has an interesting and non-generic setting and level designs, a variance of spells, skillsets and classes and is a fun watch the whole way through.
The only thing “lacking” in this regard is the lack of a coherent power-scale. But since the point of the show is to show a newbie MMO player expose shitty game design in overpowering most veteran players in absurd ways by gaining skills in back-handed ways, I wouldn’t say the show does a bad job in making the other players and guilds look strong or great at the game - they are still noticeable strong and knowledgeable of the game mechanics. The big, strong guilds are still up way higher than Maple’s on the board. I would even say Maple isn’t even as strong as Rimuru from the Slime isekai.
I was always invested in any fight Bofuri had to offer, no matter if it was mobs, bosses or the PvP events. I personally am not big on PvP MMOs myself, but I enjoyed myself watching it nonetheless.

The animation, art and direction of Bofuri is mostly solid with some occasionally great action cuts here and there. The prior mentioned effects work is not only good with the Hydra, it applies to any other magic as well. The only bad thing about it really would be the subpar character art that meanders my enjoyment by just a little bit and that the direction isn’t all to inspired but it does have a few great compositioned shots. If the production had been a tad stronger and the characters a little less simple, I would’ve considered to bump up my score to a strong 7, maybe an 8, even.


With Bofuri I had a great time. It put a smile on my face and with season 2 already announced, I can see it eventually being an 8 in the future.
The only points I will dock it are for the fact that while the characters are enjoyable, the only ones with a one-dimensional personality are Sally and Maple, everyone else has what their skillset and archetype has to offer.


Bofuri isn’t a deep show. The characters just play this game and there is nothing else. There are no real-life problems, they hardly even talk with anyone in real life. The conflicts are reduced to only PvP battles and have no hard feelings involved. Everyone is friendly with each other. That might be a flaw to some people, for me it’s imply what the show is and exactly what I want from it.


Bofuri is simple in what it does, but it does it really damn well. It’s a comfy, considerably well made MMO show with an OP MC and I love the heck out of it.

If you watch isekai or MMO anime for the themes, this is not something for you. If you want some fun time and cool action gameplay, and can get behind the OP gimmick, you may be satisfied with Bofuri.



Overview

Story: 5/10 – Average but serves its purpose.
Art & Animation: 6/10 – Good animation, decent action cuts but subpar character art and mixed character designs.
Sound: 8/10 – Good tracks. Good Sounddesign.
Character: 5/10 – Nothing to write home about, but enjoyable.
Enjoyment: 7/10 – Rise and grind.
MMO: 7/10 – Broken but I love it.
Overall: 7.0 (range: 6.5-7.0, strong 6 to light 7)

This review will contain some major spoilers about the plot.

Oh, Toradora. You’ve been with me since I joined the anime community. Hailed as one of the few good RomComs, coming out in the time of the Golden Age of Anime. The OP – iconic. The characters – likeable and well written. The story – simple but straightforward. Taiga – one of the best tsundere there are.

I’ve watched Toradora once many years ago, and thought I would refresh my memory and re-explore if this RomCom is really one of the best - or not.

I can say, my results are meandering.

Toradora starts out with a ... romantic self-narration by Taiga and Ryuji. This self-narration also is repeated by the same characters at the end of the show. A little nice bow around the whole thing, one might say. For me personally, it’s a lazy device to make the viewer think he’s actually watching something intensely self-aware and romantic from the get go, which it really isn’t all too much. I would even say Toradora is among the least romantic RomComs I’ve seen, but I digress.
Then commence the plot. The whole introduction segment of the characters plays out. Meet our hero, Ryuji who has a bad glare and is mistaken as a delinquent, but he is a simple good boy living with his little airheaded, adorable, single mother who raised him since his father died. Meet our heroine, Taiga, a rich girl that now lives in a way larger house right next to Ryuji’s – way more rundown apartment building – has self-confidence issues due to her tiny size, is rude and violent. She is rumored at the school as the palm-top Tiger (implying she is so tiny she fits into the palm of your hand). The other two main characters that get introduced are Kitamura who is the student council vice-president, all around very friendly-to-everyone, outgoing sweetheart with the blandest personality on earth and best friend of Ryuji; and Kushieda the sporty genki girl, also very outgoing, eccentric, very annoying and Taiga’s best friend.
You can tell by my description that I do not like the last two very much. Either way the twist of the story is that Ryuji and Taiga both share the misfortune of being seen as rude delinquents by their peers, yet in love with each other’s very lovely and “nice” best friends, decide to form an alliance and help each other confess their love to said best friends.

This very simply premise is not the problem of the show. It’s a basic, cute setup for a – oh not so typical - fun RomCom. But already at the very start of the show, Taiga and Ryuji, barely knowing each other - but hitting it off instantly – have already so much chemistry with each other that everyone in the class already thinks they are dating. Soon after Taiga confesses to nice-guy who not only kinda doesn’t buy it but diverts from her confession by talking about how she found such a good friend with Ryuji. This is not untrue, but a really shit move from someone when you were just confessed to. Right after that scene happened, Ryuji says no matter what happens he will stand right next to Taiga as her equal, as Tiger and Dragon (Ryu means dragon in Japanese) have always been equal friends. This completes the initial introduction arc and also explains the title of the show (Tora means Tiger, dora is for duragon I assume).

From that point we spiral down the SOL school life hell. The show starts to drag instantly. Kitamura already gave a bad impression and then the show starts to drag with mostly boring, sometimes entertaining shenanigans of the duo helping each other trying to get closer to their beloved. A little later Ami is introduced, who is a model who transferred schools and had to stop working for a while because of circumstances that get very easily resolved in the show just in like 2 episodes. That arc was okay. Ami on the other hand is a very high-pitched voiced character that never actually develops as a person, is self-righteous, preachy, kinda pretentious but overall I do not dislike her. At points in the show she is more of a plot device than a character to move the plot in a direction or the other, and while I don’t enjoy the choice of voice for this character at all (I find her almost unbearable to listen to) she is not an offensive character of the show.

Some minor spoilers about the plot start here now.

Every few episodes of shenanigans and bonding time between Taiga and Ryuji, we get mini-character-arcs that are all very shortly resolved, fairly forced and melodramatic.
One arc Taiga’s father comes back and Ryuji immediately jumps at the occasion for Taiga to bond back to her father, as he lost his early, completely ignoring all warning signs of that guy being a complete hack. This arc besides being short, rather inconsequential and Ryuji being a self-righteous dick, was weird for me because the moment Kushieda finds out Taiga’s father is back, she yells at Ryuji for not “seeing in the fathers eyes what a dick he is” but then it is revealed that she knew because the exact same thing happened a year before… Okay? You could have told him literally just that. Taiga is way too obedient with getting along with the father because Ryuji told her so, and Kushieda hides information. The arc ends with the father disappointing his daughter, Ryuji somewhat realizing he was in the wrong and us seeing the father never again.

One arc Kitamura goes “insane” because he is actually in love with the student council president who wants to fly to America for academic reasons. The only clue we get for Kitamura being in love with her to begin with is his slight blush at her in the opening and her having motivated him to keep going in the past, told by him to us during this arc. The arc ends with a weird all gone wrong confession and Taiga beating up the student council president in the classroom (a rather iconic scene btw) because she is being selfish and mean. I actually applaud Taiga in this regard, because nobody seemed to care about Kitamura’s feeling being hurt this way, meaning being completely ignored and avoided, besides her. The classroom scene is one of the many weird-kinda-ugly hair sakuga scenes in the show that are very over-animated and overdramatic. The arc concludes with the student council president having an emotional outburst after the fight in the classroom that she feels the same but didn’t want to confess because Kitamura would follow her wherever she goes. This scene was particularly weird for me as we didn’t know nor was it ever really shown, the relationship between these two, so all I can feel for these characters supposedly loving each other is that the narrative told me that this is the case and this is something the character would do. These two aren’t very explored characters so I feel nothing for their circumstances.

Most minor spoilers finished here.

Toradora has the emotional outburst syndrome. Characters will hang around, have fun with each other and then eventually some event happens that makes one or more characters build up their emotional conflict to then outburst it at the climax of the arc and explain to the audience and other characters what the deal was. This happens like this every time. It makes the narrative very forced and artificial. Nothing really happens inside the existing characters circle, it is always something coming from the outside.

This symptom reaches its final and worst height in the last stretch of the show that I will get to shortly. Before though I want to note that the only character I truly enjoyed in this show was Taiga Aisaka. She is a truly adorable and admirable character who goes through a significant change of character and personality throughout the show. Her self-analytical dialogue is not bothersome as her family issues are real and hurtful and she is aware of her situation but doesn’t know how to escape from it. Her frustrations are real. And yes, most of her problems come from outside influences, her family currently not living with her, but it’s something build up to from the very start of the show and only escalates as time passes and Taiga grows from it – unlike the rest of the cast it seems.

The last stretch of the show I can only describe as messy and melodramatic. I will describe the whole thing, so if you haven’t seen the show stop especially now unless you want to be spoiled completely.

The final conflict in the show is from something that happened at the school ski trip:, Taiga got lost searching a hair ornament that Ryuji lost during the day, got hurt and was stuck in a snowstorm. So Ryuji and the gang search her again and Ryuji takes her up on her back, in her delirium Taiga accidentally confesses her love to Ryuji by mistaking him as Kitamura in his outfit. Ryuji tells Kitamura to act like it was him him who saved Taiga, not Ryuji, to hide this event. Later at valentine’s when Taiga gives out her self-made chocolates to her friends, she mentions the ski trip incident revealing that she does not know that it was Ryuji carrying her in front of Kushieda, who was not told the cover up story. Aware of Taiga’s feelings she furiously steps up to Ryuji calling him a liar with the expression on her face like he just murdered her entire family. I want to add Ryuji seems weirdly unaffected by this whole display, like he didn’t just ignore Taigas feelings and is hiding it and all. Then she violently grabs Taiga at her wrist and screams at her to reveal what she mumbled at that night unconsciously that she doesn’t want to say it now. I always found Kushieda very self-righteous, preachy, pretentious and dishonest but this was the icing on the cake. Some flashback for the uninformed, Kushieda at the night of the Christmas eve party, while passing Taiga’s house, sees Taiga hysterically running out of her house screaming at the top of her lungs for Ryuji not to leave her. Kushieda, also liking Ryuji, then realizes Taiga needs him more than her and decides to not hear Ryuji’s confession at the Christmas eve party and leaves right after meeting him, rejecting him coldly with few words. So when Kushieda finds out Ryuji ignores Taigas feelings and Taiga refusing to confess for real, she gets furious. This entire scene is just awful to watch. I cringed through the earth when I saw it. Kushieda screams at Taiga, who screams loudly to let her go, she shakes her around, pushes her against the wall, yelling “I am your best friend” as if Taiga was an amnesia patient. Then Taiga manages to escape. The entire thing is a display of overly dramatic, intense voice acting, hair-sakuga, bad dialogue, cringy framing and bad character actions. It was awful.

Then the story progresses into a downward spiral of 3 endings. Suddenly Ryuji’s mom appears and disagrees with his career choice of not wanting to go to college and instead working and supporting her, which is something she couldn’t do as she raised him. Out of character Ryuji then screams at her for not having become a respectable person who went to college and stop wanting him to have that future. What the hell? The guy who always flashbacks to his mom telling him everything will be okay, talks smack directly to her face? I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Simultaneously, Taiga’s mom also appears, who apparently has an entirely new family with a new child and wants to take Taiga with her. Both disagree and run away. Then they come to the conclusion that they should elope, while not really but somewhat confessing to each other. Remember at this point Ryuji already knows that Taiga has feelings for him but hasn’t really confessed himself. This I consider to be ending one.

They escape to Ryuji’s grandparents, then bait Ryuji's mother to come, where then a supposedly heartfelt scene unfolds in which the grandparents accept the mother back whom they haven’t seen in 10 years, and guaranteeing she raised Ryuji properly. Ryuji doesn’t apologize to his mother about his bad behavior.

Later that night Ryuji and Taiga act out a marriage kiss, admittedly one of the best anime kisses animated. They agree that they should get married on the terms that both sides parents agree with it. The next day when they both return home, Taiga listens to her voice mails and seemingly comes to the conclusion that she should grow into a respectable person before meeting Ryuji again to marry him. She then leaves school completely. This is ending two. It is very abrupt and makes no sense in honesty.

Time skip, graduation. Taiga appears at school again, reunites with Ryuji. The self-narration mentioned at the start of the review commences and the show ends with Ryuji finally confessing to Taiga for real. This is ending 3, and then show ends.

End of the most major spoilers.

Before giving my epilogue I want to mention that Kushieda and Ami didn’t get along much probably because they are fakers wearing masks (Ami mentions wearing masks a few times in the show, which was very eye rolling to me) and Ami gives her character review to Ryuji at the end of the show “concluding” her arc I guess. I found it a forced and annoying subplot, but my review is already long as it is.

Epilogue

At the time of the golden age, as a - at the time - less offensive and banal RomCom, Toradora came out at the best time. With one of the best tsundere in anime and a “conclusion” to the romance (even with a kiss, wow) it became many people’s favorite RomCom and generally considered a good anime, even a great one, with blatantly ignoring most of its forced and annoying writing decisions and mostly bland and pretentious cast. Kushieda is plain awful, Kitamura is milquetoast, Taiga is by far the best but only “good” and Ryuji is dense and the show wants to act he has the heart at the right place, and he does, and I do ship him with Taiga but he has some problems. The whole thing with his glare also was brushed to the side over time. There was also a lot of soundtrack repetition and one track particularly sounded straight out of Clannad, which doesn’t surprise me because that show is also not great.

I did not enjoy watching this show again. Most of it is either annoying drama or boring hanging-out. All the arcs are artificial drama set-ups and resolve shortly. The last stretch of the show is simply described as: painful. I am glad I got some new perspective on it, I guess, but I will definitely never watch it again.

If you think I was too harsh and you’re surprised that I gave such a moderate score, it is because a 5 means mediocre and that is what Toradora is. It did a lot of things inoffensively, had a decent start but fails to succeed at basically everything. I don’t hate it but I don’t like it either.


Overview


Story: 4/10 - Subpar
Art: 7/10 – Good and holds up but not impressive
Sound: 6/10 – Repetitive soundtrack
Character: 5/10 – Taiga is best, rest is moderate to bad
Enjoyment: 4/10 – I didn’t enjoy it
RomCom: 4/10 – Watch KareKano
Overall: 5.0 (range: 4.75-6.0)

Danganronpa 2.5 is an OVA that features Nagito Komaeda as the main character while following him through his dream in the Neo World Program until he wakes up. That is pretty much the summary you need to know.
As a big Danganronpa fan, I was highly interested in the events that happened after Hinata Hajime and the others woke up from the Neo World Program and what happened to the others that were still asleep. I’ve read with all honestly, many fanfictions that had the ‘What happened when they were still sleeping and what did the others do to help them wake up’- topic. And I ... swear, all of them were overall better written and more logical than this OVA, that we even have to accept as cannon.
But with no further adue, I will get to the category ratings that MAL wants me to do.
Story 2/10
I wouldn’t even call this a story. It shouldn’t even be called a script. It is just a half-done script made into an anime. This shouldn’t even be called an anime. It is just moving art. With voices.
It is just a premise that was executed. Poorly to that.
Art 4/10
Danganronpa 3 didn’t have bad art. It actually had decent art, and animated it actually looked pretty cool. I am also used to better work from Lerche. The art doesn’t look bad on its own, but at some points, I was just baffled at how different a character suddenly looked from a time difference of mere seconds. The Danganronpa characters already looked very different from their ingame ego, but here they look especially different. In a bad way.
Sound 5/10
Danganronpa, especially Danganronpa 2 is very well liked for its OST. While listening to this OVA I identified many of the well-known and also well liked OST of the games. But it is distracting. At some point I even thought the background sound was too loud and overplayed the by the way terrible voice acting. If that was on purpose may or may be not the case.
For the voice acting they at least managed to get all the voice actors of the characters of the game. Too bad that the lip sync isn’t in sync with the voice acting most of the time. The voice acting felt also very soulless. It just felt the actors wanted to get done with it. Megumi Ogata can do better, I know this.
Direction 2/10
This is not a category MAL wants to be rated but I have to talk about it. Directing is the choice where to put the camera and how it moves. In this OVA we get the typical mediocre Directing. Characters faces are seen up close 90% of the time, while the camera just swipes to left and right. Sometimes there are still shots. This is all in favor of keeping the budget/work as low as possible. And it feels like it.
Too bad the art looks bad so when there is a still shot it all just looks ‘meh’.
Character 5/10
The characters featured in this OVA are Komaeda, Sonia, Souda, Kuzuryuu and a little bit of Pekoyama. We also get a little comedy act at the beginning of the OVA for OOC Naegi and Maizono. To this OVAs luck, Sonia and Kuzuryuu are my favourite characters from the game, and at least their Komaedas dream persona is not too OOC and actually acceptable. The only characters who act OOC are Komaeda – which is in favor of the ‘plot’ – and Naegi and Maizono. We get to see other characters from the Danganronpa game Another Episode and the Novel Danganronpa Zero too. But these are just very few seconds of screen time, without them doing anything significant. In a still shot.
Enjoyment and Overall Opinion
This OVA is as significant as Danganronpa 3 Despair Arcs Kamukura Izuru. He existed. He did something. But it was overall worthless, boring, terribly executed and nothing we couldn’t have written a better fanfiction of. It is just a little fanservice for the fans. Is this something bad? Not really, but it is baffling to the fans who actually wanted something out of the little bit of story left, that wasn’t ruined by the letdown that was Danganronpa 3 – The anime, yet.
Overall my Enjoyment was a 4/10.
But on a critical level this OVA is worthless and skip able - therefore a 2/10.