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It’s ok. I get it. Oregairu is NOT for everybody. It’s not the type of slice of life that makes you want to turn your brain off, or the type of romantic comedy that probably ends in a ‘happily ever after’. Oregairu is a reserved experience for you, the viewer, to identify yourself with Hikigaya Hachiman, or with whatever pretentious slipslop he says. Everything else is just a bonus. But at which point is that forgiveable?

The story spins around Hikigaya Hachiman - an absurdly nihilistic, depressingly hopeless, and abnormally apathic teenager. Yes, a teenager - that goes to highschool. The entire script doesn’t mind being ... defined as an eternal monologue inside Hikigaya’s head. After all, the point is to make the viewer, one way or another, identify itself with this abnormal protagonist.

Here’s the problem – if you, the viewer, doesn’t have or had a problematic high school like Hikigaya has – without friends, full of rejections, hated by the majority of your colleagues – you’re probably not going to identify yourself with him. Each episode is only going to make you wanna die.

Full of pretentious and absurd monologues – of course at the courtesy of Hikigayas edgy mentality – Oregairu initially locks you into the thought that youth is rubbish, that making friends is useless, and that being sociable is a waste of time. If that isn’t enough, Hikigaya is an incomparably stubborn character, who rejects abandoning these depressing ideals even after being proven wrong so many times throughout the show.

Hikigaya avoids, at all costs, the work of maintaining a relationship. If one day there was a saying – “a relationship is like a plant that needs to be watered”, Hikigaya responds with – “when this plant dies, I’ll just buy another one like it”. This kind of egoistic behaviour does NOT match one of a teenager with a ‘tragic backstory’ that consists of a leg-breaking accident and some romantic dumps here and there.

Even if Hikigaya is part of a helping group, it’s difficult to understand how far he can be described as a good person. The majority of the problems he solves, although efficiently, HAVE to cause the most chaos and conflicts possible. In the words of Hayama Hayato – “Why do you always act this way?” (as a piece of shit?). In fact, this problematic highschool Hikigaya experiences is, at minimum, consequence of Hikigayas own actions.

Yuigahama Yui has her little moments at the spotlight, mainly at Hikigayas side. Maybe these moments could be described as pathetic simulations of romance – but at least there WAS romance. When Hikigaya is put at Yukinoshita Yukinos side, however, it’s like Hikigaya was put in front of a mirror. The passive-aggressive dialogue, although entertaining, show how incredibly frustrating it is when there’s little to no development between these two apathic characters – both that avoid, at all costs, talking about their mutual problems and watering their relationships.

After everything Hikigaya and Yukino went through together, they can’t even accept the idea they’re friends - and that is a damn shame because this relationship is, by far, the highest point of the show.

Oregairu disguises itself as a romantic comedy, but the truth is – in this first season, romance is casually brushed off to give space to many character introductions and standalone clichéd scenarios.

Oregairu is not innovative, but it’s certainly different. It has a few stand-out moments, but nothing incredible. It’s mainly just another rom-com – this time, without romance, and with a strangely particular protagonist. For this reason and the ones described befored, I just can’t identify myself or like Hikigaya – and this removes all the entertaining value this show could ever offer me.

This review contains spoilers.

The first question to be asked is why do SSSS.Gridman decides to limit itself to a completely clichéd formula. It really grinds my gears to see a storyline with potential that decides to not invest in what makes it special. Instead, it invests exactly in what every other show already did much better than SSSS.Gridman ever could.

This show has a personality crisis. SSSS.Gridman has no idea what it wants to be. Is it a mecha show or a college slice of life with a twist? Because it surely can’t be both. Here’s the formula: The first 10 minutes of every episode ... was college slice of life, and then the last 10 minutes were straight mecha action. I’m certain that if it tried to pick only one of the two genres, it would be a much smoother experience. Heck, the premise of Akane constructing its own world was a really cool idea that just didn’t deliver.

SSSS.Gridman shows just how pointless a story can be. There is a massive screentime problem - It starts and ends too slow for a show with only 12 episodes to spare. The first 6 episodes are all criminally short of explanations and the mecha fights are dragged around like we’re in Dragonball. Let’s not forget the production also added a pool episode just for the sake of pointless filler. This lack of proper screentime management led the show to have MANY plot-holes. SSSS.Gridman creates a universe, but can’t explain it in time. It creates characters but have no time to give them backstories. Even Gridman, the center of the series, gets completely shadowed by the lack of proper direction.

Hibiki Yuuta is a bland and unappealing main character with no real objective. He is given a cliché personality with an even more cliché amnesia introduction. He has no backstory, never recovers from his amnesia, and has only ONE role in the entire show – to transform into not himself to fight some evil giant creatures. The story might have been better off without him taking unneeded screentime for himself.

Utsumi and Rikka are simply useless characters that add nothing to the show. They are not involved with Gridman whatsoever, they get absolutely no backstory and no character development at all. Even when the show massively hints at Rikka and Utsumi being important for the storyline, all they get is a few lines of ‘motivational’ dialogue that can’t possibly have changed anything.

Akane is the only solid character as she is given a unique personality and is quite a decent antagonist. She has proper motivations for her actions and is an understandable character from the viewers point (who, being a omnipotent god, wouldn’t make some unwanted people disappear from Earth?). Even though there really isn’t much of her backstory revealed (of when she got to meet Alexis, how did she become a god in the first place, and even the horror that is the last scene shown in the last episode), at least we got what we got and that was okay.

Nazo gets a lot of screentime and some development but without proper background it doesn’t really stand out. The rest of the characters aren’t given any proper screentime to judge or are simply usable plot devices to make the story go forward.

When the story has many flaws and the characters can’t stand up for themselves, the conclusion just can’t work. The climax is never there because there was no build-up in the first place. The storyline starts, and then ends, and you are left hanging like “was that it?”. Why did Akane create the world? Why was she always with Alexis? Who are the supporting characters that transform into Gridman parts? Why does Gridman fight? WHO IS GRIDMAN? SSSS.Gridman makes a very strong case that it does NOT want to address these questions. And it is all a damn shame.

It’s an okay show animation-wise. I am not a fan of the 2D-CGI mix, even more when the last fight scene suddenly wants to go 2D, but the CGI was bearable. There are A LOT of recycled scenes that really kind of bothered me, and it bugs me that the episode with the best animation was the pool episode.

Soundtrack was nothing special.

There is one thing that hurts any viewer more than watching a bad conclusion to a show. And that one thing is waiting months to watch a bad conclusion to a show. What were they thinking?

Fate/Extra Last Encore - Irusterias Tendousetsu is a writing disaster, not even when the topic is the story in itself - the script is also a headless, footless monster.

Shaft has again proven itself to prefer visual scripting rather than anything else. The show looks good. The visuals are well-constructed and the camera angles are nicely presented. Heck, even the animation is better than the prequel. Visual presentation is only ... the wrap of the present though, and when the present is smelly poo, you know something's wrong.

Nero's relationship with Hakuno is super confusing the whole show because Hakuno is a super confusing character. What were they thinking naming him the same as his girly counter-part? Whose idea was it to portray him as the memories of this girl we know and care nothing about? The show explains Hakuno's character a million times and it STILL makes no sense at all. And this absolutely ruins the 'climax' of this conclusion.

Character creation and development is horrendous in this show.
Nero is an overpowered otaku-bait character that serves as the main plot-advancing device. She has no character development at all in the whole series.
Rin is a pointless character that shouldn't even be there as she bring nothing to the table and her connection to the storyline is minimum.
The side characters are interesting but get no valuable screentime.
Hakuno is a disaster.

The story seemed to be reinventing itself every minute. There was always a coma, always a "but". When you think the main characters are going to get in trouble fighting Harwey, Hakuno pulls off the stupidest "rabbit in the top hat" to progress the plot further, defeating Gawain while Harwey just stand there like "uh-oh, he got me folks!". Then they get to the top floor and meet the main villain, that goes on to have an absolutely meaningless monologue for 20 FREAKING minutes. The rest is history, as the damage had already been done.

Shaft made a huge mistake by jumping into the Fate Bandwagon. While this IS a case of bad scripting, the source material must also be a trainwreck for the show to out turn THIS bad. Fate/Extra Last Encore makes a very strong case to never be touched again.

This review contains spoilers.

In my opinion, Fate/Extra is a massive mistake by Shaft. At the same time that the studio is adventuring into strange waters by adapting a TYPE-MOON title, they`re diverting too much from their usual adaptations when they decide to go for a linear-focused narrative. Fate/Extra being adapted by this manner, in my opinion, is a recipe for disaster.

In Fate/Extra, differently from other Shaft titles, there`s a linear narrative that has to be told by clear, objective and focused means. Fate`s world is rich in important details that NEED to be stated in a clear form for the universe to make sense. Shaft ... builds up a headless, footless monster when they decide to use the stylized approach that became famous in the non-linear -monogatari titles to be the vanguard of the series. This stylized approach, in Fate/Extra, becomes more important than the narrative itself. This becomes a serious problem for the linearity of the script because it leaves the spectator lost in the timeline and in the sense of the universe. Each episode starts and ends in a completely different manner than the previous – a basic continuity mistake that is TOO basic for an acclaimed studio as Shaft. I had to check the number of the episode while I watched to confirm if I wasn`t jumping over any of them by mistake.

The first episode of Fate/Extra is so badly-scripted that I thought I had been watching the second episode by mistake. It raises more questions than answers. Builds up an universe but doesn`t explains it. It completely ruins the suspension of disbelief. It`s in my list as one of the worst title debuts ever produced.

Fate/Extra is VERY objective when it only shows Saber/Nero in a 1-minute-25-second-action Opening. It tells us Nero is the marketing point, and she really is. Not only that, but Nero is the ONLY character with a backstory built-up that is concrete enough to be developed upon. The unforgivable mistake is, perhaps, the worst contradiction of the series – focusing the screentime on amorphous, monotonous, shapeless blobs that pretend to be characters -instead of in the actually interesting character that is Nero.
Just like other TYPE-MOON titles adapted to animation, the main character is once more an insertion mass for the spectator. Kishinami Hakuno is an extremely bad-built and bad-developed character, with the unique and essential function to react to the mishaps in the narrative while pretending to be you. Even after all this, he still fails to deliver while having, on average, two dialogues per episode and, on average, the most screentime of all characters. Hakuno`s backstory is badly-written, confusing and has many non-capped holes to be relevant. His personality has no taste and his motivations are empty. When animation studios adapt TYPE-MOON main characters, they seem to write it down while taking a massive poo dump.

This doesn`t get better if we compare Hakuno to the supporting characters. They are merely touched by the narrative, with no intention of development. Shinji, Rin, Rani – they`re all characters with no development potential that are used solely as story-progression tools. They`re used, then get discarded. When the narrative freezes, there they are to unfreeze it. Then they get discarded again.

What really irritates me when the topic is Shaft is the absurd quantity of unneeded, uninteresting, confusing and evasive dialogue. This is not only a problem of Fate/Extra itself, but of a lot of other Shaft-adapted titles: the characters say words, but they`re not speaking anything. These types of pretentious dialogues make the characters look like college philosophers – they only serve as hole-fillers to extend the lifespan of the episodes. Fate/Extra, with its humble 10 episodes, shoots its own foot when it adds these redundant dialogues. The script jumps over a whole floor because of the limited screentime – it`s a tragedy.

One of my problems with Fate/Extra is the monotony in the adaptation. The script is essentially descriptive. The series doesn`t want to surprise you, or to make you feel with the characters, or even create a bond between you and the story. The only function of the narrative is to communicate the facts in the most tasteless, abrupt form possible. When only one of the characters is in the scene, it seems as like all the other characters are frozen in time, only to not ask anything about what happened when they were not in scene. This kind of wearisome approach was principally noticed in the final scenes of the series, when Hakuno makes the `hard` choice between Rin and Rani. A potential climax was being built only for the decision to be communicated in the most abrupt and monotone way. It let me down immensely.

I won`t even comment how much of a let down the ending was.

In Fate/Extra`s case, it really seems like the Opening is the cover of a book. We can`t really judge the book by its cover. The animation budget was probably completely wasted in the opening, because we don`t really see much of good battle scenes like we do in the Opening Song. Animation is mediocre, it really seemed stiff at times. Art direction is also not one of the best – the characters design chosen doesn`t really go well with the narrative in my opinion.

Fate/Extra is a title to avoid. Much of the promises are not delivered and the script is very confusing and full of holes. This makes the series really frustrating to watch for the spectator. I hope the continuation can, at minimum, bring this ship back to the surface.

Boku no Hero Academia is born in a moment where superhero stories are a marketing hype. Marvel is putting out great movies about superheroes stories, and DC is trying its best. Much like the era where zombies were insanely popular, it's now the superhero era. And it was at the right time that Boku no Hero came out to know exactly how to be popular - appealing to the right type of crowd.

The cartoonish art direction, the reference game and even how the story is told makes Boku no Hero Academia a global title. A storyline that know its limitations and that we all have ... definitely heard before - an academy made by heroes, and for heroes - doesn't get as old as what really shines isn't the story in itself, but the main cast of characters. The show hits its apex in the relationship between Izuku and All-Might - the two best characters in the series. That's the high point of the whole thing.

Izuku is the protagonist of the show. A well-defined character from the start, Izuku easily steals the attention of the viewer with the marvelous character development he gets - making even the most praised series think how well it was written. In only 4 episodes, the stage is set for greatness as we follow Izuku go from a nobody to a full-stack protagonist with a LOT of potential. These first four episodes of Boku no Hero Academia are a delight to watch. It beautifully introduces the conflict and the story gets SO MUCH done in so little time, I can only praise the screentime management.

Boku no Hero Academia does remarkably well with a storyline we've all heard before - and that's why it's a shounen that works. It appeals to the right type of juvenile crowd, but doesn't make it a "let me turn my brain off to enjoy this" experience. It's a rational water drop in an ocean full of mindless shounen shows.

But Boku no Hero Academia doesn't have only four episodes.

The supporting cast of characters left me wanting more. With the exception of Iida, the supporting characters were introduced in a most uninteresting way. None of them got the attention they deserved as all of them were briefly touched episode after episode. After the Katsuki clash, the show seemed to turn into an episodic mix, which is, in my opinion, a poor storytelling device. Each episode had its own conflict built-up to have it resolved in the next episode - only to have its place substituted by another episodic conflict. It would probably be better to take the sweet time to introduce new characters, or to have less side-characters/more flatened-out side-characters.

While the four first episodes were stupidly good, the last episodes were slowed down. This is a common flaw in shounen anime.
I am a strong believer that an anime season must have a start and an end that should hold its own by itself - not needing any other seasons before or after to feel complete. And the ending for the first season of Boku no Hero Academia doesn't hold itself. It creates another scenario and hopes to have you interested until whenever the studio decides it will produce another season. That is quite the turn-down for me and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

On a resumed note, Boku no Hero Academia is a great example of basic storytelling done right. I will write what I believe: If your show has great characters, you don't even need a great storyline. Boku no Hero Academia is a prime example of this - having a pretty simple story that renovates itself through the characters involved.

Art, animation and sound are all stylized to be cartoonish and I love it. It feels good to have consistent animation all throughout the show, as well - it's kind of rare these days. Good work.

All in all, Boku no Hero Academia is a great watch and should be fun for almost anybody. There are no real let-downs and the plot can only go up from here. If you're a western watcher, this show should also be a pretty familiar experience and easy to swallow!