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One misconception about anime or any media entirely is how people think the story needs to be unique to be good. I’m not against it, as bringing new things to the table will always interest people. But, you can't say that to every anime. The worst kind of all is that kind of anime where the premise is unique: unique as in only the first episode then the rest of the runtime is one of the most generic things I’ve ever seen since I was born. Some even lost its fundamental because they kept going back and forth to make it “not like every other ... anime”.

That’s why in the first 3 weeks, people ignored Bocchi the Rock!, a show about shy girl Hitori Gotou getting a chance to play a band. With only this sentence alone, you can already generate what will happen in your head. They will play in a band, maybe some slice of life, cute moments, one big climax, Hitori finally can play in front of people, done. I just summarize Bocchi the Rock’s plot without watching. And yes, this is the plot of it; God damn, that is generic as hell, even in slice of life standards. Next thing you know people already compare this show to other irrelevant anime like “why is this rate higher than xxx, which has more twists and a better story”.

The key isn’t the uniqueness, but rather, the execution. Despite its generic plot, Bocchi the Rock (I’ll call it BTR) still managed to make everyone excited for what they will see next week, thanks to Erika Yoshida’s very intriguing script. Every episode has its starting point and conclusion, and you don’t even realize it. For example, in episode three the episode starts with the band trying to find a singer for the band. On that same episode, that event ends right in that episode. Some episodes add a hook to the next episode to make it more interesting. BTR knows how to start and end moments. Some events can only get worse if it’s there for a long time, let’s end it here. Characters have to be developed, let’s do it or the plot would be stale. These factors didn’t matter much to me most of the time, but overall it makes people watch BTR a lot more smoothly.

As expected from cute girls doing cute things or CGDCT for short, BTR characters are not really deep, just cute all around. Their personalities are one-noted and very superficial. Ryo Yamada is like a low-budget Shima Rin from Yuru Camp, and even more of an unrealistic person who is really poor and money eye, which is one of the comedic skits of being a bass player. Ichiji Nijika is… pretty much an angel as she is the one who recruit Bocchi to play in the band and kept the whole band like glue. Last but still generic, Ikuyo Kita, is the social butterfly of the band. She likes to post Instagram stories and pretty much take a photo on every occasion ever. It’s pretty much, nothing. However, thanks to its presentation, these straight personalities enhance the overall show.

These main characters together are like a political compass to each other. They all have extreme traits, so when you play a surreal joke, those traits start to shine on their own. The fact that these mc got to form a band, too. Humans are amazing, aren't they? They are social animals; no matter how different everyone is, you can still work together as a team. Interactions were on point and done right. One flaw that I see in most anime is how these characters are always hard to distinguish, but this anime already set it up from the get-go. It’s like the author knows how things will go because most interactions are very natural. My bet is using real-life depiction, which is a very efficient way to do it. This point got a lot better in episode 8 when they reveal some key information about why Nijika wanted to start the band in the first place, creating some depth to her character despite her gimmick personality. People usually judge others from what they see. BTR is the same. As the story goes on, you will see these characters has a very solid reason for why and how there are here. Using the advantage of being a “cute girl doing cute things”, these interactions usually come up to be very wholesome and heartwarming.

This is not even its strongest point because despite what I said, the animation side of it is spectacular. While not the best, BTR is jam-packed with passion and creativity. These staff don’t need to try this hard. Most, if not all of the screenplay was done differently from its original source which is a 4-koma manga. The detail of it isn’t much, as I mentioned it’s just another cheap cute girl playing band, so why put effort into it? I truly don’t understand. I may look over these cool-looking action scenes that are very hard to animate, but one thing that BTR manage to pull me up is the way it utilizes its storyboard to create a symbolic message. It signifies the subtle growth of our main character Hitori, which is already very hard to see if you never concentrate on the story aspect. I believe many shows also use this point, just not as much as this show, probably thanks to half of the staff who come from the wonderfully animated show “Wonder Egg Priority”. Half of it indeed come from them: Walking sequences, foot stomping, light flicking, sunlight radiating, every scene in BTR is important. Mixed media were my staple food since I watch Courage the Cowardly Dog and SpongeBob when I was a kid, and I’m glad that not only do they sneak in a couple of real-life pictures, but also elevate or improvise it to make the joke funnier than it should be.

Cute girls doing cute things is a subgenre that goes under the surface in the anime community for a longest time. It is very niche, I mean to watch these girls doing random things you don’t even give a damn. Most of these will be bland, uninteresting, or just cute. Lately, however, it’s like this type of show is finally aware of itself. First, it is yuru camp, and now it’s this. Who knows what the future holds? Its potential is infinite.

Many recent shows were interesting for the first few episodes. Its animation is beautiful and the story is engaging, but in the end, it’s either the writer stuck in the loop or the production issue starts to grow. This is mostly just to clickbait people into watching it, as long as it is “unique” or “interesting in some way”. That’s the anime industry these days, and it’s fucked. Bocchi The Rock! is not just good, it’s the thing that the community want to see. It is hard working, soulful and passionate throughout 12 weeks and the ones who are involved are satisfied with this. Voice actors and animators truly understand the core of the main characters and tweak some dialogue and action from the manga to make it in character. We will not witness this type of show in a long time, and season 2 would take a long time to pull off to make it good. So, if they want to make another season, I hope they can surprise me again.

Note: This review has major spoilers.

Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works is indeed the most popular anime of all time. It is a crucial series since people like to recommend it over DEEN’s poorly animated F/S N to be the introduction to the Fate franchise. As Ufotable continued to kill it with remarkable sequence and animation, the fans were incredibly hyped and craved for more paths. However, things are without its flaw and to me, I could say that this route seriously disappoints me.

There are two main flaws that I have a problem with. One thing that many negative reviews criticize about UBW, and I wholeheartedly ... agreed with, is how UBW lacks proper characterization. For the whole two seasons, we barely get to understand what is in the character’s mind. Yes, there is quite a bunch of flashbacks, but that's mostly just explaining “what” happened, we barely get any “why” this happened.

Let's take Emiya Shirou as an example. I think he is the one who, "gets characterized", the most, showing the ten-year-ago flashback episodes after episodes. He certainly has a complex personality, but UBW painted him as the guy who believes in himself and kept arguing. This is why everyone viewed Shirou as a bothersome protagonist, at least in my viewpoint. He wants to save everyone, but anybody who watched this season will go like this:

“What? That’s bullshit, what was he thinking??”
“This protagonist is so bad”
“Archer is fuckin based”.

Is there any reason behind Shirou’s willingness to save everyone? Well, maybe, but it never capitalizes it! (Or never actually explain why) This is only Shirou; Archer is not any different even though he is spitting facts, but it’s clear that he is just depressed and pessimistic.

What I understand from this second season is that the focus is the contrast of ideology between Archer and Shirou. While this is very interesting, the result you get from this is somehow… underwhelming? Think of this, have you ever argued with people on Twitter? Because that is what happened for the quarter of the season. The argument circled only a few main points, and it never intersects with each other. It is also very frustrating to listen to the same thing over and over, like, I know Shirou want to save everyone, can you please stop repeating it.

This is worse when you think that this section is somehow longer than Illya and berserker's flashback. Illya is quite an interesting character. She mysteriously introduced herself out of nowhere, battled with Saber, refused to elaborate and left the scene. But after that, she is gone, like, completely gone for a whole season and when she’s back, she’s already fucking dead. It is sad, the flashback isn’t even satisfied me, and her death is way too brutal to look at. I hope that we could get a better characterization of her in Heaven’s Feel.

Another main problem with Unlimited Blade Works is how death in UBW is very frail. This problem exists since the first season, but it is not as blatant as now. Maybe Type-Moon intended to make it like this, but there’s barely any time to look back and reflect on each death.

Rider? Barely appears on the screen, and died! That is unfortunate.
Lancer? Just when things get interesting, he gets ordered to kill himself... Just why?
Not to mention Illya and Berserker. My girl appears for like half an hour in season one and die right after.

Even Higurashi When they cry, a series that is notable for being a massacre, has a lot more tension and meaning behind each death. I know that this is not a perfect way to describe this, but you get my main point.

With those two problems eliminated, it would have been a great series. It seems like it cannot be a big deal, but trust me, they may have to rewrite the entire thing if they want to fix this series. It isn't like I am not invested in the story either. I like the Fate series. Everything at first is so mysterious. But as you watch, you get to know each character's wish of getting the holy grail and what to sacrifice to get it. The soundtrack is not that bad. Even though I prefer DEEN's soundtrack, which is more hollowing, UBW has its charm. The animation is phenomenal, especially the sequence in the "Last Stardust" scene, which has to be one of my favourite action sequences of all time. My reaction would be the same as Saber in the fight.

To conclude, Fate Stay/Night: UBW give out an interesting contrasting view between Archer and Shirou, but unfortunately fails on characterization and too many pointless deaths. This damaged the whole series a lot for me, my interest in the story has diminished, and Shirou is now so annoying. However, I am not giving up on this series and Shirou. He may be lightheaded, but he is the bone of his sword. Steel is his body, and fire is his blood. He may have created over a thousand blades, unknown to death nor known to life, and have withstood pain to create many weapons, yet those hands shall never hold anything. With that being said, he pray: UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS.

At first, I wasn’t going for Higurashi: When They Cry because I thought it is very edgy and brutal. I rarely watch horror in the first place and I’ve heard a lot of spoils and gore from YouTube, why do I have to watch to confirm again? At last, I thought “Fuck it. Here I come” and that’s my last anime of 2021. What I experienced next can be described in 4 words:

I got clickbait, hard.

**No major plot spoiled. Might contain minor plots here and there.

Watching Higurashi is like solving a jigsaw puzzle. Each arc you get new information about what’s happening, but at ... the same time, it creates another question which led to finding another jigsaw piece until you connect every jigsaw piece. With a lot of foreshadowing and hidden details especially from the first season, it become one of the best mystery series I’ve ever watched and it’s not even the aspect most people liked about. Some people say Higurashi Kai is a step down from the first season because they shift from horror to more of a mystery. I wholeheartedly disagree with that statement. I think Higurashi isn’t mainly about horror and gore at first, even first season. A lot of scenes in the first season can escalate to something worse yet they don’t do that. It holds its horror aspect until a breaking point and unfortunately, that’s when it gets people’s attention. Kai has a fair amount of both comedy and horror. The contrast of those two aspects makes you see both sides of the coin. It makes you don’t want them to drive into insanity, even if you know it’s going to happen anyway. You can only hope that they will escape from the inescapable fate.

The downside of Higurashi and it’s quite hard to take is how poorly it aged. The animation of Higurashi is fairly poor and it has a lot of questionable scenes. Some logic of the story doesn't match up to today's standards too. For example, it's hard to think that these 6 kids have been able to defeat an entire squad of weaponed guards. Some scenes use the Deus Ex Machina trope to bypass the impossibility and some cheese the plot holes to make it make sense.

However, these are very small problems of Higurashi compared with the good side it has. The use of sound in Higurashi is incredible, not just the horror aspect but including the VA too. People praised a lot about the horror side so I will compliment the voice acting instead. You can easily tell each main character by just the way they talk. It is unnecessary, but it adds a lot of flavour to the story, really hope more series do that.

The character in Higurashi really surprised me. Despite being a massacre, Higurashi successfully created likeable characters, the main character at least. Every character has its moment, whether happy, sad, desperate or even crazy. They covered a lot of the daily life of each character to the point you could call it a slice of life. This makes you sympathize with the character more when something bad happened. On the other hand, some characters could get on your nerves and do something quite “childish”. It’s annoying, but this isn’t its strongest point in its first place.

Higurashi: When They Cry is a ride. I brushed it as another edgy anime, but I guess I was entirely wrong. It deserved the rating as it is, and I will give a solid 8 out of 10. If you are willing to step out from your comfort taste, whether it’s battle shounen, rom-com, or isekai trash, I can guarantee that this series will not disappoint you.

Horimiya is undoubtedly one of the most anticipated anime of 2021. It's one of the fan's favourite anime of the year and I can see why it is. The relationship between Hori and Miyamura is nothing but a fine normal romance, they like each other, they hang out with each other. It's very wholesome and everyone wants to have a romantic relationship like Horimiya. Not to mention the main character Miyamura was a sad child before, but after seeing Hori, his life both in school and public changed. Everyone feels for Miyamura and respect him as one of the characters that can change himself. I ... too should feel like that, but instead, I came up with a lot of problems and flaws.

In its premise, it seems like the story is about Hori's. Five minutes into the first episode and all I can see is Hori doing things in daily life. Miyamura was also there in the background like "a surprised tool that will help us later". To me, this feels like both of them mind on their own business until fate put them together kind of things, and it's not wrong at all to do something like that. What I expected is, that's right, character development and romance progression. It's a norm to think of it like this since I've seen quite a bunch of rom-com and this probably gonna end it like that. However, what I see at the end of the anime is Miyamura talking to himself that "Yes I moved on, get real". After completing it, I ask myself, "Damn, so what is the premise?"

Where's Hori? Did she progress her own personality? Well, maybe. You can argue with that, but at the end of the day, that side of things is being much less significant than THIS ending. This type of ending could be found at the end of one's arc, not the ending itself. It feels more like "yeah this is Rei Kiriyama's story and I'll show you how this family changed his life" rather than "owo wholesome romance make his life turned upside down", which is a completely different genre, this is NOT drama slice of life. Yeah sure, Miyamura's development is great and I absolutely agree with that. What's my point is this anime puts it in a very wrong way, shifting the main story to its core. How could you tell that? Just look at each episode of Horimiya. Most of them contain at least one flashback from Miyamura's past, he found his old friends, old foes and much more. To me Miyamura is like, Ishigami in Kaguya-sama love is war. He is relatable as fuck, have a tragic past, and have quite a decent development throughout the series. Now shoved all KaguPrez and Chika dance shit to the side and focus on Ishigami-- that's Horimiya, and I'm quite disappointed.

Horimiya is known for its unique plot. It doesn't follow any cliche, no arcs, nearly no interruption scene, it has nothing. Yes, nothing. This is unironically the second point I found, it is too normal to be true. Even in real life is more bizarre than this fucking school but who am I saying, maybe it really had nothing right? Not really, there's something. There are connections, there are unique moments that these people experienced in the manga, but they did not adopt it so they could crush it in 13 episodes by only telling the main plot. It's like the slice of life section is any better as its plot is driven by nothing. A lot of anime have arcs for a reason, to set the directions of where the story would go, plus some character development if the writer wants to. Not only that, we get to understand each character and see how they grow as time went by, too. Without any arc, the plot is pretty much scattered everywhere and could be boring as time goes by. In Clannad, even though they go out of the loop, you still know that the main point is to put a play in a culture festival. We can see each character struggles and try to change themselves like Ishigami in Kaguya-sama, which is related to sports festival arc. It's there to move the story and entertain us more. Then again, there ARE arcs in Horimiya manga but the anime just ran over it. Maybe the director makes this feel like we're entering online school in a pandemic or something, I don't get it.

I will try not to bash on the comedy section much since it's a very subjective one, but it is quite important as it could make me view the series in a better way. That's right, I think this series is not funny at all, comedic pace is out of place most of the time but hey, maybe I have trash taste in comedy after all. I still like amogus meme and laugh at something random. People's humour is weird sometimes.

Sound and Visual falls into a "could've been better" section. It's not good but at the same time, it's not bad. I have no comment on it.

The last thing I don't really like is how they waste so many characters. As I said, arcs help us understand the character better but this has nothing. Most character is just there as "Miyamura's friend" to solidify that his life changed. The progress between other couples like Yuki-Tooru and Remi-Segoku become unimportant as it is only depicted twice throughout the series. "Oh you know it's about what high school students always do" yeah right, and they never brought up the topic again. Oh, and can we talk about how they waste such an interesting character like Sawada. It's so sad they only give her a scene for only one episode when she has quite an interesting background.

Horimiya tries to condense 100+ chapters into 1 season of anime. It's like trying to put the entire Kaguya-sama: Love is war story into a 1 cour season. The treasure of the story isn't at the end, but it's the content between them, and Horimiya has little to no content between them. Is it wrong to like this anime? Nope. You can like whatever you want. It's bad, but it's NOT that bad to say this is trash or something. I'm just disappointed that it could've been direct better.

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War is a great representation of a good anime adaptation.

The premise of the story is interesting enough to hook me in at first glance: What will happened if two tsunderes love each other? This anime will show you how hilarious it is. The little downside of this anime is how there is kind of little progress going on with the couple. Unlike major rom-com like Toradora or Sakurasou, the show focuses on what the couple battle each other which usually end up comedic, making it quite clear that these two barely make progress on the romance side.

However, this point got overcome by ... how good they adapted from the manga. As a manga reader, this anime got adapted to the core, not to mention the voice actors did their job very well, probably one of the most effective I've ever seen. Many scenes in the anime didn't come directly from the manga, which means the animators decide to work on their own. References from movies, real-life figures and even anime make Kaguya-sama more engaging and relate to the humour when it is aired.

Characters, as I said, there isn't really a deep development to it. What is Kaguya like in the first episode? She will be quite the same on the last episode. But don't be afraid, characters in Kaguya-sama have a backstory and things are going to change for sure. Now what you can do is enjoy the battle of who is going to confess first, and get a good laugh from it.

I enjoy this anime a lot. Even though many of us read the manga before, the director knows how to entertain the viewer and make it as good as the manga. Though I think this anime is quite overhyped, don't let it scare you, because this anime is worth getting into for sure.

Overall: 9/10

People often say Madoka Magica is, if not the best, one of the best deconstructions of the Mahou Shojo genre to date. It is the most popular anime of Winter 2011, and the Japanese vote it as one of the best anime of the century.

For me, to say this anime is a deconstruction of Mahou Shojo, I can't say it fully. I never really get into other Mahou Shojo titles but for example, if I recall correctly, I don't think most Mahou Shojo have something like G U N S or C4. The fact that this series only has 12 episodes make the deconstruction ... part way less significant as the story progresses beyond that. If you compare this to titles like Princess Tutu or Sailor Moon, I doubt that it can compete against them. But, what makes this anime lives up until now is the psychological part.

Just like 3-gatsu no lion, which use shogi as a medium to show MC's life, Madoka Magica just uses magical girls as a medium to show the real self of each character in the series. Each main characters are extremely solid and have their own way of thinking, which make it easily interesting to me. The psychological aspects surpass a bunch of good anime like Steins;Gate and can even compete with the Monogatari series. The potential is insane.

The only down part of the story is how it is only 12 episodes long. Most anime use this amount of episodes to grow characters, but it seems like Madoka Magica don't have an opportunity to do that. This is why some view this show as an edgy one but trust me, there are show that's way worse than that. As a whole, I'm very impressed how they manage to compile this up in just 12 episodes, leaving fewer issues than I thought.

The art and sound of this series are truly unique, as we expect from studio SHAFT. The OST is charming and OP/ED is quite a memorable one. The art and animation are better than I expected, there's a lot of abstract art and hidden messages, but we still see some weird rushed outlines especially Kyubey, he looks so distorted when is viewed from far away. What a poor creature...

As a series that aims to top on both psychological and Mahou Shojo aspects, this anime manages to balance it well. If you are new to anime like me back then, this isn't a good start as you will most likely miss a lot of hidden meanings and details. I myself need to pause several times and rewatch it sometime later. On the other hand, if you have already watched a couple of anime, I suggest you this anime. This may be your thing.

Overall: 9/10

Warning: May contain spoilers, but I'll try not to spoil anything.

Madoka Magica Rebellion is that kind of movie. Instead of giving positive endings, everyone is happy, they give quite an unsatisfying one, making the community itself split into two sides, whether you like the movie or not.

The story itself is one of the most controversial of all. Some say it's just poor or inconsistent writing but for me, this works out quite well. Making a good bittersweet ending is very hard and there's a lot of bad examples out there. That's why I think turning a story from one side to another whole side in ... two hours- no, 90 minutes because they did a very long introduction in the first half an hour- is extremely challenging. As a result, the second half of the movie looks so packed and very hard to follow.

Did the producer mess this up? Not really. You can't understand Madoka Rebellion by watching it only once. You blinked and you may miss crucial detail that may turn the event of the story. When I first watched it I am just perplexed. What is happening? Is this really a cannon? I even rate it 7 when I first watch it. However, the more I look into it, the more it makes sense.

This also applied to the characters in the movie too. Each character, especially Homura, have the reason why she act like that, and why she did that. I'm not going to blame anyone who doesn't like this movie. Because even though they understand what is happening and what's behind it, you can say it's still too stacked and should be stretched out. This movie is way too short. That's probably the only major flaw I see.

There's not much about art and sound to be told. Everyone knows Madoka Magica's art going to be cocaine since the series. This movie's art is what I expected, a lot of hidden details, abstract art and great action scenes. The soundtrack plays a major role in most scenes, especially towards the end, it causes a lot of expressions. The OP and ED is a banger too.

Madoka Magica Rebellion may seem weird and make no sense at first, but the more you look into it, the more you see what this movie trying to tell you. There's a couple of analysis on YouTube about Rebellion, so you can check it out and discuss its strengths and flaws with the others.

Overall: 9.6/10, round to 10/10

It's good.