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Oh Lord, where do I begin with this anime.

First things first, I have a bit of a weak spot for trashy vampire animes. I'd had my eye on this one for a while and finally decided to boot it up on Netflix to play in the background while I worked. I was a bit concerned at first that I might miss parts of the plot, but...yeah...I'll get to that.

So Sirius the Jaeger is basically another Vampire vs Werewolves show with a magical macguffin that one side wants to use to have ultimate power, blah, blah. It's far from groundbreaking, but that's part of the fun. ... The first few episodes are really good and fun to watch and I binged all of the way to episode ten without hesitation.

When it's good, this show is on a potential par to shows like FMA (some arcs of it really reminded me of FMA). When it's bad, it's a mess, and for the most part it's a mess.

Sirius the Jaeger suffers from SEVERE pacing issues and a lot of that comes down to its 12 episode run time. The story line, world and characters simply don't get the time, love and attention they need, except for Sirius, which again, I'll come to later. In one scene, it's revealed that there's conflict between two of the main characters because of something very bad that happened in the past (trying to avoid spoilers), but it's not really touched on ever again. Early on there's a plotline with a doctor that reminded me of the Tucker arc in FMA, where the doctor character lives with his cute daughter and is doing desperate experiments. It's a really interesting arc and given a good deal of gravitas...but soon afterwards that plotline is quite literally dropped and when we hear about it again it's played up for a weird kind of comic relief by a villain who literally falls down a cliff face after what might as well be a five second fight and is never heard from again. Like...what?? Discount Shou Tucker didn't die for this level of disrespect. Even the final battle falls flat to the point of being funny because there is no build up or tension.

The pacing also causes issues with continuity. One character basically leaves home and their family follow them (to ANOTHER country I might add), only for them to come back a couple of episodes later like yup, I was being young and stupid I'll be good now...and it's literally NEVER commented on or addressed. Did the family ever find out? Are they still randomly stuck overseas? Are they still looking for them?

We never really find out much about the mysterious order that Sirius and the others belong to. Heck, we don't even find out much about the Ark, which is the core of the plot. I got all of the way to the end of episode 12 without really understanding what it was beyond the fact that the Vampires shouldn't get it because That Would Be Bad.

The only character who gets a decent character arc is Sirius, which I don't mind because he is semi decent as an anime protagonist for the first half of the show. By the second half, the storyline about his brother and the Ark and his tribe borders on contrived and at the end I was pretty bored of him because he fell into almost every protag cliche in the book. Run away to deal with things on your own even though it just...DEFIES logic? Check. Keep the valuable object on your person even though you KNOW you're going to end up in a fight soon and it's probably going to get stolen? Check. The final episode has a very, very emotionally charged scene, but it falls completely flat because of the terrible pacing.

So in summary, this show isn't awful, but it could have been so much more. It's fun to watch, but that's about it. It's not going to leave you thinking afterwards, but it will leave you wanting more (if that makes sense).

End note: are his tribe supposed to be Inuit? Because if so that's HILARIOUS... inuit...inu...they're werewolves...

I'll let myself out

It happens to all of us; one day we find a book or a movie that seems incredibly interesting, but for one reason or another, don't feel comfortable recommending it to people we know. Magus Bride is that for me-the visuals and soundtrack and, hell, even the WORLD of the show are spectacular. I remember watching the OVAs before the actual show and being reminded of everything I loved about Studio Ghibli movies.

So what is so bad and discomforting about Magus Bride? Well, the core of the story revolves around human trafficking and that concept is never challenged. The love story revolves around the heroine ... being bought at an auction and later proposed to by her new 'master' (?).

If Chise had a more dynamic personality and challenged any of it, then I would be far more lenient on Magus bride, but Chise's personality of FREQUENTLY being afraid to be alone etc etc and relying on Elias for fear of the worst only pushes their relationship to deeply uncomfortable levels, where it's not clear if she genuinely wants to marry him or even loves him, or has any opinion of any of what's happening to her. When it comes to Chise, we are constantly reminded of how young and vulnerable and sheltered she is and what she has had to endure, which only makes her relationship with Elias (and her status as his apprentice in general) really uncomfortable viewing. Chise is constantly set up to be a victim of various abuses and the fact that even Elias is pretty guilty of this (proposing to her after one night at a point where she was in no position to decline) is either ignored completely or passed up as a joke that we aren't meant to think about.

I'm so sad because it could have been something wonderful, but in the end it was just too uncomfortable and frustrating for me to watch. In one episode, something actually happened to Chise that I thought would give her cause to want her freedom and challenge Elias, but it was over in five minutes without any conflict. Watching this show stressed me out and I have no regrets about dropping it.

In my review of S1, I said that the thing that was very disappointing to me about BNHA was the lack of focus on the secondary characters or making use of its own extended universe. When I think of the very first shounen shows I ever got into, it was the Chuunin and Soul Society arcs that got me really invested, because both were great examples of world building and bringing something fresh to the storyline, as opposed to only focusing on the struggle of maybe three central characters.

To leave this review as spoiler free as possible, S2 of BNHA reminded me a lot of ... the Chuunin arc in Naruto and I ended up marathoning the season in a couple of days. I feel that, unlike many of its peers, BNHA really reaps the benefits of long hiatuses, since in 30+ episodes I never felt that a single scene or episode was wasted.

S2 takes the foundations of S1 and really builds on it, giving us a taste of the superhero world at large, including some history that reminded me a lot of X-men. As X-men is one of my favourite comic universes...ever... having that same difficult mix of regular humans alongside those with quirks and the (sometimes unfair) rules that came about as a result of prejudice, I was delighted. I also loved the humanising elements of its storyline, such as Todoroki's back story (honestly, in S1 I never quite understood the hype for him, only for S2 to make him an instafave). The element of quirk heredity is something I've never seen in comic books before, and exactly what I wanted in terms of melding US comics and shounen tropes together. Passing down techniques is something I've seen a lot in shounen over the years, but never in the Marvel or DC universe. I suppose the closest examples I can think of is mutants having slightly similar abilities to their immediate family and Thor's hammer at a huge push, so this idea of pedigree quirks is a unique spin that completely makes sense in terms of both universes.

In general, I loved the exams arc and the fact that characters (no spoilers) were actually given the chance to lose and face the consequences of their decisions as opposed to watching our favourites win over and over. It was good to see character flaws, especially ones that were not immediately fixed.

In conclusion, I would say that S2 was vastly superior to its predecessor, set up an exciting new arc and vision of superheroes (which I hope is explored even more) and I'm excited about S3. I don't feel like it's a perfect show, as I would have liked more backstory and information about the other characters and the world at large, nor do I think that it's for everyone, but it is fun to watch. I really hope that S3 goes a step further and I can give it that perfect ten.

I really wanted to review this anime after completing the first season, mostly because initially I dropped it at around episode 10 or 11, only to decide that all of the hours I spent watching the earlier episodes would have amounted to a genuine waste of my time if I left it with 2-3 to spare.

Honestly? The fact that this universe is inspired by US comic books is one of the reasons I picked it up after hearing friends and others in my immediate circle telling me how great it was. I trusted their opinions after enjoying shows like Free!, Yuri on ice etc ... etc and I've been watching superhero shows since I was a kid.

I think my mistake was expecting this show to take its foundations in both superhero comics and shounen manga and add something new to the narrative styles of both. Unfortunately, this was not the case. BNHA is a pretty generic shounen with superheroes in the mix. Even more of a disappointment was the discovery that this show came from the same studio behind one of my favourite shows: Soul Eater. To be honest, I think Soul Eater is a prime example of the 'kids with powers" trope and one of the few quirky shounen shows I've ever seen.

I don't want to spoil the plot at all, but I will say that there were so many missed opportunities in the story and the moments where it honestly shone were where it utilized the strengths of both genres. All Might's character arc was honestly fascinating, whereas the central plot of Deku and his quirk or lack thereof was incredibly weak. For me, it took the fact that Deku had worked harder than everyone else and made it irrelevant and therefore more difficult to root for him. Later points where you are genuinely meant to root for him honestly felt very stale. Speaking of which, I'll admit I've never read the manga for this show so it may be different there, but in the anime there came a point where events picked up and I was meant to root for the kids in Deku's class... but honestly outside of him, All Might and maybe Kacchan, I didn't feel attached enough to any of them for it to work

This isn't a bad show, but any means (I sat through the debut of Black Clover), but it's just not as unique and interesting as I hoped it would be when I first started watching. As I write this, I'm watching the second season on Crunchyroll and I'm hoping the story picks up from there.

I'm surprised no one has written a review for this yet, as I found it quite a pleasant surprise. Japan has given us some very interesting stories about zombies and demons in the past (the most famous probably being Resident Evil) and this movie is no exception.

Biohunter uses the age old plot device of a virus which leaves the infected with some rather nasty side effects. The show begins by illustrating a woman and her lover, both devoured by the disease. In the case of the young woman, she loses her sanity (and her good looks) while her lover is quite literally lunch. It ... is a fairly horrific scene, one that really sets the tone for the finale. A lot of movies involving zombies and/or demons choose to depict the former as humans without any sense of self control but don't explore the concept any farther than cannibalism. Biohunter definitely has its fair share of cannibalism, but takes it even further.

The opening scene shows a couple making love only to have the moment disrupted by the 'hunger' of the infected,which sets the tone for the entire movie. The lead character, who has an advanced immune system allowing him to maintain a degree of control over the demonic virus, is a complete gentleman, becoming the opposite when the virus takes over. What appears to be the main theme of the movie - the lead characters seeking out a psychic at his granddaughter's request - is more of a suplot, with the main character's battle against the disease taking centre stage. This man does not trust himself to engage in relationships with the opposite sex, lest his demonic side raise its head and hurt them. The main villain of the movie is a man who has let his demonic side run amok and control him. He is shown as a complete lecher, devouring young women despite his gentlemanly exterior. This theme of predatory human beings who destroy the opposite sex when they reveal their true self is true of the difficulties facing real relationships - how many people in the real world worry that showing their partner who they really are will change their perception? Furthermore, how many people worry that their partner is just using them?

Art-wise, this show is very old, though a lot of detail is given to indivuidual faces and features. Unlike many shows, whose character designs do not vary much beyond 'ugly or attractive', the characters of Biohunter actually have individual ones.

The main weakness of this show is the same as its strength: character development. There are at least four possible main characters of this show and none of them get any particularly decent character development. The movie is open ended and does not give you any kind of conclusion - many of the questions raised within the film remain unanswered without any kind of resolution. You never find out the origin of the Demon virus, whether it is preventable, how it is transmitted etc. I found this really disappointing and felt the movie deserved another hour to explore these concepts.

7/10