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Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer is a 1997 3 episode OVA, that later got made into a whole movie. It was produced by J.C. Staff and directed by Obari Masami, who really doesn't have any major work besides this and quite a good amount of Hentai!

Story:
The basic premise of Gowcaizer is about Isato, an ordinary highschool student that one day receives something called a Caizer stone from one of his classmates with whom he now has to fight the evil power called Omni Exist who basically represents all bad emotions of humanity and threatens to destroy earth. This already showed through several catastrophes that point out that ... apocalypse is about to happen.
This setting already is where the first huge flaws are to be found! Why you ask? Because the viewer basically doesn't have any idea about it! The movie does a terrible job at explaining itself and the viewer is basically left alone to find out what the heck is going on, which is almost impossible by watching the movie in itself! Personally, I went into the movie without having read the Synopsis and if I wouldn't have read it half way through it, I probably still wouldn't have any idea what it is about! However, even if the viewer does know what the movie is about, it really doesn't help a lot in understanding what is going on! The pacing for the movie is absolutely horrible in every way! It often seems to be dragging on for ages and if it doesn't, it feels rushed to the point where it's hard to determine what exactly is happening! Every plotpoint feels completely out of context and none of them get any explanation at all! They're simply left as they are and as it stands make absolutely no sense! And that pretty much summarizes the whole plot: Nonsense! There's not a single thing in the show that seems to make any sense, ranging from the physics, to the random Mahou Shounen transformation scenes, to the character interactions and what's left and actually understandable is absolutely generic! Any plotpoint that actually doea get somewhat clear is part of the typical Genre cliches! From the Shounen Power-ups, to the pseudo-philosophical themes of how humanity are the ones being evil, that get touched once and never again, to the character archetypes used! There's absolutely nothing that we haven't seen before and gets boring incredibly fast! Of course the movie is from 1997 and as such from a time where all that may not have been all that overused, but for today's standards, there's nothing original about it!

Characters:
The characters suffer from exactly the same problems as the story! They often enough act incredibly illogical and it at times is really hard to follow their thoughts. Not only that but every single one of them is extremely one-dimensional and have nothing to them but a single character trait! There's the typical Shounen Main Character that actually doesn't want to kill anyone, but occasionally does grow a backbone and ends up doing so, the typical clumsy moe love interest that in this specific case actually is able to fight and isn't all too moe...the antihero kind of character that seems to be evil at the beginning but in the end turns out to actually be the good guy and so on and so on, you get the idea! In general I really don't have a problem with Anime archetypes as long as they are used well, but in this case they just really aren't! The character interactions are painfully bad and there's not a single case of dialogue that is somewhat well written or interesting! This only gets worse through how out of character some of the characters act at times! They suddenly say something that doesn't fit the character at all only for the sake of advancing the plot and at times they don't even do it for that, but just to have that one certain moment that every Shounen needs to have! The character development feels the same way! It is incredibly rushed and there is nothing static but characters just take a 180 turn from one second to the other, making them feel like a plot device and impossible tofollow! This leads to them getting even more boring as they originally were already thanks to the stereotypes they all fulfill and don't step away from. I do give the show credit for at trying to develope the characters, which a lot of shows don't even attempt to do, but it just doesn't work having them be completely different this suddenly! Another point that makes this shows characters just absolutely awful is just how unsignificant they seem to be! Some of the characters literally don't seem to have any purpose and only exist for the purpose of showing their skin and crotch and bouncing their boobs!

Sound:
The Sound for Gowcaizer may or may not be the only redeemable thing about the show! While both the Opening and Ending is a rather standard for the 90s the Soundtrack is surprisingly enough not all that bad! Some of the tracks even wouldn't sound all that bad if listened to outside of the show and often enough they fit the scenes really well! However often enough, kind of isn't enough! The show has places where it horribly misuses tracks in parts where they really shouldn't be used! One of the character entrances uses a harmonica right within one of the most intense fights of the show and completely destroys the mood of the scene! Often enough, the show doesn't use any track at all, when it clearly should! While the OST itself isn't even half bad, it's the placement that ruined it in total!

Gowcaizer Character Designs
Those character designs actually hurt my eyes....

Animation:
The Animation for Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer was done by J.C. Staff and let's say it that way....it isn't all too glorious! The OVA was rather Low-Budget and for that and considering it is from the late 90s, it doesn't look all too bad, but it really isn't good either! There are a ton of scenes in the show where the animation itself isn't fluent at all and while the fight-scenes are actually animated somewhat decent, the rest is filled with still-screens and so on and it really doesn't contribute to the quality of the show overall! In fact if that actually were possible it'd make the show even worse! However something else takes that job over already! The character designs: OH GOD ARE THEY AWFUL! I have to be completely honest here and say I have rarely seen character designs that looks worse than this! They are often enough absolutely irritating and honestly probably were one of the worst parts of the show! Art style usually doesn't concern me too much...I mean I sat through the entirety of Aku no Hana and ended up enjoying that BUT THIS? NO THANKS! The chins are way too long, the eyes either incredibly huge or horribly misplaced, sometimes even both! The other part that made the show even worse was the fanservice! Looking at the Opening I already got to see what I was getting into, giving me more boob bounces, crotch, ass and panty shots than all of Highschool of the Dead. Throughout the whole OVA, women in skin tight clothes were walking around hitting people while sneaking in more panty, crotch, ass and boob shots. It's incredibly irritating to see all that fanservice shoved into your face like they didn't even try to make it an actual good thing, but just a silly excuse to get some quick money for giving some guys a good time and that's what it ended up being!

In the end Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer is a bad excuse for an OVA and has nothing going for it at all! The plot is nonsensical and generic at the same time, a combination of bad things that I didn't even know was possible but the amazingness of this show has apparently proven it is very much possible to do it! There is no connection between any of the plot points and the pacing is absolutely awful! The same is for the characters they fall completely flat (Altho the characters certainly aren't flat at all if you know what I mean) due to generic sterotypes and some of the most sudden and nonsensical development in all of Anime history! There is nothing good about this OVA series and as long as you are not a masochist that feels like experiencing 90 minutes of pure pain I definitely would not recommend this to anyone! It's an abomination and I really don't see anyone liking this....STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM IT!

Expectations are scary...They can greatly influence someone's opinion on a show! If going into it with really high expectations, it can end up being way more disappointing! If you go into it with really low expectations, you might even end up enjoying it! I personally always try to watch with an open mind and try to not get hyped for a show too much so I can still enjoy it! For this particular show though, it is the exact opposite of my example earlier! This show did not end up being way worse than I had expected but the other way around! Ladies and ... Gentlemen, today's topic shall be the Underdog of the Spring and Fall Season, Tokyo Ravens!

Story:
The story of Tokyo Ravens takes place in an alternate universe, that is rather similar to ours, except for the fact that there exist spirits and familiars. In this world there also exist Exorcists, who learn how to handle those spirits. They learn to summon them, exorcise them and even how to fight using them, for the sake of preventing a spiritual disaster. The main character is Tsuchimikado Harutora, a teenage boy that is part of the branch family of one of the most popular Onmiyou-Exorcist families in Japan. However, other than most others in his families, Harutora is not able to see Spiritual Power and thus can't become an Onmiyou-Exorcist like most others he knows. That's why he has lived a rather quite life up until now, simply hanging out with his friends Hokuto and Touji. That is, until he meets his old childhood friend from the main family, Tsuchimikado Natsume!


The Setting for Tokyo Ravens is rather interesting and even though this kind of supernatural thing is not really uncommon anymore, I do really enjoy those kind of shows! What Tokyo Ravens does really well is taking what it is given and turning it into something good! The show is really good at world building! Almost too good I would like to say...While the world is really well explained and it's potential is used really well, that has a certain price attached to it! The show takes way too much time fleshing out the world, that it could have spent on it's characters or bringing it's story forward. Of course this is not necessarily a bad thing, as this makes the second half even more enjoyable due to the really well explained world, but the first half falls flat due to this! The characters are uninteresting, the pacing is all over the place while it is still enjoyable, the first half of the show is mediocre at best. However the show does pick up quite nicely around half of the show! With the first really big fight starting, the show finally shows it's scale and just how badass it can be! From there on it seems as if I was watching a completely different show, as basically all the pacing problems get solved, the viewer is finally able to really get attached to the characters and the plot twists have a lot more impact that they used to have! Tokyo Ravens second half was one of the most surprising things that happened to me in this winter season and it even included one of the best episodes of this entire season! It got me surprisingly emotional, something that I wouldn't have expected from this show as well! However there is one thing that I am not completely content with and that would be the ending! The ending for Tokyo Ravens itself was rather good and did leave a lasting impression, however it did not quite end the way I wanted it to end! The ending doesn't really give any sense of closure and since there is only 10 Light Novels as of now, of which 9 got adapted in this TV Anime, there probably won't be any more too soon! However hope dies last and maybe we will end up having a second season at some point in time...

Characters:
The Characters for Tokyo Ravens mostly suffer from the same problem that I mentioned in the story, the first half! The characters I would argue, while still being the best part of the first half, aren't really well fleshed out! While the interactions are quite well written and I have to say that the more quite Slice of Life moments of the show definitely were my favourite parts of the beginning episodes, the characters don't seem to develop at all! It kind of plays out like Index, just not as bad!
Harutora at first is your generic Light Novel Main protagonist, that stands up for his friends and doesn't have much of a personality except that, but just as the story, Harutora's character gets a lot better halfway through the series. While I can't really reveal too much about that, due to spoilers, all I can say is that his character got a lot more conflicted later on. The second character to talk about is Tsuchimikado Natsume. She is the daughter of the Tsuchimikado Main family and as such has to go to the Onmiyouji-Acadamy in Tokyo, meaning she lives far away from her home. She also happens to be Harutora's Childhood friend and also due to the family’s tradition has to go to school pretending to be male. She is a rather quite character at first, but soon turns out to be pretty strong herself as she is really good at judging a situation and acting in the appropriate way. If I were to go over the rest of the characters in detail now, this Review would probably just take way too long, so let me just say really quick, that most of the characters are rather interesting to watch. They may neither be the most original characters of all time, nor the most well written, but the show certainly has a good enough cast to be enjoyable! The only other thing that kind of bothers me, is that while the Slice of Life character interactions seem to be really interesting at first, they get a little more generic later on. That may be caused by the show not really having that many Slice of Life moments anymore, but it still is something that bothers me. The longer you watch the Anime the easier it is to get attached to everyone. The Anime also has a huge cast of Side characters, that are all somewhat interesting and that I would love to see more about. However the Size of the cast itself prohibits the Anime from digging deeper into them. All in all the characters are flawed but likeable. It doesn't make the show a lot worse, but they don't really do a lot to make it better either.

Sound:
With the OST being done by Maiko Iuchi, the same person that did the Soundtrack to shows like Railgun, the OST was sure to be somewhat good. While it was not a masterpiece and nothing I would listen to outside of the show, it perfectly fit the show it was attached to. It mostly consists of quiet Piano and Violin pieces, mixed with some rather intense fighting themes. My personal favourite at this point is the track "Dairenji Suzuka", which plays every time Suzuka gets on screen in the early stages of the show, as the music makes her entrance really badass and fits her attitude perfectly!

For the Openings, both are rather good. Same as with the OST, they are not absolutely amazing and unskippable, but they set the tone for the show quiet nicely. While most people like the first Opening better, I personally do enjoy the second one just as much and honestly couldn't decide which one of the two were better. However, the animation for Opening Number 1 is a lot more interesting and the Direction does look a lot better! That said, the second one by no means looks bad, the first one just looks better! For the endings it basically is the same, while I did not like the first ending as much, the second ending ended up being my favourite song of the show!

Animation:
Tokyo Ravens has been produced by 8bit, the same company that also did Infinite Stratos and Aquarion Evol and has been directed by Takaoki Kamasaki, the director of "Is this a Zombie?". The Animation for the show is average at best. It's not really fluent and doesn't really have anything eyecatching about it. It is not abysmal, but it certainly is not good! I feel like the bad animation kind of makes the show a little less badass than it should have been and it really does not do a good job at complimenting the show! Another huge fault with the Animation of this show, is the CGI. It looks really out of place and honestly is some of the worst I have seen in quite a while. It is mostly used for some of the familiars and it really is painfully obvious.

Tokyo Ravens has been the Underdog of the season and by far the most surprising one to me in a while! The show has a good amount of action, likeable characters and a well paced story. In the second half that is! The show has huge problems at the beginning, but does solve them halfway through it's run. It may start off as a rather boring show, but the later parts are definitely worth standing through the first episodes! I would definitely recommend it to basically anyone that is into Supernatural and Fantasy Anime.

Kyoto Animation is a Production Studio that recently has been very well known for its cute animation style and very moe influenced shows. They are hated by some people for founding the moe-blob genre and basically being the sole company to make it as popular as it is. But, they are also loved for exactly the same reason, as there are many people (such as myself), that simply fell in love with shows such as K-On and Lucky Star. There are several reasons to why Kyoto Animation rose to popularity, most of them being discussed badly, but there is one undeniable thing about the Animation ... Studio itself and that is its unbelievably high production standards! Although there are almost no recent Anime by Kyoto Animation, that included fights or anything similar, the Animation always was incredibly fluent and amazingly detailed! Now imagine... An Anime with these production standards, based around a fantasy fighting premise, with just as much moe as we are used to from KyoAni! Ladies and gentlemen, today's topic is the anime that combines all of that, Kyoukai no Kanata!

Story:
The story of Kyoukai no Kanata is set in a world similar to ours, except that there exist beings called Youmu, which basically are demons that can have any shape or form, ranging from humans, over cats to something along the line of a fruit... There also are those who make their living off fighting exactly these Youmu, by killing them and selling the stones they got out of it. They are called Spirit Warriors and for the most part have some kind of ability as well. The plot itself is about Akihito Kanbara an ordinary high school boy that goes to school like every other person... except for one little twist: he is a half youmu... One day, he stumbles upon a girl that seems to be wanting to jump from the roof of the school he goes to. As fast as he can, he runs up the stairs to confront the girl and after telling her in an epic speech, just how much he loves glasses, she proceeds to stab him, only to find out that he is immortal. The girl, Mirai is a Spirit Warrior and her goal from now on is to kill the immortal Half-Youmu that is Akihito and basically uses him as a punching bag to get better at hunting.

Now, I guess you can imagine that this is not all the story has to tell, but that there is a lot more behind it than this! However, I am not going to give away anymore than this, as I am a little afraid to spoil anything for you! The story for Kyoukai no Kanata is weird to review... It honestly is nothing too impressive. It starts out strong with an interesting premise that certainly has a lot of potential, but soon takes a little bit of a nosedive! The show forgets to focus on the plot itself, but rather goes in the direction of doing some slice of life stuff that we are so used to seeing from KyoAni. Those episodes for the most part were good for developing the characters and their interactions, but sometimes not necessary. Now don't get me wrong, I didn't enjoy it less, I just think some things absolutely wouldn't have been necessary and they should have rather made those to be an OVA. Anyway, back to topic. The story picks near the end of the show up again and even proceeds to get some feels out of the viewer. The ending of the show is worth noting as well, as it was one of the most satisfying endings that I have seen in a while and while it left a bitter aftertaste for what the characters had to go through, it ends the show in a perfect way and left me, personally, very satisfied! However the show has one more fatal flaw and that is the setting itself. The world on its own is really interesting, but, unfortunately, its potential is not fully used! I might be nitpicking at this point, but I feel like Kyoukai no Kanata is a show that didn't use all of what it could have. It has a lot more potential than what it used, as it didn't explain all of what happened in the world. What exactly are Youkai? Why do the Spirit warriors exist? None of these questions get addressed and I do hope that KyoAni at some point in time decides to actually clear up all those questions and make a second season for exactly that sake! I would be happy about it at least...

Now for the most part, the show's story really isn't the strongest and it really is not what makes this anime as enjoyable as it is, but it is it's storytelling. The way the story is told, never fails at keeping the viewer interested and always makes him come back for the next episode, even though nothing too interesting happened! It is that, what makes the anime really enjoyable and way better than it should have been! It makes the show a lot more fun to watch and with an ending such as the one Kyoukai no Kanata presented, it certainly concludes as a rather average plot line, that has excellent execution.
7.4/10

Characters:
For the characters of Kyoukai no Kanata, it basically is the same as for the story. Most characters are only a variation of stereotypes and none of them are really original! Our main protagonist Kanbara Akihito at first is one of the blandest main characters that I have seen so far. He starts off as your generic Light Novel main characters, as he seems to only exist for the purpose of helping people. He doesn't really have any further motives other than "I want to help you" at first. However, it is not until a short time into the show that this changes. We get to know more about him and we can get attached to him. He even does develop a little bit and even though the development, by far is not the best one and not the biggest one that I have seen so far, I can safely say that it was enough to keep me interested in him and I didn't see any need to develop him more than he was. Some people might only see him as the glasses-loving douche bag, but honestly, I thought he was a lot more than that!

The second main character is Kuriyama Mirai. She is the character that fits the best in KyoAni's concepts, as she is the moe induced, glasses wearing moe, clumsy moe stereotype and fills that role surprisingly well. Just as for Akihito, she is rather generic to begin with and at first doesn't really have too much of a character but more of a stereotype attached to her. But we get to know her over the course of several episodes dedicated to her and her relationship with others. She starts to develop as well and becomes just as Akihito a memorable character that can stand on it's own, without being a mere moe stereotype.

The side characters for Kyoukai no Kanata all are rather interesting, the most notable being the two siblings Hiromi and Mitsuki, which both do get a fair bit of focus but not nearly as much development. The two of them are a lot of fun to watch whenever they are on screen, with Hiromi having a little sister fetish and not being hesitant about showing that. The other side characters all get a little focus, but nothing too important and while they all have their stereotypical roles, again, that is totally fine, as they all are fun to watch!

Kyoukai no Kanata in total does not have a single ground-breaking characters. None of them are too innovative, but all are stereotypes that have been used pretty often before. However, the show is completely fine that way! In the same way as the storytelling is executed in such a good way, that the story suddenly got a lot better, the characters get a lot better through how well everything around them is written. What KyoAni is by far best at is writing character interactions. One can argue against K-On or Haruhi however much he wants, it is undeniable, that the interactions of the characters are either hilarious or at least well written. Even in Kyoukai no Kanata, KyoAni doesn't fail at that point, but makes the characters really likeable by letting them interact with each other. I think that without his Mirai, Akihito might have been the bluntest character of all time and that without Akihito Mitsuki would have been the most generic tsundere ever. A character cannot shine if it doesn't interact and that is what KyoAni is able to pull off again and again. They understand how to recycle a stereotype that they have been using for ages and make it feel fresh over and over again. People can see that it in K-On, Kyoukai no Kanata and heck, even Free! to some extent uses the same stereotypes only in a male field. The characters don't need to be completely original as long as they feel that way. That is the secret of the character cast behind Kyoukai no Kanata.
8.4/10

Animation:
As I already mentioned several times, Kyoukai no Kanata has been done by Kyoto Animation, a production studio that is well known for it's extremely high production standards and as it was to be expected, Kyoukai no Kanata looks damn amazing! The fight scenes are some of the most fluent I have ever seen and even while only in Slice of Life mode, the show looks beautiful. The backgrounds are stunning and the animation is detailed to an extent that lets your jaw drop several times. It is one of the best looking shows I have seen so far and is almost at the point where it would be good enough to receive a 10/10. The only problem I have with it, is that it sometimes while fast paced scenes, relies on still frames. There are a few stylistic still screens, that I can forgive, but sometimes, during fights, I cannot just ignore them.
9.7/10

Sound:
The OST for Kyoukai no Kanata has been scored by Hikaru Nanase, who was also responsible for shows like Scrapped Princess and Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom. The Soundtrack is a mix of happy slice of life tracks and darker drama tracks. While the SoL tracks are rather generic and would fit into almost every happy-go-lucky slice of life show, the drama bits certainly do suit the show really well! They are well composed and part of an OST that in total really compliments the show it is attached to. It might not be as good as let's say Attack on Titan's OST, but it certainly stands its ground against many other shows.

The opening for the show sounds rather good being sung by the same artist who did the Gargantia opening and I did like it, but the ending song definitely was a lot better! I am a huge fan of KyoAni endings, ever since I saw Chuunibyou, as they often have a surreal feeling to it, that often even fits the show. For Kyoukai no Kanata that feeling returns and it doesn't disappoint. Coupled with the gorgeous animation from KyoAni, both the opening and ending were brilliant.
8.1/10

Kyoukai no Kanata has been a fairly enjoyable from the beginning of the show on. It had its downfalls but always has been rather interesting for me. With the cool premise, the amazing animation and the for the most part really likeable character cast, I think that it really did a good job of delivering an enjoyable anime. It might not be perfect and it might not even be amazing at most things, but the way it presents itself is its biggest strength. The plot, really, is not too good, the characters are all stereotypical, but it has a charm that not every anime has and that is what I love about it, but that could just as well be me simply fanboying over my, by far, favorite Animation Studio of all time!

Now, as I calculated all the scores for Kyoukai no Kanata (being story, characters, animation, sound and my personal enjoyment), I got to an average score of 8.4/10. It is a show that might have its flaws, but certainly does a good job of getting across what it wants to get across. It might not have the best story but succeeds in presenting it. The show, at this point in time, has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks.

​"With great Power comes great Responsibility!" - Stan Lee
Power is something that every human being has dreamt of having at least once, being it the power of money, strength or simple influence. It is something that helps people change things around them and makes it possible for life to be a lot easier. However, Power does not come without a certain price tag, sticking onto it. With whatever power you obtain, you get the chance to not only change your life but that of others as well. A huge responsibility lies upon the shoulders of those ruling and having the powers that others long for ... and there are several ways to handle this responsibility and for everyone there are good examples for it. You can simply abuse your power, oppressing everyone that is weaker. You can simply ignore everyone around you and don't care about anyone but yourself. Society though in this age, sees it as the duty of anyone having power to help the ones that have less and speak up for them. Ladies and Gentlemen, todays Anime deals with the issue of obtaining power and having power. Today's topic shall be Index' first Spin-Off To Aru Kagaku no Railgun!

As this is a Review of both Seasons of Railgun, I am going to give two scores for every category! (One for the original and one for Railgun S)

Story:
To Aru Kagaku no Railgun's setting is almost exactly the same as Index'. The Anime takes place in Academic City, a fictional town, that dedicated itself to the advance of science. It has amazing technology and almost 80% of the people living there are students. Most of these,didn't come here for the science aspect though, but for the second big objective that the city was found because of. The training of Espers. Espers, to those who don't know, are people that mysteriously obtained power that they now can use for all kind of things, but for the most time for the sake of fighting. They are split into Levels ranging from 0, which indicates that you have no ability at all, to 5. There are only 7 Level 5 Espers and those are counted as the 7 strongest ones in the whole world. In that city, lives our main character Misaka Mikoto. She is pretty popular Esper, since she is known to be the third strongest Level 5, also known as the "Railgun". One day, she gets to know her roommate Kuroko's, a Level 4 Teleporter, acquaintance from her work at Judgment, an organization that focuses on keeping Academic City safe. The acquaintance Uiharu, a Level 1, has always been a huge fan of Misaka and brought her best friend Saten, who doesn't have any powers at all and is of the opinion that probably all Level 5 Espers are arrogant and annoying people. As they meet the "Railgun", a friendship quickly develops and the four of them hang out together more and more often. But at the same time, strange incidents start happening everywhere in the city and even though the four at first seem to have nothing to do with it, they get sucked into it faster than they thought they would...
The Story of Railgun starts of rather weak, presenting a lot of Slice of Life episode to begin with and only a few episodes that really go into the Setting itself. Not to say, that these are bad or anything, it's just not what is to be expected out of a setting that looks this way. After quite some while though, the pacing starts to get faster and more and more incidents start happening. Meanwhile, the show decides to bring in an actual plot. That is to it's better, as the story for Railgun's first season might not be as good as for Index, but it certainly is well done and while there always are a few filler episodes between different arcs, they get back to the actual plot fairly quickly. The strength of the arcs is just as with Index, it's climaxing. When Railgun wants to set it's climax, it gets amazing. Using epic fights great speeches and really well done villains for the sake of ending everything with a big blast.
The first season's story is while certainly not being bad not as good as Index, the second season blows everything out of the water. Entering the second season, we get to see the sisters arc, a part of the Index show that only had 3 episodes over there, from Misaka's point of view. In Index it was a fairly decent part of the show, but now in Railgun, it gets extended to more than a half of the season and a lot of things get shown that people who watched Index didn't know about. It suddenly shifts into a part that is really dark compared to everything Index has ever done and is what I loved about it. That said the first season did something similar but not to the extent that Railgun S did!
Railgun: 7.7/10
Railgun S: 8.7/10

Characters:Even though getting amazing at points, the story of Railgun is not what drives the Anime. The strongest point that the Spin-Off has is in it's characters. Other than it's predecessor, this show uses it's characters a lot more and is working towards their development. While Index often only used them as a plot device, Railgun rather uses both parts to bring each other further. The story advances the characters and the characters advance the story. We have our main protagonist Misaka Mikoto, aka the "Railgun". She is a pretty popular Esper, as she is listed as the third strongest Level 5 in the world. Still, she stays really levelheaded and often doesn't really think that her powers are anything to show off with, but rather sees them as a practical tool. That's what makes her friendship with the other three characters possible. Nonetheless, she is a really strong woman in total while caring for everyone around her. Caring this much for people, often makes her vulnerable though, since she never wants anyone around her to get involved into things happening around her. The next character is Misaka's roommate Shirai Kuroko. Kuroko is a Level 4 Teleporter that is (at least it gets strongly hinted) sexually attracted to Misaka. She has a rather bold personality and is the one that the most comedy relief comes from, mostly using her tries to get close to her roommate. She can get really serious at times, though most of the time being when it is about her work at Judgment, an organization that keeps the streets of Academic City in order. Next up is her Judgment Colleague Uiharu Kazaro. Uiharu is a really quite and kind girl. She is Kuroko's team partner in Judgment, but she normally only sits at their base though, as she is really good with computers. The last one is Saten Ruiko. She is an energetic girl, that has a unique fascination for urban rumors and is Uiharu's best friend. She is a Level 0, meaning that she has no power at all.

The side characters in Railgun are pretty much the same as for Index. While all being fairly interesting to watch, they often lack a little depth and character development. They are all given background and motivation, but they don't seem to stand out as much as they used to in the first instance of the franchise. That is not due to them being bad though, but due to us now having strong lead characters. For Index, the main characters were really generic and didn't have any interesting characteristics. This made the characters shine, since they were a lot better written than Touma and Index themselves. For Railgun, this is not the case. In Railgun, the main characters are really well done, making the side characters only remain in their shadows and not seem as amazing as they were in Index. They still are quite good though.
The characters in Railgun are a lot better as in Index, as Railgun focuses a lot more on them than it's parent story does. It is able to let them grow on you really fast and manages to capture their mentalities really well! This can be seen best, whenever the show enters a darker part of the story, such as middle parts of the Level-Upper incident and the Sisters Arc. They are in no way one-dimensional and everyone has a believable and likeable side to him. Heck, even the villains in the end often turn out to either be pretty cool or just amazingly well written for the most part. There aren't quite as many side characters in Railgun as there were in Index, but the amount of them still is pretty high compared to other shows. They all are well written though and almost none of them is boring.
Railgun: 8.5/10
Railgun S: 9.1/10

Art:
The Art in Railgun's first season is pretty good. As expected from J.C. Staff, the animation is pretty well done, while not being outstanding. It is detailed and fluent during the action scenes, but is kept to a rather standard level in the Slice of Life parts. The use of CG-Animation is quite obvious though, as it does stand out quite a bit and does not look good! This gets really annoying, when they start doing the background purely based on CGI. For the second season, the standards of Animation rises quite a bit, as there were several years of a gap between the production of the two shows. The Animation does get more fluent and even though it doesn't get any more detailed it doesn't need to. However compared to other shows of it's time, both are only above average and could've been better. One plus point for Railgun S though is, that they use a lot less CGI than any other Raildex show. The character designs don't look too original, but are nothing to complain about, since they for the most part are bound to the original show. However the ones that are new aren't too original either.
Railgun: 7.5/10
Railgun S: 7.7/10

Sound:
Railgun's Soundtrack was done by Maiko Iuchi, who is part of the company "I've", that did the OST for Index. He also did the Soundtrack for Ano Natsu de Matteru. The Music in Railgun is really good, having a great variety of tracks, ranging from energetic electronic music for the fight scenes, light hearted tracks for the Slice of Life parts and quite piano OSTs for the sad scenes. It suits the show really well and is really good to get you either hyped up or breaking to the ground. Of course it is not something that a Hiroyuki Sawano (Attack on Titan, Guilty Crown) would have created, but it does it's job. Even outside the Anime, the OST still has an impact, as it is a lot of fun to listen to even while not watching the show. That is an attribute, that makes an amazing OST. The only part that I don't like about it are just as in Index the light hearted tracks, that often annoy the hell out of me. They are fine when not being noticed or really quite, but they don't really sound good to me. The Openings on the other hand are amazing. All four of them capture the show really well and are able to get you hyped for the show itself. The songs are amazing and I've been listening to them on my phone all day long. As for now, there is no dub available and the Japanese voice acting is as always really good (I can't judge too much though since my Japanese is not good enough).
Railgun: 7,9/10
Railgun S: 7,8/10

Despite being part of the same franchise and even being set in the same city as Index, the themes presented in the two Raildex instances are entirely different. While the parent story focuses more on the war between church and science, the church doesn't play any roll in the spin-off. Instead, Railgun is more about Power, how to obtain it and what to do with it. It deals with the lack of power and how the wish of having it can effect people and it deals with the responsibility of having a lot of power and how it can effect people's life. It does so amazingly well, presenting it in the characters in a great way and never disappoints in good and flashy action. The story and setting both are really interesting and both seasons of it are great.
Now as I calculated the scores I gave to To Aru Kagaku no Railgun and To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S (being Story, Characters, Art, Sound and my personal enjoyment) I got to a score of 8.02/10 for Railgun and a score of 8.52/10 for Railgun S. The first season already is good mostly for it's characters, but the second season then proceeds to get lengths better and is simply amazing. As it stands now, both Seasons are currently unlicensed and is available for legal streaming on Crunchyroll.
And with that, I hoped you enjoyed this Review and until the next post!

Follow me on Twitter: @korigaming ; Hummingbird: Kori
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Ever since people started thinking, gathering in groups and building villages and cities, there was always the one question that some people asked themselves and even though most people probably didn't really care in the first place, they later started asking the same questions. It was a matter of time until that question was raised. "What are we?", "Where do we come from?", "Why are we on earth?", are the ones I am talking about and one answer became popular quickly: God! Religion was founded in the early days and while having it hard at first, the religion that in the end came out on ... top in the western world was Christianity. Not always through peaceful means, but they somehow managed to make people believe them. But the church doesn't really have the monopole of answering these questions. Science did not always played a role as big as it does now, hell it even was forbidden to oppose the church by using science for some time! The war between science and church though has always been going on, Galilei, who was imprisoned for spreading the truth he found out through scientific mediums, probably is the best example for it and while it certainly did cool down a lot, there probably are still people fighting about it right now! Ladies and Gentlemen, today's topic shall be the Anime with the oh so interesting topic of science and church, Today's topic is To Aru Majutsu no Index!

As this is a Review for both seasons of Index, I will go on and give two scores for every category!

Story:To Aru Majutsu no Index or Index as I will call it for short, revolves around Kamijou Touma, a middle school student that lives in Academic City, a city solely dedicated to science development and Esper training. It is technologically advanced and around 80% of the people living there are students. In this city there are different ranks of Espers, telling their strength, going from Level 0, people that don't have any ability, up to Level 5, which are the 7 strongest ability users in the entire world. Our Main Protagonist Kamijou though unfortunately only is Level 0 and doesn't have any ability at all, except for one thing: His right hand can destroy any Magic or Ability! One day as he comes home to his apartment, he suddenly finds an oddly dressed catholic sister hanging on his balcony, muttering that she is hungry. After taking her in, she explains to him that her name is Index and she has memorized 103000 Grimoires in her mind. She tells him of the existence of Magic as well and that some kind of evil organization is after her.

The basic premise of Index is really interesting, featuring the earlier mentioned differences between the Church and science, but it's nothing that the show focuses on too long. While the enemies often are either from some kind of church or some evil scientific organization, it doesn't feel anything but a mere excuse to have a new antagonist. The setting still remains really interesting, but more for the reasons of Academic City being one of the coolest cities that I have seen in a Franchise so far, featuring underground organizations, a realistic set of population, meaning it is not perfect and a really interesting society where students are able to rule a lot. Also the whole Esper system is really well thought through and was a lot of fun to think about, even if it certainly is not the main point of Index.
Index Story itself consists of many arcs, bound together to an overarcing story, that is not too significant yet, but might get soon. Every single arc is built the same way, there is some light hearted fun going on, something bad happens and everyone freaks out. Then some Plot Twists happen, the bad guy is getting figured out, he fights Touma and everything ends. Of course for the most time it is not as easy as that and surely isn't as dull as it probably just sounded. What this show does really well though, is the pacing. It never feels rushed and never drags once it really got going. Even though it has a few difficulties getting into the arc at the beginning, as the light hearted parts often drag out a little. As the arc gets more story focused though, the show starts to throw in a good amount of twists before ending in a for the most amazingly climatic and epic fight, that basically consists of our main characters holding epic speeches and punching everyone in their face! Believe it or not, it is a lot of fun to watch! If the show really has one big problem though, than it is the getting into it! The first few episodes of Index are pretty hard to watch, not because the story is bad, but due to another reason...
Index: 8.5/10
Index II: 8.7/10

Characters:The characters of Index are by far it's weakest points! The first character is Index. Index is a catholic sister, with the ability of remembering everything she has once seen. This ability is getting used by the church, as she had to read 103.000 grimoires for the church and remember every single one of them. She now has to take care of them and keep people away from looking into it. Index rarely really gets active in the show itself and for the most part only is the reason for things to happen. If she starts acting on her own though, it often gets pretty cool and the power of the grimoires hidden within her mind is not to underestimate. The second main character is Kamijou Touma. He is your generic Light Novel Protagonist, being the guy that wants to save everything and holds epic speeches, why the antagonist is wrong. His catchphrase is the sentence "Fukou da" which in English means "Such misfortune", as he sees himself as an incredibly unlucky person. There is not a lot more to him though, as he is pretty blant. It takes a lot of time, to really get used to him, since at the beginning he is really annoying and only gets really likeable in the second season. It's not that he changes a lot, but the one thing that is different, is that he is a lot more badass later on and while not being a good character, he at least is really cool! In short, the longer the series goes on, the better the main characters get!
The character cast around those two characters is huge, introducing at least one new character every single arc (there are a lot of arcs...) and keeping most of them for use later on. Every single one of them though, especially those that are getting used more often, are really well fleshed out and are by far not as one dimensional as the two main character are. They are a lot more interesting than Index and Touma are and every new side character is a great addition to the already amazing cast of side characters. I am looking forward to getting more of those in the coming seasons.
The last problem in the character section that Index has, is the character interaction, which the comedy relief scenes are focused on. The problem is that while the interactions are funny when seeing Index biting Touma the first time, as she seems to be doing it second episode, it gets boring really quick. The two characters are way too boring to produce anything amazing outside of fights and most of the side characters can't really safe that either. There were some points when I simply had to laugh out loud, but those were pretty rare. The comedy itself was just something that was overused to a point that I was not able to do anything but facepalm at times.
Index: 7.2/10
Index II: 7.6/10

Art:Index for the most part doesn't look too amazing. The Slice of Life comedy scenes look pretty generic and there is nothing standing out at all. When it gets serious though and they start to animate fights, they do a pretty good job at it! There are not too many stills and the animation itself is pretty fluent and while it still is not too amazing it certainly is above average! The Animation quality gets better in the second season, but still is in comparison to other Anime of that time nothing to noteworthy. The backgrounds often look pretty good though, especially when being the Academic City itself, surprising with a good amount of details. At some points the lighting is something that pleased me as well, even though that was rather rare in the show itself and happened more in the movie. The CGI though, looks pretty bad and that doesn't get better in the second season either. Unfortunately they use exactly that CGI for the backgrounds as well. It's not as clearly noticeable then though.
Index: 7.5/10
Index II: 7.5/10

Sound:The Soundtrack of Index was composed by I've, a Japanese techno sound production group. The Soundtrack itself is what I consider to be rather average. There are some tracks that are pretty cool and those are the ones that either show up as soon as some kind of mystery accures or as soon as people start fighting. In the more quite parts of the show though, the soundtrack was pretty generic and couldn't quite match up to the ones of others. The Openings on the other hand were all pretty much amazing! Every single one of them had more of a techno vibe to them. Every single one was sung by Kawada Mami, which did a really good job at it! They did a good job at preparing you for what was to come in the Anime itself, while getting you hyped if the last episode ended on a cliffhanger. In total the RailDex Franchise has amazing Openings. The endings were all quite good, but definitely skippable. They were nice to hear once or twice but after that, there was no real need to listen to them any more. The Voice Acting was splendid and leaves nothing to be desired as far as the emotions go. As my Japanese is not that good, I will refrain from saying more than that!
Index: 8.1/10
Index II: 8.1/10

In total To Aru Majutsu no Index is really good show, that has it's only big fault in it's main characters, but even that is something to get used to after a while. It convinces with a good story, a huge but likeable character cast and simply the amount of fun you have watching Touma punch someone in his face. It has amazing pacing and a skill to climax it amazingly well, making every arc somewhat epic!
Now as I calculated the scores I gave To Aru Majutsu no Index and it's second season (Story, Characters, Art, Sound and my personal Enjoyment), I came to a score of 7.94/10 for the first season and a score of 8,14/10 for the second season. Both are amazing even though they are flawed. The pure fun watching them turns around a lot! As it stands now the first season of Index has been licensed by FUNimation, but the second has not been picked up yet. The first season is also available on the FUNimation Website for legal streaming.
And with that, I hope you enjoyed this Review of Index and I see you next post!

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Before reading this Review, please note, that humor is entirely subjective and as is it is such, it fully depends on the viewer, if he is enjoying the humorous parts, that the show has included. As this show is a show that heavily relies on humor and similarly objective things, please remember that this is MY opinion on how I liked these subjective topics! Thanks!
The moe genre has been widely spread within the last few years, slowly creeping more and more into the seasonal charts before actually taking them over, as there have been many shows of this kind in there lately. One production company ... in particular has gotten their hands on many shows of that kind, being, as you may have guessed, Kyoto Animation. They were the ones that actually started the hype with Lucky Star and have ever since been able to receive more money just from releasing shows of this kind, such as Tamako Market in some ways Chuunibyou and most notably K-On!

Story: K-On! is a 2009 Anime, done by Kyoto Animation and has been well known ever since. The story follows Yui a clumsy air headed girl that has just got into High school. As she never really was productive in any year earlier, she decides that this year she wants to join a club but doesn't know which one, since nothing that other clubs are doing really is to her liking. That is until she finds out about a club called the "Light Music Club". Thinking they are only playing easy songs and she won't have to do anything but play the castanets she joins them, but it isn't long until she sees, that underneath the big "Light Music Club" sign it says, that they want to form a band. Too late for Yui though as she already handed in her application sheet and she now has to at least tell the club that she wants to do so, since she can't play any instrument. She tries to do so, but the club members are begging her to stay, since otherwise the club would have to disband. They show her a song and Yui decides that she wants to learn the guitar and so they start...playing music? Well...not really!
The story of K-On! for the most part actually is pretty non existent as this is a moe show and moe shows are dependent on things like cuteness and humor most of the time. It is rather rare that a moe show has an actual overarching plot instead of just having a motivation that makes them do whatever they are doing (in this situation being the band). However there are a few points that kind of show something like Drama, even though it is nothing really worth mentioning, but that is really all there is, as everything else is just cute girls doing cute things. The thing about that though, is that it doesn't make huge difference, since having a good plot obviously never was this show's goal.
5.3/10

Characters: The characters presented  in K-On! are all rather generic, as everyone seems to represent a certain cliche that they fulfill.
We have Yui, a clumsy, air headed girl that is playing the guitar. She originally joined the Light Music Club, thinking that she wouldn't have to do anything but playing the castanets and even now she'd rather be somewhere playing around than actually doing something productive. Nevertheless she gets quite good at playing the guitar pretty fast (which makes me kinda jealous...I always had to practice!)
The second character is Ritsu, the Band's leader and drummer. She is an energetic girl, that is just as lazy is Yui is, when it comes to actually practicing or similar things and loves to make fun of others, Her dream is to form a band and go to Budokan (which is a huge concert hall in Tokyo) to hold a concert there. Thus she decides to form the Light Music Club and puts quite some efforts into it, even though she forgets things really easily which makes some situations really hard for the band.
The next Club member is Mio. She is a really hard-working girl that plays the base in the band. She is really easy to embarrass though and gets easily scared, which often is used as the comedy relieve as it is quite funny to see for both Ritsu and the viewer.
The last band member is Migu, a really kind and well mannered girl. She plays the keyboarder for the band and actually wanted to join the choir club at first, but ended up in the Light Music Club as they seemed to look a lot more fun to her. She is the daughter of a rich father, who seems to own several stores, often helping the group out quite a bit.
The Supporting Cast in K-On! is just as the main cast nothing really special as they are for the most part just a bunch of moe cliches. We have the really crazy one, the caring one, the best friend and so on. Something that really stands out though, is that the supporting cast is really small, leading to them getting shown rather often and better understanding of the viewer, which really helps a lot to relate to them.
In total the characters of K-On! really are nothing out of the ordinary. Every single of them is as I mentioned earlier just a Representative of a cliche and none of them is written really complex. On the other hand though, every single one of them is likeable and a could perfectly relate to everyone, not that this was really necessary, as there was no point where I actually felt bad for any of them, since this is a moe show and moe is really well known for actually no having any Drama in there. Nonetheless I really enjoyed watching them.
Character Development in this show is just as nonexistent, as the originality in the characters. Almost every single one stays the same for the whole show and while there are a few things that change, the change rarely gets significant and incredibly well visible.
The thing about this section though is, that it doesn't really matter, whether they are cliche or not. It doesn't matter, whether the characters develop or not, since this is a show that neither wants any complicated plot nor any amazingly well written characters. K-On! totally works without anything that way. This show never even intended to be taken seriously which already gets obvious from the first episode on and doesn't really change throughout the course of the show. This is supposed to be a comedy Anime and as such we have to treat it that way. The thing that matters a lot more than the actual characters themselves, is the character interaction which in this Anime seems to be done really well. It is more than one time that I just had to laugh out loud, at just how cool the interactions between the band members were and that surely is nothing that you achieve by having great characters, but by making just letting them interact in a way that is cute and funny enough for the viewer to watch.
6.5/10

Animation: I don't think I actually have to say a lot about this, as this was done by the Animation Studio known as Kyoto Animation. For those unfamiliar with them, they have done amazingly well animated shows such as Chuunibyou or the recent free. To keep it short, the Animation looks just as amazing as in other shows by KyoAni. The character designs look really damn cute and I think it is worth mentioning, that they actually influenced every single following KyoAni-Anime, as those always seem to copy the style that K-On! Had.
9.4/10

Sound: As K-On! is an Anime about music, you might figure that the music is really well done and that if the girls are playing the songs are done really well. The Soundtrack of K-On! though, only consist of way too few actual songs the band plays itself. The majority of the Soundtrack is the background music, which is rather boring and not really exciting to listen to. The songs that they actually play on concerts though, which happens rarely, are pretty well done and catchy. They are nothing that stands out due to it's complexity, but going into a moe show about music I actually was thinking it'd be a lot worse than it was. The ending and Opening though, both were amazing. Especially the ending, featuring a style that is really cool to look at and a really cool song.
8.1/10

In total K-On! has been something that I was kind of cautious to start, since I heard mixed opinions about this, ranging from absolute love to hate. I didn't know what to think of it until I actually watched it myself and I really have to be honest and say that I actually really enjoyed this. The humor was fantastic and I caught myself several times going "awwww...this is cute!", an exclamation that I wouldn't have thought I'd ever hear saying myself. And while this is all there is to it, with it being really funny and really cute, the show really doesn't need anything but this. It is enjoyable the way it is and I myself wouldn't have changed anything about it. It doesn't try to be something deep or anything that makes a lot of sense, but just wants to entertain the masses and that's what it does really well!

Now as I calculated the scores I gave K-On! (being Story, Characters, Animation, Sound and my personal enjoyment), I came to a score of 7,66/10! It is really good for what it is supposed to be, but nothing beyond that!
As it is now, K-On! has been licensed by Bandai Entertainment, but since Bandai actually has gone broke, this is out of print. You can quite easily get a new one though, as this show still is rather new and there are quite some left to sale. If you happen to live in Australia this show has been picked up by Madman and by Manga in UK and if you live in the same country as me (being Germany), you are able to get this by Kazé entertainment.
With that I hope I could help you and see you next time!

Transsexualism is a topic that never gets attention in western TV, radio or any other medium. For the most time it gets branded as gross and that those people are somewhat weird. For me personally it stands at the same point as Homosexuality, being a part of the society, we have to accept the people as they are and not see them as anything less than we are (that is only my opinion though and I can’t force that on anyone!). The Anime that I want to talk about today, is an Anime that deals with exactly that topic, but in a way that most ... other shows don’t. It does it in a way, that neither supports random fanservice, nor any inappropriate humor about the transsexuals themselves, but in a very mature way and leaves behind a quite bitter taste about what exactly those kids have to encounter. Hourou Musuko, adapted from the Manga by Shimura Takako, the same author that wrote Aoi Hana, is an Anime that is able to portrait the feelings of a minority in a beautiful way and really makes you think about such a difficult topic.

Story: There is not much story to this show, as it has no overarching plotline whatsoever, with it being pure Slice of Life, but rather shows how kids deal with different situations and most important puberty.
The basic plot revolves around Nitori Shuuichi, a shy boy, that wants to be a girl and likes to dress up as such and Takatsuki Yoshino, a boyish girl, that wants to be a boy and likes to dress as such either. They get to know each other in 5th grade (elementary school), as Nitori transfers to that school and they get friends quickly. Not only them though, as others get to know Nitori well too, but only Takatsuki and another girl, Chiba Sayori, know his secret of being transgender. As they get into middle school, they are in the same class again and meet many other girls and boys that they get friends with. From here on we have all the Slice of Life stuff going on and it basically depicts Nitori and his friends going through a bunch of stuff.
As I said, the plot is really simple and nothing outstanding at all. While we have quite some things going on, most noticeable a love triangle which pretty much must be one of the best that I have seen up to date, but still it stays rather simple. In my opinion though, this is what helps the show a lot to get it’s message across and while the story is simple that in no way means it is bad, it is just not the driving force for this Anime.
7.2

Characters: The characters in in Hourou Musuko are to keep it short, fantastic.
The first character I want to talk about is our main protagonist, Nitori Shuuichi. He is a shy boy, that actually wants to become a girl and from the first episode on he is a really likeable character. He has to go through a lot and even though he is something that after normal standards is labeled as weird, the viewer doesn’t think so in any way (at least I didn’t)
The second character is Takatsuki Yoshino, a boyish girl that actually wishes she was born as a boy. She hates everything about cute clothes and things that are similar to that. She also acts a lot more boyish than Nitori does.
The last main character is Chiba Sayorin, a really quite girl, that at first doesn’t seem to have any feelings at all, except her love for Nitori that she confesses quite early and which is the reason for a lot of tension between some of the characters. She is the one that is mostly the least relateable to at first but becomes a lot better character later on.
The supporting cast of the show might be one of the strongest I have seen so far. It features many character archetypes, but done in ways that make them really interesting and I loved more than one character in there.
You might have realized that I left further characterization out for now, that is due to the point that I can actually say things about the whole cast. Every single character in this show is relatealble! No kidding! I myself am not transgender and I could perfectly feel for either Takatsuki and Nitori as they went through there struggles and could perfectly feel for everyone, as they slowly start to realize that puberty is coming. Along to that, everyone in the cast acts a lot more realistic than in other Anime and Manga and even though the author seems to be a bit idealistic at times with some of the characters accepting things really fast, he shows that this is not the case in other scenes. I really thought that the whole cast of main AND supporting characters was just amazingly well done. I loved every single interaction, loved to see how they acted and was interested in every single development and character type the show presented. That is a sign of a truly great character cast and I only know few shows that made me feel that way. Huge praise for this show’s characters as it stands to me as one of the stronger Anime Casts out there, if not one of the best.
9.2

Art: The Art of Hourou Musuko is a little different from other Anime, as it is drawn in a style that resembles watercoloring. Seeing that artstyle, put me off at first, but later really compliments the story. The show was animated by AIC, which are also responsible for shows like Acchi Kocchi, and from an Animation standpoint, it looks quite good. The Animation is pretty fluent and the coloring and lighting looks pretty good. While this will not give you eyegasms or blind you by it’s sheer beauty, what it does is complement the show a lot and while I have seen better things in this regard, it certainly is above average. The character designs are nothing out of the ordinary as they look quite typical for an Anime while using a little bit of moe but not making it overkill.
7.9

Sound: The show’s Soundtrack was composed by Kosaki Satoru who also did the music for shows like the Monogatari Series, the Haruhi Shows and OreImo. The Soundtrack is for the most part really quite, using a lot of piano. This quite parts resembles the show’s feel really well as it is for the most part not a happy go lucky show, but quite often asks about deep questions and shows that being transgender is not easy. The Opening is something that is a bit of a downside to the music, as it doesn’t fit the show really well. While the music scores quite good, the visuals for this one are rather poor and have almost no animation. The ending theme on the other hand though, fits the show amazingly well and while the visuals are only a running style thing, this is almost unskippable as it fits so perfectly that I fell in love with the song only by watching this Anime.
8.5

In total, this Anime that may not please everyone, due to the topic presented, but if you plan on leaving this aside just due to the Crossdressing and Transsexualism portrayed in this Anime, than I beg you to think it over again. This Anime does not only portray those themes, but also shows the going through puberty that everyone goes through once in his life. You could say that this is not an Anime about Crossdressing and Transsexualism only, but rather an Anime about acceptance. Acceptance for those who aren’t exactly “normal” to the standards of today’s society. Hourou Musuko portrays all this in a way that is simply beautiful, featuring one of the strongest character casts that I have seen so far and making people think about this topic. That is what makes this Anime as good as it is and that’s why it really should not be missed!
As I calculated all the Scores that I gave this Anime (Story, Characters, Art, Sound and my personal enjoyment), I got to a score of 8.44/10.
Right now this Anime has been licensed in America by Aniplex and is available to buy there. The Manga also has been brought over there by Fantagraphic Books. It is available for legal Streaming on Crunchyroll, if you happen to live in a country from which it is accessible.
With that I hope I could help you and I’ll see you next time!

Super Heroes by now are a standard part of our lives, being adapted into thousands of films already, we are used to incredibly powerful men and women walking around in weird skintight clothes that are supposed to be their trademark. It has almost been done to death in western media and I myself am not a huge fan of those franchises either, with a few exceptions. In Anime though, while we have quite some superheroes, it is not nearly as much as in the western media and only few of them really rose to popularity in the Otaku Culture. Today I will Review an Anime ... that is rather unknown to the masses, while still not disappointing in most parts. Casshern Sins is a Spin Off of the original Shinzou Ningen Casshern, which aired in 1974, meaning this show was goddamn old. It aired in 2009 and tells the story of an Alternative Universe.

Story: In this Alternative Universe, the world is almost only inhabited by Robots and the humans that once created those, became rare. This world is shown in a post apocalyptic state, where all the robots, which couldn't die due to them getting old earlier, now slowly ruin away. This Ruin heavily resembles rust and seems to work the same way as infirmity for humans. Here lives our main protagonist called Casshern. He is a robot that is immortal, immediately heals every time he is wounded and cannot decay like all the others Robots. There also are a lot of rumors around him, that if a robot would devour him, he would get the immortality that is Casshern's. Our protagonist though, doesn't know what happened to him and has no idea why he is immortal and where the Ruin comes from.
There actually is not a lot more to say about the plot, as it is rather simple and going deeper into it would result into spoilers. The thing that stands out though, is not the plot itself, but the Setting it is presented in. One thing has to be said though, being that this show is slow! For almost the whole show it moves forward so slow, at points it even gets a little boring. It actually takes the show 12 episodes before it gets a little faster, before it actually goes back into slow-motion mode again and decides that the fast pacing is something it doesn't like, before only getting a little faster in the final episodes. This is something that many people might find to be a problem with this show and something that turns away many. I myself didn't have any problems with that though and actually thought it fit the world rather well, but that is just preference and I can totally see why people might not like that.
6.7

Characters: For the majority of the show, it moves forward in a "Character of the Week"-Style and only goes away from it if it gets to a climax, which happens rarely due to the slow pacing. Every single episode, the show introduces a new Robot or Human, lets them interact with the main characters that are currently present, before either letting them stay, leaving them alone, or killing them off. It's a concept that quite some shows often use in a similar way, being the "monster of the week"-concept. A really popular Anime for this is the Mecha Deconstruction "Neon Genesis Evangelion", which introduces one enemy per episode and let's the three main characters kill them off at the end, before it goes into the actual main plot later on. Casshern Sins does the same thing with it's supporting cast. The thing that most shows that use this concept intend to do is get depth added to their own characters. Casshern Sins does this while also getting a little more into the Setting every single episode and every single episode that is used for a Supporting character in the end helps our main character realize the thing that the whole show wants to tell us, being that without death, life would not be livable
This concept is executed in such a good way, that every single episode we get a new character, that for the most time doesn't even show up anymore at all, that is either really likeable or just amazingly well written. Unfortunately this can not be said about all the main characters. More than once, I had the feeling that the supporting cast would be overshadowing the main characters by far. We do get development for every single one and a lot of depth of course, especially to Casshern, but all this doesn't help me to sympathize with the characters more and I feel like they were way to boring for the most part to actually make for a good cast. Leaving us with an amazing Supporting cast, while the main cast didn't succeed in convincing me of them being really interesting.
7.6

Art: The Art in Casshern Sins is, to leave it simple, amazing! It's another show where Studio Madhouse doesn't disappoint in just being awesome. The fighting scenes, which exist at least once per episode, look really good and are completely fluent. The coloring is for the most part beautiful and fits the dark atmosphere really well, while still featuring a lot of colors. The Characters Designs though, are something that I had my problems with, with it being really old school, since the characters were designed in 1974 already for the most part, which is not a style that I really like. That again is only preference and doesn't really matter for the overall enjoyment but rather is something that I didn't like myself.
9/10

Sound: The Soundtrack of Casshern Sins is something that I didn't realize during the first few episode, but that grew on me really fast. It mostly consists of really quite pieces, using a lot of guitar. It is used perfectly for the most part and one of the few songs in the Soundtrack that I actually didn't like was the only one that was not the opening or ending, was the only one using lyrics. The Openings and Endings though, were something that is in contrast to the OST itself actually...rather annoying. While the first Ending song was okay, I could stand neither the first Opening, which was plain annoying to me and the second ending, which I actually didn't watch a lot.
8.3/10
Casshern Sins is a show that is not for all people, featuring a pacing that is a lot slower than the pacing of most, but if you happen to like more than a few genres and are able to take things that are a little different from the usual shows, it definitely is worth checking out.
Now as I calculated all 5 scores that I have given (Story, Characters, Art, Sound and my personal Enjoyment), I give Casshern Sins a 7.96/10 as a show that  pleased me, but not as much as others did! It currently is available for legal Streaming on FUNimations web page, if you happen to live in a country where you have access to that particular Stream (Other than me '-.-). It also has been licensed by FUNimation if you happen to live in America, and by Manga for the Europeans.
With that I hope I could help you and I'll see you next time!

The spring of 2013 can pretty much be summarized in one word: hype! Mostly centered around one single show, a show called Attack on Titan. Another shounen introduced to the likes of the Naruto and One Piece fans. But is this Anime worth the hype? Or is it again just another shounen that gets far too much credit for what it actually is?

Story: The setting of Shingeki no Kyojin is set in the far future, where mankind has faced an enemy that has been unknown to them for a long time and get's driven back into a single gigantic town, surrounded by three walls, higher ... than every titan seen so far, that shall defend them from any incoming threads. This obviously also means that almost no human being has enough courage to leave the walls. This being, the human race slowly starts to lose their technology and seemingly go back to medieval time.
Eren Jaeger, the son of a known doctor though, doesn't simply want to stay within the walls that keep the titans from coming into the huge area, but wants to leave the town and explore the outside world together with his friend Armin Arlert. One day, the walls of the gate of the little district he  lives breaks, due to an incredibly tall titan and the titans enter it. From here on the catastrophe starts and everything goes down hill.
The Story of Shingeki no Kyojin is an extremely interesting take on something that has been done a lot. The zombie apocalypse really is not a lot different to this, considering that we have mindless human like things walking around, that only want to eat humans. The thing that SnK does a lot better than most Anime is presenting it's world and showing the crisis.
The main selling point of the plot though is the pacing, being one of the fastest paced shows that I have seen so far and literally feeding us with plot twists within the first seven to eight episodes. The pacing though, while being the best point, at the same time can also be the weakest. Since the first episodes were paced that fast, when the show slows down to normal speed, it feels as if things would have completely stopped to happen. The pacing in the second half of this first part seems really off and in comparison to the first half let's down a lot, even though it can't even be considered really slow. It just feels this way. All in all SnK has a really intriguing plot, carried by an incredibly fast pacing that can be both blessing and curse due to it slowing down to normal pace.
8.4/10

Characters: The cast of Shingeki no Kyojin's first half is quite big, featuring many of the trainees that want to become soldiers for different matters, which leads to only few of them really getting depth added and most of them not being given too much attention to, due to that they didn't have enough time for this. But I can't really judge that much for the supporting cast, since we are only half way through the series and there is still a lot of time for development. That being said, the ones that actually do get depth are really swell written.
The main cast consists of three characters and is pretty well balanced, the most important one being Eren Jaeger. He is the son of a known doctor living in Shiganshina, the small district which the titans invaded first. Before they came, he already planned on joining the Recon Corps, that are the only ones that are able to leave the wall, searching for Titans to investigate and get to know more about them. After a titan eats his mother he swears to revenge her and kill every single Titan on this earth, making him seem at first sight like a generic character, but later adding enough depth to it to really make him an amazing character and develop him as the tragedy goes on.
The next character in the main cast is Mikasa Ackermann. She is Eren's stepsister, for reasons that would go into spoilers and that I am not going to explain. She pretty much serves as the voice of reason for Eren and stops him from doing stupid things more than once. Later on though, as Eren becomes more and more independent, she is seems to be more of a love interest than what she was before, which still doesn't take away the awesome ass kicking scenes in which she really gets to shine and all in all she really makes a great character.
The last of the three main characters is Armin Arlet, at first being postmarked as the pussy of the show, he later on really gets to shine and show his true abilities of making plans and being the mastermind for operations that seem to only be able to fail and make them possible. Armin is a childhood friend of Eren, that first got the idea of leaving the town due to his parents doing the same. They never reappear though, leaving him and his grandfather alone.
The main cast is, just as the supporting characters that the show focuses on, really well done and the they add a lot of depth to them, leaving a really good impression of them and making them incredibly likeable.
8.9/10

Animation: The Animation of Shingeki no Kyojin has been handled by WIT Studio, a side studio of the famous studio Production IG. The studio itself though didn't have any work before this, making this the only thing that they have created so far, aka their debut and that really is something that people are able to realize, due to production delays and unfinished animation in some episodes.
Those issues aside though, the Animation quality itself while battle scenes is amazing! The fighting scenes and actually generally the scenes when they use the 3-D Movement gear (a gear that makes them seem like "Medieval Spiderman" (random gigguk quote)) is incredibly fluent and just something really good to see. At this point a lot of credit to Araki Tetsurou, who was directing this and made the gear as awesome as it is!
On the other hand though, while not fighting or doing anything that requires fast movements, the quality drops a lot, to a point where still screens become more normal than actual animation. This of course is due to the budget being almost completely used on the action scenes, leaving nothing but a little amount for everything else. While I do approve of the amazing battles against the titans, I do think personally that they should have kept a little more budget for the slow paced parts and even though the action scenes wouldn't be as good, the scenes that don't need as much movement, wouldn't throw me off as much.
7.5/10

Sound: The OST of Shingeki no Kyojin has been composed by  Sawano Hiroyuki, who also did the soundtrack to Animes such as Guilty Crown and Gundam: Unicorn and this Soundtrack really doesn't let down! This is probably what gets you heart racing the most in the entire show and makes this show a lot more enjoyable, even with those flaws that it has quite a few of. The OST is really good at getting you excited for the battle to come or make you emotional for what just happened. A thing that really helps the show. The songs are mostly just as fast paced as the show itself and even get you singing whatever you understand without even watching the show. The slower songs are pretty emotional as well and give a good feeling of how dark this Anime can actually be.
The Soundtrack almost always fits perfectly and as I said multiple this really gets your heart racing during every fight scene and just scream out the words that they are singing (as far as you understand them that is...)
I don't think I really need to talk about the first Opening "Guren no Yumiya", but for those who actually seem to live behind the moon, this Opening must be one of the best to come out in the last few years. Not only does it get stuck in your head really easy, it also just doesn't get boring and while watching the show always makes you want to see SnK now. The ending "Utsukushiki Zankoku na Sekai" on the other side of the show, does not let either and features quite good animation together with a beautiful song sung by Hikasa Yoko.
As far as I can tell the Voice Acting cast has been really good. While again, my Japanese is not good enough to understand everything, I really like how they do get over the emotions and huge congratulations to Ishikawa Yui, who had one of her first appearances in an Anime ever here in this show as Mikasa and really is an incredibly good newcomer. I hope we will see her again!
9.4

In total: Is Shingeki no Kyojin overrated? Yes! Does that mean it is bad? No! Not at all! While this show has quite some flaws, the overall impression of this Anime still is really good. I do enjoy this a lot, even though it has it's faults and even though it got a lot slower in the end there was still a lot more going for it than against it and the enjoyment factor is really high. I just don't think it is that good, that it deserves a spot in the top 10 of Anime after only 7 episodes.

After calculating all the scores that I have given this Anime (Story, Characters, Animation, Sound and my Personal Enjoyment), I came to an amazing score of 8.58/10

There is a rumor of Anime getting worse and worse in the last years, losing it’s niveau and only producing shows that are storywise and characterwise of a lot lower quality then earlier shows. And tehre is a rumor of a few shows considered as the “Saving graces of modern Anime” (Shoutout to HoldenReviews!), including shows such as Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika, Fate/Zero and the show that I am wanting to Review right now. Steins;Gate!

Story: Steins;Gate takes place in the year of 2010, in the part of Tokyo called Akihabara. Here our main protagonist Okabe Rintarou, also known as Hououin Kyouma, lives in a small ... laboratory together with his two lab members Hashida Itaru, aka Daru and Shiina Mayuri. Together (or actually mostly Okabe and Daru) they modified their microwave into a device that is able to send textmessages into the past. One day Rintarou accidently uses it after finding a dead woman that he talked to only minutes ago. After he goes through a weird process he finds out, that the woman he thought was dead is still alive, leading to massive confusion.

The story of Steins;Gate is in my opinion definitely the strongest point of the Anime, including more twists and turns than most Anime that I have seen so far, setting it up as really complex and well thought through story! One thing that many people do complain about watching this show though, is that it starts incredibly slow, only explaining things and only shifts into the serious part rather late. In my opinion though, the pacing for the first episodes was perfect and if they would have tried to make it only a little faster everything would have felt incredibly rushed leaving a start that would have been a lot worse. I also like that they get a lot of the explaining out of the way early, not having to explain things later on. As soon as they are done with this though, the really serious part starts and shit begins to hit the fan, with more and more twists happening and more and more drama involved, as the Anime gets really dark.
9.3/10

Characters: Steins;Gate for me is a perfect example that character developement is not a hundred percent necessary in a show, as long as the characters remain interesting! The whole time travelling theme makes character developement hard to execute and that is why the only character that really changes throughout the show is the time traveller itself, being Okabe. Still every single character the show introduces is being given attention to and they do get a lot of depht in the course of the show, making for an incredibly strong suppoting cast, in that every single character is likeable and relateable to.
The main character of the show Okabe Rintarou, must be one of the mose interesting characters that I have see in quite some time, calling himself a mad scientist and giving everything and everyone weird nicknames, he definitely seems to be a little weird in his head at first, but it’s not that late, until you realize, that he actually is a character that really cares for others.
The second main character being Okabe’s childhood friend Shiina Mayuri. She is mostly shown as the cute little girl, that is a little clumsy and maybe not always as smart, but it is really refreshing to see her interaction with Okabe, since she always seems to commit herself to his jokes. Even though she almost never is really doing anything, she still has a huge roll in the overall plot.
The third and last main character is Makise Kurisu, a young woman, that is currently studying just as Okabe is. She at first is convinced that time travel is absolutely not possible, until she randomly comes to Okabe and wittnesses his experiments. Even though she saw what happened in this laboratory she still is not convinced and only slowly, as the plot begins to move forward she starts believing in the experiments and that what happened was time travel. The best thing about her must be her interaction with Okabe, since she is a tsundere (pretty much the most likeable one I’ve seen) and opposes almost everything her lab partner says. Seeing them arguing really never is boring.

The whole character cast in Steins;Gate is really well balanced. Adding depht to every single character, the Anime does a really good job in building up relationships and showing interactions between characters. The only problem there is, being the character developement, which is impossible due to the time travelling, is not solved by overshadowed by the sheer amount of well written characters that it almost doesn’t matter.
8.7/10

Art: The Animation of Steins;Gate has been handled by White Fox, the company that was responsible for shows like the recent Hataraku Maou Sama and a show called Jormungand. The Animation in total was really good and fluent, the backgrounds were really detailed and always fit the shows theme, while at first brighter, they got a lot darker near the end of the shwo which only gave the darker part a lot more feeling to it.
7.5/10

Sound: The Soundtrack has been handled by Takeshi Abo and Murakami Jun, who both don’t really have any other major works besides Steins;Gate (Robotics;Notes for Takeshi Abo). The OST is actually pretty well done, something I only realized after actually listening to it myself. It already helped building the atmosphere of the Show, but now that I really listen to it, I really enjoy it much more than I thought! It mostly consists of pieces that are rather quiet and those really are the best part of it. While the ones that are a bit more lighthearted are nicely done, they are nothing that I would listen to a lot myself. The voice acting in Steins;Gate is for the Japanese part superbe. While my Japanese is not good enough to actually understand everything, the emotions that are supposed to be brought to the viewer are done really well. For the ending and Opening, the Ending is really good, featuring one of my favourite japanese songs, even though the animation in it is rather boring. The Opening on the other hand, has music that is just as good, but Animation that stands out in a lot of ways and makes for one of the best Openings I had the pleasure to listening to.
8.4/10

In total Steins;Gate a show that should not be missed, not only presenting a plot that has amazingly many twists, well executed characters, but also shining in it’s presentation. I can’t recommend buying this Anime to those who have access to it enough, since this is worth every single cent you’ll be paying. After calculating every single score I gave (the ones above + my personal enjoyment), I ended up rating this Anime with an incredibly strong 8.74/10