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About a year ago I started getting into reading manga, and one of the first ones I picked up was ReLIFE. I liked it so much that binge-read the whole thing one weekend, and since then I have been impatiently waiting for a new chapter of it every week. Even though I have read many more manga since then, many of them better than ReLIFE, I was still very happy, when I heard that it was getting an anime adaptation, while also afraid they were going to ruin it. Well then read on and see how it worked out.

Let me introduce to you Arata, 27 ... years old, no girlfriend, no serious job, no prospects for the future,…To sum it all up he is a neet. One day going home from a bar, where he was with his friends pretending to be successful, he is approached by Ryou Yoake, from the ReLIFE Institute, who offers Arata the possibility of making him young and sending him to high-school again, where he would gain the experience, that would turn him into a functional adult. He agrees and the next day he wakes up as a 17 year old. And so begins his new life as a high-school student.

Ok, first of all the the whole premise of ReLIFE while interesting, is not exactly anything special. The problem with this kind of setup is that there are so many different routes it could take and places it could go wrong, however fortunately for us it avoids all the perils it could encounter. It manages to create a captivating story, based one incredibly likeable characters (more on them in the next paragraph), based around more or less cliche school situations.
As the anime is based around a still ongoing web manga, the main questions for the manga readers were, how faithful of an adaptation was it going to be, and how is it going to end. Well, in my honest opinion this is the best manga adaptation I have seen. There have been no important parts skipped, neither have then been any changes made to the story and this is even more surprising, given the fact that it covers more then a 100 chapters in its 13 episodes, which is impressive by itself. Regarding the ending, it is done exceptionally well, choosing a great moment in the story, that makes the story seem complete, while still urging people on to read the manga, or wait for another season.

One of the high points of the anime has to be its characters. Arata, our main character, could be thought as just another generic hero, as he is generally an all-round good guy, however the as the story progresses, he slowly evolves into one of the best developed characters of the genre. His backstory is also quite interesting and it really does explain why he got in the position he is in now. Only one good character is still not enough to make an anime, and fortunately the others are just as good, if not better. The highlight has to be Hishiro-san, an extremely hardworking and smart student, but with a total lack of any social skills. That in turn results in some extremely fun moments, which are still a step above similar events in your typical school comedy anime. Later on we actually get some great insight in her backstory as well, which might as well be one of the highlights of the anime. Then we have the two ReLIFE operatives, who are definitely a lot of fun, always teasing Arata, giving him a hard time, but at the same time helping him become a better person. As if all these characters were not enough, we also have Oogga and Kairu, the first classmates that Arata befriends, both integral to the story. There is also a whole bunch of side characters, but they do not really stand out. To sum it up the characters are great, well developed and a whole lot of fun.

Given that the manga or to be more precise webtoon is done in full colour, it leaves little to interpretation. Thankfully the art is taken directly from the source material, so the colour pop, the characters are distinctive, so it is easy to know who is who and the backgrounds are nicely drawn. If you have already been reading the manga, seeing the exact same scenes, but now animated, it just takes the story another level.

The soundtrack is probably the weakest point of the anime. It is never better then adequate, while it sometimes even manages to totally miss on some parts, as the sound does not work well with whats going on the screen. The opening and endings on the other hand are great. That is even more surprising, given the fact that every episode has a different ending, and I can’t remember one that would be bad.

Normally I prefer reading manga to watching anime, but given the enjoyment I got from watch this anime, I have actually questioning that, and started thinking that the problem might be just in an unfaithful adaptation. Not to say the manga is worse, just a bit different, and more in depth, however, I have to say that in my opinion watching the anime, and then just reading the manga from where the anime ended should be a valid option here. Given all that has been said this anime deserves a score of 9 out of 10, and so I can easily recommend this to everyone.

Falling. The earth way down, clouds quickly passing by. All of a sudden a crow appears, its claws clutching your dress, it tries to pull you up. It struggles, flapping its dark grey wings, unable to to stop your descent, stopping when it figures out it can’t be your saviour. Still falling, the ground bellow that even seconds before seemed so far away, is now quickly approaching. For the first time you actually grasp the situation you are in. Panic takes over and you wake up.

This is all that our main character Rakka can remember as she emerges from a cocoon into a new ... world, a world where humans and the Haibane coexist. The Haibane, also called the grey feathers are something like flightless angels, having wings and halos above their heads. Immediately she meets a group of Haibane, that tell her she is one of them and offer her that she stays with them in an old complex, called Old Home where they reside. This is how our story starts, with Rakka slowly getting used to her new life, making friends and facing some hardships on the way.

The story itself has to be one of the best fantasy stories I have seen. The shear amount of imagination that went into making this is unbelievable. While structured similarly to other slice of life anime, with the most of the anime focused around young women running what looks like an orphanage, taking care of young Haibane, and helping around town, there is a subtle buildup of suspense, coming form the things that are unknown to us, the spectators. This unfortunately brings forth the problem of pacing, as anime moves forward at a glacial pace, at least in the beginning. One more thing has to be pointed out, the ending is about as perfect as anime endings get.
To sum it all up we have very original story with a great ending, that is slightly let down by its slow pace.

While the problems our characters are something unique, unfortunately the characters themselves are not. It’s not that they is anything seriously wrong with them, as they are all well developed, but they just don’t seem on the same level of originality the story is on.
Our main character as mentioned before is Rakka, a newly hatched Haibane, born into this world without any memory except of the one dream of falling down. At first she is a little lost in this new world, but she soon starts feeling at home, making new friends. She is very likeable and reliable, if a bit shy just like every second anime girl, almost never showing any unsightly characteristics.
Next up we have Reki, the oldest Haibane in Old Home. She acts very responsible and serves as something like a mother to the younger inhabitants. Underneath all of that there are some much darker secrets that I wont go into not to spoil anything. All in all she has to be the best thought out and the most unique character amongst them.
Then there we have an extensive support cast of the other Haibane and a few of the townsfolk. Most of them are memorable and well fleshed out, and they all serve as a pice in the story, but they do feel a bit generic at times.
I have might have been a bit harsh on the characters in the previous paragraphs, but they are still great, but with such great story their flaws stand out much more.

The visuals of the anime are good, but they do show their age, and a relatively small budget of the studio. The backgrounds are beautiful for most of the anime, but the character animation leaves a lot to be desired, as the amount of details drops off suddenly when the characters are not directly in the foreground, and the movement does get a bit choppy at times. I have to point out the art that Reki makes in the anime as it is really beautiful. Also if you dislike fan-service this is the anime fotr you as there is none to be found here whatsoever. The soundtrack is nothing to write home about, but it is still adequate throughout the anime. There are some spots where both the sound and the visuals combine to make some seriously moments of pure beauty, but unfortunately they are not nearly enough of them. This is one of the few anime I have watched parts of dubbed, as I hadn’t felt the best and reading subtitles seemed like a drag, and I have to say the dub was surprisingly good, and in no way worse then the Japanese version.

In the end this was a remarkable anime, and one of the best I have seen in a while. The score it gets is a high 8, while it has a great story, the pacing and characters hold it back from becoming a true masterpiece. It also lacks a great audio-visual setting that might mitigate the pacing problems. I have to say I fail to understand how this anime is so unpopular, as it is currently situated around the 400th place. This is an anime I am able to wholeheartedly recommend to anyone, except the most action hungry folks out there.
I hope you enjoyed reading this review, and feel free to check out any one of my other reviews. I also gladly accept any positive or negative feedback, as well as any suggestions on how to improve my upcoming reviews.

Ever since I have started reading manga roughly a year ago, i have been cautiously avoiding slice of life, as a genre, as the few titles I have read back then, were disappointing to say the least. However as rare as they are, there are still masterpieces hidden in the sea of mediocrity. One of them surely has to be Oyasumi Punpun. Now without further ado lets get to the review itself.

The manga tells us the life story of Punpun, as he goes through a troubled childhood, growing up to become a deeply troubled adult. In the earliest stages of the manga his father is ... sent away on account of domestic violence, while still in hospital his mother, dissatisfied with how her life turned out, attempts to commit suicide, and meanwhile Punpun is experiencing serious internal struggles regarding a promise he made to a girl in school, and is unable to keep. Having no-one to entrust his problems to, he just internalises all of this, and the actions that are the consequence of this, completely define his future. Remembering something his once said to him, he can call upon “God” for help, only by saying a few words. This imaginary conversations with God are more or less the only way he is getting some of his problems out of his system. The manga itself is a great example of the psychological consequences caused by bottling all your feeling, and running away from your troubles. The story does not only focus on Punpun, but there are also two side stories, one regarding two of his school friends, and the other one focusing on a local cult, that is predicting the world is going to end soon. The story is not all gloomy and depressing, there are some very happy and touching events that have been deeply implanted into my memory.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph our main character is Punpun, a boy we get to see grow up from his early schooldays, up until his late twenties. He is a smart kid, always good in school, however he is severely lacking in social skills. He does not have many friends and has social anxiety, which prevents him form getting many new acquaintances. The one defining trait at least in his childhood is that he takes things other people say way to seriously for his own good. He evolves greatly throughout the manga, his personality, even his outlook on life, all originating in some of the previous events.
There are three other important characters during his childhood, his mother, his uncle and his friend Aiko. His mother is at least as troubled a person as is Punpun, deeply dissatisfied with her life, dreading the fact that she is getting older. She is never close to Punpun, mostly seen as being cold towards him, but in the end still shown as having some affection towards her son. When Punpun’s father is sent away, and his mother is in hospital, his freeter uncle comes to take of our little protagonist. He is deeply scared buy some events that happened to him in the past, but he is still the only person that actually has any idea what Punpun is going through. He is caring towards Punpun and he is always prepared to help his nephew, but later on Punpun shuts him out of his life. Aiko is a girl that has just come into the same class as Punpun. Punpun immediately takes a liking toward her, and she to him as well. They become really close, and one day Punpun promises her they would go on a trip to the sea, however its a promise he cant keep. She has previously made him promise that he wont lie to her, and having lied to her puts too much guilt on Punpun. She is also seen changing through the manga, but i wont go into that not to spoil to much. For the same reason I won’t go into the characters that enter the story later, all I can say is that they were all great, well developed and most of all very interesting.

The first thing that actually caught my eye in this manga was the fact that Punpun and all his family members are drawn as some kind of cut-out birds, while everyone else is drawn realistically. Later on Punpun’s look changes, representing his internal struggles. In my opinion this is an amazing way to make the manga unique, it was also interesting how the artist was able to masterfully transmit the emotions using these character models. It is not only this that deserves acclaim as everything else also looks next to perfect. The other characters look realistic and they manage to actually feel like real people. As the manga is set during the duration of almost twenty years, the way these characters change is just about perfect, as they are not just a bigger versions of their previous selves, but still remain recognisable. lastly the backgrounds are about as good as they get, there is plenty of detail, and it always accompanies what is happening perfectly.

To sum it all up Oyasumi Punpun is a masterpiece, surely one of the best manga I have read up until now. I am actually unable to find any serious faults, the only problem is that it is quite dark. This is not something one would want to read and relax, you really have to put your mind to it. It is also not a manga one would recommend to someone who has just started reading manga. It also includes a bunch of adult content so it is not something for younger audiences, but lets be serious, if they have a problem with that, they would surely not be mature enough to enjoy reading this. All in all I believe the author perfectly accomplished what he intended with this manga, and I would urge everyone to read it, as they won’t regret it.
I hope you liked the review, any feedback would be greatly appreciated and also feel free t check out my other reviews.

Lately I have been mostly reading manga, and have been reluctant to go back into the world of moving pictures, but Zankyou no Terror had managed to get me excited about anime once more. Now lets start with the review itself.

Zankyou no Terror tells us the tale of two seventeen year olds, who are determined to exact revenge upon Japan, for the horrors they have experienced during their childhoods. They resort to terrorism, blowing up buildings and such in Tokyo.They operate under the name Sphinx as they give out riddles to the police, so they have the option of preventing the accident from happening, if ... they get it right. On one occasion, when they are blowing up a large commercial building they happen to involve a girl, to whom they give the choice to either join their organisation, or die in the explosion. She naturally chooses to live and from there on the story then follows the trio on their quest.

This has to be one of the best realised story I have seen in a long while, and what is even more impressive is that they manage to pull it off in only eleven episode. The story begins harmlessly enough, with the main character presented as just two runs of the mill terrorists, but the development of the story afterwards, shows us everything, their backstory, motives, and much more. Here we encounter the first problem as some of these explanations come on far to late, and while in the end everything becomes clear, you are left in the dark for most of the anime. Throughout there were many thing that threw me off initially, however everything was brilliantly explained in the end.

The pacing unfortunately is nowhere near perfect, as the anime seriously looses its pace in the middle when the initial action calms down. Fortunately the pace picks up soon and the the ending episodes are nearly perfectly done. Speaking of the ending, there are a few other anime that manage to conclude as well as this one. There is a logical conclusion following the events of the anime, and while the ending itself is not exactly cheerful, it brings peace to the watcher. Well anyway the story is great, and while there are still flaws, it manages to tell us a compelling tale, that shows us an unique outlook on terrorism, and also handles many more important themes.

The characters could have been one of the highlights of the anime, but unfortunately there are a few problems, that that made me unable to enjoy the anime as much as I would have been able to otherwise.

As I have mentioned before, the anime is really stingy on information it gives us, so while the story as such is not overmuch impacted by this, it is extremely hard to grow attached to characters, if you are given little to no information on the basis of their actions. This might have been done to invoke some kind of mystery, and on some level it accomplishes that, however the anime is not built upon that, so in the end it comes off more as a distraction, than anything else.

The other problem comes from the lack of personality of the some of the characters, especially our main terrorist duo Nine and Twelve, as well as their nemesis Five which joins the party in the middle of the series. They even lack normal names, being called only by numbers, which sounds strange, especially in the sub version, as the English words stick out far too much, but at least they manage to pronounce them correctly. Other then the lack of a true name they do come out a bit too artificial, which has to be attributed to their upbringing, even though it still does not make make them any easier to get attached to.

Now that I have finished with my complaints, it is time to give the characters some praise. Lisa our female lead, is absolutely amazingly portrayed. First shown as a lonely high school girly, dealing with a broken up family and constantly being bullied by her classmates, she slowly evolves with the help of Nine and Twelve. I have to say I felt companion toward her and that is more than I can say about the rest of the characters. The thing is she never becomes a full out terrorism god, but becomes more and more confident and useful, without ever becoming unbelievable.

Another highlight is the police force lead by detective Kenjirou Shibazaki, who is leading the investigation against Sphinx, and who I consider to be the fifth main character. The police managed to actually pose as a serious adversary for our heroes, but at the same time they are not presented as all-knowing, so the conflict comes out as quite balanced. That all changed when Five entered the picture, but I wont go further then saying that her presence becomes overbearing quickly, as I don't want to spoil anything. The supporting cast is great as well, if a bit underdeveloped, but what can one expect to get out of eleven episodes. We got many characters that appeared on screen only for a few minutes, but still managed to get stuck in my memory.

I have to say I’m split on the art, as for the majority of the time it was mediocre at best, but there were moments where the animation really shone. You see the character’s themselves are nothing special visually as well as the backgrounds, however there were points where everything changed, and the anime puts forth some of the most beautiful scenes I have seen in a while. This is all the more pronounced, as these parts are accompanied by some really great music, but more on that in the next paragraph. The anime’s colour palette is a bit subdued, focusing more on greys and blues, but still there are some bright colours thrown into the mix. The action sequences are done well enough, but sometimes the choreography leaves a bit to be desired. Fortunately for an anime such as this there is no fan service at all, as that would distract us from the story and that would be a shame.

The anime sounds fantastic. No matter how you look at it, the soundtrack is nearly perfect, it might not be able to match up to something like Noir, but it is still downright amazing. The opening track Trigger, by Yuki Ozaki is a fantastic electronic number, featuring some great vocal work backed by some interesting instrumental music. The song manages to provide the perfect mood for the anime that follows it, and the intro animation also fits the music neatly. The ending, while not as good as the intro is also impressive. Dare ka, Umi wo performed by Aimer, the band that made the unbelievable ending for the anime No.6, is a nice relaxing track that helps us reflect on the events of the episode and calms us down. The rest of the soundtrack is mostly mostly instrumental and fits the events onscreen perfectly. Surprisingly there is next to no repetition, and no track overstays its welcome. Now all of these songs are going directly into my iTunes library when I manage to get my hands on them.

To sum it all up, Zankyou no Terror an outstanding anime, that manages to tell us an interesting and unique story. While there are a few points where further improvement would be welcome, such as some of the characters and the animation quality, its positives outweigh the negatives easily. As such, I can wholeheartedly recommend the anime to anyone looking for some quality viewing, only beware as this is not the happiest anime out there. My final score for it would have to be a 9 out of 10 (however I have been thinking of changing the rating system so this rating is not permanent).
I would really like to get some feedback as to improve my further writing efforts, and feel free to check out my slowly growing collection of reviews.

After a long hiatus I am back to writing reviews, and this time I’ll be looking at one of those friendship conquers everything anime, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic.

The story takes place in an imaginary world based on the medieval Middle East, which is unique in its own right, but sadly that has to be the only unique thing about this anime. We are introduced to our two main protagonists who by a series of encounters, become good friend and embark on an adventure. All of that sound all nice and fun, and I have to say it was a lot of fun to ... watch, but at no point did it manage to pull me in. The story starts to evolve after the first arc, and I have to say it does improve in many aspects, and tackles many themes rarely found in anime, but unfortunately it was always too predictable and cliche, there was never any suspense, and one could immediately know that friendship will prevail in the end. One thing I have to praise is the pacing as it was surprisingly consistent, and even though there were 25 episodes overall filler episodes were nowhere to be seen. The ending was also done as good as the rest of the story would permit, but overall it was one of the best conclusions I have seen in a while, while still feeling like a great starting point for the second season.

Our main characters are Aladdin, Alibaba and a bit later on they are joined by Morgiana. Alibaba is our generic main character, he is everything one expects of a hero in a shounen anime. Even so he gets some character development, and his backstory is deeply explored, which is laudable. Next up we have Aladdin, who is this little kid with some serious magical powers, and the ability to summon a giant jinn named Ugo to fight for him. Other than his powers he usually acts like a normal careless kid, but at times he becomes a sort of voice of reason in the group. The best character in the show has to be Morgiana, a former slave saved by our dynamic duo, to form a tenacious trio. She gets her fair share of development as she faces the demons left over from the years she spent enslaved. She is also a fearsome fighter and proves to be an invaluable member of the group. Throughout the series, several side characters are introduced, and they are almost always great additions to the story. The antagonists in the show are plentiful and fleshed out really well, but unfortunately they never seem like much of a threat.

The main attraction of the anime has to be the animation, it is positively amazing. The colour palette just pops out, but unlike anime like No Game, No Life it isn't overly aggressive. The scenery is exceptional as well, the world really looks like it jumped out of the 1001 Night, with the beautiful desert landscapes and the arabic architecture. The character are also done unbelievably well, the movement is smooth and the facial expressions flawless. Here I have to point out Morgiana, who has to be one of the best drawn female characters I have seen in a while. We do have a bit of fan-service here and there, but it is never overbearing, and does not distract from the story.

The sound was in my opinion at list mildly disappointing, both the openings and endings were mediocre at best, and won’t find their way into my iTunes library anytime soon. The rest of the soundtrack was adequate, but at no point rising to more than decent. Lastly I would like to touch upon the voice acing, as it was the first time I was bothered by the Japanese pronunciation of non Japanese names so much, that I actually started watching the dub. Would it be really so hard for them to find character names that were actually pronounceable in the Japanese language?

All in all the anime was an enjoying watch, but not much more than that. The pacing and the art were great, but unfortunately that alone can not pull the anime out of mediocrity, and so I give it a low 7. I am unable to wholeheartedly recommend it everyone, but if you are looking some light anime to watch, and are not bothered by predictability, this might be the right anime for you.
I always appreciate some feedback as so my future reviews can be even better, also if you enjoyed this review feel free to check out my other reviews.

Came for the “plot” stayed for the plot.
Each year tons of harem and ecchi anime come out, but the problem is that most of them, while perfectly enjoyable, aren't particularly great, so finding quality ones is quite the effort. I have heard of a few bright spots in the sea of mediocrity, and the one that was pointed out as something better was High School DxD. So when I was really swamped with collage work, and needed something to unwind to, I decided to give it a try, but never did I expect it to be as great as it turned out to be.

In the ... beginning we are introduced to Issei, who is your average perverted high school boy, on his quest to get ahold of some scrumptious breasts. He one day gets asked out on a date by this gorgeous girl, but when the date ends, she turns into a monster (well actually a fallen angel as we later find out) and kills our poor Issei. Thankfully the horny teenager he is he thinks of a super hot girl, Rias Gremory, he had seen at school, who happens to be a demon, and accidentally summons her to save himself. She saves him, but in exchange for his life he gets turned into a demon and becomes a part of her demon group, that operates in his school under the Occult Research Club.

The thing about the story is that, while it won't win any awards for originality, it is just executed so well. At no time did I have a bad feeling watching it, as I sometimes have when watching similar anime, as it was never offensively stupid. The point is that while there is a lot of nudity in the show, it is surely not the only thing it has going for it, as the story progresses in such a way that it constantly makes you want to know what is going to happen next, and doesn't just make you crave for more nudity. It manages to be serious at times but overall it just exudes positive energy and makes for a great anime to unwind to, while still offering something a bit more substantial. Quite surprisingly the anime manages to keep a steady pace, and there were no especially weak episodes. The ending was well done and fulfilling, while still being a nice starting point for a second season.

One of the stronger points of this anime are its characters. Our main character Issei is at first presented just like your average sex-obsessed teenager, but he reveals another side of him, one that is extremely caring and loyal. I have to say I can understand why the girls come to like him, even though the first impressions he makes are generally negative. One thing I can't understand about him is the way he responds to this affection girls show him, as he is always thinking how to get nearer some of the girls, but when he actually gets the chance, he does nothing.
Our female lead is Rias Gremory who is Issei’s master. She comes from a very distinguished demon dynasty and was always looking for someone who would like her for what she was, and not for her family connections. She finds that person in Issei, as he is completely new to the world of demons and is completely loyal to her, because she saved his life. We can see she cares a lot about the rest of the group and constantly tries to make them as satisfied as possible.
Later on we are introduced to another important character in form of Asia, an exiled nun with the power of healing both humans and demons. She is in some serious trouble but Issei helps her get through, and so she joins the group. She shows extreme gratitude towards Issei as he saved her and is also in love with him. I found this relationship between them a bit strange, as Issei sees her as someone he needs to protect, but he is not romantically interested in her (yes, he fantasises about having her, is there a female in the show he fantasise about), while she is completely in love with him. She is also timid enough to do nothing serious about his relationship with Rias, but rather suffers quietly and thinks of herself as a martyr.
We also have a whole slew of secondary characters, and they are mostly great if a bit unexplored, but hey what can you do in twelve episodes. There are two character I particularly disliked, and they were his two friends, as they are there only to complain about their lack of action. The problem is characters like these are common in the genre, and I have to wonder why. Maybe they are there only to emphasise how lucky the main character is, but I see no reason for the need to emphasise that. The other possibility I could think of is to mock a part of the audience, as they are the kind of people that would watch a show like this, and if that is so, it is funny in a way, but it would be just offensive to the people watching the show as, I still want to believe not many people like those two exist. Well enough of my ranting, as these two are practically the only two characters that I disliked, even though the villains could have been done a bit better, but they still get the job done.

The animation is done exceptionally, everything is smooth, the backgrounds are detailed, and the colours really pop. One thing I have to touch about the animation is the fan-service that really is plentiful. This thing has to have the most nudity I have seen in an anime, but unlike some other anime I have watched, everything is still in good taste (I’m looking at you Yosuga no Sora), but you should still skip this if you dislike fan-service. The sound was nothing special but the opening was still pretty awesome and while the ending was nowhere near as good it wasn't offensive in any way. The voice acting was great, but I still cannot comprehend why are they choosing such character names that the voice actors are unable to pronounce correctly.

I knew High School DxD was supposed to be good, but I could have never believed, that it was going to as good as it was. The point is that in my opinion fan-service in itself is perfectly fine, but if that is all an anime has going for it, it is going to be a pain to watch. As I had said in the intro you might start watching this for the “plot”, but the story is the thing that is going to get you hooked. All in all it deserves to get a score of 9 out of 10, as while it was great, there are still many places where improvement is possible, who knows maybe if some of them are alleviated in the next season it might even get a perfect score. I do recommend this to everyone who can stand a bit of fan-service, it could even be a good starting anime for some.
I really do appreciate feedback, as I want to improve my writing, and seeing people actually read my reviews gives me the push to write new reviews.

Who thought that watching people cook could be this much fun.

Fifteen year old Yukihira Souma has spent most of his life helping his father in their family restaurant. Through this he has acquired many culinary skills and has become a very competent chef, but he is still unable to outmatch his father, and prove he is a worthy successor. When one day his father gets a job that requires him to travel around the world, so he enrols his son into the prestigious Tootsuki Culinary Academy. When he comes to the academy to take the transfer exam he is to cook for Erina Nakiri the ... academy’s best student, who is mightily impressed by Souma’s dish, but for some unknown reason does not want to show that she liked it, and tries to fail him, but Souma still manages to be accepted. Here at Tootsuki Academy he faces many a challenge that put all of his prior training to the test, but he takes them all head on, and manages to make tons of good friends in the prosess.

The story while decent is nothing out of the ordinary and has to be the weakest aspect of the anime. At first the storytelling is great but slowly as the story progresses the pacing begins to suffer and the story starts to occasionally drag a bit. This is most prominent during the cooking duels as they last for several episodes and feature annoying cliffhangers. Even though I have had my complaints, they are all minor and are typical for the shounen genre as a whole. The ending was satisfactory, but only in the case we are to get a second season, which is likely as the anime has gotten some great ratings

The anime’s main highlight are its characters. There hasn't been many shows with so many interesting and fun characters, and surprisingly I have to say that I liked them all. Our main character Yukihira Souma has to be one of the best leads I have seen in a while, he is just a whole lot of fun. The way he interacts with the other characters with his extreme confidence and easygoing demeanour is just perfect. Sadly we lack a lot of insight into his past and he experiences little to no growth through the course of this season, but the others sure make up for this and.
The main female character is Tadokoro Megumi and she is just as great as Soumaif not better. At first she is this extremely shy and nervous girl who wants to avoid getting into trouble and thus wants to stay away from Souma, but gets stuck with him in class, and later finds out they also reside in the same dorm. They form this great duo as they are almost polar opposites at first, but later Souma becomes a major influence on her, and slowly she starts gaining confidence and evolves into a fabulous chef. Her development is fantastic and the way she slowly grows as a person is great, and we are able to clearly see the influences other people make on her.
One of the more important characters is Erina Nakiri, academy’s best student and Souma’s main rival. The two of them met right in the beginning as she was the one overseeing the entrance exam. We can see almost at once that se is attracted to Souma, but she is repressing her feelings and so we can see some interesting moments between the two, Souma being outgoing as always, trying to communicate with her, while she is struggling not to open up to him.
Next we have a whole host of secondary characters which are all amazingly well done, and even though there are so many of them each and every one of them feels distinct, if not unique. I especially liked the other residents of North Star Dormitory, the way they all interact with each other is just prefect and the one who stands tall above all others is Isshiki Sempai, the only upperclassman in the dorm, who is an exhibitionist. The other highlight of the anime is Souma’s self-proclaimed rival Takumi Aldini, the only other student in the academy with prior experience with working in a restaurant, who always wants to compete with Souma, but Souma never takes him seriously.

Next up we have the audio-visual side of things and first off I want to say it is amazing, especially the art. The art is just so well done that I have to congratulate J.C.Staff for this amazing display, but one has to wonder what they were doing with Shimoneta to Iu Gainen ga Sonzai Shinai Taikutsu na Sekai that they aired at the same time as this, as the gap in quality is so great. The thing some people have complained over is the abundance of fan-service and while it can be a bit annoying at times, I found it to be used perfectly as they managed to convey the feelings of the characters while they were eating some seriously yummy looking food. I have to say this is not an anime one should watch while hungry, as the food on screen looks just too delicious, so I frequently got hungry while watching. There is one more point that I have to praise, and that would be the character expressions as they managed to look just perfect.
The soundtrack was, while not amazing, perfectly adequate for this kind of anime. The openings and endings were all well done but with the exception of the first opening, which was nothing short of amazing, they were nothing too special.

What more can I say, Shokugeki no Souma has to be one of the highlights of this year’s anime and deserves a high score of a nine out of ten. Do I recommend this anime? Well yes of course I do, everyone searching for a nice comedy should seriously consider seeing this. The only reason why I would sometimes withhold my recommendation would be in connection with the fan-service as I it might be to much for some people. Actually the only thing that kept this anime from getting a perfect rating was the lack of a sensible ending, however that can be alleviated by a second season, and when that comes out I will gladly change my score into a ten.
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Lately censorship has become completely unreasonable and an anime tackling this problem sounded promising, but oh how wrong it all went.

Lets start with the story.The anime takes place sometime in the future when Japan has banned all things “immoral”. Our main character Tanukichi Okuma has just transferred to the elite public morals school where he is quickly summoned to join the student council to help fight the terrorist organisation SOX that is fighting against censorship, but he almost immediately gets blackmailed by one of the council members Ayame Kajou, who is actually one of the terrorists, to join the terrorists and commit obscene acts.

Well the ... whole concept is not all that bad and could be made perfectly enjoyable, however the sheer amount of unnecessary profanity made the whole thing barely watchable. First off why should every other sentence spoken in the show reference either sex, masturbation or intimate body parts, that might be funny the first few times but after less than ten minutes it started to get old and after the first episode it was just painful. Most of the episodes were abysmal, but the surprising thing is that the ending was quite enjoyable and the anime ended on a positive note so I couldn’t give it an even lower score.

Sometimes a bad story can be offset by great characters, but that sure as hell does not apply here. Our main character is one of the blandest out there, he manages to have no defining traits, we know next to nothing about his backstory and even his actions are dictated by someone else most of the time. Are the others any better? Well they are, but they are still poorly developed and completely one dimensional. The members of SOX can’t even speak normally without obnoxious sexual references. The one character who shines is Fuwa, as she manages to be the only one who is not overly annoying with her jokes and is one of the only reasons I managed to sit through this travesty, but unfortunately her screen time is limited. The relationships between characters are as poorly developed as the characters. One relationship stands out the most and that is the one between Okuma and his crush, the student council president Ana. The scenes between these two made me want to puke at times, it was just so wrong and disgusting.

The animation was nothing to write home about, but it still managed to work well enough. Here I want to touch the absolutely retarded way of censoring in the “uncensored” version with stickers that looked like the body part it was covering. I have no idea who thought that it would be fun, but it just came out as immature as the rest of the series. Still that does not mean there was no fan-service as it was plentiful and completely tasteless, why would one want to constantly see bodily fluids of our characters. The soundtrack itself was not bad, but the opening was just awful, the ending was not much better so neither made their way into my iTunes library.

All in all watching this has been quite the ordeal and it was probably the worse anime I have ever seen, and if it wasn’t for the last few episodes this would have surely gotten a score lower than 3, but considering the ending was not even bad it just manages to scrape up a score of 5 out of 10. Do I recommend this to anyone? To be frank no, I do not think it is worth your time as there are so many better shows out there. In the end it was sad that I found an anime that fights against censorship, to be one of the best examples why some form of censorship is sometimes needed.
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“It doesn't matter if you can make 100 friends. Instead, make real friends who are as important to you as 100 is to them. It doesn't matter if you have one, as long as it's a friend that you care about.”

What can one expect from an anime focused around the concept of making friends, it could lead us to some funny moments, it could be deeper and focus more on the psychological aspect, or it could, as it happened in this case, just turn into a regular run of the mill harem anime. Not all is bad as you are to find out in ... the coming review.

Hasegawa Kodaka has transferred to a new school, but there he couldn't make any friends as he managed to make a horrid first impression and is now feared by his fellow classmates who think he is a delinquent. One day after school he stumbles across his solitary classmate Yozora who is having a conversation with her “air friend”. Both realising that they have no real friends come to the conclusion that the best way to make some friends is to form a club for people without friends, to try and make friends. New members slowly drip into this club, all united by their lack of social skills and consequentially friends, but even so friendships begin forming within the club.

The whole idea of the anime is great as, as stated in the introduction, friends are important but crafting real friendships is sometimes a chore, especially if you lack the social skills to do so. The first few episodes are great as well, but later on as more people start making their way into the club things start getting much worse. The concept while great veers off-course and the show slowly transforms into this strange harem anime. Normally I am not one who hates this kinds of anime as you can see by looking through my other reviews, but I hate to see wasted potential. Later on they also bring in some flashbacks to some childhood memories of our main characters and in my honest opinion they felt greatly out of place and the resulting story arc felt forced, especially because the direction the rest of the anime has taken by that point. The ending is not a particularly satisfying one, but there is a second season I haven't watched yet so that ending there is the important one.

The best part of this anime have to be the main characters and they are solely responsible for the overall relatively high score it got from me in the end. Our main character Hasegawa Kodaka is a really nice guy, but he always manages to make a horrible first impression and that coupled with his looks made his whole class afraid of him. He is by far the sanest character in the whole club and is the one the harem forms around, but surprisingly he is not completely dense and is actually able to figure out that they actually like him, but does practically nothing about it. Next we have Yozora, the mastermind behind the whole club. It is not weird she lacks friends as for most of the anime she comes off as a cranky manipulative bitch, but as we find out she is actually a good person. The next person to join the club is Sena, a beautiful, rich girl who fails to make friend because guys are either with her only because of her looks or are too afraid to approach her, while girls are jealous of her good looks and avoid her. Her being a major snob is also not doing her any favours in her friend making endeavours. These three are the series’ core characters and pretty much all of the memorable moments are based around them and not around the other characters introduced later down the line. We have a genius girl who is completely obsessed with erotic manga, Kodaka’s little sister who is suffering from a serious case of eight-class syndrome and believes she is a vampire, a ten year old nun that is a teacher at the school and Yozora managed to bully into being the club supervisor and last but not least we have a lowerclassman that is bullied for looking like a girl and wants Kodaka to teach him how to become more manly, but gets tricked by Yozora into crossdressing. The problem with these characters is that they serve no clear propose and are used more or less to serve as a distraction from the meaningful interactions between our main trio.

The animation itself is decent as all the characters look good and the background are detailed. The problem arises in form of fan-service. Normally I am not one to complain over fan-service, but when ten year old girls are shown running around topless I just find it tasteless. The soundtrack is decent as well as the voice acting, but I found the opening unbelievably annoying as it was played way too fast and I also found the singing to be just appalling.

All in all Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai was decent, but it wasted so much potential so it gets a really low 7 from me, but it is possible I am going to reevaluate the score after getting through the second season as some of the events here might be given some meaning. I have to say in never actually had to force myself watching this, as it was quite funny and so I have no problem recommending it to anyone, but do not get your hopes up to soon as you are going to be disappointed later on.
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No.6 was part of the first batch of anime I had acquired together with Noir, Kill la Kill, Attack on Titan and Another and was one that stayed unwatched for the longest but after watching it I realised waiting for this long was a grave mistake. Rarely do I come across something that manages to touch me as deeply as No.6 managed to, in its short runtime of eleven episodes.

The story takes place in the future after wars have ravaged most of the earth’s surface and now people live in a few city-states which are built on the only habitable pieces of land left. We ... are introduced to Shion a gifted young boy who one night provides refuge for Nezumi, a boy about his age, who is on the run from the authorities. He saves Nezumi’s life and four years later when Shion is accused of conspiring against the state and is being disposed off, Nezumi helps him escape. Together they flee to outside the city limit where apparently people still live in the desolate environment.

First off the site states that No.6 is a sci-fi and action anime and I have to say I could not disagree more with the later as there is little to no action during its runtime. The driving force behind No.6 are the characters and the relationships between them especially the relationship between Shion and Nezumi. Depth of the characters is amazing especially considering the extremely shortness of the anime. We can see one of the best portrayals of a society that is under complete surveillance, the most interesting thing is that most people are completely fine with the control as it allows for a leisurely life. The ending has to be one of the best I have seen in a while, the build-up in the final few episodes and the catharsis that comes in the end is just so well done and filled with emotion that I cried like a little bitch for the first time while watching anime. Well to sum it up the storytelling in No.6 is great.

Our two main characters are great as well, they might lack a bit of backstory explanation especially in Nezumi’s case as his motives are not explained well enough, but I have to say they are still amazingly well developed. The relationship between Nezumi and Shion has to be the highlight of the anime and is in my honest opinion one of the best I have ever seen in an anime. The way they first meet, and later form deep emotional bonds even though they have strictly different life views, with Nezumi’s complete pessimism, lack of belief in humanity and the desire to destroy, while Shion wants change to come on the backs of the people in whom he believes are able to force the change. We have some other important characters that all bring something to the table and actually manage too help the story advance as well as deepen the bond between our two main characters.

The art was a bit disappointing as the whole thing looked a bit dull, but there were the occasional moments of complete beauty. The soundtrack on the other side was unbelievable, the background music choices were perfect and the moments where Nezumi sings were exceptional. The opening and ending were fantastic and fit the anime perfectly. The opening song “Spell” by the band “Lama” sounds just otherworldly with some of the best this amazing instrumental introduction followed by some almost ethereal singing intertwined with great instrumental backing. The ending itself is also very close to perfect, with its soft vocals over some peaceful piano later evolving into this unbelievable uplifting song that manages to bring up the feelings felt throughout the anime. The end of the anime is where this all comes together to form one of the most stunning displays I have ever seen.

Overall No.6 has to be one of the best anime have seen in quite a while and while there were a few minor problems I am still able to give it a very high score of 9. I am currently seriously considering tracking down the light novels an giving them a try. I do recommend this anime to everyone and I urge you to see it if you haven't already, as it is really fantastic.
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