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Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that Lucky Star is one of the pioneering anime of the 'four-moe-girls-doing-silly-chats' genre, a word that I've just invented myself. I've never seen an anime before Lucky Star's times that had the same style of humor and approach, but instead I noticed a lot of shows that seem to model after Lucky Star, such as K-ON, A Channel and Yuru Yuri.

STORY:
Anyway, if slice-of-life and random chatting isn't your cup of tea for an anime, then forget about Lucky Star. This anime doesn't have a main storyline at all, it just focuses on the lives of four ... high school girls and the jokes they crack with each other. Ah, and if four isn't enough, you will meet with another four halfway through the series.

Your next question must be, "then what are the types of jokes that the girls crack?" Many, actually. I find puns the most frequent to show up, followed by random references to other anime series, especially The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (which, appropriately, is another series directed by KyoAni, Lucky Star's studio). Besides that, there are also jokes that revolves around the Japanese culture, such as the food one in Episode 1.

Those who are not familiar with watching anime or the Japanese language/culture might have a hard time understanding most of the jokes in Lucky Star. Despite this, I would still recommend them to watch it. I was also like them when I first watched Lucky Star, and it was after watching the series many times that I can finally laugh heartily at the jokes.

From my narration above, you can probably guess two things. First of all, Lucky Star's jokes are truly funny when you are able to understand it. Secondly, even though you may not understand the jokes, you still would probably want to watch it again and again. Just for the slice-of-life moments that is depicted in the show. They are so simple, yet so wonderfully crafted. I still could not help but sometimes laugh at the thought of the many jokes played on Kagami (one of the main characters).

ART:
Absolutely loved it. Like the story, the art also took for a more simplistic style, but you never get bored of watching it. It blends with the slice-of-lifeness of the show well. The characters have great design too.

SOUND:
It's your normal comedy fare. Plain, unexciting tunes for the soundtrack that fit suitably into the "ordinary" nature of the show. The OP, "Mottoke Sailor Fuku" was great at the first impression, but gets a bit boring after a while. The EDs that change with every episode wasn't too memorable for me either.

However, Lucky Star's voice acting part was spectacular. Konata's seiyuu, Aya Hirano had a great vocal range as always, injecting life into every little segment of the character. Emiri Katou also had a wonderful voice that could not have been any more suitable for a tsundere role like Hiiragi Kagami.

CHARACTER:
Because it's a slice-of-life show that focuses more on developing the characters than the plot, you could naturally imagine how I felt about the characters of Lucky Star. I think it's quite self-explanatory already, so I'll skip this part for now.

OVERALL:
Yep, it's an anime that definitely deserves the praise it had received. It's also another great masterpiece in my collection that I would recommend it to my friends. By the way, I heard that KyoAni has done another similar anime called Nichijou this year, but I hasn't really seen it yet.

You must be wondering why did I choose to review this when I haven't even completed my articles on Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha (for those who are wondering, I did one on the 1st Movie a few days back). Well, I got hold of Volume 2 of the manga adaptation of this series today, and frankly speaking, despite having already known what would happen, the plot twists and such, the manga still managed to entertain me. So since my excitement after reading the manga still hasn't subsided yet, I decided to review on the anime version, which is where the story of the manga came ... from.

STORY:
Gen Urobuchi, you bastard.

I could not fathom the reasons for his writing being despised by people. He's probably one of the best anime writers I've ever known. Indeed, he tends to go for dark, moody, angst storylines in his works, but is a valid reason for hating his writing?

Anyway, like most of his previous masterpieces, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is also greatly influenced by his writing style. DO NOT be cheated by the merry, whimsical tone you see in the first and second episodes, it's a trap well-done to engross you to watch further.

I must say that I'm glad to fall into the 'trap'. As I watched more and more, I couldn't help but applaud Urobuchi's ingenuity. Puella Magi Madoka Magica has truly, a well-devised plot with perfect pacing. Though the many Faust symbolisms utilized may confuse you a bit, but overall, it's a great story that incorporates the elements constituting a successful show.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica had made me excited (Homura's appearance), astonished (TIRO FINALE), shocked (Charlotte), sorrowful (almost everything), go into 'what-the-hell-am-I-watching' (Episode 10) and eventually, it still managed to put a smile on my face. That's what a successful story should be. I could not expect any better from Urobuchi.

On a side note, do not treat this as your ordinary Mahou Shoujo genre show. Urobuchi had twisted this so that it's more like Neon Genesis Evangelion, focusing more on the psychology part.

ART:
Now here's where I don't like Puella Magi Madoka Magica a bit. Like many other people, the character designs initially scared me off a bit. I mean, are those human beings? Flat, big faces with a disproportionate body. What the hell.

Despite this, I like the animation of the show overall. It's smooth in general and like many of SHAFT's works, I absolutely loved the imaginative, conspicuous style adapted in the Witches' scenes. Good job, SHAFT.

SOUND:
In addition to its excellent plot and art, Puella Magi Madoka Magica also boasts an awesome soundtrack. The OP, "Connect" fits the overall depressive, melancholic mood of the series well, more so for the ED, "Magia" by Kalafina. In fact, I like the ED more than the OP.

On the other hand, the background music was done by Yuki Kajiura, another great anime OST composer (the first one was Shiro Sagisu). Judging from her previous works, you would expect a great job from her, and I assure that you won't be disappointed. The background music were done very well, and I'm more impressive by the fact that the quality remains high for all the tracks. The orchestral pieces were particularly outstanding, they managed to emphasize the grandeur of the show.

CHARACTER:
I could not imagine how much time did Urobuchi put into crafting the characters. EVERY MAIN CHARACTER, and yes, EACH OF THEM had a unique personality of their own, which blends with the personalities of other people well. And ugh, each of them had such a sad backstory that you could not help but weep at their respective fates. All the characters also had a fair amount of screentime, including even Madoka's mother, who played a very important role in the final few episodes.

OVERALL:
If you had heard from other people that Puella Magi Madoka Magica is the "anime of the year", you are not hearing anything wrong. For an anime that received a godlike 12 awards in the 1st Newtype Anime Awards and whose DVD/BD sales were one of the best ever, it certainly lived up to its reputation. Now I do hope that I would see another anime that can be on par with it. Better if it were to top it.

Ohaiyou Gozaimasu! It's such a sunny day, perfect for an outing with your family and friends, perhaps have a decent picnic at the nearby park, and of course, row a little NICE BOAT on the lake while enjoying the radiance from the sun.

Lol. Anime is fucking serious business, you should know that, and not something for you to sit back and relax about. A lot of anime should really be treated with due solemn, and that, of course, includes THIS - the bloodiest, sexiest, most so-horrible-it's-awesome harem series. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome School Days.

STORY:
Here's the recipe to make School Days: You start off with ... the simple life of a perverted male high schooler. You add in a sexy bitch, with big boobs and an innocent mind and such, who became the official girlfriend of the high schooler. You add in a love rival, who pretends to be the love mentor of the high schooler, but instead enjoys sucking his d*** in the dark. Sprinkle some more bitches on top, throw in a complicated love-hate plot, wrapped with a bloody ending, let it simmer for thirteen episodes and you get School Days.

Of course, the gourmets have diverse opinions about the cuisine they tasted. For me, it's fresh, juicy and delicious. Fresh, because it has an original taste. Juicy, because the fanservice is too much to bear. And delicious... do I need to talk any more about that?

Put into simpler words, School Days is a highly satisfying series for me. Not only because of the unexpected ending which granted a 'happy' conclusion for our protagonist(s) (which I enjoyed a lot), but also because the pacing is excellent. I'm not being sarcastic here. Indeed, the flow of the plot is good and you can literally feel yourself immersed in the harem world of our protagonists. Or should I say, antagonists?

ART:
Now here's where School Days suffered a lot. The character designs were actually good, but if you put them into animation, oops. Other than the infamous pool episode, the (sex) scenes and the ending, I could not see good effort put into the drawing by our beloved animators. The characters seemed... off at a lot of times.

SOUND:
Excellent. The soundtrack blended with the mood of the show well, turning from a few whimsical melodies in the earlier episodes, to melancholic, sorrow tunes in the middle episodes; and in the end, the music became so sad that you will weep just by hearing the soundtrack alone. For the vocal songs part, we have a few memorable inserts, particularly "Kioku no Umi" (which I also enjoyed a lot), "Namida no Riyuu" (used in the turning point of the series - the raining scene), and of course "Kanashimino Mukou e" used in the final ending. The OP also deserved a special mention, although I did not enjoy it as much as the other songs.

CHARACTER:
Since School Days is a deconstruction of the harem-high school genre, rather than saying that the characters received any form of development throughout the show, I would suggest that the characters received a lot of "anti-development" (yes, it's a new word I invented). Indeed, you can see Makoto turning from just a normal high schooler to a pervert who does nothing but having sex all day. Kotonoha turned from an innocent young woman to a love-craze. Sekai... Ughh. She was as bad as she was throughout the whole show.

What I was particularly impressed about School Days is that it managed to give everyone a fair share of screentime. We see action from the main characters as well as the minor characters. The latter, especially, a few will get stuck in your head after you watched the show. For me, it's definitely Setsuna.

OVERALL:
School Days is an anime with a highly exciting setting and interesting development of the plot with a final twist that makes it unforgettable. In short, it's a good anime that I would recommend to my pals to watch, except for those whose hearts are weak of course.

I just completed Dog Days less than 24 hours ago, so I'll post a quick review of the show for now.

STORY:
It has been four years since the disappointment that was Mahou Shoujo StrikerS, and I can see that the writers from Seven Arcs really learnt their lesson from it. Initially I thought Dog Days would be like another StrikerS, having only one complicated story arc and such. But no. Instead, the writers decided to give Dog Days a different approach by having many mini story arcs.

And what do the audience benefit from this? A show with a simple plot line and excellent pacing. ... I wasn't confused by the story in Dog Days as I was in StrikerS. I don't need to shut down my laptop and cool down to think over what the characters were talking about in the last episodes I watched. Instead, Dog Days kept me constantly interested for the next story arc and I was able to finish the series in just a few hours, never leaving my seat throughout.

Though simple, the story was really original. Fantasy shows like this tend to give the people impressions that it would involve giant quests and violence which would lead to a bloody conclusion. But no. A unique aspect of Dog Days is that there isn't much bloodshed involved and wars fought by countries were just part of a sport to improve the relationship between countries. There isn't a lot of giant quests involved either. Probably the only one I could think of is Leo's quest to prevent Millhiore's death.

So you have mini story-arcs, an original plot, sprinkled with some fanservice on top, and you get Dog Days, a show with a nice story that really surprised me.

ART:
What more can I say? The character designs are the standard (awesome) fare you get from Seven Arcs. Just think of the characters in Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha, add in some dog ears, a waggy tail and an epic emblem.

Moving on to the animation part, though some of the scenes were really off, the rest were quite decent.

SOUND:
A bit disappointed, I must say. Except for the OP (sung by Nana Mizuki of Fate Testarossa fame) and ED (sung by Yui Horie) which I loved a lot, there isn't much of the soundtrack that is memorable.

On the other hand, Dog Days features a godlike all-star cast which of course includes Nana Mizuki, Yui Horie, Ayana Taketatsu (voice of Azusa Nakano, my favorite character from K-ON), Kana Hanazawa (Tachibana Kanade), Yoko Hikasa (Mio Akiyama), Daisuke Ono (with his awesome gay voice), and most important of all, NORIO WAKAMOTO. I demand more of Godwin's sexy voice! I dare say that Dog Days had the best voice acting cast out of all anime series in 2011.

CHARACTER:
Again like StrikerS, Dog Days suffered from the problem of having too many characters. But unlike StrikerS, the characters in Dog Days all had enough screentime and were developed well. Everyone also had a unique personality that keeps the interaction among the characters interesting. This is another reason why I believe that the writers from StrikerS had really learnt their lesson from 4 years back. Yay for Godwin, my favorite character.

OVERALL:
I don't know why there's so much hate for Dog Days in MAL, I believe that it's an underrated anime that should really develop into a big franchise like Lyrical Nanoha. Glad to hear that it's getting a second season, and I certainly hope that the season 2 would have an epic storyline as in Nanoha A's.

Every season, I can always find an anime that fits into the "great everything, fail story" category. For the Spring 2011 season, it was this.

STORY:
Nope, I don't think [C] was originally planned for more than 11 episodes and cut short eventually, just to let some of the supporters of the show know. The writers themselves should have known that anime in the noitaminA slots, for the past few years, have always been 11 episodes long (what a strange number).

So what contributed to the subpar story quality of the series? Lack of proper planning. The writers were too ambitious and tried to incorporate too ... many things into such a short span of time at once without thinking how are they going to write all of them out. And what do the audience receive at the end? A show with a magnificent setting but bad pacing.

And I am not kidding here. The first few episodes were indeed good, the flow of the story was smooth and make you want to watch more and more. But came the infamous Episode 8, where one of the protagonist of the series suddenly turned to the evil side and the story was suddenly rushed. Most of the loose ends earlier in the series were not explained, a lot of time was devoted to the 'main plot' which started from that episode and left viewers with a big question mark on their heads at the end of Episode 11.

UNLESS, and I say unless, that the writers are planning to pull a Eden of the East on us and make a movie expansion to explain everything in this 'social commentary + Yu-Gi-Oh' series. I would probably forgive them for these loose ends then. But judging by the ending in Episode 11, it would be difficult to elaborate more on the story anymore.

ART:
Need I say anymore about this? Oh, I shall then.

[C] has probably the most fail story of all anime in 2011, but its art is probably the best of the year. Msyu's attacks, the skyscrapers of Tokyo, even every inch movement of the convenient shop colleague who our main protagonist works with, were animated with great effort. Not to mention the awesome CGI that keeps the battle scenes rolling on. It keeps me wondering how the hell did the sponsors come up with the animation budget...

...until the very end when I realized that they sacrificed the money from the screenwriter part for this. Lol.

SOUND:
Again, [C] shines at this. I particularly love those few soundtracks used during the battle scenes. Made the tension during the duels even more nerve-wracking. The OP and ED, not to brag, are really superb.

Yay for Haruka Tomatsu as Msyu too. Her voice acting deserves a mention.

CHARACTER:
Throughout the whole series, the only characters who really had any development were Msyu and Kimimaro. Oh, you may argue that they are the main characters and deserved more development, but mark my words: devoting all the time for main characters and none for the supporting ones is normally not a very good idea.

And it's proven. The other characters had so much potential to be great characters, but were shoved away at the very end. Soichirou, for instance, was doing nothing until Episode 7, when we finally see a bit of his backstory, and at Episode 8, when he had a bit of development at least. But that only lasted for 3 episodes. The blonde chick was another fail example. She was also doing nothing until Episode 10. Heck, need I mention my favorite character Masakaki? He could have made such a good antagonist!

OVERALL:
I won't force you not to watch the series if you want to watch it, but for me, [C] is an anime that I would probably recommend it to those who were only watching it for the art and the music. Let's hope that the writers would know better what to do next time when they are planning a new anime series.

Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin was one of the very first animes I watched in 2011. How did I noticed it? I typed 'Yoko Hikasa' on Google and this title immediately attracted my attention. Normally anyone would expect an anime series with such a cool title to have a plot that also lives up to its name...

STORY:
... But no.

The one lesson I learnt after completing this anime series was 'do not judge a book by its cover'. You have your academy which focuses on teaching its students all about the occult rather than normal textbook knowledge, interesting setting. You have your tsundere heroin and time-travelling esper ... hero, a plus point. You have great setting-up, with a few hints here and there in the first few episodes that indicate this might turn out to be an awesome series.

But, no. The audience was treated to a hell load of fillers after the first few episodes. While the fillers themselves look good independently, once tied into the very few plot-related episodes, you get a fail anime series with lack of proper planning and bad pacing.

The one reason I hesitate to give the STORY part lower than 6 marks is because I enjoyed the many plot twists at the last episodes of the series. It was surprising that the writers could rush the final battle so 'well' despite terrible pacing throughout the show.

ART:
Now here's where Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin shines. The character designs looked good, and the animation throughout the run of the series were pretty smooth. Made me wonder how well the series would have done if they had devoted a bit more budget on hiring better writers and a bit less on the animation.

SOUND:
Ugh... no. Both the OP and ED are not something that I myself would look out for. Except for the first one, I basically skipped the OP and ED for every other episode. The soundtrack was also not memorable, something that you would not find in a thriller series like this.

Moving on to the voice acting, somehow I felt that there was a lack of personality injected into the characters. Even for our main protagonist, Maya, I just felt that she lacked the 'tsundere'-ness that she was supposed to have.

CHARACTER:
Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin had great backstories for the characters, but failed miserably at developing them well. Maya and Bunmei hardly had any growth throughout the series, but instead we have the side characters, those that appeared one-shot for the fillers, who received the most treatment. Even the last episode failed to provide for them any form of development.

OVERALL:
The series had such great potential, but just lacked a coherent plot, which would have been achieved if the writers had done proper planning. Hope that the writers would learn from their mistakes and do a better attempt at such genres next time.

I've actually completed BOTH the original anime series and this, but I've decided to review this first because this movie is how I was introduced to the Lyrical Nanoha anime franchise.

STORY:
Superb. That's all I can say for the story. Not only did the movie tied up a lot of loose ends which was a major flaw in the original anime series, it also included additional details such as the creation of Fate's weapon, as well as her magic teacher. It also explored more in-depth on the relationship between Fate and Precia Testarossa. Unnecessary elaboration from the original anime series was removed which made the plot ... moved smoother. The pacing was done well too.

One minor complain I have about the movie that hesitated me to give it a '10' is the appearance of way too many deus-ex-machina abilities (Mr. Screenwriter, you mean that Nanoha can create dozens of new skills in such a short span of time?)

ART:
Again, the art was tiers up from the original anime series. No more inconsistent use of animation (in Episode 1 of the original series), everything was done smooth and well. The fight scene between Nanoha and Fate was brilliantly animated. It gave me hopes for the famous fight scene between Vita and Nanoha in the next movie (A's).

SOUND:
One of the very few anime OSTs I have in my iTunes is the OST of this movie. Others include the Neon Genesis Evangelion OST and Puella Magi Madoka Magica etc. So, you can see how I love the soundtrack of the movie. Some of the best pieces from the OST include Raising Heart Set Up! (Nanoha's theme) and of course, Blitz of Gold (Fate's theme).

Besides that, the vocal pieces used in the movie are also good too. It was a bit of a disappointment since I did not get to hear Take a Shot, but this was compensated with not one, but TWO Nana Mizuki's vocals, Phantom Minds and Don't Be Long. Yukari Tamura's My Wish My Love is another insert song used in the movie, and among the three, Don't Be Long is the one that appeals to me the most. Probably because of the fact that it was used in one of the most epic scenes of the movie.

CHARACTER:
This movie should be named after Fate instead of Nanoha. As this suggests, the main character of the movie is actually Fate rather than Nanoha. Throughout the whole movie, it was Fate who got the most development. Arf as well, since she was the familiar of Fate. Precia Testarossa of course gets a lot more screentime and development than she had in the original anime series. Nanoha and Euno, on the other hand, their development was badly scrapped because of the shortening of the story. Nevertheless, being a biased person who prefers more Fate than Nanoha, I still give the 'CHARACTER' part of the movie an 8 (lol).

OVERALL:
Whoa! What a great ride! I thoroughly enjoyed myself during the course of the whole movie. Though not as top-notch as other anime movies such as Rebuild of Evangelion and Spirited Away, overall Lyrical Nanoha is still an awesome movie. I would expect such a wonderful experience again when I watch the 2nd Nanoha movie next year, especially since A's was the best series out of all the three in the franchise.

Konnichi-wa! It's my first anime review on MAL, and since I've completed this series just recently, I'd like to do my impressions for it before going back to other series I've watched earlier.

STORY:
Shinryaku Ika-Musume does not have any real plot, rather every episode is made up of three short skits that illustrates the humorous everyday life of Ika-chan (the protagonist) and her 'adoptive' family. Just like other similarly structured comedies such as Crayon Shin-Chan and Seitokai Yakuindomo, each skit is either a hit or miss: you either have a good laugh at the end of every seven minutes or you go 'jeez~'.

However, let ... me assure you that Shinryaku Ika-Musume will definitely have you ROFL at the end of every skit. At least I do. Unlike a lot of other comedies which usually consists of repeating the same old joke every episode until you are totally bored, Shinryaku Ika-Musume doesn't. You can see Ika-chan playing with her friends in one skit, and the next you see her fooling the three MID scientists. The same joke rarely repeats itself. Every skit is well-crafted, and it brings you a broad smile on your face at the end.

ART:
Shinryaku Ika-Musume sports some good character designs, most unforgettable of all includes Ika-chan and of course the three MID scientists. Other than that, the art throughout the whole series is pretty standard.

SOUND:
I wonder why slice-of-life comedy series seldom gets awesome soundtrack. Probably because it's a 'slice-of-life' series, it's meant to emphasize the everyday lives, not some epic story or things like that. That being said, the soundtrack of Ika-Musume is also not something you would look out for.

On the other hand, the OP and ED of the series are quite good. The OP, 'Shinryaku no Susume' is catchy and fits the overall mood of the series. The ED, 'Metamerism' was a weird choice for such a lively show, but nevertheless it was a decent song.

What I particularly enjoy most about Shinryaku Ika-Musume's sound is the voice acting. Ika-chan's voice actress was obviously a correct choice - she managed to inject life into the cute character. Another character who had a great voice was Chizuru (I call her Brock Ver. Female, just to let you know).

CHARACTER:
Because it was a show made up of character-driven skits, the character development was done quite well. Each character had enough screentime and had good development. As the show progresses, we see more and more different perspectives of the characters. Obviously the one who got the most development was Ika-chan. Other people, such as Eiko and Sanae, was developed well too. However, Chizuru still remains my favorite character.

OVERALL:
All in all, Shinryaku Ika-Musume is one good comedic series that I would recommend to even my friends who don't watch anime. The well-written humor mixed with the slice-of-lifeness would make you want to watch it again and again.