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DAN👏DA👏DAN👏. We are SO BACK!!!

Dandadan (ダンダダン) is a manga written by Yukinobu Tatsu, a former assistant of Chainsaw Man author Tatsuki Fujimoto. Damn, can we take a second to talk about Fujimoto's Avengers level manga team? He got the author of DANDADAN of course, HELL'S PARADISE, and... Spy Family. Weirdly wholesome compared to the other 3 manga.

Enough about Fujimoto, DANDADAN, by YUKINOBU TATSU, is a masterfully crafted manga following a boy and a girl from completely different walks of life coming together after a chance encounter with aliens and Yokai. Now, given how the manga was received by critics and audiences alike, I thought the ... anime, animated by Science Saru (Devilman Crybaby, Keep Your Hands off Eizouken!), wouldn't be able to live up to the hype.

Boy, was I wrong.

First off, let's talk about the opening. The one everyone knows. It's so pretty despite being so simple. The colors and stylistic choices in the opening tell you EXACTLY what you need to know about the show. It's not trying to take itself too seriously, you're meant to have fun with it. And this certainly is a fun anime. All of this is also supported by an extremely catching and upbeat Creepy Nuts (haha, nuts, get it) song in the form of Otonoke. It's an amazing hook to get anyone invested in the anime in less than 2 minutes.

Now, let's say you don't care about openings. Well then, let's talk about EVERYTHING ELSE. Animation: Masterful. It perfectly mixed choppy, lighthearted animation with extremely silky (haha, silky, get it) smooth animation to make an unforgettable anime experience. Artstyle: The artstyle is so unique at times and shows the charm that can be found in the manga perfectly. Voice acting: PEAK. It's amazing. Literally everyone brought their A-game to this anime in terms of voice acting. It once again brings out the life and charm in each character in the Dandadan universe.

My ONE SMALL CRITIQUE on this anime is the music. Hear me out... I do not like the soundtrack in this anime. The somber piano is overused a bit too much for my liking and the upbeat Mozart in a certain scene (no spoilers!) somewhat ruined my enjoyment in that specific moment. I definitely get what they were trying to go for with the music in the anime, but it's somewhat offputting and irritating at some points in my opinion. Don't let this take away from everything else that's SUPERB about this anime, though. It's just a small part of a great product overall.

Once again, I URGE YOU to watch this anime. I fully recommend it to everyone who can handle some... freaky scenes. There's just so much that's amazing about this anime, and it's really hard to find bad things about it overall. And DO NOT DROP IT BEFORE EPISODE 7. PEAK CINEMA. Just.. just watch it. Take my word for it.

IT'S PEAK 🗣️🗣️🗣️ RAAAAAAAH 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

God DAMN, the animation department cooked hard on this. It's so refreshing to sit down and watch this anime with my non-existent wife after a tough few weeks having to endure Uzumaki and Blue Lock.

Blue Box, also known as アオのハコ, is based on the romantic sports manga by Kouji Miura (三浦糀), published by Shōnen Jump. Everything about this anime, so far, has been fairly solid. Especially the animation, which I wanted to talk about first.

God DAMN, thisis one of the most beautiful anime I've seen since... Oshi no Ko Season 2 from about a month ago... I guess I ... can't really say in a long time, but you get the point: it's immaculate. Being animated by Telecom Animation Film (of Orange and Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-San), I did not expect much from the anime in terms of animation. After finding out that WIT STUDIO (Spy Family, Attack on Titan, etc.) was in on this, I completely changed my mind. Their influence in this anime can be seen clearly. There's so much attention to detail in every movement and every setting. It's literal eyegasm.

The plot is progressing really well so far, and Ao no Hako has such a wholesome dynamic between the main 4 characters, especially Chinatsu and Taiki. Need I mention the music? Everything is so immersive in this anime, I feel like I'm gonna ascend to heaven from looking at this beauty.

I will admit that there is some bad in the anime so far, such as a point of view scene in episode 1 looking extremely janky and forced and many of the characters not being fleshed out well enough about a fifth through the season, but that's nothing to cry over this early on.

Overall, I believe Blue Box has a lot of potential to become a classic in the future that is looked fondly upon in the romance genre alongside Oregairu, Horimiya, Clannad, and the great Rent a Girlfriend.

Anyways, if there's anything the anime has been teaching me so far it's that badminton = ability to pull. I mean MC got 2 baddies fawning on him for hitting a shuttlecock with a racket... That can't be that hard, right?

I was wrong, badminton is hard as hell. I guess I'll officially retire from badminton. Ggs, I'll just go back to playing Minecraft ig

Not gonna lie, 8bit should just rename this season "BLUELOCK: THE POWERPOINT PRESENTATION." Keep it honest, you know?

Blue Lock Season 2, also known as Blue Lock vs. U-20 Japan Arc, has been a slight disaster this season. It's arguably one of the biggest manga IPs in Japan at the moment, yet we're stuck with moving PNGs and JPEGs moving across a stock background with speed lines being overlayed over everything.

In all honesty, I was extremely excited for this season when they announced Yuauke Nomura's manga would be getting a second season. The season 2 arc is arguably the most iconic part of the entire ... manga, and many, including myself, expected a lot from this anime. However, a little more than 25% through this season, my expectations for this anime could NOT be any lower. I think.

To go over the bad:

ANIMATION. 🤮
Do I need to say anything more? Everyone knows about frame lock. They took the idea of animation and threw it straight out of the office window. It's horrendous. Some of the most important parts of the series (Isagi's new awakening, Reo's new weapon) are totally ruined by shitty "animation" sequences where a still image sits in the center of the screen while lines and effects move around. It's nasty. It's like listening to Ice Spice. There are even some points where they chicken out and throw CGI over everything. It baffles me how much 8bit wants to do everything but actually animate this show like an anime. At this point, the anime is better off as an audiobook on audible or as a reading guide for the manga.

Honestly, I think the rest of the show is being thrown under the bus for the one mishap that is a lack of a competent animation team. It's pretty faithful to the manga and pacing, although weird at some times, isn't the worst. The anime could introduce new characters better but other than that, there's not much that bad about it. Character designs are pretty good, voice acting is solid, and the opening and ending songs are pretty nice (although they don't come close to S1).

My final thoughts:

Blue Lock Season 2 is definitely held back by its trash animation, but is definitely enjoyable for some. I would recommend it mainly to extreme diehard fans of Bluelock or to people who want slightly more than their generic Isekai (I'm looking at you, Gigguk.) I would say that Blue Lock U-20 vs. Japan is worth giving a shot, but keep your expectations low.

So... when does the PowerPoint template come out, 8bit? I could definitely use it for my presentations 😁

Haha... yikes. This was a trainwreck of an anime, to say the least. Watching Uzumaki:Spiral Into Horror, the adaptation to Junji Ito's critically acclaimed manga, is like watching Domestic Girlfriend because of the opening. The first episode is really well done despite pacing issues, but ends up being a catfish for the next 3 episodes as if the team working on it was ready to point and laugh straight at your face for actually thinking a Junji Ito work could be adapted well.

Before diving into the absolute horrifyingly bad parts of the show, let's "spiral" into the good! Haha... see what I did there? My ... bad, anyways. First of all, that first episode. It's a really well done pilot episode with stellar animation (despite some slightly noticable CGI moments) and the introduction to the spiral is quite chilling. It definitely draws it's audience in very well from that. It's clear why Adult Swim only used clips from the first episode for promotional footage on Uzumaki, as there was not a single moment in the other 3 episodes where I thought they were even on par with that pilot. Secondly, the music is really well done. It's haunting at points and I really liked the composition on this anime.

Well, that was all the good I could think of. Now, it's time for the BAD. And there were 2 key points that held the show back greatly.

The next 3 episodes of Uzumaki were excruciatingly bad in the animation department. Movement was horrible. Even when the characters were just walking regularly, they looked like the Blue Lock PNGs moving up and down as if they were bobbleheads. This isn't even accounting for the BEACH SCENE (one of the worst animated scenes in anime history) or the falling PNG scene. It was very disappointing how badly the rest of the series turned out to be given that there was almost 6 years of work put into whatever you would call this. Secondly, the pacing continued to get worse as the anime continued. Episode 1 has signs of this but the anime took on the sonic mentality and said "Gotta go Fast!" before taking away any immersion or suspense surrounding the story in the following episodes. It was clear that they were having trouble adapting Junji Ito's manga well and tried to cope with that by speeding things up for the general audience, but with suspenseful horror, trying to play things out on 2x speed makes everything look almost dumb with how quickly everything moves.

To conclude, the adaptation of the Junji Ito work was very, very bad. I would personally give it a grand total of 3/10; Not the worst, but I'd rather watch Dandadan, Blue Box, TYBW 3, and of course, the great Loner Life in Another World over this anime.

Anyways, I'm off to rewatch Rent a Girlfriend for the 20th time and- IS THAT A SPIRAL ON KAZUYA'S SHIRT?!?!?