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Please be advised for SPOILERS!

I think if you look at my reviews none of them look official nor do I do a summary, I usually expect people to have seen the show that I am writing the review for.

Banana Fish is one of those shows that looks really good on paper and that is loved by the community for being "deep" and for it being a "BL." This show is definitely not a BL because IMO that's not the focus on the show and the MC's to me don't seem like they actually romantically like each other.

Btw, I was really excited to watch this show ... beforehand so don't think I wanted to hate it from the start. Also I watched this a year and a half ago, so don't judge if I don't remember it perfectly.

Good things:
- Art style
- Mafia/gang feel

Bad things:
- Plot devices. This is easily the worst thing about Banana Fish. The first two episodes shows the horrors of the mafia and how gross and bad sexual assault and rape is. Towards the middle of the show the MC gets raped as a plot device to get out of jail and it just takes the whole seriousness away. The MC gets raped so often that it just seems like they are making fun of it at this point. It's such immature writing that people think it's deep. Just because a show as mature themes does NOT make it good or deep.

- Characters. Most of the characters are just awful. Ash is completely overpowered, even more so than the show was trying to make him. Apparently he has skills to hack computers, analyze drugs and their chemicals, and kill the most highly trained killers/gang members in the world.

- Eiji. He is basically the damsel in distress and has barely any plot to the story other than the beginning of the show. All he is there for after is to calm Ash down during panic attacks.

- The writer and his wife were easily the best characters.

- Ending. The ending is just stupid cry bait, it makes zero sense. Apparently after everything that has happened Ash just is too cool or he is too complicated to see Eiji off when he is going back to Japan. It never explains it either. It's just excess drama that makes no sense. And of course he gets stabbed randomly by a character we haven't seen in many episodes. After everything Ash has gone through he just randomly dies by a shank in the streets. And his first instinct after getting stabbed is to just go back to the library. God, thinking about this just makes it make less sense. It's such a dumb ending.

That's really it. I remember those bits and pieces but I was definitely bored by episode 7. I really wanted to like the show, but it's so bad. Maybe the manga is better.

Here is a REALISTIC and very simple review of My Dress Up Darling.

The anime community really confuses me when a romance gets really popular. I've watched around 158 romance anime, so I generally like most romances. But like, people say this show is "peak fiction," when it's just a generic romance right now.

Likes:
- Music is better than most anime.
- Animation is really beautiful, and the movement is really fluid and fun.

Dislikes:
- This is just another loser male protagonist with another cool, beautiful, quirky, and nerdy girl. Like, some anime I can understand, but like there is only one redeeming quality about the dude and that ... is because he is proficient in fashion and sewing. But like, other than that he is just a total loser. In the context of the anime it makes sense, but man is this guy similar to season 1 of Kazuya from Rent-a-Girlfriend.

- Episode 1. What does Gojo gain from making Marin her clothes? Like, I have no clue why he accepted. It's cool that he gained a friend, but like, why did he do it? To me, narratively that seems really lazy. I guess it's because she is a pretty MC, but still, that really bothered me.

- Episode 2. I don't really care if there is fanservice, but come on, it took 14/22 minutes of the episode for him to get her measurements. It was funny at first but man was it super boring.

- Marin is definitely blown way out of proportion right now. She likes cosplay and she is nice, but why do people think she is one of the best female protagonists ever? Other than that, she's just ok.

Finals Thoughts:

- I don't mind the loser MC trope sometimes, but like, come on, he is just there for dudes to relate to him, that's why he seems like a tabula rasa. Self-insert character. I just want realistic characters that don't blush most of the episode even when Marin isn't teasing him. It's kinda weird how many people like to watch Gojo squirm for that long.

- This anime is very ok, but I think how it's blown up and how the anime community treats the show is one of the reasons why I don't like it. The anime community follows very specific trends. You are supposed to love this show, but socially, you are supposed to hate Toradora because that show is basic? But this show isn't?

- I'm not telling people to not watch it, but there is no logical reason for this show to be different or to be regarded in such high regard as "peak." Animation is great, but if you really think about it, this show is not good yet.

Edit: Watched all of the episodes.
- I just can't like the show, it's so bad. Half of the time the MC is legit just sexualizing his best friend and the pervy scenes aren't necessary. Fanservice carries and it's at least 50% true.

(In defense of crappy arguments. What a great show that has been marred by haters and bandwagoners. This review will have spoilers, so do be advised. TLDR: The show does things well and it does not deserve the hate. If you are a new anime watcher please give this show a shot and try not to bandwagon on the hate. I'm mainly defending the show from crappy arguments that I've seen/heard in the past few years. I'm going to assume most people that see my review have seen SAO, so I will make this review short.

The biggest things this show does well is the art ... and the sound effects/music. They are extremely good at all times, including the OP, the battle music, and the rest just sets up the atmosphere perfectly. The fight scenes are cool. The MC is written well and constantly developing in later seasons. The concept of a "death game" is cool without making it into a BR. If you're looking for a good series with a lot of cool fight scenes, check this one out, it's definitely worth it.

In defense of arguments against SAO that I've seen in forums:

1. Kirito is definitely not a normal isekai protagonist. He may look like one, but that's because most isekai anime try to copy the look and popularity that the show has. Kirito may not have a ton of personality at first, he has a lot of character development across the series and especially this season. His love for Asuna, his fear of death, and his sarcasm puts him way better than most protagonists in anime today. Also dealing with Asuna still stuck in the game made him a better character in episode 15-23, since he showed many weak sides to him. It really did show the pain that he went through and that he isn't such a 1 dimensional character. Which honestly, if you're open minded, you can actually understand that he is written well in certain aspects. That's why the ALO arc stood out to me.

2. "Kirito is too OP." Most protagonists in anime are OP, for instance: Itadori (JJK), Ash (Banana Fish), Yuu (Charlotte), Shinra (Fire Force), and many others that I could name. They always win at the end because they are the main characters. Many of the monsters that Kirito fights almost kill him. Plus he actually worked for his levels in SAO since he was a solo player. He had access to many spawns by himself, of course he was going to be such a high level, he didn't have to share the XP with his clan. It's not like he was born with magical powers that were OP with no work whatsoever. Also he was one of the few beta testers in the game, he already knew good loot/XP farming spots in the early stages of the game, having him access higher level dungeons/quests earlier than anyone else.

3. "SAO is just a harem." First of all, it's not. You can argue that a lot of the female characters may not be written the best, but a lot of them are. He might have a lot of pretty female friends, but that doesn't mean he has a harem. There were only 3 girls that have ever liked Kirito: Rika, Asuna, and Sugu. The rest either liked being his friend or was close to him and confided in him, like normal friends do. Even if it was a harem, many people like harems and reverse harems, so why is it a bad thing for this anime

4. "The thing with his sister was weird." I get it, it was a little weird, but you cannot just say, "oh this is an incest anime." First of all they were not related, second of all the only reason why Sugu actually liked Kirito was because of the emotional trauma she was going through having him being stuck in SAO with any second of the chance of him dying. Even their relationship was strained before then, so there was even more of pain that they were not even that close at the time of SAO.

5. "Episode 24/Sexual Assault." I can't really defend this episode since I thought that the sexual assault was a little too much. I don't think a show should really use SA as of means to try to make the show "edgy." But the only argument that I can make is that people will like shows like "Banana Fish" or "Perfect Blue" which has the same themes but apparently since the show is "deeper" that makes it morally ok and the story written well? Well, that's a terrible argument first of all, because reusing the same plot of sexual assault, even for a "deeper" meaning, doesn't make it good media or better than any other media. I understood both shows well and I can say that both use that plot point very poorly, especially Banana Fish. It's just that people defend their own shows because they are biased. So since they don't like SAO, they can trash on that aspect of the show when their favorite show does the same thing. What I will say is that the author of SAO apologized for the graphic scenes of sexual assault in the series and he said that many LN's back in his day had the same plot points, so he accidentally followed. He swore to do better in his further writings.

6. "ALO sucks." I don't think it's as good as part 1, but I think the concept was still fun. The biggest parts that were good was definitely Kirito's own character progression dealing with loss and loss of love for the first time in his life.

7. "Kirito is too OP, he can even hack." The argument against Kirito in this aspect is the certain episode where he computed Yui's AI program into an item that could be stored in the memory of the NerveGear using the admin computer. But you have to understand that Kirito is pretty smart when it comes to coding/computers. When he was six years old he built his own computer. After finding out about his family situation, he closed himself off to the outside world and focused on his computer and other games. Similar to how Futaba is written in "Persona 5." He doesn't randomly have hacking skills, he was already accustomed to how codes/computers worked. He also heavily studied upon NerveGear, Kayaba, and VRMMO's before the game launched.

In no way am I saying that this anime is the best anime ever to exist, but it is loved by many and hated by many. I mainly wrote this review since it's popular to hate it, even after it aired it has a score of 8.50. It only got trendy to hate it and, for the most part, I just see crappy arguments. Please enjoy the show.

Intro: I'm not going to act like I'm some make believe anime/movie critic. I watch a pretty good amount of anime, so I think I've gotten accustomed to what I like and what I think is good. And this anime is really not that good or deep. I was deeply disappointed when I and a few friends watched it because I heard it was really great, but did not live up to the hype, and this is why. Btw, I am assuming you've already watched Perfect Blue, so if you haven't, don't read my review. *minor spoilers*

1st: Animation: Now, don't assume that I just only ... like anime for the animation, that is not true. I can appreciate older anime, but this anime in particular is really bad. Most of the characters are really ugly, a lot of the movement is bad and stale. Even the setting of the anime is pretty dull. I've heard the excuse that the characters external beauty is supposed to imitate their inner beauty, but it seems to me that this is just a clever excuse to animate the characters and setting poorly.

2nd: Story: When I watch anime, for the most part, the story is so appealing that I get sucked into it. Sometimes I just have to binge it because I'm dying to know the rest of the story and it feels uncomfortable to not know. I generally like most anime and rate relatively high, so this score might seem weird for some. But I just couldn't get pulled into it. I felt like the story didn't have the power to be able to communicate to the audience well. Like it's supposed to have the hold on you and be able to feel like the audience is in the story themselves; it's supposed to pull them in. This story didn't do that for me.

*major spoilers* The "certain" scene also was really distasteful and it was way too long. Like, I get it, it's supposed to show the terrible "behind the scenes" life of an Idol/Actress, but still, it could have been more impactful and shorter. I think that because that scene was so long, it just made, or SHOULD HAVE, made the viewer feel uncomfortable and even not care as much of the MC.

*major spoilers* Also, the ending wasn't that deep either. You find out that the MC's manager has a severe case of Multiple Personality Disorder and that she has been imitating the MC. Which was the better part of the show admittedly, but if you have watched how Paranoia Agent showed MPD; it seemed that Perfect Blue's execution of it wasn't the best.

Final thoughts: I really just felt gross after I watched it. It wasn't worth it. The story didn't pull me in and nothing other than somewhat of the ending was noticeable about it. I really can't imagine how someone could enjoy it to it's fullest extent without feeling dirty or anything. I can't even understand how someone would even like it for it's story. It just feels overrated, especially for an older anime. But hey, that's just mine and my friends' opinion.

This is going to be a really short review because I don't want to overly complicate why I like this anime. The big four reasons I like this show is because:

1. Characters. The characters to me seem like they have a lot of depth to them. This anime is very close to how people think and feel. Certain characters that think they aren't good enough is very common of anime. But it's usually to some drastic degree, but the emotions seem very mundane and normal. That's the beauty of it, it gives a very simple view of the typical person's psyche. Most romances don't really ... focus on the depth of emotion regarding themselves. It's actually refreshing for an anime to not be over the top and actually seem like they are normal everyday human beings.
Also, this shows paints the side characters almost just as important as the main characters. They aren't some barely mentioned characters for comic relief, but seem like they really add to the story. It is very beautiful to see how much time is put into each character.

2. Art. This is a rather silly point, but I think Horimiya has the best art I have seen in any romance anime. It is just breathtaking.

3. The mundane feelings of everyday life. I know I mentioned this in the fist point, but I like how normal the anime feels. It doesn't feel like too many things are over the top crazy. Just normal people that fell in love. Many other romances are so freaking over exaggerated, so something like this just feels refreshing.

4. My last point is that there are barely any "misunderstandings" in this anime. One reason why Kimi Ni Todoke was so hard to watch is because six episodes would pass to where the MC and others thought they hated each other, but if they had simple social skills, could have been figured out in one. Horimiya has misunderstanding in it, but they resolve it the same exact episode. I can finish every episode and feel pretty happy about it, rather than the stupid long, terribly drawn out, misunderstanding.

Regarding Horimiya's hate: Not to be rude to most reviewers that rate this anime a low score, the arguments for them are kinda weak. It makes sense that not everybody will find an anime to be good, that's fair. But it seems like most people just try to hate on popular anime. Any anime that is overhyped, it seems like a specific people group will try to hate on it for no apparent reason. They try to compare it to anime like Kimi Ni Todoke, or Kaguya-Sama, but they all serve a different purpose in how they are written. But you're entitled to your own opinion. Whoever reads this, try not to let reviews make or break if you watch an anime or not, find out for yourself =)