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I really fail to understand who would genuinely find a show like this funny enough for it to warrant a "comedy" tag. Toddlers maybe? I just don't understand the appeal behind anime characters making silly faces and them overreacting to the most mundane situations imaginable. The anime feels lifeless. It's fine for an anime to focus exclusively on two characters, but if the dialogue between said characters is dull and uninspired then the anime very quickly becomes a "nothing" show.

I do historically really enjoy romcom anime, so I did have somewhat high hopes for this one. A girl who can act out several characters ... and swap between them rapidly in the middle of a conversation is a very interesting plot device in theory, but the application is underwhelming. At least it had a functional romance, which is more than can be said for most other anime I've seen.

I'm not a big fan.

An absolutely depressing manga that is somehow filled with comedy and absurdism. The way it walks the line between comedy and straight up horror is highly impressive. There is nothing else like this in my opinion, and most of that is because Chainsaw Man is a peek into Fujimoto's chaotic mind. His world doesn't follow rules and will often feel hopeless and full of despair, but the emotions this manga manages to get out of me are unlike anything else I've read. There are times where I absolutely do not want to turn the page, but in the end watching Fujimoto's creations develop into full ... fledged humans is worth the psychological horror inflicted on the reader.

Make no mistake: This manga is depressing, as I said before. If anything, I think that's where my biggest gripe with Chainsaw Man lies. I am fully on board with the idea that hardships are necessary for a story to have impact, but Chainsaw Man is exclusively hardships with more or less no relief. I can't think of many stories that put their characters through this much pain just to serve the narrative. The problem is that the characters are actually quite likable, so as a reader you can't be impartial to all the suffering going on. It's kind of a Fujimoto trademark, but I do hope Chainsaw Man has a more positive ending than some of his other works (although I consider those odds small).

The art is fanastic. The designs for some of these demons are grotesque and otherworldly. They are definitely capable of inciting fear in the reader, but all the while remind the reader constantly that they're reading about a world that is nothing like the one we know. Both in terms of landscaping and character design Fujimoto knocks it out of the park.

So yeah it's really, really good. I highly recommend that anyone who can stomach some gore at least give it a shot.

This one blows every single romance anime we've had over the last year out of the water. The production is incredible. It feels like this was truly made by passionate people. The characters feel alive, especially our "main" cast members, those being Nukumizu and Yanami. The comedy is actually funny this time. Although not all of it hits (especially the low hanging fruit in terms of sexual innuendos), overall I'd say this is funny enough to warrant a comedy tag. That's more than can be said for most anime I've seen over the last few years.

Overall, highly recommend to everyone. It's peak. I'm so happy ... that we've finally had a good anime of this kind that is worth watching. They are few and far between.

It’s almost impressive to have source material this good and then proceed to butcher the anime in the way that Studio Bind has done here. I have long accepted that we won’t get to see season 1s beautiful animation again, but the pacing of this anime is really killing any kind of thrill I could have while watching it for me. To put it bluntly: They’re cutting far too much content. It genuinely feels like I’m watching a summary of an anime instead of watching an actual anime. The characters are all bland, because everything that was deemed “not important enough” was cut from the ... anime to save screentime. It’s a real shame, because if this keeps up Mushoku Tensei will go down the same path as more or less every other seasonal isekai of the last 5 years.

I initially watched Steins;Gate 0 back in 2018. I am a massive fan of the original and recall myself being very disappointed by Steins;Gate 0. I was 17 years old at the time and figured I'd give the show a rewatch now that I'm 5 years older. Unfortunately everything I thought about the show back then holds true to this day, and I do not recommend this show to anyone. Especially not to big fans of the original Steins;Gate like I am.

The main issue with Steins;Gate 0 is not what it doesn't have, because it does actually have a lot going on (too much in ... fact). It's the way in the plot is paced and presented to the viewers that's the issue. Not only are major events very easily swept under the rug, but there are times when the anime just drops a bombshell on the viewer only for that aspect not to be explored ever again. Mysteries are left completely unanswered and the characters just decide that they do not care. This adds to the disjointed nature of Steins;Gate 0.

Over the course of its (23 episodes of) runtime Steins;Gate 0 tackles several routes from the VN and it results in a structure that's very peculiar. There will be 3 mundane, or even boring episodes followed by a pretty strong episode where something actually happens. The issue is that after that strong episode, the plotline will be considered finished even though there are still lots of questions left for the viewers. It's a jarring experience and it feels like the show will actively step on the brakes whenever it's too close to getting interesting. The original Steins;Gate did not have this issue. Once it got going, it kept going all the way until the last episodes. Sure, not every episode was equally interesting, but there was not a moment where Steins;Gate slammed the brakes like this show does.

This perfectly leads into my second point, which is that Steins;Gate 0 is poorly directed. I don't know how this came to be, but the presentation of Steins;Gate 0 is completely flat compared to the original. Shots are static and backgrounds are very safely drawn. The result is that there's nothing interesting to look at. The original Steins;Gate definitely did not nail the art all the way through but it was willing to take risks in camera angles, artstyle and general presentation. I'm sure everyone recalls the famous scene in episode 8 of Steins;Gate where Okabe runs home and the colour scheme turns completely monochromatic with every piece of the foreground having thick outlines. You're not going to find anything along those lines here. The closest we get to creative direction is when the animators are looking for a new way to sexualise the show's female cast.

The quality of the art is inconsistent at best and horrendous at worst. In general Steins;Gate 0 lacks in between frames which makes animations appear choppy and stiff. This issue comes to light particularly during action sequences, where not only we have physically impossible situations happen like heads being chopped off with someone's bare hands, but these action sequences are genuinely so poorly animated that it's hard to enjoy them even if you let logic go out of the window.

Another thing that Steins;Gate 0 gets wrong is plausability. The original Steins;Gate is not realistic, because time travel is unrealistic. There is no theoretical explanation for time travel so it's the show's responsibility to lay out the ground rules for the universe a show is set in and make these rules plausible for the audience. The issue with Steins;Gate 0 is that the scope of what they're expecting me to believe is very different. Steins;Gate 0 will have any skeptical viewer go "well that's awfully convenient" more often than they'd like. There are so many strange phenomena that are just force fed to the audience with no real foundation and a critical viewer is just supposed to accept them. The very concept of Amadeus is a great example. It's an AI that's indistinguishable from a human, but the show completely quashes any concerns a viewer might have like "what it's like for her" or "is this ethical?" by straight up telling the viewers not to think about it and just accept it as it is. The show has several instances of completely impossible things suddenly being possible within the narrative that it's hard not to raise an eyebrow or two as you're watching.

In terms of the cast, it should be no surprise that Steins;Gate 0 is a major downgrade compared to the original. However, Okabe's character in Steins;Gate 0 is actually quite good. I find his demeanor very understandable for someone like him and there's nothing I'd change about his personality. Maho Hiyajo, while lacking the charm of someone like Kurisu and being unable to fill that void, is not offensively poorly written. I think giving Okabe a character to talk to who also knew Kurisu was a good decision and she's a welcome addition to the story even if a little bland. My problems are with the rest of the cast. It feels like everyone (and I mean everyone) other than Okabe was intentionally made to be less interesting. Meanwhile they padded the cast with useless characters who serve no purpose. Yuki, Nakase and Kaede have nothing going for them. Their sole purpose in the dialogue is to fill up the dialogue and nothing else. Nakase has a subplot surrounding her, but it only spans for half an episode and serves absolutely no purpose in the narrative. Mayuri and Hashida also got pretty significant downgrades. Mayuri does nothing over the course of the show and any interesting features she had in the original were stripped from her. She was bubbly, cheerful and yet emotionally intelligent in the original and in Steins;Gate 0 she's treated as filler. Hashida was always a nerd, but in this story he's straight up a pedophile even making creepy comments about Nae, a literal child.

With all of that being said, Steins;Gate 0 does actually have some highs. I think the show has a couple of very strong episodes that even fare well against the high bar set by the original. My problem is that those strong episodes are surrounded by dirt. While not perfect, the concluding episodes of the season are definitely passable and if the entire season had maintained that standard of quality I think I could have considered this a worthy sequel the original. However, as it stands Steins;Gate 0 feels like a hollow shell compared to the original and it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth to write about it.

This anime is missing a "comedy" tag. There's a scene in this show where the protagonist german supplexes a 250kg bear in front of his classmates and nobody has any questions. If that doesn't sell you on the premise of the show, then I don't know what will.

If you want something that is half competently written, don't watch this. If you want a show where the cast has any personality at all, don't watch this. If you want to laugh a show because it is so bad on every possible level that it's almost amazing, you should give this one a chance.

Every scene in ... this anime is what a 13 year old middle schooler daydreams about. It's so unapologetically conceited that it even makes the entire cast clap when our protagonist does anything at all. This is the self-insert fantasy of a 13 year old who has just entered puberty.

I am continuously amazed by how bad this show manages to get. When you think it's bad, it gets worse. When you think it has reached rock bottom, it will actively pound against the bedrock to descend to even lower levels into the void. So on that note, I don't know whether I should give this anime a 1, or a 10. Being so bad at writing is a skill in itself.

With all of that being said, my appreciation for how awful this show is might only exist because I don't generally watch isekai. There may very well be shows out there just as bad as this one, and by that point the novelty wears off. However, on its own merits as a comedic trainwreck I fully recommend this show to anyone who wants to have a good laugh.

I think it's finally time for me to put my thoughts about this manga into words. Baby Steps is, in my opinion, the best manga ever made. It has loads of qualities, but if I had to highlight one aspect that this manga absolutely nails it's grit. Tennis, especially at a higher level, gets extremely grindy. I'm no athlete and definitely no better than basic club level, but this manga understands the core elements of tennis better than any other manga I've ever read. Tennis matches are long. When it's 30 degrees out and you're playing an extensive three setter on a steaming hot clay ... court, all that keeps you going is your desire not to lose. Baby Steps really does everything it can to show just how much that holds true in Maruo's matches. The art shows dark circles under Maruo's eyes and his movement getting sloppier as the match gets on, he keeps rambling on and on and the momentum of the match is all over the place. At its core, that's what a close tennis match is like.

Grit is also what I'd use to describe Maruo's character. Maruo is more or less a machine. Not in the sense that he has no human emotion, but more so in the sense that his determination or his "sense of duty" so to say is out of this world. It's inspiring to see someone achieve the heights that Maruo does by throwing his entire life at tennis and when you consider how much he works it does kind of make sense. A problem i have with a lot (and i mean a lot) of manga and anime is the disconnect the readers feel from the characters, which make it hard to understand their emotions. Baby Steps' pacing makes the readers relate to Maruo. When he loses we can feel his frustation, because we were there for the entire journey. We saw every step of the way, which makes the scarce emotional parts of this manga so much more impactful.

As said in the previous paragraph, the pacing of this manga is very slow. The matches sometimes span 20-30 chapters, so if you are not here for the matches themselves and instead here to see Maruo become a professional at unrealistic speeds, don't bother trying this manga. It will eventually burn you out. In my eyes, the matches themselves are the highlight of this manga. The characters and the romance, they're not bad. However, I love seeing Maruo duke it out with someone on the court and seeing him discover new parts about his tennis.

Is this manga perfect? Definitely not, far from it. One main issue I can think of is that the author definitely leans into the shounen part of the manga too much at times, especially during certain arcs. A jump shot and an egg ball are not real things in tennis. Strategically tennis is pretty simple. Hit with spin, hit deep and/or make your opponent run. If you're in a tough spot, hit a shot that gives you time to recover. That's more or less it. Obviously there's nuance here and there, but a lot of the players in this manga have a certain "trump card" that doesn't make sense in the real world where most of the time your opponent just has a super good forehand. However, there are other times where the manga actually does seem to be highly educated on tennis. One example I can give is that the manga stresses the necessity of a strong serve. Another thing I did miss is the mention of different surfaces. Maruo plays at plenty of different venues, so it's very hard for me to imagine all of them are the same surface. The difference between a clay court, a hardcourt and a grass court is huge. Takuma (one of Maruo's main rivals) has a playstyle that is much better suited for grass than it is for clay. I find it odd that for all the detail this manga went into, surfaces never came to light. Maybe it's because Japan almost exclusively has hardcourts?

In terms of art, I think the artstyle is appealing and definitely a lot better than season 1 of the anime (which is a little too cheerful in my opinion) but I do kind of miss variation in technique from Maruo's opponents. Maruo having textbook technique makes perfect sense because of the person he is, but in the tennis world you don't typically find players with the same strokes. There are certain parts of a forehand that are always the same, but there's variance beyond that point for everyone. I think the author could have used more footage from real life pros to give Maruo's opponents a bit more of a unique playstyle. Visuals come a long way with that sort of thing.

Overall, I stand by what I said. Baby Steps is the best manga ever made. Maruo's gritty journey is amazing and while definitely not perfect I can't think of a manga I love more than this. It's highly unfortunate that it got axed and I had to read fan translations for the last few chapters, but the manga itself is highly polished and is an amazing journey about Maruo's tennis career.

This show has an issue that you'll find in anime/manga. Especially in romcoms. The main couple can’t get together too soon, because that would turn away viewers who exclusively watch for the romance, but it fails to offer the viewer anything else to distract them from the lack of romantic progression. This mainly happens because Japanese romantic “comedies” tend to disregard the “comedy” part entirely, or at least so it appears to the average western viewer.

Consider shows like How I Met Your Mother and Friends. Regardless of how you feel about these shows, it’s hard to deny that a lot of their viewership sticks around ... for more than just seeing couples get together. The fact that the entire show isn’t centered around a romance, but instead seeing the cast interact makes the actual moments of plot significance far more engaging. You see, Koori Zouksei Danshi to Cool na Douryou Joshi also makes it cast interact, but fails to not make every interaction a drag. There’s no life in these characters. The “funny moments” are typical anime gags that don’t land on any of their western audience and as a result the romance itself becomes less interesting. When the dialogue is something the viewers just have to “sit through” to get to the “good bits” you have failed as a writer in my opinion and this show is a perfect example of that. I have a soft spot for the romance genre as a whole, so I sat through the first 4 episodes. However, eventually they started taking screentime away from the main cast and instead giving it to an equally boring set of side characters. This made me drop the show.

While the premise is interesting, it tiptoes around its real narrative too much and provides us with endless amounts of filler. Every 20 chapters or so it’s hinted that something might come to fruition soon, but it gets sidetracked too much. We’re 86 chapters in and the romcom part of this manga is in the exact same place as it was 12 chapters in. Gojou still lacks the confidence to see himself as a potential partner for Kitagawa, and Kitagawa is gushing over him. There’s been no development in the last 70 chapters or so. The information on how cosplay works is quite interesting and ... I do like the open minded attitude towards crossdressing, but ultimately I want to see the Kitagawa and Gojou dynamic being explored more.

I will admit that I’m not completely impartial to this show, as a big fan of the manga. I think Chainsaw Man is an excellent show about what happens when you throw a young adolescent into a brutal world. It’s shocking, but not in a way that feels forced. There are abrupt moments of terror that take you by storm and leave you feeling exactly how they should: Like everyone is in danger. There’s this sense of mystery around the cast that is magnified by the idea that they could abruptly be taken away at some point.

Denji, as a character, doesn’t make a lot of ... sense from a logical perspective, but makes a lot of sense when you consider the environment he was raised in. Even though he’s a dumbass and has very odd values, you can’t help but root for him even if it’s only out of empathy. He’s a typical 16 year old who has had to sell several of his limbs while he was still a human. The result is a complete indifference to bodily harm and death. His behaviour can get borderline insane sometimes, but that’s once again understandable when you consider his upbringing.

What I like about Chainsaw Man is that it doesn’t force me to feel anything. There isn’t a wide variety of sad orchestral pieces to make me feel sad about a character’s death and as a result the character deaths do in fact feel more meaningful. It goes against the tropes of battle shounen by not giving us elongated flashbacks before a character’s death and they instead happen at breakneck pace. Seeing the different responses to having people taken away from them is amazing and really makes you question Denji’s humanity especially when put in contrast with other cast members like Aki.

I can’t talk about Chainsaw Man without talking about the production and I can confidently say that MAPPA has once again knocked it out of the park with this one. The animation is easy on the eyes and manages to be spectacular without ever trying to do too much. Chainsaw Man’s art is one of its redeeming qualities so having to match that level couldn’t have been easy. So far they’ve done just that, if not more.

Overall, this show is amazing. I would highly recommend it by anyone who isn’t immediately put off by gore, because it does go pretty heavy on the gore. Chainsaw Man is raw, thrilling, charming and as a result one of the best anime of the year.