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I did watch a few episodes first a while back. I though it was a bit unique, but it didn't really draw my attention to watch the whole series. Then, sometime later I found out the light novel was to be released in English and decided to find out what the fuss was all about. And I am glad I did, cause my first impression wasn't that accurate at all. As the novel is quite a fun read with interesting characters and a plot that is designed to poke fun at the all too familiar transported to another world trope that is so familiar now-a-days ... in Japanese fiction.

Konosuba tells the story of a video-game loving shut-in Kazuma Sato's whose life as a young schoolboy in Japan abruptly comes to an early end by a tragic accident...or at least it was supposed to. When he opens his eyes, though, he sees a beautiful goddess that offers him a once in an after-lifetime chance to be reborn in a parallel world. The catch is that the world is violent and threatened by a growing evil, the Demon King! Fortunately, he can choose any one thing to bring with him. But instead of a powerful weapon or magical stuff he chooses the goddess, Aqua! And so his adventure with his gorgeous companion begins in a game like world. But it's just a struggle to just get enough money and food to survive, keep his goddess out of trouble, and avoid grabbing the attention of the Demon King's army!

The story tries to poke fun into these immensely popular setting, which has taken the world of Japanese fiction like a storm. From the start it makes fun of how stupidly the protagonist had died in the real world and keeps making fun of him being a 'hikki/NEET'. It also has side characters to make fun of generic hero in such fictions and also makes fun various character tropes in such a setting.

The characters are the driving force of this light novel and the strength which makes the story enjoyable. Kazuma Satou is the main protagonist who used to be a video-game loving shut-in, he is very unlike hero characters as he lacks any special ability and is quite selfish in his ways, aiming to survive in as peaceful a way as possible with no intention of taking part in any conflicts. Aqua is an energetic and simple minded girl who likes to receive reverence for her status and gets upset easily. As an Arch priest and a goddess, she is quite powerful, but rather than learning skills which would benefit her party, she spends most of her skill points learning Party Tricks. Megumin, is an arch wizard who is also quite useless, she knows the incredibly powerful explosion magic that immediately incapacitates her for the rest of the day when cast, and stubbornly refuses to learn any other skills. And lastly Darkness is a crusader who possesses powerful offense and defense, but lacks the accuracy to deliver her attacks. She is a masochist who dreams of being ravaged by monsters and other abuses.

Despite thoroughly enjoying this first novel I wish the author had spent a bit more time on world-building as I would have loved to learn more about the land outside the starter town. And also the novel as a bit short in length for my liking (which is to be expected, as it is called a 'light novel'). Although I am a bit skeptical whether the author will be able to keep up the quality of this first book in the series in the upcoming novels rather than becoming generic like the stories he is trying to make fun of.

All said and done, I really enjoyed my first foray (as a reader) into the world of 'Konosuba' and will definitely check out the future novels as they get translated and might even watch the anime.

This gets 4 out of 5 stars from me.

For more reviews and stuff check out my blog -
http://ihate00critics.blogspot.com/

Mod edit: This review was originally posted for "31 Heroes" and has subsequently been merged into "Best Blue".

To be honest, one shots are hard to do right. And despite good intentions the authors efforts can fall on its face at times, and that is what happened in the case of '31 Heroes'.

Everything about the plot is already apparent from the synopsis, the story starts with the main character getting special super powers to be a hero, then while trying to brag about his powers to his classmates he found out that the other students also had the same occurrence and each were granted unique ... powers as well. Then a fight versus an alien monster starts to determine who would be selected the hero.

There was almost everything in the plot an setting to make it work as a shounen; the generic weak but hyperactive protagonist; a well tested school setting; cool super powers and possibility of lots of different enemies. Yet somehow it all came out quite lacking with humor not really hitting the spot, too much generic characters holding back the progression and wacky style of drawing just making everything yet more hard to appreciate.

Even though it might have been quite a different story if this was picked up for serialization and the author might have found some cool stories to tell, but from the taste of whats on offer I can not give this one above mediocre score.

5 out 10 from me.

Darwin's game is yet another survival/battle royal manga, but what makes it special? Well the conditions and setting. Yet while it is still to early to compare this with other examples of this genre, it is already apparent that this manga has lots of potential. Though it is full of cliched character and unnecessary fan service still the premise makes it shine and gives a hope for future.

This starts quite suddenly as the protagonist is invited to a mobile social networking game/mmorpg and he decides to give this a try. Then the chaos starts as he is thrown into a world of battles, of various ... unique abilities and a way to get rich by means of killing others. The system of converting points by defeating others into money gives it that much edge of intensity and the subplot of police investigating the consequences of this game on the real life were really enjoyable too.

The art is gorgeous: each characters are drawn with care and has certain uniqueness. The action scenes are fluid and intense. This really gives the overall experience a total boost as each sequence is easy to understand.

The characters on the other hand are not anything to write home about. There is a typical only 'wanna do the right thing' mentality protagonist and a loli who seems to be the heroine, the villainous are characters are as such and there is not that much delving into character psychology and variety in the characters as I would have liked to have here. Some of the side characters specially the investigating duo gives a hope for some enjoyable sub plots in the coming plot-line though.

While this is still early days for the manga and any speculation would be premature, yet I hope the author does identify the strong points of the series and improves upon it to deliver fun ride at least.

[PS: Still very early into the manga, so the review is to be revised and edited upon ending or significant number of chapters]

Taiyou Matsumoto is somewhat of a hidden master of manga, most people don't know about him but those who do respect him a lot. Sadly until recently I was someone from the first group, but fortunately I have now converted to the second group. This guy is master of telling a story by very subtle means, conveying the tell with both his excellent and imaginative writing and unconventional and brilliant drawing.

Ping Pong is one of his most famous mangas and after you are few chapters within you begin to understand just why is this guys so special. This manga is a very simple tale of ... two friends growing up, their passion for the game of "table tennis" yet this is so much more. With this story you seem to strive with the characters for their goals, you cry with them when they fail and laugh with them succeed. These emotions are very hard thing to evoke especially on someone who doesn't even care about the sport of "Ping Pong or Table Tennis", but the writer does this feat with an ease only found in master story-tellers.

This tells the story of two childhood friends, Hosino and Tsukimoto who are very different from each other. Hoshino aka Peko is a carefree spirit who saves Tsukimoto aka Smile from bullies whom he attracts due to his unusually silent demeanor. Peko is his only friend and he introduces him to the game of "Ping Pong" as something which he really loves. This all is shown in flashback as we are thrown in middle of the story of these two as part of a high school team as they prepare for and take part in a tournament to select Japan's best. They both are talented players and their struggles both in this sports and also as growing up is shown with exquisite beauty of thought provoking drawing. Their unique relationship is detailed and also the fact that how it molded their life as a whole. We also get introduced with other good players of ping pong as well as get to know their story and feel their emotions with them. I might have revealed other details about the story but really don't wanna spoil the enjoyment by any means at all.

The art is superb on a different level, while it may not be very good to look at and some characters have almost the same face when getting serious the stylistic approach is very unique. It conveys so much more than any other conventional manga with its drawings, there are pages without any words which says more than many pages crammed with speech bubbles could tell. The story telling style is also unique with the jump between past and present and also between viewpoints of different characters which adds more to the simple story in a very unorthodox way. One chapter you might come to hate a character and a few chapters later when seeing his viewpoint you start to understand him and even care for him. This is all due to the writers excellent ability to incorporate us with the story.

Overall this manga is a journey, a story that takes you in and makes you strive with the characters and in the end you get to look back at how wonderful an experience it was and really feel like may be reliving it someday. It is indeed something special, quite definitely a masterwork and recommend to everyone who enjoys a good story whether you like sports or not.

Does an anime have to make sense to be good? Or even have a general direction to be appreciated? And how far can a show really go through just plain humor and gags? Well, pretty far if you consider this gem of a show which neither did get the attention it deserves nor did it fool itself with that notion. Rather the creator and the artists just tried to give enjoyment to the select few viewers it is likely to get and achieved even a certain level of perfection in their approach. And having a cool villain or rather a cool mafia goat (not joking ... really) villain is a huge boost to this awesome attempt at insane comedy.

The plot-line is absolutely ridiculous in a good way, it follows a werewolf detective Hiroshi Inaba in his attempts to catch the goat mafia Don Valentino through solving some really funny cases along the way. The overall story also has subplots involving Hiroshi trying to reunite with his brother and various other side characters including the narrator Kei generally goofing around. On a first glance it doesn't seem much as you expect some kind of show that is bound to get repetitive, well that is so wrong. Each and every episode has generally 2 parts in it and you never guess what to expect next. With a interesting cast of characters the writers threw one after another of these funny situations and you can never guess what to expect next. There are episodes featuring flashbacks and even chibi characters in a unrelated story and even a day at the zoo. Despite the randomness and wacky humor at a few times during the show you almost think the writer is trying to get serious with some emotional scene and right then you are almost smacked in the face with even more slapstick humor.
There is a background plot involving the main characters' past and corruption in police department which seems to have a more serious basis but then again the writer pulls you back into the fray with his very rich sense of humor and enjoyable variety of characters.
The story gets 8 out of 10.

The characters as always are the life of a show like this and this show is quite lively with them. From the hair fetishist werewolf Hiroshi to his cross dressing over protective assistant Yuuta to almost normal yet manically cat loving other assistant Kei. From superhuman detective Ogi and his incredible family to all other minor side characters (such as the goat's Lorengo, hot blooded assassin Gabriella, cute mad scientist Noah and real weak brother of the main character to name a few) all are very unique in their roles and add to enjoyment in a very nice way. Special mention is to be given of the mafia goat Don Valentino, to me he is one of the most interesting villainous character ever in any anime out there (at least comedy wise). His unique way of speaking and his money eating tendency, his various tricks that usually backfires in weird ways and his unique sense of mafia honor really adds to the overall charm of the show. No matter what other people would like to tell you the goat is the star of this show, period.
The characters are the most interesting and gets 9 out of 10.

Although a show like this one obviously had a low budget the people behind it really did a great job of not making it noticeable through the animation. While it never really tries to reach any new boundaries with its art and animation it does the job perfectly well through its various comical drawing styles with nice chibi drawings and some excellent shots of the characters in many forms (as they even did a manly goat!) which overall add to the wacky humor and make you really laugh out loud.
This gets 8 out of 10.

The sound was once again quite nicely complimentary to the atmosphere of the show. But I have to mention the voice actors as in a show like this they have huge responsibilities which in this case they pulled off nicely. Tooru Ookawa was once again the star as the Don Valention, I mean that ending theme is something that I almost never could skip. He did an excellent job and despite everything most of the times I really rooted for the Don knowing fully well he would never succeed. Other aspects of music and sound on the show was not bad by any means but never really draws attention to any detail.
The voice acting pushes the show to a new boundary so the sound gets 8.5 out of 10.

At the end of this reminiscence, I really do keep remembering the fun I had watching the show, as at the last episode while the cast kept saying how they are sad this is the last episode I couldn't help but be sad with them. This show was something I enjoyed just for sure power of wacky humor and incredible cast of characters and would love to see more of them which I know is never gonna happen. Fortunately this show have much re-watch value and I just might do that in the future. Highly recommended to any fans of comedy or any one just wanting to watch a light show for fun.

Overall Score -
8.5 out of 10.

What do you get when you mix a weird and refreshing supernatural setting with cliched shounen character backgrounds and battle elements? When you mix a solid plot-line having interesting aspects with unnecessary and distracting fan service? And add pleasing art style & character designs with diverse yet quite unoriginal cast of characters? Apparently you get this show, which, as these mixtures suggests is a flawed yet quite an enjoyable experience at the end of the day.

This is not the first adaptation of the manga, there is a previous series as well as OVA's; but quite thankfully for someone new wanting to join the excitement you ... don't need to watch those to understand the show as it starts the story anew. The plot setting is a town where humans and youkai leave together and the focus is on a group of teenagers with their "Hizumi Life Counseling" agency which tries to keep the peace in town. That sounds a somewhat weak plot, right? But the story actually gets way too deep reaching various dimensions with the detailed background of the characters as well as the city while we go through their struggles each and everyday for a peaceful environment for the inhabitants.
In a very entertaining and unique way, we slowly learn about the town's past; how it is very different from the ones surrounding it; how it actually came to be; and what motivates not only the agency but even the general populace of this unique town to strive to keep their town safe. Another aspect is the general flow of the story as it moves forward in a wacky fashion, we get supernatural battles suddenly turning into some characters goofing off which then again suddenly turns into an emotional back-story revealing sequence. There are episodes in which you will get a bit bored with unnecessary fan-service galore to quite suddenly finding out some key back ground information's and character development. While this general bizarre and unorthodox approach is quite fun mostly, at times it is quite frustrating to get distracted by a sudden focus on undergarments in between an intense fight sequence or storyline revealing; and through some of this forced ecchi elements we really feel a bit sorry for the directors trying unnecessarily to give the show that appeal of commercialization which quite frankly it doesn't actually need.
Despite many flaws and general lack of explanation of some of the confusing plot points one feels that this is a show that might have really done well with a few more episodes at the least; so there grows a general want of more after watching the show and quite surprisingly this adds to the overall enjoyment as the writers never really gave a cliff-hanger ending at all (although not really settled ending at all).
The story gets a 8 out of 10.

While not totally original at all, the diverse and somewhat big cast of characters with a general lack of actually focusing on anyone is one of the strongest points of the show. Despite the synopsis stating only four main characters, this show is not limited to that at all. In fact there are quite a few number of characters which gets focused up on, to the point of the show not really having any main characters, and that is very interesting indeed. There are episodes focusing on a specific character and even total lack of otherwise important ones, but these just add to the diversity of the characters even more.
Hime is the town mayor and might be called the main female character who is somewhat like our typical shounen heroes with her trying to save all attitude. But there is also the funny aspects with her huge appetite and the song she sings, later on during the show although her character gets a little more depth but never really is able to transcend the trope of shounen cliches. Akina can be attributed as the main male character and is overall one of the interesting ones with his somewhat tragic duties and his interesting lineage & back-story, but then again he also falls into the typical category's as despite sparks of development his character never really leaves the trope. Other characters including Ao, Kotoha. Kyousuke, Touka, Juli and even the antagonists also really suffer from general lack of originality.
But despite the flaws credits is due to the writers for giving each characters almost the same amount of care and trying to give viewers the overall experience of enjoying a total story from various viewpoints as well as having various sub-plots rather than being focused on only one person.
The characters gets 7 out of 10.

Despite being visually pleasing the artwork never really draws attention to detail, it is not particularly lacking in anything but actually can't command appreciation while we are being focused on the interesting story. And the art style never really adds that much to the experience as a whole, but rather distracts and annoys with its overly endowed females and unnecessary shots of undergarments.
While it could have been better if the art somehow added to the supernatural elments of the show, the battle scenes were done nicely with fluid animation but then again never really adds anything to the intensity either (the dialogues does that job better).
So this gets 6 out of 10.

The music/soundtrack is also an overall mixed bag, as the battle themes or music during these intense sequences were quite nice yet the overall in-show music again fails to really catch attention or even provide any factors for the enjoyment of the show. The show screams the need of having nice music but somehow the compositions never really gets there, despite a few glimpses of nice melodious piano pieces and guitar works.
The OP is quite catchy and memorable which tries to focus on the wacky aspect of the show and somewhat succeeds, The ED on the other hand really lacks in aspect of its enjoyment and is rather boring with its apparent approach at the emotional aspect of the show which never really shines as a matter of fact.
The voice acting was quite appropriate but special mention should be given to the seiyuu of Hime as she does a splendid job of representing the character.
Overall it gets 6.5 out of 10.

At the end of the day, while not being that original in its character department and never really shining with its animation and music the show really has an enjoyable story-line which can be said to have the characteristic of always keeping the enjoyment going. The general overuse of unnecessary fan-service is one of the main factors holding the show back from being something beyond good but despite it all the viewers are left with a wonder for what to come next (despite the writers never really trying too much with any cliff-hangers or something like that) and might really do well with a second season after the manga is completed.

Overall Score -
7 out of 10.

Before starting to read this Manhwa, you need to ask your self a question? Are you ready to read a Manhwa in which 3 out of the 4 main characters are really huge perverts? I mean their goal of living each day is to somehow looking at girls' undergarments and making attempts at filling them up. In fact they spend most of their time talking about sex-related things and how to get sneak peeks at girls. May be this doesn't feel like your your cup of tea? Well, have I mentioned the fact that this manga is so damn funny with the awkward situations these ... 3 and the other guy, the manly-man-generally-good guy gets in. There are really some laugh out loud moments with quite a good art style and seriously twisted and funny point-of-view of some characters. There is also so many misunderstandings and accidental groping and the funny thing is the authors present everything in a very unique way. Well decide for yourself if you wanna read about such a bunch of losers but trust me you will not be able to keep from laughing.

The story is about Three boys that are desperately struggling to find a girlfriend in their sad, adolescent lives, while really going to some seriously sick and perverted length with their innovativeness. They then suddenly realize that their classmate, Gang Han-Gyul—the manly, serious, quiet person of their class—has been secretly going out with a beautiful girl for 100 days. So they follow him to make inquiry and witnesses him getting mercilessly dumped. And this starts their weird brand of friendship and generally loser life style. Throughout most of the early storyline the 3 goes to various lengths to achieve their goal of sneak peaks at girls' underwear's and attempts at touching them and the good guy tries to protect the preys. These leads to seriously funny moments quite often leading to the good guy getting misunderstood. Later on the focus is shifted on some of the female characters with a hint of romance which again gets cut off with more misunderstanding and funny stuff. Although this gets a bit repetitive later on but there is still some seriously comic situations if you just take the romantic stuff lightly.

The 3 perverts really didn't had any redeeming quality early on. Min was really my favorite with his constant attempt at looking good in front of the girls and general perversion. Despite his interest in other girls his same age and eventually falling for one somehow he gets so chickened out in front of older women who seems to be attracted to him due to his height. Eeen-Yong is the resident fat guy who despite of being quite perverted early on seems later to have a really good side to him. His constant attempt of going on a diet to lose weight to get a girlfriend and over all love for food was quite interesting. Yoh-ahn on the other hand is so far beyond redemption as being too perverted, he even mentions that he has thrown away his chance at being socially acceptable just to be able to watch porn and trying to get panty shots and do perverted stuff to all the girls around him. His monologues about bra sizes, clothing habits and other sexual theory was just bordering on creepy yet somehow very funny too. Han Gyul is a really good guy, a manly-man whose only intention of getting a girlfriend is to get married, he goes to so much length just to help the girls around him to not get affected by the other guys' schemes and quite often gets into a situation as to be blamed himself. Although you can't stop laughing at the situations, you really gotta feel for this guys and his general lack of any luck at all.

The female characters while having their own quirks and characteristics is actually somewhat of a bit too one dimensional in my opinion with being a bit too thick skulled at times (I mean seriously who is this dumb, to always misunderstanding the guys despite it all). Among these girls I really liked Miri with her cuteness and funny attempts at getting bigger breasts.

The art is actually very well done. All the characters are drawn with nice details that gives them unique appearances. I specially liked the chibi drawings at funny moments which were very cute and over all added to the experience of the humor. The shocked appearance of the faces along with the use of funny drawings at times were also quite nicely done.

I gotta warn the readers a bit though as later on the story really loses some of its nicer aspects as some of the funny stuff is butchered for introducing romance. Some of the characters really loses their edge after falling in love and the general overuse of all the misunderstandings is quite frustrating at times.

Although this manga had a really strong start with its unique plot and overall humor it really lost some of its goodness later on due to authors deciding on taking a somewhat different direction. But still at the end of the day it was for me a enjoyable read with its laugh out loud moments and somewhat twisted yet likeable characters.

Overall Score -
7 out of 10.

This is why I like animes, after getting thoroughly disappointed by watching something with excellent animation and music fall way beyond mediocrity due to lack of originality, unnecessary fan-service and a crappy sense of humor; getting angry at yet another butchering of a video game adaption into a utterly stinking pile misdirection and lack of effort; and laughing at a purely unrealistic and shameless attempt at seinen through yet again short skirt wearing superhuman schoolgirls, I get to experience a show like Gingitsune. This anime is not trying to achieve any new grounds and actually does not attempt at anything other than simplistic beauty, tries ... to teach us some values with so refined subtlety and courageously realistic presentation of the relationships that we observe and gain just by leading our everyday life.

Among other things Gingitsune is the story of the daughter of a priest, Makoto Saeki who lives in a Inari shrine with his father, from early childhood she has the power of the sight as she can see gods' heralds, which in her shrines case is the lazy and obnoxious fox spirit Gintaro. Early on the story mainly focuses on how with the help of somewhat reluctant Gintaro, Makoto helps the people around her. Through her unique relation and ability she gain new friends and even meets other heralds. At a first glance and after the first few episodes it might seem a bit too simplistic slice of life with such a slow pace and an all together happy-feelings kind of a show. But soon it delves into much serious ground with the introduction of the character Satoru who like Saeki has the power of the sight, but very unlike Makoto had a troubled childhood and due to circumstances had to live his shrine forever. He comes to live with the little family in Makoto's shrine and we get a little look at his tragic past with the early lose of both of his parents and how his troubled childhood made him a total introvert and socially awkward individual who's only attempt at happiness is through Kendo and the relatively young fox spirit Haru.

As the story progresses through quite a slow pace we get to learn some nice life lessons as well as get to experience quite a varied array of different emotions sometimes even through the eyes of many of the side characters which was quite unique, these nice change of viewpoints felt very natural. There were even a few of episodes where the focus is completely withdrawn from some of the main characters to let viewers fully appreciate the emotions and turmoils of other characters. The writers viewpoint on romance and modernized relationships along side traditional influences were quite refreshing, as he tries to portray relationships in a more realistic way. The involvement of the characters with each other through their daily life, the slow progression of their attitudes and views on others were really done with vivid imagination. This is how real world works mostly (not like the fast to fall in love and fast to get together world of the animes and mangas). There are all kinds of romances; the subtle yet slow development of feelings, the unrequited emotions of someone falling for a guy/girl with a big age difference; even the amazing feeling of love at first site; everything was done quite naturally and with a lot of skills.

Another important aspect for me was the clear line of demarcation that was put between the world of heralds and humans. Heralds with their long years of life are so much more different in their views of the ways of the worlds, the beautiful imagining of their emergence into the supernatural world through flashbacks were quite nicely done to.

Overall the so simple, minimalistic yet beautifully imagined story, even without no real on going plot-line or even distinct beginning or end was one of the best aspects of the show. It gets 9 out of 10 from me.

As expected characters are the real highlights and driving force of this elegant tale. Makoto is a naive yet energetic girl, who gets into lots of fights with Gintaro yet somehow always makes up with him as he is kind of family member to her; although she tries to use the power of the herald sometimes for her benefit yet at the end of the day learns the real importance of using the power for others. Through her growing up in this beautiful shrine with her loving father and Gintaro she slowly understands various aspects of being special. As she gains friendship of other people in her school and her interaction with the people visiting the shrine she tries to always do what is best for the people around her at the end of the day in her own particular way. Ginataro on the other hand may act very arrogant and annoyed at Makoto but deep down really adores the girl. By living for thousands of years he had learned many things about the fragility of human life and the freedom of simple belief. Her lectures to Makoto and others not only gives us funny moments but sometimes even gives quite a few good life lessons.

Satoru is perfect example of someone brought up with the cruelty of this modern world. Through losing his parents in early childhood and then his grandfather after that, he learned the sadness of reality very young. By the neglect and prosecution of his aunt's family he has grown into an introvert, a socially awkward young man who thinks he has to do everything by himself. Through his journey to the new shrine and school we as viewers get to experience the joy of being accepted and even loved, the joy of getting new friends and over all the joy of learning to live for your own-self again. Haru is a real cute character who seems kind of one dimensional at first with her short-temperament, being too proud and obsessive affection for Satoru. But through her beautifully told back-story we get to learn her tragic entry into the world of heralds as well as the special and unique bond that she shares with Satoru. There was some really emotional and memorable scenes in her past indeed.

The other characters were also very deeply detailed in respect to such a short series. Makoto's two friends, the carefree and adventurous Yumi and the gentle and intelligent Funabashi; the other heralds and even some people in the lives of the side characters (like Yumi's boyfriend, Funabashi's fathers assistance/driver, Satoru's kendo team members etc) gets their story told in somewhat short yet delicately careful details.

The characters are quite well imagined and does the show justice, so gets 9 out of 10.

The animation gives us nicely detailed scenery in and around Saekis' small shrine and also other beautiful landscapes are thrown to give the atmosphere that much of a push towards a mixture realism and supernatural. The subtle color and stylistic changes that was introduced when we were getting flashbacks along with the beautiful music was really something that added to the total experience.

The realism even persisted with the character designs as the writer avoided including unnaturally good looking and well endowed designs and used simple yet appropriate imagining. This was a really welcomed change after the plethora of too good looking or too cool looking characters that are now-a-days overflowing the anime scene in general. I, myself really enjoyed the animation although it felt a bit aged to be honest while comparing it with some of the works we are seeing these days. While it does not actually hold anything back from the experience it was indeed something that should have been looked upon. the art/animation gets 8 out of 10.

The soundtrack/music isn't anything special in spite of use of nice in-show music specially in the flashback scenes. The total in-show music as a whole does something in adding to the overall enjoyment as giving new dimensions to the experience but some of the tunes were a bit over used to be honest. On the other hand while being quite appropriate the OP and ED didn't really do anything for me as I mostly skipped them after a few listens.

The real achievement in this regard for Gingitsune is the excellent voice acting. The voice actors really did put in their best efforts and really gave the emotions that much more vigor and realism through their works. Special mention should be given to the voice actors of Gintaro and Satoru as their efforts really caught attention and made it that much more easy for us viewers to relate with them and appreciate their dilemmas. The music/soundtrack gets a score of 8.5 out of 10 from me.

Despite all of its strong point this show is not something for everyone. This is a show for people who enjoys the simplicity of life, the joy of living each day and the greatness of having people around you who care about you. For me the slow pace of the story with its unique blend of realism with supernatural; the portrayal of various aspects of relationships, friendship and love and the overall simplistic nature of the messages given like the life lessons that we get to learn everyday just by being alive was a very enjoyable experience.

I will recommend this to any lovers of slice of life and seinen out there. Believe me, although it may not seem so now, you will really enjoy this if you just give this a try.

Overall Score -
8.5 out of 10.

I read the translated (in english) version by Viz media, so this review is based on that version.
First of all I didn't know this was going to be a Hollywood movie when I started but found out when I was about 1/3rd through (otherwise I might have read some other "Haikasoru" novel).
If you have read the synopsis you know this is gonna be sci-fi time loop story, you know there is going to be action, and you definitely know this book is heavily video game influenced.
And you would be write on all accounts, this is a book where a private called "Keiji" is caught in ... a time loop after dying and fights the same losing battle against aliens everyday. There is a female soldier from America (so cliche) who is the best warrior for humankind and she kinds of helps the protagonist to understand whats happening, in between there is a bit of background on the enemy, a bit of world building and a touch of romance thrown in.
As it goes it is a kind of story where you always kind of see where the plot is going, yet you are satisfied with the overall result, the progress is quite predictable yet the end is likeable.
My main gripe with this short and fast paced novel is that there is not enough action as was advertised my the synopsis or as was necessary (or may be just not for my liking, but I got this to read action like video games and I didn't get much of that). On the other hand the character building is quite nicely done especially for the main character who progresses through the same trial over and over again to maturity.
All in all it was a short and average read which would have scored a bit higher by me if I had more world building or action or if some of the side characters were not so generic.
My final score is 3 out of 5 stars.

Is there anyone even remotely interested in Anime & Manga who doesn't know "Akira Toriyama"? Despite all its shortcomings, flaws and cliches "Dragonball" is undoubtedly one of the most influential manga/anime ever? But does all of these people know that Toriyama also wrote quite a few other mangas? "Cowa!" is one of these others and one of the best of these. This is definitely a kids manga, it does not have any complicated plot, no over the top action elements and no fan service that shounen now a days are famous for. This is just a cute adventure story with some simple funny moments and ... typical yet quite likeable characters. And its only 1 volume (14 chapters) of material, so a must read for any Toriyama or even shounen fan.

The story is a very simple one which starts with a few chapters of main character Paifu and his friends doing various mischief around his village Cape Bat which then takes a new direction with the village having outbreak of a terminal disease monster flu. Then Paifu along with his friend Jose, rival Apone and the loner and grumpy human ex-sumo wrestler Maruyama embarks on a journey to retrieve the cure of the disease from a mountain witch in a far away land. Along their journey they see new cities and towns, meets new people and have a lot of fun.

The characters are quite typical for kids' mangas such as our naughty yet good in heart Paifu, his friend funny little Jose Rodriguez who farts when he is nervous, the serious & very strong Maruyama & typical rival Apone who opposes Paifu and tries to do better at almost everything. While they may not seem anything special at first glance as a while they really shine quite brilliantly in their roles and provides fun to reader in a simple yet elegant and enjoyable way.

While this manga may not be ground breaking or even original it really does what it tries very smoothly, Toriyama's writing is as typical of his style as ever and also as enjoyable and fun too. This manga may be takes close to 1 hour to finish so why are you waiting still, just go ahead and read it and decide for yourself. I myself have thoroughly enjoyed it, and will certainly check out other stuff from this straight forward yet somehow brilliant writer.

Overall Score -
8 out of 10.