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Warning: May be a bit long

Mizushima Tsutomu will go down in history as one of the most talented anime directors ever. Unfortunately for him he is also one of the unluckiest. Seriously man first it was Girls und Panzer and now this anime. He just can't catch a break. It's a miracle that in spite of this anime's troubled production it emerged as one of the strongest and creative sleeper hits of the season with some of the strongest animation and direction quality outside of Kyoani and Ufotable. While not a particularly outstanding show it does express director Mizushima's unique style in a fun and ... captivating adventure that blends artistic surrealism with his signature quickfire and quirky direction without being pretentious. It's an anime that lovingly throws a bone to many of Japan's niche otaku cultures. It is supremely difficult to talk about this anime in this review without having to often refer to Mizushima's quirks and previous works because it's such a blend and amalgamation of spare parts from anime like Joshiraku, Girls und Panzer, and Shirobako so if you haven't watched them I apologize in advance. But just know that the overall arc is Mizushima = weird. But without further ado lets crack into this one.

The anime begins with a girl pushing a button to activate the 7G network which begins to twist reality around and turn the world into a strange and bizarre mess straight out of Tim Burton's closet. Once-ordinary towns and their residents have transformed into various different creatures and settings with the luckier ones like our main characters' countryside town having the population turn into animals when they reach a certain age. Our strapping young and still-human cast of cute girls soon discover that their estranged best friend who left them a while back is still around in Ikebukuro - all the way on the other side of the train rail system of a now much-strecthed and narrow world. Yeah train nerds unite because director Mizushima is on your side and we join the girls on an adventure on the tracks as they travel eastward on their *ruffles through notes* 2-car Seibu 2000 series while encountering oddities and sorts along the way and maybe discovering that their friend isn't unrelated to the infamous 7G Incident...

The first thing to notice about Shuumatsu Train is that, like many of Mizushima's previus works, the plot and story plays a secondary act to the characters and themes. The plot is mostly episodic and features the girls encountering the various different oddities and quirks at the different stops between their town and destination of Ikebukuro. Basically a point A to point B story. This anime at its core is a slice-of-life following the characters as they trundle down the tracks. But unlike a normal CGDCT SoL show that many people undoubtedly marked this as from the cover - it's filled with hi-jinks and shenanigans. The show can be broken down into 3 parts - the characters bantering and bickering, the fast-paced writing with plenty of ludicrous action during the segments with actual plot, and the slow and atmospheric medium seeped between. It's not much but it works surprisingly well. The characters are quirky without being shallow and the nonsensical plot is used as leverage for silly and fun set pieces that oftentimes feature some of the most well-directed and animated action scenes that can make Demon Slayer jealous.

And that's no exaggeration - Misushima is well-known for his over-the-top animation showcases. He also specialises in over-the-top and strange scenarios and I swear half the episodes' narratives are as wacky as they are just because Mizushima can make it so. How else do you get zombies exploding because they get turned on by panty shots? What other anime can you find a Gilligans island homage with military nerds getting in on the action with JSDF equipment being lovingly rendered in 3D with dumb Micheal Bay-esque explosions and guns going off. In one episode there are mangaka battling it out with the main characters over who can come up with bullshit meta-narrative powers and the action piece from that is as brilliantly directed as it is hilariously entertaining. The best part of the show is that while nothing makes sense it (i)almost(i) does make sense given the context we're given.

There really isn't much to it. It's a strong premise which is further carried along by however strong its characters are. And the cast is thankfully delightful. Our main main character is Shizuru who is voiced by Anzai Chika using her Chisato voice which is a big plus. It is Shizuru who initiates the plot by insisting on traveling to Ikebukuro after finding out her friend is still alive and well after the 7G incident and this causes the others to impromptu tag along in the spur of the moment on a most-probable one-way-trip. Complimenting the leader Shizuru is the rest of the gang being made up of the kind and sweet Nadeshiko, the loud and strong "gyaru" Reimi, and the equally loud smart-guy of the group Akira. I could try to go deeper into them but the show does a great job at just letting the characters show off their own personalities through their interactions and banter. Throughout the show the whole cast never really rises up above their simple tropes but it never needs to since the narrative structure of "encounter wierd shit and react" works well to exhibit the personalities of the cast. As the series goes on we do get to see juicy small pieces of character building that gives us a deeper peek into the characters' thoughts and what drives them. The show never goes too deep into characterisation but it's a nice touch here and there. And anyways even if taken at face value the cast is ultimately still a fun cast whose personalities bounce off each other. The dialogue banter between them is as random as the world around them but it's entertaining to listen to. But to be honest it's not everyone's cup of tea and decent amount of dialogue is about Japanese pop culture which sets a bar for entry. Also not all of what they talk about is interesting and sometimes the characters can get infuriatingly obnoxious at times but it's honestly worth sticking through for the wacky scenes

Shuumatsu Train is quite unique among Mizushima's works in that it has strong theming to make up for the lack of narrative volume. Note that this is NOT a "characters finding themselves on the journey" type of story. It's way too simple to be even that. But is carries a strong theme of friendship and what it means to go through the good and bad times. It's a nicely explored topic that underlies the show and character motivations. Shizuru is the character to mainly get all the characterization and it's her personal journey of overcoming her own shortcomings that we follow. Cant spoil too much on that but it's a nice journey that gives Anzai Chika a lot of space for a powerful voice acting performance. Even though she does use her Chisato voice I still see the character Shizuru which really shows her talent. To be honest the rest of the cast doesn't get much character development but that's fine. They're strong characters in their own right and compliment each other well.

It's hard to describe exactly what this show is about but that's never really the point. The point is that Mizushima wants to show us the audience exactly that the medium of anime can do and how it can uniquely effectively tell stories. There's no chance of this story ever working in live action, for example, and it's way too visually alive to be a print work. And that's why I think this anime should be more known. Yeah I know it will forever remain a niche show because it's simply too strange to reach a wider audience but it's truly an "anime" anime that pays it's medium respect. It's apparent that Mizushima Tsutomu put a lot of care into this work and you can see his love of culture in the detail given throughout the show - from the careful 3D modelling of the planes and tank to the actual Sega Saturn game console shown during the zombie arc (yeah it doesn't make sense in context as well). Obviously the biggest shout-out was to the train-spotting community with the train the girls travel in being exceptionally well-rendered and textured.

Despite my praise for this show's direction and powerful set-pieces it does have quite a few problems with the actual animation. There's a decent amount of off-model here and there and some set pieces clearly got priority over others. The entirety of episode 5 is some of the most awkwardly animated scenes I've seen since *shudder* Maerchen Maedchen. Not too surprising considering that after they aired episode 1 Mizushima "Public Relations Master" Tsutomu tweeted that episode 4 hadn't even been completed. Well you got like 20 days Kantoku-san you better get it together soon! And this trend kept dogging production throughout the show until it reached it's breaking point the week the final episode was set to air with that final episode being delayed by a week due to ummm "production issues". It's a miracle they even got 11 episodes out on time. Thank goodness for it being a 12 episode anime in a 13-week season. Hopefully that was an interesting piece of information on how difficult anime production is. This is like the 3rd time the director has been in this kind of mess you'd think they would get used to this and know how to prevent it but alas no. Anime production is way too complicated and deep to allow learning experiences to be applied.

Anyways back to topic. This show looks overall looks good with strong visual direction. You know when I said one of this show's parts was the ennui in between the character's banter and the over-the-top set pieces? There's like twenty stops between the start and destination and we only explore around six or seven of them so much of the stops are skipped over by the characters just casually ridding though them. Those liminal spaces are occupied by some beautiful background and artistic art work which captures a sense of wonder and surrealism. It has clever world-building by showing us how messed up the world became after the 7G Incident. Some of the best parts of the show come from the characters just silently cruising through the atmospheric environments and there are plenty of aesthetic wallpaper-worthy shots sprinkled throughout the show. The music plays a large factor in enhancing the such calming scenes. The soundtrack makes great use of the pop synths (giving a nod to another piece of pop culture) to set very soothing and atmospheric tones that promote a sense of wonder. Just watch episode 4 to catch my drift. The rest of the soundtrack is nice but not something I'd listen to often though it does have it's high points like episode 3 where it has quite unique high-strung music to give tension.

Final thoughts and extras:
- This show, in addition to being wacky, also happens to be quite trashy. Panty-shy zombies is just the tip of the iceberg try episode 8 for size.
- The opening song is probably the catchiest and fun sing-along song of the season - nay - the year. Nakashima Rei has talent and I hope to see more of her.
- The ED is equally a banger. It's dark and atmospheric with powerful lyrics and needs to be given a listen to.
- I like how the world-building is actually consistent thanks to the anime being able to easily default to "7G yo". Electricity (or something like it) is still around so when you see a Sega console being plugged into a working TV in the middle of a forested mountain it makes sense even though it doesn't .
- Do note that the very fast-paced dialogue that hardly has any pauses is a signature style of Mizushima. If you enjoy that sort of ADHD dialogue Girls und Panzer der film and Joshiraku are some of the other shows Misuhima directed that utilize it well.
- Pochi is a very good boy who deserves plenty of pets and hugs. We all need a good doggo like Pochi.
- Reading through Mizushima's Tsutomu's tweets on this show is like reading an apocalypse diary.

Overall this anime is a blast to watch. It's not a particularly great show ad has plenty of flaws in the characters and writing but these are outweighed by the strength of the direction and the fun interactions between the cast. If you watched and liked Mizushima Tsutomu's previous works you'll really appreciate this one and if you haven't then this is a decent starting point because god knows I'm not recommending Girls un Panzer or Prison School. Shirobako and Joshiraku are a bit more advanced entry points and Another and Mayoiga are...bad but I swear they were made ironically to be bad. Anyways other anime to watch if you liked this one are Flip Flappers for the surrealism and a strong sense of visual directing, Lucky Star for the banter and slice-of-life i a more normal setting, and - why the hell not - Akiba Maid War if you like nothing making sense but also like having a strong and likeable cast.

This anime was difficult to watch. Not because of it's themes of suicide, self-harm, and depression etc. but because it was so goddamn stupid.

Reviewed after watching that disaster of an OVA

Cloverworks really should know better if it wants to become a power player in the industry. Wonder Egg Priority is a genuinely beautiful looking show backed with excellently animated action scenes and clever use of media mixing. Unfortunately the troubled production which killed the already-waning hype the show generated at it's introduction rears it's ugly head far too often throughout the show. The show frequently has off-model and janky single-digit fps animation that distracts you ... in the best of times. But the greatest travesty of this show is that it's just really badly written.

Wonder Egg Priority is an anime that wants all of the pay-off with none of the setup. It's troubled production shows in it's rushed writing and sheer lack of any narrative zenith. It doesn't even try to tie up any of the many, many loose ends it shambolically tore through the narrative fabric in it's attempt to be deep and complex. And that's really all it is- an attempt. It doesn't make me feel anything towards the characters and their emotional backstories because they never rise above their store-brought collection of tropes. And it's way of tackling it's heavy themes is inappropriate and confusing. Yes I wish I could have just fight my post-covid depression by releasing my inner Hulk and screaming how angry I am like these characters. "Show don't tell" is basic storytelling advice that WEP flat out ignores. For such a symbolism-fueled show it is grating to listen to some of the least subtle dialogue in writing- episode 5 having some of the most blatant "I watch other edgy anime" dialogue I've ever heard that has to be seen to be believed. One of the better aspects of the show was the designs of the boss trauma monsters. The anime always has the girl explain her whole sob backstory while slowing the entire thing down. WOuld it not be more subtle and effective to express their fear and trauma through just the monster alone? The heavy-handed dialogue and designs of the monsters are more than enough for the audience to infer what horrific experiences the poor girl had. Perhaps the writers and director just didn't have enough faith in their story. All this makes the show feel bizarrely tone-deaf as if it did all it did just for shock value. And don't even get me started on that ending. That is End of Evangelion levels of bullshit except unlike that the ending of WEP understands absolutely nothing about itself. Seriously the people who still believed in this show had to wait three months for probably the worst and unsatisfying ending in anime since Ex Arm.

I get what the anime is trying for and I respect it. Giving the cute, suicidal girls a physical and very flashy way to fight their literal manifestations of their broken psyche is an empowering thought. But it's hamstringed by how little anything makes sense. I'm not the kind of guy who needs to be told every little detail about a fictional world but this anime does not have any sort of world-building that matters. The anime raises more questions than it could ever answer on topics like what the eggs are and how they work or why any of the events are happening. The whole "plot" feels like an excuse to just put some shocking themes in without actually attempting to explore it. If I wanted to watch an anime about cute girls fighting in a surreal dream world I would just watch Flip Flappers. That's not a perfectly cohesive show by any means but every part of that show oozes personality. If I wanted to watch a more grounded realistic show about teenage angst I would watch Bunny Girl-senpai. If I wanted to be depressed while watching something serious I would watch Heavens Feel. There's nothing about the plot of this show that other anime just do better. Having heavy themes doesn't automatically make a work good. It has to earn it - which this anime unequivocally doesn't.

The characters really need to chill half the time. I don't mean to sound insensitive to people who actually relate to them (bless you) but I simply don't care about them. WEP commits an anime cardinal sin of saying the characters got development "because they told us so" so to speak. One day the blue-haired is depressed af then suddenly she gets angry and isn't as depressed. She's pretty boring and one-note. Then there's the has-been idol who has daddy issues that don't get explored in any meaningful way. She's also pretty meh. But don't worry she clearly grew as a person because one of the two mannequin guys said so. They also say that a lot for the other characters. Yeah you get the note the strongest (only) trait of these characters is their personal issues which means the best way to use them is to give them catharsis. And WEP fails to deliver. The writers either had no time to flesh out the characters and their arcs or were just lazy and hoped the audience would fill in for them under the pretense that the work as a whole is "open to interpretation". God. What a convenient expression to cover for the realistic outcome that I simply do not give a shit about any of these characters. that have zero personality. Again, you got to work for it.

I do wish this show wasn't as terribly conceived as it was. It's a dictionary definition of wasted potential. If it had more talented writers or directors we could have gotten something special because that first episode actually promised a lot. Hopefully Cloverworks won't make this a trend because they've been doing great work but just haven't been consistent with stuff like this and Promised Neverland season 2. But that's it for this review. Give this one a hard pass. There's just better shows that do what this does better without needing to resort to bullshit to avoid explaining anything it does.

It's been a while since an anime opened up without a cold open and jumped straight in with the opening song. And the opening of Kakkou no Iinazuke is pretty great. It's punchy, catchy, creative, vibrant, well directed and animated, and overall just feel-good. Everything this anime isn't.

Warning: This review CONTAINS SPOILERS (but this show sucks and has very poor sense of foreshadowing so it honestly doesn't matter) and is quite long

The Westermarck Effect is clearly a product that has not yet found import into Japan. I haven't seen such aggressive pandering on incest since Domestic Girlfriend. But whilst Domestic Girlfriend actually went into the ... characters' psyches and explored how a relationship such as being in love with your (not like they're blood related) sibling could actually impact your life and the relationships of the people around you, this series doesn't scratch a single micrometer past its initial gimmick. And that's the whole problem with this show- it's all just pandering without any sort of pay-off. There's a distinct lack of any sort of direction being applied to this series outside of being a pure, cold-blooded advert for the manga because I make no small assertion when I say this anime, at it's hollow core, does nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The cast is made up of some of the most unlikable dregs hauled over from the south side of Rent A Girlfriend. We have our supposedly smart male protagonist who lacks any sort of common sense. We have the classmate he has a crush on. We have the one he was swapped at birth with and is engaged to and is the most nonsensical tsundere I have ever seen. And we have the little sister. None of these characters have any sort of redeeming qualities to them and none of them rise above the haphazardly -stapled-together-skeleton of tropes and cliches they are made of. I'll get into more detail on them later. The anime sets him up quite well early on as he has a goal of winning the heart of his classmate Segawa Hiro by taking first place in school marks since she has a strong inclination towards those better than her yet the MC always remained second-best to her. It's this small plot point that mixes with his mutually-unwanted engagement with the second harem member Amano Erika that drives the story for the first few episodes as the anime focuses on the hi-jinks and escapades which result from such a ridiculous situation.

Umino Nagi - our proud harem protagonist - is just every other generic harem protagonist who is perverted, indecisive, always misunderstands every situation, selfish, and just a huge moron in general - yet he somehow is surrounded by girls who like him for no reason. I'm constantly surprised by how stupid the anime can make him look every episode. It's actually impressive how awful he is. When given a simple thought experiment to determine who he loves, he ends up with all three of the main girls (including his own sister mind you) and it's this indecisiveness that kills any sort of serious character interaction in this show. Segawa Hiro seems like a nice girl at first but the actions she takes as the series goes on - especially near the end - are so bizarre and almost cruel. I'm sure she was intended to have some sort of implication that she wanted to escape from her fate (she's also engaged against her will) but she practically constantly leads-on Nagi with various "dates" and other fun interactions - knowing that he likes her - and yet afterwards always ends with "Yeah no I'm engaged" which ditches him in his mire of indecisive thoughts and a cold, ambiguous feeling of what her real feelings are. It's not just the main character being naturally a massive idiot who overthinks things but Segawa doesn't help at all.

Of course this means nothing actually happens between them the entire runtime of this anime. And get used to that because nothing happens with every other contrived plot the author managed to shit out. Amano Erika is supposedly the main girl of he show given her status as the main character's fiance and the token tsundere of the harem. Yet for her supposed importance she is given very little spotlight. Her interactions with the male lead are limited and forced. And it was so easy for it not to be since she shares the same opinion with our male lead that arranged marriages in the modern world is stupid and they could have naturally build up from that. Instead, because this anime has no concept of pacing, her time on the screen is butchered apart and smeared thin throughout the anime. Because of this there's no consistency between her actions. Is she trying to help Nagi get together with Segawa like in the first few episodes? Or is she being a jealous bitch trying to ruin that pairing at all cost like in most of the second half? Because we see so little of what she thinks and feels all if it is jarring to say the least. She's also the one who introduces one of the stupidest and out-of-place plot twist in fiction with the introduction of her (Nagi's biological) older brother near the goddamn end of the show. It's a valiant attempt to give her any sort of personality and try to justify her also starting to lead on Nagi but it comes off as unnecessary and too-little-too-late. And how does this anime treat this pretty important plot development which is almost as contrived and bullshit as Nisekoi's keys? Nothing. I told you this show doesn't do any sort of payoff.

And finally there's the little sister Umino Sachi. I don't know where Japan's obsession with incest is but I can honestly forgive that as a simple quirk if only she was given any sort of writing to explain why she is so thirsty for her brother. The anime just writes this off as "Oh yeah, incest. That's a thing" and shoves it down our throats without questioning exactly how these two siblings would develop any sort of romantic feelings towards each other. They literally just do it to pander to the incest imouto audience because it is quite literally just dropped in like Sachi goes all "Oh so he's not my biologically-related brother that means I can sleep with him". The series makes no attempt to explore anything about her developing feelings towards Nagi and it plays the same game of "Will they won't they" with those two as it does with Nagi and every other girl. And you know what's worse? The anime actively encourages the shipping between Nagi and his sister. Segawa, Erika, and the poorly-written father guy are not averse to such a relationship and I can deduce this to be more pandering from the writers. It wouldn't even be so bad if Sachi was actually given any sort of personality but she never steps outside the "imouto who is jelly of her onii chan and wants his dick" circle. And she isn't even the only incest wannabe. Erika is also unable to escape such a fate as the author seems to believe that it is not possible for siblings to grow up together and NOT want to bone each other. It really baffles my mind how such a simple premise was turned into unironic incest pandering this hard without the full intention of the hack of an author.

I haven't seen a piece of romance fiction where the characters have this little chemistry with each other. It's written like some predictive text AI that was fed bargain bin mid-2000s harem anime because the anime seems to think that loud and funny interactions is the way people grow to like each other romantically when in fact the end product is contrived, uninspired, and generic and doesn't make me like the characters in any way. Thanks to the actual lack of substance in the screenplay, this has got to be one of the slowest anime ever made. It has 24 episodes yet the amount of major developments is small and spread thin. Half of every episode is narrative chafe that pads out it's runtime with the aforementioned loud haha funnies. The actual "story" so to say is mostly made up of a bucket list of every harem romcom ever made and there's little done to add any sort of twist to it. It's so generic I could see the curve of every half-baked interaction between the characters and tell exactly where the story was going at every minute. There's almost no setup for any of the few plot points that grind this anime along its rusty tracks and the anime ends seemingly in the middle of an arc so there's no resolution to any of these initial setups. Though you can forgive yourself for being unable to find any sort of story arc in this show since it's mostly made up of random scenes that are hastily glued together with little thought as to what level of progress the characters are actually on. And yeah they do progress. Slowly. Eventually. Sometimes. As the series went on it became a complete chore to watch. I got tired after the male lead walked in on a bath scene like it was 2003 (which was played completely straight). I got tired after the 5th time the little sister basically said she wanted to bone her brother. I got tired after the 7th time the parents outshone the rest of the cast but quickly got shafted. I got tired after the 7th time Erika did some poorly designed and drawn cosplay as some sort of attempt to give her a quirky character trait but ended up being a cringe-fest instead. I got tired after the 9th time they brought up "fate" as a theme but then immediately abandoned it for more stupid scenes. I got tired after the 5th time this one comic relief character whose whole shtick is that he's the funny man whose name no-one remembers isn't being funny at all. I got tired when they tried to bait a new character (the missing childhood friend trope) very late into the series in a hypothetical second season. I just got tired.

The animation is like the story and characters - hollow and lifeless. Off-model and awkward movement is the norm for the entire anime from the first episode to the last. There are even scenes where there is more than one character and each character looks like they were drawn by two different people who didn't check what the other was doing. There are plenty of examples of the characters looking less like humans and more like garden gnomes since their heads are drawn way larger than the proportion of their bodies. And the same is true for the opposite in many shots where the head is too small. I would like to say this happens only a few times but it's an epidemic in this series. It really feels like no one checked it and everything was rushed. The actual anime also has a cheap feel to it with it's terribly bland colour scheme and it's often poor mixing of backgrounds and foregrounds. The cheap feeling also spills over into the direction. There's an uncomfortably high frequency of extreme close-up shots of the character's faces for literally no reason. It's especially prevalent just past the halfway point of the show where I was mostly internally screaming at the screen to just pull back the camera for even a few seconds because the camera was that close to the character's mug shots. To be fair most of the wide-angle shots are poorly animated so this must have been a way to save on time since faces are less detailed than full bodies. There's very little polishing done in this show outside of some select few scenes and indeed this show can look good. I think the character designs are generally quite cute and the opening gives us some nice expressions and body language we never see in the rest of the show.

The music is similarly boring to listen to. I really don't remember any unique songs in the entire 2 cour runtime that made me think of anything.Only both opening songs are worth remembering in any capacity. The voice acting was passable for the most part though half of the cast seemed to phone-in their roles. Touyama Nao gets man-of-the-match for managing to not sound completely bored the entire time and actually trying to make the terrible script work. Poor Kitou Akari and Ishikawa Kaito should fire whoever got them their respective roles since there was nothing they could say that wasn't filled with cringe. Kitou Akari does a good performance for the most part and I could feel from the character that she was having some fun. But of course her character is completely butchered and she can't even get 5 seconds of great emotional acting. Poor Kouhara Konomi doesn't sound like she got any sort of direction at all. She's fine for the most part but she does get some of the worst lines in the anime aside from Ishikawa.

If I'll be honest I personally started this show because I wanted to see some of that mid-2000s' cheesiness. Maybe I could capture the free pre-censor-happy spirit from that time that is translated for the modern audience to enjoy and generally just have a good-hearted vibe. But instead I got egregious pandering, some of the worst waifu baiting from the modern era that all started with Nisekoi, a nonsensical tone, and a complete lack of direction on behalf of the author, writers, and directors who simply used this cheaply-made anime as an advert for an equally slow and insipid manga. And yes I checked a small part of the manga since I couldn't believe the lack of faith I felt from this project. Maybe the staff genuinely put their heart into adapting this work but were beset by common troubles leading to the poor quality. Maybe they just did it for the paycheck since SynergySP are a relatively small studio who had to collaborate with the larger but-still-obscure Shin Ei Animation. I heavily suspect that there was some break-down in communication that lead to such an awful product being produced. But I can't give a pass on the author on this one. I haven't read Yamada and the 7 witches but from what I've heard it's a pretty standard romcom harem as well but a generally well-respected one in the community. I have no idea if he watched Eromanga Sensei and thought that was the way to go but damn I hope this doesn't spread further.

So yeah this anime is pretty bad. I can't believe I found a worse harem romcom than fucking Rent A Girlfriend. That anime has far more despicable characters but it was at least somewhat interesting to watch what with seeing the main "character" self-destructing the entire time. Kakkou no Iinazuke offers far less. It's pandering to it's absolute zenith at the cost of any sort of positive writing. 24 episodes man. You could do way better.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

Obligatory spoiler warning. And this review is like 2000 words long.

Here's an original concept- take some cute anime girls and GIVE THEM GUNS. Wait what do you mean Princess Principal already did that? Uhhh but this time they're part of a secret government organization that devotes themselves to doing the dirty work for the peace of the country. Hold up what's this "Gunslinger Girl"? Ummmm but this time our heroes have a hacker on their side who everyone initially thinks is one thing but is ACTUALLY another, say, a little girl- OH GOD DAMNIT.

I don't think there's an ounce of originality in this show. I've ... seen everything in this anime in plenty of other pieces of media- especially this sweet, yet sour medium we call anime. And honestly speaking I didn't have too many expectations coming into the show considering the fairly basic, generic premise this show sets up and I believed the cute girls to be just another gimmick. And truth be told it is mostly what it says on the tin - just cute girls with guns shooting things. But surprisingly Lycoris manages to capture a good amount of substance to go along with it's style and throughout the show I had the pleasure of seeing some of the tightest writing and characterisation in this part of anime. And I had an absolute blast with it. So what makes this anime rise up above the sum total of it's parts?

Just a quick synopsis. So yeah the future is bleak, Japan is somehow crawling with terrorists and we got a super secret organisation (the DA - which to me, a South African, means something completely different but equally shady and probably dumb) that protects the public peace by using girls with guns to put holes into anyone thinking of making a homemade explosive to do, I dunno science projects. The story begins with one of the members - a Lycoris as they are called - getting booted from the DA headquarters to a sub-branch at the cafe LycoReco. There Inoue Takina - the Lycoris in question - meets Nishikigi Chisato - an almost legendary figure among the Lycoris of which she is the most powerful. Contrary to her reputation, Chisato turns out to be an extremely friendly, upbeat girl who is eager to make friends with the sullen Takina. And from then we follow their story as lycoris doing I dunno lycoris things.

I don't care if this anime is filled with cliches and tropes. I had way too much fun from the first episode and it never stopped being so. Chief of the reasons is the main character - Chisato. There is more personality in this one character than entire casts of lesser anime and is so easy to root for with her fun, bubbly character. It's easy to see this as yet another story of a genki-girl thawing out an ice queen in Takina but where this show fails in original character writing it makes up for with pure, unadulterated charisma. Chisato is one of the most likeable and fun characters I've seen in a while. She finds fulfillment not in being a top assassin but by simply helping ordinary people as best she could. We see plenty insight into how and what she thinks because of how open and amiable she is. And that's really all you need to make a great character- just let us know what they like or dislike, what they think about themselves and others they meet and the things they encounter. Chisato embodies all of that. She's also a very active protagonist constantly pushing the story to where it needs to be whilst being at it's very center. While her motivations and attitude are simple to understand, the anime shows us a far more complicated and multi-faceted side to her that prevents her from being consistently bland. This tight character writing is something that so many other shows could learn because she already felt like a complete character very early on. And ultimately, from beginning to end, the anime is really all about her and Takina. It really has nothing to do with the DA, or Allan Institute, or any of the 3 or so other parties involved in the story, In fact whatever information is given about them is really just minimal, bare-bones necessary as backdrop. The antics Chisato and Takina go through has almost nothing to do with the heavy action we have come to expect of such anime and it bears more similarities to a slice-of-life Chisato and Takina for the better portion of the first half just go around helping out people, going out shopping, just chilling with each other's company, and other miscellaneous tasks related to or not related to the DA organisation they're a part of.

That's not to say the show is slow. It's a surprisingly clear devotion to just building up the characters. Takina is the complementary main protagonist and whilst starting out as a simple "soldier getting kicked out for disobeying orders" routine quickly learns to depressurize herself while being around the sheer positivity of Chisato. Her development as a person and as a character feels natural and it's lovely to see how much she changed by the end of the series because of Chisato. When I watched her flail a gun, shooting at the main villain near the very end because he was the last obstacle between Chisato and continued happiness, I felt the sheer desperation and anger from her for her best friend and it was heartbreaking. Both main characters are not just tied to being cute girls in the first half though as they bring in some serious badass moments of their own. A lot of the shows charm comes with how simple it is. Simple primes with simple pay-offs for the audience. It's really not difficult to understand even when the show has 5 different organisations or parties running around. It keeps everything simple. Character motivations are stated and then expanded within context of the events of the show. This means soppy flashback scenes that are pervasive in such types of shows are almost entirely unnecessary except purely as background information.

With this setup the conflict feels so natural and well-paced. Every character has their purpose that rises above being a simple trope. The villains of this anime were in real danger of becoming every other trashy villain espousing their own ideals but Lycoris Recoil goes out of it's way to bring an understanding to these villains as their actions being a natural result of their personality intermixing with the world they encounter. Yoshimatsu doesn't become obsessed with Chisato for any superficial reason but rather as a genuine part of his paternal feelings for her. And he doesn't show up out of thin air as well. He only comes into the story because Chisato's heart is running on its last legs and wants to see through to the end what she'll do. Majima isn't just the Joker for the lulz but because he has a real life mission he wants to follow and discovers as much about himself as the main protagonists do throughout the show. The show has a sort of self-awareness that allows it to play off some of the more ridiculous moments (especially near the end) quite cleverly since the story is just so well-paced that plot progression feels natural. At it's core Lycoris Recoil manages to blend together a few usually-counteracting genres quite effectively. It's got cute slice-of-life moments, heavy dramatic scenes, and of course high-octane action with car chases, shoot-outs, and hand-to-hand throw-downs. It blends them so smoothly because we are able to understand the characters and what they think. They push for their own actions in the anime with their own ambitions and not the other way around making them feel more human.

When the show doesn't look like an A-1 Pictures anime it has some of the most impressive and smoothest visuals, direction, and animation I've seen. Whilst some actions scenes - which this anime almost entirely drives on for the majority of it's viewers - can be clunky at times, they all have great punch to them complimented by solid sound design and music. It's not just the action scenes that get love though as I was surprised by just how much attention to detail went into character movements, posture, facial expressions, and other miscellaneous actions. Especially the facial expressions which Chisato liberally gets plenty of and it's done perfectly. It's also really nice seeing gunplay and gun sounds being accurate from the large knock-back of even small-caliber handguns to the shocking aim of custom ammo. I can see why people call this "John Wick meets anime". The creators of this show took some real care into making this show and polishing it as best they could and from that they are rewarded with some truly heartwarming scenes at times like the end of episode 9 - also far enhanced by the great emotional writing this show can bang out. The character designs were done by Imigi Muru who is the mangaka/original creator for Konobi (whose anime I have actually reviewed on MAL so go read that please) which I was surprised to find out. Their designs are simple and adorable especially Chisato. Look I like short haired girls okay just leave me be. Not only are the designs appealing but the fashion work is great as well - from the uniforms to the casual clothes.

One thing I can praise higher than the animation is the voice acting. Anzai Chika as Chisato is one of the best pieces of voice acting I have heard in years. Chika's voice acting is able to bring about every facet of personality from Chisato and she's able to play so many different emotional states and moods. There's plenty of energy in her loud, fun default persona and her more calculated words when she's angry feel chilling and threatening. I've always had an eye on Anzai Chika from when she started as a rookie in Hibike! Euphonium and I'm so glad she managed to pull off a role this good in a good show. The other voice actors, while nowhere near the level of Chika, clearly put in good effort under good voice direction. I'm sure if you've watched this anime you know about Wakamiya Shion's beautiful bit of voice acting when Takina finally beats Chisato at a game of rock-paper-scissors. And if you don't, I implore you to look it up to set your expectations on how good this show can be.Plenty of people may ignore voice acting especially if they don't understad Japanese but trust me it can add so much depth to a show and here it does just that.

The OST is okay. I was honestly mostly distracted by the voice acting and following the story to listen to the background track too closely. It's got a nice urban feel to it which matches well with the action as locations can change rapidly in a city environment. It's also got plenty of more relaxing soundtracks to listen to for the slice-of-life moments which are good to listen to. The opening song from Claris is a bit generic but is backed by nice direction and good flow. The ending credits is a lovely and energetic song with excellent visuals that plays with plenty of bright colours while the song swells with enthusiasm. It just flows so smoothly and is very welcoming at the end of every episode. For good reasons.

This show was a surprise for me. It's characters and story are tightly written and it has a heavy focus on character relationships rather than the action. Chisato is one of the most well-crafted and likeable protagonist to come out in recent years. The anime both looks and sounds great despite being from a pretty infamous studio so I give massive props to the director and staff for focusing on perfection in their work. The show works on so many levels and the story, while I never really described it much in this review, is actually pretty gripping with some great, unobtrusive world-building. I hope to see more original shows like this come out with a passionate team behind it because this really proves that is is the execution that maters more than anything. Needless to say that I highly recommend this show. If it works for super-weeb Hideo Kojima it will probably work for you.

A short review for a short "anime"

Imagine you're in school and while you're busy sitting at your desk being bored listening to the teacher drone on someone comes into the school and is greeted by a teacher who shows them a graduation school book. This acts as a catalogue that they may choose any student from the student body to marry without any prior consent or knowledge. This is completely normal in this society and is in-fact encouraged by the treacherous teacher who not only willingly, but happily plays her part in the system. And as the man flips through the pages the picture of ... a particular student spots their eye and their greasy finger slides up to point at it- their choice made, and a life stolen.

But because it's a big furry bear-like creature it's totally okay.

Yeah fuck this "anime". I don't know who this show was made for. I really don't. Comedy fans will find it unfunny. SoL fans will find its superficial writing annoying. Boys can't relate to the main character. Girls can't relate to the monster thing. And fujoshi can't see two human males to get wet to. Not only is the premise completely creepy but, if you can somehow get past it, the events that lay out are some of the most generic, boring, shallow "rom-com" crap presented by one-note, flat characters that has been done a million times better in every other show. And seriously, at best the main character is a perverted beta male who's also a massive furry. It's more interesting to watch if you follow my personal head-cannon that the boys are poor souls who were brought by sick-minded child traffickers as slaves to be their "wives" and all the stuff that happens in the "anime" is their hallucinations brought on by the torture they endure every day in order to cope with reality. This is why every situation is absurd and "wholesome" because their minds are so shattered they can only imagine what life could be if they truly were in a normal, healthy relationship. Kanenogi being able to move blindingly fast represents the inability of the poor main character to physically run away from his captor since he'll just be caught up to. And the constant stalking shows that he's under constant surveillance and cannot hope to plan an escape. Things like these are all re-contextualized into "wholesome", "funny" moments the accursed main cast laugh at and relate to. They are married to monsters, yes. But not the fun ones portrayed in this show. The ones that dress up in human form and commit heinous acts against the helpless and weak.

And the animation is choppy and cheap and the pacing is so slow even for 3-minute long episodes that I had to watch it at 1.75x speed. Ok bye.

Warning: There may be spoilers ahead

Aquatope of the White Sand is an anime made up of pure heart, soul, and passion by it's creators. Every week tuning in was fun and exciting. It is the embodiment of everything PA Works studio strives for. If I'll be honest, despite my great respect and like for the studio which brought some of the best original slice-of-life and drama anime to dazzling light they haven't exactly had the best of records especially over the past few years. Irodzuku was the last standout anime they made that could be called "good" and that was made all the way back ... in late 2018. Aquatope sees a return to form after a long hiatus with excellent writing, interesting and endearing characters, and the plethora of quirks that makes PA Works truly PA Works. It's an anime about finding your passion in life and working hard to realize it. It's an anime that speaks to the heart.

The story starts off with one half of the duo of heroines Miyazawa Fuuka leaving behind her idol job and with it her dreams after being forced out by usual entertainment industry bullshit. Disillusioned and lost, she takes a spontaneous decision to fly to the island of Okinawa. There she stumbles upon a small, backwater aquarium (Gama Gama Aquarium) on the brink of shutting down and meets our other main heroine -Misakino Kukuru- the acting director who is desperately working to keep the aquarium running. After seeing a magical illusion of being underwater and being surrounded by vibrant sea life which comfort her, she meets with Kukuru. Seeing how hard Kukuru is working, Fuuka has an epiphany and begs to become a worker at the aquarium and the anime follows the two as they overcome the trials life as a caretaker for living beings brings.

The anime strongly focuses on the character's attempts to prevent Gama Gama from being closed down as well as the emotions involved in doing so. It becomes easy to root for Kukuru as the anime shows us exactly what the aquarium and the animals housed inside means to her. Kukuru displays an immature nature of stubbornly fighting for what she believe in and it's a good contrast to the more reserved Fuuka who dedicates herself to learning everything about the sea life and helping Kukuru. The anime is a slice-of-life through and through for the most part with strong moments of drama sprinkled throughout often involving Kukuru who, due to her fairly weak facade, breaks down quite easily emotionally and thus needing to find warm comfort from an understanding Fuuka. It's this dynamic that drives the show as there is a strong theme of family especially with sisterly love. Whilst it is initially easy to dismiss many of Kukuru's emotional outburst and breakdowns throughout the show as simply being weak-willed the anime lets us understand her adversity to great personal loss having us being shown she lost her parents at a young age. Gama Gama holds great sentimental value for her.

Fuuka being there allows Kukuru to push through her troubles and this is what I believe the whole story is about. This makes this anime more of an Irodzuku than a Sakura Quest for any PA Works fans out there.. Throughout the story we constantly see that without Fuuka acting as a surrogate older sister and someone to find solace in, Kukuru would genuinely fall apart emotionally. It is her presence that allows Kukuru to grow stronger. It is through this character development that Kukuru is forced to accept reality that Gama Game simply could not stay open by the end of the first half. It's a genuinely heart-wrenching moment and one of the best emotional climaxes I've seen in anime.

The second half of the show is almost like a different anime and I have seen many people who don't particularly like this change. The anime shifts gears to a more dramatic tone focusing on Kukuru's new job in marketing at a far larger, international-size aquarium after a small time-skip from the end of the first half. Here the anime really starts to push down on Kukuru and it does get a bit annoying for the viewer since it's quite predictable. Like yeah the anime is entirely about her (nice try trying to flesh out other characters PA Works *gives them a participation medal*) but you could give her a break man. The pacing is also way more awkward often times being a bit rushed often at the expense of other characters. And seriously the ending comes quite abruptly out of nowhere. I do really like Fuuka's return like she's some kind of war veteran who offers her continued support to Fuuka. I was impressed by how well she was written since she often plays second fiddle to Kukuru but the anime subtly displays how she regains her confidence after her introduction in the first episode and it's nice to see the supportive relationship between her and Kukuru being reciprocal. She does in 12 episodes what Oumae Kumiko did in 24 and that's impressive.

Aquatope is filled with plenty of charm and it's plain to see how much love and work the staff at PA Works put in the show. Ultimately the main theme of the show is that reality is not always as you would like it to be but you can always work with what life gives you and improve yourself. It's extremely rewarding seeing Kukuru and Fuuka succeed at what they do when they put their mind to it because it helps them continue doing what they love. Being someone who recently had to give up a dream myself due to circumstances out of my control I find this message resonating with me and I'm sure it will for many young adults out there. It tackles it's themes with tact and care for it's audience and it's one of the many reasons I like PA Works so much.

The overall story is for the most part a standard slice-of-life. We get to meet other characters who each have their own unique trajectories in life and the anime sometimes sidetracks on some of them and focus on what makes them tick. It pays to pay attention to what the characters do throughout the show. It adds a lot to the world of the show even if the main focus is on Kukuru and Fuuka. It's a nice way pf contrasting those two against a wider spectrum of motivations and personalities. It makes the anime feel just that little more realistic. So while characters like Udon-chan, Kuuya, Karin, and Chiyu aren't given nearly enough screentime to fully explore their character, they still feel like their own unique persons to root for. A lot of the time this results in drama but it's never played cheaply. We see characters influence each other in meaningful ways and grow together. Stuff like Kukuru trying to learn how to take care of a baby, or how Karin wants to compete for a job as an attendant, it's all well-explored and gives the characters far more personality than other shows of it's kind.

The artwork and animation get no complaints from me. It's PA Works doing what they do best. The background work is gorgeous and the use of lighting is leagues above what most anime could achieve. There's some good shots of scenery to chew on especially near the end of the show and it's a great breather from the general melodrama that comes with being a story's climax. PA Works excels at bringing locations to life in their anime. Gama Gama aquarium and the later Tingarla Aquarium almost feel like their own characters with their own personalities. Drector Shiohara Toshiya has powerful visual direction in some of his previous works like Irodzuku where there was a strong visual theme of colour and how it brings life to the characters. He does a similar thing here. Remember what I said in the second paragraph? In Aquatope he does something similar since Gama Gama is a place of literal magic that takes a person who is at emotional crossroads into a safe, familiar underwater scenery. I didn't talk about this previously because couldn't really work it into the previous paragraphs and frankly PA Works couldn't neatly work it into the writing as well. Like. It's just there. It is, however, the first thing that gets Fuuka back on her feet and is a lovely literal metaphor about the warmth and comfort a familiar place can be and emphasizes what Kukuru is fighting for in the first half of the show. She wants to protect the fortress of memories that is Gama Gama. The scene is brilliantly animated with beautiful emotional music played over. And since it's sparingly used (and only once after the first half) it always feels like it has meaning. But yeah anyways there's magic. Sometimes I forget because even the anime forgets about it. Dang yokai semantics.

The music is pretty great for the most part and goes hand-in-hand with the animation. It uses numerous emotional overtures like in Nagi Asu that tug at your heartstrings. The voice acting is stellar. Didn't expect too much from newbies but both Miku Itou and Aida Rikako put on incredible performances. Props to the director and the voice actor's talent but they really brought out so much character in their roles. If their is a complaint about the sound is that there are some times where the sound mixing is off. I don't know how PA Works did it but in some episodes it sounds too soft in some scenes and too loud in others. But hey I like it since it adds personality to the show. The opening songs are great and energetic. The ending songs are more sombre and nice to listen to though I would have liked more animation out of it.

Overall Aquatope became one of my favourite shows of the year. It has strong themes I resonated with and a great story with likeable characters to follow. The animation is brilliant and it's the strongest performance by PA Works in a while as they go back to their roots. If you like this show I recommend any of the other works by Shinohara Toshiya and Kitahara Yuuko. Sakura Quest is also a great show to watch with similar vibes though with less focus on drama. Aquatope brings a return to form by PA Works and I hope they continue doing great things.

WARNING: Will probably be VERY LONG (~2400 words) and contain spoilers. Ranting may be frequent.

Classroom of the Elite fails at everything it attempts to do. Instead of being an interesting and thrilling show it's one of the most boring and pretentious pieces of media I had to endure. We have a show that tries to be intellectual but it's undercut by blatant fanservice scenes and characters cut-and-pasted out of a generic harem trash. The production values are so alarmingly terrible it feels that no one who worked on this show cared about it. I'll try and summarize exactly what makes this show so terrible but ... heed that warning at the beginning.

Classroom of the Elite takes place in some future where there's a highschool that divides it's students into various classes depending on some unexplained assessment of their character and traits. Our story follows a guy who finds himself in the D Class which is considered to be the class that the worst of society is dumped. His class is shit on by everyone else including teaching staff for being human trash and they continue to be trodden on. But wait, this guy is really smart! And he can solve all the problems with his big brain! And we follow his hi-jinks throughout the show as he confronts and tackles the oppressiveness of the system with his classmates from the shadows as he keeps himself out of the spotlight. There's also some girl MC with long hair and another with short hair. They're smart too I think.

I'm not gonna hide the fact that I am completely disinterested in all the characters of this show. If you can even call them that. They're all generic one-note personality traits that get extremely shallow development if they're lucky to get them at all. Look, if your anime's plot is being progressed by the same three idiotic comic-reliefs there's a point where it's impossible to take any of the characters seriously. The male MC is the main pull for this anime since people love the idea of being the edgy and intelligent bad-ass who works as a hero from behind the scenes. That's fine and all but the drop-off is that he literally has no personality. He's got a backstory, sure, but that's not touched much upon in the anime and that doesn't single-handedly build a character. Because of his lack of personality the story just writes him to do whatever for no rhyme or reason. Why does he help his classmates? What's his motivations? Why does he go super edgy during the last few minutes of the show? Having a mysterious character is fine and all but he isn't shown to do anything out of his own violation which makes him feel incredibly passive. He just ends up being another generic self-insert harem protagonist by the end of the show because of course he picks up chicks like they're pokemon without even realizing it. The anime's story almost bends it's will to this character because everything he does basically saves everyone else. Yet nothing he goes through sticks with him because he has to remain a blank slate for the audience to insert.

Out of the two female MCs (or at least I think they're main characters. The comedic reliefs have more screentime than both of them combined I think) the long-haired one had the most potential. And she's also the one character I can singularly use to define this anime's garbage writing and intent. Yep you got a backstory. Yep you got a motivation: she wants to get to A Class and impress her brother. Yes she has a path of development - going from a cold, aloof person who works alone to someone who is encouraged by her situation to work with others and accept other people. And yet she never moves from her position in the entire series. I couldn't believe how little she got until I was suffering through episode 10 and realized she was just the same, cold character who whined constantly about how she hated working with others and could do things herself. Episode fucking ten people and she's still complaining about the most obvious shit like "B Class is better than D in every way". Well no shit because you haven't done anything about it. All you do throughout the show is just dump the most obvious exposition to the audience like we're five-year-olds. At this point we've been through a few arcs together and even had some intimate moments with other characters who seemed to be able to warm her up but no. Her character simply isn't written to have any development. She has the motivation but she isn't proactive about it. She does nothing to actually ascend to a higher class. Nothing. From this I can only conclude that she is bait and harem material for our male MC and that the author genuinely doesn't care about her at all other than her one-note personality. Everything she does manage to do is trivialized to make our male MC look good. Can't stand up to her brother who is going to do some casual domestic violence? Let the male MC come in and block the punch. Managed to beat another skilled martial artist (gotta admit Capoeira is so cool animated) while suffering from plot-induced fever? Sorry get wrecked the male MC is here to fix everything not you. How about declaring war on the Class system during the pool episode because you found your affirmation as a person and not because the male MC literally told you to do so? I almost feel bad for her seeing how little she actually does in the story.

I'm not gonna touch too much on the short-hair female MC since she suffers from a bad case of readthenovelitus. Having similar potential to the long-haired female MC but not actually doing much. Yeah you got your double personality but what does that accomplish in the overarching plot? I don't know why she's like this or what she wants to do so why should I care about her? The large cast of characters is indicative that there's supposed to be much more focus on them in the light novel and after reading some spoilers I see that the light novel follows a more character-of-the-week system where a spotlight is shone on some character or another every character arc. Seeing how horribly paced the anime was and how disproportionate some of the screentime was to the various characters based on their relative importance to the show, this method did not translate well from paper to animation. It's a shame because the show dicks around so much on pointless fanservice and terrible writing it could give us so much more of the characters. I want to know more about why each member of D Class is in D Class. I want to know why the B Class girl has so much money. But the anime doesn't give us any more than morsels. So in the end we have about 20 characters and none of them actually do anything because of how little screentime they get. None of them have any goals or motivations whatsoever. Tell me what makes any of the characters tick just from the anime alone.

The so-called villains are just so comically villainous. The anime uses the cheapest, most generic ways possible to build them up. How do you make the C Class guy even more of an asshole? Just make him some abusive asshole who wants to sexually assault our female MCs for no reason. The A Class "villains" have thin personality traits and don't do anything above walking around and looking smart. The anime tells us they're smart sure but what do they actually do? Isn't this girl with a cane supposed to be some master manipulator? What does she actually do in the context of the anime? Heck the C Class villain is probably the one that initiates the most conflict and only out of some stupid shenanigans and wild assumptions that the D Class are literal morons because of plot. Every one of them feels like they're just reading a script of a shitty highschool drama and are trying way too hard to be super edgy teenagers. None of them feel like actual people with relatable goals or motivations.

The plot is pretty terrible. I don't even want to know how the writing process went down seeing that one episode opened up with a literal three-minute argument on toilets. The plot just goes off in every direction without care so the entire show feels disjointed with most of it being explained in boring exposition. I thought we were stuck in a brutal regime of systematic oppression but then we become a mystery show then we have some shitty romance subplot with the big-boobs girl and finally we have a Lord of the Flies thing on a deserted island? Yeah it's good to change your settings every so often to explore your world and new scenarios but there are two major problems this anime faces: One is that the themes are never really explored in any fashion for the short story-arc they reside in and Second: the plot is moved by some of the most contrived garbage I'v seen since Aldnoah fucking Zero. On the theme side: Okay so we bring up the plot tread that points can be used to buy almost anything. Cool, that was repeatedly told to us and the characters in the first arc and re-incorporated it in a pretty decent finale where the male MC uses it to buy literal test scores to save a classmate. Cool we got it. But then it's dropped for the rest of the show and is never brought up until some final scene in the final episode concerning the B Class girl. None of the other themes in any of the other arcs carry over to latter arcs as well so everything that happens feels so inconsequential. On a tangent I thought this point system was supposed to be important? After suffering from no points does D Class do anything about it? Isn't it, like, a big deal to not have any money? No the class doesn't change at all. They go through the rest of the anime after the first arc like nothing happened and didn't suffer any consequences and needing the male MC to bail them out.

The plot progression is just so contrived and fake. Oh no the narcissist guy was a narcissist and ditched us costing us thirty points oh no. Oh no someone stole fucking underwear and we're going to spend a literal entire episode stalled on it instead of achieving the same plot progression with much less effort by just being better at writing. At least on 4 occasions is the writing progressed or initiated by one of the comedic relief characters. The red-haired guy is just an idiot...because? He initiates the C Class conflict but never develops from being an angry idiot. The other comedic reliefs also play non-trivial roles in the plot. It's just...why? Why give so much screentime to them if you're not going to do anything with them? And yes I am interested in them because they could give insight into the world of the story. Why are people who are talented and passionate in some certain areas (basketball in the case of red-hair guy) still considered the dregs of society and put in D Class? The anime never tells us this because it wants to keep espousing it's pseudo-intellectual crap of "we live in a society" or "humanity this humanity that". Ironically this anime loves it's fanservice scenes so I don't know which intellectual crowd this anime wants to draw in. And honestly I ain't even bothered to go into some of the themes this show touches on since the show itself seems like it doesn't care but it includes stuff like collective punishment and rewarding, individualism vs conformism, as well as the social implications of such. But the anime doesn't do anything about these themes. It just parades them around expecting us to go "ooooh so clever yeah yeah".

The animation is pretty terrible for the most part. There's a few times where it's quite obvious that they didn't check the final product because the characters sometimes look completely different between shots because they were drawn by different animators. They also have a bad habit of recycling shots especially in some wide-angle shows. There's one scene where this girl is playing chess and moves a piece but the very next shot is the same position as when she didn't move the piece. This was like within 10 seconds wtf. The art also just looks pretty...bad. The colours are so bland and there isn't interesting to look at in the environments. The direction is also just plain with only some sparse action scenes here or there that actually look good. There's parts where they sap on walls of text onto the screen which is clearly just exposition lifted from the light novel...but then they proceed to say the exposition...so what was the point? The anime also suffers a lot from using too many flashbacks. Like, 5 minutes ago sort of flashbacks. Yes anime we got it we're not idiots thanks.

The music is...odd to say the least. They have this hard bass playing sometimes in the intense scenes and it feels somewhat out of place and juvenile. Like the anime just wants to put as much edge as possible in it's soundtrack. I'm not privy to the word "edge" or "edgy" but this honestly feels like that. I've seen this sort of thing in other action-heavy and thriller shows but those were okay because it didn't feel like they were trying too hard. In this anime it's like the music is trying to distract us from the stark reality of the show- that this is just about some stupid edgy teenagers having highschool drama. It doesn't feel earned. The OPs and EDs were just generic and uninteresting songs. The OP is played to some crappy words and silhouettes montage of German, Japanese, French and English that doesn't describe the anime in any way. The OP isn't helped by the really shitty opening card which with every new episode has a different intellectual quote clearly not taken in context and just slapped on because it sounded cool. The voice acting is overall bad. I know Chiba Shouya is taking on roles of fairly emotionally inexpressive characters (very different from un-emotional characters mind you) with characters like the MCs of Irodzuku Sekai and Tsuki ga Kirei but this is just a low for him. He sounded genuinely disinterested in his character this time and I can't blame him. Kitou Akari was fine as the tsundere I guess. She works better with more emotional characters and there are indeed points in the anime where her character gets emotional and she works soemthing good out of it. I'm glad she went on to do very well as Iwanaga Kotoko in In/Spectre (but she then went to be in Ex-Arm. Damn). I haven't heard much from Kubo Yurika and she didn't do much here either seeing how little screentime her character got. The rest of the voice acting ranged from fine to decent with Touyama Nao probably doing the best which is normal. She's just the best.

This anime is a disaster. I admit that my expectations going into this anime weren't high but this is still so disappointing. The first few episodes actually bring up some interesting plot threads and characters but it all falls apart as the anime goes on. It's pretentious and pseudo-intellectual presentation annoyed me since it tried so hard to be smart but all of the solutions ended up being generic and predictable. The characters had so much going for them but the terrible writing gave them nothing to work with. The anime is overall just awful and I can't recommend this to anyone. I'm surprised it got so popular at the time of it's release. If I could recommenced anything else then watch the more recent Munou no Nana because ,while not great, has more interesting characters and character dynamics and the intellectual bullshit part is actually well-executed. Just avoid this one.

Thanks for reading I guess.

Warning: could be very long and contain some minor spoilers

Adachi to Shimamura is...wierd. It looks like a typical yuri-bait/shoujo ai that's been really picking up in popularity since Yagate Kimi ni Naru came out but it seems to go for a more surrealist and conceptual feeling rather than a heartfelt story that Yagate wonderfully executed (in the manga. RIP to the anime watchers who had the show end midway through an arc). Adachi to Shimamura goes all in on teenage angst and the troubles of love between the two titular characters. Whilst there's a lot to like about the show there's also so many glaring ... flaws that need addressing but, if I'll be honest, I quite like this show.

The anime starts off like a typical shoujo-ai between two girls with seemingly complete opposite personalities. Through a shared disregard for schooling our main heroines find themselves in an odd relationship after meeting each other while ditching classes. The anime then seems to snort a few grams of cocaine and bounce off in whatever direction with no regard for anything that looks like a coherent story. So we meet this alien...why? Does she do anything? Apparently sh's here to look for her comrade? Hold on let me look at the last episode for a bit...nope nothing here. Just another one of the loose plot threads that seem to pop up with the viciousness of a whack-a-mole with no hammer to smack them back down. This includes but is not limited to: the friend from Shimamura's kindergarten years (yeah good luck trying to be a main character), Adachi's mom who appears in one episode then is never seen or even mentioned from again, the serious baiting from Hino and Nagafuji etcetera etcetera. Yeah you can always put he argument of "It's explained in the manga" sure but I'm not reading the manga. These plot threads seem to just be haphazardly thrown in without much thought. The anime itself is already snail-paced slow and scenes that don't focus on the main meat of the show further break up the pacing. Since none of these threads get any wrap-up it just feels unnecessary to have them get in the way.

What it gets in the way of is the relationship between the main characters; Adachi "why are you gae?" Sakura and Shimamura "99 problems but a bitch ain't one of them" Hougetsu. I'll be honest there really isn't much chemistry to be found here which is a bit of a problem seeing that the main point of watching a romance anime like this one is to see the chemistry between the couple. I can accept that the two would obviously hold some interest in each other seeing how they shared a common interest (being teenage edgelords) but how did Adachi start to like Shimamura? She just sort of...does from the first episode and the anime carries on like it's the most natural thing in the world. Shimamura herself doesn't really have too much of a personality (from in-universe Adachi's point of view) to latch on to. It doesn't break the show but there's some trouble if a fundamental aspect of your genre doesn't exist.

At least the relationship itself is surprisingly well-presented. There's a lot of nuance in it that I feel could really fly over people's heads seeing that the anime doesn't actually focus that much on romance whenever it concerns the two together, but rather it uses their relationship to explore aspects of their personalities. I'd say a good 80 percent of all the dialogue in the anime is the two characters monologuing their thoughts on whatever situation they've encountered that scene. Whilst a more thoughtful and grounded approach is not uncommon in similar anime (Aoi Hana and Yagate have roughly the same tone and approach) this anime takes a leaf out of Nietzsche and loves to go on long though-trains on extremely complex metaphors. I'm not an expert but is this how high-school girls think these days? I recently watched After the Rain which also goes on long philosophical tirades but that made sense in context seeing how literature played a large role in that anime. The dialogue is actually quite interesting at times and sometimes does a good job reflecting the character's thoughts but it's so distracting knowing that no one actually talks and thinks like this. Anyways, the main relationship. There's a lot of focus on building the characters and showing aspects of their personalities whenever they interact. And that I think is the strongest point of this show: the showing. From watching a seemingly superficial one-sided romantic relationship we get to see some genuine nuance from the characters and I started to appreciate the character writing that I think got overshadowed a lot by the perceived generic story. Shimamura is a pretty interesting character who appears open and composed but is really just lonely and aloof. The anime does a great job showing how she perceives the world around her as someone on the outside looking in. Because of this she sees most relationships as superficial. She forgets a childhood friend's nickname, she finds herself unable to hold a friendship with Nagafuji and Hino, and she struggles to find anything meaningful in her new friend group after going up a grade. We also see her inability to commit and hold on to things in her dialogue with kindergarten friend and, in a more nuanced way, her changing her hair dye job back to her natural hair colour. Because the anime is so slow we get to be shown a lot of aspects of her struggle with having such a cynical personality.

This is contrasted by the seemingly quiet and reserved Adachi who deep down is emotional and holds complex feelings for things which she has a bad habit of bottling up inside her. This focus on the mindset of the two characters define their interactions which, in turn, fuel their thoughts of each other. Shimamura may be observant but her fundamental inability to relate to others prevents her from reading between the lines of Adachi's actions. Adachi herself only bottles up her feelings thus making her look like a small puppy in Shimamura's eyes. Being the more imaginative one of the pair, she often has scenes of her just daydreaming about Shimamura often in sexual ways. And you know what? I'm okay with that because I can accepet this is how teenagers think and feel whenever they like somebody. Of course she's going to be extremely awkward and clingy towards her not-girlfriend. She's in bloody highschool. Highschoolers fantasize a lot. Despite a general lack of chemistry I find this aspect of their relationship to be quite endearing seeing how they both do somewhat need the other to complete each other. Shimamura needs Adachi's emotional pushes and commitment and Adachi needs Shimamura as a leading role in their relationship. A.k.a one to start the car and the other to drive or they both just stall as characters and as people. It feels natural whenever one of them ponders what the other would do in a given situation and it highlights how much each of them mean to the other. Despite being opposite in personality and mindset, they both see each other as a light that brings colour to their world. Heck even the first line of the OP basically sums it up. Overall the anime does a really good job delving into the mindsets of our two main characters and shows us exactly how they affect each other and their decisions. Unfortunately the anime sort of ends without resolving anything. Their relationship still feels like it stalled ten episodes ago despite having a bit of a rushed ending. Oh well. Second season I guess?

The animation is mostly consistent and the artwork is beautiful at times. There are some great moments of character animation but not too much to write home about. I think the character designs are pretty cute though so that's half the work done. There is a lot of times where they use letterboxing and it's kinda strange. It's mostly used as a tool to emphasize certain emotional scenes but then it's also used to signify a flashback (though not all the time) and at other times, especially halfway through the show, it's just there for no apparent reason. It comes and goes without any consistency and it makes me think just not having it might have been a better idea. Who in direction though this was a good idea? There's also times where it changes artstyles as well as putting the ". . ." scattered here and there which is weird to me and may have been a remnant from the manga which I have no doubt is probably more tonally coherent than the anime adaptation.

The music is alright. It serves its purpose. The OP and ED are sung by the voice actors and don't stand out as anything more than generic anime OPs and EDs. Akari Kitou sounds really similar to ChouChou though or am I the only one? The voice acting was a standout. I don't know how but Miki Itou (who I haven't heard much of) manages to sound just disinterested enough to fit Shimamura's own distant personality. If it was purposely done so then well done to her. The other voice actors were decent. Akari Kitou did a great job voicing Kyouko Suiri's tallkative Iwanaga Kotoko and the energetic Noa from Wataten but is also great at voicing an awkward character like Adachi. Too bad she went on to voice in *shudders* Ex-Arm as Alma. Good job on the voice acting overall.

Adachi to Shimamura is an odd anime. It's got a lot of good stuff going for it but there's a lot of glaring flaws holding it back. It's got a great framework for developing the characters as they interact but the dialogue feels out-of-place and the writing is too slow for its own good. It looks fantastic but then has wierd direction choices shoved in without much thought. I like the characters but I wish I could see how why they liked each other in the first place. Overall it's not a particularly good romance but I'd recommend it as a character piece. If you could get past the teen angst, you'll find a pretty sweet look into a growing first-love.

WARNING: MAY BE LONG AND CONTAIN SPOILERS

review proper starts in the third paragraph

Schwarzesmarken (or Black Mark as I'll continue calling it in this review) is an anime I watched to try and get my action-thriller fix, nothing more. I had no expectations going into it as just a cursory glance at the plot synopsis immediately brought horrible flashes of awful mecha-action war stories that attempt to rip off gundam series. Wouldn't you know it Black Mark became one of my personal sleeper hits of all the anime I watched this year. It has a surprising amount of competence in writing, production, and characterization and ... it now serves as one of my go-to examples on how to write conflict. I'll try to convey my pleasant surprise in this review. On a side note; this anime is part of the Muv Luv franchise which I did not know until after I watched it and was somewhat surprised then I compared the character designs to KimiNozu and everything made sense. But anyways you really don't need to know anything about the Muv Luv franchise to get into this show.

Black Mark takes place in an alternative history setting where soon after World War 2 ended the planet got invaded by some ugly ass aliens called Beta who started a war with humanity forcing them to come together in a time where political and social ideologies between the greatest powers in the world could not be more in opposition with each other. Germany has been split as it did in the real world and, like in reality, East Germany plays host to the Stasi, or secret police, whose job it is to eliminate any traitors to their ideology. We follow the story of several mecha pilots (of course we developed advanced mecha suits in the mid-20th century because why not?) from East Germany who compose an elite team that exterminates Beta in close combat missions. While on a mission the MC Theodor and comrades find and rescue a West German mecha pilot Katia and soon after, under Katia's request, they allow her to join their elite unit going against their supposed political principals. This among other things brings them into direct conflict with the Stasi and the anime continues with them struggling against both the Beta invasion and their own countrymen.

I'd say the strongest aspect of Black Mark is a simple yet strong sense of storytelling. Being a war-action story, this show attempts to tackle many different themes such as strength in unity, familial bonds, keeping hope against great odds of despair, etc just to name a few. And you know why I can list them like that? Because this anime perfectly manages to lay the frameworks for such themes very early on and dedicates a good amount of time building them up through the actions of our characters.

It's easy to invest in the story and characters of Black Mark because it's so simple yet effective. There are clear stakes and end goals in the story. And I emphasize these stakes because it's what drives the story. Why should we care for Katia, Theodore and the rest of the 666th squadron trying to bring down the Stasi in the first place? Because if they don't they and everything they care for will be destroyed. Why should we care for them and the things they care about? Because we are shown in good detail why they do the things they do. Katia desires to unite the different worlds to fight against the Beta. Theodore wants to protect his sister and avenge his family who died at the hands of the Stasi. Irisdina also wants to avenge her family and protect the new one she gained in her comrades. Each character has clear motivations that drive them and the anime does a very good job emphasizing the pains they went through. Everything they do done to fulfill their goal. This makes each victory they achieve all the more sweeter for not just them but for us as well. The anime has some very well written dialogue at times that gives a clear picture of the situation the characters are in as well as what they think and feel. If you ever watch this anime it's good to keep asking "why" the characters are doing things and you'll very likely find an answer.

Well after all that praise how come am I giving this anime a "6" score? Well, the biggest problem this anime has is it's extremely thin characterization. Whilst the characters themselves aren't badly written and are, in fact, quite compelling, they just don't have that much going for them outside of one-note traits. Katia, Theodore, his sister Lise, and Irisdina easily make up the most fleshed out characters in the show and even they struggle to get much characterization so you can imagine how little the rest of the fairly large cast gets. Theodore doesn't really become more than the generic edgy war orphan we've often seen and Katia doesn't change much from being the idealist. Irisdina is probably the most interesting character with the most interesting backstory but she is unfortunately given way too little screentime to properly flesh out the details. She's still my favourite character though. Lise, despite being such an obvious villain, is unironically the one that changes the most as we see her struggle to get her brother to go off with her and leave everything behind. She's a great character as she serves as the antithesis to our characters- having lost all hope in herself and her ideals. However she also doesn't get much of a fleshed out background until nearly the very end and I find it unfortunate since she made for a compelling and understandable villain. Some of the character development also feels a bit forced at times especially early on when the anime goes for the "war is hell" route and it gets pretty predictable. Thankfully this doesn't happen often and Katia and Theodore get some great development in the second half. As for the rest of the characters, they don't get too much but I like them. Can''t go wrong with your jaded, silent veterans and they feel like a genuine team and family to our characters which is the point. The Stasi themselves are pretty good villains in what they do but they also don't get much characterization themselves. An interesting and appreciated point though is that the Stasi orgnaisation in the anime is strongly divided with factionalization in contrast to our protagonists' strong bonds and desire to unite the two different Germanys.

The show is often interspersed with various action scenes where the squadron fight the Beta. The Beta are all CGI monstrosities which look incredibly ugly and jarring even amongst the mecha suits the characters' fight in are also jarringly CGI. The fights all look mostly the same because they're always look to be fighting in the same snowy tundra. And I suspect there was some repeated footage at times. The fights aren't that badly directed though and they have great orchestral choral music that really rocks. Honestly, the music is such a highlight that the fight scenes are an unfortunate distraction from them. If you do watch then try listening to the absolute banger music during an action scene like in episode 4. There's so much tension and desperation in it to highlight the scene that it almost feels too good for the show. The rest of the animation is fairly alright. Nothing to right home about. It's got a lot of dull greys, whites, and browns that characterize the time period the story is set in. I didn't notice too many animation errors and I could tell this was well-produced. The direction and cinematography doesn't really change much throughout the show. If there isn't an action scene then the characters are mainly just standing around and talking. Oh yes, that was another small problem I had with the show. It doesn't really know how to convey information in ways other than pure expositionary dialogue. At least the characters and dialogue itself is surprisingly engaging and relevant but this anime has a pretty big "tell don't show" problem which just makes scenes feel samey throughout. Like, I think I've seen them talk in the same church like five different times in three episodes.

The OP and ED are wonderful to listen to and the classical BGM works very well. They almost sound like period pieces from the Cold War. The voice acting is alright. Nothing too outstanding. The cast is made up of a lot of seiyuu I don't recognize but they're pretty okay. Irisdina's voice acting was probably the best but she doesn't get too much screentime unfortunately.

Overall Black Mark is s surprisingly competent anime that is not only good at telling a war story but a story in general. They present easy-to-understand stakes and motivations for our characters to drive the plot and they execute their themes very well. It is hobbled a bit by thin characterzation and too much exposition scenes but this anime's story is one I enjoyed following with it's characters and I'm glad I randomly picked this up. I highly recommend this show if you want a simple drama story that is told well.

WARNING: WILL PROBABLY BE VERY LONG AND CONTAIN SOME SPOILERS

Oh boy oh boy oh boy it's been a while since I crapped on someone's favourite anime. Rising of the Shield Hero (henceforth titled "Shield Hero" in this review) not only continued the already tired genre of isekai for isekai's sake (as in, it's an isekai, not fantasy, because it's been the hip thing for the past 8 years) but also managed to create it's own blight of a sub-genre that further blights the image isekai genre painfully has - that being the revenge isekai. Shield Hero, upon release, was seen as a far darker take ... on the genre and managed to become one of 2019's most popular and well-loved shows. We had Re:Zero before which was obviously also a less funsy, more bloody subversion of isekai but whilst Re:Zero had some interesting concepts to explore but poor execution (please direct you attention to my Re:Zero review I'm desperate for internet fame), Shield Hero doesn't have nearly as much going for it in either characterization or storytelling. Time to break this thing down.

Shield Hero follows our protagonist Naofumi as he is *sigh* summoned to another fantasy world where he serves as one of four heroes of legend- each wielding a signature weapon. Naofumi unsurprisingly becomes the titular character of the show being the Shield Hero. They're summoned to help fight off these "Waves" which are phenomenon where lots of monsters suddenly attack parts of the world. Unfortunately for Subaru no one likes the Shield Hero for...reasons and he is betrayed, humiliated, and left to suffer in a cruel, cold world he didn't ask to be in after a "party member" accused him of sexual assault in a matriarchal country. All of this happens in the first episode which was...holy crap 48 minutes? Really? I never liked first episodes that felt they were too important to only take up the prerequisite amount of time including shows I love (Hibike 2 and Fate/Zero come to mind) since it almost always ends up being a huge dump of information given to us without any thought of pacing. Aaaaand yep the pacing of the first episode sucks. As well as the rest of the show for that matter but I'll get to that latter. Anyways where was I again? Oh yeah the plot.

I can plainly see why this anime and so many others that came afterwards became so popular. Most isekai before mainly focused on ridiculously OP main characters who bullshit their way through the story without any trial whatsoever. This was great for giving power fantasies to the viewer as they place themselves in the shoes of a same-face protagonist who goes around collecting women into their harem like some kind of gacha game. However this got boring around the 300th time it was done. Shield Hero is a story of an underdog. And by god do people love supporting the underdog. Naofumi basically starts at the lowest rung of the pecking order and is consistently and constantly humiliated through the show. Yet, because he's a main character, he always pulls through and works hard. People love watching Naofumi do his stuff and go "Oh golly gee if I were in his position and being shit on I would still be the good guy who heals people, does great works of charity and humility etc." No, you wouldn't. You would be even more of an asshole who hates the world. But Naofumi is the type of character who does the things people wish they would do. All of the stuff he does cultivates an image of an ideal hero of the people whom everyone loves. The first few episodes follow him and his hare- I mean party members going around cleaning up the disasters left by the other 3 heroes who are, of course, utter sociopaths who think the world is a game. This always means Naofumi has his image cultivated as a truly heroic person not to the the people of the world he is in, but to you, the viewer. So what's the difference between this and a generic power fantasy bullshit OP main character from every other isekai? Nothing he does actually leads to any bad consequences, things always work out for him in the end, and sooner rather than latter he does end up actually becoming a bullshit OP main character from every other isekai.

What about his actual personality? Well he's...a nice guy? After his humiliation he becomes a lot more douchbaggy and less naive but that's to be expected I guess. The anime, however, flip flops on him being a a cynical asshole who hates the world around him and a nice guy who wants to save others very often. He hardly has any personality outside of being a reactionary protagonist just following the script of "Go here and do this". Not helped by the fact that we really don't know anything about who he was before he got isekai'd. How could a perfectly normal 20-something year old Japanese dude living carefree in his parents' house become the asshole, ingenius character he is in less than an episode? Was he always this resourceful and quick-thinking before he got isekai'd or was he given these qualities as the story demanded? All this vague characterisation and what he does turns him into a near-perfect protagonist who can do nothing wrong. He saves Raphtalia from slavery...why? He could have picked anyone else more useful to him but no he's that nice a guy. Nevermind he doesn't mind slavery in the world which should be a big culture chock to him but it isn't. I know about all the controversy of this anime and slavery but I could hardly care about that. I care about how you could write a character to be unamused by such a concept- which implies he has become a cynical asshole- but then switch to him being a really nice person almost instantaneously all within the first 2 episodes.

Oh well let's look at the other characters for a bit. They're...pretty boring as well. Raphtalia is your basic waifu bait (who won the 2019 Salty Awards for best waifu so it worked) who really doesn't have much of a personality outside of being grateful to Naofumi for saving her. This makes her character arc completely predictable and it plays out like a kindergarten school play the teachers didn't bother to change for the past 5 years. Seriously what actually defines her other than liking Naofumi and being a typical example of "I wanted revenge but now I see how I will beome the very thing I swore to destroy" character? She doesn't do anything other than listen to Naofumi and do as he says.

Filo is the resident loli-bait and is alright I guess. She does provide a good amount of much-needed comedy and slice-of-life downtime to the show. She doesn't develop much and is every bit obsessed about Naofumi as Raphtalia but at least this one kind of makes sense. Melty is probably the best character of the show. I love her design and she's the only character who actually has any bit of noticeable development going from a naive but ambitious child to a responsible and affirmative character who wants to improve her country after experiencing things first-hand. All this in less than a quarter of the time the other MC's get "development". I would just like it more if the anime didn't keep beating me over the head with how much she's grown and all because damn the dialogue stinks. In fact, most of the development dialogue the characters get is "oh yes they have indeed grown" instead of actually showing us with some exception for Melty. Other characters that help our main characters? They exist that's for sure. I mean, they might as well be walking planks of wood with a face painted on them but hey it's not too different from the main cast. Whilst Re:Zero had a shitty main character but very interesting supporting characters whom I would love to see more in season 2, Shield Hero doesn't have anything outstanding among its cast. This includes our so-called "villains".

So we have the other heroes summoned with Naofumi. As said before they're all sociopathic assholes and this never really changes and they get nothing from the show. Spear guy is an idiot...just because? Like, seriously they're all bland one-note characters who exist only to be assholes and make out protagonist look like the second coming of Jesus. The king is an asshole because he's an asshole for several well-substantiated reasons that are never explored but trust me they are well-substantiated. The ever so controversial Myne/ Malty is a thot because...she is? I mean the anime gives us no explanations for anything the characters do and why they are who they are. They just do. Myne offers the biggest challenge to our group of main characters. She constantly tries to get in their way, downplay their achievements, frame them for crimes, straight up try to murder them and her sister Melty (the biggest sin) and is built up as a genuine threat who is smart and conniving until...wait who the fuck is this Pope-ass dude? And why is he trying to shove his way into the story? Halfway through the story we're introduced to the REAL villain behind it all. Whom we only ever saw in like one episode but suddenly this crusty old dude is the final boss whom our hero and the other twats need to band together to defeat. Really? It's not that he wasn't presented as a totally evil dude in the same way almost every fanatical religion in most stories turn out to be it's just that his appearance so abruptly shoves itself into the front of the storyline it feels so out-of-place.

The writing is not great. The first half as mentioned previously is just Naofumi being the second coming of Jesus shown in self-contained episodes for the most part. Starting around episode 8, however and continuing till the end, it feels like they stuffed too many plot threads on top of each other. Like the Fliolial arc in the middle of what was supposed to be Raphtalia's arc which was supposed to be in the middle of an arc where Naofumi was on the run. And the worse thing is it actually affects the story in a massive way. Like, if they didn't stumble upon the chicken queen Naofumi would never have confronted Spear dude and in turn would never have had them fight the Pope dude. What if they missed her entirely and kept with the original plan of crossing into another country? Absolutely nothing because the author didn't plan for that and didn't think anyone would call her out on it. It's just crappy, contrived writing. This seriously breaks the pacing of the show as we're just shoved from one scene of importance to this plot thread to another scene which is important to this plot thread. All only being tied loosely by huge amounts of exposition dialogue. The plot is basically "go to place A and do B then go to C and do D" plot that stumbles upon itself without knowing where to go. Yeah sure give Raphtalia her mini-arc but don't suddenly jank into Filo's arc and then proceed to dump a huge amount of exposition that is important to the plot on us. This horrible pacing messes up a lot of introductions of what would otherwise be interesting characters. Remember that good nobleman Melty trusted? Welp he only stuck around for like half an episode without anything going for him. What about that Glass character? She's like, super important but was only given like 10 minutes of screentime where she mostly trash-talked the characters while pwning them before she suddenly becomes an important character in the end who demands violently hasty characterisation. And why didn't the anime just end on episode 21 or at least pace itself to end on the events on 21? After that episode was a hugely rushed arc which probably should have been 2 episodes longer.

I hate the world building of this show mainly because there isn't any. Like, how lazy can you be to not even attempt to flesh out anything outside of the "game" aspects? And yes this anime follows the "gemer" isekai where there is stats, levels and xp that you gain from defeating monsters. Not that it's too difficult. The monsters in the wave do literally nothing but stand around menacingly (or in the case of the bee-like monsters- hover around menacingly) and occasionally slowly walk towards you in the most inefficient manner. These are seriously the monsters that threaten to destroy the world? I honestly mean it with all my heart that these are the worst monsters ever and that they literally never kill anyone or do anything onscreen. The worst they do is make the viewer's eyes bleed because of how ugly and janky the CGI is. A lot of fight scenes also lose a lot of tension because the characters just stand around doing nothing like the monsters. During the fight against pope dude I was constantly saying the "shoot her! or something" Star Wars meme because they seriously just stand around for ages waiting for pope dude to charge his ulti. And who thought a fight against pope dude would be a good idea? He just stands on the high ground firing shit. There's little to no strategy to any of the fights in this anime aside from spamming attacks. Of course, Naofumi has to be the one smart enough to have some tactical knowledge despite never having played a game like the other 3 hero douches.

The animation was for the most part competently done by Kinema Citrus who once-again changed their logo for the show and I continue to love that ever since they did that for GochiUsa. There were some poor moments of off-modelling though which sucked and the CGI is god-awful. The action direction flip flops between above-average and "wtf am I looking at" bad. The bad action scenes can have characters just flail their arms around with the whoosh sound effect. This unfortunately becomes the norm as the series goes on. The voice acting is pretty great for the most part. Melty and Raphtalia had great voice acting and everyone else was pretty good too. Shame you couldn't save a bad script with good acting. The music by Kevin Penkin is probably the highlight of the show and a reason why many came to watch this anime. It's nowhere near as good as his work on Made in Abyss but it's good nevertheless. I can only complain about how t was used. This anime has a lot of points where its basically just a slideshow of characters doing stuff (which further hurts the pacing and means I have no idea what the time-frame is. I once thought a few months had passed in-story but it was only like a week.) and the music is often played over that which is unfortunate.

Last minute thoughts:
- Episode 13 shows magical video editing software which is the funniest thing this anime has to offer.
- The moments where Naofumi goes all aaaangry and gains his Berserk rip-off black armour always ends with Naofumi remembering his harem and pulling out of the darkness. This only lowers the stakes and there's almost no consequences for becoming bullshit OP. This would be fine if it was done once or twice but it happens like 4 times and all of it plays out the same.
- Another case against the world building and storytelling of this show is just how many locations our characters are thrown around to with no care and we still don't know anything about the world. They initially try to go to one country, then they turn back and go for another country, then they sidetrack like 20 times before giving up and not going to any country at all.
- Pope dude probably my second favorite character. Yeah he's crappily written but he's so comically evil it's great. I also love how they made him literally the least-threatening villain ever.
- One of the baby-face soldiers Naofumi inspires is such a goddamn puppy dog. Like, we get it. At this point we get it. Naofumi is Jesus. We get it already.
- How did Melty just lose all her gaurds in episode 9? Like, you would think there would be gaurds searching all over because it's a big thing seeing as she's the heir to the goddamn throne but no.
- How close are all these villagers to each other? Our characters always end up being so close to the village important to the story. I count like 5 villages/towns in total and they all seem like they're only an hour's walk from each other.
- Raphtalia (and everyone else for that matter) is never actually affected by the curse from the Aaaangry Shield Naofumi uses even though they made a point of going out of their way to get high-quality holy water to treat her. They're always fighting in peak condition. Can you spell "consequences" for me?

In the end Shield Hero is a painfully mediocre show. I thought I was harsh with Re:Zero in that review but Shield Hero is much worse. I give them the same score but there's far less I like about Shield Hero than Re:Zero. The characters are bland across the board, the villains are comically boring, the pacing sucks, and the writing and story in general is only there to make out MC look good. Do I hate it? Not really. It's not a bad show by any means but it's definitely not good by any means too. In the end its an okay piece of entertainment to watch with your brain turned off but it's still like every other anime of its genre.