Back to red0fighter's Profile red0fighter's Profile

I like the series and all. But this season of Mahouka wasn't as enjoyable as the previous ones. The pacing felt off, the character interactions and whatnot was off and random too. In terms of the arcs that were included this season, it stayed pretty true to the light novel source. But I can't really say there was a wow factor that brought out anything special about these few arcs.

Initially, the anime uses flashback scenes to convey the story but then does away with it after a few episodes. Honestly seemed OK as a tool to use but I can understand if people are just ... straight up confused.

Overall, I'd say it was an OK season but not as exciting as it could have been.

Alderamin was one of the animes of the season that wasn't too hyped but enjoyable to watch. Normally, I do not watch many military themed animes, but the core aspects of a genre like so definitely shows here. The characters know that war is not all fun and games and the seriousness of war is depicted throughout the episodes.

The story was reasonable - two sides are at war and the MC and his friends are caught up on it. However, I have found at times not much development happens for maybe 1 episode, followed by a great combat scene in the next episode. So yeah, ... the pacing did not suffice with me. I feel like Alderamin would have shown more success if we could spread out the story to 25 episodes.

Not too much complaints with the art and sound. The art style was a bit different but nothing significant or bothersome to me.

Overall, I enjoyed the anime. By no means is it perfect but it is definitely worth a watch. The story may be slow to pick up but I would give it a few episodes before the pacing picks up.

Contains spoilers, but it's necessary to discuss some aspects of it.

Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete deserves a 6 - no more or less. The anime was not bad at all, but there are a lot of flaws that may steer viewers away from this anime easily. I watched it through and I'd say it's not as bad as what people say.

If you look at the recommendations to this anime, Steins;Gate is among that list. I believe that this anime shares very similar themes, but this anime doesn't execute those themes anywhere as effectively as Steins;Gate.

STORY: 5. One thing about this anime is that time travel is ... a huge theme in this anime. There are many questions about time travel. For example, if I do something in one time frame when doing time travel, what happens to people in another time frame? This anime is very iffy about addressing this.

Also, the numbers that appear on the screen confused me. I didn't know what they meant until around ep. 3/4. This is likely to confuse many viewers for sure.

My last issue is that I believe there are some pointless episodes as well that pertain to nothing to the plot. You will see some background stories of the main characters, but they serve no purpose to steering the plot.

Otherwise, there is a story, and there is a direction. I can tell you that much. Because time travel is a big thing, you will see a bunch of scenes over and over in different ways, which is executed pretty well.

ART/SOUND: 7, 8, respectively. I feel that some of the art was a bit iffy at times when it came to the animation. Otherwise, no complaints here, but nothing that stands out.

Character: 8. The characters are very likable. They are different, and they aren't heavy stereotypes. Not much else to say other than characters are done well.

Enjoyment: 6. Time travel is a huge mystery. We're not sure what the effects will be physically and mentally. I believe that the anime really missed on the psychological effect of time travel for the person that does the traveling. Otherwise, I felt that the episodes were okay and enjoyable.

Overall: 6. The anime is not bad. 6 to me is not bad at all. I enjoyed it, but at the same time, I found many flaws that bothered me with this anime. Most, if not all of the flaws, are really directed at the story. At times, the story is very confusing until later. I'd give this anime a shot, but you need to commit more than a few episodes to get the grasp of the story.

Akuma no Riddle is an anime full of girls that are all targeting one girl - Haru Ichinose. After watching this anime, I can affirm that it definitely deserves the MAL ranking it has right now. This review will be mainly spoiler free, as all of my reviews.

STORY: 4. When watching through this, I had so much trouble figuring out the true purpose of the story. Why are all the girls gathered to kill Haru? Why are so many girls involved (12 girls + Haru!!!)? What's with the riddles that Tokaku, the MC, gets from the one guy via a text message? After I finished ... the anime, I kinda understand where the story is going at, but the way it was presented was so confusing especially towards the end. Then at the end, I was lost for words, in a bad way. If you're reading this and you watched it through, you'll understand my point of view.

ART/SOUND: 7. These two categories is the only high point in this anime. The fighting and sound quality was good. Nothing that impressive, but it was alright stuff. If you are looking for a bit of action, the fight scenes are good, and the animation is good. Also, I liked the opening music :).

CHARACTER: 3. I felt like if you needed a reason to hate this anime, here it is. Since there are so many girls and only so many episodes, how in the world are you going to pull off developing the characters effectively? Honestly, it came to the point where we got to know about each girls brief backstory and then they became irrelevant for the rest of the anime, with exception to the MC Tokaku and Haru, and maybe 1 or 2 more. It's only really Tokaku and Haru that we get an understanding of their story.

Literally every single girl in the class of 13 girls had such distinctive, different personalities. If you could form a list of popular anime character types, most of the girls would fall into a distinct type for sure. Some people I guess might like this but I personally did not.

Again, while we're on the topic of characters, I was extremely disappointed with the ending of the anime. If you've finished the anime, you'll know what I'm talking about.

ENJOYMENT: 4. I came into this anime not having a clue about what it's about. It seemed okay at first, then gradually, and gradually, my enjoyment sunk as I saw a great deal of flaws coming out of this anime. Normally, animes that have some flaws won't bother me - I'm not really that picky with what I watch. It just added up and the things that bothered me only ended up repeating after each episode.

OVERALL: 5. Animation and sound passes. Story and character, not so much. If you are looking for some action and a bit of suspense, this anime will give you some. There were many flawed parts that really dropped my score for this anime, but it wasn't completely terrible. I managed to get through it at least.

Strawberry Panic is one of the first yuri shows that I've seen that managed to hook me through the full 26 episodes. While the anime isn't something that I'd consider to be a masterpiece, it was enjoyable.

The MAL synopsis gives you a good idea of what the anime is about, so I'd recommend reading it.

STORY: 8. Overall, the story is pretty realistic in the sense that there aren't crazy plot twists or random events that shift the story of the anime. The pace of the anime is very drawn out for 26 episodes. I felt that the pace wasn't too slow, though others might ... disagree. Aoi Nagisa transfers to a new school, and drama stirs up over time around the characters because, girls liking girls. However, there wasn't any parts of the anime that really caught my attention, but the story is very solid and there wasn't any fillers in any of the 26 episodes, which is a huge plus for me.

ART: 8. For an anime that is in 2006, the art wasn't bad at all. Can't really comment too much because we're talking about an anime released 9 years back from the time this is written.

SOUND: 9. The music was on point. Can't really complain about that. I liked how they used a lot of instrumentals and piano, which matches each and every scene's mood.

CHARACTER: 8. There wasn't any character that stood out to me. Lots of nice girls here and there, and some standard personalities that you could find in many animes. On the flip side, there wasn't any character that I could say that I really hated, so I'd say an 8 is good.

ENJOYMENT: 8. Somehow I managed to watch bursts of episodes. There wasn't fillers, which would be something that a 24-26 episode anime could have, so I'm happy about that. The characters were kawaii overall, and with the yuri aspect, it wasn't overdone.

OVERALL: 8. If you are watching this for the yuri, just know that it isn't huge on girl on girl action compared to ecchi/hentai anime. If you are put off from this anime because it was released in 2006, I would reconsider... it's a pretty good watch. The romance was there, and so was the drama. Just don't expect a perfect anime out of this one.