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I don't expect people to see this just because GS has been out for a while, but. Honestly? This show is overrated. "Oh but it's so good! It's so different omg!" If you've watched a decent amount of anime in the past, you'll quickly realize Goblin Slayer is really not as good as they say it is.

Yes, Goblin Slayer is a badass character but the story itself slows down so much. Nothing really changes in the world as we progress through the episodes other than them going around killing goblins as the name of the show makes obvious. It's certainly not so boring that it's ... unwatchable, but every time something happens it follows the trope of "oh no, something's different about this one." I understand you have to make the encounters unique with at least some substance, but it's so predictable. I don't know. Maybe I'm blowing it out of proportion, but I felt as though there was no value in watching the show because you always know what comes next.

The side characters are mediocre at best, and the childhood friend with the massive chest is hollow and is honestly probably only there for fan service; she doesn't add anything to Goblin Slayer's personality other than being that one token character who knows the MC before the story starts. The one character that's even remotely interesting or has any character development is the archer elf, but even that's pushing it. The other characters are unique but they have very little if any growth throughout the show, with the only other one having substantial changes (albeit incredibly linear) being the healer. But even her story and background are both incredibly boring. This is one of those shows that has to make sure every character has some sort of traumatizing event that sets them apart from the rest or gives them a reason to do whatever it is that they do. They refuse to make any important character an "average joe," which, yes, is boring but would also make them unique by being different than the others. Although I do think the dwarf kind of fits this, I don't really remember. Nothing about the show was worth remembering anyway.

The art was OK. It wasn't "good" but it certainly wasn't bad; the animation was nothing to write home about either. The music was fine, I guess, and the background art was okay. Everything in the art category was just about average, with nothing worth being called good nor bad.

I'm not really gonna go on a tangent here and nit-pick everything. This is based on my subjective experience with the show. Maybe I reviewed it so harshly *because* I wanted to find things I hated, because, y'know. "Popular things bad" and all that.

So yeah.. stinky goblin slayer, stinky story

Jobless Reincarnation has so much potential to be a great show. Unfortunately, the writers don't seem to realize that you can have a great story with AMAZING characters without sex being involved as much as it is. I'll try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible for those considering giving it a watch, and I'll try my best to come up with pros to go along with the big cons. *Apologies for the long review, there's just a lot to compliment and complain/warn about. ;-;*

__PROS:__
---STORY/WORLDBUILDING - The concept is awesome. It's the first Isekai I've watched where the MC retains consciousness after complete rebirth and ... is raised from infancy. Even if it's not the first of its kind, the idea itself is still really interesting to me. The worldbuilding is stellar and the fantasy is so well implemented; the world around Rudeus feels alive and constantly changing, and the relationships between characters are often realistically fickle and/or dynamic, even if the characters themselves can sometimes be one-dimensional and incredibly dense. Exotic peoples manage their own governments in diverse lands—it's everything you want for a good world to go along with a good story. The magic and fighting especially are so satisfying to watch and learn about, and the animations for them are beautiful.
---CHARACTERS - Every one of the characters (who are at least mildly important to the story) have their own convictions and reasons to do things, even if the reasons are dull or they themselves are entirely uninteresting. Not every character needs to be completely fleshed out with his own side-story worthy of its a special episode, people! Additionally, each of those at least mildly important characters has such contrasting and unique designs to one another and the girls are beautiful and cute and adorable and the guys are rugged and masculine (for the most part). Despite being a bit predictable, the characters are constantly changing and learning and adapting. Just because they make a choice you don't like doesn't mean it's bad storytelling or the show is bad. They're realistic *because* they're sometimes irrational and do dumb things. Especially Rudeus. And another thing: others already mentioned this, but maybe Rudeus isn't meant to be liked.
---ART/MUSIC/INTRO+OUTRO - First, I want to fanboy over the art style. I fucking love it. Call me a cliche, but I like cute girls in anime. Jobless Reincarnation doesn't disappoint and does an excellent job crafting stunning characters who are pleasant to look at. The backdrops are gorgeous and the cities are beautifully drawn and designed. The trees, the water, the sky; it is so perfect. The music is fine and fits perfectly with their respective scenes. And the intros. THE. INTROS. I LOVE that you can't just skip them. They took the time to make the intro cutscenes worth something instead of being something you can just skip without any loss of context. Seriously, well done.

__CONS:__
---STORY - The first gripe is obviously the sexual deviation. In nearly every episode, the writers have to rub into the viewers' faces that in some form or another, every character either has a sexually predatory nature to them or is a victim to said sexual predators (regrettably including but not limited to underaged individuals) down the line eventually. I'm sure we all came to this realization fairly quickly in Jobless Reincarnation's story as our MC is an unwavering, shameless pervert straight from episode one. PLEASE don't touch Aisha, Norn, Eris, or Sylphie. Leave the characters who have any innocence left alone. Secondly, another big gripe is, well, episode 3 of this season. If you read other reviews, you know why it's bad, and if you haven't, you'll understand if you watch the show. It's such a waste of time and so off-putting that I nearly dropped the show. I'm completely fine with what they did with Eris at the end of the last season, but fuck.
---CHARACTERS - I know I complimented how the characters realistically sometimes make mistakes, but the way it's done is sometimes a detriment to the story and the relatability of the characters. Rudeus is relatable because he lived an awful life and suffers depression, but then you're snapped out of it because the choices he makes are so perplexing sometimes. Now I'm entirely fine with the whole E.D. thing, it's understandable, he's going through heartbreak, but FUCK. A whole fucking episode focused solely on how he's depressed? The writers really fucking fumbled the small Counter Arrow story, and especially fumbled Rudeus and Sara. Not in a shipping way, not at all. It was just so hard to watch, man. Moreover, Elinalise. She's fucking obnoxious. Stop taking every opportunity to show how much of a slut she is. Also, does the main writer have a cuckolding fetish or something? Because man, episode 4 reeked of it.
---THE OBVIOUS - Yes, season 1 was bad with the young characters and the pedophilia subtext and sexual assault, and those disgusting bath scenes in the first few episodes. I can't guarantee it's any better due to how often sex as a subject is brought up, but fortunately, it gets less intense with the wholesome characters and focuses more on the adult side of things, even if Rudeus himself is currently in a young man's body. I really hope it stays that way because season one, as good as it is, was really hard to get through at times.

__TL;DR__
The world is beautifully designed and the story itself is so... fascinating. I don't want to say it's great, but Jobless Reincarnation grabbed my attention in a way I didn't expect. Seeing the reviews on the first season made me wary but I'm glad I gave it a chance, even if it had its really lows.
I can't specifically recommend this show right now because of how hard to watch the content that's currently released is. All I can do is cross my fingers and hope it'll get better. Thanks for reading if you got all the way through!

Devil is a Part-Timer itself is an okay story. I'm no active manga reader so I can't talk about whether or not the anime adaptation is any better or any worse. It's a comedy/fantasy with a hint of slice-of-life and surprisingly kind-of-but-maybe-not-so-accurate biblical accuracy that made me genuinely curious enough to research the mythological references on multiple occasions. That being said, the story is simple and easy-to-follow, allowing a casual viewing experience and rewarding you for not taking it so seriously.

The characters are funny and the demon dudes are quick to retort with simple-but-effective comebacks to make the angel gals blush up and pout. It's ... not knee-slapper comedy, but it's certainly given me a few occasional wide smiles.

I do much prefer the current studio's (3Hz) art style over the previous (White Fox's) despite it being just as simple and generic; it's softer and more pleasant to look at, and the girls got a very cute glow-up.

And the negatives...
The characters have abysmal growth. After two full seasons and some change, they might act slightly different around one another but there's still that looming sense of "you're my mortal enemy and I don't entirely trust you." Emilia is the biggest example of this. You get this feeling every episode that she might turn a new leaf and accept Maou as being just a "good guy" and even admit feelings despite the strenuous amount of romantic tension forced onto the viewer via Chiho, but it just never happens. It's even more apparent since the beginning of the second season where they're now literally raising a child together, albeit with the help of Shirou and friends.

And, ah, Chiho. From kind-of-cute side character to Mary Sue. She was a useless character in need of saving, but now she's even BETTER! A character with newfound powers who is quick to learn and has innate talent, but is also useless and always in need of saving. I was on the fence about her and was just about to admit I liked her as a character until this season.

Lastly, I want to highlight the biggest issues I have with a lot of shows: consequences. I can understand writers not wanting to throw away or kill-off characters, but it feels wrong for such massive problems to have such little permanent consequences on the group.

TL;DR
The show is fine if you can overlook what I personally think is appallingly slow character growth between the beginning of season two and now. Even so, it's an entertaining watch and I'd even go so far as to say I love it despite its flaws. So I'm not gonna go against recommending it, but I can say with certainty it's one of those shows that has a great first season to hook you in but disappointing sequels if you hold high standards and overhype.

That being said, this is really a review of the second season + the three episodes we've seen so far, so I won't be so quick to judge negatively. It's at least worth a 5/10, but because I still really do love the show, it deserves another point.

After watching the first episode I was kind of disappointed to start out with "prequel" episodes. I was hoping for a jump straight into Itadori's next adventure with the group but I was *not* expecting the weight of these episodes.

The beautifully drawn backgrounds, and the perfect choice of classical music to go along with them. I wasn't head-over-heels for MAPPA after they took over AOT's animation and never really looked too close at anything but the characters, but they've outdone themselves so far with JJK. In stark contrast to Chainsaw Man, I don't think I've noticed a single bad fight scene or the ... implementation of 3D models that ruin their fluidity.

And gods, the eyes. They're so pleasant to look at in those close-ups. And the INTRO AND OUTRO. I'm not so into them that I watch them all the way through like I did the first season's, but they're still gorgeous. And again, the classic music is stunning along with their scenes. I don't think I've ever paid so close attention to a scene than when those tracks are playing. Seriously, the animation team should get a bonus check for those Amanai underwater scenes. Ahh, Amanai...

I don't want to fanboy too hard, so I'll just leave it at that and say that I've not been so excited for the next episode since season one of Shield Hero.

Despite me putting it as "Masterpiece" in my Anime List, I've decided to make it officially an 8.5!

Story
Unlike the previous two seasons, Bel finally meats his match. Let me explain:
Most action-adventure anime follow a trope of "hero triumphs over evil" to justify the acts of the protagonist. While Dungeon follows a similar type of genre, it takes its own approach and diverts itself from that mainstream path to create its own unique place. Obviously I don't mean every anime like this one does that, it's just for a general comparison. For example, in this one, the finale results in the protagonist fighting against his rival, ... in this case "evil," and instead of winning, falls short of victory. Combined with the social-political themes between factions (the different Familias and public opinion), this resulted in a kind of satisfying yet anti-climactic ending that makes you wanna see what comes next.

Character
Before I start off on saying why I enjoy the character of this anime, I wanna address the issue a lot of people share of "one-dimensional" characters. You see, sure, there might be some one-dimensional characters, but the anime isn't about them, and never was. They might have the spotlight for a bit, but the primary focus is how the protagonist(s) react to and overcome/convince them to change.
Now... speaking of character, I want to follow up on the social-politics I mentioned earlier in the Story review. Dungeon does a beautiful job of bringing Monsters and Humankind underneath the same roof, two sides of the same coin and makes you sympathetic towards their cause just as you might be to your average human character. The original author of the manga made fantastic characters for this, and I applaud him for it, even if I do dislike the the whole romantically dense protagonist type of characters. I mean, gods, I despise them. But hey, Bel isn't that bad and you get used to it pretty quick.

Overall
Overall I'll give this an 8.5/10. I skipped over art, sound, and enjoyment because I'd have both very little and quite a lot to say depending on the subject, so I did my best to keep it short with as little spoilers as possible, and if there are a few, I apologize!

Anyway, TL;DR, I recommend this! Thanks for reading, this is my first review in quite a while!

In this review, I will be giving a clear and unbiased statement. Despite my love for the anime thus far, I shall try my best to analyze it without prejudice.

STORY:
Everyone on MyAnimeList knows of at least one series where the protagonist(s) is inexplicably teleported to another world, which said world is usually very different from their own. Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari capitalizes on this category of manga and anime by sending the main character to a medieval version of Earth that is prone to prophesized Waves. The main character, Naofumi, as told in the synopsis, is proclaimed to be the Shield Hero by the ... kingdom in which he has appeared in. Unfortunately, the Shield Hero is despised by the people of the kingdom, and Naofumi has no choice but to do his best to prove them wrong. He attempts to do this throughout the story while dealing with not only the Waves, but the other three heroes as well—the Spear Hero, the Sword Hero, and the Bow Hero.
I won't go in too much depth of the story as I speculate the synopsis does a good job at giving a new viewer a vivid idea of what the anime is about. Nonetheless, I will say that the story is extremely captivating; and is filled with lots of betrayal, hatred, and plot twists! The Rising of the Shield Hero does an excellent job in captivating the viewer in the video-game reminiscing realm while not straying too far from the main idea the anime is trying to point out. Not only does it do a exemplary job at creating a unique world to entertain the viewer with, it also has great character development. It realizes the idea that a shield, while being a good defense, can also be a good offense.

ART:
There isn't much to say about the art other than the fact that I was so consumed in concentration for the story that I had hardly noticed any imperfections with the art. But I will say, with the knowledge I do have, that the anime does a superb job at making every little detail count. I have yet to encounter an obvious duplicate of background characters, which goes to show how detailed this anime is.
Not only that, but The Rising of the Shield Hero has a very explicit uniqueness to it's art style, and I really do think that anyone planning to watch this that hasn't already will not be disappointed.

SOUND:
I have one thing to say about this: I've never really judged an anime by the audio, but mostly the voice acting. The voice actors are very good and they really do compliment their given characters very well. The background audio is also nice, and so is the music. I also enjoyed the sounds from the monsters as well, feeling as though there was a very diverse range of sounds. Like I said, I never really have judged sound very much, so I am relatively inexperienced when talking about this.

CHARACTER:
The character is beyond incredible. The Rising of the Shield Hero is one of the very few anime that I've had such a positive response to—whether it be from character development or story development. I said it before and I'll say it again: this anime has a remarkably unique backstory and lore around it, and viewers won't be disappointed when they watch it. Though I'm sure there have already been people to dislike to anime, but each to their own.

ENJOYMENT/OVERALL/TL;DR:
The Rising of the Shield Hero is an outstanding anime that I highly recommend for those of you who strongly enjoy fantasy anime. Despite the fact that the main character can be seen as weak or at sometimes hopeless, the character development following the first episode is beyond incredible and very much worth the watch.
However, the anime is only ten episodes in the making so far, so I may or may not be speaking too soon. All I know is that I've enjoyed it a lot so far and highly recommend it to those of you who haven't watched it yet.

So, finally, I give The Rising of a Shield Hero a fair, honest, unbiased 9/10 score. I hope my review was good enough to meet your standards!

~Revan

DISCLAIMER (READ!): This review—though I'm not a popular review poster nor a popular MAL user—may contain heavy spoilers for those whom haven't viewed the movie yet.

Preliminary statement:
I do realize that this review is written a tad late in comparrison to when the film was released to the public in theaters. However, I do have the excuse of waiting for the english dub (because I was so used to watching the first two seasons in such) and ended up forgetting about it over time. But finally, after so long of waiting, I was finally able to watch the movie comfortably. And, I was honestly astonished by ... how much I enjoyed it than what I thought I would.

Story:
The story isn't all that great, but I'm giving it a 10 just because I'm an avid SAO fan. Basically, what ends up happening is that something traumatic within the first quater happens to Asuna, which is her losing her memory through the means of bringing the fear of dying during boss fights back to her so someone controlling the Augma mainframe can access those memories by sending signals to the brain and capturing the information revealed by said fear. In my perspective, that was really said to see because so much has happened in SAO, specifically to her, and, by sympathizing, I can only imagine what it must feel like for someone to forget the most important thing in their life, let alone their lover, whom they met during this point. But anyways, what those scenes do is grabs onto the emotion created by the creators of SAO and exploits them to a dangerous scenario, which makes the viewer just as worried to what woulud happen to the main characters as the characters are about themselves. But anyways, straying back on topic: the story is basically a copied and pasted version of the last two seasons; Asuna, or a person close to Kirito is hurt by whatever means and he goes in to save the day.


Art:
There really isn't anything to say about art; it's almost exactly the same from the first two seasons. The only thing I can really point out is that the art is smoother and looks more appealing to the viewers eyes, especially during the fight scenes. Everything looked more controlled, technical, and just...better. The character design itself wasn't different, but the way it was executed definitely was. I think the best thing about the art was the scene where Asuna was in the bathtub and you got a side-view of her breasts, and a nipple was visible and UNCENSORED. Just one. So much for PG+13.


Sound:
The sound was definitely upgraded from the original seasons, however there wasn't anything that was loud enough to be noticed. After watching the movie several times now, I've realized that the change is extremely minimal and hard to notice if you're a casual anime viewer. The OST includes newer songs, with the exception of Crossing Field near the third quarter of the movie. Hearing that song during the movie, especially without watching the last two seasons before viewing, gave me a nostalgic feeling, and definitely an emotional one.

I'm sure things like Character and Enjoyment are self-explanatory and I don't really feel like getting into those things in this review. I have to say, this is definitely one of my more detailed ones. I hope this review was good enough to be useful or was pleasing to read. I am, in fact, an avid supporter of the Sword Art Online community and do hope to see a third season (which was teased at the end of the credits if you watched that far).

I've only finished three episodes so far and I can already say that this show has had a lot of potential, but, just as a lot of others have said, began to fade away very quickly. As a writer, I tend to be fair and unbiased when it comes to subjects such as what I enjoy and don't, and also tend to not let my personal interests get in the way of what I think is the score of the show. So, after three episodes, I am going to give my own score of what I think of it so far.

The art is pretty unique. ... It has a 3D aspect to it, but sways more with the 2D character style in terms of movement. The environment is interactive with how each of the characters react with different situations, and every character has a specific interest in what type of environment they wish to be a part of. What I like most about the environment is that each character is assigned to what they feel is most comfortable, such as the Monkey and Rat hiding within the sewer to keep themselves safe, while the others scour above to look for their next victim.

But the show isn't all about the environment and artwork and how good they are. It also has its downsides. This show, already, goes way too fast. And don't get me wrong, I don't mean timewise—characters that someone seems fond of always gets killed off early, such as the Dog. I loved that character the moment I saw him. I knew he would be strong, but when the anime kills him off so early, it makes me disappointed that I won't get to see someone I enjoy watching prevail instead of some other phony character.

That is what I want to talk about next: perspective and the enjoyment of characters. This anime doesn't give us the fulfillment of having one character and being in that perspective. Instead, with every episode, it switches around and causes mass confusion. Of course, it provides us with backstory of everyone, but it never sticks with one character, so we don't get to see how they develop emotionally. I think the closest we got to having a change in emotional view of the battle was the Chicken before she died. But, sadly, that was it. I think it was misleading to start out with Boar and have her killed off, because it made me very confused as to why they would kill a main character.

So overall, after talking about what I had previewed in my mind and what I wanted to express, I would give this show just a 6 for now. It's enjoyable, but not very good.

Kakegurui is an outstanding anime that I loved the moment I saw it. There isn't much I want to go too deep into, but this is what I thought of it:

The story was pretty original in my point of view, as I haven't seen anything else related to gambling. I think what really topped Kakegurui off was it's capitalization of your skill at gambling being what determines your social status; it's truly, by definition—awesome. I really do look forward to seeing what the conclusion to this anime is, and I hope that the male lead, Suzui, get's more screen time then he already does, and ... I also hope that he has more involvement with the plot, considering he is labeled as a "main character." I'm not saying I dislike the fact that he's a main character, it's just that I've seen characters from other anime being the same length in season, having them being put as "support" even though they've received 10x the screen time. But, I guess it's just because how important his character is and all that. Blah blah.

The artwork is truly outstanding. I adore the detailed close-ups of the character's faces during scenes of suspense, as it unbelievable boosts the level of enjoyment that I receive while watching it. Not only the artwork is what I think is good—the soundtrack is amusing as well. Both are something to look forward to.

In summary, I give Kakegurui 10/10 despite the fact that it's still an ongoing anime.

(Hint: if you don't like long reviews, skip to the end.)
Re:Creators was something I looked forward to for a while before I started viewing it. Never reading the manga, the cover and the description of the anime version stood out to me for some reason. Then, I watched it.

The first episode was really good. I enjoyed it a lot, and I couldn't wait for the next release. But, episode two made my opinion of the anime nosedive exponentially. Don't get me wrong; the concept and originality of the anime is very high, actually—I don't think I've ever watched an anime or read a manga similar ... to this type of "teleported-to-another-world" genre before, which is why it was bright with potential at first glance. However, as new episodes kept being released, my need to watch this was slowly shredded to pieces. Bluntly put: I was disappointed to the lowest level, and after reading some of the most popular reviews for this piece—I can safely assume many other people are feeling similar about Re:Creators.

Even though I'm marking Re:Creators as "dropped," I am going to continue to view it until it's conclusive ending and I will also continue to track the episodes I've seen. The way I see it; the studio it's being released from (I have no idea, I don't really care about things like that until I finish the anime) can still fix this if they try hard enough. They have what most of the people want to see down: well-executed combat scenes; character and plot development; good art, sound, and visual displays. But, the one thing they're lacking is trying to decrease the number of slow, boring, monotonic conversations between the characters, despite how much information a viewer may receive from these.

To tell you the truth: I love the characters in this show. I love their voice actors; they're realistic reactions; the way they're drawn—everything. I also enjoy how each and every character has their own unique combat ability, even though the most important character in the cast has zero prowess—the so called "lead character," also the first we're introduced to: Mizushino Souta. It's not that I dislike the main character having the weakest strength, I just dislike the fact that he's so defenseless. Now, now, I understand he's supposed to be a normal person, but seriously... I don't really fancy the anime tropes where the lead is completely useless like he is.

Overall, I had high expectations of this anime, but was disappointed in the end. Hopefully, I'll learn to like it before the conclusion, because I don't really look forward to watching future releases. 5/10