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"Gotta catch em all!" This famous pokemon phrase might be fitting with this series in such a weird way. Instead, we get 'I can see the ending'.

Shonen Sunday has been getting quite bad financially. After the long running of a few hit series such as Conan, Kenichi, Hayate, Inuyasha, and bunch of others, they were not getting notable works. As all those long running series are encountering mannerism, it is pretty obvious they are getting less and less viewers due to lack of importing of fresh new series with good idea. This manga, Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai, is also meeting the point where ... manga gets over the cut-line to be called "long-term-serialisation" and encounter mannerism.

Well, guess what? Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai, is actually getting even more interesting. This review will not only include why this series is successful, and also reason why it is different from any other series that is on the same magazine.

The original concept of Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai is solely concentrated on single most strongest character of the series, Katsuragi Keima, who is created by amalgamating past hikikomori/neet/otaku-self of author, Wakaki Tamiki, and character of Lelouch (Keima's pose when calling 'I can see the ending' is a parody of Lelouch's geass pose). The simple, but most unique idea of this manga was bringing this crazy otaku to 'GOD' of Girl games and apply this knowledge to actual reality; 'capturing' girls in 3D world. Author brings concept of hell and heaven to explain proper logics for a reason why Keima has to capture these girls all the time; old devils will try to regain their power by staying in the empty spaces of girl's heart, thus new devils has to send groups to capture them again by feeling their heart.

Now, this unique concept worked so well. Keima's force is just so strong, he just shadows all the moe-figures of all those cute girls he met. We see how each capturing applies overused cliche in much refreshing way. Even though their are many moe stereotypes that many western people might get turned off, they are not even noticed due to the fact that major focus of the series is none other than Katsuragi Keima himself. Despite being harem series, this manga managed to twist the cliche of harem series by overseeing various cliche in 'different perspective', which is a key point to this manga's success.

However, no matter how interesting concept that any manga has, if it is 'repeated', it will become 'old' at some point. That's what many other series in Shonen Sunday failed. At some point, they had to switch this repeated concept to actually build plot and give possibility to 'end' the series. This promise of 'ending' is so important, as it gives readers actual motivation to read through and understand the development it had to reach the conclusion. We see that promise, in Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai.

First of all, we have 'mission'. Keima's 'mission' is to capture 'all wondering spirits'. The problem is how to reach that. Surprisingly, we can see that author already had on his mind how to end this series, even in the first chapter. When I can say it aloud due to spoiler, he already had clear structure and idea on the setting of 'heaven and hell', and explanation of this relationship is brilliant.

Second, character of Elsie is very significant. One of the important ability for writer is 'not wasting characters'. Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai, never wastes any characters, almost. All heroines who got conquered had their own moe archetype, charm and theme. In case of Elsie, she is the reason why author could have flexible changes in plot to be more solid during the serialisation. Elsie is cute, but dojikko. It is very important that we CANNOT believe her entirely due to her purity and stupidity in some parts. She makes up the parts that Keima lacks - since our capturing god seems to be so perfect in many way, he needs side kick who can balance that perfection out. That existence, is Elsie. Due to her, the development of Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai could enter entirely new phase where plot actually moves on and able to see the ending of series itself.

Plot is extremely delicate. There are a lot of devices that are critical to plot and overall development but people don't really notice it at first. Why? Because author intentionally lowers the tension whenever important stuff comes out. But at the same time, still marks it onto our mind saying it is important, indirectly. Those devices piled up more and more, finally reaching current development which I can simply describe as - amazing.

Discussing about art, there is once when author, Wakaki said, "Mangakas cannot survive if they cannot draw bishojo or bishonen. If you can draw bishoujo or bishonen, you can at least live and earn money as 3rd-grade mangaka like me". When he is criticising manga industry, he is also criticising himself; his drawing changed hugely since the start of Kami Nomi. Characters are now more closer to bishoujo and bishonen, especially Keima and Chihiro. However, the strength of Wakaki in drawing is direction as a whole. Cut division, use of Chibi, cartoon devices and appropriate parody and gag scenes. Those features are integrated without awkward.

Enjoyment of this series not just come from Keima Katsuragi and twists of genre. It has everything that good shonen manga must have; tension, 'serious humour', complex plot, delicate and solid foundation for the structure of open setting, attention grabbing events, and more. I can easily say how well made this series is and how clever the author of this manga is. My satisfaction for deciding to follow this series to the end is already 100 percent full.

The major theme of this series is 'ideal and reality'. I really want to see how author will manage to deliver this message from heart of his experience, yet keeping charm and enjoyment that this amazing series has.

"Reaching you", no other words could have been the best title for this manga.

Kimi ni Todoke, when you look at its cover, seems like generic Shoujo romance manga with obvious development and obvious characters. Even some of actual fans of this manga seem to think that is a case. However, not much people notices how much shoujo cliche that Kimi ni Todoke broke in order to become one of the current most popular shoujo manga in Japan. It has so many appeal points for anyone who is not experienced with female-targetting series and it also hooked me up instantly. This review will be mostly ... about why Kimi ni Todoke is successful, why Kimi ni Todoke is one of the best shoujo manga to the date.

The story starts with a single girl called Kuronuma Sawako. One key point about this character is that she is 'not normal'. Most of shoujo story deals with 'ordinary girl' with 'ordinary appearances' who experiences 'unusual situation' and 'unusual love', and later ends with becoming 'special person'. In this way, target population, 'ORDINARY female readers' can fantasize the events relation to themselves, and that's how shoujo story worked.

In Kimi ni Todoke, Sawako is 'unusual girl' with 'unusual appearance' who experiences 'ordinary situation' and 'ordinary love'. If you look at chapter 1 and the most recent chapters, you will find that Sawako's appearance never ever changed from the start. The only thing changed was her attitude and way to express her emotion. Thus, she was 'SPECIAL' and 'BEAUTIFUL' from the start of this series. Not just that, she is extremely good at studying, good at sports, good at teaching, only flaw point that she has seems to be her lack of personality, shyness and hikikomori-ness. This is complete antithesis of general shoujo heroine, and this constructs most of refreshing point that Kimi ni Todoke uses to appear viewers.

Let's go more deep inside Sawako's character development. Even though she is beauty who is basically good at everything, she is extremely shy and always with various rumours involving exorcism (...). She does not know how to communicate. She is way too pure and naive, definitely lacks some general social skills and way to express her feelings, which is already apparent in the various start of the series. As series develops, we find these hindering properties starts to be minimized, 'WITHOUT' diminishing some of appeal points comes from those elements. Sawako's appealing personality hasn't changed, but her 'attitude' is the major thing that changed. It adds a layer of realism and to herione and we can easily sympathise and adore her, unlike other major heroines in shoujo series who are mostly like Harem leads in shonen manga; indecisive and thoughtless.

However, if there is a reason why Kimi ni Todoke also appeals to Male viewers, Kazehaya Shouta is much definite reason for it. Situation that character confronts are... just unbearably cute and honest. It is 'VERY REAL', except Sawako's introvert personality. He is, compare to Kuronoma, very ordinary. If we exclude the fact that he is the most popular guy in the school, his reaction to ongoing romance and situation is extremely realistic, ordinary and even cute for male-standard. The way he blushes and react to Sawako is as if seeing ourselves in love there. Unlike most of shoujo male leads who always seems to be in rivalry or usual indecisiveness, Kazehaya Shouta's love interest is a single person from the start to the end, Sawako. It is also true for vice versa, Sawako's love interest was never a person other than Shouta. This makes things clear why Kimi ni Todoke is appealing. This is a manga about 'pure love', which was pretty rare in recent shoujo. And author is constructing this pure love in most interesting, effective and enjoyable way by creating characters that breaks the cliche and situations where characters react 'differently' compare to other manga.

Another key point is, that 'pure romance' is NOT the only enjoyable plot point it has. In has relatively few sub characters and all of them represents one of the key themes that act as strong point of Kimi ni Todoke. Sawako's relationship with her new friends, Chizuru, Yano and Sanada is never set aside from the plot. She is not only reaching to Shouta, but also her friends. It is interesting how Sawako, Chizuru and Yano is very different from each other, yet became best friends to each other. Even though they all have different personality, one thing they share is that they are all kind. They respect each other and they share each others thought. There has never been a serious fight between each other other than misunderstandings. Thus, viewers can enjoy this manga really relaxed, without worrying about some crazy development or accidents we normally see in other shoujo manga. Whenever I read Kimi ni Todoke, always have smile on my face, never annoyed by character what-so-ever.

It is true that Kimi ni Todoke has relatively slow story development compare to other shoujo series. It 'does' seem a bit too slow sometimes, which I can't really describe in this review due to spoiler issues. However, the way to negate that issue was already established from the start, it's Sawako's personality. The story is about pure romance and friends ship, but ultimately about Sawako's character development. Even though it is slow, we can see how Sawako is changing, compare to the start of the series, how she is more active, how she can express her thoughts and feelings more AND, how her personality has always been positive, kind and pure.

Art, is brilliant. Honestly, art was one of the major reason why I started this series. Compare to usual Shoujo manga with huuuuuge eyes, long eyelids, male character with triangle shaped head, extremely cold and tall and, most of all, never ever showing any realistic expression on their face. Art style of Kimi ni Todoke is acceptable for any readers, due to its sense of realism in terms of character's expressions. It is also beautifully drawn without those usual shoujo-style exaggeration I mentioned above, too; it has its own charm and uniqueness.

It is apparent that many people, including me, enjoys this series. Others, who don't, ask us 'Why?'. I can easily answer it. It has a pure story of realistic love. We were tired of reading stories like those from White Album or Strawberry 100%. When other shoujo series puts unrealistic fantasies into the story makes intresting, Kimi ni Todoke tells story of 'ordinary love' between friends, classmates and family and does its best attempt of it.

Kimi ni Todoke, is about unusual but naive girl who faces ordinary situation and ordinary love. That enough is already reason why it is, and will be one of the most unique and well-written shoujo I've seen.

We have baka protagonist. We have moe. We have tsundere. We have yandere. We have lolicon. We have both yuri and yaoi. We have pervert with infinite nose-bleed. We have overly sized breast and also the flat chest. We even have a lily trap. We even have incest sister. Anime clichés are all up in F graded class, and combines with digimon. That’s what this anime is about.

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu is full of anime stereotypes and otaku appeals, yet managed to become a fantastic random comedy series. It is quite unbelievable that cliche tainted anime can be this enjoyable. However, you should know ... that there are no such animes that exclusively collected every single of clichés we can imagine ‘intentionally’. Making anime unique by bringing all the commons, it’s the key of this anime’s success.

From what I know, this anime is an adaption of one of the most successful light novel ever made, with same title. I haven’t read it, so fuck it.

Story of this anime… um, story? Was there a story?... No way. Like most of other slice of life style comedy shows, Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu (aka. Baka to Test. I don’t want to type this long title over and over again) has no plot. You need to enjoy things as what it is. Blah, if you wanted to watch something ‘DEEPPU’ and ‘COMPLEXUED PLOT’ or whatever, go watch End of Evangelion and enjoy mind twisters. Even the comedy itself is extremely shallow; most of the time, they use the same gags over and over again. We can call it ‘gag spam’. But thank goodness, the timings are just amazing. Those humours never get bored but get even better as it goes. It continues until the half of this series and after that, it starts to focus on uniqueness of comical elements again. Aside of those gag spams, most of humour is random and placed in much unexpected points. You cannot possibly imagine which colour of mammoth will be waiting to burst your stomach off. Sometimes, things that we missed are reminded in the next episodes, so we can say there is at least some kind of plot… well random plot. There are lots of fan-services, but blah. We always like it; service means free snack.

Another point of this show is that it has ridiculous supernatural aspect of summoning chibi-beasts with attack point of their grade. This is – as I mentioned – ridiculous. This makes absolutely no sense, and creates RPG appearance overall; that’s most of people will guess. Too bad that it is so well executed in Baka to Test. It could have become really lame, but in this anime, like those repeated humours, shoukanjuu summoning is so well place with its circumstances. Everything we call ‘absurdity’ in other animes, becomes ‘clever’ in here.

Even with those random humours, Baka to Test keeps itself on the boundary of ‘slice of life’ genre. Some brilliant moments that actually makes you think in this ridiculous anime. I can say this kind of element also comes randomly at the time it fits. Climax of the episode is also in random position due to the double twists of twist always happening right before the episode ends. Mood and tone also swings like typhoon, yet manage to be great.

The only problem I can say is consistency. Some episode is just brilliant; others are somewhat boring and pointless. Even some was only consist of the used humours and fan-services in the past and fills up the time. Repeated gags are ‘not always’ in the best timing, sometimes it is not funny any more.

One thing I’m really surprised at is art. ‘Silver Link’ where produced this anime was pretty un-known studio for me. Starting to watch it, I had same atmosphere in art directions I had when watching Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. It actually had correlation: Silver Link works with SHAFT. Not only having tons of typesets, but there are also some abstracts and brilliant-looking art elements. Most of them are really clever and intelligent. I can’t do much comment on character design; it is quite cute and generic, but their uses of direction on those designs are fabulous. (*insert rainbow here*)

Sound elements are pretty much same; a lot of effects and random audios. It enhances the overall atmosphere pretty well. OSTs are brilliant and sometimes extremely funny. Opening and ending theme is one of my favourites this winter season, mainly due to the animation on those themes. OP is cheerful, cute and bright. ED is manly and shouts ‘BAKA GO HOME!!’. 2nd ending is girly and animation is basically the reflection of previous ending, except the gender of characters. (Please exclude Hideyoshi, since he has a third gender. ) Overall, generic but effective songs. I would say the animation was better than song itself.

As I said, characters are tainted by clichés. They are in anywhere. They are biased. They are nothing special whatsoever. However, the circumstance and techniques used in this anime makes everything goes upside down. It’s like, ‘breaking our stereotypes on anime stereotypes’.

Let’s go with Yoshii Akihisa. We mostly know his name as an imaginary dinosaur with long tongue ridden by fat guy with red hat and cool moustache. In here, he’s just an idiot. There are tons of idiots around the anime universe anyway and the classic example is our extremely well-known Naruto. Only thing that makes him different from this shonen mascot is that there are tons of other ‘BAKA’s around him. So, he becomes ‘THE BAKA AMONG BAKAZZ’, king of all idiots. That… actually makes differences, surprisingly. He is a major laugh material around this anime, by exposing his idiocity in smart ways.

Oh, and another, we have this harem atmosphere towards Yoshii. Actually, there are three. First, classic moe voiced pink-haired big-breasted Himeji-san, and classic tsundere red haired flat-breasted Shimada-san; extremely clichéd as usual. Another lover of him is actually a guy, blah. The major reason that we can enjoy this clichéd triangular relationship, (or square) is due to the fact that Yoshii does not even notice that obvious atmosphere of love, due to his stupidity that no-human being can explain. This is why Yoshii is becoming the best character of the entire cast, even with being a classical idiot of all time. That’s a brilliant way of ‘breaking cliché with cliché’. When Japan is suffering from creativity crisis, Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu recycles the elements that is overused for the past few years, and create whole new universe that is more creative that is any other anime’s we’ve seen. Really, amazingly clever thing.

Let’s discuss more on characters. F class rep Yuuji, the classic ‘cool guy’ character, is the second best character in Baka to Test, and the only one who is ‘not that clichéd’ than others. He is energetic, cool and does some awesome speeches filled with GARness. Yet, he’s intelligence is around the same level of Yoshii. He is sometimes overly serious on things and gets punished by various characters, especially by Yoshii or Yandere. He’s the major source of manliness among these unmanly characters, which makes him very special.

We have a trap, Hideyoshi. Well… he’s a guy who looks like a girl. He is a good character still, but imo, he was the worst of all the others in this anime. I’m not saying he was bad. However, he didn’t really stand out from limitation of lily stereotype, like Yoshii and Yuuji did. Same goes with Yandere, ninja pervert and yuri. Saying that, random humours from those characters are actually intelligent. For example, Hideyoshi unexpectedly appears with trap outfit, ninja pervert randomly do-the-nozu-bleed, yuri appears from nowhere to get Shimada. Baka to Test actually managed to make us laugh from that. Amazing?...

What I really liked about this anime are the voice actors. Seriously, they were all extremely good; portraying the characters really well. Yoshii’s voice is my favourite of all; reflecting his stupidity in effective way. The best part is the narrator. It’s more likely that it’s just me, but that dry and monotone sound was just hilarious, every single time hearing it. ‘Excuse me; subtitles are taking my screen time.’

Overall I overly enjoyed this anime. (*loldoubleover) Jokes are fun; endings of each episode were remarkably done, and heart-warming. Characters are funny as hell, even with the clichéd elements. I felt like happiness filling all through my body all the time, watching this anime. If you want something that is highly entertaining and ridiculously funny random comedy show filled with intelligence, here, baka’s are waiting.

“F CLASS IS NOT GARBAGE!!”

Five different girls in military and their lives. Interesting? Unfortunately, it doesn’t. This anime is a true example of what happens, if you try to do too much at once on the weak and uninspiring basis.

Sora no woto, aka ‘Sound of the Sky’ is a mixed culture setting war zone folktale involving a young girl who only came to military to play nice trumpet. If you just read the synopsis, it seems like a very unique and refreshing idea for slice of life genre anime. Sadly, it is not, because the major problem that this anime falls down is from the concept from the ... start. When you think of slice of life genre, the most important thing is always consistency on everything. Theme, settings, plot, relevance, comedy, all these thing has to be in balanced and united by one main flow of atmosphere. Sora no woto ultimately fails to do that.

Think about the setting of this anime first. There is a war and a town. Only soldiers there in that huge fat town are 5 females, three of them is not even capable of using the guns right. Trumpet is being used for the military communication, and yet they have extremely advanced tank we’ve never seen in any animes. Mixed culture of Europe and Japan looks just awkward as it is. There are all sorts of mysteries arising, yet none of them is properly solved or introduced. Yes, this anime doesn’t make sense of anything. My understanding of 'making sense' is completely different from Gurren Lagann pierce through the time adventure with galaxy sized robot, it's more about the relationship between its circumstance. Sora no woto always involves the paradoxical elements at the same times, and tries to tell two completely irrelevant lines of the story. I’m just utterly surprised that this anime actually ended with this horribly introduced setting and backgrounds.

There is no real plot we can call; it just portrays the life of 5 girls in military. It’s basically a war zone, so it partially success on telling this story of blood and massacre that those disasters create (*Or not, perhaps. I'm just making this up). Some episode actually does make us to become a bit emotional. It was pretty nice. The problem is, it still doesn’t make ‘sense’. The whole this creation of story looks like giant piece of junk art, chucked in random elements together in one; even Homer Simpson can make that kind of stinkers. I’m seriously concerning about the ability of script writers for this anime. Conversations are very unintelligent and none of them is memorable. I mean, what the hack is all of those flat, cheap, overused and retarded jokes? I mean, they just don’t work for me. From my theory, this happened due to indecisive nature of the staffs who’s trying to make anime deep and emotional but funny and cheap at the same time. Anime clichés with fanservices and terror of war just don’t match; they are basically trying to something that is facing the complete opposite directions. It will never work. Those writers tried to do two things at once; they wanted war drama which will make some of emotional scenes that will cry people in a river, but at the same time, they wanted moe appeals, for financial issues. Well, if they had ability, they really could've used those services in 'appropriate' moment, then I will at least say 'oh well, they wrapped up war and moe nicely'. It doesn't. Some episodes were totally tainted by irrelevant use of moe fanservices, and these taints ruins the whole flow of the mood.

Not just that; maybe the idea of war itself is actually the reason that Sora no Woto breaks apart. I’m not saying war is such a bad theme or whatever. It is just overused way too much. *War is bad thing! I’ll protect this village from that bad thing!*… seriously, everyone knows that. War is bad, and should be prevented whatsoever; and this anime tries to tell us about ‘THAT’. For 12 episodes long series, only thing it said is this one philosophical and complex phrase; ‘WAR IS BAD’, but nothing else excluding the pee joke. Shallow… way too much shallow…

Episode is very, very inconsistent. Some episodes are alright, trying to raise our hopes a bit more. Later, it crushes by terribly executed episodes that are absolutely pointless to put. When some scenes are well concerned, other parts are just utterly boring. It is sad that there are only a few ‘truly’ good scenes, but almost about 15 minutes per episode is just futile. With this shallow plot and setting, it can only do stretching itself out to fill the bottle of 25 minutes. Those filled materials are the main cause of this boredom, and occurred due to simplistic storyline. If they’ve made some solid basis at the start, this never happened.

Thing I can praise on this anime is BG art. It was one of the most gorgeous looking scenes I’ve seen in a while. It is breath-taking, and all those buildings, trees, lakes, cliffs, bridges form a perfect harmony, contrast what I’ve seen in its story. I was utterly surprised about all the animation quality from this anime. CG tank (although it doesn’t make sense) looks great and very well animated. OP animation had some beautiful and abstract art works. On the other hand, it might be just me, but I hate that character design so much. That’s one of the major reasons why I hated K-On. This part of me is pretty much biased, so I will not count this part on the rating; amazing BG art covers all.

Sound is another astonishing thing; I just love classics and violins. A lot of them sounds greatly, although most of time, they are used in inappropriate time. OP is not bad; serious and calming although it was not that candy for me, but ED was seriously mismatching the theme of war. It was funny seeing this difference between opening, ending songs, since that’s what they exactly did for the plot of the anime. OP = War drama!! ED = MOE MOE!!

Sadly, characters in this anime are the most stereotypical, and uninteresting ones I’ve ever seen. I felt like being tortured watching all those crappy cliché treatments. Starting with Katana, she joined military only to learn how to play trumpet. She is really bad at it, but in certain episode, she just miraculously learns how to play it perfectly, for some superficial reason. ‘LOL SHII IZU SUCH A GENIUUSSU!!’. Hell no, that’s brainless on the side of production staffs. She is enthusiastic, cute and naïve; so typical. There is nothing special or interesting thing about this character at all.

Next, we have Kureha, tsundere. Actually, one of those annoying ones. She acts all over the place spreading her faggotry like ‘Katana we are fuckin soldiers, it’s a SERIOUS BUSINESS, don’t play like weabooooz.’ Yet, she can’t even hold her gun tight. This is just another clichéd character, and we can expect nothing new from her. Same goes to silent moe Noel-chan and typical mother type glassed girl whose existence makes no sense. Only character I can say ‘not that bad’ is Rio; the only person there who in fact make sense being a soldier. She is cool and gets annoyed a lot for the ‘proper’ reason, such as Katana being empty-headed. She still has major bullshit things that make everything senseless, but better than all the other lowly characters. Ultimately, the character lacks some large amount of depth overall. Their reaction is so predictable due to the oversimplified personality. They are all clichéd and uninteresting.

Did I enjoy watching this? Try to throw yourself into the trash-bin and swim; you will find it more enjoyable than this shit. It was more of pain; everything absolutely makes no sense, and is more of quasi-experiment without a single noticeable moments. I’m just terribly disappointed how this gorgeous art and my favourite classical music background OST got wasted for this terrible series.

Sora no woto had a potential. So, I just blame production staffs and industrial crisis. Hurr durr.

There are some animes that will end of being forgotten from people’s memory, and be marked as ‘generic’ anime. We call those anime, ‘Needless’.

To describe what needless is; it focuses on multiple theme of being manly, being comical, being serious, being eechi but also being ridiculous itself. It’s anime for ‘GAR’ I can say. Spammed action sequences take majority of this anime, and there are tons of plot holes even on those actions. It follows typical shonen style plot and full of clichés. There is nothing good about anime except the fact that you will actually enjoy it regardless to how horrible it is.

Actually, it’s ... even more generic than you can think. There is useless boy who is reluctant to become a main character. There is a hothead, but also useless support character, screaming ‘LIIIITTLEEEE BOOOOOOOOOI’. There is ‘wanna-be-Kamina’ Blade man who smells like GAR barbecue. There is evil one, who is evil. They killed them of one by one. They have 4 mighty ones, and one ultimate boss, Adam Arclight. It is so generic, that makes it way too much predictable.

Honestly, there is no real plot there. It’s just fighting sequences that make this anime worth with screaming of characters all over the place. Over-the-top actions and series of panty shots. That’s all about it. Regardless, let’s talk about how story of Needless goes. First, there was Cruz. He met some hot-headed manly dudes and girls. They made a crew. There is an enemy to fight by default. They just fight. They went to boss lair. They fight again. Soon they meet boss. Fight. Done, it’s the end of the story.

One of the worst aspects of this series is pacing. Seriously, at first, it went fast; although it was ridiculous overall, pacing was not that bad. After that, they got trapped in that gigantic room with pretty girl squads for about… I don’t know, about 6 ,7 episodes? That’s ridiculous. They could’ve at least provide some other background other than that. It screwed up some of enjoyment I had when they were just laughing and kicking around before they went there. Actions are dragged out so much, due to extremely detailed explanations and ANALyses on each move and some babbling, waiting, shoutings that character does. Plot holes are so big; you will have plenty of time wondering; ‘Why are they even waiting for 15 minutes in the middle of fight just to allow enemies to have a think time?’.

However, the worst thing is probably that they failed to manage to keep the consistent and interesting plot itself. First 1/3 of the series was probably better in terms of fighting, or w/e. Later, it suddenly gets serious. Every aspect is basically ‘spammed’. It spams this serious and unserious mood about 10 times during one episode. Spammed slap stick comedies are timed so badly, most of time it ruins the mood horribly. There are so much spam of out-of-circumstance-bloods and nudities. Some plot twists are not actually a twist, since they were mostly predictable. It’s just spammed with absurdity. Funny thing is, ‘Side stories’ of needless were much better than its ‘Main story’. I enjoyed the entire support episode that those not contains the main stories. For example, flashback episode of Blade was better than Blade fighting with Arclight.

Art, was terrible. No, it surely was. Starting with character design first; characters are overly muscular and females are overly… um ‘something’. Their body shape all looks exactly same, so does their faces. Design of Cruz is probably the worst here, look at his neck first of all. They all looks like some kind of mass produced clones with different hair style and costumes. Speaking of clothes, they are even worse. Oh hell, they are just ‘LAUGHABLY ABSURD’. Extremely wide collars, un-matching colours… Those costumes are also, almost same for every single characters. The worst, is costume of Disk-san. She wears pyjama from the start to the end and it is clothes that someone like your grandmothers would wear. Action part animations sometimes become choppy, such as the part where they are screaming their ridiculous attack names. Other than that, animation was overall just fine.

Sound aspect was as poor as its art. Some audio effects are completely out of circumstances and break apart the atmosphere. OP was fine but it showed how spamming English language in J-pop can be resulted being ridiculous for actual English users. Ending… I better not describ; it’s lolicon fetishes. Well, that makes sense, since two things I can remember in Needless is spam of ‘LIIIITTLEEEE BOOOOOOOOOI’ and kawaii shots. Seiyuus send their most time… screaming. They sound all monotonous; you can’t say the difference between the voice Blade and Arclight when they are speaking, since they speak with exactly same emotion every single time. Moreover, the problem in their speech existed from the start; the title of, ‘Needless’ itself. Those who do not know English people might think its fancy name for calling super heroes, but I personally think it’s ridiculous. Also, there are some extremely uncomfortable attack names that seized me in pain, such as ‘LIIIITTLEEEE BOOOOOOOOOI’, ‘Dean Drive Fox Hound’, ‘Magnetic Worldo’ and even ‘Doppelganger’. They are spammed throughout the whole series and may decay your ear at the end of the series. Seriously, ‘LIIIITTLEEEE BOOOOOOOOOI’ is just the worst thing I’ve ever heard. I cried for overuse of misused English…

There is not much to say about characters, since they are, generic. They have nothing except of being brave or following some same clichés that shonen suffers most of the time.

Blade, despite of having some spam of irritating lolicon loving part, succeeded of being one of the coolest, and manliest one I’ve ever seen. Other than that, characters development and description is pretty much ‘dead’. They are empty, including Blade. They are just overridden by their cool abilities and failed to show what they have inside. Only one who actually showed that was Saten, but others; none existence. In terms of comical relief and some interesting plot, pretty girl squad and Eve was the only ones who were ‘interesting’.

Yes yes, I can ignore everything. However, I just couldn’t stand that Cruz guy. He is the worst character in this series. Everything is on his point of view, yet what he do get kicked and punched to death while everyone is fighting. The part where I died was when everyone is saying, ‘YOUR ONLY ABILITY IS THAT YOU CAN FUCKIN THINK’. Guys, everyone can think, even the most foolish person in this earth. They are all just common senses that Cruz has. Oh wait, maybe because that everyone in his crew is too dumb to even find out what ability of making things freeze and burn at the same time. (Temperature) And, in this part, we find one big plot hole. In his crew, there is a android who lived 300 with super computer brain, and there is also a doctor, who was one of the most professional scientist in the past. It makes absolutely no sense that Cruz becoming the only one who can ‘think’.

Eve is the only one character that makes this series at least a level of watchable. She is cool and very manly in terms of her spirit, which makes her only of the most ‘manlike female’ in the anime universe and also the best character of this series.

Needless is a terrible and good at the same time. Although it was spammed with ridiculous comedies, ‘LIIIITTLEEEE BOOOOOOOOOI’, bad art, monotonous voices, bad English, plastic muscularity and ‘Ability to THINK’, it was very very enjoyable, like most of shonen stuffs. Somehow, character success of at least not being dull. Actions are cool and so does their abilities. There are scenes that you can say, ‘hell this is just awesome’. Dragged episodes cut these enjoyments in half, but whatever. It is still enough.

So, in conclusion, Needless failed to become over the average anime in terms of its quality etc. every aspect. However, it was still enjoyable whatsoever. Needless will be forgotten, and I also do not particularly recommend watching this anime, but I can be sure that it was quite an experience having manliest characters and cutest females in one series with awesome superpowers.

There are few animes that can be called as ‘Masterpiece’. Story without flow, beautiful art and music, unique characters, innovative, everything has to be right on track in order to get that status. But there is another factor, if you ‘learned’ something important through those animes, that can be called as true master piece. You can learn how beautiful our life should be. You can learn what the true meaning of our life is. You can learn what the true joy of our life is. And all the answers are here, in this anime, ‘Welcome the the NHK’

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Have you ever thought that only bad things ... happen around you? Have you ever felt that everyone, everything this whole world is against you? Have you ever thought that everything happens are already planned by someone and people’s life is already determined from the start? Have you ever believed that ‘conspiracy’ exists? Have you ever blamed god for those happenings? Have you ever overwhelmed by this huge world and think that your life itself is just tiny tickle of universe? This anime, ‘Welcome to the NHK’ starts with these questions, and show us the ultimate answers for these.

The story plot of this anime can be described as ‘flawless’. Everything is perfectly done. Every single episode had different atmosphere and contents, even though all those stories are connected by one. None of episode was boring; but filled with stories that give you laughs, pity and sorrows. There are lots of smart use of black comedy elements.

This anime starts with satire, and ends with satire. There are lots of satirical comedies towards the problems in Japanese culture; Hikikomori, Otaku, Suicide, Parental Violence, NEET, Corrupt pyramid marketing, Game addiction, almost all kind of social problems going on in Japan. People who struggles try to convince themselves by saying, ‘all these happenings are not our fault,’ and blaming gods or conspiracy. ‘World is full of unfairness, some gets more and some gets less.’ We laugh at those comedies, but there is always hidden truth behind those laughs. We laugh at Hikikomori, but it’s not because they are funny, it’s because they shows ‘the hidden truth’ of this world. Their constant mentioning of conspiracy looks foolish, but as a view point of those people, it’s the words came out of desperation. Like this, not only those humours make us entertain, but bring us into the deeper aspect of our problems in society.

Since the most of the event was shown from the view point of the ‘Hikikomori’ main character. Hikikomori, they shut themselves from the public society and have hard time to communicate with other people. They doubt everyone, and believe nothing. They isolate themselves from these ‘made’ world and blame their life towards those society itself or conspiracy. At this point, we try to find the reason why they try to become alone in this world. Unfairness, Cruelness, Hardness, Tragedies of this world; they are just trying to escape from those factors. Maybe we can call them, ‘coward’.

But then, we ask ourselves, ‘how about us?’. We also struggle, ‘life is consist of 90% of pain and 10% of joy’. Maybe this is true. There are not much people who say, ‘I lived happy life’ when they die. We also blame gods, we also blame this world, we also blame ourselves for being born in this world. Overwhelmed by this infinite universe; and everyone is Hikikomori. They shut themselves from the reality, and dreams of unexpected luck to be happened. Rather than pity towards those Hikikomori, we feel empathy. That’s why this anime is so great.

Art of this anime was just incredible. Although it was not that noticeable, the background art of this anime was amazing; so much details and so much different atmospheres created. Even myself who gets really cocky when it comes to art, hardly ever find any flaws in those illustrations. Character design was also fabulous. It was very consistent compare to other crappy drawn anime like xxxholic. *satisfactory. Well, there was 'SOME' scenes that is drawn extremely bad; but those were pretty acceptable

There was not much sound element going on. Most of the time, it was blank. However, it had great control of keeping the right mood in right timing. OP and ED is simply beautiful; Especially ‘ABABA ABABA ABABA’ ending by Kenji, who also did ops from ‘sayonara zetsubou sensei’. SOUND OF GAR~

Character development is one of the most essential elements of ‘Welcome to the NHK’. Let’s start with our Hikikomori Satou-kun. He starts with helpless-pathetic college dropout who has no future. He blames everything to NHK. As time goes on, his symptom gets worse, even with all the help from few of his friends. He is afraid of face ‘reality’. He believes that everyone around him is mocking him as pathetic loser who has no meaning of life. This is probably most mentally disrupted main character in history, next to Shinji from NGE. It was really entertaining to see how immense changes he experiences during the story goes on. There are other characters with different problems. All those characters are unique themselves, and have own ‘mental disruptions’. They also shows huge amount of development through the story.

The voice acting of Satou Tatsuhiro was spot on. From his words, we can feel… so much despairs and desperations. He really, really sounds like pathetic loser. All the other voices were really fitting to those characterisations. Amazing.

Did I enjoy anime? A lot. It was hilarious, but on the other hand, implies very serious elements inside. Everything is perfectly arranged. Story, Characters, Settings, Quality of animation, Voice acting, there is not much flaw I can mention, no I CAN’T FIND ANY.

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At least once in a life, we ask ourselves, ‘why am I living?’. We search meaning of our life, and if there is none, create it. World is unfair, and not all people success. There is always a loser. We blame, that unfairness to god, or other beings. We all have our own ‘Nihon Hikikomori Kyokai’.

But, we can’t blame conspiracy till the end. Actually, why are we even trying to find the meaning of our life? It’s already there.

As long as other people need us, our life will never lose its worth. You think no-one will need you? Wrong. When we die, we will be forgotten, and turns into the dust. Dying now, and dying 10 years later, there is no much difference. Only difference is, you can have time to ‘enjoy’ your life more.

90% of pain, 10% of joy. Then, just admit those pains. Live for those 10% of joy. Forget your sorrows, miseries, and tragedy. Enjoy your life. Yes, we are all pathetic losers, but admit it, there is nothing we can blame about, because, at least you enjoy your life, we are no longer losers. Face the reality and shout,

“Welcome to the N.H.K.!”

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You MIGHT be able to find same review in other place; it's only because that this is not only anime forum I go. So, meh.

Another, I've NEVER READ MANGA OR NOVEL VERSION of this anime. So, fuck it.

Let’s imagine, if someone has an eye which can see things that others can’t, how he/she will feel? No-one will believe it and no-one can.

Natsume Yuujinchou is rather simple anime. In every episode, it has an individual story related to each kind of youkais written in Yuujinchou. It’s a small, and peaceful series that can be EASILY overlooked. NO. It’s filled with irreplaceable memories that you can’t forget.

There is no plot for this anime (or whatever.). Of course, it’s slice of life anime, and it has its advantages and disadvantages. It’s hard to keep the genre of ‘supernatural’ and ‘slice of life’ at once, but ... Natsume Yuujinchou covered that nicely. All episode are simply beautiful and breathtaking.

Ah. Character development. This is what you expect when you watch this anime. Natsume is all alone boy who hates to interact with other people. He is gentle and kind. He tries to help EVERYONE. Well, you can call him hero in that aspect, but he actually thinks that he has no power at all. He keeps contradicting himself, about whether staying in human world, or being with Youkai like His grandmother Raiko did.

In each story, Youkai tells Natsume about kindness, humanity and other lessons that he has been overlooked or forgot. His side kick cat always scolds him about how selfish and bad humans are. When he first met youkai in his new town, most of their responses are "don’t believe humans". But in the end, he finds out that not all humans are evil. Youkai themselves also realises and learns about their mistaken view towards humans. Very optimistic stories, right? However, it is not that cheerful anime. Its mood is somehow down from the start to the end. That kind of ambiguous tone is the one that makes this anime more intriguing to watch.

There are evil youkais of course. They are just evil. Same goes to human. Some youkais also struggles like human. This anime contrasts and compare those monsters and humans. We can see how Natsume's thinking changes through the whole series. He feels empathy toward those youkais. Most of them has been felt lonely or have been suffered from the problems of themselves. It's Natsume's job to cure those suffering youkais and tries to prove kindness of humans.

However, there is some problems with it, too. I sometimes got annoyed by Natsume's reflection about how he was lonely or get ignore. He seeks for similar people as him, but not trying to create a new relationship. That theme of 'loneliness' is something that has been used so much in other animes, especially in shonen. I mean, he lost his parents. Yet, he seems to feel nothing about it all the time. He never even mention it. They should have gave more background information about 'who exactly is Natsume'.

Art, probably one of my favourite character designing I’ve ever seen. Pastel style drawing and cute drawn youkais are just gorgeous. You can’t see anything like this in other anime. Very, very unique. Most of the background is consist of soft lines and colours, which creates very gentle atmosphere; contributing to the story. Sound aspect also reflects its atmosphere really well, though I’m not to sure about OP and ED.

Voices~~ well there is only 2 notable seiyuus here because… others just are just all recurring characters. Kamiya Hiroshi did surprisingly well with voice of Natsume, and you can sometimes here his usual ‘ZETSUBOU SHITA!’ style screaming. It’s fun indeed.

Overall value and enjoyment on this anime was higher than my expectation. Although it keeps with simple stories with simple plot settings, it manage to bring some beautiful development on characters and creation of overall atmosphere. It’s calm and peaceful. Nothing like Shonen stuffs packed with fight. So, this is definitely number one priority for those who just started animes.

Don't call me biased reviewer, I tends to be really cocky on series. This review might be find else where, since I can't just write different review all over again, in different forum. Remember, I only use same username for all the forum, (Goo4) so please don't freakin tell me that it is copied.

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ZETSUBOU SHITA!! Everyone should have shouted this at least once in their life. But there is someone who has gone into extreme, and even tries to suicide himself for ridiculous reasons.

The anime, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (aka. SZS), is considered to be the most random anime in existence. You cannot predict how ... or when it will end. Story? What story? Discussing plot of this anime is meaningless. However, I can say, humours and word plays in this anime is just BRILLIANT. Kometa Kouji, who wrote the original manga, is fuckin genius. He tries to distort every single aspect of Japanese Society into something… ar… DESPAIR?

SZS is fully consists of satirical comedies. Start with our Zetsubou Sensei, when we see him tries to hang himself for some foolish reasons like ‘my transportation card did not properly recognised’, we laugh at him. It’s not just humour, but satirical humour. It reveals how foolish killing one self is. This anime brilliantly has done those.

Sometimes, it shows floods of examples to support that satire. It usually appears with floods of texts and it might hurt your eyes. This could work as one boring factor for this anime if you don’t know much about the culture of Japan or others. BUT if you can understand those, you will enjoy it too. Also, there are a lot of bloods and fanservices in this anime. Hell, but they are all for good fun of randomness.

Art is one aspect that will please your eyes. Simply beautiful. Although, the character design looks simplistic or inconsistent, SHAFT's uniqueness covered this negativeness brilliantly. First, there is bald guy called 'Maeda', flying all around during the episode. Also, if you are otakuistic enough, you will be able to find tons of references from other anime, manga or events. Hilarity. There are tons of vector style art shown. Slideshowtic monochromes with the texts are also the elements that entertains our vision.

Sound is similar to art. Lot of random signals are there, sometimes, totally irrelevant sounds such as scream of ‘monkey’ randomly comes out. It creates even funnier atmosphere throughout the whole anime.

Also, OP and ED. Very unique. OP animation for first three episode is… blank, or occasional freakin bald guy or copy and pasted articles. After third episode… op animation can be VERY DISTURBING for some people though it was very creative. Op was sung by Kenji Ohtsuki, who also did famous ending theme for Welcome to the NHK. Ending animation also shows how unique animation style that SHAFT has. I enjoyed a lot.

Aha, the most important aspect of this anime, CHARACTERS. They are all extreme cases of phenomenon found in Japanese society. Extreme case of negativity, extreme case of perfectionism, extreme case of Hikikomori, extreme case of yaoism, extreme case of spirit personality… etc etc… Very stereotypical characters, but when all of them is in group... INSANITY. All the characters are lovable and unique themselves. Truely inspirational.

Voice acting; Superb. Kamiya Hiroshi's ‘Zetsubou Shita’ stings on our heart deeply. A lot of other voice actors/actresses are also great at their role.

I enjoyed this anime a lot. But, I have to say that this is NOT an anime that everyone likes. A lot of incomprehensible will make this show boring for some. Also, having little knowledge about Japan will decrease the humour in this anime dramatically. There are few segments that even myself thought ‘bah, it’s pretty boring’. If you haven’t watched many animes, you will miss out most of the references and get annoyed.

Also, this anime got lots of rave reviews from other countries like China and Korea, for being ethnocentric. There are few moments that even myself (Korean) felt, 'WTF THAT'S NOT TRUE'.

But, whether it annoyed me or not, fuck it; enjoyment 10/10

So, to sum up, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is a rare kind of anime you can't miss. If you want anime, with filled with satirical gags with full of despair, here it is; this is an anime for you.

Hmm... so the last word;

“絶望したっ!”