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This manga has such a fascinating premise and the characters are really beautifully drawn. The artwork is in full color, which is really nice as well. I enjoy the main characters and their relationship.

However, the pacing is very slow and the world-building doesn't have enough depth yet, so it feels like it drags without going anywhere. I was excited to read about a Goblin world, but there wasn't much about that world, unfortunately. The secondary characters also aren't as well-developed as the two main characters, which can make the world feel un-lived in. So unfortunately I couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to, ... despite such beautiful artwork!

“The deeper the darkness, the more dazzling the light shines.”

In a world filled with people who have genetic powers known as “quirks,” there are professional heroes with powerful quirks who rescue civilians from villains. Izuku Midoriya is one of the few “quirkless” people without a quirk…until he meets the professional hero All Might, who decides to pass on his powerful quirk to Midoriya. Midorya then gets to attend the prestigious U.A. High School to train to fight villains.

Almost everything works for this colorful, fun, intense, intelligent, and meaningful anime. The characters are universally a delight with each one having interesting quirks, which contribute to ... their identities and help to lend depth. Our protagonist, Midoriya, is sweet but clever and powerful, and the way his new quirk is too powerful for his body, causing him to be constantly injured, is fascinating to watch. Shoto Todoroki has an amazing and horrifying backstory to his half-fire, half-ice quirk. Katsuki Bakugo transitions from being a bully to an insecure hero. Ochaco Uraraka is bubbly but with an undercurrent of steel.

The pacing is excellent, with never a dull moment or a filler episode. The fight scenes are stunningly choreographed and never filler: each one advances the plot or character development in meaningful ways. Even the overarching message of bettering yourself in order to help others is an important one that is well-presented.

The only issue is the very occasional annoying fan-service element of sexualizing a handful—certainly not most!—of the female characters (Mt. Lady, Midnight, Momo). But the fan-service at least doesn’t seem to prevent their character development: in fact, their confidence in their bodies is presented positively. In addition, a student (Mineta) who insists on sexually harassing others is called out on it and generally presented in a negative light.

Here’s hoping to many excellent seasons ahead for this anime.

After his mother unexpectedly passes away, neat freak Chihiro reluctantly goes to live with his costume designer uncle, Madoka, in a fancy but hopelessly dirty mansion. Unaccustomed to such wealth, Chihiro comes to an agreement with Madoka that Chihiro will keep the place clean in exchange for room and board—he even has a maid costume to boot! Chihiro is a worrier by nature, making him different than his easygoing mother and uncle. But despite some misunderstandings, the two form a bond and do their best to take care of each other.

This sweet slice-of-life anime was adorable with lots of heart and a really strong emotional ... core. The story is episodic, and its art and music are simple but pleasant. The voice-acting is good as well, especially with the down-to-earth Chihiro and the more dreamy Madoka. And though the anime focuses strongly on their relationship, all the characters, even the secondary ones, are likeable. I especially loved the emphasis on how hard work, friendship, community, and food can help a person through hard times. I’d recommend this anime for a rainy day because it will lift your spirits.

It’s almost a shame that the title and cover art feature the “maid” concept so heavily, as some viewers may be put off by it and would be missing a genuine and heartwarming anime.

“Don’t ever take your eyes off me.”

I’m late to jump on this bandwagon, but I can now confirm that the hype is warranted on this ice skating anime.

After a crushing performance, Japan’s once promising figure skater, Katsuki Yuuri, is languishing at home with a career going nowhere when Russian world-chamption Victor Nikiforov arrives in his life. What follows is an amazing sports drama that combines high stakes, humor, rivalries, and a very touching romantic relationship to make for a beautiful story.

As a sports anime, there are of course some unrealistic elements like the difficulty of the routines, but for the most part the creators ... have really done their research with Yuri!!! On Ice, and the characters and situations truly feel like they could be real. The fake social media posts in the anime are a particular delight. The characters are refreshingly international with skaters from all over the world being friends and rivals (most notably the second Yuri, young Russian skater Yurio Plisetsky).

The production quality is fabulous as well, with a wonderful soundtrack, sound effects, and animation. You can almost feel every scrape of the skate blades across the ice. The skating routines are impressively animated so that each skater has a specific style from the sublime to the ridiculous. I especially love each skater’s different personas on and off the ice.

And then there’s the love story between Yuuri and Victor, which skirts right up to the will-they-won’t-they line while, disappointingly, never quite explicitly crossing it. But it’s impossible to deny the intense chemistry between the two, emphasized by the plot and triumphant little moments in Yuuri’s skating programs where his goal is learning to embrace his feminine side in order to seduce Victor (and the audience) through his routines. Every skate of Yuuri’s left me breathless and gasping in case he might make a mistake.

There is a whole army of fans desperate for a sequel, so I hope it will come soon.

This 10-episode shounen-ai anime is the Japanese edit and dub of the Chinese anime Ling Qi (Soul Contract).

In it, a young You Keika is living in poverty as a fortune-teller when he is hit by a bus and killed. In death, he chooses to become contracted to the human demon-hunter Tanmoku Ki as his spirit shadow, a partner to protect Tanmoku and give him strength. Unbeknownst to both of them, they are connected more deeply than they realized. Along with Tanmoku’s ignored fiancée Shin Shiyou, the three team up to uncover the sinister plot going on at Tanmoku’s family home.

The anime packs a ... lot into its 10 episodes with lots of supernatural hurt/comfort elements and a gentle shounen-ai between You and Tanmoku, with some humor and very pretty art and character designs as well.

While the supernatural elements are a bit stereotypical and aren’t explained well, and the characterizations are a bit one-note, it’s interesting to see the different motivations of the characters, particularly the “evil” ones who are all vying for power behind the scenes and constantly testing Tanmoku and You’s relationship.

Tanmoku is difficult to read as a typical tsundere, but You makes for an appealing lead with his innocence and occasional frustration with his situation. I felt really bad for Tanmoku’s fiancée, Shiyou. Her character is actually fleshed out but it’s still hard to determine her reasons for sticking around when Tanmoku overlooks her constantly. She seems to have more meaningful interactions with You than with her fiancée.

Where the anime really shines, though, is in the evolving relationship and powerplays between Tanmoku and You. The two have great chemistry, the light fan-service moments are fun, and it’s wonderful to see how they slowly get to know one another and how they react to seeing each other in danger. I loved seeing how they were evolving into a team.

Unfortunately, after just 10 episodes it feels like it’s just getting into the good content when it ends. Would love to see more!

“What’s up with this school? Even the principal is out of his mind!”

Student Yoshiki Maeda attends Baremon High School and quickly discovers a clique of handsome idol-level students who vie for his attention. Along the way buildings randomly explode.

With deliberately atrocious half-assed art (no backgrounds, awful character designs, and a main character who is very literally a blank slate with no facial features whatsoever), ridiculous characterization, and an non-existent plot, this silly anime presents a light critique of typical reverse harem shounen-ai anime. It ridicules the defined jawlines of the love interests, the stereotypical character types, and the overly-invested supporting characters.

At its extremely short ... run-time with about 2 minutes of content per episode, though, the parody doesn’t have the chance to be especially deep or meaningful, certainly nothing on the level of Ouran High School Host Club or Gakuen Heaven, which are more effective parodies of the genre. However, Gakuen Handsome is good for a few laughs if you are a fan of the anime style it’s parodying.

In this shounen ai anime, Haru’s mother adopts a psychologically damaged orphan named Ren, and Ren and Haru form a special bond over one summer in Canada. Later when Ren is older, he moves to Japan to live with Haru and Haru’s two half-brothers. While they work on sorting out Ren’s psychological issues stemming from his past as an orphan, Ren and Haru slowly develop romantic and sexual feelings toward one another.

The art here is undeniably lovely, crisp, and clean, and the slice-of-life elements are soft and sweet. However, though it doesn’t use many of the typical problematic yaoi tropes, the anime still falls apart ... on its core romantic relationship. Partially because they first meet when Ren is so young and such an unusual child, everything the older Haru does feels really manipulative and inappropriate. Even though they aren’t related by blood, Haru is still in a position of power over Ren as his guardian, which makes everything have a very awkward and uncomfortable overtone. They even discuss this element repeatedly throughout the anime but somehow aren’t ever able to come to the obvious conclusion. What’s worse is that everyone around them can see what’s going on and essentially enables the ongoing relationship instead of interfering to protect Ren, who is still a child.

While it’s clear that Ren and Haru certainly care for each other, the anime would have worked better if the romantic aspect of their relationship had waited until Ren was older, with time to come to terms with his own sexuality, and then chose to pursue Haru, but it doesn’t work as it is and just feels unpleasant instead of the cute and funny tone it was going for.

Madoka Kaname is a timid middle school girl whose life changes when she encounters the mysterious new transfer student Homura Akemi and the magical animal Kyuubey, who offers Madoka a wish and seemingly limitless power.

The hype is well-deserved with this one. Clever and deeply psychological storytelling, haunting music, great voice acting, and an immersive, highly unusual art style combine to make something very dark and special indeed. The title sequence is particularly delicious.

This is a magical girl anime. But it is also not a magical girl anime. Truly, the less you know about the show going into it, the better. Just know that nothing is ... as it seems.

This is Netflix’s first licensed anime series, and it’s great! After Earth has been destroyed, the seed ship Sidonia makes its way through the galaxy, protecting itself from difficult-to-kill, creepily-morphing tentacle space monsters called Gauna. Enter Tanikaze, who has been living with his grandfather underground, and who becomes an ace pilot of the Gardes (fighting mecha).

The show-don’t-tell world-building here is fascinating, from the genetically engineered human photosynthesis and third gender, gravity festivals, robot fights, and onboard “sea.” The episodes are so exciting that for me they just flew by—aided perhaps by Netflix’s penchant for releasing all episodes at once and then having evil cliffhangers that ... make it impossible to stop watching. I loved Tanikaze and found him adorable with his constant cluelessness and his penchant for getting seriously injured.

However, unlike Attack on Titan (to which Knights of Sidonia is being justly compared), this universe feels much more sterile, with more technology and fewer colors, relationships, and characterizations. The character designs for the cadets in particular are extremely similar, almost clones of one another (11 are sisters who all look like twins), which makes it difficult to keep track of many of the cadets except poor Tanikaze and his rival, Kunato. A possible jealousy-laden love quadrangle between the four leads (Hoshijiro, Izana, and Midorikawa) feels a bit contrived.

But the world-building and space battles are definitely gorgeous, fun, and meaningful, and I hope a third season is in the works!

In this anime of humorous absurdity, the megane (glasses-wearing) club, a tight-knit group of five high-school boys, is on a mission of extreme importance: to create x-ray vision glasses…so that they can look at hot women naked without their consent. Once you get past that…rather creepy premise, this anime is incredibly sweet with the mock-serious way the characters treat their lives as glasses-wearers, under the direction of their leader Akira, who is determined to make the world a better place for everyone with glasses.

There are almost no female characters, but the relationships between all the boys are adorable (particularly all the brotherly relationships), and the ... slashiness is off the charts. The animation is brightly colorful and cutely stylized: any non-glasses wearing secondary characters (i.e., the other students) aren’t even animated, they’re just literal stick figures in uniforms, which is very funny.

Other than Akira, I liked the mechanical genius Yukiya and the spacey cream-puff loving Takuma; the jealous rivalry between the other two members (Mitsuki and Hayato) was a bit too spiteful for me (though I love the line “I’m not dead, but I’m only a provisional member”). Also, I guarantee that you will have “We are meganebu~” stuck in your head for days.