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Love this show. Very underrated. Could see myself rewatching this.

- This show balances being a darker shounen with more lighthearted scenes, which honestly is what I always dreamed shounen could be growing up.

- Similar vibes as Demon Slayer. The main downside is that this show doesn't have as good an animation/soundtrack, unfortunately, which causes issues with feeling invested in the emotional scenes sometimes. But I actually prefer the overarching plotline and character arcs in this one.

- The characters. Are. Amazing. What's particularly cool is that since Kabane is a blank slate, as he spends time with each of the characters he gains some of their ... tendencies and ideologies. And this can be seen over the course of the season. The characters have seen much love and care from the author, as each is given their own set of motives that they actually act upon.

- Avoids some anime tropes. E.g. in most anime, if you have two characters that are strangers walking down a hallway together, they'll usually have some cringey dialogue-- but here, the characters as you would expect in RL, don't say a word to each other! Magical.

- The show ends on a cliffhanger, so expecting a season 2.

I was hoping this would be a Kiki's delivery service meets Kino's journey.

Instead, it's more like a collection of mild grim fairytales. The darkness of the stories is a plus as darker stories are more of a rarity in anime.

Over The Garden Wall and Kino's Journey are much better than this. That said, if you like the genre, it's worth a skim through.

Pros:
- Bite-sized stories are easy to digest, and the pacing of Kino no Tabi works here as well.
- The characters are flawed
- Each "town" is quite unique. (It's unclear why everything is called a town whether it has like 100 people versus 100,000 ... lol.)
- The concepts of each story is reasonably good

Cons:
- Magic is a crutch for the storytelling. For example, in episode 1 the teacher can clearly make a place to live with magic. Yet for the main character, she always has to find lodging.
- The execution of the storytelling in general leaves much to be desired. Everything is extremely predictable, so there's no mystery or "big reveal" at the end. It's just, "yup, that was obvious."
- Almost no exploration is done in each town, unlike Kino's Journey.

p.s. As a tip, just skip episode 1. It's just poor writing and makes you want to drop the series.

If you enjoyed the last season, you'll love this one as well. If you're new to the series, definitely start with season one. c:

Episode setup:
Each episode consists of approximately 3-5 *disjoint* short skits. This is a comedy anime, so there is less of a focus on the story, art, and sound, while the jokes can be like gold. With how short and disjoint the skits are, it's honestly impressive that there is even a story. lol

Enjoyment: 10
Humor can be pretty subjective - I personally find the humor in this show beautiful. For reference, other comedies I like include Cromartie High School, Sket Dance, Tanaka-kun wa ... Itsumo Kedaruge, and Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun. **Of these, I find Cromartie High School the most similar in humor.

Opening & Ending Songs / Sound: 7
All of the songs in this anime are jokes really so it's hard to rate on how "good" they are. Amusing at the very least.

Story: 9
Somehow there is a plot...and it keeps advancing...again somehow? lol. But yes! The romance continues as more complications ensue. Who will become a couple in the end? Unsure if anyone else is as invested in this aspect as I am. The show can be enjoyed even while ignoring this after all...

And ignoring romance for a minute, I think what makes this show work is that while Saiki, the main character repeatedly states that he just wants to be alone, he spends an awful lot of time looking out for his friends, subtly helping them with his super powers to achieve their daily goals and dreams. Perhaps Saiki is a bit of a tsundere in this regard. Anyways, the concept is interesting and the end results are usually satisfying. There are a lot of clever ploys with the setting, so gave a 9 for the story.

Art: 6
The art is kind of bland. At least I'm not a fan, but it's not to the point where it ruins the show for me. I will mention that between skits there is usually an awesome drawing that beautifies each of the characters. It makes one think, is this even the same character?! Yes, the drawings between the skits are that good in comparison.

Characters: 8
Each character has one or two distinctive characteristics that actually grow stronger and stronger throughout the series. Mainly since they are the most well-used tools in the author's toolbox for setting up great situations and jokes. Really, the worse the writer makes Teruhashi's personality look, the more I like her lmao.

Overall: 10
Frankly, between the art, sound, and characters, this show is pretty average. But honestly, it does not matter much, since the humor and jokes are what the anime is all about. This show is especially great for when wanting a quick bite of humor without having to sit through a whole 30-minute episode of an anime. Definitely highly recommended! :)

Premise: I decided to write this review to give the perspective from someone who did not enjoy this novel, since I have only seen overly positive reviews thus far. To note, I dropped this novel around early volume 7, since I just ran out of patience for it, but 6-7 volumes seem like enough to write a review for a 9 volume story.

To start with the good! Art (10): The art is quite cool and I like it a lot. But like all novels, not much art. Regardless, this bumped my overall rating up from a 3 to a 4.

Story (5): The overarching premise of ... the story is actually quite good: The main character starts in an RPG styled world as the most powerful character in existence, with an army of elite AI's that have absolute servitude programmed into them, which he knows. The main character is actually just a regular guy from Earth, so he needs to adapt to this new environment.

Based on the premise alone, it feels like the story has a lot of potential, but unfortunately, not much actually happens with this interesting world and setting that has been built up. Instead, we learn about the main character…but, there is not much to learn other than his internal struggle of "oh noz, if I don't act evil, the AI's won't like me. boo hoo. Whatever shall I do? I know! I'll just have this dilemma for 6 volumes straight of how I don't want to be evil, but I can't help it since I want to be liked by my AI's which have already been programmed to love me forever.” Life is just so hard for our overpowered protagonist. I tend to find his ranting to be a bit cringe-worthy.

Seguing from that thought, I also find Ainz to be *incredibly* unintelligent. While it is absolutely fine and sometimes even encouraged to have a dumb main character, it does not work in this story as he just does not have the capability to be a leader. Due to the overpowered main character's lack of leadership over his battalion of subservient AI's, they go around advancing the story on their own. While again this sounds good and has potential at first glance, there really is no cohesive goal in sight, and this lack of coordination between the respective AI's leaves all that they do to feel very empty. :(

Character (2): The story is mainly about the characters, but I personally find them to be dull overall.

- Ainz (main character)
Like previously mentioned: dumb / cringeworthy / lack-luster leader / insecure / overpowered

I find his the internal struggle, "how to get his AI's which have already been programmed to love him forever, to love him." tiring to read about. He wonders why the AI's get confused what his goal is; of course it is because he's been putting up a facade up and confusing everyone instead of getting it together, taking charge and saying things directly.

I am not against flaws. In fact I have read manga where the main character has a facade contrary to their true thoughts and abilities, such as Angel Densetsu and Transfer Student Storm Bringer, where the juxtaposition between the truth and perceived reality in these stories is done extremely well. So it definitely is possible to have a main character where the perceived reality and the truth do not match up. Alas, this is one where all has gone wrong.

- Other characters (AI's)
The AI's initially seem to have distinctive personalities, but we quickly see that all have the trait of being over-confident. So while it is a mix-mash of different characters, they all have the same vibe. Other than perhaps Albedo, it's more like generic villain A and generic villain B. etc. All in all, the AI's did not add much to the story for me. Nor did I come to love any of them.

The main character is really like the only character for most of the story tbh. No one else is fleshed out as much.

Enjoyment (2): I personally did not enjoy this novel for reasons already stated. Everyone enjoys things differently, so perhaps the faults that I have pointed out, you will not mind. I hope that is the case, as reading this novel was a long journey for me.

Conclusion/tldr;: Due to the lack of leadership of the overpowered main character in this story, events unfold contrary to how he plans, as his minions stew up their own plans. The main character's unintelligence limits the abilities of his army, which also proceed to be stupid as well, and ultimately causes strife throughout the story when there should be none. *This large fault is particularly unfortunate as this novel seemed to desperately want to be tactics/strategy based.*

While reading this story that is a play of idiots, one gets accompanied by the internal struggle of the insecure main character, "how to get his AI's which have already been programmed to love him forever, to love him."

All in all, Overlord felt overrated for me.

Overview: Sometimes just spending time with someone is worth more than the world. This anime is a coming of age story first, and a romance story second. What does it mean to be friends or lovers? What is important to me? Am I happy with who I am right now? Will I be left behind by everyone else? This anime takes a more realistic version of outcast characters becoming friends or more for the first time while dealing with the pressures of high school.

Sound: The OST is beautiful. It gives a similar feeling to the OST in One Punch Man.

Character: The characters are ... unique and memorable. The mellow female lead was a very nice change of pace from the usual anime female leads. Side characters are given some attention as well -- the side female character ended up becoming my favorite. The only qualm I have is that the main male character's backstory is still confusing even though time was spent trying to flesh it out quite a few times.

Art: I think the art is average.

Story: There isn't much story as not much time passes in the course of the anime and it is more geared towards being a slice-of-life. At least to me, this anime is more about the characters and their development. Since there isn't much of a story, there isn't really an end to the anime, rather it is left open ended. Almost as if we got a peek at a small portion of the characters' lives, and that things and feelings will continue to change as their lives go on.

Other: This anime was a lot better than I thought it would be. The cover image with the chains deterred me away from watching this anime originally. I'm glad I decided to watch it, even if it is many years later.

Note: Review of Web Novel

I would describe Death March as a Slice of life novel of another world. Nothing much really happens from the main male character going to tea parties with nobles, to going on a desperate multi-day quest for the sacred ingredient, pickles. The side stories include the main character nonchalantly killing off demon lords and dragon gods, and the like. Of course while killing demon lords seems uneventful to the overpowered main character, side characters and the world itself become greatly affected by such "trivial" actions. This causes several events to unfold simultaneously, building up to some interesting situations throughout the story.

Premise: ... The main character gets transported to another world as an OP (overpowered) character. He has no distinctive quality other than being overly cautious and doesn't like pain, which contrasts greatly with the level of over-kill he is. Kind of like, although getting slashed with a sword would feel as bad as getting a paper cut, he still doesn't want a paper cut. I mean, would you? As a result, rather than spending time getting into battles, he becomes a full-time tourist of this world. As he slowly learns about the world through: food, crafting, skills, magic, trade, politics, religion, etc. the reader does too.

Story: Since this story is like a slice of life, there honestly really isn't much of an overarching story. There are some sub-stories that are interesting due to the "all-map" skill that the main character has. Basically, he can track what everyone is doing from a 3rd person perspective. (Think of tactics games such as Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, or Fire Emblem) As such, he also plays the role of strategist when confronting battles and problems on large scales. Other than the slice of life feeling of the story, this is my favorite aspect. The large-scale tactics are well done in my opinion. Hence an 8 for story despite the lacking overarching story.

Art: What can I say. It's a novel. There isn't much art? It seems decent to me though. Pochi is particularly cute in the art! nanodesu =w=)~

Character: While the main character has no personality, the side characters have very distinctive personalities that are quite easy to like. (Pochi and Tama are my favs. Can always use more Tamarin and Pochinium -- Intermission SS4 Volume 9 reference) While there honestly isn't much character growth (if any at all), since there are a lot of chapters from the side character's POV (point of view), sometimes the same event from multiple perspectives, the characters do give another depth the story. They are what drive home the story's charm. At least for me, some of my favorite chapters are from a side character's POV.

Enjoyment: Due to its light-hearted nature, this story is very relaxing to read, and very easy to enjoy. I'm an avid reader of transported-to-another-world type novels, and I would rank this one quite up there due to its unique perspective on the genre. Other novels that I have read or am still reading, and like (for reference) include: Cook of the Mercenary Corp, Mushoku Tensei, History’s Number 1 Founder, Transcending the Nine Heavens, Crossing to the Future it’s Not Easy to Be a Man, Kenkyo Kenjitsu o Motto ni Ikite Orimasu.

One other thing to address: Right, there is technically a harem. But honestly, it's closer to a teacher taking their students on a field trip. The main character isn't interested in them, and the attempts of the harem to advance towards the main character at a certain point becomes more jokingly, rather than with seriousness. Or at least that is how it's portrayed. As a novel of its genre, it's rather absent of excessive sexual comments. Which is a nice change of pace.

Conclusion: Slice of life style stories aren't for everyone as they are slow paced. Especially with the lacking overarching story, if you are looking for something high powered, this is definitely not the story for you. For the casual-type story reader, this would be of more interest.