This a review of Houseki no Kuni (TV). I give my take of the anime and whether or not I would recommend it.
Story: 8
Houseki no Kuni (TV) has a very subtle and slow-moving plot. Throughout the 12 episodes, not much is really happening. The character development, except for one or two characters, are essentially nonexistent. For the most part, there isn’t enough information to advance the plot. However, for the sake of this review, I will differentiate between plot and story. While the plot has left me wanting, the story is extremely compelling. The mysterious aura of the anime keeps the watcher wanting to
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know more. Some nuggets are thrown around during the series, but none that are really that satisfying. But that is a good attribute, because these episodes do a superb job in setting up the premises of the story. By the end of the series, you are eagerly waiting for more information. As a non-manga reader, these episodes will entice you into reading the manga. The story does an excellent job in cultivating the watcher’s curiosity. Throughout the anime, there are some themes that are philosophically interesting. The immortality of the gems and their reactions to certain events are intriguing, as well as the relationships between them. Overall, if one looks at this season as setting up the plot and introducing the premises of the story, then this project has done an excellent job.
Art: 10
The art for this anime is simply amazing, and for me, one of the best part of this project. From episode one, I am thrown into this universe filled with vibrant colors and beautiful sceneries. This season is for the most part happening in one area, the island, but the watcher does not get bored with this. The island is beautiful, and the anime does a good job in illustrating the different areas of the island. The animation is fluid and sharp. Other anime should take note of this style and try to incorporate it. I never really understood the backlash towards the use of CGI. I think if the style is used correctly, it can be used to engage the watcher. This anime is a perfect example of how CGI can be used, and I felt many times that I was watching a movie style animation in a tv series. The great part is that most episodes were high quality. I never felt a huge quality drop throughout the episodes. The character design of the Gems were also well done. The Gems just seem to stick out whenever they are on the screen. They are beautiful. Overall, the art combined with sound makes this anime very aesthetically pleasing.
Sound: 9
It didn’t seem to me as if this anime had many tracks to work with, but I believe that quality overcomes quantity. The soundtrack used for most scenes were fitting. The ominous soundtrack that came on during the Lunarian attacks especially stood out to me. I am not well taught in the different instruments and their cultural origins, but the soundtrack seemed to be influenced by Buddhist sounds. I may be wrong about that, but that is the inclination that I got. Overall, very good ost that helps engross the watcher into particular scenes.
Characters: 7
I mentioned earlier in the review the lack of character development, this is not necessarily a bad thing. The lack of development is related to plot. Since not much has really happened, the character development has been lacking. Based on the premise that these Gems have been living for hundreds of years, it also makes sense that the character growth will be gradual and slow. There a few events that happen during the anime that does push some character development, and this affects the main characters. Besides these characters, the development is null. The anime has a large cast, there are apparently over 20 Gems. It would be very difficult to flesh out all of these Gems, and I am rather glad that the anime does not attempt to do so. The character that are introduced and fleshed out are done well. The main character, Phos, is energetic, amusing, and sometimes annoying. She’s a very likeable character. She does indeed develop throughout this project. Cinnabar, Bort, Diamond are also very unique and interesting characters. They have some development, though not as obvious as Phos. Since I am considering this season as an introduction, I believe that it has done a good job of introducing us to these characters.
Overall, I recommend this anime because it is unique and shows promise. This season has introduced the story and the characters. Hopefully, this gets a second season that will advance the plot. The animation is of high quality, as well as the soundtrack. This is an enjoyable anime to watch. A few philosophical questions emerge within the story, and I hope this is explored more in the following seasons. Overall, I rate this anime 9/10.
Jan 2, 2018
Houseki no Kuni
(Anime)
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Recommended
This a review of Houseki no Kuni (TV). I give my take of the anime and whether or not I would recommend it.
Story: 8 Houseki no Kuni (TV) has a very subtle and slow-moving plot. Throughout the 12 episodes, not much is really happening. The character development, except for one or two characters, are essentially nonexistent. For the most part, there isn’t enough information to advance the plot. However, for the sake of this review, I will differentiate between plot and story. While the plot has left me wanting, the story is extremely compelling. The mysterious aura of the anime keeps the watcher wanting to ...
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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May 18, 2015
Death Parade
(Anime)
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Recommended Life is unfair, and according to Death Parade, even after our earthly demise, we are still subjected to the unfairness of our primal existence. The judgment of whether we go to heaven (reincarnation) or hell (the void) is still founded on a false system. It is based on flimsy assumptions of puppets who have never experienced love, pleasure, anger, jealousy, or pain. Even in this death, truth refuses to be universal, the subjectivity continues...Or does it? Do we all have this intrinsic darkness in our souls? Do some people have it in more quantity? Can this be drawn out by observing us humans in extreme ... circumstances (such as games to the death), or is the darkness created by the hitherto circumstances? These are the questions that Death Parade poses to the viewer. The questions are extremely intriguing but, unfortunately, Death Parade does not provide sufficiently satisfactory reconciliations for them. This is disappointing as we see Death Parade lowering the importance of these questions in light of the character development of Decim and Onna, the two main characters. Due to this uneven concentration of importance, the story was only half realized, leaving the viewer with half resolutions and ambiguity towards the ending scene. Was this just a love story? Or a desperate dive into understanding the fabrics of human nature? The story seem to have chosen the former, instead of finding cohesion between the two premises, and providing a more comprehensive ending. ( I do note that this probably wouldn't be able to get done in 12 or 13 episodes) The concentration of the 'love' story of Decim and Onna was quite well done, and I enjoyed their moments. Decim is a “puppet” arbiter given human emotions, while Onna is a dead human with no known memory of her past. Death Parade emphasized that Decim was implanted with human emotions, however, these emotions were nowhere to be seen for the majority of the series. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Onna seemed to have the capacity to trigger the emotions of Decim, which made their interactions interesting to observe. The climax of their relationship was beautiful, and left me smiling. It was very well done. The art of Death Parade was excellent as well. Since the anime is mostly conversational, the fluidity of the scenes can be lost or left unnoticed. However, the art does stick out in particularly poignant moments. What stick out in memory is the ice skating scene of Onna, as she is gliding and sliding across the ring, I was left entranced by her movements. Never had I thought ice skating to be such a majestic sport. MadHouse produced Death Parade, so my expectations were met, they love to bombard the viewers with uber-dramaticism. It is fitting. I have similar sentiments about the soundtrack, it is memorable. The characters, however, were a bit more problematic. Most of the characters, except the two main ones, were paradigmatic. They were one dimensional, and their reactions to all events in the anime could be predicted. Ginti showed potential of breaking away from the bounds of his archetype, but in the end, he too could not break away from these chains. The only two characters that showed any sort of development was, again, Decim and Onna. Onna developed through her time as an assistant, and gaining her memories. Decim developed through realizing his emotions, and the errors of their method of judging souls. Overall, Death Parade is a very entertaining anime. It poses some very exciting questions, and has very strong main characters that essentially carries the anime on their back. Also, the episodic nature of the anime actually helped, since every new couple introduced different concepts and were all interesting in their own way. The games, themselves, served as a good device into delving into the substance of human nature, and gave some hints at determinism. Anyway, I would strongly recommend this anime to viewers, I do not think you will be left disappointed :) Story: 8 Art: 10 Sound: 10 Character: 7 Enjoyment: 10 Overall: 9
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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May 27, 2014 Recommended It is a delightment to be able to write a review for Nisekoi, though the anime was not perfect, it has provided me with significant entertainment during the last few months. Even if my review may seem negative, it is just because I am analyzing an anime by parts and category. As a whole, I thoroughly enjoyed Nisekoi. Story: (30%) The plot of Nisekoi is rather mediocre. With a redundant premise, Nisekoi has nothing new to contribute to the rom-com genre. The creativity of the story and its complexity is minimal at best, non-existent at least. Do no expect to be blown away by the story line, ... in fact, the plot will leave you wanting in most of the episodes. There are the standardized anime episodes such the festival, the school play, and the beach episodes. None of them adds anything unique to the template, it is just a repetition from what we have traditionally seen. It is not as if the premise is weak, though not original, the premise of a MC looking for the girl of his past to open his locket has potentiality for a lot of complexity and twist. This, however, was not done in Nisekoi, and of course this is not directly the anime's fault but rather a representation of the manga. Even when the chance for legit development appeared, the event was squandered by a random, indescribable, improbable set of circumstances. An example would be a girl sitting next to her crush, with her gathering up all the courage to tell her crush that she wants to kiss him....and actually does say it!! Then it turns out that the guy fell asleep seconds before her confession, and wakes up seconds after the end of statement. One event like this may fly past the radar, but the agglomeration of these types of events prevents anyone from taking the plot and story line of this anime seriously. Even a young child would face-palm at the irritable progression of the plot. Art: (90%) I did not feel like an episode was lacking in art. Sure, there were some frames that were reused, and the animation wasn't super fluid every scene, but overall the art was good. Since Shaft produced Nisekoi, there is a lot of similarity between this anime's art and previous anime of theirs. I didn't even know Shaft produced this before watching the anime, but a few seconds into the first episode, I could just tell. It wouldn't be true that the art style is done better in Nisekoi than in other of Shaft's works, but it was a great fit for Nisekoi. I enjoyed the close ups, the quick glances, and the over dramatization of emotions. I'm really into experiencing the story, and this art style especially focuses on characters more than background. I think this can be weird to some at first, but it really brings the point home that its' the characters that one should be paying attention to the most. Nisekoi did a great job in making the character design shine. I can vividly recall scenes where I felt enamored by some of female design and how they fit. Nisekoi did a great job of letting us see them THROUGH the eyes of Raku. Sound: (100%) Marvelous soundtrack. Soundtracks can make or break a scene, and in Nisekoi, every scene was amply elevated by its choice of bgm. I'm highly receptive to visual and auditory stimulants, so I found myself captivated by a lot of events ,that were poor plot wise, but were done so beautifully that it captured my attention away from the plot but into the art, and even emotions of the characters involved. I think that this is the telos of any soundtrack, to make scenes even more riveting that it would have been otherwise. Excellent soundtrack. Characters: (80%) The strength of Nisekoi may not be its storyline or plot complexity, but instead lies within its characters. Nisekoi has the ability to make all of its characters likable, and this is a very RARE element to have. At the end of the anime, I didn't find myself hating any characters. I do have my preference of who I would like Raku to be with, but this is more of my own personal taste than any loathing that I feel for the rest of the female cast. Of course, this may be due to the lack of complexity of the story, and the author playing it safe with everyone, but there have been anime done with poor plot progression along with horrible and unlikable characters. Nisekoi should applauded for its characters. The main character, Raku, at first glance seems to be our typical dense lead. He's an average looking person with no particular exceeding talent( maybe besides cooking, but this wasn't developed). He seems to be average in school, his attitude is average of someone of his type, and his character design is slightly different. He has the will to protect his friends, but to be utterly oblivious to obvious signs. He also seems to have the ability to fall asleep in matter of mini seconds, and to wake up just as fast. His redeeming point is that when Raku WANTS to, he can be astute in his observation. There are monologues of his where if given more time, and more info, he would have cracked this mystery surrounding him. Raku is not a stupid generic character, he does have a girl that he is mainly interested in. He acts according to this preference, but again due to poor plot, none of these actions are actualized into substantive events. This is more of a plot issue than a character issue. Chitoge, the blonde bombshell, is the eccentric vivacious main girl. She's loud and obnoxious, and can be unreasonable at times. However, she also have her redeeming qualities. She grew up without having too many friends, and she longs for sisterly companionship. On the inside, she is a compassionate person, that probably has had to put on up a tough mask due to the teasing done to her back in America. It is surprising that she is a strong student considering the shortcomings of the educational system of the U.S, but that is besides the point. If given enough time, Chitoge does become lovely and likable in her own way. Kosaki Onodera seems to correlate with the cute nice shy template. She's not as vivacious as Chitoge, and is too timid to assert herself in the middle of a big crowd. This is not to say that Onodera is complacent, she has willed herself to reveal her feelings numerous times, but again due to improbable and reaching circumstances, these confessions have fell to deaf ears. This is not a character flaw of Onodera, but again a shortcoming of the plot. The remaining cast , in my opinion, just serves to spice up the dynamic between the three characters mentioned above. Tsugumi is a personal favorite of mine, but she doesn't bring any relevance to the plot except for minor details. Maiko is invisible and obscure, besides his sexual tangents, he just brings slight humor. Marika makes a late appearance, however, the appearance is so late that it makes it hard to emphasize with her. Ruri is funny and spices the plot in a good way, but her will cannot beat the incomprehensible twist of Nisekoi. Enjoyment: (100%) With Nisekoi, the parts doesn't equal the whole. There were a lot of details that left me wanting in the first season of Nisekoi, but overall, the anime was quite intriguing and enjoyable. The art and sound compliments each other so well, the characters have an excellent dynamic to leave you laughing and caring for them. There is fan service, but is tastefully done relative to other anime of the same genre. I do recommend this anime to anyone looking for a strong romantic comedy. Overall: (90%) With this anime, the categories does not hold the same weight. I am eagerly waiting for a second season.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 17, 2014
Kyoukai no Kanata
(Anime)
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Recommended “ Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” -Albert Camus If nothing else, Kyoukai no Kanata was an entertaining anime. It was able to produce tears, surprise, excitement, and many laughs. The coherency of the plot may have been questionable, but nonetheless, the ride that the anime portrayed was over-exceeded any nuances with the direction of the story line. The main ... issue that I had with KNK was the plot/story line. The first episode of Kyoukai provided substantial expectations about the nature of the plot. You have an immortal main character (Akihito Kanbara), and this mysterious arched four eyed cutie (Mirai Kuriyama) stabbing him in the stomach every chance she gets. You wonder why she is compulsively stabbing Akihito, and you start wonder whether she is some sort of physical sadist. The mystery surrounding Mirai is enough to compel watching the next few episodes. Unfortunately, after the first three to four episodes, there is a sense that an integrant factor is missing from this anime. The location of this missing factor can not be exactly pin-pointed, but the direction of the anime did not seem to culminate to any substantive climax. It is like this anime prided in not taking itself seriously, and was being amused by our attempts to do so. However, in an attempt to reel us back in, the story took an interesting twist by showing us the back story of Mirai. This was probably the highlight of the anime since the episode molded and answered the ambivalent aura of the semi-seriously constructed plot that was been shoved down our pharynx. The last few episodes did not leave us with any certainty which is not a necessary requirement for excellence, but the ending did leave a significant amount of abstruse quandaries unanswered. If I assume that there will not be a second season, then this ending, in terms of plot development, was sub par. The art style of this anime was fantastic. The grandiose colours matched with uniquely drawn characters were enough to have me gaping at some of the scenes. For the most part, the animation was consistently fluid, and the action scenes were marvelously done. Every episode seemed sumptuous and fervent with sound and colour. Speaking of sound, the background music was decent too. I do not believe that KnK has any stick-out-the-page musical piece, but the soundtrack wafted along with the majority of the scenes benignly. What did stand out to me was the ED of the anime, the way that the beginning of the ED innocently guided the final ending scenes of the episode into the first ED scene were done with potent aesthetics. I was amazed by the way Mirai was used in the ED as being alone, and extending her hand in front of her chest, aiming to have someone...anyone grab it back. You see people, supposed friends, just walk past her, giving her no mind. Finally, Akihito comes to her, and does not need to grab her hands, he just smiles at her. She smiles back. Amazingly done, I was not an initial fan of the ED, but it really grew on me after giving it a fair chance. The characters of Kyoukai No Kanata had a tendency to be archetypal and paradigmatic. The variance of their comportment usually did not portray diversity. After a while, you get sick of the glasses fetish jokes given by the Akihito, the incestial jokes of Hiroomi loses shock value after the second episode, Mitsuki's jokes are uninspired and non-rememberable, and Mirai's unpleasantries showed no bounds of reason. I understand that the anime is restricted to 12 episodes, but at least there should be an attempt to diversify these character's personality instead of the blatant banality of creativity. This is not to say that I absolutely disliked the characters. I found Mirai to be rather cute, and charming (in her own way). Her shy but honest ( and I use the term honest loosely) attitude grew on me, and left me wanting to see more of her, minus her annoying “This is sooo unpleasant” quote. I enjoyed her character design, it is not typical of an anime heroine, and she resembles the girl next door, or the girl sitting next to you in calculus class. I found Hiroomi to be a comical character, most of my laughs originated from this guy. I just found his nonchalant demeanor to be hilarious, and I laughed at his initial incestial jokes, before they became repetitive and boring. I wanted the story to delve deeper into his background, and there were hints on his past (intertwined with Akihito's past) being shown, but at the end left me wanting. Mitsuki turned out to be the most lacking of the characters. She was the standard paradigmatic witty beautiful arrogant but caring girl. Nothing more, nothing less. Her jokes were useless, let alone funny. Her strength was not substantive, and there episodes at a time where she was MIA....I mean it's like we were expected to not care for this character at all. Mituski existed in this anime in just the capacity that she needed to exist for Hiroomi's jokes to be relevant. Her character design was also non-inspiring. My favorite character in KNK is by far Akihito. Despite his turbulent and dark past, Akihito still manages to demonstrate an exuberant comportment, and a fervent fetish towards girl wearing glasses. Though his jokes were hardly funny, I found Akihito's optimism to be inspiring and touching. The moment where he tells Mirai, “ I'm just like you....a monster.” was the most powerful moment for me in KNK. Though he suffered an abject past, he continued to make friends, laugh, and even fall in love. His maturity was refreshing for me to experience, and my only drawback is that I wished that he would have been more combat-inclined. There may not be any unique qualities about Akihito, his character type is rampant in modern anime, but that did not decrease my enjoyment of him. My enjoyment of KNK was in a state of fluctuation between the first half of the anime, but strong near the end. The ambiguity in whether the anime should be taken seriously or as a comedy left me ambivalent about my enjoyment until a decision was made to take the second half seriously. There was a “filler” episode thrown in there that had me rolling in laughter, but after that episode, the plot became more dark and serious. Ignoring the nuances of the plot, I would say that this anime was enjoyable and has the capacity to be rewatchable. Overall, I give the anime an 8/10, and I would recommend KNK to anyone who is looking for a quick watch (that involves comedy, drama, and action) and isn't meticulous about plot details. Rating: Story: 5 Art: 10 Sound: 8 Character: 8 Enjoyment:9 Overall: 8
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 18, 2014
Zetsuen no Tempest
(Anime)
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Recommended Would you obliterate this world for the sake of someone you love? Would you go against the logic of the world to achieve your goals? Zetsuen No Tempest is a masterly written piece of work that challenges the watcher to reflect on their ideas of death, love, and logic. I started this anime with low expectations. I am a rather optimistic person, and the premise of a dystopic world did not attract much enthusiasm from me. Zestuen No Tempest, however, is not just a story of some parallel dystopian world, but rather a personal story involving love and tragedy. Story ZNT prides itself in their story ... telling. Yes, there are numerous action scenes to gratify our blood-thirsty anime watching peers but these are not the most impressive features of the anime. The splendidity is established in the plot and dialog. ZNT did a great job with dialog. The initial proposition of the anime were not striking. You have a world where there is a special clan, called the Kusaribe, that can manipulate technology to use their power, which they call magic. It seems like this “magic” comes from a tree, and the magic can only be used to enforce the world's logic. Nothing mind blowing. The story is less about magic but rather the peculiar circumstances of the two main characters, Fuwa Mahiro and Takigawa Yoshino. These two characters are both thrown into this surreal world of magic after the murder of their beloved, Fuwa Aika. Mahiro is bent on avenging his little sister, while Yoshino is struggling to find inner peace with this news. These two personalities are the driving force of the plot. I think Yoshino and Mahiro had a terrific dynamic that kept me in the edge of my seat, at least, during the first half of the anime. Yoshino and Mahiro are supposedly friends, but their relationship are at first pictured ambiguously. Their devious personalities made me suspicious of their real motives, but it is those parts that made the anime so intense and eye grabbing. Though the anime is rather dark, there are comedic elements that help alleviate some of the darkness that surrounds the story. I am not a fan of "fan service" but there were some of it in the anime. It was all nicely placed and didn't interfered with the viewing experience. Some of it was actually nicely appreciated. The first half of this anime was phenomenal. The intensity of those first few episodes were unprecedented in my experience, and the most surprising part was how they executed it. I will not spill spoilers, but those parts were dialog-driven, and it is spectacular how those scenes captured you into the story and made your mind thrilled at every new twist. The second half of the anime was not as intense as the first half, but by no mean was it sub par. The second half just added more to the story. The introduction of a certain anticipated female character was the main event, but there were other factors that made the second half excellent. Overall, I give the story 8/10. Sound 10/10 The scores says it all. Not much to explain. I enjoyed the second half's opening and closing more than the first half's Op and Ed. Both of them were good. The BGM was excellent and fit every scene. It was so unique and theatrical in it's volume and instrument used. The epicness, the intensity, and the dystopia shown were all equally fitted with superb background music. Will definitely check out the OST when I get the chance. Characters 10/10 I mentioned earlier that the plot drives the anime, and while this is true, it is the characters that pushes the plot forward. ZNT did not flesh out every character that were introduced ( there were some characters that we never even got to see at all) but they managed to really fulfill the characters that were the most central to their story. These central characters would be Mahiro, Yoshino, Hazake, and Aika. Mahiro- He was my favorite character of the series. His intellect could not be denied, his will power was impeccable, and his vengeance nothing to play with. I felt bad for him throughout the anime since it seemed like he was the one in most pain, and I couldn't see a good ending for him emotionally. One that is driven for revenge usually doesn't have the best ending. There was character development and Mahiro did change a bit, though he would deny it. I like seeing his interactions with others, though Mahiro seems like he can do it all, he does have trouble with communication, which gave some good comedic relief on my part. Liked his character design. Yoshino- I have mixed feelings about this character. I mostly like him but I still feel like we didn't really get to delve into who Yoshino really is. I get it. He prides himself in not showing his emotion to anyone, but you would think that we would at least get a glimpse, as us watchers, to his inner attitude towards other characters. Besides that, I really enjoyed this character. He is not your typical MC, he is smart, conscious, and and not afraid to get his hand dirty. He is a complex character, and you always want your MC to be more than one dimensional. Unique character design, but looks like Light Yagami in some angles. Hazake: I did not like her at first, but she grew on me over time. She's smart, but has an annoying attitude. She is extremely arrogant. This makes sense however, since she was raised as a princess, and is the strongest person of the Kusaribe tribe. She grew on me later, because we got to see different sides of her, and it made her more human to me. I grew very fond of her. Typical but fitting character design. She was a bit too short for my opinion. Maybe she has a Napoleon complex...... Aika: The mysterious girl that has captured the heart of the two main MCs and thrown logic out of joint. The girl in love with Shakespeare tragedies, and can be seen religiously quoting verses from Hamlet and Tempest. I enjoyed Aika. I think the anime foreshadowed her to be this special and unique character, and I thought they were doing too much with all her flashbacks, but in the end, Aika in full glory was all that I thought she would be. Her witty remarks, her dark humor, her sexual teasing, I loved it all. She certainly deserves all the attention given to her in Zetsuen No Tempest. Pretty Character design, seems to be in contrast to Hazake's design. Enjoyment 10/10 Zetsuen No Tempest was a heck of a ride. The first half shined as bright as any anime I have ever seen, and the second half was spectacular in their transition. The theme of the anime about wanting to change the world for someone you love is reiterated and explained throughout the anime. There are numerous quotes from Hamlet and Tempest, and I would be surprised if one is not at least tempted to get into Shakespeare after completing this anime. The enjoyment was out of the roof for me, I initially gave this anime an 9/10...but there was two episode in the second half that boosted the anime to a perfect score. But the anime was not perfect, there were some underwhelming parts, but overall, I cannot disregard the tremendous excitement that I felt while watching this anime. I recommend this to anyone that enjoys a great Ost, drama, love, and battle of wits. Outstanding (10/10)
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jan 3, 2014
White Album 2
(Anime)
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Recommended This is a hard anime for me to review, and honestly, I'm not sure that the score that I gave it is really representative of my feelings towards White Album 2. Hopefully, as I'm writing this review, I can get some type of closure and maybe fortify my rating decision. So bear with me a bit. I have strayed away from the pure romantic drama genre for years now, I thought that I was offered the best that a romantic drama can deliver in Clannad, and the worst that it can offer in School Days. I've also enjoyed shows like True Tears and Ef in the ... past. While starting White Album 2, I immediately got sucked in by the beautiful art work, the excellent pieces of music, and the introductions of these rather well made characters. The main character, Haruki Kitahara, is not depicted as the usual MC. Haruki is a great student, a great leader ( he's shown organizing events, and even helping out clubs that he doesn't belong to), caring and conscious. To me, he was depicted a lot different than the usually dense as a rock main characters of romantic anime. I actually liked him a lot and related to his personality. I've always been the guy every one runs to for advice, and assumes that I got all the answers. And though Haruki was well known around campus, he didn't seem to be super popular, his personality was irritable to some. I think that is a good description of how perfectionists can come off sometimes. The main two girls were also introduced well. Ogiso Satsuna is your typical popular high school girl, she's pretty and has a sociable personality. You may think you can put her in a box, however, Ogiso is a little deeper than what is shown in the beginning, and has some deep traumas that really affected her and defined her in this anime, for better or worse. Kazusa Touma is the second girl introduced, and she's rather unique. She's the opposite of what Ogiso is, Touma is introverted, quick witted,and cold. Touma was by far my favorite of the two. Their character designs matched their personalities perfectly. Since I hadn't watched a pure romantic drama in a while, the feelz for me during the first half of the anime were strong. I loved the way the friendship between the main characters formed through the shared goal of performing in the fall festival. There were a lot of training session, but they didn't feel dragging, and the songs that they played were not over-played to the point of annoyance. During those training sessions, it was somewhat eery and foreshadowing getting a glimpse of what was to come in the romantic lives of these characters. It's pretty easy to see who loves who, and I was hypnotized by the intensity matched with the music and bgm during the first seven episodes. The first seven episodes were easily all 10/10s for me, I fell back in love with the romantic genre just through these beginning episodes. Unfortunately, the last six episodes gave me a hard reality check, it reminded me the reason why I left this genre for so long. During the second half of this anime, the fall festival has ended, and music becomes a less central part of the anime. The drama between the three main characters thicken, and I'm being careful of not revealing spoilers, the invisible wedge between them grows bigger as time advances. It was painfully obvious what was going on, and you knew that one person (or possibly more) were going to get their heart demolished. In this second half, I started to see elements that I never enjoyed seeing in anime due to personal preference. Elements such as betrayal, lying, cowardice, and jealousy. These emotions are very hard to depict well in an anime, and can sometime come off as either fake, childish, or forced. I can say with supreme confidence that White Album 2 expressed these elements perfectly. Anytime you feel bad for the character that you don't think is the right fit for the MC, or when you show fits of anger as you watch a particular action that a character has done, or when you actually feel the tears of a character longing for the affection of a person that they cannot be with......then you can say for certainty that the emotional elements of this anime was well represented. There were times during the second half where it took me hours to finish an episode because I would pause it so much. There were a lot of times in which I would face-palm and ask myself why I'm even continuing with this anime. These reactions are usually similar to reactions that you have when you watch really crappy shows, you think that this is so bad and face-palm at the stupidity of it. I think I may have confused, initially, why I was reacting this way. It wasn't because the anime was crappy, but rather the opposite, this anime did a great job depicting the earlier-mentioned elements to their fullest extent. The characters are experiencing real feelings, and the plot takes dark and unsettling paths. It is very different from other anime, because it doesn't want to leave you with this third party mindstate, it engages you into feeling the guilt, feeling the anguish, and feeling the betrayal. The worst thing is that the anime doesn't care if it leaves you in an ambiguous note, there is no guarantee of a concrete ending. Wow, this part of the anime was just really well done. All in all, I didn't give this anime a 10/10 because the second half of the anime was just a little bit too overbearing for me. A lot of conversations seemed insignificant, and the anime was starting to run in circles a bit. The ending also left me with a really bad aftertaste. After watching the ending episode, I literally took a shower, mouth-washed, and I still couldn't wash away this unsettling and sour feeling. I guess that's a sign of the quality of this anime. I do recommend this anime, I think you will enjoy the first half a lot, and the second half will be up to your personal preference. It didn't initally cut it with me but the ending was realistic and well made, so I'm not going to chronically complain about it. Anyway do check it out, and if you want to discuss the ending with me (since I didn't want to reveal spoilers here) feel free to just comment me about your reaction.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Dec 28, 2013
Cowboy Bebop
(Anime)
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The nonchalant Spike, The righteous Jet, The sneaky Faye, and witty Edward....
These beloved characters have in-printed themselves onto my heart slowly but surely. CowBoy Bebop is an anime that was recommended to me by various sources. Knowing that the anime was about 14 years old, I was hesitant to start it up. Eventually, with the consistent nagging of my buddies and fellow anime fan, I started Cowboy Bebop. Took me three days to marathon it, and boy what a ride it was!! Story: There only has been a few animes that were in a “episodic” style that I really enjoyed. Mushi shi was one, xxxholic was another, and I ... guess we can count Tsubasa chronicles as another. Besides those cherished anime, I have been left unimpressed by that style of storytelling. Little did I know that cowboy Bebop was the revolutionary anime that introduced this style to the animation world. Not only did it introduced, but it was executed perfectly most of the time. There were episodes that I could have done without, some of the earlier episodes to be specific, and few random episodes in the mid section of the anime. This is not a problem since most the episodes were great and done a very aesthetically pleasing manner. The story in these episodes were less about plot and more about characters. These mini stories helped us understand and get to know the main characters in a unique manner. Nothing was handed to us, we had to decipher a lot of their backstory episode by episode, and we had to piece the stories ourselves. In the end, however, everything came in a crash, and the entirety of these small plots came into a flashy dystopic climax! Art/Animation: The animation was flawless. Even without considering that this a show made 14 years ago, I was thoroughly impressed with the fluidity of every episodes. All of the fighting sequences left me breathless, and kept me at the edge of my feet! The character designs reminded me a lot of Samurai Champloo...and I was pleasantly surprised to read that there are of similar origins, same director. I will add that this anime, out of all the animes that I've watched so far, had the greatest amount of diversity in terms of characters. It was not all just Japanese people who conquered and repopulated the universe but also Indians, Arabs, Africans, and Americans ( thinking of a certain cowboy hehehe) I really enjoyed seeing this diversity because that is more representative of how the world actually is. A lot of anime directors nowdays should take not of how to budget and direct these episodes, CB showed the way. This is how you get it done guys! Sound: Just like every anime review that I do, I stress the importance of sound/bgm as a contributor of the making of a masterpiece. Without a great accompany soundtrack, an anime cannot be called a masterpiece in my eyes. Sound sets the atmosphere faster than any of the senses that we have. It is of the utmost importance to have the best compatible soundtrack. CowBoy Bebop doesn't disappoint on this end either. The soundtrack is strong. It is a mixture of different sounds from the sixties, a lot of jazzy records, and soothing blues. The soundtrack really contributes to the effects that CB is portraying, the smoothness of Spike, the sneakiness of Faye, and the tough righteousness of Jet are all represented well through the music. There are couple of pieces that I will later try to find for personal enjoyment. Really smooth soundtrack. Characters: This anime is made by and for the characters. We don't have any ingenious plot line, or any non-fulfilling fan service...what we have is plenty of character development. Obviously, this is going to be the biggest part of the review since I will discuss in detail my opinion of each character. Edward: Is this a person a girl or a boy? The ambiguity of her gender plagued my thoughts throughout the show. Anytime I was convinced that she was a girl, someone would come along and challenge those beliefs. In all practicality, she was probably a girl. I really expected a lot from her when she was introduced, she seemed witty and smart, but also caring. She, however, did not live up to my expectations, probably becoming the least of the main characters in CB. Faye: I didn't enjoy her at first. She seemed too snotty for her own good. Usually characters of her type bring nothing but randomness and chaos to a story line, and I've never been a fan of that. She did surprise me around mid series however. She was a lot more deep than what I gave her credit for. Without delving into any spoilers, I found myself empathizing with her emotional distraught about her past life and ended up becoming a big fan of hers. I wish that she would have had more episodes where she was a bit more honest with her feelings, the tough girl act can only take you so far, but due to the 26 episode limit, I was thoroughly satisfied by the end with this character's development. Jet: My favorite character of the series. Jet is a balding middle age gentleman with a huge biceps and a big personality to follow along with it. At first, I thought he was going to stay one dimensional, usually characters of his type are not examined enough in anime, but again CB surprised me by giving me a glimpse of who Jet was in the past, and some of his reasoning. We saw him grow as he finally decided to not look to the past anymore, and I related a lot with that. A lot of the time, in my personal life, I've been tied to the past, whether it was a past version of myself, a past friend, a past job or school...a past lover....I found myself always looking back and reminiscing and it hasn't been until recently that I decided to put the past where it belongs, learn from it, and strive for the future. I love Jet because his development is an incarnation of the feelings that I've also developed. His friendship with Jet was unorthodox but really enjoyable to see. Sometimes, the people with opposite personalities find ways to become the closest of friends. Their constant bickering was like classical music to my ears, and their silence was brutally sad. They seemed to be really good at synchronizing with each other. Spike: The main character of the show, and the man with few words. Spike is a really interesting character because of his nonchalant attitude. It is really enjoyable to see him in action, he is so smooth in his fighting style that you are surprised by his efficiency. He is one smooth mamajama. His story intrigued me the most, I was really curious to know what his relationship to Julia was and why she was so important. Unfortunately, by the end, I didn't see why Julia was so important. It could have been better to maybe have separate episodes with just her, so we could understand better and empathize with who she was. Maybe it wasn't the director's intent for us to understand Julia but rather understand the emotional connection that Spike had with her. If that is the case, then yes, I did get that Spike really loved her...to the point that he would have died a thousand times to be with her. Spike was always indifferent to most situations, but any time Vicious, and Julia was mentioned he would go into ape mode or get moody. Nothing is wrong with that, but I would have liked further knowledge about that story line. I think if I rewatched the series, I would not recall these issues. All in all, I do like Spike as a character, he's funny, witty, and a good person at heart. A classy main character. Side characters: Most of the side characters were just introduced and left in the same episode, very few carried over to other episode, and I guess that's the point of the episodic format. CB really did a good job of fleshing out these characters during the one shot episodes and making them deep and relatable. This wasn't achieved in all of the episodes, but it was well done in most. Enjoyment: The episodes that I enjoyed....I enjoyed to its fullest extent, but the ones that I didn't like were really a drag. Those dragging episodes though were mostly in the first ten episodes. Overall, I really enjoyed the anime. I originally gave this anime an 8/10, which is a decent grade, but after taking into consideration the time period when this anime was made, I cannot downgrade the effort and care that was put into making it. I boosted it up to an 9/10...aren't I merciful? :) haha Well, the anime wasn't the masterpiece that people made it out to be, I came in with super high expectations, but this was a great anime. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I recommend anyone with a normal concentration span to try CowBoy Bebop out.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Sep 29, 2013
Guilty Crown
(Anime)
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Let me start off by stating that Guilty Crown was not a recommendation given to me by anyone, nor was it a show that I “planned to watch eventually”. Before watching this, I had never heard of GC, and the only reason I picked it up is because I came across it on some random anime generator and it seemed like a good filler show to enjoy.
That said, I was pleasantly surprised by the anime; with no external biases or influences, I was able to appreciate this anime for what it truly is : a decent anime. It had some really strong moments, and some ... pretty weak moments. I just happen to enjoy the stronger moments more than I hated the sub par moments. STORY: 5/10 The overall plot was at best unpredictable and at worst disjointed. The story line, relative to other animes, is pretty complex. By complexity, I mean that there is a lot of mystery involved in the plot concerning motives, and characters; there are implied and explained back-stories, and lot of dodging questions. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but when you finally hear the explanations and you are only vaguely intrigued by it, you are left wondering... “Why the heck didn't you just reveal this in the first place?”. This anime would have been a lot better if they had left the story line simple and focused on the aesthetics, emotions, and actions in the show. The plot wasn't too bad, overall. They were moments that left me in shock (in a good way) and these moments made the show worth watching. Art: 9/10 The art style was amazing and eye catching. I was intrigued immediately by the first scene of the show, and there weren't too many times where I was enthralled by the aesthetics of their art, whether it is character design, or background. The art was really really good. Sound: 10/10 WOW! If this anime was half as a good as it's music production, then this would be one of the greatest anime ever done. I was considerably blown away by the background music that seemed to elevate every mediocre scene up to a good scene, and the good scenes up to a masterpiece scene. I don't have much words to describe how good the sound of this anime was episode by episode. Inori's singing was also always beautiful, and was probably the only good thing about that character. The soundtrack was so good that I sometime wondered if it wasted for such a show, and maybe could have been used for a better anime. However, that doesn't matter. What counts is that this production did really well with the sound aspect of the anime. Character: 3/10 I pondered whether writing a detailed synopsis on the main characters of GC, but I've decided not to. It's not worth it. The characters are nothing unique and most of the times, they really pissed me off with their actions. Shu Ouma has a memorable name, and maybe at some points seemed to have some potential to be a good introspective but assertive main character but most of the time, he turned out to either be recklessly stupid or a pitiful coward. Most of the time, I was left wondering what mental illness this kid seems to have. He seemed to lack the rational part of our brains, especially in the first half o the series. To his defense, however, Shu did have some redeeming moments. Inori was just a mess of a character, extremely inconsistent, and really just used as a crazy eye candy that can sing a bit. Out of all characters, I really enjoyed Ayase and Hare, they at least seemed genuine and I've had nothing to say negatively about them the entire show. I hated Arisa, though I respected her in the beginning of the show, and I really really considered condescending this show rating just because of this bword...but I held myself back. The rest of the cast, including Gai, were in my opinion, mediocre at best. Nothing to be excited about. Enjoyment : 8/10 Due mainly to the art and music, and partly to the surprises of this show, I really enjoyed he later half of this series. I was watching this episode by episode and not really caring too much, and just going through the motions..but there came a point where the show "turned up' and really went on high gear. At this point, I couldn't help but look forward to the next and next episode. It really got suspenseful and entertaining and I enjoyed that moment. Not too many shows can make you wonder or be excited for the next episode, but near episode 12-14, GC was able to do that, and thats something I appreciate. Overall: 7/10 The art and sound really is inflating this show, it should a bit lower than seven, but it was a decent show. I would definitely watch a second time, and I plan to but it's not because this was a masterpiece or anything, but because I really enjoyed the emotions that this show try to convey. There was a particular episode, which I won't spoil, where you could really feel the emotions of Shu Ouma..oh man, was it heart wrenching! and probably this was the moment, that I started not looking at this anime as a a filler, but as a stand alone anime that I should look forward to and enjoy. So yeah, based on this review, there is a lot of mixed feelings here. If you improve the characters, and made the plot a bit simpler to follow then this could have been a really special show. It's really disappointing when you think of the potential. I would still recommend this show to anyone. It's decent anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jul 25, 2013
Kuroko no Basket
(Anime)
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Kuroko No Basket is an anime that was recommended to me by a very good friend of mine who, like me, is a basketball enthusiast. I didn't take his recommendation too seriously when I read the description and found out that this was a sports anime. I never truly had an interest in sports anime since it didn't have a natural appeal to me. Anime were too me, a way to explore new realities, new universes where the laws of logic and (for some reason) gravity doesn't count. Places where you can be a ninja or a soul reaper, even a pirate. A place where
...
even the whiniest loser can find love and romance. A place of fantasy that can sometimes be shattered by reality.
To me anime was that special place, so when I thought about sports anime, I just dismissed it as "probably boring", or "not going to work well or be factual", or " can't be better than the real thing, aren't sports anime competiting with the real sport??...seems like a losing battle" These were my prejudgment about sports anime, and may or may not be fair judgments. After a while, my friend checked up on my list and saw that Kuroko No basket was never added. He then pleaded with me to give the anime a try and just to watch the first two episodes, if I didn't like it, he would leave me alone and never speak of it again. I agreed. I watched the two episodes and..boy, was I blown away! Story: This anime is extremely intriguing and catches your attention straight from the get-go. The prelude before the opening already gives a feel for the mood and storyline of the show. You are curious to see who this mystery sixth man is, and what kind of player he is. At first glance, Kuroko seems weak and shy, but he is in reality very confident. You consider that he may be small, really quick and a good point guard. However, you then found out that he cannot even make the simple of layups, cannot dribble, and has no jumper. Then you come to the realization that this guy is a loser, and probably the whole show will about him learning JUST how to shoot a normal jumper and make a simple layup. Your heart drops at the idea of a slow, non fulfilling anime..again By the end of the episode though, you see the real extent of Kuroko's ability and you are simply amazed..amazed enough to go the second episode in which the story line then takes over. This being my first sports anime, it is easy for me to say that the story line is original, I mean, who's heard of a middle school basketball team that contains five basketball phenoms (all with unique abilities) and a phantom sixth man whose the incarnation of Rondo and Steve Nash. Some may say the story line isn't original, but those aren't my sentiments. You are immediately enthralled by the notion of these five phenoms, of the so called "miracle generation", you want to see them play and see how they stack up against Kagami who's been to America. The way that these miracles are introduced, and used are in my opinion perfect. I was captured by every moment of it. In that sense, I give the story line a 10/10 for outstanding job creating a mood and suspense. Art: The art is good, not the best anime art that I've ever seen. I've said I've never watched a sports anime, but there's been scenes in other animes where basketball was played namely true tears..and the basketball scene in there was more crisp, fluid, and dynamic. Of course, I don't expect Kuroko no Basket to pull off this kind of art for an entire season, but maybe one or two moves of this kind of animation would have been fine. I don't have any great regret or criticism about the art, some of it was done extremely well but for a show this recent, I would have liked more fluidity. The characters design were well done, and I was able to recognize most of the players in every scene. I like how most of the main characters all had different hair color to help us differentiate between them. A show about sports is bound to have a lot of characters so I enjoy the uniqueness of each char and they add to their personalities. I'm still amazed that some of these character can play full games with normal glasses on...not that I haven't seen that in real life. 8/10, overall very good art and animation. Sound: Anyone who has read previous reviews of mine knows how much of an importance I put on bgm music and the quality of sound in a show. The background music has the ability to make or break a show. The most important scenes can be altered dramatically by the music piece that they choose to use as background music. That said, I really liked and enjoyed the bgm of Kuroko no basket. There was a particular case I remember when I thought a better piece might have been used..I won't state the case since it would spoil and reveal for some people, but those who has watched the show may know which scene I am talking about. I really liked the piece that starts off most episode, the prelude, it really sets the semi-serious tone that this is all business and that the miracle generation are the main guys running things. During the game scenes the sound used to portray aggression, intimidation, desperation were all used very greatly and this only added to my enjoyment of Kuroko No Basket. 9/10 Characters: The characters make this show. If it wasn't for the intense personality of Kagami, or the calm confidence of Kuroko, then the enjoyment of this show would drop significantly. They are a great complement to each other and have an interesting and intriguing dynamic. They aren't the only ones with interesting dynamics, it seems that every player from the "miracle generation" have a or teammates that complement them and make it fun to watch them in the locker room. The teams really do feel like real teams, it's not always lovely dovey, teammates can really get in each other's nerves and this portrayed well in that sense. Speaking of the generation of miracles, at this point we are only formally introduced to a few of them, but the few that we know are well written characters, have perks about them and are overall good to watch. I wish that we would have at least a character that is American come into the show, someone from New York, or North Carolina that can also play basketball. It would bring a whole new dynamic to the show since now we can actually measure these "basketball miracles" to the real deal (the American youth greatly out measures the world in basketball...this is different when we start talking about the adults). I was patiently waiting for an American to be featured but this didn't happen, we got something close to that..but he wasn't American and thus didn't bring the same level of intensity that I would like. Maybe this will done in the future, but the goal of the characters in Kuroko No Basket is to be the best players of Japan, not necessarily the world. Overall, I love the characters and they brought the uniqueness and the intensity to the show that captured from episode 1 up. 10/10 Overall: I've played four years of high school basketball, and planning on playing college basketball. So the sport is something that I hold dear to my heart and has been a part of my life for a long time. I didn't think an anime could portray the passion that I have for the sports but surprisingly it did. As Kobe Bryant would call it " The love of the game" is strong in this show. Kagami comes to mind when I think of that. I was just like him when I was younger and playing in high school, I couldn't sleep the night before games. I was always excited to play better competition and better athletes than me. Watching Kuroko no basket gave me goosebumps by how riveting and how exciting and hype it made me. Yes, a lot of the game play were unrealistic but this is an anime, and they should be able to defeat the restrictions that we have in this plane of reality. Yes, it is impossible to shoot a 100% from the floor but don't we all wish we did? Yes, we wish we had the ability to copy every move from every player that see..( some people can do this to some extend) but we cannot so why not give these abilities to fictional players and see how much more pressing a game may become. If we all wanted realistic plays, we could just go to youtube and watch a regular game..we watch this as entertainment and I would be gravely lying if I said I wasn't entertained. 10/10 for Kuroko No Basket and I recommend this to anyone.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jul 22, 2013
Ano Natsu de Matteru
(Anime)
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My rating for this show after watching episode 11 is different that what my rating became after watching episode 12, which is the finale. This had a very strong ending episode which boosted up the show up a level for me, from a six to a seven. I do recommend this show for anyone interested in a romantic drama, but I won't go as far as too say that this is a must-see for the genre.
Let's start off by acknowledging the similarities that Ano Natsu de Matteru has with Onegai Teacher. The basic premises is the same, you have a pretty humanoid female ... alien from outer space crash onto Earth for no logical apparent reason and joins the educational system to further along their reason. In the case of Onegai Teacher, Mizuho became a teacher ( which made sense with what she wanted to accomplish as her mission) and Ichika became just a regular student ( for no logical reason, I might add). Those humanoid aliens both make contact with a geeky boy on Earth and they fall in love...in one case, this was done great, and in the other, not so great. I loved Onegai Teacher, it is one of my favorite shows of the genre and it left an impression on my heart, it is a possibility that through watching Ano Natsu I was reminiscing about the joy and enjoyment I had when watching Onegai Teacher. To put it simply, I think Ano Natsu was inferior to Onegai Teacher in almost every way and category, but I watched it all for the sake of the connection that it had with Onegai Teacher. With that put aside, let's start dissecting these categories a bit more. Story: The story isn't anything special, there is absolutely no significant plot twist or real surprises. By watching the first episode, you can predict all of the major events in this show. However, I understand that the purpose of this show isn't to tell a great story, but rather to draw the audience's emotions out. If this is the case, then yes, Ano Natsu was able to draw out most of the emotions that it intended...not to its fullest extend, but you could feel the emotions of these characters and this is not an easy feat to do. Art: The art was one of the best aspects about Ano Natsu de Matteru, you can tell from the first episode that they weren't careless with the animation. Everything was fluid, the views and sceneries were top notch and gave you a good visual experience to say the least. No problem in this part. Sound: To me, what separates the great shows from a masterpiece is the ability to move the emotions of a watcher at will. The sound of the show, or the background music, has a significant influence in the ability of a show to move its users. If used incorrectly, the bgm can actually hurt a scene that would have been phenomenal otherwises. Usually an anime with great bgm is one that is very memorable, meaning that after a show for a while, you can still hum your favorite tune of it, and maybe even remember a scene with that bgm in it. If you can do that, after a few days, week, or even years then that show had supremely powerful bgm music. To this day, I still remember the bgm of True Tears where the main char found out that his lover could be related to him by blood, and then sees her walk past him...I still have that tune in my head, and it has been almost five years since I've last seen True Tears. Unfortunately, this is not the case with Ano Natsu de Matteru, none of the bgm really made that much of a difference. This is not to say that the sound was bad or didn't convey emotions well for the show, it is just to say that, off the top of my head, nothing memorable came out of the background music. Character: Kirisihima Kaito: Kaito is the main character, and to put it bluntly, I disliked him throughout the show. He is as clueless as any mc that you will see, he is extremely predictable and is inconsiderate of other people's feeling. He is a selfish MC, and not matter how much his supporting character want to praise him and commend his "caring" quality, I havent' been able to find these heroics that they claim that he has. I swear you would think that he is Touma ( from Index) with all the damn praise that his peers give Kaito. Don't get me wrong, he is not the worst MC that I have seen ( the mc from Suzuka takes the cake for that) or even the nutcase of a mc like the one from school days, no, Kaito is not intolerable but he also doesn't bring any real substance to the story. It is hard to emphasize with him. On the other hand, the mc from Onegai Teacher, Kei, felt very real and was fleshed out really well. Kei was complex, and though I didn't agree with all of his actions, his train of thought was bearable at worst, and understandable at best. Overall, I give Kaito a 3/10 as a character. Takatsuki Ichika: I wasn't a fan of her character design, and though I had to get over it during the course of the anime, I still really don't like her design. I don't mind the glasses but there was something about her that always bugged me for some reason, I just can't pinpoint that it is. I found Ichika to be extremely indecisive, to the point that it angered me to see her open her mouth. She was, alot of the time, oblivious to other people's emotion and her own situation in the matter, she would think a certain way..get corrected by her friends...pretend to understand that they were talking about..and later on go back through her previous train of thought. This was extremely annoying, I feel like she didn't progress much as a character, since even in the last episode, she still had doubts about her relationship to her Earthly friends. Even with this annoying traits, I still sometimes found myself cheering for her and wanting her to be happy, her personality was cute, but probably would have been more effective personally if I enjoyed her character design. That's just personal preference however, I really like Mizuho's design from OT. Kanna: Kanna................oh Kanna, she was doomed from the very start, wasn't she? I really like Kanna. She's the stronger character of the show in my opinion, and she embodies the growth that I wish I would have seen from other characters in Ano Natsu. I enjoyed watching her interactions and seeing her on the episodes, even though she may have lost the war ( before it was even waged, I might add) oh boy was I still rooting for her. You can really tell by the end of the show how much she matued. IT's very hard to not feel at least partially bad fo rher because of how strong, loving and caring of a character she is. She has a good heart, and would make a great lover. If I could, I would go out with her...damn you, stupid laws of physics and computer science...She made a significant percentage of the episodes bearable for me. Her character design made her to be plain looking, but too me her plain lookingness (?) was beautiful. Sometime less is more. Definitely better than her OT counterpart. The rest of the characters were pretty generic with nothing really standing out, except for a few minute things, but I won't get to it in this review. Enjoyment: I enjoyed the show, no doubt, but as I have expressed earlier, it is possible that a large portion of my enjoyment for this show is just because of the similarites that this had with Onegai Teacher, not because of any particular thing that Ano Natsu has done. Overall: This anime is an inferior version of Onegai Teacher, and if you haven't watched Onegai Teacher, then I recommend that you watch OT before watching this pathetic attempt to recreate it. This isn't bad, I'm not saying that at all, but is is lacking in almost every characteristic compared to OT. There are a lot of mini cliffhanger in Ano Natsu that make you wonder and click to the next episode, and though you do know how it's going to end, you still want to see how it plays out. Maybe time will help this, but as of right now, it is only good enough..but not great.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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