Jeoffrey

Bastard!! is stupid and incredibly over-the-top; however, it is a lot of good fun at the same time. Bastard!! is a dark fantasy with a dark main male protagonist with so many illogicalities and holes that you should be annoyed by them. However, this is a fantasy adventure; there is some mystery, magic, swordplay, and many classic lines like "I have a bad feeling about this place." There are a few unbelievable twists, some incredibly stupid dialogues, and tons of old-school fan service from the days when fan service still made sense. The final impression I have is the same as the reviewer Bounded wrote: "even though I know it was stupid, ...damn, I liked it". 7.5/10.

At first, I was quite excited about this show; I liked the immediacy, simplicity, and cuteness of it. As time went on, however, it got more and more convoluted. Although some aspects still feel convincing, it did start to feel slightly unnatural at times, where the naivety fades and starts to feel more like silliness. Some of the speeches from the young kids feel more like they are being delivered by an older, more experienced, smooth, and slick person rather than a twelve-year-old boy. There are simply moments when I started to think that, after all, a twelve-year-old girl cannot be as naive as Hanabi is. I felt that real twelve-year-old boys certainly do not act the way Takao and Tsutsumi do in matters of romantic rivalry. In my younger days, it would have ended in a fight. It is all for effect and too incredibly happy-go-lucky. I almost think that if I wanted to write a teen romance series now, as an older person, where the boys were terribly cool and the girls were cute, I would create something very similar. The problem is that I am almost thirty now, so my ideas of love, cool boys, and pretty girls are something completely different from what they were when I was growing up. Although perhaps they are not, what do I know about love, cuteness, and cool stuff? However, so far, I am still quite enjoying this show, even though it seems more like a fairy tale than a look at young people's first loves. 6.5/10.

I do not know exactly why; however, I quite liked And You Thought There Is Never a Girl Online? It originally came across to me as a sort of hybrid genre mash-up, with a crossover of slice-of-life mixed with harem and even in the MMORPG gamer setting, with a bit of comedy, some pretty likable characters, and perhaps not such an extremely original narrative. Well, in the end, it is, only it is not really a harem anime series because the main male protagonist is only really interested in a romantic sense with one girl, Ako Tamaki, and the other girls more or less respect that relationship. It is mostly more like a slice-of-life show about how a "cute" antisocial girl who does not know the difference between the game and reality and becomes infatuated with the male knight from the game, the initially slightly suspicious "typical student/otaku" Hideki Nishimura, who goes under the name Rusian. He decides to help her come out of her shell with his teammates and get her head right, which he partially succeeds in doing, although, at the same time, he starts to lose a grip on reality, and the lines between the game and reality become rather blurred. The characters are mostly classic cookie-cutters again (the typical student, the blonde tsundere, etc.), and Ako is the main driving force behind everything. Even though the main protagonist is supposed to be Rusian, everything mostly revolves around Ako in the end anyway. The problem is that Ako is a naive, silly girl who follows Rusian around like a puppy dog. Ako does not make sense at times, and it is mainly her who is supposed to be the funny and original comic relief. So the problem is that if you do not like this little girl, then you are not going to be able to watch more than three episodes because Ako is everywhere all the time, and almost everything is about her. I personally did not mind Ako and even found her weirdness charming, which is probably the main thing that decides the final rating. However, I was not too impressed with the soundtrack, and the animation was not world-beating, in my opinion, either. I would see this show more as slightly below-average, since especially the parts from the game seemed too colorful and weird (when I first saw Rusian from the game, or rather his eyes that look like someone used mascara on them, I was like “WTF?!”). Even though it is a very contradictory show, and qualitatively I would see it as worth two stars, my feeling from watching it was slightly better. Therefore, I will award it three stars, declare it more or less an average show, and end my dissection before I stop distinguishing the difference between the world in front of and in the computer. 5.5/10.

I enjoyed the first episode of Anne Happy; the characters were very nice and seemed likable enough. I was intrigued by the concept of building a show around a class of unlucky people, and it was colorful, enjoyable, and quite funny. I soon grew to like the character Hanako, and I liked the other girls too. The animation is very simple and pleasantly colorful, and I enjoyed the soundtrack. The second episode is weaker than the first one; I still like it, although I could easily do without the mechanical rabbit. The third episode was very weak; it was kind of boring, weird, and pretty much stupid. If the anime’s creators went in that direction, they would probably kill it for me. The fourth episode was once again very enjoyable and cute; this is what I want to watch: little girls, forming bonds with each other through various interesting and appealing situations. I am almost starting to think that the episode-by-episode ratings would be pretty handy with an anime series like this because the differences are pretty big. Well, there were minor fluctuations in the impression I had until the end, even though I do not think there was any episode that annoyed me in any significant way. On the contrary, there were a few episodes that I enjoyed. I eventually got used to Timothy, although this was helped by the fact that SPOILER ALERT there was another schoolgirl behind him, END OF SPOILERS. Anne Happy is not an anime series for everyone. It is quite clearly aimed at fans of cuteness; however, unfortunately, with this genre, when I take stock of all the positive and negative things, it does not deserve more than a little better than average rating for me personally. 6/10.

From the creators of the low-budget short anime series, JK Meshi comes another low-budget short anime series. This time, they do not focus on preparing dishes guaranteed to be simple, although we get some tips on how to win prizes on an arcade claw game with plushies known as a merchandiser. While I did not doubt some that JK Meshi was not completely pointless, I am not yet convinced this show was not pointless in some way yet. Who needs to know how to win a soft toy animal on a claw machine? I certainly do not! I understand that this game is probably quite popular in Japan, although I do not get why they made an anime series about it. Plus, the whole point of why girls are supposed to play on those machines, the one about idols and the destruction of the Earth, seems as stupid to me as probably little else from what I have seen to date.  All in all, this is a weird show, it is not at all funny, and it is about things that I am not interested in. On the other hand, I am going to at least mildly support this little studio's efforts on their next project and not write it off as BOO!, though the impression I got is very close to that. Dropped after the third episode. 1/10.

At first, this show did not strike me as very original. There is just another very strong main male protagonist (Rokuro Enmado) with a tragic past, this time exorcising "ghosts." Plus, there is a proud girl (Benio Adashino) who is a rival and a slightly crazy "boss," plus some good friends. I did not find the opening amusing, the disputes between the main couple were not very exciting, and the alternate world of Magano and individual evil spirits (Kegare) did not do much for me either. I found the boss's attempts to get the main couple together more silly than funny, and I still do not get why he had to give them the okay to move in together. However, as time goes on, it becomes clear that there is some potential, and the backstory of the main protagonists and how they are connected is pretty good, then it gets boring. There is some confrontation, and just when it could have been quite interesting, the premise runs out, and the filler arc kicks in. The filler is rather transparent, drawn-out, and unoriginal. However, it still has a pretty well handled emotional conclusion, and even though you can predict exactly how it will end, it all worked for me anyway, and I felt sad while reading the picture book of little Sae. Unfortunately, after this filler, which I enjoyed probably the most, it starts to get very meh, and the whole thing gets more and more tangled and drawn out. The weird thing is it looked more and more stereotypical and strange to me, and my interest waned. Some things happen without explanation and I see almost no character development in the main protagonists. There is always some other enemy that they try their "Twin Star tricks" on, get stuck in some horrible way, and then get pulled out of it by someone else much more capable. All of it is accompanied by a lot of supposedly dramatic dialogue and moments. However, it all fails to be dramatic as it gets quite repetitive. Oh, and after a while, it gets really boring, so suddenly even the big revelations are hardly shocking at all, and I got more and more bored as each second passed. Therefore I think this is a weak average. 4.5/10.

Hundred is the same as a hundred other anime series you have already seen, and at least a hundred you are going to see in the future. It has a hundred clichés and tropes in one show. There is really everything anyone could think of, including generic male protagonists, a blonde tsundere, who gets in a fight after a short time, a magical school, boring special powers and abilities, a sister with an unhealthy fixation on her brother, tight overalls, a boobie grab, fan service, big oppai, unoriginal narrative, and finally a main male protagonist with superpowers even though we do not know why he has them and cannot control them yet even though they are going to make him awfully OP. There is also a boy who is actually a girl, and of course, no one knows because it is going to be a "big plot twist". In other words, there are a hundred things we have already seen a hundred times, hence the name, Hundred. Plus, if someone is going to tell you that Hundred is the name for their powers/weapons, yes, that is there too. The sad thing is that when I see something for the hundredth time, I simply cannot enjoy it. There is absolutely nothing new under the sun in this show, so I cannot even give it my usual two stars, and I cannot say BOO! because, as my fellow reviewer writes, it is not equivalent to or worse than something like Pupa. DROPPED after seven episodes and 1.5/10.

Seisen Cerberus could have been a pretty good fantasy adventure; the setting is interesting and has a good backstory. Unfortunately, what spoils my impression of it is the main male protagonist Hiiro. There were a few times in the first few episodes where I thought he was not completely pointless. However, as the episodes went on, it turned out that he was completely useless. Hiiro's fighting abilities are ridiculous, and despite that, he is a cocky, arrogant jerk. It makes for a rather unpleasant combination. His only useful weapon is when he accidentally gets into "beast" mode, even though it is not his and he cannot control it (yet). Plus, he only has it because he got in Daganzord's way. The other characters are not as tragic, although it is pretty clear that the cat ears and sporty outfits are mostly fan service. It reminds me of the movie Dragonheart (or perhaps because of the bond between the main male protagonist and the dragon, it is more like Voldemort and Harry Potter). However, I did not have that much of a problem with it. The animation and soundtrack are pretty good. Since I like fantasy adventures a lot, I ended up watching it until the very heartwarming ending, when I had no idea what I was watching. The final episode is something else! The situations that come up and how they are resolved is something I had not seen before as a rule, so there was one WTF moment after another. After that conclusion, I should tear the whole thing apart, give it one star at most, and try to forget I ever saw anything like that. However, I am not going to do that because some of the twists and situations were so unpredictable that it was quite intriguing to some extent. Well, because I felt entertained, even though it was very stupid and probably meant in a serious way, the impression I got was not that bad. Seisen Cerberus is a below-average fantasy adventure with below-average characters, led by one of the worst "Hiiros" I have ever had the misfortune to watch. At the same time, it has an original concept that is so horrible in places it is fascinating. The beginning was good, then it went downhill, and the conclusion is a must-see. 3/10.

This show is another anime series created to promote the visual novel. I find it most interesting that Kouki Narumi, who, according to the content on MAL and other anime servers, is supposed to be the main male protagonist, does not actually appear in the anime series at all. Obviously, the anime’s creators wanted to make people feel that they could be the main protagonist playing happily with these cute girls. They are so young and playful; who would not fall for that? Well, the idea it is based on is not bad, although, in the end, it is not so happy-go-lucky or endearing that it has any significant value. Also, it feels like it is just an ordinary short ecchi anime series in places. So as an advertisement for a visual novel, it is perhaps a decent idea, although as a stand-alone episodic anime series, this is very poor. 2.5/10.

There is a tennis club and some sexy schoolgirls, which reminds me of… Teekyu, perhaps? Well, if I am comparing it to Teekyu right now, I would have to say that Usakame is much less amusing than the first season of Teekyu. It is a slice-of-life anime series rather than a comedy. There is also less cuteness. So Usakame is actually pretty weak. However, I did find the opening quite interesting and well-done. 3.5/10.