Definitely a "for fans" series. If you're a huge Key fanatic (like I am), you'll probably find humour in this one. It's almost entirely "in-jokes" for Key series, so if you don't know that many (or any) then I doubt you'll get much out of this.
Still, at a breezy 4 minutes per episode, it's not like it's a huge time sink either way.
Oh, and a second season is on the way, with the Angel Beats cast joining in on the silliness :D
Season 2 is coming July 2021!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sro80JOeFNw&feature=emb_title&ab_channel=KyoaniChannel
Welcome back KyoAni :)
I remember quite enjoying the OVAs for this back in the day. I never got around to reading the manga, but I was immediately invested in the cosy relationship that quickly formed between Hori and Miyamura. A lot of the other side characters I could take or leave to be honest, but hopefully the full series wil be a lot of good feels and not too much angst.
Delighted to hear that this is getting a Season 3. I couldn't help but catch up with the manga and based on that, things are only going to get better!
I ended up enjoying this series far more than I expected. The initial premise sounds like it would lose its novelty fast and it kinda does, but the series does enough new and different in the latter episodes to keep it fresh. I grew to like the 2 protagonists more as time went on which is always a good thing.
By no means an essential watch, but overall a pleasant and enjoyable watch.
Edit: After season 2, my recommendation for this series is a lot stronger. It does a great job at further developing and endearing the cast to us and now I just want a Season 3 too! Guess I'll have to read the manga.
10 episodes in so far and this show has definitely grown on me. I wasn't totally sold (but was intrigued) by the first couple of episodes and it has built itself up at a good pace since then. There's a nice mixture of story-of-the-week but with an overall narrative going which I think works really well here and gives you time to learn more about Dororo and Hyakkimaru and see them develop.
And wow, I was not expecting the show to be quite so gory or deal with such harsh themes either. Then again, I'm not massively familiar with most of Tezuka Osamu's work (for my sins), other than knowing he was the author of Astro Boy and is considered by some to be the father of manga/anime.
Started off interesting and with some promise, but really went downhill in the second half. I was bored out of my mind for some episodes. And that last arc was so short and anti-climactic you have to wonder what all that build-up was about.
The animation quality is definitely above-average and there were some good scenes (mostly in the first half), but overall a waste of time really.
Kinda lost my enthusiasm for this one as it went on. Strong start, eccentric characters and good animation, but the show didn't really go anywhere. It felt like a lot of random skits, some of which were quite amusing, others less so.
Some of the characters were fun, others I didn't like as much. To be honest I didn't like Hina very much, she was often the weakest part of the story. Anzu was adorable, and Mao was nice from what we saw of her. Nitta was okay sometimes. The rest of the cast ranged from quite funny to pretty forgettable.
Forgettable is also how I'd describe the series. Not terrible, fairly entertaining, but I doubt this is one that I'll remember.
While this wasn't a bad series in itself I have to say I much preferred the original 2003 version. It's not that this one does anything wrong per se, it's just that it does fall short of the original in my opinion. It doesn't help that half of the episodes were also in the original series too (and often worse versions, again in my opinion).
The funny thing is the animation quality is arguably better this time around (minus the usual dodgy CGI), but I think the original series just nailed the tone and pacing far better.
A cute show with some likable characters, but to me it felt too short and insubstantial. Whilst I get that the idea of the show is to show off many different couples, this along with the shorter length of each episode ends up not really giving you enough time with a lot of them. It also doesn't help when you like some of the couples but not others as it can mean an episode that heavily features the latter is just not a fun watch.
I guess I wouldn't mind seeing more at some point. It's enjoyable in a "put it on and just relax/forget stuff" kind of way, but not a lot more than that.
An okay if somewhat bland premise. I think I stuck with this series based on the strength of the first couple of episodes, however I found the whole formula got old really fast. I get that the whole point was to take the piss out of everyone misunderstanding each other over and over again, but after a certain point it just wasn't entertaining anymore. I didn't particularly like any of the characters either. MC was unbearably bland. Other dude was okay I guess. I don't know why everyone loves seaweed so much, I couldn't stand her, especially after a certain incident later in the series. Blondie was okay but once again held the idiot card a few too many times. Pink was probably my favourite. And the fact that I can't be bothered to recall any of their names should tell you how forgettable I found the experience overall.
The animation is okay I guess, but nothing special. There are a few fun moments where your expectations are subverted a bit, and I did actually enjoy them spending half of the last episode kind of slagging off DLC, but overall a pretty forgettable experience.
A pretty excellent adventure fantasy series with a fascinating premise, some gorgeous visuals and music and lovable characters. This is a series that, despite the rather cutesey animation style, gets pretty dark and disturbing at points and certainly isn't afraid to subject characters to some pretty brutal stuff. However this never feels like it's done for shock value, more to emphasize the dangers of venturing into the unknown. Definitely one of the strongest of the season and I'm hoping they continue the story at some point.
I really enjoyed this series.
The title and artwork suggests this would just be another "monster girl" fanservice show, and I suppose to some degree it is. What I wasn't expecting was that in addition to that it also had a lot of heartwarming and charming moments. Rather than just being a continuous stream of raunchy jokes, we end up with Kobayashi and Tohru (the titular Dragon Maid) basically creating a kind of surrogate family together (with the adorable loli dragon as their "daughter"), which leads to a lot of genuine "aww" moments as they settle into living together. There is still a fair amount of fanservice but it's pretty tame compared to a lot of anime. The source material is by the same author as the series "I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying" (https://trakt.tv/shows/i-can-t-understand-what-my-husband-is-saying) and like this series it ends up being a lot more heartfelt and sweet than the name and premise might otherwise suggest.
Of course this being a KyoAni show it shouldn't be surprising to learn that the animation quality is great as always. It's not as noticable here due to the art style being a bit more subdued, but it still looks great and is directed really well.
Probably one of my favourites this season and I was really glad to see this one being great and not another Phantom World.
Quite a sweet and pretty SoL about a girl coming out of her shell and learning to enjoy diving. It has a similar feel to Aria (and is by the same author) so if you liked that you will probably like this too.
There were a few things that stopped me from enjoying it more than I otherwise would have. One was the older sister, who I didn't like very much as I found the "gag" about her beating up her brother all the time to be unpleasant, not charming or funny. There were also a few episodes that felt pretty throwaway and pointless, even for a SoL show.
But I did really enjoy the other aspects. Pikaria and Futaba were adorable together (and of course there were some definite Yuri undertones there) and the teacher was pretty fun too. I found the OP in particular to be very relaxing and mesmerizing.
Overall, not a perfect show, but still very enjoyable if you're into your SoL. Obviously if you're not, this one probably won't change your mind on the matter.
Until just over halfway, I thought this was an okay show. Not great, but okay. A somewhat interesting concept and an MC with a bit of a spine. Cool. But after episode 7, I just couldn't actually figure out what the hell was going on. Some episodes just felt outright nonsensical or bizarrely paced and a lot of characters just seemed to act illogically or do things without any rhyme or reason. I went from finding the series reasonably enjoyable to downright frustrating and to be honest I just powered through the last few episodes wanting it to be over.
Others have commented that they crammed a tonne of material into the last few episodes, and it shows. But for me it was worse than just being badly paced, it just didn't seem to make any coherent sense half the time. I guess if I had to say something nice about the series it at least has a somewhat satisfying ending and some of the girls are cute (although some are just awful), but I really wish I hadn't wasted my time on this one.
Relaxing and "fluffy" for lack of a better word, but ultimately not massively memorable. The characters were charming and I liked the softer art style but it's probably not something I'll remember for long. Still, an enjoyable distraction and relaxing while it lasts.
What an odd series that turned out to be. I wondered how they could possibly fill 12 x 25 min episodes just based on the premise of one guy in class being ridiculously "cool", and it sems they did it by combining what you might expect (Sakamoto doing strange everyday tasks and making them look a lot more majestic) with other things like getting into some semi-serious plots with other characters involving bullying and planning revenge. I found the weird mix of tones a bit jarring and difficult to pin down exactly what the show was ultimately trying to be.
Ultimately I don't think I could personally recommend it. As a comedy I never found it particularly funny and when it tried to be serious it just didn't feel right.
Whilst this series does occasionally feel like a bit too much of a wish fulfilment fantasy (especially considering a lot of the target demographic will probably be around the age of our main character and may or may not have particularly good or rewarding jobs), I was surprised at how enjoyable and sincere it was, considering what is quite a silly premise if you think about it.
Animation is fairly standard and to be honest the music too for the most part (although it was cool having a different ED song every episode), but the characters were well fleshed out and fun to be around and for me this was where the series really stood out - the characters and the drama. It also delved a lot deeper into some of the psychological issues certain characters face a lot more than expected. Whilst it usually maintained a fairly light and comedic touch (with the occasional but not too frequent journey into teen melodrama), there were a few unexpectedly poignant and deep issues brought up, one in particular towards the end which I won't spoil.
Overall a very enjoyable series that was quite hard to put down. Not helped by the fact that, as others have said, every episode was released on the same day, which is quite interesting and not something we see often with anime. It will be interesting to see if this distribution method was a one-off or if there will be more series like this in the future.
I'm not sure I have anything to say about this one, other than "Oh Japan".
Brace yourselves, folks! More JoJo is coming this April!
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-12-20/jojo-bizarre-adventure-part-4-anime-promo-introduces-setting/.96755
Here's hoping this one will be good. Apparently this will only be 4 episodes?! An interesting choice. Hopefully they'll be able to adapt the rather short (but sweet) OVA into something a bit more substantial. It doesn't sound like CoMix Wave is animating it so I wouldn't go into it expecting 5cm or Garden of Words, but hopefully it'll still retain the look and feel of Makoto Shinkai's works (I believe the original OVA was a solo project of his).
The second season of Noragami has just finished and it surpassed the first in every way. I remember really enjoying the first season but finding the final few episodes and confrontation a bit underwhelming. Well, the second season doesn't have that problem. It hits the ground running and remains consistently good throughout. Deciding to animate two arcs back-to-back with little-to-no filler in between was definitely a wise decision by Bones.
As others have already said, this series really does stand out from other more generic action/comedy shows, thanks to a likable and well-developed cast, good quality animation and of course a godly soundtrack by Iwasaki Taku (also responsible for the soundtrack in Katanagatari).
All in all I have really enjoyed Noragami thus far and I hope we get more in the future.
Started off very strong. Likeable, kickass anti-heroes, cool action and music, decent quality of animation. Unfortunately the last few episodes drop in quality quite a lot (they even took a week off at one point which is never a good sign) and the last episode just kind of... stops. It's hard to even describe it as a cliff-hanger, it's like someone just pulled the plug mid-action scene.
Unfortunately as of yet there is no continuation announced. To make matters worse, the studio who animated the first season (Manglobe - RIP) has filed for bankruptcy.
I do hope that another studio picks this series up and continues it but who knows at this point. As it stands at the moment I can't really recommend this due to the abrupt non-ending. Not unless you're okay with picking up the manga where it leaves off.
5 episodes in, having started late and blasted through all 5 in a single night, and so far this series is excellent. Utterly crazy, awesome action and very funny - it doesn't take itself seriously for a second and seems to be having a lot of fun doing it. I've found myself either cheering or laughing every episode so far.
That was quite an interesting series. I rather liked the jarring tonal shifts between cute slice of life and zombie horror. The series also did a pretty good job at not playing its hand too soon either. The first episode does a good job of just enough hinting that things aren't quite right, before the reveal at the end. To be honest I initially did think Megu was already dead because of how the rest of the group "ignored" her, but because some of the episodes flashed back to when she wasn't, I wasn't so sure, so the reveal was still pretty effective.
I really liked how the OP "decayed" more and more each episode - it made the cute J-poppy song more and more jarring to the tone of the series.
I wasn't too keen on the rather poor CG, but sadly this is pretty standard these days for most series without a budget. The series had some pretty effective horror moments but it didn't always hit the mark, and some episodes felt like they meandered around a bit.
Still, I definitely enjoyed it. A rather strange series where you're not really sure what to expect.
Oh my god, it's happening! Rewrite is one of my favorite Visual Novels and for me ranks a VERY close second to Clannad in terms of Key works! The VN starts off fairly standard, slice of lifey (as is the norm for Key really) but later things go off the rails and get pretty epic in scale. It was co-written by a few authors, including Romeo Tanaka (known for many weird and interesting VNs, Cross Channel being my favourite) and Ryukishi07 (mainly known for the "When They Cry" series).
It looks like Tanaka Romeo will be involved in the creative process, which is quite reassuring. My only concern is that it's studio 8-Bit animating it. I guess they've done a passable job with Grisaia (they'd better not employ as much needless fanservice here...), but It's a shame it didn't go to P.A. Works or White Fox (who did the 2nd OP) :(
Regardless, I'm very excited about this one and really hope it will rank among the sadly small list of "good VN adaptations".
VN openings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne-4_Bz0wAg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yegE5ai9abQ
Dark, suspenseful, scary, impossible to put down.
Be warned, this contains some nasty stuff, but it's a truly excellent drama.
This series seemed to get a LOT of hate from people and some pretty low ratings too, but I honestly don't see why. It's not groundbreaking by any means, and certainly not as good as the original Haruhi series, but I found it to be a pleasant enough watch anyway.
Personally I think a lot of the hatred comes from the fact that it's been years since KyoAni's last Haruhi adaptation and people wanted more of that, rather than this which is more of a retelling by a different studio without the Sci-Fi elements that elevated the original above just being a simple slice-of-life show. And I suppose looking at it that way explains the negativity.
Personally, as a big fan of the original Haruhi series, I too, would have preferred some more material in the original universe by KyoAni. But I still enjoyed this one. It was nice to see the cast again, even if they were a little watered-down compared to their original counterparts. I liked the nods and callbacks to the original series and the romance was cute enough. It didn't look as good as KyoAni's version either but I wouldn't call it bad looking. It was competently animated and looked pretty decent.
I'm not sure I could outright recommend this to everyone. If you're new to the series, the original Haruhi (http://trakt.tv/shows/the-melancholy-of-haruhi-suzumiya) is definitely better (but maybe skip most of Endless Eight :P), but if you like the Haruhi series and wanted a bit more... well it's not the sequel we necessarily wanted, but it wasn't terrible either and is probably worth a watch, in my humble opinion.
I think we might have a winner for this anime season's prestigious "most dumb and needlessly lengthy title" award!
Prepare yourself, Key fans! Charlotte is coming soon! This will be a Key x P.A. Works project, like Angel Beats was. I'm hoping for good things here!
