I am editing this review after finishing season 1. It went from being something I really enjoyed to one of my all-time favorites and something I consider a genuine masterpiece. This is a story about looking back by looking forward, about understanding the importance of living in the moment, about the importance of the little moments. Each arc, whether it goes by within a single episode or lasts multiple episodes, is suffused with emotion and impact, with an intentionality that is almost surprising considering how effortless and cozy the show feels. The animation is stunning, especially the visualizations of the magic, and Evan Call's soundtrack is top tier. It has been a privilege to watch Frieren's journey and reflection on her past, obvserving both unfold simultaneously as we learn the way she learns about the importance of small details she originally ignored. Honestly, everyone should watch this beautiful and poignant anime.
Original Review: This is ongoing, but I am really enjoying it. I appreciate how it takes a fantasy setting and the concept of an elf who outlives all her companions to explore how and why relationships between people matter. Using her unique perspective, the story is able to help accentuate humanity from the outside looking in. The side characters also get focus, so we get to see their character growth juxtaposed against the initial companions and Frieren. Sometimes the episodes feel inconsequential or too subdued, but they all have such a gentle and cozy feeling to them that I do not mind.
This Anime is just like watching a beautiful poem unfold and progress. Reminds me a great deal of the famous works of Miyazaki.
Forget about dumb isekai and overpowered anime with convoluted power systems, Frieren is the opposite, a calm slow burn slice of life. It's everything you need from a fantasy adventure.
Fun fact: The names Frieren, Himmel, Stark, Fern, Eisen, Heitel, and Flamme are words taken from the Scandi and Germanic languages (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and German) which represents their character's traits.
E.g., Fri(eren) is loosely translated as "The Free" or "The Frozen" in German, Himmel is "The Sky", Stark (or Stærk) is "The Strong", Flamme is "The Flame", Eisen is "The Iron", Heitel is "The Cheerful", and Fern can be translated as "The Detached" or Remote.
I truly did not expect to love this story like I did. The Heike or Taira, if you think about it, are the antagonists in this story. Yet somehow this anime has you cheering them on and hoping for the best, despite already knowing what's going to happen. I bawled my eyes out watching this. It was such a beautiful experience, I'm truly grateful. Extremely recommended.
If I had reviewed this series after just the first season, I would have said its quirky and mediocre. Towards the last couple episodes of Season 1 I had finally had some more enjoyable moments. From there, however, Season 2 only let the series get better and makes me excited for Season 3! This series is simply just fun to watch.
Edit: After watching season 3, it really seals the deal. This is one of the most entertaining and well orchestrated rom-com Animes I've had the pleasure of watching.
This is THE anime that we've all been waiting and yearning for. Many of us hardcore Mushoku Tensei fans have been waiting years upon years for an anime adaptation to finally hit, and HIT it has. I was a little skeptical with a brand new studio undertaking this, but all the previews had looked great so I was cautiously optimistic. The source material is my absolute favorite isekai series (which says a lot) and the light/web novel will always hold a special place in my fandom. So how were the first two episodes so far (first has aired officially and the first two were previewed beforehand)?
AMAZING. I really don't know if it's just because the source material is that good, but this has been a SPOT ON adaptation so far. Right when I heard "Gintoki" as the NEET narrator, I knew shit was gonna be good. The sense of humor and pervertedness of Rudy is really well incorporated throughout the first two episodes, and makes this more than just a "another OP isekai". But even with that sense of humor, the anime has taken great depths to give solid (but not overwhelming) background info on the characters and highlighting particularly serious moments. This was especially evident in the second episode where the handling of Rudy's "fall into NEETness" and past trauma was interweaved perfectly into his current situation and setting.
I can't wait for the rest of the anime to air. It seems that a second cour has already been green-lighted so let's hope this can turn into one of those long-running anime series. If they can make it to the school arcs, I'll have lived a complete life...
The title can change to "Enjoy Child Molestation After Tensei" now.
Beware! Dangerously comfy anime, you might never want to leave your blanket behind!
I have never really watched Star Trek (except the odd episode of DS9 and Voyager) but having watched every RLM episode about it I can only feel sorry for the die hard fans...
Beautiful Story! but a little short for how the things were going in the end. They could have extended it to 24 Episodes and should have given more of the story from the manga.
Anime is till Chapter 24 (Vol 4) of the manga so i am looking forward for another season of this anime.
The ultimate playing hard to get anime.
Gets better as it goes on. Live through the first two or three episodes, and it does pick up.
Danna ga Nani wo Itteiru ka Wakaranai Ken has been a very pleasant surprise for me this fall season. While it definitely delivers in bunches with its otaku-centric humor, I think that any anime fan can find plenty of laughs here as well. I love the relationship between Kaoru and Hajime, and in 3 minutes, you couldn't ask for more. Also, Kaoru-tan is one of the best girls of the season. Science.
A love letter to some, a fun time for most. Enjoy this!
Unique and captivating. A love letter to Japanese 80's and 90's arcade culture and console era mixed with a surprisingly sweet love story.
Here is my in-depth review on Slime (no spoilers): https://takanodan.net/2019/03/slime-s1/
Boring, cheesy, and flat out unentertaining. Pity, as I usually like isekai and was looking for something light to watch, but this is flat out boring. The characters are lifeless, the story is predictable as hell, and nothing interesting happens. The main character also seems to want to make friends with everything that they see. Big disappointment.
The only good thing about this anime is Ranga the big dog: https://i.imgur.com/MlQyOem.png
This show ruined television for me. Any other show and all I can think is Why am I not watching BoJack instead? It took me about half a season to start enjoying it, but once it hit me, it hit me like a long, hard kick in the urethra. Really, this is the only TV show that regularly brings tears to my eyes. I've become completely obsessed with it.
Wow. GLOW is such a fantastic show with a lot of unexpected depth to it. I didn't know what to really expect (other than Alison Brie wrestling other women) after just skimming some reviews online and trying not to spoil myself, but it was very well made dealing with a myriad of different social issues and themes. I never thought that so much drama and intrigue could come out of making a female wrestling league/show.
There are definitely a decent amount of feminism and SJW vibes, which can usually turn me off to a show/movie if taken overboard. However, I thought the tone of the show struck a very nice balance to those themes with wisely timed comedic dialogue and chose not to go too overboard on stating some of the "obvious". I really liked the emphasized theme of "things don't just happen; people make choices" that is expanded upon. There are some times you can't just blame society and everyone else for everything, and at times, you have to just take some responsibility yourself.
Alison Brie did a great job as the lead in this one, and hit the humorous parts quite well. She definitely doesn't play the typical spunky girl who never gets down in order to overcome all obstacles in this one. Lots of bad shit happens to her constantly in this show (some of it self-inflicted), and she has to eventually deal with the consequences. Some are dealt with better than others. She really developed her character throughout the course of this season, but she never really crossed into that "totally likeable" realm for me.
However, this is alright because the other supporting characters in GLOW were fantastic in their roles as well. I was pleasantly surprised that the show was really able to flesh out almost every single character/female wrestler introduced and give them all some plot lines and conflict to overcome (even Sheila the wolf girl!!). My favorite girl/wrestler was probably definitely Debbie, played by Betty Gilpin. She is just badass and goes totally YOLO at times. The end of episode 1 was just pure f'n gold. I could watch that entire scene over and over again. It was so well acted out between Alison Brie and herself. I also really enjoyed Marc Maron's character, the director Sam Sylvia, who adds a ton of crass humor into all the dialogue that he's given. He could have just mailed it in as the sleazy coke'd out director, but he completely owns the role and adds so much to the show.
Anyway, I really enjoyed GLOW and I'm hoping for confirmation of a second season ASAP because the creators definitely left a few loose-ends hanging and we still have a lot more potential story to unfold. Looks like Netflix has another hit on their hands. Watch/binge it if you can at least before GoT owns all our lives starting in July.
While tolerable this show is EXTREMELY repetitive as it only has the single joke for every segment. I would have preferred to see this as a short series instead.
Just an incredibly beautiful and emotionally powerful anime.
Quite possibly one of the most important sci fi sitcoms to date. Really paved the way for stuff like Rick and Morty.
I really enjoyed the 1st season as the comedy was hilarious and serious towards the end; however, the 2nd season wasn't as good. The comedy was so so, but the romance development felt awkward. IMHO, the 2nd season doesn't live up to the wacky yet comical 1st season, which is unfortunate.
It does not happen often these days that an anime, or any tv show for that matter manages to get such a tight grip on me. But Made in Abyss manages to do it with flying colors.
For me Made in Abyss is the complete package. The story is captivating, the characters are very likeable, the music is perfect for setting the overall feeling you are supposed to get, and above all, that feeling for wanting to experience the unknown, to venture out into the debts of the abyss (no pun intended) and that feeling you get when watching this anime in your underbelly of yearning for something more, and to press on, no matter the consequences or the dangers is in my opinion one of the absolute cornerstones of this anime that makes this a masterpiece!
The story starts off very innocent and cute. And from the first few episodes you might think that this anime might be just a light anime because of how young the children are, with some comic relief. But if you keep watching that you will see that with every episode as Rico and Reg go deeper into the Abyss the story gets more darker and more disturbing.
To be frank, i did not fully understand when Rico and Reg said goodbye to their friends in episode 3 that goodbye really meant farewell forever. But as you can see in the later episodes (at the very least for Rico) there is no coming back alive once you go down the Abyss deep enough. In my opinion that makes Rico her fortitude and resolve to venture into the unknown, and leave everything and everyone she loves and knows behind even more daring and captivating.
I really REALLY hope that this anime gets a second season. Because this anime is the very reason i watch anime in the first place. I can wholeheartedly recommend this anime to anyone. Trust me, you will not regret it.
A great series to watch if you have seen some of studio Trigger's previous works. It ties them all together in a hilarious way with great characters, visuals, and a great soundtrack. It is definitely worth watching as it is only an hour and a half worth of shorts.
Probably one of the best animes of 2016.
A small preamble - in my opinion "Little Witch Academia" already deserves praise for being an anime deviating from the norm, a piece of art that indicates hope for the revitalization of the whole anime industry. And even more so, if we keep in mind that the original story (short film) was released 2013 as part of the 'Young Animator Training Project's Anime Mirai' project, its second movie was entirely realized due to crowd funding, both attempting to showcase an exceptional, magical fairy tale of a young girl, striving to become a great witch.
I have no idea how in the world this got a televised anime adaptation but... THANK YOU BASED ANIME GODS!!
Be forewarned though: this series isn't for the faint of heart. Buckle-up your NTR seatbelts and get ready for one hell of a ride ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
This is the gayest thing I've ever watched and I am beyond happy for it's existence. God has touched us with his etherial light and graced us with his love.
Probably the worst anime I have ever seen.
Without a doubt, Anime of the season.
