dtm42's Anime

I get what they were going for - a baseball Comedy oozing hot-blooded Shounen sensibilities - but it just didn't click. With only one exception the humour was weak and grating, mistaking being loud and dumb for entertaining and funny. The drama was actually better-written (not by much though), but the humour and OTT Shounen antics constantly undermined it.

When I heard that a rugby manga was being adapted into an anime, I was thrilled. Not only do I really love rugby and so was eager to watch an anime of it, but the prospect of the game being introduced to more Japanese was an exciting one. Japan had just beaten South Africa in the 2015 Rugby World Cup in spectacular fashion - one of the biggest upsets in the history of all sport - and a Japanese team (the Sunwolves) was going to be included in the 2016 Super Rugby competition. This anime looked like it would keep up the momentum of Japanese interest in the game (at least until the 2019 World Cup, which they're hosting) and so I was looking forward to welcoming many new Japanese rugby fans.

Alas.

The problems with All Out! are numerous, so much so I actually had to write a list on a scrap piece of paper. It wasn't all that funny, and a lot of the jokes felt cringey. The personal drama was really forced, as were most of the characters' motivations. Any recently-minted fan watching this would be baffled by what is going on as rules are explained poorly if at all. Worse, any newbie player would be put at risk by the awful training techniques, and if they replicated the physical contact (especially tackling) depicted in the game there is a huge likelihood for injury. DO NOT BREAK A TACKLE BY LEADING WITH THE ELBOW, IT COULD REALLY MESS SOMEONE UP. Seriously, the way the players tackle and get tackled, it's like we're watching a game of American Football.

But wait, there's more. The main character is incredibly obnoxious and borderline unlikable. The animation budget is a joke, or it would be if there was a budget in the first place. What should be some amazing displays of physical power look awkward at best and embarrassing at worst. The story overlooks the fact that rugby is a twenty-three-man sport, with the eight guys on the bench being vital to a team's success. Team tactics and strategy is not discussed at any time.

And most critically of all, the show is BORING. There's absolutely no excitement or majesty or wonder. Look, I'm no sports anime aficionado but I've watched my fair share. A good sports show can get you invested in anything. Soccer/football, baseball, basketball, cycling, karuta, go, ping pong, mahjong, tennis . . . you get the idea. What matters not is the actual sport but the enthusiasm and the love that the creators put in. This show is so pedestrian and uninspired and lifeless that it comes across as nothing but a paycheck, and I highly doubt anyone who doesn't already like rugby with be interested in it. And existing fans are so unimpressed - I personally know other rugby fans who also dropped this - that there's really no audience here.

It's painfully clear that the show's level of quality is nowhere near it thinks it is. Characters who are supposed to be smart/clever instead make braindead decisions. The politics is superficial as heck, and the scheming at a childish level. The animation is irritatingly limited, and the artwork is too restrained for a wannabe historical epic. The music is nothing to write home about either. The worldbuilding is haphazard and scatterbrained. The drama and dialogue are, at best, hamfisted. The viewpoint is clearly from a twenty-first century perspective rather than the time period the show is set in, which is obvious in the particular themes the story employs.

The mystery premise is actually somewhat intriguing, but the setting is cliched and this is basically your standard Otome game. But the real problem is the execution; the word 'insipid' is an understatement. Apart from the music, art and clean character designs (although what is with the funky eyes?), everything the show does is so boring and unappealing. The bishounen are not so much characters as they are walking fetishes, and the lead female's personality is so faint that a cardboard cutout would show more emotion than her. The dialogue is bland beyond belief, with no impact at all. And the direction is very, very clunky, which is surprising since both the director and scriptwriter are experienced and have done some good work in the past.

A touching story with some genuinely funny gags, and featuring a well-realised and sympathetic main character, is kinda ruined by a strange addiction to (completely unnecessary) loli fanservice. And the girls themselves are rote and merely designed for maximum moe impact - no young girl in existence acts like any of those three do, and they don't come across as genuine. Speaking of which, while the story is good the actual plot is, er, not so good. Basically just a flimsy let's-put-on-a-concert premise (using the power of otaku-smarts, no less), crossed with a help-cute-young-girls-achieve-their-goal wish-fulfilment venture. I will say that the subplot of the blonde classmate who looks out for the bullied main character was far more interesting than the main plot of the concert.

I just couldn't get into this show. I don't care if it was well-drawn and fluidly animated, it just did not draw me in and I could not care about any of the characters. As if that wasn't bad enough, it is a bizarre Super Robot show with the religiously prudish gender-segregation and the combining robots, and, well, I'm not partial to those at the best of times.

This isn't terrible; it's quite watchable in fact. Except it's not, because it sucks. Yeah, I know, I like being contrary.

The show gives off the vibe that it's a poor adaptation of a much better original Manga, and I'm hardly the only viewer to feel that way. It's confusing (apparently the Anime staff have messed around with the order of scenes a lot), it's got plot holes, it expects us to sympathise with certain villains just because they got their comeuppance, and the characters are so painfully cliched it's hard to bear. It has NO subtlety. Plus the plot is pretty meh, something you'd have expected from the nineties or early noughties. Even compared to shows of that era it doesn't hold up particularly well. The school side of things has been sorely neglected along with the cheerful Arata and the strangely-fixated bully. But even though future episodes promise more on that front it is far too late for them as they've lacked so much screentime I can't bring myself to care, because I haven't been given a reason to care. Of course, even Hinohara is such a wimp it is hard to like him. The show seems so scared of going into his backstory that it makes him unrelatable.

Uh, not my cup of tea. Had I been a newbie to anime then I might have found this interesting, but it offers nothing I haven't seen done better in other series. Generic, boring, cliched, uninspiring, its tone is all wrong and it sports a hot-headed moronic protagonist who always sounds and acts like he has a rod up his arse.

Everything was too clean, like how the ground was perfect and not stirred up, and there was no grime anywhere. All the uniforms were too crisp (the enemy's uniforms looked like parade outfits). And the soldiers were messing about in the forest cracking jokes despite their country's supposedly-impregnable main defensive line being breached just moments before. You'd think they'd be in shock or something. And the young woman just saw her commander being killed in front of her eyes and yet a minute later she's being ditzy and making fun of the MC's piloting ability.

I knew it would be probably be bad and that I would probably hate it, but some of my most hated Seiyuu and staffers have worked in some really good shows, and vice versa. So I was keeping an open mind going into this, because you just never know. Yes, even the plot summary in those preview charts did not dissuade me. Unfortunately, it is as bad as I had feared, with such stupid twists, gaping plot holes and bad characterisation that I could only cringe in disgust. Even with all of the tolerance I've built up over the years I still cannot stand Tsundere Loli, especially when combined with horrible and hackneyed writing.

I stuck around till the fourth episode because . . . because . . . because I have no idea why I stuck around so long. But the second half of episode four was so abysmal it shook me out of my dying stupor and made me realise that hey, this is genuine crap and I shouldn't have to put up with it. Is the grade I gave it unfair? I do realise that there are a number of shows I've watched that are far worse than this in terms of ambition. I mean, is it really that bad? Episode four exclaims yes, yes it is. And I do not believe that Anime quality can be graphed onto a bell curve.

This show is a litmus test. Everyone seems to agree that it's bad, but there are two schools of thought as to how it fails. The SJW warriors make a big song and dance about the fact that the school (through its militantly fascist regime) is ruled by women, and oh isn't that somehow sexist against females. But me? Well, I don't buy into that argument. To me, the show is simply crap in virtually every way. Action, animation, art, character designs, storyboarding, voice acting, premise, story, exposition, humour, entertainment value . . . there isn't anything that's done even competently.

Although it has quite a few issues, what sinks Aura Battler Dunbine more than anything else is the direction. I mean, the premise is alright, the plot itself isn't bad, and the characters do their best under the circumstances. The insect-like mecha designs look weird but they're otherwise fine, all things considered. But what cannot be forgiven or excused or overlooked is Tomino's direction, which is absolutely dreadful even by the low standards of the era. In Dunbine he's written a decent story; there's no doubt in my mind that this is his baby and that he cares a lot about it. However his presentation of that story is appallingly bad, almost unwatchably so.

It's obvious that the show will now turn (as in, the next episode onwards) into a generic high-school battle series, so I'm getting out while it is still enjoyable. I mean, it's been fun so far, but there's only one way to go and that's down. The repetitive jokes are not going to stay funny for much longer, and there was never really much of a plot to begin with (barring the initial premise). I can only watch Baby Beel shock Oga for so many times before it kind of loses its lustre. At first it is hilarious, then it is like comfort food (as in "hah ha, they're using that joke again"), then it gets stale. I want to leave while the food is still fresh and the memories are still positive.

In most Anime, the characters pretty much make or break a show, and the cast of Beelzebub was pretty good. Jerk-with-a-heart-of-gold Oga was always good fun to watch. Interestingly, he is voiced by the same guy who did Kamina from TTGL, a character whom I loath. It goes to show that there is a time and place for BIG MANLY SPEECHES, i.e. a comedy, not a Mecha show. Anyway, Furuichi made a fine butt-monkey, and Baby Beel was played to perfection as a weak, immature but needy brat. And of course, I can't forget the ladies. I really liked Hilda and Aoi, both for their personalities and their really attractive character designs. Honestly, Shounen series have given us quite a number of strong, capable, fearsome - oh, and of course, sexy - female leads, a fact which often gets overlooked.

Despite the premise being par for the course in Anime, the execution was bloody awful. Physical violence is acceptable in fiction if it is cool or funny or to be realistic, but this was nothing like that. This was depicting characters going out of their way to inflict grievous bodily harm on innocent bystanders over half-priced foodstuffs. The employee even thinks it is natural, probably did it himself given the way he talked and acted. Heck, there's even a club just for people like that.

Don't get me wrong, physical violence can be great; think of Kaname and Sousuke in Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu. Here, it doesn't work.

If the show aimed at being a comedy or "battle Anime" then I might have - nay, probably would have - enjoyed this. But by actually depicting it in a more serious light - such as people (including the girl who was only a bystander) being knocked unconscious - it cannot claim any refuge in "it's a comedy". Because it is not. The tone is clearly not. And if it actually is, then it utterly fails at being one because I didn't laugh or even smile the entire time.

The disconcerting editing and disorientating camera work are the real evils here, not apostles. Trying to jazz things up visually hurt way more than it ever helped; I'll take the original show's minimal-but-impactful animation over this insanity any day. The choice of animation was a blunder, no doubt about it, but at least the CG was tolerable (if not that good). However the character designs suffered, especially the faces with their weird lines all over them. The voice work is actually a bigger issue than the CG, as the characters are hurt by unnatural line delivery; Farnese's cadence was hecka distracting.

Well, this was obviously designed to appeal to the Yaoi-lovers, with several beautiful angsty guys. There were trenchcoats and crosses and other motifs designed to draw in the female crowd. Well, being a straight male, I sure wasn't going to watch just for all that. I was looking for a decent plot and characters that I could be interested in, if not support. But in the two episodes I watched nothing about the plot was actually explained, and there was only a little bit of effort put in to connect me with the characters. I just couldn't get involved, I couldn't really care.

Often I look at a bad anime and wonder how it got to be that way. It's easy to look at the anime itself point out flaws in story and characters, but what about the external circumstances that caused the anime to be the way it is? Now obviously, crap source material is a major factor in this regard, and light novels are particularly notorious in their dearth of quality writing. But even more important is the level of care and skill put into the adaptation. While the Black Bullet light novels were almost certainly weakly written, it was still the duty of the anime's production staff to give it their best. Unfortunately, for many staffers they either don't have the skill or else working on anime is just a paycheck to them.

When I saw that the show's director handled Master Keaton and Monster I got my hopes up, only for him to reveal how he's really a journeyman who is good at storyboarding and faithfully adapting source material but struggles with anything that requires him to think. And the writer of Black Bullet was at the same time also working on Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky; with him juggling two shows at once, it's clear where the bulk of his energy and passion went to (hint; not this one). Although it's dubious as to how much he has of either; I can't help but notice all the bad shows he's done the screenwriting and series composition for. One or two poorly-written shows and you can blame it on bad luck or inexperience, but with that many and it becomes pretty damning.

Asta sounds like he has a broken windpipe or something. I've heard obnoxious shounen heroes scream into the microphone before but wow that was painful to listen to. Even Kingdom had more tolerable voice acting, which is saying something.

Gakuto Kajiwara (who voices Asta) has veeery few roles listed in his ANN bio, and Asta appears to be his first regular role (let alone first lead).

He's completely inexperienced, is what I'm saying, and simply not up to being a lead. Maybe in a couple more years but not now.

I don't blame him though; the fault lies with the panel of supposed experts who cast him as a lead. Maybe they viewed his screams as "authentically raw" but come on, at least give the role to someone who avoids giving the audience ear cancer.

I used to love this series. I watched the Soul Society arc and revelled in just how awesome it was (for a Shounen show). And now look; I'm rating it as Weak, same as Naruto. But why? What happened?

You don't have to be a brain surgeon to realise what happened. The show suffered from two main problems; the Manga-ka kept on dragging the story out because he didn't know what to do with it, and the producers of the Anime decided that the show would air fifty-plus weeks a year. Which meant - you guessed it - that the show suffered from the scourge of filler. Not just those horrible filler arcs, but almost every episode - even of the canon material for crying out loud - had four minutes of filler in it; three at the start and close to one at the end. And no, I don't include the OP and the ED in that total. It isn't often that a show makes the oft-derided Dragonball Z look fast by comparison.

Now you might think that the canon material was good enough to balance out the filler, right? Otherwise, how do you explain all the people who tune in or download the show every week? Well, the canon stuff is better than the filler, but only just. To put it plainly, after the Soul Society arc, even the canon material sucked. The Hueco Mundo arc was simply a rehash of the Soul Society arc, only with garbage writing. Oh sorry, I used the wrong tense. The Hueco Mundo arc is STILL going. Orihime was captured in episode one-hundred and forty-one, yet even after one-hundred and thirty-five episodes later she still isn't anywhere close to going home.

You almost got me there, Bloodivores. Despite how poor you were throughout most of your first episode, I was actually finding myself curious as to what would happen next. You were going in a different direction than I had anticipated, and had set up two somewhat intriguing mysteries; the deaths of the hostages and the backstory of the MC's mother. Plus that final scene really surprised me, I have to say.

So I was leaning heavily towards watching your second episode. But alas, you showed your hand in the next episode preview. Not only did it completely ruin the cliffhanger, but the scenario it presented - and the monsters we were shown - both looked so god-awful that whatever interest I had in the show was extinguished right there and then. Ugh.

Look, there's plenty to like in this show. Clean and crisp character designs, smooth and detailed CG shots, nice artistry, good music. This is a very good-looking and pleasantly-sounding series, so the series has the technical aspects down pat. But everything else? Oh boy.

The main character has little personality and seems like she's on valium or cannabis ninety-five percent of the time. Nothing ever really seems to bother her, she never displays proper reactions to major events. Okay, so she isn't a whiny b*tch, but she also doesn't come across as a normal relatable person either. Why does she want to go to school and work even after becoming a pirate? So we can continue to see her in various uniforms, silly. No matter that it would be so easy for someone to kidnap and kill her while she is away from the protection of her ship. Now, supporting characters are better and more interesting, but they do not make up for Marika, not even close. And what is with the princess who appears?

The setup is stupid, no two ways around that. The contrived circumstances around her inheriting the title of pirate captain is stretching it, but what really gets me is how piracy is handled in the show. Her planet belongs to a sort of galactic federation, but she and her crew rob a vessels from another member of the same federation. That makes no sense, it is like if a coastguard vessel from California robbed a ship based in Portland Oregon.

And the way the pirates go about it breaks any sort of realism the show is trying to develop. Marika swans around in a pirate costume so ridiculous and over-the-top that it looks like a Halloween costume. The civilians they rob in episode six are only too happy to hand over valuables while at gunpoint. And I do mean happy; even if you tell people that insurance will replace the items, are they really going to applaud you and greet you with a smile? One also wonders how taking nothing but jewellery and the money out of people's wallets would cover the costs of running a multi-million-dollar piracy operation.

The show spends a large amount of time attempting to deal with the nitty gritty of how battles are fought and what sort of tactics should be used and whatnot. In a series with more competent writing this might actually work, but such an ambitious undertaking can expose even more writing flaws if done poorly, and this is pretty bad. Electronic warfare is an interesting twist and is well suitable for piracy operations. Except, the future version of the Federal Aviation Administration would never allow vital systems to be on a network like that and be so easily compromised, especially without any form of manual override. Do you think a A380 for instance would come with a computer system that could be easily hacked from the outside and which caused the pilots to be completely helpless? Of course not, because there's no need for that and the safety concerns would be staggering.

But I think the worst part of the show is that it tries to make piracy cool and somehow just. Now, you might claim that with a Letter or Marque the crew of the Bentenmaru are really privateers, A.K.A. pirates who work for a country during times of war. In real life privateers were a semi-noble, even legitimate occupation that played important roles in naval warfare. But in times of peace they went back to being pirates. Marika's planet may have once found that pirates were critically important, but the times have changed and there is peace. She's no better than a thug now, and yet we are shown that as long as one works hard, preying on other people is a glamourous and exciting line of work.

The writing may have no understanding of warfare or how skirts are worse than useless in zero-gee. It may think that aerobraking is an amazing manoeuvre even though it is old-hat. The plot may call for a private girl's school owning a legendary and still-functioning spaceship, and then allowing a couple-dozen teens to operate it with only two adults supervising. Those things are bad, but they aren't what really got to me. It was the overall big-picture package that really made this show a chore and turned me off from watching it. We have Girl Power mixed in with the message that Thugs Preying on Civilians In Peacetime Are Cool spearheaded by an unlikeable lead character.

Jun Maeda is capable of striking brilliance, but also shocking ineptitude. It's hard to know how to quantify him; calling him a fundamentally flawed but inspired genius seems a tad superficial but I can't really explain his mind any better than that.

Anyway, as for Charlotte, well after the middling first episode I couldn't be bothered to risk my time with another Maeda series; they usually do nothing but infuriate me. So I spoiled the show for myself using episode summaries and fan comments. To no-one's surprise the plot went off the rails - Maeda's stories tend to do that - but it was the zany way it derailed that made me want to see what happens. So I checked out the crazy final episode just for kicks; yep, Maeda is cray cray but he's also got some balls.

What is it with the Japanese? A baby is left in your apartment and the first reaction is to take care of it yourself? Why not call the police and social services? Oh wait, the person in question is fourteen years old and living alone, apparently with no relatives alive to look out for her. What a horrible cycle of ignoring the authorities.

It's not outrageously bad; pick an episode and - charitably speaking - it's mostly watchable. But if you string a few episodes together it becomes obvious that the show is not good at all.

Not only is it really obvious that this show is based on a Dating Sim game, but the story progression plays out exactly like such a game, with clashing elements and various routes that are clumsily integrated. The various supernatural elements don't mix well, with a catgirl, gynoid, dreamwalker and telepath all inhabiting the same setting, a town of cherry trees that are always in bloom (the hell?). The episodes have painfully little to do with one another; yes this is an episodic show, but that doesn't excuse the complete ignoring of events and situations in previous episodes. We are told that the gynoid needs constant looking after by the main character, and then we don't see her being looked after for the next two episodes as the focus goes on adding other girls to the harem. We are introduced to the catgirl maid who winds up living at the main character's house, only for the next episode - when everyone (including people the main character barely even knows) goes on holiday - not to feature her at all as far as I could see. Don't make a fuss about a character needing looking after if you then aren't prepared to actually show her being looked after, and don't feature a girl living at your home if you aren't willing to ten include her in the group's activities.

With regard to the other girls, they all meet the various body types and personality traits that are part and parcel of such shows. Not one of the girls actually has a personality of her own; instead they are just a collection of cliches and stock traits wrapped in flesh. There's even the Tsundere-sister-who-wants-to-marry-her-brother-but-she-isn't-actually-his-sister-so-it's-okay character, which has to be one of the most awful cliches in modern Anime. As for the main character, I've got to say that it's notable (in the wrong way) how fast he collects the girls up into his Harem. Episode six and he already has half a dozen girls willing to go to the beach with him. There's nothing special about him to suggest where he gets his magnetism, but at least he isn't a complete milquetoast like so many Harem leads (though that's hardly an impressive accomplishment).

I have to mention that a full third of each episode are these bizarre live-action music videos of what I presume are the various Seiyuu. On the one hand I was happy that they were there since it meant I could skip them and therefore save myself eight minutes per episode. On the other hand, the loss of those valuable minutes must have had an impact on the writing quality. Too often the episodic plots progressed far too fast and with too little build-up, surely a result of having to cram in a normal story into two-thirds the standard running time. This can be seen with the gynoid episode where he suddenly is tasked with looking after and teaching this advanced machine with little fanfare; bam and its done. Or the beach episode which actually starts with them on the beach with no explanation of how they got there or why girls the main character barely knew accepted his invitation, and then we only get brief and insufficient flashbacks. But even if the music videos weren't there and the running time restored to usual length the writing quality would still have been poor at best, because that's the sort of show it is. The story wallows in the worst excesses of the genre, so it's not like this was an otherwise good show that just didn't have the running time it needed to tell the story it wanted.

No, I lie. I didn't even finish the first episode. In fact, I dropped it early on, when it was revealed that the teacher was wearing nothing but racy lingerie in class and getting off on the exposure. That was the moment I knew that DearS - which was shaping up to be a bad series anyway - was practically unwatchable.

I've been told by a number of people that this is a poor adaptation. What those people forgot to add was that this is a bad show fullstop. Sure, it looks nice, but the plot and characters are just . . . ugh. To say that they are "cliched" is obvious, but they've had no effort put into them and just come off as really trite and lame. Somehow my viewing experience was one of being interminably bored yet simultaneously cringing at every scene.

I remember very little about this show, except how stupid the Royal Knights arc was. I had also predicted while I was still watching Tamers that there would be a group of Digi-Destined who would become digimon themselves rather than have digimon partners. The writers were following a really clear path and they didn't try to do anything to deviate from it. Which is a shame.

Umm, so what else? I can't really say. I know that I was mighty disappointed with this show, especially since it came off the back of the excellent Tamers. I guess the show was just largely forgettable, when it wasn't being bad that is. I certainly do not recall any moments that I was impressed with it, let alone any Crowning Moments of Awesome.

The music was of high quality but poorly utilised. On more than one occasion the soundtrack would be blaring away with some nice Mexican-themed instrumental but which was incongruous to the tone of that scene. It's like you either got no music at all, or good music that drowned everything out.

The animation budget for this show must have been quite limited. There are so many animation shortcuts just in these first few episodes it ain't funny, and by God, the panning at times is incessant. The action scenes - when they occur - are lame as heck.

Lead duo are . . . nice. No really, they are, and there's genuine chemistry developing between them. But while they work well as a team, there's no depth to either of them. That is, besides the requisite Mysterious Past that each of them possesses. Considering the show is solely about these two young women, I feel like I barely know either of them after three episodes. Maybe that's a bit harsh, given that they still have so much more time to develop, but in my opinion there should have been a greater focus on them. We've already spent an inordinate amount of time on side characters who really should have been introduced later in the show.

And that leads me to the biggest problem of the show, which is is the near-glacial pacing and the mishandled story structure. The lack of energy is noticeable and it's like the story can't get out of first gear because it gets bogged down with too many characters and a directionless plot. Well, okay, the characters have to travel south . . . but why though? What do they hope to achieve? There's no momentum here, no impetus for anything to happen. It's an action show with no action and a introspective character-based show that frequently gives way too much screentime to characters that aren't important yet.

This was actually a fairly okay and watchable show until the tenth episode happened, which featured not one but two characters suffering from sudden and absolutely STUPID mental breakdowns. Just completely left a sour taste, and ruined suspension of disbelief. To explain specifically how the breakdowns were moronic would delve into spoilers, but needless to say they were both pretty egregious, out of character and unnecessary.

The breakdowns may have been the reason why I dropped the show, but how did I even make it so far in the first place? Basically, it was light and fluffy enough to easily watch while still surprisingly dark and interesting. Of course, it did have its faults. The tournament itself was a bit silly (the creator of Alice in Wonderland can grant wishes, apparently), too much was unexplained (though my questions may or may not have been answered in the final three episodes), and the characters were pretty stock (bland lead male, his younger sister who is romantically in love with him, the big-breasted lesbian, et cetera). The execution kind of made up for the uninspired and suspect premise, and there was no real fanservice or tired harem hi-jinks to detract from the story. But still, this wasn't a strong show, and when episode ten happened I had had enough and bailed.

You know, as bad as EVIL OR LIVE is, I am mostly irritated with it for being such a lost opportunity.

Military-style boot camps purporting to "cure" internet addiction are a big problem in China. Well-meaning but ignorant and pushy parents are duped into spending big money to send their teens against their will to these sorts of terrible places. Beatings are rife, electroshock "therapy" is commonly used, the students don't even learn anything despite being stuck there for months on end, and the abuse is so bad that previously normal teens develop mental illnesses. One young man died in just two days from head-to-toe wounds and internal injuries that can only be attributed to torture. It's true that there are genuine addicts who forgo food and rest in order to play games, kids who steal money from their parents in order to afford visiting internet cafes, but they are rare. Most teens are sent to these hell holes for simply using their cellphone too much, or not doing enough study.

So yeah, I was hoping that EVIL OR LIVE would highlight how bad and wrong these places are, and feature normal kids trying to survive a stay at one with their sanity and dignity intact. You know, like RAINBOW, if anyone remembers that show. But no, instead we get total basket cases (like the kid who runs a guild thinking he can have people killed), a sadistic wannabe-dom warden/headmistress, and that giggling weirdo sucking on a Chupa Chup who has way too much power and freedom for this kind of story. It's all so ludicrously exaggerated for the sake of being Dark and Edgy that there's no heart, no shock value, no possibility of emotional investment, and no overarching message.

It's rare nowadays to see animation mistakes like a character being in two places at once. Of course that isn't an actual problem, just an interesting trivia tidbit I noticed (it occurs in episode three by the way). No, Fantasista Doll's most obvious problem is that though it does try - it isn't insipid or anything - it just isn't very competent. The first episode is the worst, throwing the plot at us with no real setup and introducing too many characters. The lead girl doesn't react normally and convincingly to, you know, being thrust into fighting. The second and third episodes are better but still not good; they simply don't do enough to salvage the story or characters.

Now, this is pretty much your usual Magical Girl show aimed at little girls, except with the twist where the lead girl does not do any actual fighting; nor does she wear the outfits that are expected of such shows. Instead the battles are fought using servants called dolls who are summoned from a magical smartphone (yay twenty-first century) and can be equipped with different costumes. It's a gimmick that is totally there to market a smartphone game to little girls where they must battle other players with the digital dolls they've raised/trained, and barring some very tame fanservice it totally has the look and feel of a show in that demographic. And that would make sense, since no-one expects such a show to be the next War and Peace (or to use an Anime example, PMMM).

Except the show is clearly aimed at adult males; what the heck? The Anime airs past three in the morning and the Manga adaptations are published in Seinen magazines. The director is Hisashi Saito who has directed Bamboo Blade, Haganai and Heaven's Lost Property. The producer is no less than Gorō Taniguchi of Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion fame. There is indeed a smartphone game, but it seems to be aimed at creepy adult Otaku. And I guess this is Fantasista Doll's real problem. If it had been aimed at children then I could understand, because it is written on that level. But instead it's aimed at adults, and that means it cannot shrug its shoulders and claim it shouldn't be harshly judged due to being a children's show. Because unfortunately it's not, despite being as good (or rather, as bad) as one to the point where it is basically indistinguishable from the real thing.

With a few tweaks this could have been a simple-but-sweet show about a lonely teenage girl making friends with people who actually accept her for who she is, while at the same time falling in love with an edgy and mysterious boy who actually loves her back. A good example of a show which did all that rather well is Inu X Boku SS.

"Atatatatatatata!! You're already dead."

Even though it was made for children, I found this show to be quite enjoyable. Yeah yeah, the animation is almost non-existent, the art is mind-bogglingly atrocious, and the same two voices are used for every episode. But it was kind of neat seeing traditional Japanese stories and folktales, especially since most of them were ones I'd never heard of before. Each seven-minute segment went by fairly easily and I only disliked a couple of them.

Given that the first season wrapped up quite strongly, this second season was made for one thing and one thing only: money. Not to enhance the story and characters but simply to sell more merchandise. And that's fine from a business sense, but it makes no sense artistically. A new character from Rin's past is introduced to shake things up and provide an excuse for this season's plot, but it falls flat because it is so obviously done for money reasons rather than because the story and Rin needed him to be there. There is also a greater emphasis on fanservice, which highlights the simply cash grab nature of the season.

Typical dating sim game adaptation, except with wonky pacing. The show was too slow to begin and yet, when closing out the girls' respective arcs, the resolution was far too hurried. This really needed to be a two-cour series, which would have allowed all the girls to really shine and be fleshed out.

This show is not total dreck however. There were some genuinely good scenes here and there. The dialogue was snappy at times. There was character development and time was taken to do introspective and emotional scenes. But the writing - overall - was poor, keeping the characters from being truly fleshed out and relying too much on plot developments that were always disappointing and clumsily handled.

I do realise that this was based off of an old-school Manga, and it is funny in places. But I didn't really like it. It's a children's show first and foremost, even if you factor in the old lady in the bath-house or the monster who uses its own penis as a weapon. That is not to say an adult cannot enjoy it, but you would need to be a fan of the old-school art style and humour. The art style is largely fine (especially with some pretty good animation moving it), but I have little tolerance for the humour.

It isn't at the level where I'd rather slit my wrists than watch this. Not quite, anyway. But even amongst Ecchi-Harem shows this one is a stinker; even the fanservice is crap, and that's the only thing it has going for it. And the English dub is appallingly bad, I could only listen to it for a couple of minutes before switching over. Not that the Japanese dub is much better, but at least it didn't give me ear-cancer.

This is actually a pretty smart show, at least in terms of who it's marketed at. While it's pretty much your typical kiddy-aimed toy commercial along the lines of Beyblade, the creators have engaged older fans by the staggering number of references to the many previous works in the vast Gundam franchise. Seriously, it ain't just the figures that the characters battle with, although seeing both iconic and obscure mobile suits in animation once again is certainly a big part of it. Character designs, clothing, music, next episode previews, battle tactics, poses, logos and names plastered around the place, subtle and not-so-subtle nods to certain scenes . . . it really is a Gundam fanboy's wet dream made real. This has caused there to be a large amount of goodwill towards the series, something that Age never had (and never deserved).

So Gundam Build Fighters is a reasonably fun watch. And the animation and action are top-notch, as you'd expect from Sunrise. However, entertainment value aside, is the show actually good? The short answer to that is "kind of". It's not bad, and compared to others of its ilk it's a standout. But be that as it may, it's still a blatant toy commercial aimed at selling model kits. And unlike other Gundam series it doesn't even have anything worthwhile to say thematically, except that model kits are awesome. Episode eight had murmurings of a darker conspiracy, but that's a double-edged sword. Shows like these thrive when they don't take themselves too seriously. But when the toy in question becomes the key to ruling the world, it's usually best to run for the hills. I will say that Reiji is an interesting (though of course ridiculous) cypher.

There's one overwhelming question: what went wrong? This abomination got produced after the respectable first season, so what happened? Well, no-one who worked on the first season came back for the second. No-one. In other words a complete change in staff and companies involved. This obviously affected the show in tone and quality terms but the thing is it didn't have to. Just because the people making it changed doesn't mean the newcomers Brains Base had to hash it up. They've made their fair share of crap shows but they've also made lots of good stuff too, so the disastrous quality cannot be blamed solely on the fact that there was a change. Heck, the Full Metal Panic! franchise noticeably improved once Kyoto Animation took over from Gonzo after the first season, so change can be a good thing. That just leaves the actual people in charge, and they have pretty uninspiring resumes. Ugh. Unambiguous proof that a proven concept can fail if handled by a team full of of journeymen, hacks and morons. It also raises the questions of why Sony contracted these muppets in the first place, and whether Gunparade Orchestra was just a cheap cash grab. It certainly looks cheap.

*sighs*

And to think, people actually consider this to be good.

Boring and by the book, there's nothing here to hold my interest. I'm surprised I lasted four episodes.

This one takes me back.

Yes, it's about as awful as a normal anime can actually be, but I would like to mention that I actually enjoyed the show's highly unusual visual quirks.Yes yes, the CG chains were awful, but I'm talking about practically everything else. Backgrounds (and background characters) are fully drawn and animated (was this show rotoscoped?), the character designs were fresh and appealing, the CG character models allows for some really detailed movement in the action scenes in episode one, and I like the colour palette and how they used it.

This came from the same writer as Fullmetal Alchemist? Hmm. I never would have picked it, except the character designs gave it away.

The general writing was poor and the humour was mostly unfunny, but that's not why I dropped it. I just couldn't stand the characters anymore. Taito was beyond annoying (even his bloody VOICE was like fingernails on a blackboard), Laila was irritating with her antics, and most of the other main characters weren't much better. There were two good episodes - episodes three and seven I believe - and the rest were shoddy.

Not a good sign when I'm gagging just halfway through the first episode. This show is Hakuoki all over again. As usual the art and character designs were pretty nice, but this time the story and character traits were even more clichéd and unoriginal. Then there was the huge infodump given by the grandmother which highlighted how amateurish the writing and storytelling are.

Incompetent to a degree that is unusual for modern Anime. The music and artistry were alright, but everything else was terrible. Not only was the animation NOT up to OVA standards but it doesn't even measure up to many low-budget T.V. series. The directing was abysmal, foley effects were haphazardly integrated, the characters were zero dimensional, the dialogue was uniformly painful, and the plot absolutely laughable. Every component sucked to a degree that is embarrassing even for a low-rent title. Seriously, the people who worked on this should be ashamed. There was so much fail to be found that it created a thick miasma of staleness which choked what little life this Anime had in the first place.

The reason this Infinite Stratos knockoff's first episode avoided an even lower rank is because nothing bloody happens. It drags so badly that we never really get anywhere, which is good because every single element that does get introduced is so vapidly by-the-book you almost feel impressed by how studious the writers must be.

The story is barely even there after being xeroxed too many times (from inspirations that themselves were abysmal), and the characters are nothing more than certain assemblages of stock tropes designed to tick specific boxes. I wish the artists had tried a bit harder because most of the female characters have hideously unnatural chests. Don't the artists understand that their art is not sexy? Uninspired direction and frankly dull storyboarding/cinematography highlight the lack of care (or even effort) shown by every member of the production staff.

The main characters are likeable enough, but nothing special. The whole examination thing is far weaker than that. Two episodes in and not only do we not know what hunters really do, but just getting to the examination is ridiculously difficult. Prone to seasickness? Too bad, automatic fail. Hop on the official bus? Ha ha, joke's on you. Captain doesn't like you? He can fail you for no reason. The criteria is so exclusive it's too farfetched to ever work, unless of course the show is aimed at kids. Which, luckily, it is.

Let me make this clear. This show's 0/10 rating isn't because of its crap plot and bland characters, or because it has boobs, or even because it has nothing else to offer but boobs. No, it receives this rating because it has nothing else to offer but boobs AND they aren't even all that erotic and they don't even feature all that much. In other words, this show had only one job - to provide decent fanservice (and lots of it) - and it couldn't even manage to do that. What little fanservice we got wasn't even all that sexy.

Better than America's Next Top Model, at least in terms of Girl Power and being yourself. Less annoying too, although that's not saying much. My eardrums are still hurting from all of the screeching, however that's not why I actually dropped it. You've got to look past the gimmicky first episode, the pretty good animation and art (for this sort of show), and the large focus on the music (different EDs, insert songs with their titles appearing on screen). Because behind these things is an utterly cliched show with painfully stock characters and a story set up to allow more Okatku-pandering than I am comfortable with.

Do not be fooled into thinking that this is a Mecha show. It is a painfully by-the-book high-school "comedy" with a smattering of Mecha in it. It offers no laughs, only groans. It features stock characters so unoriginal that I correctly predicted their horrible and overblown personalities from the promotional poster alone. Hot glasses-wearing teacher who wears a short skirt and a low-cut top which reveals her lacy lingerie; check. Abusive older sister who is perfect at everything; check. Blonde British girl with princess curls who is snobby beyond caricature; check. Childhood friend who is also straight-laced-to-the-point-of-overreacting-to-everything; check. Incredibly stupid and weak-willed male lead who apparently reads the newspaper and yet knows nothing of anything and has to have everything explained to him in a series of info-dumps; check.

The IS Academy is most certainly not at all realistic in terms of how a real military (or even civilian defence force) trains. Let's list some of the things it does wrong in this regard. 1): The male lead is forced to share a room with a girl, when you'd think he would have been given a separate room. 2): There is only such academy in the world, which doesn't make sense. 3): Violence towards cadets is performed without consequence. 4): There is a student council. 5): Duels involving students who have only been attending for two days are allowed, even encouraged. 6): Students somehow know how to pilot their machines and do not have to be taught; what are they attending school for?

Now to the Mecha. No explanation is even attempted as to why only females can pilot the machines, or why this one guy is the only male in the world who can. IS' are only used for sports, even though I can think of no military vehicle in existence - bar ICBMs - that have been outright banned for war purposes. The IS' feature the ability to fly, indicating an advanced technology level, and yet so far - barring one instance of a hologram - the technology level of the world in the series is not consistent with such a tech level. The design of the machines themselves are ridiculous; no shielding for the pilots' heads, either from enemy gunfire or just the wind. No breathing apparatus either, which sticks out like a sore thumb since in the OP the machines are shown to operate in near-vacuum. Most piss-annoyingly, the IS' arms are not attached to the rest of the IS, meaning the pilot's own arms and shoulders has to hold the weight of the IS' arms along with the oversized swords, rifles and other equipment. This is Fail on a stupendous level.

This show has several problems. There's the sister's incestuous feelings and the brother's ridiculous skills and his holier-than-thou attitude. And of course I can't forget about the extremely slow pacing and the dearth of world-building. But the one that annoys me the most is that the themes and aesops rely on really intellectually dishonest circumstances. And the biggest theme of all so far is discrimination.

For example, it is impossible for Course 2 students and normal people to actually feel real discrimination and be affected by it in a legitimate way. The people behind blanche are just using discrimination as an excuse to usurp Japan's power rather than because they are actually feel aggrieved. And the kendo girl had this misunderstanding about what Watanabe(?) said to her which is completely unrealistic (as in it defies belief how someone could mistake "you're too strong for me" as "you're too weak for me"). So her feelings of discrimination was all in her head. And the student council is run by enlightened people which completely contradicts what would really happen in real life if only one group of people are allowed to join.

Despite this we know that real tangible discrimination absolutely exists in the school between the blooms and the weeds, and it is natural for the non-magical to be afraid and resentful of those who have magic. The president offers some empty platitudes and a promise of eventual change many months down the line to remove the apartheid system, while Watanabe happily lets into her group a psycho with a hatred of weaker people, a guy who uses banned words in public and almost used lethal force in full view of everyone at the school gates. Even her second-in-command is a prick who belittles people. In fact, discrimination and the stigma against Course 2 students is so strong that even regular Course 1 students don't hesitate to use lethal spells against Course 2 students in a supposed kendo practice match. That sort of behaviour and arrogance doesn't happen unless the students are in an environment where it is not only tolerated but encouraged. "But he claims he liked her and just lost his temper", you say, as if the BS excuse given at the end of episode six explains why he acted like a bully and tried to kill her. Dishonestly abounds in this show.

Basically, there are four main aesops.

1): if you're weaker than someone else then accept it because the people in charge are benevolent, have earned their position and know what's best.

2): the student council has rules against bullying and discrimination therefore it doesn't exist and everything is dandy, and even apparent cases were just misunderstandings or the like.

3): rising up against the elites is bad, and only misguided fools and bad people with ulterior motives would even try.

4): don't feel at all bad if you suck at magic even when the elites, their system and your prospects of future employment all judge you by your magical ability and proficiency.

That is what the show is telling us, and like I pointed out it uses dishonest means to try and sell those aesops to us. There was absolutely no intention of dealing with the issues it raises in a sincere way and instead just whitewashes everything. Because of that - and the other problems too - I can't stand Mahouka any longer and it's getting dropped.

Sometimes an otherwise good show just doesn't click, but this is not one of those times. Jormungand, I'm sad to say, has problems. I don't give a damn about any of the characters because the show hasn't bothered to make any of them sympathetic or likeable. It goes further than the fact that everyone - and by that I do mean everyone (bar the bit characters) - in the show is an unbalanced Bad Guy. Although I gotta say, it certainly doesn't help any. Are we supposed to like Koko and her gang? I know I sure don't. It's not her selling weapons that's the problem, it is her hypocritical justification for doing so.

Then there's the believability factor. Or should I say, the complete lack of it. A child soldier plucked fresh from the battlefield is somehow already a super-assassin rather than a drug-addicted, brainwashed wreck of a human. A young woman in her early twenties is leading around a heavily armed gang of highly-trained soldiers without having to worry about customs or local police arresting them for cold-blooded killings. Shootouts happen in the middle of highly-populated modern cities with no other cars or people around and no mention of any media coverage whatsoever. Assassinations are done by crazed psychos with heavy machineguns indiscriminately spraying bullets into a crowd instead of a sniper rifle or poison or whatever. CIA agents go round calling themselves names such as "Scarecrow" and personally physically threaten and assault civilians and military personnel in foreign countries. Oh, and satellite phones and INTERPOL apparently don't exist in this universe, while the concept of taking cover only exists sporadically.

But I think the show's biggest problem is that it just ain't cool. I mean, many of my favourite movies and books and whatnot have writing issues but were saved by simply being awesome. Jormungand does not have any coolness whatsoever, despite the show's best efforts. In fact, if a work tries to be cool then it almost always is not, since coolness is something that vanishes the harder you seek it. The only time the show's efforts to be cool actually worked was the "Her name is Koko she is loco" rap for the next episode previews.

This show is confusing, appallingly written, incredibly lame with its attempts to make the 'gangsta' characters seem all edgy and cool (when in reality they are class-A posers), has no concept of realism, and doesn't seem to know the meaning of the word "consequences". Then there's the bland lead who barely has any personality at all, a classmate who crushes on him in the most clunky way possible, a moronic swordsman who actually cooks for the very guy he believes is a cold-blooded murderer, and an obnoxious clothes-hating cat-girl ghost (or is that ghost cat-girl?) with her cheesy cat-themed defences and meow-activated warping ability. Finally, the show reeks of badly-done fusion cooking; you can't simply throw every trope within reach into a blender and then bake the resulting mixture until everything is overdone. It doesn't work like that.

No world-building. No explanation. No logic. And no personalities for the characters besides one-note assignments like "the genki", "the quiet", "the clumsy", "the calm", et cetera. If you're a fan of the original game, or at least don't see anything wrong with poorly-trained teenage girls defending Earth by fighting laughable naval battles in their school uniforms (hey, at least they wear sailor outfits, hah hah) modified with pathetically tiny guns, then this show is for you. Everyone else should pass because this show is dumb. Earnest, but dumb.

The fan service was not nearly enough to carry what is a painfully by-the-book series. There is nothing fresh about this, it is so cliched it probably wrote itself. The technical merits are crap and the male lead is supposed to invoke Shotacon or something. Really, he looks ten, maybe eleven at a stretch. Not fourteen or fifteen which is what he's supposed to be. There is no reason for the main girl to go after him, especially given his personality which is about as attractive as a soggy biscuit. Many of the secondary characters are also annoying.

So basically, this is about a genki green-haired girl who likes to swim in the nude and she joins a perverted high-school swim club, whereupon there is lots of breast-grabbing to be had. There's a sweet tale of a boy trying to get over his fear of the water but it's mostly buried beneath the antics of the club members.

Kiddy Grade was never a good show, but at least it was tolerable. That changed with episodes seventeen, eighteen, and ESPECIALLY episode nineteen. The dynamic action of earlier episodes had been replaced with characters standing in place tossing energy blasts at one another. The plot went off the rails, with two long-term characters suddenly becoming powerful villains despite no foreshadowing of their grudges or their plans (though admittedly they were earlier shown to be sociopaths).

The straw that broke the camel's neck was how the show changed it's mind about what moral it was trying to get across. The whole point of the initial story was that the nobles who ran the galaxy were corrupt and cruel, using people as slaves and even destroying an inhabited planet just to prevent other noble factions from accessing the minerals in it. However, the story has since morphed into one where two characters are now the sole villains and the nobles are now let off the hook as being too big to take down. One character asserts - without anyone challenging him - that it was wrong to overthrow an evil organisation and its equally evil chief (who was the puppet for the nobles) just because it interferes with the natural order of things.I mean, talk about doing a complete 180. So much for our lead characters fighting against an oppressive system and being champions of ordinary people!

At the time I found the initial third of the show to be mediocre, and I yearned to get away from these weak episodic stories and get to the main plot. But now that said plot has arrived, those early episodes look like masterpieces by comparison. At least they had some interesting action and best displayed Eclair and Lumiere's banter. Overall, Kiddy Grade went from lame-but-watchable to outright garbage and deserves nothing but scorn. Well, okay, it did have really catchy music (I almost always listened to the OP and ED), and I enjoyed the voice acting from Ryoko Nagata and Aya Hirano. Plus the visuals and animation do look fantastic for a 2002 era show, though in true Gonzo fashion they couldn't keep it up for the entire runtime.

Interesting idea, horrid execution. That's all I can about the faces that these characters have. The motion capture is shoddy, the mouths are disturbing and the eyes are plain creepy. If you don't know what the Uncanny Valley is, well here is a good example. It undoubtedly cost the show at least one grade and possibly two, that's how awfully distracting it was.

Now, the show wouldn't have been so bad if the fundamentals of story and characters were okay, but they too were found lacking. The story was pretty basic and displayed nothing of interest. Pacing was also pretty jarring. The characters were the true problem though, with Shin being so loud and dense so as to be obnoxious, and that evil prince came across as a twerp with attitude problems who just needs to get laid.

The plot is very unhealthy for teenage girls, who already struggle with body image problems. The main character (an obese girl) fasts for a week by staying immobile in bed, and in return she gains amazing skin, salon-styled hair, and a fabulous body with no negative side-effects. Even her eyesight is miraculously cured. And then the four boys who immediately establish her harem are so shallow (especially the two who literally bullied her before she got thin) that it sends a message to girls that boys will only like you if you look like a model.

Yep, it's official; Okada is an alien. But that's not the issue; aliens can live quite normal and fulfilling lives. No, the problem is that she's made a career of being a screenwriter, specifically telling stories about people to people. Not aliens; people. Even worse, she's made exploring youth - and the trials of being a teenager - a huge thematic plank in most of her work. It's bizarre to see her wax lyrically about human emotions when it's clear she has no understanding of how people should think or feel.

Then there's her constant struggle to set a suitable tone, which is an issue that plagues much of her work; it's usually too dark, or too light, or too weird . . . As a prolific writer she's had plenty of chances to hone her skills, but it's clear that she is fundamentally unable to nail the right "voice", at least intentionally. Throw enough darts at a board and you're bound to hit the bullseye a time or two, and she's done that, but her sporadic successes are just percentage crapshoots.

A scriptwriter who cannot even understand the emotions she's trying to force upon her characters is a fundamentally flawed one. Her one-dimensional characters stand around spouting nonsense that no human would ever think let alone say. And I haven't even gotten to her tendency towards casually introducing massive plot holes, or building worlds that simply do not feel believable. She's a concept-first sort of writer who doesn't sweat the details and doesn't give a damn about her own characters.

What started out as an angsty and uninteresting Sports Drama quickly turned into a tragedy which actually threatened to go in a somewhat engaging direction. Unfortunately it moved even faster from that to a series where the main character develops weird football-related abilities and saves a child's life using said abilities. That's right, he saved a kid with the power of football. I cannot stress how stupid that scene was. Just imagine it, Earth's greatest superheroes standing shoulder to shoulder: Batman, Spiderman, Superman . . . Soccerman. I've got walls for sale if anyone wants to bang their head without damaging their own properties.

Didn't like the first season all that much, and this is worse. The writing is poor and the characters - especially the sky pirates, but even MORE especially with Fam herself - are irritating and unlikeable. The reason I'm not completely trashing this is because of the good musical score and the (for a television series) amazing visuals. But writing and characters are more important than technical merits, and if every scene with the titular character in it grates on me then I can't be blamed for dropping this where it stands.

So some people argue that The Lost Village was deliberately designed to be intentionally bizarre and messy and O.T.T., as in a "so-bad-it's-good" kind of way. They even make some good points with insightful examples taken from the show. And I'll give them that in some respects the production staff were trying to be different, to be wacky, to be "out there".

But the viewpoint that the overall show was supposed to be bad is ultimately unpersuasive because its proponents fail to take into account of said staff behind this trainwreck (or rather, bus crash). You have the director of Another, BLOOD-C and Witch Craft Works combined with the writer of AKB0048, Fractale and M3; a dodgy show is just the natural outcome of such an unholy union.

I tried, I really did, but the show actively wants me to hate it. The plot sounds kinda cool - teenagers are being forced to battle one another, and the losers will be stripped of their minds - but it's ultimately vague and inconsequential. As in, there's no rhyme or reason behind it, it's just one big excuse to put characters through the emotional and psychological wringer. Which is alright, providing we actually care about the characters in the first place. Which we don't. They're all so shallow and one-note, despite all the screentime that's devoted to them. Of the two main girls, Suzuko is a wet blanket who isn't even looking for a spine, and Chinatsu - who is initially quite sympathetic - just turns into a coldly smirking villainess.

Awful show. At 8m 51s in, the main male character says a rather illuminating line:

"I've never had a girlfriend and the girls treat me like a pervert."

It never crosses his mind that they treat him like a pervert because he is one? That they quite rightly don't want to have anything to do with him because he's a creep? He's so self-absorbed he doesn't even know he's self-absorbed. He's effectively implying that his lack of a girlfriend is all the fault of the way others treat him instead of his own sick behaviour.

Anyway, apart from the slimy piece of shower scum that is the MC, the rest of the show is total crap too. Here's one example. His wish was for a pair of panties, which is disturbing enough but he didn't know it was going to work so whatever. But why would a witch knowingly risk 130 years in prison by giving him her own panties when she could've just gotten him another pair from somewhere else or made some with magic? It makes no effing sense.

I get that Medaka was deliberately crafted to be a perfect person, but she ain't a perfect character. In fact, she's awful. She's as boring as hell. Where's the tension? Where's the relatability? Where's the sense that she has to exert any effort and that her achievements mean anything? Now the guy who follows her is interesting - he has interesting reasons for why he willingly puts up with someone as obnoxious as Medaka - but he can't carry the series by himself.

This was better than I expected, and I would recommend it to those who like Romance Anime. Characters were fine, humour was okay, animation budget limited but still passable.

Although it was perfectly fine, I've simply got too much else on my plate to deal with a series that doesn't really appeal to me. But it isn't bad by any stretch, and it is good enough to hold the interest of more than just the girl-with-glasses fetishist crowd.

It was awful to be sure, but not all at once.

Some parts where actually pretty good. But then you get the worst (not to mention laziest written) Gundam-jack ever animated, as well as that drunk perverted guy, and it suffers dramatically. The philosophy-spouting by Gato rolled my eyes, and the way the show ruins the technical continuity of the franchise is irritating. Finally, a Zeon space-ship used a wooden steering wheel taken from the Age of Freaking Sail to steer with.

Well, I take it back. I called this "Gundam kiddies" but it turned out to be a bit more darker than I had expected. Still, that doesn't mean show didn't have poor writing, because it most certainly did.

How and where does a failed colony get the technology to completely outmatch the still-intact nation that created the colony in the first place? How does a fourteen-year-old boy make a Gundam in the first place? Why didn't the Vagans/Vegans attack when they still had the overwhelming technological superiority? Then there's more of the stupid Newtype BS going on, this time with so-called "X-Rounders". I was also annoyed at how the frequent timeskips were handled, fast-forwarding past really important bits that (at best) we got to see in a montage. Stuff like Flit's relationship with Emily and Asemu's relationship with Romary moving beyond their respective friendship zones, and the eighteen months that Zeheart stayed on Tordia. All lead to important developments, but all are pretty much ignored. Also, let's not forget about the utter stupidity that was everything about Fardain. The entire arc was groan-inducingly atrocious. There are many other problems, too many to list here.

But I will list one more. The final straw (okay, a bloody I-beam) that broke the camel's back was episode twenty-nine. Specifically, the way Zeheart was content to - SPOILER ALERT - watch soldiers under his command kill unarmed, fleeing civilians, including children. In fact, it's highly possible he ordered such a high level of hostility, given his complete lack of qualms while watching them carry out the atrocities. This goes completely against his beliefs in the second generation and is absolutely reprehensible. He is after all a supposedly sympathetic character who holds the view of, "Hey I'm just trying to do the right thing for my people and make a paradise so no-one has to suffer anymore." This is the guy who made his peace with Asemu just an episode before, and now - one timeskip later - has a radically different personality with no signs of brainwashing or any other such explanation. It is so baffling and stupid and plain WRONG I refuse to watch another episode.

Putting it as mildly and calmly as is possible when one feels despair akin to learning that he has just contracted a terminal disease: I found the fan- so-called "service" surrounding Momoko in Momo Kyun Sword to be a complete turn-off on a par not seen since Eiken introduced me to the soothing taste of bleach.

The disfigured mummified skulls Momoko had glued to her chest were so hideously ugly and so atrociously animated that I shrieked with anguish every time they haunted my screen. If I was forced by some malicious entity to make the choice of whether to watch episode two or have my eyesight robbed from me, I would choose to perform the surgery myself by sticking bamboo skewers in my eyes and plucking them out like they were finger food at a Christmas party.

When the primary fanservicey drawcard trait of your off-model main character in your shoestring budget bottom-of-the-barrel-and-then-started-digging fanservice show is so utterly ghastly that it makes a guy's loins want to desperately retreat up inside his torso to safety, then there's only one word to describe it; ouch. The so-called "creators" whose only original idea was digging a trench to set the bar lower than ground level have completely failed at what was presumably their life's work ever since their high school careers adviser told them their grades weren't good enough to get into college but that the anime industry takes any sap with a pulse.

It may be unfair to drop it now, but I got seven episodes in and there's been no semblance of plot. It's a pure Comedy at this point. A funny one, yes, but that's all it is. The first season at least tried to do a bit more with a bit of drama, but I get the feeling I'd have to wait right until the end and the goodbyes before getting anything more substantial.

Saw the first episode in a NewType disk way back before I really knew about "this" sort of Anime. I was not impressed. I mean, the premise alone was just crazy, although not as bizarre as other shows (girl who literally turns into a guy's right hand, anyone?).

The girls were just the same face but with different eyes and hair. They fell into horrible type-casts, as if the creator was deliberately trying to cover as many fetishes as possible. The actual story seemed non-existent. It didn't even seem all that well drawn and animated.

Another show about two disparate teens forced to associate with each other who can't stop sniping and arguing, except of course when the inevitable sexual tension occurs. Pretty lame and unoriginal, and the unimpressive execution can't make up for it. Not just in terms of storytelling either; the show is pretty uninteresting in visual terms too, even by normal standards. SHAFT didn't even really try to do their usual magic.

I've got it on excellent authority that the story goes downhill with amnesia coming into play and love interests being added left and right forming a harem, so it's for the best that I bail on this train now before it completely derails. I'm just saddened by the fact that people were so hyped for this. Not everything that SHAFT touches turns to gold.

Music is good on its own but is obnoxiously repetitive, and also makes the mistake of being too prominent instead of simply enhancing whatever scene it is used in. Lead characters are way too flat and wooden; they're calm assassins who keep emotions in check but that doesn't mean they have to be boring. Also, the show's female characters all have this dumb habit of not killing named enemies when they have the chance, and Mireille in particular goes around pointing guns at people but not shooting in order to seem more assertive (which doesn't work, she just comes across as flakey). While there's nothing wrong in the show making time for introspection, "atmosphere" is just an excuse for nothing happening on screen (due to small animation budget) and a molasses-speed plot (so heaps of padding). Speaking of the plot, it seems to have something to do with a secret criminal organisation and its priestesses or magic or rituals or whatever, and I'm just facepalming. I came for the girls and gunplay, not a bunch of nonsensical mysticism.

In the first half of the episode the brother actually - gasp - stood up to his sister. There was even some sporadically funny humour. But in the second half we got introduced to three girls (each appealing to a different fetish), except there were no introductions to be had. They just instantly appeared at the dorm with no explanation and wasted no time trying to get into the guy's pants. And the guy suddenly lost any personality he had in the first half and became Milquetoast Harem Loser Lead #812. It wasn't just insipid, it was actively atrocious and obnoxious, and the longer the episode went on the worse it got. And don't even get me started on how bad the sister was.

The moralising in this show is beyond a joke, and the drama is painful. If the CIA were on the ball, which they're not, but if they were they'd tape the Dramatic Yelling and use it at Guantanamo Bay. The rest of the dialogue fares little better.

Kirino must rival Shinji as one of the most annoying characters of all time, and yet unlike Shinji she doesn't have any reason to be so irritating. Kyousuke must go down as one of the stupidest older brothers in Anime history. Perhaps he's a masochist, that's the only reason I have. Ayase . . . oh, Ayase. What can I say about her that doesn't make her out to be the total bitch she totally is.

Manami on the other hand is a rare find; a nice childhood friend who is not ridiculously attractive and who is actually normal and sympathetic. Kuroneko is okay, obvious fanboy bait but whatever.

By now I am sick and tired of Mari Okada's incompetency at handling drama. She has no subtlety, her characters have the irritating propensity to just scream at one another because in her mind SHOUTING AND PUNCHING IS DRAMA, and the situations she puts her characters in and the way they act are ridiculous to the point of not being plausible. Worst of all, she has the tendency to deliberately prevent them from developing until the very end. This means that her characters are making the same mistakes and facing the same hurdles and going through the same arcs several times before they are finally allowed to change. For example, a character will learn an aesop and seemingly get better/more stable, then a few episodes later be making the exact same mistake as if they never learned it in the first place. She just doesn't seem to understand how humans think and feel; her characters so often come off as completely unrelatable because of their bizarre decisions and behaviour.

I'm well aware that with shows like Pet Girl of Sakurasou she is merely adapting the original source material, in this case Light Novels. But the fact that she is chosen and gets so much work means that producers and directors like her style and feel it is compatible with such source material. Even more tellingly, the undeniable trend throughout so much of her work towards melodrama is certainly not blameable on any one individual Manga or Light Novel series. Maybe if it had been one or two shows then it could be passed off as a co-incidence. But when we are talking about the same problems over and over again, then the problem is clearly on her end.

Now that I've talked about her, I'll get to the actual show. Pet Girl of Sakurasou had some great points. On the one hand it was far better than a show with the name "Pet Girl" had any right to be. There was real heart in here. But I had to drop it because the characters just pissed me off so much. As much as they were passionate and had some great moments - real well-written scenes that came across as genuine and touching - most of the time the characters were appallingly handled. It was cringe-inducing to watch them; I can't remember how many times I yelled at my monitor, "That's not how people in real life act, dammit." When episode nineteen started with yet another manufactured plot point which introduced yet more melodrama, and Sorata was yet again acting like a screaming ape rather than a human being, I gave up. My patience ran out and I just simply gave up the fight. There are nuggets of quality in here - some truly great stuff - but they're buried under so much BS that I could no longer be bothered anymore.

Seriously? Osamu Tezuka himself did the screenplay and its based off one of his own Manga? It sucked. The first two minutes is spent staring at a bird's arse, then nine minutes of actually good (yet curiously dialogue-free) animation as Godo is born, raised and trained. But then it goes rapidly downhill from there.

Apparently a child raised to be a pilot for the military - literally indoctrinated since birth - can turn out to be a disobedient and impolite fellow who refuses to follow orders and has moral qualms about killing. That's stupid. A character should act as he was raised, and then if he was raised wrongly he should have to overcome his brainwashing. It's called a character arc. Yet Godo acts like a typical teenager as if he was the unwilling civilian pilot in a Gundam show. He doesn't act like someone who has been indoctrinated in an militaristic society since birth.

The training academy is run rather poorly and is very ill-disciplined given the backgrounds of the cadets. They were all chosen to be pilots based on natural aptitude yet only the main character is shown to be any good.

Godo is chosen to try and capture an extremely powerful alien capable of annihilating starships, and he has to do it by himself. Uh, why?

Godo's brother Locke is sentimental about being twins even though the way they were raised would mean that blood ties aren't important. He is also already a powerful politician who is engaged to a high-ranking girl even though he is only the same age as Godo and of the same lowly gene class. Finally, they don't even look like brothers, let alone twins.

The "romance" between Godo and the Senator's daughter is only slightly less annoying and far-fetched than the one between Anakin and Padme in Attack of the Clones. Godo and the girl take one look at one another, fall instantly in love and that's that. There's no chemistry between them, they don't have any special scenes together, and there's nothing notable about her. To call it a shallow romance is being generous; it's practically non-existent. She's just there as eye-candy, to give the main character a (human) love interest, and to get him into trouble so the plot can progress in an even more stupid direction than it already was.

They dun goofed. Let's count the ways. Poor to sometimes non-existent character development. Mercury, Mars and Jupiter become practically irrelevant after their respective intro episodes, not only in terms of plot and in battle prowess too. A loudly exclaimed feminist message that is undermined by Tuxedo Mask constantly rescuing Usagi (including TWICE in two minutes in episode eight), and also by the other four girls being paired up with the four generals. Boring battles. Horrible CG transformation sequences. Poor quality control e.g. for characters staying on-model. Colouring issues, for crying out loud. And probably the biggest issue of all; a complete lack of charm. The original Sailor Moon series may have aged badly in terms of visuals and sound quality but it still exudes a charm that can put a smile on the face. This new series however is practically lifeless and is sorely lacking in passion.

I'll never get that forty-eight minutes of my life back. I should really put KEY VisualArts on my blacklist, because they bring me nothing but grief.

Watched it for the "lolz", simple as that. It's a horrible attempt to glamourise gambling using Yu-Gi-Oh! inspired "Heart of the Cards" cheating tactics. What casino would hire someone who gives good luck to the patrons? Maybe as a loss leader??? Oh, and of course, how could I forget the fanservice? Rio herself is completely bland - not a woman I'd want to date for her personality - and her ample cleavage is ruined by having shiny spots on them. Not sexy at all. Now, did we really need to see her wear a wedding dress to a poker match? Of course we did. If it wasn't for completely nonsensical fanservice there would be no reason to watch this show at all. Silly me.

Here's a thought. How do you make an irritating Sudden Magical Girlfriend Appearance Character seem sympathetic? By partnering her up with one of the most obnoxious lead males ever who makes all the dumbarse characters around him look like saints. Sure, teenagers can be sullen and surly, but this boy has no redeeming features; he's just a complete moron and a massive jerk.

To be fair, I knew I should have dropped this after the giant snake. I even told myself that I should. But I kept watching because it is a show that one can switch their brain off and just enjoy. The episodes are easily digestible and the art, animation, voice acting and music are all well done. Plus Ryouko herself is awesome. Unfortunately, you have to turn your brain off to enjoy this, because it sure is stupid as hell. The writing is so sloppy it borders on being actively bad. There's no character development (not within the first half of the series, at any rate) and only a vague ongoing plot that doesn't seem to be very interesting. I've watched the DVD extras, and the second one shows clips from virtually every episode. I paid attention to the clips of the show's second half and yeah, I really don't need to see any more of this stupidity.

This show will appeal to those nostalgic for the original series, those (probably female) who like seeing bishounen wear shiny outfits and pose constantly, and those among us who are children. Everyone else should stay away. It's not that this series is actively bad, it just doesn't offer anything that we haven't already seen done in a better manner many times before. The villain is so comical he's a joke, the lead character is nothing more than a brash obnoxious kid voiced by a Seiyuu who can't act, and the plot treads ground so well-worn it is merely following a trench dug deep in the landscape.

Okay, so this has nice backgrounds and good-looking (if unoriginal) character designs. Those two are the only positives this show has. Everything else is either bad or, at best, painfully mediocre. This is one of those uncommon but not unknown cases where I wish the show had rampant fanservice. But apart from three females showing off huge amounts of cleavage there is not even any of that, so what's the bloody point?

Look, I knew the show was going to be dull before I even watched it, but I was surprised at how utterly useless it is. There's no way I want to check out another episode, especially since I read about the character that Rie Kugimiya will play and how she apparently uses icecream-based attacks. Also, why does Hiroshi Kamiya play both Rick and Alvin, A.K.A. the two named male characters with speaking roles in this episode? It was bizarre to hear them talk to one another.

Oh my goodness, it was worse than I feared. The male lead speaks his dirty and shallow-minded thoughts out loud and powers up by groping the lead female's breasts and planting his face into her crotch.

My love hate relationship with BONES continues. This is a Super Robot show which tries to be more than combining Mecha piloted by GAR heroes screaming silly slogans at the top of their lungs. No, this is a Super Robot show which features retarded Mecha piloted by pretty-boy heroes merely shouting catchphrases (and bizarre catch phrases at that). Oh, and the plot from what I've read up on (it's at episode nine when I'm writing this) is none too special either. The setting mixes the tired student council/high school cliche with a lacklustre mysterious/important island affair, and the combination is let down by sub-par writing.

The exposition is stupid and ham-fisted, talking about things the characters already know. What makes it so much worse is that some of the characters NEED to hear the exposition because - get this - they don't know it yet. That's right, two of the characters don't even know what their own powers are even though they've had them for goodness-only-knows how long and are part of a group who deal exclusively in these sorts of powers. The Lover and the Fool didn't know that when they made their respective pacts with the card they got the powers they had. It's so mind-boggling stupid and clunky that I can't believe this made it past the first draft.

Then of course the characters are all one-note stereotypes designed to appeal to Fujoshi senses. You know, the idiot one, the serious one, the hungry one, the eye-patch one, the cocky one, the smooth one, and so on and so forth. It's not surprising given that this is an Otome game, with a Reverse Harem that allows for wish-fulfilment but also maximises slash possibilities. I might have been surprised that the girl's mother is Japanese despite the show being set in Italy, but of course this is a stupid production anyway so why not?

Super Robot sucks, blah blah blah. Fact is, this show is worse than usual, since you not only have had to watch the previous season (which isn't a bad thing by itself), but you also have to have familiarity with the numerous games spanning a truly incomprehensible meta-verse. This show is for SRW fans only.

Started with boring and cliched opening narration followed by a godawful two-minute-ten-second-long opening theme. Goodness gracious. Then we got introduced to the painfully cliched happy-go-lucky cocksure shounen hero archetype who grates on my nerves with every line he speaks, and then a scene immediately happens with a minor character which is just an excuse to shove ultra-clunky expository dialogue on us (get used to this, because it features often in this episode). Straight after, before we've even had time to breathe or get to know anyone, the stock good-natured best friend character (who is implied to have homosexual feelings for the main character) and the stock princess fiancee (who is obsessed with the hated "forgotten childhood promise" cliche) both make an appearance. And then we learn that the hero has amnesia and oh my god I cannot go on or I'll slit my wrists.

It's pleasant enough but not what I'd call a great title. Episodic Slice-of-Life with only the barest frame of a plot is a perfectly good genre, but works in it have to be dramatical and/or funny. Unfortunately, Tamako Market has very little drama (practically non-existent) and is not especially humourous or endearing. It's simply just there. Yes, it's very cute, adorably so. You have to hand it to Kyoto Animation, they are the masters at producing Moe character designs. And yes, the bird is quite amusing in his outrageous way. But the humour is simply not compelling enough.

As for the themes, they're not too strong either. It just seems to boil down to, "Isn't friendship wonderful?" Well, yes, but the extent of this show is merely to watch a group of kids and the adults around them interact in an idealised setting and living out snapshots of their lives; Christmas, New Year's, Valentines, starting school in Spring, enjoying Summer vacation, et cetera. That's it. If it were consistently funny then that would be more than fine. But as it's not, there's very little here of actual substance.

Of course, I could just not be getting the joke, or am not attuned to the particular brand of humour in the series. I disagree with that sentiment, but even if it were true, it just shows how one-note the series actually is. Humour is subjective, and putting so much emphasis on the spotty humour is like putting all your eggs in one basket. Okay, okay, the series is still incredibly cute. But that seems to be something that is audience-dependent rather than an actual merit of the show.

This could prove itself to be a fairly popular show. It is similar in plot to Attack on Titan, where instead of humanity cowering behind a wall they are protected by the vastness of space, and in both cases their means of protection isn't quite large enough to offer true safety. Therefore the heroes - who have taken on the powers of their opponents - must sally forth to the humanoid enemy's territory to discover a means to fight back while battling intrigue and corruption from evil humans back home. So yeah, the groundwork for a megahit is there, and it might well achieve that.

The reveal at the end of episode three was good, and the show was interesting while it was set in a rural town. As soon as the setting moved to the school in Tokyo - A.K.A. 'every magic school ever' - it got thoroughly uninteresting. That Natsume's gender had not been outed also stretched belief. Then there was the drama which hinged on a powerless guy trying to do his best in the world and protect his friends. That's fine, but it was subsequently extremely cheapened when it turned out he could have received powers at any time.

I've heard this show being called "weird for weird's own sake", and that is a succinct way to put it. However, it does leave out how the weirdness is oftentimes really off-putting. The stupid facial expressions that the main character exhibits when stressed are extremely dorky and not at all how people actually deal with stress. Said character is also going to save the world apparently, which is patently ludicrous; what's he going to do, scare people to death with his face? The grandmother allowing the alien to live in her house is an Anime staple but not handled very well; we're just supposed to accept it and move on. Then there's the alien himself. Completely obnoxious and asinine, he bullies the main character into doing what he wants with a water pistol that fires mind-controlling fluid. How daft is that? And the main character doesn't seem to have a spine at all to stick up for himself when the alien starts ruining his reputation and dragging them into stupid situations.

Okay, I only downloaded the first episode of this because I thought it was Umineko no Nako Koro ni. Needless to say, I was in for a shock.

So not quite as terrible as Infinite Stratos, but that's the best I can say about it.

Okay, I was watching it for the lulz. And it was kind of enjoyable, in a weird way, despite a complete absence of any sort of intelligent logic. The gun history segments were actually quite engrossing. But even so, after watching episodes five and six, I didn't want to watch any more. Namely, episode five has this one girl being downright evil and torturing others in between bouts of fingering herself, then in episode six there are no consequences for her actions. Does this school not have teachers and does this tournament not have rules and adjudicators? Oh wait, that's right, complete absence of intelligent logic and all that. Gotcha.

Great animation, great battle sequences. But the rest of the show is pretty cringe-inducing. Mashing Mecha, Military and Magical Girl together to bait Otaku sounds like a recipe for success, especially with fanservice added on top. After all, it worked for Strike Witches. Vividred Operation looks like it too will be popular. But it's also stupidly-written, which should come as no surprise. The fanservice is blatant without even being particularly tasteful (or graphic for that matter). The writing doesn't even try to make the different genres blend in with one another, and the character drama is by-the-book at best; in episode two, a melodramatic line about disliking tomatoes is particularly facepalm-worthy. Two episodes in and it's painfully clear that the show has no interest in logic and probably hasn't even heard of the word.

So apparently there's supposed to be a plot, but the show spends so much time on fanservice - WEAK fanservice - that the common thread which binds the individual storylines together has still not been shown. If it even exists at all, that is. The first episode was to me pretty funny, but only because I made a huge error and thought that this was some sort of parody. Er, no. It's just another plotless Ecchi-Harem show with way too many similarly-looking girls fulfilling all the usual Otaku-bait roles such as Tsundere waitress/maid, ditzy younger sister, panty-flashing Loli, et cetera -you know the drill- et cetera.

Sigh. A show about ballroom dancing made by the team behind the extremely overrated Haikyuu!! is not exactly my cup of tea. But I came into Welcome to the Ballroom with as open a mind as I could, and I gave this show as good a try as can be reasonably expected. I was willing to get hooked if it was gripping enough, just like what happened with Madhouse's adaptation of Chihayafuru, and the way that show expertly got me invested in a sport (karuta) that I'd never even heard of before then. I even broke my three-episode guideline and watched two more episodes, just to give Welcome to the Ballroom an extra chance to convince me to stay. And it's become clear that in fact it ain't me that is the issue here.

Firstly, the technical merits are disappointing. The direction is so-so when it should be popping; this is supposed to be a first-rate production, after all. The animation is inconsistent; very good in flashes but usually barely even there, and for a show about dancing to utilise so many still frames is criminal. (One of the animators died from overwork, which speaks of huge problems behind the scenes.) The music is kinda not doing its job, with the show being oddly muted sound-wise (this includes background stuff like the audience and foley effects). The character designs have bizarrely long necks, which is obviously a deliberate choice to showcase the choreography but simply looks weird and unnatural. Ditto for the expressions the dancers use, which are supposed to mimic the robotic smiles of real-life performers, but instead make the characters look like crazed psychopaths

Secondly, I'm not really feeling the motivations of the characters. They all want to be the best and be the star but there's no mention of their love for dancing in and of itself. Other motivations, like wanting to express oneself artistically, or improving one's confidence, or just having a fun and sociable way to keep fit, are notable for the absence. Nope, everyone just wants all eyes to be on them. Actually, that's not entirely true. One girl only performed to be the partner to her arsehole brother, and he is only too happy to discard her when the opportunity arose.

Which leads me onto my final point.

The characters are a joke. Ugh. Even fans of the manga don't try to defend the mean-spirited tone and the misogyny, because the anime is only adapting the story faithfully. Having imperfect characters is important for drama, and no-one's perfect, but Sengoku and Gaju are so obnoxious as to be nearly unbearable. Mako and Shizuku are there to be eye candy and little else, and given no agency or even much personality beyond looking cute and beautiful respectively. Another woman, an instructor, is defined almost completely by her breasts and their propensity to bounce. Hyodo, a rival, is easily the best character thus far, someone flawed but ultimately well-meaning, but he isn't the main character; Tatara is. And Tatara's motivations are - as mentioned above - simply limited to wanting approval from others. Anything would have been good enough, as long as it gave him the applause he seeks, and he just happened to fall into ballroom dancing due to blind chance. Not exactly the most sympathetic of reasons, in my opinion.

It is unfortunate that I dropped this, since it seemed like the sort of romance story I would enjoy. I don't really want Tsunderes and Kuuderes and whatever, and nor do I want bizarre and far-fetched Romance storylines. I long for realistic characters in realistic relationships. And Winter Sonata looked like it could provide me with that fix. Plus, the character designs are really really nice. So what went wrong?

Part of what went wrong were the fansubs, specifically with regards to the speed. At the time of this writing all the episodes have indeed been subbed, but it took many many months for the series to be completed. I lost interest in the show, and couldn't be bothered to get the rest of the episodes. Now, granted, the show failed to really hook me in in the first place, but the long wait was the difference between (casually) watching it and dropping it.

Then there is the proverbial elephant in the room; the show is in Korean. That is not a racist comment on my part, but rather a linguistic(?) comment. I like the sound of the Japanese language, and through watching scores of shows I have gotten very used to it. Korean is horrible by comparison, at least to me. Stilted and seemingly monotonous (though sub-par voice work could be the reason behind that), listening to the dialogue grated on my nerves while simultaneously boring me.

First off, skip the first episode. Confusing the heck out of the audience by introducing too many characters all at once is a very bad way to start a show.

CLAMP's idea of fate reminds me very much of Norse Mythology. However, though their version of fate was absolutely critical to the story time and time again - seriously, the characters never shut up about it - it is clear that CLAMP did not rub two brain cells together when coming up with it. Such an important piece of the show - pretty much the story's raison d'être - was also its most overwhelming weakness. You don't have to understand anything about quantum physics or even believe in free will to realise that their version of fate would be simply unworkable. One character gets told the very reason he will die by a seer who is, we are told more than once, never wrong. What is to stop him from throwing himself in front of a bus, thereby invalidating the seer's prophecy? I suspect that fate would then collapse as much as this show's plot did.

The last big concern I have is something that is related to fate (given the nature of the show, everything is related to fate), and that is Fuma. Not to spoil anything specific, he undergoes a massive change for one of the stupidest and possibly laziest in-universe reasons I've ever witnessed in an Anime. It's utterly pathetic and infuriating, and it gave the coup de grace to a show which was struggling but still managing to hold on.

The character designs are totally nineties, I wish they'd been updated a bit. Also, the art looks rather poor for a series that for three months ran concurrent with RahXephon. The music was okay, they reused that one good theme a lot but that's normal for television Anime.

The English dub is simply unwatchable. As everyone before me has mentioned, the casting was very faithful to the original Japanese, as in the dub tried to match the voices wherever possible. Too bad that in some cases they chose fidelity over competence. Terrence Stone should be ashamed of himself.

It tries to be funny but the comedy is painful, with Kimihiro's antics being irritating rather than endearing. It tries to be atmospheric and moody but the effect is ruined because the main characters look like noodles. It tries to say insightful and meaningful things about destiny, circumstance and choice, but instead spouts pretentious and logically unsound BS at us. And it tries to make Yuuko into this powerful and mysterious and (other)worldly presence, but she just comes across as a pathetic scam artist who - pun unintended - blows smoke up up her own arse.

You can tell that the show's creators had little faith in it. They must have thought - correctly, I might add - that it is very, very boring. The monotone, humourless dialogue in what is supposedly a Comedy. The absence of a plot. The reminisces of the past in which the characters are just as dull as they are now. The show is not funny and practically gave up trying to grab my attention before it had even started.

Realising they had such a dreary stinker on their hands, the creators chose not to actually spice up the show to the level of bland tofu. Oh no, they decided to leave it about as interesting as days-old grease. Instead, their answer was to insert numerous and frequent scenes of cats. They may have been trying to target the cat-lover demographic (which as we know is a huge percentage of people) but the scenes fell flat and were all-too obvious. It doesn't help that the felines are often yawning or sleeping, as if unconsciously mirroring the mental state of the audience.

Yes, you may be wondering why I would rate this so highly. The show never makes sense, it always has horrible dialogue, battles drag on for episode after episode, there's no real character growth, it is super cheesy, it exists only to sell an expensive card game to children . . . but it was Good Dumb Fun. Mindless, repetitive fun, the perfect thing to watch every day after school. That's it. Compared to the sorts of Anime I like nowadays the show is bloody awful, but to my pre-teen (and yes, it must be said, my teenage self as well), Yu-Gi-Oh! was something I looked forward to when I got home from school.

So, this is a fairly harmless - read boring - show. So, this show has absolutely no plot. So, the characters are uninteresting and unfunny. So, the technical merits are sub-par. So, I'm dropping this show.