Just finished watching both seasons of Sangatsu no Lion. Here are my thoughts:

Exceptional in so many respects. Both from a technical point of view and in terms of artistic merit. The direction is excellent. The writing seems excellent (I plan to read the source material). Visually it is excellent and I applaud their frequent use of 'visual metaphors' in scenes. Visual direction is excellent. The studio is Shaft if you care. Characterization is extremely well done. The characters are rich and elaborate, as are their interactions. I liked character designs - especially the unique style of the faces. OST was good but not spectacular. Given the dialogue-heavy nature of the show though OST is relatively less important.

I cried a few times while watching this. Although I should mention that I cry easily and even enjoy it, and for many weeks this was my go-to anime when feeling more depressed than usual.

Drama is one of my favourite genres. Sangatsu no Lion excels in this context. The drama utilizes the rich cast of characters well. It is multidimensional in nature as opposed to a simple linear romance. There are many axes along which drama is developed, and it follows that there are many aspects through which you can engage with this anime emotionally. I personally found many characters relatable and this enhanced my experience. There's a high probability that you will as well and with this in mind I strongly recommend watching Sangatsu no Lion.

10/10 overall. Highly emotionally engaging and exceptional in many respects.

I found myself rewatching many scenes over and over.

I think I liked season 1 slightly more than season 2, overall. They're both great - I just found the plot in season 1 more personally engaging. I don't want to elaborate more because whichever plot one prefers between the seasons is highly subjective and any discussion of it will inevitably result in spoilers.

Also an afterthought about humour: the show has a lot of genuinely funny gags. I laughed out loud many times while watching. Comedic relief is used to effectively to create sort of an emotional rollercoaster. The flavour of humour itself is objectively kind of lame but personally I'm a sucker for silly puns and stuff like that. There is a lot of (social) situational humour as well, which I find enjoyable. I previously mentioned the use of visual metaphors - this is used for comedic effect as well.

That's kinda what I've been doing over at http://tohno-chan.com/an/res/2446.html
But whatever I guess.

>>33341
Beat me to it.

I watched Memories for the first time today. I'm on the younger side, so that explains why I haven't seen it already. I enjoyed each part as individual pieces, but I'm not sure how well they fit together as a whole. Stink Bomb and Cannon Fire are good as shorts. Quick, interesting, and just enough to satisfy without overstaying their welcome. Magnetic Rose would have benefited from being a full-length movie. Only Magnetic Rose really embodies the "Memories" theme, but if you reach I guess the other two could fit. As a whole, i'd say the shorts comment on different negative aspects of humans and society. It made me want to watch more old, lesser-known sci-fi anime like Roujin Z.

Magnetic Rose: The best of the three. It efficiently and smoothly develops the world and characters. The intro, build-up and climax were also well-paced for the time length. The visuals and integration of music was breathtaking. All three shorts do a great job of using music to add the story-telling, but Magnetic Rose does it with the most impact. I was a little annoyed by the "let's split up" trope, but within this context it's not too unbelievable. I appreciate its necessity and how it allows the story to go in two different directions, showing a lot more overall. The message was also well-conveyed. I would have liked to get more from Miguel's character.

Stink Bomb: People say this is the worst of the three, but i'd disagree. I enjoyed it more than cannon fire, but I wouldn't compare them in terms of "quality". Nothing makes sense, including the ending, but it's not supposed to. The short sets out to be humorous and say something about human stupidity, and it accomplishes those goals. I liked its high-production value and old-fashioned aesthetics. The music also stood out here in a good way.

Cannon Fire: At first, the visual style was jarring, but it's well-done and the animation was very smooth. They succeeded in making this style appealing in its own way. The short does a good job of criticizing soviet style conformity. The juxtaposition of how ugly real people are compared to people in propaganda posters was also impressive. I enjoyed this one the least, but that's only because of my personal preferences.

Post edited on 1st Sep 2019, 11:08am

>>33349
Magnetic Rose was good. The other two were garbage.

>>33350
Maybe they look that way compared to Magnetic Rose, but I think the other two are better than average. Animation, music, those are still high up there in both. Junk Boy is bad, for comparison.

I recently finished watching the ReLIFE anime. Here are my thoughts:

Bland art style and character designs. Animation is mediocre and often looks cheap and sloppy (and I did watch the BDs.). I did kind of like the super-saturated colour tones that are sometimes used, but besides that the anime is weak visually.
Unremarkable OST, however the rapid switching between tracks and/or silence is used well for dramatic effect. Overall, the production quality feels like a cheap disposable seasonal anime. Which is a shame because I think it deserved more. This anime would have benefited from a higher budget and/or better technical staff.

Quality of direction seems to vary a lot. Dramatic scenes are often handled poorly. Suspense is built up well but I feel like the climatic scenes are often 'fumbled' for lack of a better phrase. Comedic relief is sometimes used inappropriately. I'm already innoculated against this from watching lots of anime, but it can be pretty bad in this case. Overall, I'd say the direction is weak to mediocre at best. As someone who values direction more than visuals for this kind of genre, the weak direction is the most significant flaw of the anime in my view.

It's kind of cliche but I really liked the premise and thought it was promising (28 year old NEET relives high school - what's not to like?). Whether or not the premise was capitalized upon to its full potential is highly subjective. The plot ended up evolving differently from the way I expected it to, but I still liked it.

As you might expect, there's a lot of situational humour, which I'm fond of. Humour isn't a selling point here, but I did chuckle to myself a number of times while watching.

Decent script.

Good voice acting, especially the female cast. Kariu's VA in particular is absolutely terrific. I found myself rewinding many times just to hear her deliver some lines over and over again. I was extremely impressed by her talent.

MC is sort of unlikable, in my opinion.
Overall though, the cast is likable (ONOYA IS LITERALLY ME). Characters are well-developed. There was less focus on the MC than I initially expected, which was a pleasant surprise in my view. There are certainly some memorable characters. I miss them and want to go back. In particular, the female cast and the interactions between them were really enjoyable. Felt very real and human. The main female characters are the best in the entire series, in my opinion. The male cast was bland in comparison, despite receiving a similar amount of screentime.

Great writing. I get the impression that the source material is excellent and I hope to look into it sometime. Well-done character-driven drama is something I very much enjoy. Judging this anime before watching, I expected that it would basically be a large serving of hedonistic escapist fantasy. Again, I was pleasantly surprised in this respect, and this serves as a lesson to refrain from judging an anime before actually watching. Actually I would even say this anime is the opposite of escapism because one of the underlying themes is confronting real problems or personal shortcomings in your own life (trigger warning). Absolutely the writing is good, however I should clarify that I didn't find any of the themes explored to be all that engaging on a personal level. For this reason someone else might derive even more enjoyment from the series than I did.

Envy is a theme that comes up in the story and I applaud its use because it's such a common aspect of human nature. Jealousy permeates this disgusting world we live in, yet its representation in fiction is rarely commensurate. I think a lot of people can relate to this or at least would find it an engaging theme in fiction.

Very watchable. I watched the first 8 episodes within ~12 hours which for me is extremely unusual.

Many anime start out strong and then flop in the later episodes. ReLIFE was the opposite experience for me. It started out good, but it was only in the latter half of the anime that it really started to shine. This is mainly due to payoff from developing rich characters earlier in the series (take notes, anime writing staff). My progress through the later episodes was slowed because there were far more scenes that I needed to appreciate by watching over and over before continuing.

I'll try to comment on the romance component without spoiling anything. Despite the poor direction, especially in this regard, ReLIFE is still pretty romantic. It's not strictly a romance story, but there are certainly some romantic scenes and moments. ReLIFE owes its romantic merit entirely to the underlying writing. It is probably the best het-romance of 2016 (competition is not stiff). Please feel free to respond with alternatives for that title though.

This anime has appeal to a broader audience. Would be easily digested by casual anime fans. Despite its flaws I'd still recommend it. I think I'd actually recommend this to a woman due to how much the female perspective is explored during the romantic story arcs. Again, the female characters are such a strong aspect of this anime; I really can't overstate it.

I rate this anime 8/10 for great writing with great characters and a good script with good voice acting. I really wanted to rate this higher but I can't overlook the flaws in its execution. The show is like a poorly polished diamond; the beauty is there if you look closely.

Due to the series being continued in OVAs released 1.5 years later, and the peculiar obsession that imageboard users have with watching things the instant they air, I think that this show (or at least the OVAs) may have been overlooked by people. It also serves as a lesson for why you should wait for an entire series (including BDs and extras) to be released before watching. In my case, jumping right from the last episode to the OVAs (instead of waiting 2 years) provided a vastly superior viewing experience, especially with consideration to the plot of the show.

The OVAs feel very rushed to me and I would have much preferred a complete second season, or at least more than 4 OVA episodes. Production quality and direction of the OVAs was just as poor as the original tv anime. Truly a shame because the story is great.

Update since writing the above review draft while still watching the anime:
fucking hell this is really starting to tug at my heartstrings. The waterworks have started.
tl;dr: *sobbing mess* b-but m-muh direction and production quality

final update: okay I cried a lot but that doesn't invalidate my criticisms and my rating remains unchanged.

In retrospection, it might be better to approach this franchise via the literature. I'm getting the impression that the source material is vastly superior to the anime adaptation. Maybe someone can respond with their impressions of the manga. I jumped into this anime completely blind without doing any research; maybe that was a mistake.

>>33365
I think any adaptation should stand on its own two feet, so going in blind is always fine. From what I could find, this is the first show Tomochi Kosaka was the main director for.

Gakkou-Gurashi: If you have not previously watched this but are a fan of CGDCT/SoL, I would recommend trying two episodes with the caveat that this has Madoka-esque reveals in the first few episodes so you should avoid researching it too heavily to make it more interesting for yourself. That being said, the description on MAL doesn't give away too much anyway and the core aspect of the show isn't in the reveal itself but in the aftermath.

It's unfortunate discussion of this died down in http://tohno-chan.com/an/arch/res/23470.html because even beyond the reveals, there was a lot of detail and attention put into each episode, from the color patterns on Yuki vs others' outfits (they're inverted versions of each other), to the changing OPs, the subtle reflection of Megu-nee in the car window in the last episode, not to mention the well-chosen literary references.

For as much hype Madoka gets in the cute-girls do suffering genre, I didn't really find its story too compelling or relatable. Gakkou-gurashi on the other hand interweaves the usual slice of life pacing with its emotional moments which I feel helps build up the characters and brings them closer to the audience, allowing the audience to closer empathize with their situation. That said, there was still some places where this could have been improved, such as replacing the amount of time spent chasing the dog with something more substantive. I would have also liked better development of the friendships between the characters; while it was adequate enough and on par with your average SoL, I feel their unique situation provided many additional opportunities for this.

Character development is also limited to Yuki and Miki, but I don't really see this as too much of an issue though since I consider it a slice of life first and foremost, with the darker themes lingering in the background to provide context and plot. So while the anime might disappoint those who usually prefer more serious psychological anime, for those who primarily watch SoL and want something offering a tinge of sadness and moments for reflection, Gakkou-Gurashi fills that niche.

>>33372
I loved Gakkou-Gurashi when I first watched it. It was so atmospheric and that drew me into their situation. The use of weather, music(it has a great ost) and other little things to establish mood was great. I see it as a zombie show for people who don't like zombie shows. It places an equal amount of emphasis on "living", staying sane, enjoying yourself, making every day worthwhile, and surviving, which I personally haven't seen any other apocalyptic fiction do.
>Character development is also limited to Yuki and Miki, but I don't really see this as too much of an issue though since I consider it a slice of life first and foremost, with the darker themes lingering in the background to provide context and plot.
The managa develops each character as individuals more, but the anime places more emphasis on them as a group. I like the manga too, and it does feel more in-depth in a few ways, but it didn't have as much impact on me, maybe because I watched the anime first, or maybe because of the medium's limitations.

>>33372
>the changing OPs
I'm glad people appreciated that. I thought it was a great touch.

I reluctantly watched Kiznaiver. Here's my shitty stream-of-consciousness review:

Wow I really hate this art style
Wow I really hate this cinematography
Wow I really hate these character designs
This visual stuff is all subjective so I won't dwell on it much.

I almost didn't give this any chance at all because Trigger.

Forgive me for saying this but the pacing and exposition could best be surmised as 'zoomer-tier'. In all seriousness, I feel like this was made for someone about 14 years old.
Wow I hate this direction

Why am I still watching?
I like the premise and thinks it's promising.
Some of these characters seem interesting.

Let's see how it goes.

Yep, this literally feels like a Pixar movie.
Maybe the writing will have some artistic value...

None of these characters are particularly likable.
I'm finding it difficult to envisage a scenario where these characters are used to construct a compelling story. These characters have personalities that are unpleasantly exaggerated. They would be suitable for a comedy sketch, not a serious drama.

The animation itself is 'high quality' but I hate how these wacky jump cuts are constantly used. Like I feel dizzy just watching this. The animation itself is fluid but the cinematography ruins it, IMO.

I'm detecting a lot of ship-baiting. This is actually fine with me because I'm trash and can shamelessly enjoy shipping as cheap entertainment.

I'm liking Maki's backstory. Took them bloody long enough to get to this.
If they took Maki's backstory and turned it into a full cour anime with a quarter of the budget of this, it would be better and would have more artistic value.

It seems like people who watched this can be divided according to who did and did not like the forced shipping. My rebuttal to those who disliked it is "what else could have possibly been done with these shitty characters?" The anime is already bad regardless of whether shipping occurs or not. Removing the ships is like rearranging the cutlery on the fucking Titanic as it descends to the bottom of the ocean. If not ships, then what? What else is there with this awful cast? The problem is the characters themselves and shipping is just a band-aid on awful writing.

Everything about this anime is so ham-fisted. I'd liken it to building hobby models with mittens on.

This anime would benefit significantly from better foreshadowing.
Nico's voice actor is talented.

Watching this is reminding me of why I hate watching movies, generally speaking. They try to cram as much garbage as possible into a tiny period of time, all the while pacing it way too quickly and catering to people with an extremely short attention span. This is literally just a Pixar film masquerading as an anime.

A grown adult is not the target audience for this.
>but that's all ani-
No, there's a difference. This anime is designed specifically for a teenager's brain.

What a waste of a good premise.

The OST for this is supposed to be good but I'm not observing that. Maybe you could respond with your favourite tracks in the OST? The OP song is okay. Musically it is simple, but still it's pretty catchy.

The only decent attribute this anime has is the animation quality. Pretty much every single artistic choice possible was made poorly, in my opinion. Still, this might be one of the most well-animated works of 2016, I'll admit. The only competition I can think of is Sansha Sanyou. I'm probably overlooking something from that year though.

Overall 4/10. you_tried_sticker.png
There was serious potential here but so many poor choices were made along the way. But hey, despite all my complaints, I still didn't drop the damn thing. So take from that what you will. On the other hand, the only reason I'll be watching anything from Trigger from here onwards is out of morbid curiosity. In fact, Trigger should probably just upload all their work directly to Liveleak from now on.

A couple other things:
I want Chidori to sit on my face.
Nico is literally me.

>>33393
I really despised that series, for similar reasons as to what you said. I couldn't finish it myself.
If you really wanted to give something from Trigger a shot, I would recommend Gridman, which I almost avoided for similar reasons. I enjoyed the callbacks to the live-action series and it felt like they really understood the spirit of that work, which felt surprising after so many flops from them.

>>33393
I couldn't even finish that anime, I really enjoyed the aesthetics but that wasn't enough to make me sit through 12 episodes.

Carole and Tuesday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yObMUSTcaPc
Directed by Shinichirō Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Space Dandy). Need I say more?

>>33430
I didn't watch this series because I was put off by the American indie pop music.

Malice Doll is a 2001 cgi ova series written and created by Chiaki J. Konaka, who also worked on Lain and Ghost Hound. This is an anime which I had almost no interest in and thought was going to be a difficult viewing experience. I hate cgi, and on top of that this is cgi from 2001. After powering through my initial disdain for the visuals, which are as expected, very primitive, and mostly made up of dark, muddy colors too, I was pleasantly surprised with everything else.

Malice Doll is an interesting little experiment which aimed to explore what being human means. That's nothing that hasn't been done before, but the angle which this show takes is almost never seen. Malice Doll questions whether being human is really better than being a machine, and from my point of view, it seems to lean more on the side of machines. It goes very far to show the ugliness of humanity.

Again, the visuals are lackluster, but I appreciate how cgi conveys the inhumanness of the characters. The screen was so dark sometimes that I could barely tell what was going on. There's a lot of sexual and gory imagery to enjoy and being in cgi didn't take much away from its impact. At certain points, behind the limitations of cgi, I felt similar directing to Lain's.

This is an ova series, so it doesn't have much time to develop the characters and get us invested in them. Considereing the animation medium, that's probably for the best. There's more that could have been done with the themes, but I bet since 2001 there's been anime where machines become human I just don't know about. The ending is almost identical to Lain's. I would recommend watching Malice Doll if you like obscure, old stuff with some substance.

Has anyone here watched this before?

Post edited on 21st Sep 2019, 7:12am

>>33471
So nobody here has seen Malice@Doll? Come on, guys. It's entertaining if nothing else and it's only three episodes, so you should give it a try.
https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=NYN0DFuybe8
https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=p_CuRIc_oL0
https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=EQzSNkCi7k8

>>33486
I haven't, but you got me interested in it. I'll watch it this week.

Machikado Mazoku- It's humorous and cute, the dialogue can be fast and overwhelming with the added text on screen and the background tones but while I found that I had to pause and go back a few times overall I found that to be endearing. Essentially the anime is an SOL with a plot which I quite liked, the plot is slow but works well for the SOL nature of the anime, the plot picks up substantially for the two last episodes and make me really look forward to what next season(if it gets a next season) will bring.

Also, the Subs are awful.

Princess Principal, completing the trifecta of Studio 3Hz original anime with Sora no Method and Flip Flappers. If there's one thing to learn about Studio 3Hz from these, it's that they love non-linear narratives and blurring genres. Especially accompanied by major plot twists 3 episodes from the end.

Whether any of that is put to good use though is another question entirely. In the case of Flip Flappers, the non-linear narrative worked very nicely and it's evident that Oshiyama went through a lot of effort to ensure a cohesive flow: each of the character's motives are understandable and the anime remains engaging throughout the various plot twists. Sora no Method is another story entirely, as I briefly wrote on the old review thread >>/an/33214

Then we come to Princess Principal: as with the others, regardless of the story quality the design and artwork are no doubt excellent, this time with a steampunk inspired decor. The first few episodes are reminiscent of archetypical spy films, which is perhaps where my initial gripes with the plot begin. I'm not a particular fan of the spy film genre because at its core spies are usually used as pawns in some political or military machination which to me doesn't serve for an emotional or engaging premise. Princess Principal does go to some attempts to subvert this by showing how the "principal team" grows closer over the series (culminating in the final episode) but nonetheless its Slice of Life aspects – where character dynamics, friendships, and genuine honesty – are fundamentally incompatible with its drama/action/spy ones – where duplicitious dealings are the norm.

For me the best episodes were the middle few which stuck closer to the slice of life core: rallying to rejuvenate a dilapidated laundry mill, Ange relating her past to the pickpocket, etc. These episodes not only provided needed characterization but were also where we saw the team just enjoying being together. But unfortunately the realities of their occupation make such amusement impossible, and the final arc that serves as the plot twist is where it's ability to engage me fell apart.

Spoilers follow:

The reveal of Ange/Charlotte's past makes for an interesting plot but is also where the anime veers sharply into the "political machinations" subgenre and the suspension of disbelief that cute anime girls are endowed with is shattered. On the one hand you have these spies that won't hesitate to kill off their classmate, but will disobey their boss to avoid killing their recent friend. And when Ange goes through heroic efforts in a last-ditch effort to get both her and the princess to safety, the princess irrationally decides that she'd rather go back into the shitshow, become queen herself, and presumably end the strife so they both can be together in the open. And after cleaning up the entire mess, they're back to square one: still disposable pawns of a regime engaged in a power struggle, somehow willing and eager to be a lackey when they could have just stayed on the plane and been out of there: in its attempt to blend slice of life with drama, characters' motives become less believable.

>>33494
Middle episodes were the most enjoyable, I agree. The ending could have been good too, but it was too rushed. They should have removed the one Asian girl from the story, she did nothing the entire show and they wasted an entire episode on a personal problem of hers; remove her and that episode and stretch the ending out to two parts and it could work.

>>33508
>They should have removed the one Asian girl from the story
Some of her lines and the lampooning of Japanese culture were pretty funny, e.g. dialogue of "can't you speak English" spoken entirely in Japanese.

There is a PriPri movie set to be released, so perhaps that will finish things off properly.

Roujin Z is a comedic project by Katsuhiro Otomo. It's about a robotic geriatrics-care bed that goes rouge because it has a military grade "sixth genetation computer" inside it. The entire thing is completely ridiculous and over the top, but it's a lot of fun. I really like how 90's anime characters seem to have such a good time. That specific type of warm, fuzzy stuff seems rarer now. The animation is a bit inconsistent, but gets the job done, and the music is interesting to say the least. The pro-elder theme was a bit confusing, but I can see how it would be feel-good.

>>33530
Thanks for reminding me I didn't watch this yet, I just did and it was quite good. It felt like a light-hearted Akira.

I watched Shuumatsu no Izetta. Here are my thoughts:

This has some really cute romantic shoujo-ai scenes.

Strong confident female lead, which I always like to see. Girls are so strong and powerful. Girls can do anything!

Lots of strong confident women kicking butt in this. Girls are amazing!

The female cast is super likable. Unfortunately there are a lot of dumb males in the cast as well that exist only to advance the plot.

"Expectations blown away. It horrifies me to think that I almost passed on this. Ordinarily I hesitate to watch Japanese bastardizations of European history. If you do watch this then obviously much suspension of disbelief is required. I mean, it's anime. Magic is involved in the story and it takes places in a pseudo-WW2 setting.

Way underrated and underappreciated."
^is what I wrote in my anime notes after watching the first 3 episodes. This anime had a very strong start.

Getting further into this anime I'm beginning to see what is probably its most significant flaw: the plot. Ultimately, the plot is kind of lame. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a problem, but the issue is how much screentime is used to advance the plot. The series is very plot-heavy. There are some terrific scenes lurking within, but the overall series is diluted by this lame plot which consists of dumb violent men fighting each other for power. So basically men ruin everything as usual, smh. In all seriousness, I found most of the fighting/conflict-heavy scenes boring to watch. The fight scenes soaked up a lot of valuable screentime.

Having said the above, foreshadowing is used effectively and all the developed storylines tie together well in the end. In this regard, the show isn't poorly directed. I still cried during the last two episodes when the story climaxed. The wrap-up of all the story arcs was pretty good, even if the journey there was a little messy.

This anime is an unusual juxtaposition of genres (military/historical and shoujo-ai), of which a lot of people will like one or the other but less commonly both. I reluctantly gave this a chance knowing only that it was a historical military anime, and I was subsequently pleasantly surprised by the cute yuri romance that evolved as the episodes progressed. However, I think a lot of people who watched this had the opposite reaction, and consequently the anime is rated poorly by many. I guess an appropriate metaphor would be that Shuumatsu no Izetta is like an exotic food with a unique taste that puts most people off. Is that a flaw in the food or in the person tasting it? Maybe the same could be said about my distaste for the plot-heavy nature of the anime.

An argument could also be made that the two genres balance each other well. The soft tone of the cute romance provides relief from the seriousness of the military conflict. I'm not sure I agree with this but maybe this is what the writers were thinking.

I think the series is weakest during times when it's focused on large-scale conflicts. During times of inaction, or small-scale conflict, there is much greater emphasis on the characters themselves. When the characters and their interactions are allowed the shine, the series is good. I wonder if the characters had been peasants instead of upper caste, would the series have been better due to a diminished scale of conflict?

Overall, I rate this anime 7/10.

I feel bad about rating this so low because there really were some terrific memorable scenes. Like I said though, it was too heavily diluted. Objectively speaking, I think that most people would really like some aspects of this anime and strongly dislike others. It is certainly not 'one size fits all', but maybe its uniqueness can be appreciated.


Additional Comments:
Good animation at times but the quality is inconsistent. Character animations like hair and body movement looked pretty good. At times the background landscapes looked nice too.

The OST is decent. It's high quality from a technical perspective and really suits the series thematically. The OP and ED songs are good. The voice acting is good.

Overall the production quality is good, but not spectacular. My number one criticism is that the action scenes were completely unremarkable in terms of audio-visual quality, and this made them more of a chore to watch.

I really liked the character designs, especially the female cast. Not only are the character designs great, but they also get lots of different lovely outfits and different pretty hairstyles too! Yay!

>>33580
Your description reminded me of Princess Principal which I jotted some thoughts a few posts above, and it's at the very least cross-linked as a strong suggestion on MAL.

>Overall, I rate this anime 7/10.
>I feel bad about rating this so low
Is 7/10 supposed to be a low score? Assuming we're not doing MAL style rating inflation (where for some reason the mean score always seems to a 7, and 9/10s are given out liberally), then for me a "meh" series usually gets a 5, maybe a 4 if I couldn't bother watching it completely.

>>33582
I read your PriPri review up until the spoilers. I'm waiting for the movie to be released before
watching the series. I'm looking forward to it and expect I'll enjoy it!

The numerical rating is highly subjective...
For me, anything below around 6/10 is where I start dropping things. My median rating for anime that I finish would be about 7/10. I drop a lot of things though.

>>33582
>rating so low
What I meant by that is this:
There are a lot of scenes in Shuumatsu no Izetta that are 9/10 anime material, they're just weighed down by the other more mediocre stuff.

numerical rankings are kind of silly I know

>>33580
The paragraphs from three to five sound like badly concealed propaganda, or some kind of teen-ironic statement.

>>33580
Just get a sex-change operation already, anon.

>>33585
>>33586
Yuri fandom is different from trannyism and all the stuff that comes with that!

I watched the Mahoutsukai Tai OVAs (The 6 episode series released in 1996, AKA "magic user's club"). Pros and cons (in my opinion) are listed below:

Pros:
>Some genuinely funny gags that were worth a laugh here and there.
>Cute characters and cute character designs.
>Surprisingly really well-animated. Seriously, the visuals for this were great and looked like a ton of effort went into them. I found myself frequently pausing to admire the art.
>Character personalities are simple but effective, particularly for humour.

Cons:
>Lame cliche plot.
>Too much time spent on 'wacky oh-so-funny' boring action scenes used to advance said cliche plot.
>Too much slapstick humour in general (I know, it's anime).

I probably won't be watching the TV anime version as apparently it is much worse than the OVAs.

Overall 7/10
Yes, I'd recommend these as a casual thing to watch. It's not like much commitment is needed (only 6 episodes).

>>33580
Truly embarrassed at seeing one of my favorite anime reviewed with such wording.

I finished Uchi no Musume.

The first episode was alright and it looked like it had potential but then it fell flat from there. It's kind of like SoL(well I guess it actually is SoL, it is severely lacking in any kind of plot) yet it lacks interesting characters, comedy or anything that makes an SoL good. It's not awful, I did manage to finish it after all, but nothing about it stands out and it's not memorable in anyway.

I'd give it a 6/10.

I watched the movie 'Glass no Hana to Kowasu Sekai'. Here are my thoughts:

Positive aspects:
>novel premise
>tons of cute outfits!!
>decent animation and cinematography
>nice backgrounds, pretty solid visually overall
>cute characters
>good audio production quality
>cute!!!!

Negative aspects:
>rushed and kind of incoherent plot
>bland characters (this is partially why I rarely watch anime movies, also this point can't really be avoided with such a short runtime)
>weak direction
>felt sort of 'unpolished' overall

Overall 6/10.
I still watched the whole thing and it was enjoyable. If you're the kind of person who values style over substance then I guess I'd recommend it.

also this was pretty lewd at times, should probably have an ecchi tag FYI

Apparently a lot of impressive people worked on this, but as usual Japs can't into project management.

I watched Kore wa Zombie desu ka? (both seasons + all OVAs)
Here are my thoughts:

This is just another junk food harem-comedy show that for some reason became popular among inexperienced anime viewers and was subsequently overrated.
Any attempt at plot always resulted in a convoluted mess. The show is strongest when it sticks to SOL and comedy scenes. The weakest episodes by far were those which were plot-focused. Poor direction might be the biggest flaw of this anime.

The show's best aspect is its supernatural flavour, I think. This is somewhat unique, and a lot of the skits and gags built around supernatural phenomena were funny and creative.

There is a strong otaku culture influence as well, which I found entertaining.

The character designs and animation seemed somewhat dated even for the production year. I'm not sure if this was an intentional artistic decision. This is not necessarily a bad thing but I thought it was noteworthy.

The music is okay; I liked all of the OP and ED songs.

There are moments where the show shines but they're outweighed by the mediocre remainder, unfortunately. I rate this anime 6/10 overall. It's watchable junk food, but junk food nonetheless.

>>33718
It was kinda shit but the ED was so amazing;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47SquTj_nC4