Well since I covered the original Ghost in the Shell anime, I figured it would be appropriate to also talk about the actual original version of the same story and what more of an opportunistic way to do it than by going over its newest adaptation?

Ever since the teasers dropped there seemed to be some people worried about how this version would fare, after basically 20 years of underwhelming entries for the franchise. And once the trailers came out and it was confirmed to be a faithful manga adaptation for the first time, the opinions about it were mixed between the actual fans of the source being excited about it, and people who claimed that it was going to be a big failure for betraying what the “true” Ghost in the Shell was and what actually positioned it as the anime and cyberpunk landmark it is, completely ignoring that the original version was already an important work for the genre and otaku media in general. Apparently the clashes between those two groups grew enough to become a controversy, even lasting to these days in the forums, for I fortunately missed it for the most part.

I already mentioned the basic consistent concept of the franchise in the other review but let’s go at it again. Three years from now in the Ghost in the Shell universe, after a third and fourth World War, technology is advanced to the point where people have prosthetic cybernetic implants all over their bodies and computerized brains and there’s a unit within the Japanese forces, branded as Section 9, supposedly in charge of hunting down terrorists and criminals but also keeping other parts of the government in check and extra officially they also specialize in assassinations.

The basic reason for the clashing opinions regarding this and the 1995 movie comes down to how different they are, but on my review of the film I did mention all the stuff that the latter took from the manga, and thus are actually also present in this version, here it is:

-The famous opening sequence can be found in the first five minutes of the anime and the prologue of the manga which is 14 pages long.


-The iconic “Making of a Cyborg” scene is based on the fifth chapter of the manga which was adapted at the 17:39 minute mark in the third episode here. An important difference is that the body made there is not Motoko’s.


-The foreign interpreter being hacked at 10 minutes in the movie appears at eleven minutes of the second episode of this series and page 8 of the third chapter of the manga. An important difference is that in this version she used to be a girlfriend of Togusa, thus giving him a personal motivation in the conflict, but that goes to waste a bit by not giving him a part in the plot afterwards.


-At 40 minutes Batou tells Aramaki that Motoko has behaved weirdly ever since the case with the Puppetmaster. This actually is done better in the eighth episode of the 2026 series because there’s a cerebral connection between the protagonist and antagonist by that point, something which does not happen until later in the movie.

-At 42 minutes, Motoko tells Batou that maybe she died and is a replica made with a cybernetic body and a computerized brain, something which she tells to the women building a cyborg body in the last page of the fifth chapter of the manga and at 21:20 minutes of the second episode here, in a comical manner, not as an existential crisis like the movie.

-The iconic scene at 1:05:20 in the movie in which the tank grabs Motoko’s head with the
intent of smashing it for her to be saved by Batou, is based on her fight against Soma Toru from the chapter 8 of the manga (pages 38 and 39, but the fight starts from pages 28 to 32), and episode 6 (minutes 19:39 to 20:10, with the fight starting from 15:40 to 16:30) of this anime. And here she is saved by her boyfriend from Section 1 and Boma from Section 9 instead.

-This leads directly to Batou connecting the two cyberbrains and their final fusion, based on the chapters 9 (pages 31 to 44) and 11 (pages 16 to 18) of the manga and episode 7 (minute 14 onwards) and 10 (minute 17:20 to 20:20) of this anime. The two versions are way too different to point out their differences.

-And the monologues of the Puppetmaster appear in episodes 7 (minute 7:30 to 8:30) and 10 (minute 11 to 17:19) of this anime, and chapters 9 (page 14) and 11 (pages 10 to 15) of the manga.

So like I said on that other review, it’s not like Oshii made up all that stuff on his own, he took aspects of the manga, concentrated them in one short tight storyline and added a little bit of Christian symbolisms to focus on the existential topics of the original work and the concept, but it’s not like this anime lacks any of them. In comparison, it’s lighter on them mainly due to its comedic, lighthearted tone but the themes are there, and in fact at times they are more prominent and complex than in the movie, such as everything that has to do with the Puppetmaster at the end. It’s just that most of the time the philosophical elements are brought up casually during a conversation and glossed over, like something that could happen in real life.

On that aspect, plenty of people dismiss the 1995 movie as what Oshii imagined a cyberpunk society would be, contrary to the manga and thus this anime, which is what a cyberpunk society would actually be. The reasoning itself is stupid worded that way because it’s basically “X wouldn’t be how A said it would be, it would be how B said it would be” and because it lacks any substantial basis to back up that claim other than personal preference. So it needs to be complexized a little bit in order to become something worth talking and discussing about.

What the group against the movie using that argument is saying is basically that people in a cyberpunk society like the one in Ghost in the Shell wouldn’t be all that existentially depressed like in the film but rather casual and ironic about it like in the anime and manga. To those options I raise a third which I find true to life and our current world, but most readers would probably find lukewarm: both positions are perfectly possible and even compatible. In our reality there are those two kinds of people and a third one that doesn’t care about any philo/psico/sociological nor political issue, or that think that nothing of that has any incidence in their lives, as long as they have a home and a source of income. What I’m getting at is that both takes on the concept and setting are valid, which makes taking any as a sole and the whole argument for the discourse ridiculous to me.

In either a negative or a positive way, you could probably say that the movie focuses more on the existential aspects, and while that might be true of the series as a whole compared to the film, the same cannot be said regarding the monologues of the Puppetmaster, especially during the last episode, which takes it in a much further, bigger and more complicated way that Oshii did. So once again, reading people claiming that the new anime and the manga are slop with no substance that has nothing on the 1995 version, as well as those that jumped on to the original or this adaptation just to see action and Motoko’s ass and lesbian threesome, and those being the reasons why they prefer this iteration, only to find such a philosophical and even religious sequence right before the end, are all funny to me, to no say dumb, because then I would seem like a self righteous know it all above all asshole.

What can be said about this version is that minus the seventh and tenth episode, it doesn’t focus on those aspects much, because of its tone more focused on action and comedy, it certainly isn’t the same existential masterpiece as the first movie.

What this anime focuses more on than the other one is in political aspects, I mean there is definitely a political dimension in the film but not to this degree. Practically every case and episode here explores some kind of internal corruption. Covering up some foreign guy, attempting to kill some minister, coordinated attacks on someone between internal and external politicians with some hacker employed in the middle of it, some section making deals with a criminal to supposedly catch another bigger one, heck, even the main antagonist was created by another section as well. At some point the protagonist is even pursued and exposed by Israel in the manga and Latin American dub, as the first version and translations of the source material weren’t afraid to namedrop real countries, which were changed for fictional ones in later editions and other dubs and even the original sub of this show. The conflict sparks a lot of internal political debate and conflict. Shoutout to México for being so based to stick to the original version and portray the state that’s slowly buying them and the rest of Latin America from within as the bad guys with interests in nuclear weapons and control over mass media…before that dub version also got censored later on, thus kinda proving the point.

With that said, partially because of the not all that serious tone, partly because of the writing itself that doesn’t focus completely on one thing before moving to another in the following chapter or episode, and also due to the semi episodic with thin continuity narrative of the source material and by extension the anime, it’s not like this version handles the topics amazingly.

Still, enslaved kids working on automatized factories, brainhacks altering the perception of reality and making people commit crimes, cyborg children girls being forced by a pedophile to hack androids to attack if not outright kill politicians and other important people, and an advanced AI accessing to so much information that it declares having developed a conscience and have become a living organism that should get diplomatic protection, before wanting to fuse its cyberbrain with another to die and reincarnate as its own offspring, are all really cool concepts and at its best the anime handles them with as much quality that the medium hasn’t shown since Pluto, which was the best 2023 anime as far as I’m concerned.

As discussed already, the anime does have its issues as an adaptation. Some can’t be excused, such as chickening out on the Israel thing, but others can, such as the pixelated censored violence which can be explained as people seeing that as their cyberbrain are destroyed, even if we all know that the real reason is that Japanese television doesn’t allow showing headshots and beheadings. Let’s wait for the Blu-Rays and see.

Others can be treated fairly, such as exaggerating some of the silly moments and expressions of the source material, but toning down others or straight up omitting other ones for balance. And no I’m not including what they did with the cyber lesbian threesome which was straight up hentai in the manga, no one would actually expect to see that in this version. If you have read my reviews in the past you know that I usually condemn fanservice, but I don’t consider what is displayed here as such, because exploring even if briefly that advanced technology can even have sexual uses counts as theme exploration, even if other anime like Real Drive, also by Masamune Shirow, did it further and better and more seriously and with more subtlety. See? I don’t always shit on ecchi, only when it is fanservice, meaning, when it doesn’t add to the narrative, and when it is used to treat female characters as objects, because it goes against characterization, which wasn’t the case here. Even as it is in the series, the anime balanced it out better than removing it completely as later editions of the source material did. Again, jerk-offs will have to pray and wait for the Blu-Rays to see if there’s something more extreme in there, but I hardly doubt it. I could criticize Motoko’s buttshots I guess but they were just two in the whole anime so meh, Stand Alone Complex had a lot more of that.

Another important issue is of course being too faithful to the source material at times, such as including, even if simplified, the indexes of the manga about technobabble stuff, which looks silly on a visual medium, and weren’t even presented in an artistic way like the Monogatari franchise when it includes whole passages of the light novel in blink and you missed it scenes. The biggest offender is the pacing, following the order of the chapters to a tee to the point of displaying their names on screen, and finishing the episodes sometimes at inappropriate moments, making some cases last more than an episode, while others are adapted together in a single episode. Even outside of that, it feels like everything gets the same amount of screentime without letting some sequences last longer and become more memorable that way and thus lacking a stronger lasting impact, and not letting the anime breathe at any scene as well. The show definitely needed that regular 12 or 13 amount of episodes instead of the 10 we got.

As for characterization, the cast have more character appeal and personality than in other iterations, they are badasses, funny, sarcastic, they joke a lot, they complain about their job, salaries and lack of vacations, but also don’t hesitate to switch when needed and even kill in come blood. This makes them more appealing and memorable and likeable for lots of viewers, but they also lack backdrops and fleshing. I know there exist people that want their characters to remain mysterious for some reason, but not me, give me those backdrops if possible, how can exploring a character be remotely bad? Well over here almost no one gets anything like that, only the antagonist, and it’s material not present in the manga, but still good, so cheers to whoever was responsible for improving on an already good character. Development is reserved only for Motoko and in little doses, and catharsis for her and the Puppetmaster, in a very similar way to the 1995 movie. As a whole I found the roster very likeable but not as well established as in the first movie, nor as fleshed out as in Stand Alone Complex, and that also goes for the Fuchikomas, renamed as Tachikomas over there, that version was also better at handling sociopolitical themes by the way.

Now it’s time to talk about the dressing of the anime and man I should stop labeling titles from this year as the best at something that I have seen so far because soon afterwards I watch another one that proves me wrong, guess that speaks well for the medium as far as 2026 is concerned. In this case is the audio design which surpassed the other Science SARU show of the season, Tenmaku no Jaadugar. The sound effects are loud, impactful, immersive, there are differences in volume and sound whenever the voices need to be muffled, distorted, when the characters are in the cyberspace or in the real world, whenever they are thinking or talking, whenever they are inside the Fuchikomas or outside of them. The franchise was always great at this at least before SAC 2045 and I’m glad after this return to form.

The casting is also great, everyone did their job as good as it could have been. The standouts are Kikuko Inoue voicing a younger looking Puppetmaster than Yoshiko Sakakibara’s version, and Maaya Sakamoto taking place as the main Motoko seiyuu after the passing of Atsuko Tanaka. Although you can hear a bit of her silly high pitched sounds when needed at comical moments, she also pulled off a mature and badass tone well, in fact there were moments when she sounded similar to the Major’s previous voice actress as well to me. And I’m glad that Kazuhiro Yamaji is getting bigger roles these days, as I like his work ever since I watched the fifth Saint Seiya movie.

The opening shows the personalities of the characters well and key moments of the story without coming off as spoilers. The ending is more relaxed and static and blue (heh). Musically both combine alternative pop with hiphop, R & B and synths in the back. I can’t say I really like them but they give off the tone of the series right and sound fittingly modern for the setting, so they are good. There’s a special ending used for the last episode and it’s a sexy vocal jazz, that one I liked.

I’m listening to the soundtrack as I write and remembering some tracks from when I was watching the anime. It basically feels like a combination of background music from previous versions. Some choruses and shamisen slowly transitioning to slow electronic guitars like in the first film, some alternative pop songs combined with electronic music and jazz like what Yoko Kano composed for Stand Alone Complex, and some more modern synthwave-like electronic and lo-fi stuff like Arise did. Nothing is incredible but was used well in the show, it fits the vibe needed and the tone of the anime, and on its own is good. I place it below Kawai and Kanno’s scores but above what I remember from Arise’s and 2045’s. As for this year I rank it below Jaadugar and Frieren. There are three composers credited, two of which worked separately on Kekkai Sensei, Hisone to Maso-tan and Dr. Stone, the latter which is made up of six albums that I also heard recently and is overall good as well, and the third one who…never worked on anything big before and this is his first major work? That’s crazy.

Visually this anime might be the one I liked the most from the year, at least until I watch the new Edgerunners which seems to be the only title left in 2026 that can rival it for that title. The artwork is always solid, combines modern looks and coloring with the retro and manga accurate character designs perfectly, the female androids look sexy and a bit revealing but not to the point of being distracting and although their faces are a bit samey, that is excused in-setting as shown in the third episode. The dudes look funny or cool when needed, the goofy facial expressions are full of life and cartoony in an old way, and as a whole the cast doesn’t look as serious as they did before 2013 and considerably younger, Aramaki being the most obvious case, but they look mad fine. In terms of character designs nothing else from 2026 compares to this series, so far at least.

The backgrounds are detailed and beautiful, the special effects are great too, prioritizing traditional visuals to look as close as possible to the original artstyle of the source material, even if there was CGI as it is credited in some episodes. The scene that stood out the most for me was when a car was going inside a tunnel and the light over the faces of the characters received from outside the vehicle was constantly changing, and as pointed out in Twitter and Reddit some time ago, the team behind this anime used datamoshing and pixel sorting techniques (melting glitch effects) on episode 5 when Motoko connected her cyberbrain to some disc, very interesting sequence. The actual animation, the motions, are usually very good but at times they can be a bit meh. The only complaint I have comes from the manga itself, and is the presence of public phones with card readers on the streets, which at least Science SARU updated to feature digital screens, and CDs and…floppy disks? Well, it’s an alternative 2029 and the last item was retrieved from what looked like an antiques sales stall.

There are also very cool holographic effects used when the characters enter the cyberspace, not as detailed as they were in Stand Alone Complex but definitely updated in looks and overall better and what looked like electric waves when they transferred information from one cyberbrain to another, something which the 1995 movie never had nor matched in any way. As far as directing goes, this anime is probably still behind Nippon Sangoku and Atelier from this year, but there were still very cool panning and dynamic and POVs transitions to make the whole visually very fun to watch.

Apparently the finale of the series teased some type of continuation which intrigues me a little bit, as both manga sequels are even shorter than the first. If it is an adaptation of 1.5 then I’d be fine with it, if it’s Man Machine Inferface then I don’t know. I should probably reread before saying this but in my memory the story is quite complex in themes, far more than the prequel and even the first movie, the plot is not very clear, the finale doesn’t feel complete, and Motoko is naked almost the whole time, which would probably please the horny dudes if they didn’t have to put up with everything else, and it would likely be a problem to translate to screen.

In conclusion, this series has had some of the highest points both in writing and animation I got so far from the year and is overall good at combining theme exploration with fun characters and action and some comedy and ecchi, with amazing visuals and audio. The semi episodic structure of the narrative and the short duration of the show does affect pacing, writing and characterization but even so this is one of the best anime of its kind that I have watched, in my opinion surpassed only by Cowboy Bebop, which although had some way worse episodes, at its best was unmatched and with a much better cast, and Stand Alone Complex, which fleshed out this same roster and handled a lot of its same or similar political themes and topics a lot more and better.

As far as the year goes, I still rank it below the other Science SARU show of its season, Tenmaku no Jaadugar, which had stronger plot continuity and the best characters of the year up until now. When it comes to Ghost in the Shell itself, yeah, I still think the 1995 movie and Stand Alone Complex are better, but hey, third or second place among three lists of “bests” of something ain’t bad at all. What’s definitely the best of is in audio design in 2026 and in the title from this franchise that came out in twenty years, as it far surpasses Arise and SAC 2045, and now let’s stop the silly discourse around it please, it’s good stuff, in a different way that you knew up until now if you never checked the original, and if you did, it was a modern adaptation of a retro classic that did it justice, how cool and rare is that?

Suggestion list

The 1.5 manga
The 1995 movie and the original Stand Alone Complex versions, meaning, not 2045
The Patlabor franchise minus the third movie
Jin-Rou
GUNNM (the first two mangas only)
Eden: It’s an Endless World (Manga)
Akira (Both versions)
Blade Runner (Movie)
The Matrix (first movie)

I didn’t venture much into them, I should, but they are commonly associated as extended similar media

Black Magic M-66 (Anime and manga)
Appleseed (Anime and manga franchise)
AD Police (Anime)
Mardock Scramble (Anime trilogy)
Armitage (Anime)
Oni (Videogame)
Deus Ex (Videogame franchise)
Altered Carbon (Book and tv series)
The Neuromancer (Book)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheeps? (Book)
Metal Gear and Metal Gear Solid (Videogame franchises)
Ace Combat (Videogame franchise, particularly the third entry)

Unique artstyle, premise and setting, a semi interesting teaser and Science SARU as the studio behind it were enough for me to somewhat keep this show under my radar. Then I kept my expectations low, first after I was told that this anime is not like Chikyuu no Undo ni Suite or Viland Saga and more like Kusuriya no Hitorigoto, which I didn’t like nor even bothered to finish it as I dropped it out of boredom midway through its first season. And then later on I lowered them even more because I was told that it’s like a curious telenovella, and even another person told me that the beginning of the manga was crap. So as you see there was not much reason for me to watch it at that point but I still did that after I finished all the anime from its season that kinda interested me but not as much as this one. I gotta say that I don’t understand the warnings or comparisons I got.

The concerns about the astros are very small in the series to compare it with Chikyuu no Undo ni Suite, but I get it, it’s a historical drama about the importance of saving, conserving and passing down knowledge, and there’s another tiny bit about religion as well. Other than that the shows are not comparable so I don’t know why the other one was brought up, but I get it, this one is not as ambitiously intellectual nor as dramatic, is what I gathered.

The link with Vinland Saga is even thinner, like I guess this is also a historical drama about revenge, but instead of exploring the emptiness and self destructive nature of the path to it from that show, this one is about not forgetting that goal despite the passing of time and the apparition of a chance of moving on from it, at least from what was seen in this season, and that’s quite not the best message is it now? But I think I get it, this is not an action filled historical drama about revenge, it shares the theme but it’s otherwise different as it’s more chill and about political scheming.

The comparison with Kusuriya no Hitorigoto makes slightly more sense, as this anime is also about the internal political conflicts within an empire, but it is also slightly more serious, it’s not about episodic mysteries, and Sitara is nowhere near as capable as the almost Mary Sue Mao Mao was, which is what made me drop the other show. But oh well, the two are Josei series about internal political plots within an empire, I get it.

And finally I see no relation with a telenovella whatsoever. At least where I come from, that genre is about the melodramatic lives of middle class characters (usually) with lots of romance, cheating, breaking and getting back, and stuff. Encountering anything akin to that in this anime is what scared me the most, but luckily there was nothing of the sort here.

And the guy who told me that the beginning of the manga was crap ended up saying that it became good later on, so ok, no problem.

So in the end there was no real reason to be worried about when starting this anime, but let’s move on into its actual issues, all related to the narrative and some of which resulted in me not liking the show.

The most minor issue is the tone not being as serious as I would have expected and liked from the premise, as sometimes the characters can do something silly in the middle of what’s supposed to be a serious scene about a part of the plan of the protagonist in a historical drama series about betrayal and revenge, but oh well I guess that it seems like that’s inevitably going to happen with most anime out there. It’s nowhere near as bad as the main character in World is Dancing ruining everything else, in the early episodes at least, or Sparks of Tomorrow being mostly unserious.

Like I said, the protagonist is not very capable. Although it’s nice to have a different lead than Mary Mao Mao Sue, Sitara messes up in ways that sometimes are solved purely by luck or due to the will of other characters or for the lighthearted tone of the series at points. It's not like there aren’t moments when she makes things go in her favor due her own intelligence, but most of it comes from supposed scheming and smart other characters easily falling for her lies and fake smiles. Well, I can actually excuse this seemingly flaw up to a point. Sitara is a slave without much that she can actually do so it makes sense that she’s this close to fail at getting her objective, and as it turns out, the antagonists were outplaying her in her own field. Not like the constant plot conveniences in Sparks of Tomorrow.

That does not take away that sometimes the script does play a little conveniently for the main character to save her ass from her mistakes, like no one telling her apart from the slave she impersonates in I believe episode 5? See, sometimes this is too silly and easygoing, guess it’s still a Josei despite not having chibi comedy, that episode was the worst of all 12 of them. And there are even things that I don’t know how believable they are, just as letting a slave do all the stuff Sitara does, as it was kinda the case as well with Mao Mao, but at least she was under direct command of an important figure inside her palace, while this main character does not have even that level of importance/rank.

Although the story is constantly moving and keeping you engaged, there kinda is a pacing issue, as important historical events and deaths are glossed over to show the relevant characters more, but oh well that can be mostly excused for the focus of the anime itself. It’s not about the war and conquest themselves, it’s about the politics that were happening behind the scenes. What can’t be excused is when the pacing affects the character dynamics, like when the original master or owner of the protagonist throws herself to protect Sitara and even refers to her as her daughter, in just two episodes and after a big time skip. Time skips are abundant in the show and it doesn’t feel like the plot nor the main character progressed much after them, and like I just said, it makes some things feel inorganic.

Now that I mentioned that, let’s talk about the real main issue of the show and the primary reason why I can’t like it on a personal level, which is how pro slavery is at times. It’s presented more of a circumstance which lets the protagonist get more knowledge, but in order to accept her being enraged for “everything that was took from me” as she claims, which is her previous life as a slave, you really have to get in the mindset of watching something set thousand of years ago and with a fitting mostly conservative view, otherwise you will dislike this anime as I do.

For example there’s another secondary woman that talks all happily about the husband and family she started in the Mongolian empire, and yes that’s a reason to be happy about but it happening after being slaved by the Mongols is not, what are we doing here? It could maybe be said that it’s not that important because it’s a throwaway character, but we go back to what I said about the main character earlier and what then? Even if the anime tried to say that not all slave owners were bad, or equally bad, there’s no time dedicated to her newfound family before she loses them, because of the timeskips, thus the audience can’t exactly understand nor accept that dynamic, relationship and feeling, and by extension her motivation, and also, Vinland Saga 2 did it better.

But oh well now with the bad out of the way, let’s focus on the good stuff of this anime that I didn’t mention so far

The first obvious thing is the artwork which is the most unique from the year, even more so than Sayonara Lara’s. It’s hard to even compare it to other anime, as it’s closer to a combination of Persepolis and The Breadwinner (2017 animated movie), both of which even have some thematic connection, so they are the recommended list of the day, despite feeling like the exact opposite to this series, if you know what I mean. I have my complaints about the character designs making the characters seem younger or not changing much despite aging throughout the years, and the motions aren’t much, but everything else from not only just artwork but also backgrounds and special effects, is very good. This anime also plays around a bit with first person perspectives and darkness… I'm telling you, this is the hidden aesthetic/directing trend of the year in the medium (Lara, Nippon Sangoku, Atelier, Sparks of Tomorrow).

The audio department is almost as good as the visuals. For the first time in the year there’s an anime that actually incorporated what’s supposed to be its time period and setting to its soundtrack, unlike Sparks of Tomorrow and most everything else, and did have a better balanced display of sound effects as well, did not waste great pieces in favor of overusing the same one, unlike Sayonara Lara, and chose wisely which tracks to use to enhance the scenes, unlike Atelier, and it was actually noticeable here, unlike most other titles I have seen from 2026. The problem is that the opening and ending aren’t as good. They are fine but not much else, and the opening seems a little more lively than I would expect for the anime. The voice acting wasn’t much until I looked up the cast and went HOW DID THEY SOUND LIKE THAT? as most seiyuus didn’t sound like their usual stuff. Impressive voicing itself aside, the actual acting didn’t surprise me, and the dialogues in other languages were a nice detail but the acting during those scenes was more flat so I don’t think they added much more quality.

As for the story, despite avoiding the war itself almost completely, it’s actually pretty good as it shows the different perspectives and political plots of several characters, and by that I mean mostly the women in the cast, as most of the men are preoccupied with the war and being literal bros, so aside from the second Khan and his ideas about ruling the world peacefully to end conflicts and allow even slaves to live happily, none of them added much to the plot progression or the themes, besides their antagonistic role. The “witches” and empresses on the other hand appreciate knowledge, want the expansion and prosperity and the “best” for the Mongolian empire through the concentration of its power, send the protagonist on spying missions or have her unknowingly aid in killings and more stuff. I’m actually surprised there weren't more cries about the literal girl bosses in this anime while most men are doing whatever warmongering.

As a result, despite there being a clear protagonist, the support and antagonistic cast is ambitious and proactive on their own, and even mess up the plans of the main character more than once. As engaging as it is to see one character trying to manipulate the rest, it’s more fun when they have a brain as well and complicate things and desire something and have something to achieve or get on their own. It’s the sign of a good set of characters that aren’t just plot devices, unlike the case of Nippon Sangoku, a good anime from the year, for a single one to carry the rest on their shoulders, which was an issue even on other good anime titles from 2026 like Yomi no Tsugai or Akane-banashi.

And despite me making fun of it earlier for how easily it can be twisted, the message of persevering and not forgetting and not letting a major goal and, possibly, a right cause, go, even if it means sacrificing one’s own opportunities for an easy and happy life, is quite good. Plus themes of the importance of knowledge and human creation which are of course nice and even more valuable than ever in the era of the rise, spreading and contamination of generative AI. The story is still ongoing thus there isn’t a real closure in this anime, but for a first season it ends in a somewhat satisfactory point, even letting the protagonist achieve part of her goal and objective.

The fact that the cast is scheming and ambitious and proactive on their own means that they are not oblivious to the actions of the main character, and if they let her do as she pleases at times or let her get away with stuff, it’s not because they think she does not pose a threat, but rather because they believe they can outsmart her and use her for their own goals, which is a nice breath of fresh air for a premise like this one. On top of that, most of the major ones are fleshed out by having different dynamics with others and backdrop stories of their own. Only Awajima Hyakkei managed to expand on its roster like this in this year, but where that series failed in tying all of that together appropriately, Jaadugar succeeds. Oh, and the backstories were presented in moments of relaxation that do not interrupt the flow of the plot, and even the main antagonist was shown and twisted before being recontextualized both in present time and through her flashback, which is what Sayonara Lara failed at with Grace.

And when it is serious, the anime is quite great as far as atmosphere is concerned. Despite the artstyle, the bleakness and cruelty of the setting, time period and characters are shown appropriately without the need for brutal explicit content nor over the top characterization. Adding the perspective of the second wife of the second Khan was also good, as she does not negate the crimes of her own people and how the war with the Mongols led to her current situation, unlike Sitara who has a black and white vision of events and people.

My comparisons with all the aforementioned series weren’t to criticize them once again just because, but to reinforce what this anime did right that those didn’t, or what this one did better than the rest. What I’m trying to say here is that despite its narrative issues and lack of an ending, and even though I don’t like it for its pro slavery take at times, Jaadugar is the title that managed to balance characters and story the best out of all the anime that I watched from this year, thus making it at least temporarily the best of the year, but still not as good as shows from previous years, thus not the best of the decade, as I’ve read some say about it.

On one hand, this anime is a passion project, since its production started around the arson that Kyoto Animation suffered back in 2019, so the fact alone that it was recovered and exists is inspirational and something to be kinda glad about. On the other hand, KyoAni is likely not the appropriate studio to be in charge of the adaptation. Look up some opinions from source readers and you’ll find that they changed aspects and order of events of the story, details in characterization, and added lgbt bait that goes nowhere as their usual trademark.

Despite belonging to the reduced group of their works that aren’t about cute girls doing cute things with Munto, Full Metal Panic and Violet Evergarden, KyoAni still gave Sparks of Tomorrow their usual flavor. For what’s supposed to be an alternative history drama, the tone is very light, it’s almost like the plot can’t remain serious for more than two minutes without anyone saying or doing something silly, having what it’s supposed to be a funny reaction, or dropping some catchphrase, as both protagonists have one.

The characters are very quirky, the two protagonists with their catchphrases, the antagonist by being over the top and an obsessed gay yandere that randomly drops some English here and there making you cringe a little every time, and the two friends of the main girl making stuff appear when needed and who the series baits to have something going on but does not commit to it, as the studio never does despite baiting on every anime they make.

The characterization itself feels two-dimensional at best, the protagonist who’s big into creating with electricity but it’s also skeptical, the main girl who is naive and very positive talking about miracles, deities, believing in talents and people no matter what and stuff, the two friends that are just kinda there and one is secretly lesbian, the yandere secretly gay antagonist, the side characters that are defined by a role and a quirk. The tall and strong dude compared with a machine, his fiance who judo chops him regularly, and such. Heck, for most of the series the antagonist remains so passive you might not even consider him as such. I gotta say it’s not even consistent, the girl who is supposed to be heart over brain ends up making some of the most important discoveries out of observation, for example.

The writing is a mess, as everything good or bad seems to happen through accidents. It’s not every day that you can criticize something for having not only plot conveniences but also inconveniences for the protagonists. Your usual situation in this anime would play out kinda like this: protagonist-kun and main girl-chan are chased by bad guy-san, who sends side character-dono at them, luckily he trips while running so he doesn’t reach them, but his shoe goes flying and pushes some lever that stops the vehicle the main characters were on, but they go around the corner that he can’t get in so they are fine, but oh no, villain-san is already there somehow. Everything plays out like this. Oh but sometimes the main group reaches out to the bad guy to show him their progress, WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?

Heck, even the characters are introduced just as casually, they happen to be in the place the protagonists are in on a scene and episode, they happen to be related to some other known character, and those in turn happened to know about the main plot device of the story and the older brother of the protagonist. It could have easily been solved by having secondary characters introducing other side characters to the main ones by their own initiative, but no.

Even if you disregard the writing, the scenario is not believable. Ok, let’s accept the premise of electricity being invented in Japan, it’s not the worst alternative history otaku work out there, go find mangas and anime about time travel samurais or admirals changing the course of Japanese history if you don’t believe me, I could only watch three episodes of Konpeki no Kantai before dropping it. Still, the speed and way the characters invent things are simply unacceptable, even though they are not Dr. Stone levels of impossible. I mean in six episodes you have the three girls playing jpop death metal as if they were Babymetal by playing shamisens and such instruments. Well, the antagonist made an android with an electro brain of his mancrush near the end, and all of this happens at the beginning of the 20th century.

Even if you accept the writing and the scenario, there are so many ridiculous things happening in most episodes. That one where the antagonist dances with the protagonist while the latter wears a dress is the second worst episode I’ve seen so far from this year after the first of Ghost Concert, and I went with the three episodes rule for Red River, yes, it was that bad in my opinion.

The pacing and narrative are also messy. The setup is kinda steadily presented during the first episodes, but then it becomes semi episodic midway through, only to remember its goals later on, but at least it always retains its continuity. In a single episode you could have the main girl at school, the protagonist getting something he needs, then you’d have both of them on another place doing some other thing, then we see the antagonist scheming something else, but then he appears in front of the main characters from who knows where, then the two guys confront each other, but then the latter sends some side character his way, that one is antagonistic, but then an ally, then goes back to the bad guy. Would it kill this anime to slow the fuck down a bit?

I even have to criticize the sound design a bit, which is usually not an issue with anime made by KyoAni but it is for something from Netflix. The sound effects can be either the best I’ve heard so far from this year, and other times can be weak and go unnoticed. The music is good and does its job fine but again at times can go unnoticed. The opening and ending can be weirdly modern for the setting and the former even features some big change in melody midway, but somehow they also fit the series. Both insert songs ala Babymetal suck in my opinion. The voice acting is ok but I gotta say for the genki character that Sora Amamiya plays and for how good she usually is, her performance sounds weirdly low energy.

Not everything in the anime is bad though. As expected from Kyoto Animation the visuals are good, very solid artwork, well made and thought out backgrounds that reflect the steam in the air in Kyoto, and the contrast when they go to another city. Well rendered and integrated CGI, good motions as usual for the studio, scenes in POVs and in total darkness, which seems to have been kind of common this year strangely enough, and serve to reflect the fear of it of the protagonist. The coloring is darker than their usual brightness and fits the steampunk-like aesthetics well, it’s like I’m seeing the response from KyoAni to Kotetsujou no Kabaneri or something. The character designs mix traditional clothes with usual Kyoto Animation style fine, but man if I don’t feel like I’m seeing Hyouka or Violent Evergarden due to their faces half the time. The main girl does have the prettiest eyes of the year however, surpassing even Akane Osaki, it’s like I’m looking at a lake or something.

And in usual KyoAni fashion, they let some moments with no dialogue nor even sound effects, just music, and in this case show the process to produce electricity without explaining much about it. Even when the protagonist can go all technical about it, the other main girl just chooses to ignore him, thus no moment in the anime features some boring exposition. On the other hand the series does lack needed scenes explaining how these inventions are plausible, but clearly that was not important for the team behind the show.

I’m in no way a fan of Kyoto Animation, even though I love Hibike! Euphonium. I have voiced my dislikeness over the years of Haruhi Suzumiya, K-on!, Maid Dragon, Violet Evergarden, Koe no Katachi, Phantom World and more, and deleted from my ptw lots of other titles from them. Nonetheless I’m kinda glad this anime exists and the studio tried something different than their usual stuff with it, and as far as visuals, directing and exposition goes, they were up to their high standard. The same can not be said about its execution on everything else as writing, pacing and characterization were still pretty expected from them and sucked big time. Only worth giving a shot to see the studio try something other than cute girls, otherwise it’s an easy miss.

This was, no doubt, anime of the year. Yeah yeah there’s still a whole season left to air but how can it possibly match what was shown in here? What, you think the continuation of a well received romance like The Ramparts of Ice, a zombie show made by the author of Hitori Bocchi and Mitsuboshi Colors, the return of Black Clover with that annoying loud Asta, an adaptation of one of the most beloved jrpgs of all time, crazy concepts like Tank Chair and Fool Night, a remake of a CLAMP cult classic, a new season of the remake of the beloved classic Ranma, long awaited adaptations of Shounen Jump and Type Moon, and new entries for the beloved Cyberpunk Edgerrunners and Apothecary Diaries can match up to this? You’re crazy!

Those shows look like all fluff or dumb action or are old stuff thus automatically mid or milking stuff that already finished fine and the last one mixes mystery and politics, that’s boring!

And what, you think the likes of that boring Nippon Sangoku, that downer Ikoku Nikki, that nothing happens Atelier, that Akane-banashi that’s all talking and rakugo, can match up to this? What? Those Science SARU shows? I didn’t watch them yet but nyee those look boring I’m sure they suck. Well I guess opinions are like assholes and everybody has one! But yours is as dirty as Yanikos’ but not as funny!

TS the AOTY bro, peak fiction right here, peak on top of peak among the peak, le peakest of le peaks. Starting with the opening full of references to peak movies and also that boring overhyped Lord of the Ringzzz nye can’t all be perfect, but aside from that it’s like a collection of peaks! You know you are watching peak when the opening is like 30 peaks combined! References are homages to the mediums that made us and Yani Neko is so full of them! You can spend like half an hour pointing out at the screen finding all of them like that DiCaprio meme! Memes are funny and peak! And that gif is from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, more peak! Because it has lots of references so if i make a reference to it while talking about the references in Yani Neko’s opening then that makes me peak! Peak multiplied by three! Peak cubed! Yeh i know math I’m so smart nya. Opening so good even the best girl Kansai Neko uses its melody to parody it and sing about Yanikos’ pussy, so funny! And it’s about the pussy of a pussy! So smart, and it shows that the show knows how lo laugh about itself!

The ending is not as good but still pretty peak, all those psychedelic colors make you feel like flying like the characters do in the clip and in the show because they do drugs, what a way to transmit the feel of the visuals and the same thing the characters go through so well! Peak i tell you. Oh and at episode 11 the singers of the opening and ending are reversed, what a subversion of expectations! And as we anime fans know, subversion of expectations is peak!

But oh the anime, it has cats so it’s peak, because cats are cute and funny, they are peak! And they are also cute anime girls. Everyone knows anime is watched because of cute anime girls and here they are cats as well so peak squared! I’m so smart nya oh and at some point the anime also shows how sexy they are, not like those sissy sanitized western animation afraid of pussys! nyahyahaha I did it again! Kansai joke! But yeah cute sex anime girls that make me wanna CUUUUM so peak, and there are even some milfs, even more peak because milfs are so peak. But oh this anime is not some low level degenerate shit, as it never sexualizes the two girls in the cast that still go to highschool, that’s because it’s peak.

The anime presents bizarre situations for every girl and it’s so funny, but the comedy is a mix of raunchy and toilet humor so a lot of people won’t like it, they are pussys and don’t like humor about pussys nyahyahaha. But the anime is not just silly, it also shows how problematic is what and how the characters consume drugs, so it’s a meaningful and smart anime too, so peak! Yeah it’s not just the protagonist, the screentime is dedicated to a whole bunch of other nekos too, such a well distributed look and insight for everyone in the cast nya, so peak! Not like that other smoking series of the season that only shows two characters and is completely pro cigarette. Oh and even the landlord is shown bizarrely and funny as he secretly faps to the nekos, There’s one episode where he is found out by the mangaka woman and the scene seemed like a reference to School Rumble, peak square! For not only making references but also to School Rumble, one of the most beloved anime comedies of two decades ago, it’s old but not mid, it’s peak!

And the anime also has high production values and everyone is a cat so they drop some nyas when they talk, so cute! So yeah it’s good in animation and sound as well, that’s because it’s peak!

The definitive anime of the year, it has everything, comedy, drama, social commentary, lewd content, cat girls, references, gross humor, character fleshing, good animation and voice acting and the opening of the year and a very good ending too, what more can you possibly want? The best moment was at the very end when Yaniko said I AM THE NEKOS AND IT’S YANI’S TIME while farming aura, because as we know when the main character aura farms its the peakest moment of the anime! And afterwards started to shit tun tun tun sahur turds all over the place and smoke
6
   7

     7
 6

cigarette butts at the same time and vomiting all over the face of the landlord marcelo tralalelo frapuccino, what a display of ability! Truli an anime that deserved to be talked about all over social media and that we will keep talking about 24/7 for generations cause it’s the peakest of peaks! But no anime is perfect and this one has an issue, and that’s that there was no impact frames in it, come on! We anime fans know that flashy animation with impact frames is the sign of good anime! But oh well, Yani Nekos wanted to at least give the other animes of the year a chance, anime so peak it even thinks of its rival shows!

It even made me notice the eternal superiority of cats over dogs since forever in animation and awake to all of my new favorites, with this almost perfect show at the top for both anime and manga obviously, followed in anime by Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko the best Makoto Shinkai anime, Chii’s Sweet Home, Bananya, Nekomonogatari Kuro that stars Hanekawa the best Monogatari girl because she is a catgirl, so triple peak! As being from Monogatari already makes her peak. Then My Roommate is a cat the best anime from 2019, Wata no Kuni Hoshi, a rare instance where an old anime is peak and no mid, The Cat Returns the best Ghibli movie, and some recent modern classics such as Yoru wa Neko to issho and Dekiru Neko wa Kyou mo Yuutsu. As for mangas I repeat some of those but also add Tokyo Mew Mew, Asobi ni Iku Yo!, Nekogahara, the second best anime of the year Neko to Ryuu, Neko Majin with Akira Toriyama at his peak and the best Nekopara manga nyahyahaha my taste is so peak!

And now to end the review with the ranking of characters

Kansai Neko the best girl and waifu of the year and of all time.
Yaku Neko as a peak second place.
Saori Tatsuno who is so peak she gets third place despite not being a catgirl.
Imoko Satou for being so caring and devoted to her sister without making it weird, so cute and peak.
Aru Neko, funny alcoholic girl.
Jikaki Neko, an aspiring writer influential for everyone that watches the show.
Penpen Neko who reflects the harsh reality of homeless people in Japan.
Yaniko! Who is so peak she lets others be better characters than her despite being the protagonist.
Shizue Satou cause she is a catgirl milf and that’s so peak.
And Hame Neko who is worst girl but still funny and still peak cause she’s from the peakest anime and fiction of all time.

yani neko
yani neko
yani neko yani neko

Boy that was painful to write, and I guess even more to read, I would be surprised if someone even put through all that shit. So yeah, I think ever since Horimiya that I didn’t see such a mediocre anime undeserving of such controversy and polarizing opinions. On one hand there’s people treating it as such a deep and misunderstood masterpiece and like it was Trainspotting, Traffic or Requiem for a Dream in anime or something. While on the other hand you have people saying it’s the worst most gross anime of all time, which is far from the truth if you know about crude anime like Unko-san, Shitcom, Trap-kun, literal toilet humor anime like Panty & Stocking in Sanitary Box or The Eternal Family, or every anime Onara Gorou was involved with, just to name a few.

In reality it stands in a weirdly disappointing middle of the road, nowhere near as good nor as bad as you would expect from its overblown reputation. To be frank, I do think the first episode of this anime was good and among the best I’ve seen so far from this year, if not the actual best. It’s gross, it’s supposed to be funny, but in a dark comedy kind of way showing the protagonist as the lowest of the low. Addicted to cigarettes, dirty, only working to buy cigarettes and smoke, living in such a dumpster fire of an apartment it makes her own sister suit up in protective gear only to go see her and enter such a vomit inducing filthy place. We see her puke, get diarrhea, notice her trash filled room, get depressed, blame herself, be referred as an “are” which I suppose it could mean either “that one” or “it” from even her friends, and promise to fix her life…but then at the end of the episode she finds a cigarette and smokes once again.

There was potential from that episode to get a show that’s actually about addictions like the movies I already mentioned or The Football Factory, yeah, that’s another one worth recommending, or in anime stuff like Welcome to the NHK, which also was about the degraded mental state of a shut in nini. But the series never follows through with that potential. After that episode we still do see the main character doing disgusting things like eating mosquitos and such, which is meant to be gross and degrading and for many it was a lot and enough to hate and/or drop the show, but because of its tone and most of the characters being cats, it is also supposed to be funny.

From there, the anime never retains that same level of seriousness and drama from the first episode, it abandons it completely for the sake of comedy. The theme of addictions is there and expands to the rest of the cast as well, not just the protagonist. There’s another catgirl, Yakuko, that does more drugs besides cigarettes and another one, Aruko, that’s alcoholic. There are more characters than these and although they do get into bizarre situations, those are not related to addictions.

Jikaki is an aspiring writer in highschool that publishes her work on Internet but can’t seem to get her story going, that’s why she consults Saori Tatsuno, who is a struggling mangaka.

Then we got Penpen who says nonsense about living in harmony with nature and the waves of life and stuff, to basically hide how bad she has it as a homeless person that occasionally breaks into her friends’ apartments.

The last one is Hame who wants to become famous as a streamer and thus films herself and her friends, sometimes raging while playing fighting games, other times trying to be provocative (in a sexy way, not baiting), and sometimes making fun of her friends’ hobbies or timepassers and stuff, that’s why she’s the worst despite not being addicted to anything. Or maybe you could say that she has the vice of devices like a computer or a cellphone and being online and the desire to become famous and hit it big, but there’s no real follow up to that as it happens with everything else in the not story.

Finally we got two of the best girls, Imoko who’s the most normal and moral character that wants for her family to do better, and Kansai Neko whose only bad habit is being a failure of a comedian to the point of cringe. She otherwise hangs out with her friends being the most sane by far, has part-time jobs and even hides her normal self while in university.

The only one who the anime shows somewhat seriously is Yaku, who we see visiting her family on occasions, trying to do something outside, and even has a part-time job. Some people theorized that her drug addictions are the consequence of depression and family issues, but nothing is explored remotely enough to back that claim up substantially. The others are not shown with any attempt at depth nor introspection, which is why I raise my eyebrows when I see comments about the seriousness, depth, insight and meaning of this anime. I mean look at Yaniko’s mother, she clearly has a smoking problem but the series shows it comically every time.

Not even what was shown about Yaniko in the first episode remains consistent, we see her being shown in a comical manner, even when she wants to take part-time jobs and does them atrociously. Plus she sometimes bothers her friends who at times are doing worse than her and mostly to just get cigarettes out of them. It’s like the anime wants you to dislike her since there’s never an attempt to follow through that promise she made in the first episode and for her attitude towards her friends.
.
Maybe you’re thinking well duh that’s the point but just beating someone on the floor that is not even actively a bad person can’t count as good theme exploration, at worst it becomes misery porn. Plus like I said, the anime is not consistent about it, as later on not even her sister is suited up while visiting her, but also because at times she appears to be funny or even sexy instead of the disgusting mess and a warning sign that she is supposed to be. For the sake of analyzing the theme exploration or lack thereof within the show, let’s take a deeper look at the narrative regarding that.

After the first episode we see Yaniko doing the most gross and disgusting and desperate and wild shit, but only when she’s alone, her supposed funniest side when she’s with her friends, and only seen as sexy by men of all ages. For the sake of argument, let’s try to see these different perspectives as deep and complex and say that Yaniko’s friends see her as funny out of love and care for her, while men sexualize her through what I believe it’s called a bedrotten girlfriend fetish, one of the most disgusting I have come to know not only for being dirty but for the implied power and control dynamics over a person in such a vulnerable state. Meanwhile Yaniko’s at her worst only when she is alone and seen only by us, the audience. Let’s complicate it by saying that it’s not that the theme is handled inconsistently but rather about outsiders not knowing other people at their worst and in turn how no one shows that side of them to others, Kansai hides her true self in university after all. That would be true for strangers for Yaniko but not her friends and family, as reflected on the very first episode.

Plus the male gaze part of that idea about the themes is lost when the lewd content exceeds the protagonist later on in the series as it becomes a full on ecchi by having the landlord and other older men being closet perverts with a catgirl fetish, and plenty of other catgirls appearing naked at some point. The worst offender was Kame, who despite not appearing naked and being the worst girl for the reasons I already mentioned, being the worst friend in the show, there was no need for her to suffer the sexual harassment and being two seconds away from suffering a sexual assault that she had to go through on episode 11. What I’m saying here is that the sexualizing part of the anime is not some kind of theme exploration, it’s plain fetishistic exploitation as usual.

Even disregarding the themes, there’s kind of no narrative to even talk about here, as there’s close to no ongoing plot nor story nor continuity, not even if you see the series as episodic, as every episode consists of several mini segments of bizarre situations to the point where I can imagine the source material being a 4-koma manga.

So yeah, there’s kind of not much of a story nor characterization worth talking about here so I’m definitely not a part of the crowd treating this anime as serious and deep and meaningful. But it’s not like I think it’s the worst and most disgusting shit ever like some others said, as the examples I named at the beginning of this review prove. Not even the erocomical parts are that different from the usual ecchi stuff. Kyuuketsuki Sugu Shinu was full of weird perverted freaks that did accomplish in making it a bizarre sexual comedy, here the nudity is just plain old fanservice.

And it’s not like I can say that Yani Neko is bad either, despite wasting the potential of its first episode, as it doesn’t really feel ill intended to addicts and people at their worst either nor like it’s intentionally mocking them like, let’s say, The Big Bang Theory does with geeks and nerds, or well, its idea of super geeks and nerds, you know, people that’s into…super mainstream stuff like Star Wars, Star Trek, 80s action films, Marvel & DC, ugh, and even its comedy is not limited to references like that show. It’s not mean spirited because it also shows the characters in bizarre situations without their addictions taking a part in it. Even outside of the protagonist, the anime seems to portray the rest of the cast as just normal people trying to live their normal lives despite their addictions or vices, definitely not trying to fix them though.

At the same time, that's why I can’t be impressed with this anime either. Okupas and Tres Acordes from my country are dramedies that show people at their worst, either depressed, getting into illegal activities and crimes, doing drugs, or at all once, in a kind of serious way with plot continuity, permanent consequences, lasting stakes (for the former), mixing the slice of life with fantasy and sci-fi elements (for the latter), and some kind of character development and catharsis for the characters, beyond just the funny moments and references.

Speaking of references, I do think that the opening is the best I’ve seen so far from this year. Yeah the clip is completely made of references which makes it seem lazy for some, and I wish the anime had half the stuff happening in it, but the song is good, the lyrics are relevant to what happens in the show and the directing and editing are phenomenal at mixing the visuals and the music. The ending is indeed good stuff with its psychedelic colors and although the song is typical jpop stuff, the lyrics reflect a kind of psychosociological themes that I wished were in the series. The background music was hardly noticeable for me, but the sound effects were good and the voice acting…well everyone talks with nyas and accents and yells so that stands out but it’s not amazing either.

The visuals are very solid in the beginning enhanced by very good directing but they do get worse and more typical as the show goes on. Nevertheless, it’s a solid work of good artwork and backgrounds and even motions for when they are needed. There isn’t much to talk about as far as special effects go and the character designs are just typical catgirls. Even the gross content is chickened out in the visuals by censoring or toning down the shitting and vomiting by either pixelating them or replacing them with rainbows like a typical comedy.

In conclusion, the discourse surrounding the anime and seeing the care that the team behind it put into it to the point where we got to see the seiyuu of the landlord doing actual larping of his character, were more fun and interesting than what the series actually shown. As it is, it stands in a weirdly disappointing middle of the road that’s not as bad nor as good as you could expect from its good and bad reputation. Recommended only for people who likes stoner comedies and bizarre humor as long as they don’t mind toilet humor, or to see what the polarizing discourse is all about, other than that it’s an easy pass as there are a lot of better or more extreme options out there.

Recommended better stuff

-Movies about addicts like Trainspotting, Traffic, Requiem for a Dream or The Football Factory
-Welcome to the NHK for a story about a depressed shut in nini
-Okupas (for those of you with a Netflix account thus you can turn on subs) for a series about a middle class guy falling into the low class and becoming depressed and getting into a life of crime and illegal activities. It’s solid but not as good as I might be making it sound.
-Tres Acordes (but only for ACTUAL Latin American people)
-The Angry Video Game Nerd (toilet humor and crude comedy about reviewing retro video games and there’s even some continuity, what more could an otaku that watched Yani Neko want?).
-Aachi wa Ssipak (Aeni toilet humor and rule of cool action movie with a point, kinda, and what do you know, it’s about exploiting people’s addiction to drugs).
-Dead Leaves (The former if it was made earlier and by Hiroyuki Imaishi, but lacks a point).
-You can also check out the stuff in http:// myanimelist.net/ stacks /85045 for more smoking manga I guess (let this review have this link mods please, it’s relevant).

Not really recommended but more extreme stuff that stands out more

-Kyuuketsuki Sugu Shinu (bizarre sexual comedy)
-Gross stuff like Unko-san, Shitcom, Trap-kun, Panty & Stocking in Sanitary Box (you need to watch the first season of the main series first), The Eternal Family (there’s kind of a point at the very end), Onara Gorou anime (he likes to make series about living sentient farts for some reason).

Behind the simple premise of two people smoking together, this anime packs a lot of sociological commentary. You see, first it’s about a romance with a big age gap of 20 years between its main characters, with the older one being the man but the assertive one being the woman, thus it’s a spin on usual gender dynamics in romance anime. Second, it’s about the stressful and tiresome working life in Japan that only leaves time of the day to rush to the supermarket nearby to grab some junk that replaces a proper meal of some actual fucking food. Third, it’s about how the only worth things left to live for are the little moments and expressions of human connection, reflected in the main guy brightening his day only by seeing the woman of his dreams smile, and as you may know if you navigate through the Internet, the most beautiful women that walk over this Earth are random cashiers. Related to that, fourth, it’s about how other few things worth living for are the little moments of relaxation, such as sitting down to grab a smoke, and look at how well it’s connected with the theme from before, as that’s another form of human connection, shared between the protagonist and the woman he likes pretending to be another one. Hold on, does that mean that women are liars?? Well I don’t know, there aren’t any of those on the Internet. No, you see, fifth, the girl hides her real identity from the guy to check his intentions and whether he’s a creep or not, so the anime tells about the daily sexual harassment suffered by women. Heck, sixth, even in the past she was targeted by a male customer to complain about her for no reason, so it’s about women being looked down and belittled by misogynists and their power play in mind as well. And as she comments, seventh, she puts up an image in order to seem friendlier and sell more as she was trained to do, it’s capitalism applied to the bodies themselves. And when you look at the dynamic of the relationship between the main characters, eighth, it’s about how people are attracted to an ideal version and image of others more so than their real selves. Ninth, from the perspective of the girl, it is also about being insecure about yourself and being afraid to show your true self to others, even the one you like. But as the man himself says, there’s nothing bad about people being more of what you know of them, finding out more facets of them does not mean they are hysterical and liars, so the viewer knows that he would comprehend her and be fine with her and they would be a good couple, thus leaving us wanting to see when he finally connects the two women as one and they start to go out. So it reminds me of romance series from the past like KareKano, Horimiya or Wotakoi, the latter which did not have a couple only showing their true selves to the others but the protagonist was afraid of people finding out about her otaku self. Tenth, despite the female main character being assertive, she wants the male to connect the dots and find her out, so it’s also about being scared to take a step forward in a relationship yourself and leaving that step and task to the other person. And finally, eleventh, since smoking is a big deal here, it’s also about the changes of public spaces over time, reflected in the changes of public spaces where people can smoke between the current time in the story and the flashbacks we see in the series. Truly a masterpiece of an anime that deserves to be among the most popular and highly rated of its season and year, with only one issue, it’s still ongoing so we didn’t get the ending we all wanted where all these wonderful themes connect and get a closure and the characters find catharsis and love together, thus I can only score with a 9/10.



Nah, just kidding, that was just me overthinking a simple premise to make it a grandiose concept to feel like I’m watching something extraordinary and justify my consumption of meaningful, insightful and valuable art during my limited time on Earth. Ok no that was also a joke, except for the first part, I did think about all of those things while watching the anime but only so briefly, and only by overthinking single lines of script. It could have easily been done by a really annoying kind of anime fans that luckily for this show, instead focused on the other smoking series of the season, Yani Neko, and left this one alone. So yeah let’s see how those things from my long ass first paragraph actually appear in the anime.

First point, the age gap is real and apparently there was a bit of controversy that thankfully didn’t reach me. For once I don’t mind much, it’s a bit weird but I do know a real couple like that. Well they are 15 years apart, not 20, but still. And the woman from the show is an adult and she is the assertive one so I don’t see much to complain about here. Just in case my wording here gives you weird ideas, the real couple I know of are both adults as well.

The second point is the most present throughout the show actually, but since this is a lighthearted romcom with very little drama, even the tiresome working life in Japan is shown more in a comical manner than an actual critique of it.

Third and fourth points are real but way too exaggerated by me. The guy does indeed look forward to see the cashier every day, while she in return is amused to get reactions out of him as her real self, and they do share a good smoke most of the time, but it’s more about sharing time together and talking about their lives than anything else. They sit down, complain a bit, they bent, one of them gives some advice to the other, she teases him, moving on. It’s a nice adult dynamic for a change but not enough to blow it out of proportions like I previously did.

The fifth point is real but appears as a throwaway line at the very beginning of the series, while the sixth does happen during a flashback but is treated more as an isolated case than a general and systematic problem. It’s more about playing the usual card of the main characters knowing each other from way back without realizing, so at that point their dynamic becomes ironic. The woman gets pissed that the man is dense and does not take advances, but she herself does not connect that the guy she likes now is the same she liked in the past, and once again the viewer is hoping for the moment when they notice that they like each other from way back and start going out together.

The seventh point is mentioned but as a single throwaway line at the beginning of the series, just like the fifth, and no mention of the systematic issue and cause whatsoever.

The eighth, ninth and tenth points do appear as an important aspect of the main dynamic, as the man do likes the ideal constructed version and image of the woman a lot more than her real self that he unknowingly also knows about, and that’s why she gets pissed a lot of the times, and other characters did tell her that she should be honest and upfront with him and stop playing third wheel with herself, but once again it’s more of a lighthearted wholesome dynamic than anything else. The dude does tell her those things about people being more than what they show and the audience does want for them to realize it and get together, however. If you do want to see more about romances where main characters do hide aspects of themselves to others, I do recommend checking out KareKano, Horimiya as a weaker alternative to it, and Wotakoi for the otaku protagonists. However, the first and third ones aren’t finished so going for their source materials is also a must, while the second was adapted incompletely once and in a rushed and out of order way the second time, so maybe you would do well to do the same as with the other ones.

The eleventh point appears as a throwaway concept as well, more of a visual gag and the setup for the main space where the main characters interact, but not much else.

As you see, the concepts I attributed to the series are either lies or me blowing aspects of it out of proportion, while in series they appear briefly and just mentioned in a throwaway line with no more depth than they would have on a real casual conversation, because after all that’s what the main thing happening in the anime is.

In reality is another show that labels itself a romance but it’s more about the yearning than an actual development of a couple, like most fiction within the genre seems to be, something which I do not get. What? Does romance die once people get together or why do most authors don’t explore the dynamics of an actually established couple?

What I’m getting at here is that we need either an adaptation of Yaiteru Futari besides the live action one, for the official release or the fansubs to finally catch up with the rest of the manga, or more romance like it everywhere. I mean I guess there’s Tonikawa but I’m personally not fond of it and thus I didn’t even watch its second season nor jumped to its manga. But anyways if you want an actual romance work of an actually established couple and what happens after they get together, I do recommend checking out the wholesome gourmet romcom manga Yaiteru Futari out, once the fansubs or the official release catch up with the 40 or so chapters still left to come outside of Japan.

I already covered the characters well enough but if you want me to say something more of them, they will still feel teen-like somewhat despite being adults. The woman for her long road play and the man for his awkward reactions, very typical romance anime characterization.

There are more characters than those two in the anime but aside from the boss of the woman, none have any importance to them and the one episode that had a secondary character take the place of one of the main ones was rated the lowest everywhere for good reasons. The side cast is not as interesting nor as fleshed out when they take spotlight out of the main couple, to excuse them taking screentime for themselves. Thus we are here to see the two protagonists, not half an episode dedicated to some guy that’s even more spineless than the main one, for a dynamic that’s basically the reverse of the main one (the woman is the older one), but far less interesting, looked into and enjoyable.

There isn’t much to say about the production of the anime itself. It’s basic but serviceable for what it needs, decent artwork with no drops, very limited backgrounds, static animation, whatever special effects, and simple character designs. The real look of the woman did shock a lot of people for having a slight resemblance to Makima from Chainsaw Man for them. That wasn’t exactly the case for me but I do think that Tayama looks closer to fanart Makima than Makima herself does in her official media. The idea of the guy not recognizing the two women being the same was the subject of a lot of jokes and memes and initially did make me think that it would be nonsense, but the Clark Kent effect has shown to work out for a lot of real people so let’s let it slide. I liked both of her designs because they reminded me of the looks of a real woman I came to know about this year but that’s not important so let’s move past on to the audio department.

The sound effects and voice acting are also serviceable, with the only stand outs being that the male main does not sound 45 but a lot younger and not as a smoker at all, Megumi Toyoguchi voicing a side old woman, that did surprise me and I would have never recognized her without checking the staff, and the woman voicing the female main nailing her two types of voices, the fake typical sweet one and her real deeper, smooth and smoker one, even switching from one to another a few times in the series. What’s more impressive is that she’s still very new at it with only a few years and roles in the industry, so good job.

The music does not stand out on its own but it has a relaxed jazz-like feel to it so they do add a lot to the scenes once you notice it. The openings and endings are typical soft jpop stuff but they are fine and fit the show nicely. And yes, there are two of each, as there are two versions of the anime, with the first one being the first half of the show divided into a full course of miniepisodes, with its own opening and ending, and airing a lot earlier than the season actually began, as a marketing idea. And at least as far as the West goes, it sure worked out.

I started this anime out of curiosity and just expecting to drop it within two episodes but I ended up liking it a lot more than what I initially expected, heck it was one of the few anime I liked from its season and year, something which I did not expect at all. Despite that it’s still another not romance piece of fiction that’s more about yearning than an actual romantic development of a couple, so even though you can overthink aspects of it to the moon thanks to the dynamic of the adult main couple, it’s still not much more than a typical fluff wholesome romcom to kill some time weakly, ok to check out to relax to but nothing beyond that.

Recommended stuff

Well I already mentioned them in the review but KareKano, Horimiya and Wotakoi are romances where main characters hide something about themselves.

Yaiteru Futari and Tonikaku Kawaii are romances with couples established early on.

You can also check out the stuff in http:// myanimelist.net/ stacks /85045 for more smoking manga I guess (let this review have this link mods please, it’s relevant).

On a substantial level, Reiwa no Dara-san is a story about revenge, or rather what comes after getting it, but while other shows like Vinland Saga explore the self destructive nature and empty feeling of void that’s left afterwards, this anime instead focuses on the calm and change of attitude of a supernatural entity that achieved it, how she mellowed down after habitating through many eras of peace compared to the era of war, conflict and supernatural exorcisms which she lived and died in, and changed from an entity filled with rage and rancor to one that protects the villagers nearby her from other supernatural beings.

I wasn’t initially interested in this anime whatsoever but an acquaintance on Discord told me that it’s Billy & Mandy in anime so I checked it out of curiosity and I can kinda understand the comparison, as in present time that entity hangs around with two kids that aren’t the tiniest bit scared of her.

In that sense it’s also about the change of eras in the sense that people aren’t that serious now as in past times, and that supernatural creatures and urban legends aren’t seen in the same manner, they are no longer seen as necessarily scary, but rather cool or interesting or even sexy, as the little boy from the pair of siblings that the main character spends time with is turned on by her despite her being a big ass four armed lamia monster with a Kuchisake Onna-like mouth and shark teeth and snake-like eyes.
It could easily be dismissed as yet another Japanese legend being desecrated by manganime media and the Internet, but in the context of the series is a weird way of showing such a creature being accepted instead of rejected and evaded out of fear.
There’s a whole transition over time and through flashbacks of the protagonist being feared, later on respected, and in present time cherished.

In a way I guess it’s also about seeing people for what’s inside of them instead of their outside. In her era, people united to kill her just for believing a web of lies, and was considered the lesser and inferior twin for being ugly, whereas in present time the other two mains accept her and like her, especially the kinda horny younger brother, so I guess it’s also about beauty standards changing over time as well.

And it’s not like the connection between the three mains is random, as the anime builds up through flashbacks the backstory of how the families of the two human mains and others also spiritually charged that are somewhat close to them came to be and form in the first place.

If you see the anime that way, the apparent disconnection between the two time periods is not as such as they connect in a way that makes sense thematically, but the same cannot be said tonally. The backstory is filled with envy, rancor, jealousy, backstabbing, betrayals, anger, rage, revenge, tragic love stories, death, murder, even attempted rape or well the proposition of one, whole villages accepting their women to breed the descendants of one monk, that’s how the clans came to be, straight feudal demonic horror, while the present is all about a goofy comedy with lots of times otaku interests, and even the snake spirit of the protagonist drains spiritual energy in the contemporary Japan, but in a comical way, it turns into a comedy horror type of show.

The two tones clash a lot with each other making you feel like you are watching two completely different series, but at least at times the disparity is sometimes used as a punchline. All this horrible stuff that happened way back in the past, all these warm moments of connection between the protagonist and the mother of the other two mains back when she was a teenager, to end up with this braindead stuff and characters in the present.

Narratively the two stories are disconnected as well, as that’s the weakest aspect of the anime, it randomly transitions between the present and the past and initially with an omniscient narrator instead of letting the scenes speak for themselves. I appreciate that there’s actually a story in an anime that did not seem like it would have one at all, but the way it’s told is not the most competent nor engaging, the mood whiplash can be too much at times. They do connect at the conclusion though not in the best way, more like a rushed final showdown followed by the end of the backstory and more wholesome present time scenes.

Production wise there isn’t much to talk about here. I appreciate the difference in aesthetics between the dark and gloomy looking and serious and low volume sounding past, and the high-pitched, silly acted and bright looking and heavily illuminated present. The artwork is solid with no quality drops and there’s the surprising aspect of the titular character initially and occasionally having her huge bazookas up front with even uncensored big aureolas and inverted #freed nipples all displayed on screen and even more surprisingly in a natural and not erotic nor comical way, but other than that nothing about the character designs, backgrounds, motions or special effects are particularly worth of mention. Opening and ending are comical or wholesome whatever and the music and sound effects do their job just fine.

So, my dear reader, I ask of you, do you like huge tits with big aureolas and inverted #freed nipples on screen?

Yes
Watch the anime

No
Maybe pass on the anime.

Do you mind that they are part of a huge tall half snake, cut mouth, shark teeth, snake eyes woman?

Yes 
Maybe pass on the anime

NoWatch the anime

Do you also want to see that in the anime equivalent to Billy & Mandy?

Yes 
Watch the anime

No
Maybe try to tolerate half of the anime so you can watch the other half

Do you mind if it comes with a classic feudal horror and tragic romance drama as a backstory?

Yes
This anime is clearly for you

No
I’m surprised you’re still here. Thanks for reading all of this

Recommended stuff

The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy for the comedy and present part
The InuYasha franchise for the drama and backstory part, particularly the third movie, as it is also about a tragic love story result of jealousy, unrequited love and a human fusing with a demon.

Hey Fred! Gimme a Little Mermaid taking place in the contemporary world, but hold the prince, we’ll make it so the mermaid won’t be in love with him.

Hold the prince?

And hold the evil witch, she’s not really gonna be evil but rather misunderstood.

Hold the evil w-?
Hey Jimmy! Gimme a Little Mermaid with nutn!
Nutting??

Ok no, truth is Sayonara Lara does keep the original story but rushes through it in its first episode, and to be honest it doesn’t do a bad job at it, keeping the basics and even featuring moments of silence, letting the visuals do the job. It’s not like it can’t be done in such a short runtime, Russia did it in the 60s with the most serious tone and the darkest aesthetics out of all the versions I’ve seen of it, which is why I consider it the best of all.

The thing is that there is in fact an older anime version of the tale done in the 70s. Andersen’s Ningyohime (that means mermaid princess) was called, and like the most famous version of all, it was a musical comedy for the most part. By now it’s obviously outdated in terms of both visuals and audio quality, but its short length of barely over an hour and staying faithful to the original tragic ending makes me consider it worth watching it at least once.

Then the Disney version became the most famous of all and distorted the image of the original almost completely, replacing it almost entirely with a musical romantic comedy and even changing the tragic ending for a happy one that led to some very hated sequels. But it also had the best visuals obviously and Ariel, Erick and Ursula had more personality and charisma and were more memorable than the casts of every other version I’ve seen.

So after that, Sayonara Lara asks what would it be like if the mermaid was revived in a contemporary world and society? And she was a fish out of water both metaphorically for a theme, and in this case also literally. Well, that was also done in the past in the Aquamarine live action movie from I believe…2006? But that version was easily the worst of all because it also lacked core elements of the original story, the mermaid adapted to the different world very easily and the plot played out like a typical Usanian highschool comedy with even the group of mean girls bullies, what a drag.

So even though Saynora Lara seems to be the least creative version of all for doing things that were already done in the past, it is also quite innovative in its approach. First for its comedy around the protagonist being lost in a contemporary society, but in a cutesy funny way, instead of a wild funny way like Yuru in Yomi no Tsugai or if you recall it, the protagonist in Kuromukuro, and most likely more that I’m not remember it right now. The same mermaid that was amazed by human creations in the modern era that inspired her to make contact with that species even going against her own, is now scared of the technology, vehicles and houses of the contemporary era.

In that regard, Sayonara Lara also likes to play around with some common anime tropes, and more specifically romcom tropes. For example, at the end of the first episode, the protagonist is about to fall on top of another girl from the sky like in several romance and harem shows, but the latter punches her in the face. Later on the main character comes to find common romance tropes in movies, both happy and sad, and how fiction does not reflect reality, as a love between secondary characters that she thought was destined to be ends up with the two of them going out with other people, it was the classic childhood friend girl not getting with the boy trope done right.

This last part is also relevant for the themes of the show, as Lara learns that her idea of true, destined love is not real or not the way she thinks it is and thus despite desperately trying to find it she is not successful at that no matter how much she tries to force it to happen, things just won’t take form in a fairy tale or just plain fiction-like manner. In that regard, Sayonara Lara is not much like Little Mermaid, but closer to the musical romance comedy drama cartoon and live action hybrid movie Enchanted from 2007. But where that movie chickens out near its end and plays conveniently by the same rules it was poking fun at, and even got a way worse sequel decades later, Lara takes it to another dimension of theme exploration. What if that love, in its forced artificial invention, became harmful, both for the protagonist and the supposed love interest? And I don’t mean that just metaphorically, as said infected love takes the form of a literal fish-like living dagger that attacks others and even grows to a gigantic thing that tries to eat them. So the love that couldn’t flourish becomes rejection and aggression and even makes interacting with others afterwards hurtful due to distrust. At one point it seemed like Lara was the real villainous character of the story and not anyone else, what a concept would have been if the anime followed it through.

On a related note, and since I’ve already mentioned Yomi no Tsugai before, let’s talk about the theme of human and non-human relationship. In that series, the supernatural creatures make a contract with humans to help them and are devoted to them by nature, whereas they don’t comprehend why humans could fight, hurt and betray each other. In Sayonara Lara the merfolks creatures besides Lara fear, despise and reject humans, seemingly with no reason, but as we are shown more backstory then yeah, it’s made clear that they do have a sort of justified reason to feel that way, whereas most humans hate the aquatic species back, and did it first, seemingly just because they are different and non-human. That’s not the case for all of them of course, it’s not like the show tells you that nature is right and humans are a plague or something like that like some supposed woke naturalists and/or activists try to push instead of attacking the real source of the problem which are big corporations, and in turn replicate the ecofascist speech that serves said big companies and go against common people. No, of course and a central topic and theme is that Lara does find worthy of trust, good humans that are not like the rest, and thus not all of humanity deserves to get a resentful attitude, distrust, fear and hate directed towards them.

But let’s not divert much further and go back on track to move away from the themes onto the actual plot and script, that is where the issues begin. Initially Lara is scared to live among humans, the family of the deuteragonist, and tries to run away, breaking a lot of stuff in the process, but gets used to that idea and starts to chase that true destined love and starts working in a bakery, which works in a quadruple sense. First it retains her cute and wholesome side for the audience, second it helps her pay for what she broke, third it serves in making her understand the ways of the contemporary society, and fourth it helps her in her objective to find more people and thus her intended true love, even if that doesn’t exactly work in the end.

It is not related to anything but I don’t have anywhere else to mention it, I liked that Lara lives with a family in a cramped room and the power even goes out during an episode, a rare thing to see in anime full of spacious rooms even if they are set on small or poor houses or the countryside or whatever.

Going back to the script, after the time skip, the supposed villain turns to a pet of the deuteragonist, and if you wonder why no one does something about a girl talking to a fish is because no one knows about that because she is a loner with some drama after losing her mother, hey this is anime after all. And for why the villainess is like that…plot reasons revealed late in the story.

Something that bothered me in the beginning is why Lara would listen to the witch after what happened to her the first time and why would them try to chase love, the thing that destroyed the entire species after failing to obtain it the first time, but it’s not like she has and had other options anyway and that mirror did show the final moments of the merfolks, but it could have been another manipulation of the witch for all the main character knew.

There is a severe lack of reasoning about certain things, like why are the merfolks made of light or why does love produces light stronger and stuff, it’s basically like that because of fantasy, but whatever it’s ok, the series is fantasy, a light one at that, and based on a fairy tale, so let’s let those things slide. So all things considered, there’s an attempt to maintain an internal logic, even with the light and unexplained fantastical elements.

Although what I said about the theme exploration might have made it seem like a pure drama, Sayonara Lara is certainly more of a wholesome comedy during its first episodes and was pretty decent at that. The only parts I didn’t get is what is Mari’s drama and objective supposed to add to the whole story, and why the people move past the occasional but regular destruction of the bridge so easily. This is not Fate where public knowledge can be manipulated nor Yomi no Tsugai where a whole bunch of side characters have supernatural cleaning abilities, the surviving merfolks don’t possess that level of influence and power to explain that, but oh well, it’s Japan, things get destroyed over there regularly due to natural disasters and shit, I guess.

Around episodes 7 to 9, however, you start to notice that every episode seems to want to end with some kind of cliffhanger and build something big to come. Most of the episodes keep being simple and chill slice of life, but all of a sudden it takes a dramatic turn at the end of each episode, with no strong followup afterwards. Lara introspects for a good portion of an episode to decide to find her new love, then almost another entire one to decide that that’s not her true love, well why didn’t we just merge the two of them and save some screentime then?

When we arrive at episode 10, dramatic things happen way too fast all of a sudden, which don’t let the emotional stakes play out organically. This leads me to another big issue which is the next episode, the 11, recontextualizing the witch to be misunderstood instead of evil, and if anything Lara’s father being more of a true antagonist of sorts, which isn’t all that original, as plenty of movies do something similar these days, Disney live action remake of the Little Mermaid included.

The real problem is that she was not fleshed out in the slightest beforehand. You should flesh out a character before you try to twist the information and image of them, and you should do it before you take them out of the plot. It’s a recurrent narrative issue with plenty of anime and manga doing something similar, like Boku no Hero Academia or Kimetsu no Yaiba giving backdrops in the middle of the action thus interrupting the flow of the story for the former and as villains are dying for the latter, or even Hokuto no Ken or Saint Seiya for two old similar examples, as far as this issue is concerned. Even without that, why was the witch acting cryptic and mysterious and refusing to explain anything to either Lara or her father? Why did the writers wrote her as a no real evil villain, when she acts like that throughout the whole series? It feels forced and easily avoidable. And since we are talking about that, why was that whole backstory shown to the deuteragonist through the mirror? It feels as if it happened that way just because the story needed the protagonist to be at another place at that moment.

As an extension to that, there are like two different antagonistic characters at least in theory, but everyone remains passive until the final two episodes, it’s as if no character tries to achieve what they want or prevent from happening what they don’t want, until the show is about to end.

The conclusion suffers from the same thing as the rest of the second half, it has depression, a death, a resurrection, a change of mind and perspective, a realization, the message of the show being directly delivered, and a huge power fixing an ecological phenomena, all in one episode. I wouldn’t say it was bad but definitely would have benefited from lasting at least two episodes. Also, lol at all the yuribait leading to nothing once again. The year was full of actual lesbian anime, go watch those and stop falling for bullshit, people, please. At least it was far more subtle this time, through directing and storyboarding and not the script itself. What I am in favor of is the message, as I got sick and tired of anime and fiction in general acting like love is the only motivation in the world and even then only one type of love, the romantic one. Sayonara Lara says fu-, actually no, it gently rejects its proposal and goes its own way and does its own thing, you love to see it.

What stands out the most from the anime and what made it somewhat known in the first place was the visuals. It is not the first anime in recent years to go for a digital recreation of retro-like aesthetics, but seeing the other ones (Magical Destroyers, My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s, and in this same season, Red River), it is easy to tell that this anime captured the character designs similar to those of old, the warm colors and the darker lighting and shading the best, and without sucking balls completely as an anime. Not only that but everything from artwork to backgrounds and special effects look polished and charming. The character designs are otherwise simple and without much variety, and the animation is not all that good, because the series doesn’t need it to be, but the overall result is very good nonetheless. There were plenty of very well animated and directed shows this year, I’ve been noticing.

The audio department is pretty good as far as sound effects and voice acting goes but the music is the really good thing in here, with its symphonic score. Too bad the anime doesn’t play it much, and instead repeats the little “Lara, Lara” chorus chant considerably. The opening and ending are both pretty in visuals, tell a lot of the story and character dynamics and backdrops without spoiling anything thanks to good storyboard and directing, and even the songs, which I guess would be labeled as symphonic pop, are quite good. Also, you don’t know how pleasant it is to see a band from two decades ago like Ikimonogakari being still around and not making complete trash songs like others in the same boat, hear that Flow? Uverworld? V8? Goddammit. Also I think the last episode used a special opening, and it was a calm, kind of quiet, almost ambience music like tune. I want that released publicly as soon as possible, please.

Bottom line, what seemed to be a mistake of a premise for being derivative was given an original enough spin and with a lovely production and atmosphere, resulted in a pleasant watch in its first half that was thematically more than meets the eye and as far as the message goes, it concluded fine. The problem is the script which in the second half suffered a lot from rushed events and turns and the mishandling of the character colouring, coming up way too late in the story, and a finale that was overstuffed for its own good. If you want an emotional experience, you might be pleased with this anime, if you want something more complete and concrete and well put together, perhaps not so much.

Well would you look at that, a Hiromi Arakawa show that was initially kinda hyped based on its author and didn’t exactly meet its expectations. Some people were expecting the next Fullmetal Alchemist based on name and studio, but the story is quite different and the series never really tried to be the successor of that colossi of a manga. Plus, it’s not like Gin no Saji, Arslan Senki, Hyakusho Kizoku or Moonrise released since…but ok, I get it, the mangaka only designed the characters for two of them, a medieval epic and a failed sci-fi epic, and the other two are slices of life in farms, nothing like the next fighting shounen coming from her.

But is Yomi no Tsugai even a fighting shounen? It is a shounen and there is fighting so it’s definitely an action adventure shounen, but it otherwise doesn’t follow any of the core elements of the genre to be labeled as such, Akane-banashi from its season was more of a shounen than it. Regardless of that, the few people that were reading the manga before the anime knew how different, and inferior, it was to Fullmetal Alchemist.

But anyways let’s move from Brotherhood to the siblinghood of this title, because once again Arakawa focused primarily on the relationship between two siblings, this time a guy and a girl instead of two brothers, and their search for their parents, only this time around it happens in the context of a war between a village in the mountains with a whole net of assassins and cleaners at disposal, and a kind of rich mafia family, each group with several supernatural creatures at disposal, or rather through deals and connections between humans and those creatures. The contracts and the human-supernatural connection is part of the character dynamics and themes. Oh, the siblings are chased because they possess big powers capable of ruling the world or something, according to a prophecy, and chances are they awake said abilities after they have died once.

With all that setup, the beginning confused a lot of people because the twins are seemingly initially enemies and a lot of apparently innocent civilians are killed off mercilessly and why does the girl have such an adoration for her brother almost to the point of brocon. It’s the classic contrast between comedy and action of plenty of shounen stories, and many people didn’t like that, even if the violence was toned down considerably from the manga. Personally I found it initially more tolerable than the source material because over there the art style gets deformed completely in classic Arakawa fashion, and the anime wasn’t as loud and childish as I expected it to be during those moments.

Still, the humour wasn’t exactly good, and I wished it was removed or at least toned down somewhat. The actual comedy though, I’m in favor of, as most of it involves a fish out of water type of concept, premise and character, of which I’m fond of. In this case, the protagonist who has lived his whole life in a village atop of a mountain, goes down to the city below and is confused by contemporary Japan, as he is about everything else really. This aspect is not limited to that alone, as his hunter in the wild-like mentality clashes with what’s legal or not in our world with our rules, so the side characters are constantly trying to keep him out of trouble and keep him underground and without being seen by the common people all around them. I’m not saying it’s amazingly implemented within the plot, as there is no real dealing with real consequences in the real world, and even if there were, the characters have an underground network capable of dealing with that kind of mishaps. It’s not Dai-Guard, but it’s nonetheless a little more elaborated than simply lol look at this clueless guy.

Anyways, past the comedy, the actual story is quite good, as it has all these groups trying to get the siblings to their side by either trust or force, clashing with each other with all kinds of abilities, and even internal differences within their own, hinting at possible traitors amongst them, and there’s even a third antagonistic group that appears near the end of the season to complicate the conflict even more, and as someone that reads the manga, let me tell you that things will get even more complicated from there.

Plus there is some effort put into trying to maintain coherence among everything, from the battles being unnoticed by the common people due to the supernatural entities, the Tsugai as they are called, being able to suppress their presence from normal civilians, and even cleaners of all kinds in charge of erasing evidence of all the fighting and killing, and having all the parties involved being such big groups that can keep the events hidden and unnoticed. The anime even shows the process and how a normal policeman is thought of as being hallucinating due to fatigue and stress when no one believes all the crazy shit he has been witnessing all night long, because there is no trail of it. Hear that Samidare? Fate? And many more.

There are traitor plots within the story and even though I wouldn’t say Yomi no Tsugai is a masterpiece of foreshadowing, it does a good job at building and anticipating reveals, and having the characters prepare some kind of countermeasure. This expands even to the fight choreography, as the cast uses the combined abilities of their Tsugai to capture said traitors, it’s a case of good planning and effective use of abilities in fights making up for otherwise basic abilities and powers. Still, Arakawa once again made good use of martial arts, old weapons, and basic supernatural powers combined, without the need for flashiness and overcomplicated powers nor power ups, so far at least.

With those nice things said, it has to be clarified that not everything makes sense, as there are common people with no fighting ability whatsoever commanding Tsugais, somehow not being killed instantly nor hurt permanently in ways that would make their close ones bombard them with questions. And guns are seemingly useless in this setting, as the gun users either don’t shoot on target as soon as they can or when they do they are less effective than…arrows? Look at Tadera and Yuru attacking Ivan around during the last quarter of the anime, for example.

Speaking of the latter, the protagonist of the show, we already established that he is in a similar case as Lara although far riskier and wilder, and here we have a case similar to Akane Osaki in Akane-banashi, in that he carries the rest of the cast on his shoulders. Initially it’s funny to see him as lost as the audience with what the hell is even going on, but there is some drama around his closest people lying to him his whole life, and the whole of it being fabricated. Plus his hunter-like mentality adds a lot to his fighting style, his interrogation of people, and his distrust of most people around him, instead of the usual naive shounen protagonists that treat any random recently encountered character as trustworthy and a friend. Honestly, I think of him as one of the best recent shounen protagonists.

But it’s not like he is amazing or anything and like I said, he carries all the rest of the cast, who are mostly plot devices throughout most of the series, with only some of them having their backdrops revealed through brief flashbacks and nothing resembling a character arc whatsoever. Not even Asa, the seemingly initial mass murderer with an almost brocon like adoration for her brother, is as interesting and fleshed out as her brother, and that gimmick of hers can be quite annoying with time.

The worst offender is Gabby, a character that seemingly does kill lots of people just because and with no remorse. Eventually it is made clear that she takes it out on them because of what they did to Asa in the past and due to the desire to protect her group, but since her connection with her and them is not explored in the season, nor even in the manga in the 55 chapters I’ve read so far, she comes off as an edgy casual mass murdered for no reason, even more so when later on in the manga she claims to only like Tsugais and hate humanity, what it this character? Plus, as proven on episode 22, she would support generative AI, truly the lowest of the lows.

A big part of this issue comes from one of the genres of the show itself, mystery. As we follow the perspective of the main character, there is a lot of stuff that we initially do not understand, because he is in that same situation, and even aside from him, a lot of the show remains mysterious throughout the series in order to seem confusing and intriguing. It took 22 out of 24 episodes to clear out that Asa is not a mass murderer, imagine that. Thus, the characters suffer from that as well.

That brings us to the other major problem of the series, the pacing. Usually there’s disagreement about whether an anime or manga or whatever is fast or slow paced, what moves steadily for some might be slow for others, and what seems appropriately paced for some might come off as rushed for others. In this case there’s people claiming both things from opposite sides. I wouldn’t be able to name them now but I believe I have talked about series that were both fast and slow at the same time in the past. In this case it’s not much that some elements are dragged so others end up being shown in a hurry or something, but more so that a lot of stuff happens, yet very little actually progresses the plot. Take the beginning and the ending of the anime and it’s clear that most of what is shown in between is dedicated more to clarify to the protagonist and the audience what is happening and what for, rather than actually moving somewhere with it and any character getting closer to what they want to achieve. I don’t know if Arakawa or her magazine and/or editor plan for this to be a long runner or something, but at 55 chapters where I am, it didn’t really get that much better. Characters have died, others took another position, Yuru and Asa became more proactive on their own, but the actual plot is still progressing slowly.

And even though the fight choreography is good, the visuals certainly don’t add much to the action, nor are they that good on their own either. The artwork is solid and with no quality drops, the character designs are good updates of Arakawa’s style to a contemporary setting and society but the usual faces of her are present all throughout the anime. The backgrounds are ok but not much to pay attention to, and they usually look dry, the actual animation is good enough during the fights but isn’t much as a whole, and there’s somewhat weak CGI used here and there for sceneries and special effects.

The audio department consists of serviceable voice acting, sound effects and background music done by Kensuke Ishio. Clearly not at the top of his game but still better than what he did for Agents of the Four Seasons from the same season. The first ending is ok mostly thanks to the visuals and directing but as a song is quite way too calm and kind of boring by itself, the second ending is not bad but not exactly good either,it focuses on Asa’s perspective but since she isn’t explored much as Yuru, it’s a bit whatever, and both openings suck balls.

So, as a whole I think this is a one time worthy action adventure thanks to the fight choreography, the attempt to make most things make sense, the overall story and conflict on a basic level, and Yuru as a protagonist, but it is certainly not very good and among the lowest worth checking out titles of the year for me, despite being one of the titles I liked the most. Also, this is nowhere near Fullmetal Alchemist in terms of characters, themes, plot, pacing, animation, openings and endings, soundtrack and stuff, so I say give it a try if you feel like it but lower your expectations if you expect to see the next best fighting shounen of all times, or you would set yourself up for disappointment otherwise.

For supposedly being the dark horse of the season, Nippon Sangoku didn’t strike as that dark to me but it did have its fair share of horseshit in it. For all the praise I’ve seen of it from both casuals that checked it out of curiosity, and critics/elitists as the hidden gem/best show of its season, I expected a lot more and thus consider it my disappointment of the year so far.

Most of the criticism I have with it has been said somewhere else already. The beginning is pretty meh, the setting has some inconsistencies, the main character didn’t act according to his characterization at first, the characters are kinda plain, and the finale is super rushed. For most of those, we will take a look extensively at the first episode.

This is a retrofuturistic post-apocalyptic Three Kingdoms in Japan of sorts, so yeah the premise is amazing, but the setup is a bit questionable? Or at the very least limited. We know that the superpowers unleashed a nuclear war and that’s how Japan split in three, meaning there’s a whole post-apocalyptic world out there that we’re not seeing but ok, the author chose to focus on a specific place from the setting, within the scenario he created, so it’s ok.

As has been stated, the technological reverting of Japan to such an era isn’t totally explored, why that one specifically and what happened with all the present day technology? It isn’t explored nor explained much nor very well at first. Eventually we do see some modern buildings and even cars that are used for field tactics, but until that happens, the setting feels like quirkiest of the year, and that’s considering that there was a bad CGI Hokuto no Ken remake airing at the same time (the CGI is bad, not the show itself). At the very least there are jobs and activities that drive the economy and funds and resources are addressed and become a plot point used in story for the military tactics, reminiscent of actually existing ones that were used in real life, character roles and dynamics, and buildup for some of its themes. So although more quirky, it does make a little more sense than the alternative. If the explanations and the scenario make sense in a post nuclear apocalypse setting though, that’s a thing for anyone to think about themselves. But still, for the most part it feels like the setting exists the way it does mostly so every few episodes there can a reference to something modern, or some modern day technology or building, a manga or something otaku being mentioned, or quirky villains making silly poses, plus an opening that combines traditional and contemporary music, yet because of the in-story post contemporary regression to traditional, those things don’t feel anachronistic.

For how rational the protagonist is supposed to be, he did a big oversight that could have potentially not prevented the tragedy perhaps, but it would have been better to see him at least attempt to. He knows the officials in his land are corrupt and tyrannical, he knows they are executing people for every pitiful excuse, and knows well his wife offended one of them, yet did nothing about it, didn’t even try to in fact. Well he was very young and tried to avoid conflict as much as he could, a book smarts guy more than a street smarts guy, so maybe the disbelief can be suspended regarding that.

But then there’s the villain, who let him go by the end of the episode, something very common for arrogant villains that underestimates protagonists and that comes back to bite them in the ass later, but the one in here isn’t presented like that. He is arrogant for sure but his impression of the main character wasn’t of someone that posed no threat, but rather of an interesting individual. You could probably say well maybe the antagonist planned to use him? No he didn’t. Well he eventually did something about him but that doesn’t come until the very end of the season and out of screen.

As for the issues in the following episodes, for a show with a premise such as this, the tone isn’t very serious. Like I’ve been saying, it’s very quirky and a good chunk of the characters are as well. Basically the main villain, every minor antagonist or secondary character, and even the supposed deuteragonist, acts or talks silly most of the time, and that clashes a lot with what’s supposed to be the serious dark horse show of the season. About the Movements of the Earth, this is not. It’s not comically homoerotic and over the top like an actual historical title like Golden Kamuy, nor action heavy and manly that’s supposed to come off as cool like Hokuto no Ken either. It’s a weird middle point that makes it for a niche audience.

So after all that, it is safe to say that this show wouldn’t have passed the 3 episode rule as far as I’m concerned. It’s from episode 4 and 5 that the show starts displaying some level of quality, and most stuff afterwards until the second to last episode, the eleventh, it’s pretty good and elevates the whole anime. It’s when another nation and faction and antagonist are shown and made part of the plot and divide the narrative between two perspectives, that the series becomes pretty good. We see internal conflicts between different factions on both sides, inside infiltration and invasion plots from Seii to Yamato, side characters sacrificing themselves and dying, actual field tactics that are direct references to Three Kingdoms are employed, better characters are introduced, like Ryumon, Kaku and Wajima, the latter which is a better character, though not a better antagonist, than Taira, and even some secondary ones like the son of the latter and the emperor either change perspectives or grow a little bit of balls. It’s also when the narrative follows more characters than the protagonist, and he and the deuteragonist are built up to eventually replace Ryumon and Kaku. The aforementioned issues didn’t exactly go away, but are now mixed up with some actual pretty good stuff.

With that said, the deuteragonist is kinda forgotten by the narrative for the most part, and his inner monologues don’t exactly help him either, what the anime did with Kaku wasn’t bad, but did feel unnecessarily sudden due to lack of proper build up. I also have to wonder why don’t the characters that can kill the villain, at least try to do it? Maybe he’s secretly super strong and will show it later. I mean he has a lot of people under his command, true, but kill him off and all that falls apart, at least from what was shown in the season.

And also, when they finally fought on the battlefield, the Yamato side completely stomped on Seii, thus it feels like the only reason why they weren’t winning early was because of the inside enemy, and that there was a big difference in levels all along, and that the narrative is picking a side. Even the strategies and the arguments of the protagonist have been questioned somewhat. Logh, Ravages of Time or Ad Astra, this is not.

And as good as they are as plot devices, and as well as they fit a certain role, such as a Deku-like romanticist analyst for the protagonist, mentors for Ryumon and Kaku, antagonist and the other side of the coin for Wajima, who also wants revenge and follows her idea of justice and unification of the nation in a dictatorial way, contrary to Misumi, at least as far as the narrative is concerned, the cast is still very plain. Again, Logh or Ravages of Time, this is not.

What’s indisputably mishandled is the finale, sorry but that was plain bad. Up until the middle point it was an ok conclusion, but the second half of the final episode had a whole season worth of plot points happening and new characters being presented at an insane speed and weren’t even properly shown but more like told by the narrator, leading to a semi cliffhanger, that was not a good ending at all.

Due to the in-story post contemporary regression to traditional times of the setting, the combination of traditional and modern music for the opening fits the series, and the visual sequence isn’t exactly bad, but the song itself kinda sucks for me. The ending was a lot more static and typical, but the song itself and the voice singing it aren’t bad, the detail of the letters going under the shoe and feet is neat, and the whole sequence reflects the motivation of the protagonist quite well. The background music is better and also features quite some chorus. The sound effects are also good and the voice acting, well, it fits but it’s not that big of a deal.

The real star of the presentation is the visuals, I don’t know what the style is called but the aesthetics seemed manga-like to me and the anime pulled it off like no other title, plus polished artwork, backgrounds, motions whenever it doesn’t use minimum motions for effect, and even good special effects. Even the very obvious CGI was used well for impact here. The directing and storyboard excel, did I praise Akane-banashi and Atelier for that in my reviews of them? Nippon Sangoku surpasses them, something which I did not expect to see in this year, at least regarding the latter, so at the very least, the director is one to keep track of. The transitions, perspective shots and lighting he displayed in this season were unmatched. The only complaint I have is the character designs for its androgynous looks for the main characters and the facial repetition, that would make me mix them with the women if they didn’t talk. Even the older characters have similar facial hair, thus even the characters that look different than the main ones, are similar to each other.

Bottom line, I did not enjoy this anime and don’t really think I’ll be following the next seasons, unless someone told me that all of my issues with the first were fixed or something. Besides my own enjoyment, the beginning was meh, the middle pretty good, and the finale bad, so I think the series is not as great as its reception made me think it would be. Despite all of its flaws, its strong points and the moments it was good, barely managed to save it and make me consider it somewhat worth watching once, but anime of its season, of its year, or a great one, for me, it is not.