Reviews by Fernando Leonel Alba

After watching two Bang Dream anime and being completely put off by everything about the early episodes of Girls Band Cry and drop it, I tried my luck with the actual title of the girls band/idol-ish subgenre I wanted to watch, which is this. As expected, it is the only one I enjoyed and the only one I thought it was overall decent and worth a watch, but still only so barely.

Despite grouping it into that subgenre, the truth is that the girls here do not actually form a band, but more like an artistic group where just one of the girls writes and sings. The others add illustrations, compose the music and make arrangements, and do the video editing and organize the events they take part of, stuff like that. So it is not an anime just about the musical part of a band, but about the whole artistic process that is more and more important nowadays, and I appreciate that approach as somewhat different and fresh.

This series is also topical and covers different themes through its characters, as the artist doubts her abilities because her art is seen as weird or inferior compared to others that makes fan arts of her creations later on.

The singer and co-protagonist of the show was a former idol so through her we can see some shady aspects of the idol industry, such as groups sabotaging others and any possible incident ruining your public image. She’s also full of mommy issues, as a big part of her character arc is how she was used and tossed apart by her mother within the idol industry, and now tries to get back at her while finding her own artistic vision and expression.

The composer has a more typical backdrop of having to live up to the expectations of others and being mocked because of her looks, while feeling like she has nowhere to belong. Changing from playing piano to compose her own themes with her idol she freakily fangirls over could be seen as a form of expression of artistic freedom but it is honestly not looked into that much nor that well. Her kind of perverted and freaky fangirlism over her new friend makes her the less serious and worse character out of the main ones to be honest.

Then there is the editor, who is also a vtuber, so you know there’s another topical thing in there. She’s primarily a tomboy who, like Anon from It’s MyGO!!!!!, came to realize she’s not that special nor cool (from others’ perspective), and was isolated by the rest and mocked by her back by her fake friends. It’s interesting to see how she became a neet that lies about her life and the repercussions that had once that was found out.

Through these characters, and the group becoming an artistic group that gains popularity online, the series also shows online harassment and cyberbullying on social media, so you know that was a good detail to have in there as another addition.

And like I’ve been implying so far, the characters, both as a group and on their own, essentially go through the same character arcs as the ones from the shows I watched before it. Introspecting about their goals, looking for a personal purpose and objective, trying to find a place and group to belong to along with their friends, and as a form of conflict, different artistic visions and clashes between the members for personal reasons later on.

The series also has generally a good pace, as it follows the whole process of the girls while making music and videos, and in turn, they are fleshed out at all times.

I will not call the writing anything amazing however, as it is true that the girls become quite successful quite easily and quite fast, and even when they are harassed and doubt themselves, they don’t have it too hard to face those hardships and controversies and stuff.

Is the themes and character immersion that makes the first half of the show good, more than the actual writing itself, which is still fairly naïve and convenient.

Did I say first half? Is the second half crap and makes the anime not worth watching? Well, not exactly, though it does make it inferior that it could have been.

From episodes 7 to 9 you can notice that the focused is switched to another older idol that has her own struggles, being older and a mother and all. There’s another episode on which the girls are apart doing their own thing and deciding what they want to do with their lives and stuff.

There was still character immersion, so it wasn’t bad, but when you see characters doing things completely different to the main activity of the show, while at the same time introducing another secondary character with just very little screentime, and almost falling into fanservice territory, you can notice that the writing starts to crumble.

Around these episodes, the series decided to have some interactions between the main girls that didn’t mean much to me, but others could see them as romantic. Let me be clear, there’s no development nor payoff to any of them, so it is once again silly yuri bait that would leave you disappointed if you expect something from it.

As episodes 8 and 9 go back to focus on what the show is about, while introducing the main conflict between the main characters, you think that the show is back on track, but unfortunately that is not true at all.

The last three episodes introduce drama, conflicts, cringe and unserious scenes at the most crucial moments of the band, overreactions that are different from the tone thus far, more focus on the vtuber girl with her possible gender dysphoria and not very clear relationship with that woman from episode 6 being barely looked into, more like glossed over, and left ambiguous, and eventually, having a very happy resolution where all the characters that did some very crappy things are forgiven just because and without a proper focus and buildup.

The finale itself isn’t bad, each girl finds what they want to do and everything is resolved, it is just that the last three episodes speedrun through way too much stuff without an organic flow and handling of it to call the resolution good, it’s more like meh.

As for the visuals, I was pleased with them after watching two or three (and a bit of another) anime in CGI, so I liked to see another 2D animated show again. Not that it isn’t anything amazing, as artwork, character designs, motions and effects are all just fine, with perhaps the backgrounds being the best bits. The directing would include several changes in perspectives, as sometimes the girls are filming or watching a video with specific cameras. Also, although it is something present in anime for years by now (Yuru Camp is the first example I can think of this), including phone screens to show the characters talking and going through social media is part of the plot in here, so that was a fine detail.

As for the sound, since there is only one character that sings here, they hired seiyuus this time, so the acting is a lot better than the ones in BanG Dream and Girls Band Cry. No performance stands out that much or is that good, but Rie Takahashi has some of her most unique and most pleasing to hear (thus best as far as performances goes), characters in here, so I wanted to point it out.

The music is just some generic jpop that I don’t like, but is fine for the show and the lyrics reflect the characters well, a pattern that seems to be a part of the subgenre or at least the titles that I’ve been seeing recently. A thing worth pointing out is that the show has four endings, one with two versions, canon songs made by this artistic group, and often the result of all of the work they do throughout the show. So you know, their inclusion is worth mentioning in terms of writing and directing and as part of the plot, and not just as background decorations to end an episode and roll some credits.

Bottom line, I do think that the show is worth a watch, for a one time experience, but more so for being topical, relevant for our times, the themes it includes, and the character immersion. The writing and presentation are otherwise not that good, and the final course of the show is very mediocre if not straight up bad.

It seems that Japan has been taking the girls band/idol-ish subgenre a bit more seriously lately, so I wanted to check out some of those titles, starting with this entry of the vast BanG Dream multimedia franchise and all of their bands.

Word online says that it’s different from other entries by being far more dramatic, but also falling into the exaggerated and overdramatic. Well, my opinion about it is fairly neutral, as it wasn’t what I was expecting in both a good and a bad sense.

From the negative side, the tone wasn’t as serious as I expected it to be and the drama wasn’t as good nor as well established as I was expecting, as there is no clear reasoning behind the disbanding of the former band until just a brief hint at the very end of the series. Thus the main conflict isn’t looked into enough in my opinion.

From the positive side, reading about this show online, I expected it to be a lot more of a tearjerker that wants to manipulate your emotions with overdramatic reactions. Although it’s true that the characters tend to manipulate others and be somewhat toxic towards each other, the tone is not overdramatic nor melodramatic.

Not that the plot is that good though, as the story is still fairly simple, the pacing rather slow and the band does progress fairly fast at the end especially considering all the issues it had, thus it is not that believable either. Another issue is that although the characters end up sticking together, it does not seem like they resolved the big issues between them, ending in a kind of a toxic working relationship if anything else. I wonder if that’s how the band was presented in the videogames, and what does it say about the real band that launched from this one lol.

There are also references to other bands from the franchise and cameos of the ones that already had appearances in their own anime series, though I missed them at first because, well, this is the only series I watched from the franchise. I gotta say that every major band and character being nearby or having a direct connection with each other feels like a stretch though.

The resolution is so-so, it is what it is, what you would expect from it, as the band stayed together, nothing special. It also confirmed a sequel series focused on another band from the franchise, and in turn focusing on the girl that broke the previous existing band I guess. They seem to have a gothic theatrical vibe in them, and although a bit pretentious, I did preferred them musically over MyGO!!!!!, and if the tone is like the one in here, I want to check it out when it comes out.

The characters are also ok, they fit into a stereotype but are explored enough to explain their personalities with a half-decent result. I still think that they are very toxic towards each other to stay together, and their backdrop stories are way too simple to excuse any of their reactions, but having flawed characters with more than one dimension to their personalities does make them better than the competition. Other than that, despite their different stories, at the end of the day it all comes down to everyone wanting a place to belong, so the resolution of their character arcs do feel a bit samey and repetitive after a while.

Just for the sake of writing some more both about them and in the review, I appreciate Komori being the shy, quiet and emotionally suppressed character moving from being the token girl to becoming a proactive character that learns to voice her thoughts and standing up to others and getting everyone together. Best girl not only for being the best written character, but also the most mentally sane.

Anon was interesting to follow for how selfish and self-centered she was, yet still tries to be a good person and find her own path alongside the others. She is the second most looked into character, being the co-protagonist and main perspective we follow in the first half of the series and all. Her drama, backdrop and character arc of realizing she is not as amazing and special as she used to think was somewhat interesting to see.

The others are not as good, Taki isn’t as interesting as she seemed to be, her initial rude behaviour changing to a kind of overprotective and maternal attitude around Tomori didn’t feel organic to make her a character that well written.

As for Sayo…well, seeing the typical nice and relaxed girl that wants for everyone to be on good terms and stick together snapping and ending up being the worst and most manipulative and toxic character was kind of awesome at first, but it all resulted in the slowest and most overdramatic episodes in the whole series. Plus down to it, doesn’t Anon already fill her role in the story with being a fake nice girl and all? And her past of feeling lonely and wanting somewhere to belong and stuff does not excuse her being a bitch, the others had that as well and didn’t do any of all tht toxic shit. Seems kinda redundant to have this girl around, writing wise I mean, I know she has to be in there because she is the bassist.

And Raana…what were they doing with this character man? She is just the token funny kinda random character that’s there just to make the tone a bit more lighthearted when things are becoming too serious or sad. She has no personality nor character arc whatsoever, and she even enters the band just because she wants, and also because she is the best musician of the bunch.

The girls of the other band are just kinda there, coming off as bitches with first world problems than anything else, but some other friends and members they come to find at the end seem nice. There’s nothing else to say about them because they will get their own series next year.

Visually, anime has come a long way to make CGI that doesn’t look like complete trash and make characters with enough facial expressions to not come off as robots, but is still not that good and the motions are a bit stiff. Luckily the backgrounds were very good, so it gets a bit of an extra point for that.

The sound effects and music do their job just fine. I don’t find the themes impressive in the least, especially after listening to them outside of the anime, because I don’t fancy much talking in the middle of a song, and the lyrics come off as first world teen girl problems. But as background music for the anime and used narratively as forms of expression for the characters, they are fine, and that includes the opening and ending. As for the voice acting…I’m not entirely sure but I think the standard for this subgenre is making the bands themselves act, instead of hiring seiyuus that can sing, or better yet hiring seiyuus and replacing them in the musical parts. As a result, whenever the girls aren’t singing, they are very mediocre at best as far as acting goes.

So yeah, there kind of is a story, conflict, dramatic pasts, hardships while forming an indie band from scratch and making it big. That alone, and not becoming a mess all things considered, are enough to consider it a bit more realistic and place it on top of other shows of its kind, which presents the same thing in a very unrealistic and idealized manner. But it is also nowhere near great for any particular reason.

This will cover both entries, as I don’t have much to say about each one.

2020 was a very weird year in every way, and regarding anime specifically, it was one of the least hyped years in history. Even the most popular and higher rated titles of that year are pretty much left behind by now, with the exception of Jujutsu Kaisen, the big fighting shounen of the moment, and even that one seems to be pretty criticized nowadays. It’s a shame because I didn’t think it was that bad of a year, and had some decent titles in my opinion, even if they barely managed to reach that level.

One of them, if you recall, was Great Pretender, which I don’t know how well it did in Japan, as it didn’t appear in the top 20 lists I saw at the time, and is clearly a west oriented show. But I remember it initially getting review bombed on anime databases by Shingeki no Kyojin fans, because studio WIT wasn’t adapting their manga anymore, as if that was even the decision of the studio in the first place.

It’s funny how that ended up being the reason why many more people began to watch it and rated it accordingly and it ended up being a relatively well rated title across every database.

But enough introduction. The anime itself is a rule of cool type of series of coin artists robbing bigger, worse criminals, and it was pretty good for a while. The energy was there, the tone was appropriate, and the presentation was mostly amazing.

Visually the series had polished artwork with no quality drops, beautiful backgrounds based around real locations around our world, that looked like paintings thanks to the darker colours, combined with darker and warmer lighting and shading effects, good special effects as well, and detailed and energetic motions that the series needed both in tone and action sequences. Plus, some interesting angles in the directing. The negative aspect were the character designs, as every character that wasn’t relatively old had the same facial structure, a froggy ground head ended on a triangular chin pointing down, yeah the series wasn’t the best in that regard.

The audio was kind of amazing as well. The sound effects weren’t as spectacular as I hoped for but they did their job just fine. The music was plain amazing, combining multiple genres and languages with different appropriate moods for different moments, and who could forget using the Freddy Mercury of the song with the same name of the anime as the ending song? Plus the voice acting was very well done and it even included different voice actors from different countries and of course talking in different languages to reflect the changes of countries in the setting of the series. The switches weren’t very smooth of course, but it was a nice detail to have in the show.

The series was separated into four arcs, all of which focused on the main characters. The first one was the best in my opinion, good introduction phase, good in throwing the protagonist into the whole chaotic situation, with a high energy through and through, full of action and high stakes, fleshing a side character with a good personal drama behind him, and subverting expectations a bit at the end. Of course the actual writing wasn’t that good or believable, but for a style over substance type of show, the first arc was great.

From there, the two following arcs would have a much lower energy but with intense and action packed endings, and throughout their duration, they would present a melancholic tone and be focused on the drama of the main characters. Thus they also serve the purpose to flesh out everyone from the main cast, expanding on their personalities, dynamics with the others, and backdrop stories.

It’s interesting to note that the storylines were quite different from each other. The first one was about fooling a drug mafia from LA from within, the second about ruining the rigged air race of a millionaire in Singapore, and the third about fooling a fraudulent art dealer in London, if I remember correctly. This way the series prevented becoming repetitive.

The final arc was about robbing a mafia group in Japan that deals with child trafficking, so the stakes and tone were far higher and more serious than ever. It was also emotionally important for the characters, as two of them, Edamame and Laurent, the most important and best ones I’d say, are personally involved with the group from way back, and even their families are involved. It was also emotionally engaging for the deaths that happen throughout this arc.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the makers decided to ruin the arc completely, and by extension the series as a whole. The tone became a lot lighter, the deaths turned out to be fake, thus ruining the drama, former villains come back as allies for no reason, especially after the protagonists ruined their lives, and the resolution was so over the top and ridiculous even for this anime, that you would expect to see it on something like the worst Mission Impossible entries.

The series is worth watching as a whole in my opinion, as a rule of cool type of action crime drama mini arc type of series, but the finale is really disappointing and as a whole the series is inferior to other famous anime that were compared with it in the past, such as Black Lagoon and Cowboy Bebop. I give it a 6/10.

Four years passed and here’s a sequel and you can notice what I said in the beginning, almost nobody cared about it, maybe also due to the format being unclear at first, expected to be a movie but then revealed to be a four part ova, meaning, another arc.

Even if you did care about it, the only quality that remains from the original is the audiovisuals, no complaint there. Some people didn’t like the design of the main character because of the differences between her lips, but eh, character designs were always the worst part of the visuals of this series anyway.

As for the actual content:

-There was a lot less of it, just an arc that goes by fast, instead of a series.

-The energy was a lot lower, compared to the best parts of the original.

-Similar things happen with the pacing.

-The arc as a whole is not that interesting, the main character is investigated by a mafia group and the antagonist themselves end up being against each other just because of misunderstandings, the whole conflict could be resolved if they just stopped to talk it out for a bit.

-The characters are uninteresting, the protagonist has some personality but also amnesia and no clear objective, she is just dragged around by the weak plot, and just by being alive, she constantly reminds you of how badly the previous final arc and series ended and how one of the best dramas of the original was ruined.

-Another character gets some focus but it’s not done in a way that is interesting. His backstory is nothing compared to the previous ones, he doesn’t share enough scenes with his friend for their dynamic to be enjoyable, he conveniently gets amnesia and gets cured of it, both things in stupid ways, and despite being hyped up, he kind of sucks at everything he does when you think about it.

-The ovas try to build some kind of romance around them but it is very superficial, not believable, not built upon, not engaging in the least.

-It is revealed at the end that every character was doing everything that the older main cast wanted. How? You barely see them on screen to believe such thing.

-As the, I guess expected, reunion, happens, the series ends, possibly with a sequel bait finale so they can milk it some more, though I don’t think that might happen, or at least not soon, how many people even cared about this?

In all, the action and the audiovisual presentation were fun, but it was overall a very unneeded and poorly done sequel that only added salt to the wound of the awful finale of the original series. Another crappy addition that would have been better if it never existed, like, let’s say, Odd Taxi in the Woods, or the Zegapain ADP prequel movie that I also reviewed recently. I give it a 4/10, making the IP mediocre as a whole, but I still consider the original series to be a worthy one time watch, minus the finale, and as long as you ignore its sequel completely.

After watching Abenobashi and Sonny Boy I went on to hunt some other stand out titles and after being bored by Loser Ranger I started this one.

Coincidentally, it is also about traveling to weird places, with references to other stuff, and the setting being the result of the subconscious of a character.

The main difference is that this show is not an isekai, it takes place on a messy version of Japan. Also, this series is not a mystery, the reason for the country being messed up badly is clear from the very first scene of the show, so it’s very straightforward in that regard.

Liking this show or not comes down to whether you like wacky stuff or not. I usually don’t, so I didn’t like it, but if you do, chances are that you will.

The actual plot is about a train going from Agano to Ikebukuro prefectures in Japan, in order for 4 girls to find a fifth one so one of them can ask for forgiveness. From there, they go through some of them, all which are one crazier than others.

Unless there’s some cultural motif behind them, each place only has one wacky characteristic about it, making each setting to feel limited, and disjointed from everything else.

In both Abenobashi and Sonny Boy that was excusable because they were literally different worlds. As much as its fanbase call its world building as the best in fictional history, in One Piece, every island seems to be its own thing, disjointed from global events and people from everywhere else. But at least every island is explored and explained on its own, with reasoning behind their ecosystems and even flashbacks to explore the history and lore behind each one of them.

Not here, the only thing connecting the different places is just the rails, and there’s no reasoning behind anything in the setting other than that being what was on the mind of a girl at a specific moment.

There are so many prefectures that there’s not enough time to show all of them in one season. Some take one or two episodes of screentime, so others are skipped in short scenes or not even shown in the slightest at all. The end result is a possibly vast setting feeling not only disjointed and random, but also unimaginative and limited.

Not like the writing is any better, as there are several plot conveniences throughout the series:

-One character knows the truth behind the whole thing but can’t say it because he was mind jacked, yet conveniently can tell the main characters what they need at very specific moments, as if every conflict presents itself on the short time that he can serve the plot.

-They communicate with morse code on the rails, despite the ones from a whole prefecture being literally destroyed early in the story, and thus not connecting with the rest.

-There’s a girl that knows random things about everything, good for the rest of them because they wouldn’t accomplish anything if not for her.

-Several random apparitions and encounters with characters to provide information or save the girls at crucial moments.

-An enemy crow becoming good kind of just because he was around the amnesiac main plot device.

And the episodic stories on each place are more often that not very ridiculous, to the point of making me feel insulted, both for their writing and for the silly tone in them, in what is supposed to be a crucial crisis for Japan.

I kind of appreciate that the makers went out of their way to make the least generic possible comical take on a genre or a specific story in them, so they can’t really even be called parodies, but by themselves they felt very stupid, as if mocking the audience for watching the show.

Also, some episodes had some character immersion, but most didn’t or had very short scenes to count as fleshing out the cast in a meaningful way, not that their backgrounds were any less silly to begin with.

I was expecting for the conclusion to at least come with an anti-escapism message, but it didn’t even have that. The girls just apologize and convince the other to go back with them to have fun.

And the setting doesn’t really go back to how it was before everything is back, which was the second main point of the series, so the conclusion feels only half accomplished. Not that it was going to be that good either, because the second main objective was getting a global reset, like in the poor excuse of a fake ending of Abenobashi.

Not everything about the series is plain awful though, as the characters are actually kind of a surprise. One look at them and you expect them to have typical moe personalities with childish behaviours, mentally way younger than they are supposed to be, and that’s not the case at all.

The protagonist wants to apologize to another girl, knows martial arts and is good at fighting, and seems to be quick at learning things, she can also be quite rude towards others.

There’s a gyaru, and although she’s dumb as expected, she also has some insane senses and can fight when pushed enough, and can be quite perceptive of others.

There’s a typical kind girl that wants the others to behave properly and be on good terms, yet can be very blunt and confront others, and is also revealed to have a dramatic past, if just for a few seconds.

And there’s Akira, the shorter chuuni, geeky girl that knows about a lot of random stuff and keeps saving everyone’s asses, yet is also a scaredy-cat. She is easily the best girl.

The main plot device girl of the show was called Yoka, I think. You do get some flashbacks about her, her hobbies and conflict with the protagonist, which are after all what started the series and main conflict in the first place, but on her own remains an amnesiac quiet girl throughout the whole show. She’s not even punished for some of the things she does in the series.

The others are just plot devices, no reason to talk about them, some of them have a lot of information about the setting and is never explained how or why, and there’s no development nor catharsis for anyone, forget about that.

Visually the series is very solid. The artwork has practically no quality drops, there is a lot of violence and horrifying stuff despite the child friendly presentation, the backgrounds are crazy and well done and they vary on each episode to provide diversity of things to look at, and the motions are expressive and done with a lot of care. Even when the characters are not doing anything, the directing is dynamic enough to use lots of different changes of perspectives and angles to make it more fun to look at. The only issues I find in it is some weak CGI here and there, and the character designs being unnecessarily childish, goofy and generic.

The sound is another surprise, mainly because of the voice acting, which, again, is nothing like the moe high-pitched voices that you would expect looking at the character designs. Really good voices and acting, despite also being one of the goofiest I’ve ever heard. The sound effects are impactful and immersive, both in downtime and action scenes. The music is ok I guess, I didn’t mind about either opening nor ending one bit.

As a whole, I applaud the audiovisual surprises I got with this anime in acting, sound effects, artwork, motions and directing, and slightly less in the writing for the personalities of the main girls. Other than that I find the script quite terrible, so I’d say this is a series not worth getting into in the least, unless you are a real fan of silly and wacky stuff, and don’t mind shows that feel mostly episodic and directionless. If you don’t mind that, this will probably be right up your alley, unless you hate childish stuff.

Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai is hailed as one of the best isekai and anime comedies by the elitist crowd within the anime community, for three reasons:

1-It’s retro, that means older, and thus better.

2-It’s about anti-escapism, a commonly praised theme and message among that part of the community and a reason to consider everything with it as better.

3-It’s made by Gainax, the once upon a time best anime studio.

Well, unfortunately, I gotta say I’m quite dissatisfied with this title all things considered.
Not in terms of visuals though, because, for a 2002 anime, Abenobashi is pretty well animated. It maintains a good artwork and well done special effects, and since almost every episode takes place in a different world, the backgrounds are always changing and are interesting to look at. The character designs are fairly typical and derivative but since the series is filled with references, they tend to change art styles every so often, with all of them being integrated organically and well enough, given its comical purpose. The motions range from ok to very good, and the directing is full of energy to make up for when the characters are not actually moving at all.

The soundtrack is also pretty good, although I’m not a fan of the opening and the ending is typical and easy to forget. The background music combines decent to good pieces along with parody versions of well known anime and live action movies, without losing the epicness of the originals. Voice acting is wacky but well done, and sound effects are good but affected because they also imitate older titles and sound mixings.

But still, for most of its duration, the show still feels like an episodic referential comedy that loses its point and direction midway, with no anti-escapism message making up for that.

Yes, they serve a purpose for a couple of scenes and making clear that it’s a result of the protagonist not wanting to face reality, but was a whole season needed for that? I don’t think so. As far as I’m concerned, only episodes 1, 7, 9 and 13 actually move the plot, along with some scenes from the others here and there, while the rest works against it.

What I’m getting at here, is that a movie or a short ova series in the likes of other made by the same studio such as FLCL or the Top wo Nerae! mini franchise would have been more than enough of a duration, and work in its favor.

Plus the actual core behind the plot and setting is no more than a sappy love story around characters that aren’t given enough focus and aren’t very likable on their own. They feel like they couldn’t let go of events that happened way ago in their pasts and that are the ones escaping reality the most and never break that cycle, so the message is lost when it comes to them.

On top of that the whole message is contradicted at the end because, when the protagonist is about to face the reality he so desperately wanted to avoid, he gets a magical wish that nullifies the main conflict that started his escapism. And yes I know that that is not exactly true, I’ve seen the very final scene, but that only makes it worse because the cycle continues and the characters keep escaping reality, so what was the point of anything?

Plus when you think about it, it doesn’t make much sense how every world is subconsciously created by the protagonist, yet he barely has control about them, includes younger versions of people he doesn’t know about, and eventually is revealed that has a weird fixation over his grandmother. So much for the different and well written anime comedy and isekai that is not perverted like the ones that come out now.

The main characters are memorable and have good characterization considering their age and stuff, and the support and secondary ones are eventually fleshed out through flashbacks and exploration of the settings, but since what they learn is undone by the ending, it can’t be said that they have proper development and catharsis, and are thus just ok as a whole.

The series is ok as a parody, as it isn’t lazy about it to tell you the jokes directly like other do, and it does a good job in mixing the jokes even in its audiovisual aspect, the characters are ok on a basic level, and an anti-escapism message is always welcomed, especially for what its subgenre would become. But as a whole I can’t say that the series is that well written in any way and thus I consider it overall mediocre and very well forgotten, perhaps even a bit overrated by retro fans.

This will be one of the short ones, as there isn’t really much to say about this title, and I’m writing this one now mostly for clarifying some things just like I did with The Silent Service.

First, this movie was somewhat infamous and mostly ignored among fans on the different anime databases when it come out because there weren’t any good subs of it available anywhere. Well, that didn’t change as of now, so if you plan of watching it, be sure to actually know Japanese or at least have LOTS AND LOTS of anime watched to be sure that you kind of understand what is being said and what isn’t properly subbed.

Second, despite appearing everywhere as a recap movie, it is not. It includes footage from the series through some weird flash forward/seeing the future sequences for whatever reason, but it is actually a prequel about the first missions of the protagonist before the series.

With that cleared out of the way, the movie itself is pretty bad on its own. It has too much boring slice of life that doesn’t serve much purpose and takes up screentime, affecting the pacing, which in turn is sometimes too slow and sometimes too fast and rushed.

The support and secondary cast is shown more here than in the series, but not actually explored in any meaningful way, so what’s the point? They are even simpler than they were in the core show so they come off as weaker versions of themselves as we already knew about them.

Kyo is not affected by what’s happening in any way, neither emotionally nor psychologically, he was a much more troubled, interesting and looked into character in the series.

And the romance of the movie, which was kind of very important in the show, is very short and superficial here. Basically, every character interaction here leaves a lot to be desired.

The animation is better than it was a decade before, obviously, but even with more dynamic and flash battles, it is still not THAT better. The CGI is still weak, the older footage thrown in with a horrible filter in them stands out a lot, negatively, and since they are images from the future, it doesn’t even make sense how much worse they look. Plus the montage is very messy, jumping from one scene to another randomly, without an organic flow between them.

The sound aspect was good I guess.

In all, a very disappointing addition to one of the most underrated anime of all time that doesn’t leave me very optimistic about the upcoming sequel, that even feels out like coming out a bit too early, considering the previous release dates.

Note: This will cover the whole franchise as it is already finished and there is not much to say about each entry on its own.

If Yuru Camp is an exception of my usual disinterest of the cute girls doing cute things subgenre, Hibike! Euphonium is THE exception, as it is easily my favourite anime franchise. I love two of its entries, which rank high among my favourite anime of all times, and I like most of the other entries, amounting to ten titles that I enjoy and in some cases love, if I am not mistaken. That is something that no other franchise has managed to reach, and I do not think any ever will.

The reason for that is simple, the series is not just trying to be cute as it has drama and characters actually doing what they are supposed to as in any other normal slice of life show, and also does not include the usual tragic or very dramatic elements of other shows with similar aesthetics.

Unlike her older sister K-On!, for example, here the girls look and act the age they are supposed to be, which means they are not just cute to the point something seems off about them. They act more like the teenagers they are, having their own issues, insecurities, and problems with others.

They also look their age, they are not cutesy moeblobs and they are not deformed with some chibi artstyle in order to seem cute even when they are not.

And the anime is supposed to be about playing in a school orchestra, and you can actually see the characters doing that in some pretty well animated and directed scenes, although the pieces are just background music and not own interpretations like in other anime like Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, for example.

Still, when the moment calls for it in the plot, you can notice some differences in interpretations and that is a nice detail. Not only that, but the characters are also shown studying, training and preparing stuff for their competitions. They also lose a lot of the times, things not always go their way, so in all it feels closer to other common slice of life or school competitions or sport series, than other moe shows that are meant to watch to relax and have some good sleep afterwards or something.

There are even characters that have to leave the band for their own personal reasons or that leave because they have other priorities in mind, so it is not like the scenario is completely idealized.

And unlike other shows of its kind, where sooner or later I come to dislike how the characters act in tryhard adorable ways to the point they seem dumb, I like or plain love most characters in this franchise.

Starting with the protagonist Kumiko Oumae, which tries and fails to build a typical good girl image around her, as she is actually pretty self-centered even though she tries to hide it. Thus even though she tries to get close to others to help with their problems and maintain the stability of the group, she never takes the extra step to actually get personally invested, and never lets others get to know her that much. It is actually pretty great when she is called out on a few seasons about that. Since she is the protagonist and narrator, is not surprise that she is also the character with the biggest amount of internal monologues and most focus in the franchise, as she goes through several self-discovery moments throughout the seasons. First reaffirming her place in the band and fondness of the world of music in the first season, then her similar relationships with Asuka and her older sister, which she sees as similar, in the second, and then coming to face her old self, her new role in the club, and her own limitations and newfound goal in the third.

Then you have Reina, who does not shy away in saying what she has in mind, to the point that she can come off as rude and ends having issues with other characters, and is also one of the most determined and talented characters in the whole show. She still has her own teen quirks like having a crush on her teacher, or being a bit bratty and proud, especially when confronted, so she does not come off as being too mature or something like that, and thus more believable.

Another character that I really like, and my favourite of the whole bunch, is Asuka Tanaka, who first appears as the funny one, but is also the one to call out the other on how silly and trivial some of their teen problems are, and also the one that can understand and expose Kumiko the most. Later on, as her own drama is more or less the main conflict of the show, she gets more focus, similarities with Kumiko’s sister, she becomes something like a role model or major influence for her, and is shown to have her own teen problems.

The other characters are ok, is just that they do not get as much focus, but is still fine how they see themselves reflected on others or opposites of them, and also how they struggle or feel insecure about their own abilities or roles in the club, and the internal conflict or conflicts within the whole band that that can lead to.

Combine all that with polished artwork, backgrounds and special effects with close to no quality drops, and expressive body language and motions, along with good sound effects and music including the openings with perhaps the exception of the endings, all of which are enhanced by good directing especially for the musical parts, and the presentation is often also very good. The negative aspects can include the very typical character designs and voice acting, with perhaps the exception of the most emotional moments for the latter.

Despite my praises so far, I can not deny that this franchise is still just another high school drama and at times a generic cute girls doing cute things. So no, not even my favourite gets an above average rating, it is still just a plain and straightforward slice of life with not much substance and does not deserve to be considered by me as something special.

And is not like it is free of problems in its writing, which I will cover by going through each entry:

-The first season is the introduction phase obviously, so a lot of it is setup, yet ironically it has the biggest amount of content regarding the activities of the ensemble and stuff. Despite that, a lot of it is introducing characters that do not get much focus in the end. For example, do we really care about that one dropout girl that Kumiko knew before joining the school? No, she is just a plot device for the protagonist to clear the doubts of her mind. Then you have Yuko, who in the first season was nothing but cringe, a fangirl of Kaori that turned everything melodramatic for petty reasons. I mean I get it, it is the last chance that her adored senpai will have to play a solo in the ensemble, but since the audience does not follow these characters that much, it is normal to feel indifferent towards the whole thing, and consider the reactions exaggerated and overdramatic. There is also some teen romance that goes nowhere despite taking up screentime, and even though I did not read the novels, the changes in the anime from the source material are well known, such as the relationship between Kumiko and Shuuichi being cut short, and a lot of yuri bait between Kumiko and Reina. If you watched some other KyoAni stuff besides this franchise, you know not to expect them to actually commit to that, and thus you do not bite the fishhook, but if you are unprepared for it, you will set up yourself for disappointment.

-There was an extra episode focused on the members that did not get into the ensemble and more specifically Hazuki since she is friends with the protagonist, but honestly is not much of an addition. The most you can say is that she runs an unbelievable distance in such a short time, but nothing else, and even that is something easy to look past it because the work is fiction and normally you not pay attention to it in the moment.

-The second season makes the mistake of wasting a third of its duration on two up to that point irrelevant characters with just seconds of screentime, and with such stupid drama around them that turned the whole thing quite hard to get through, especially on a first watch. To top that, Kumiko keeps getting into the conflict by pure coincidence and even takes an active part of it despite having no relation to any of it. Around the second half the conflict shifts to her, her sister and Reina, and even then she is more like pressured by other characters to take an active part of it, instead of doing it by her own will. What I am getting at here is that the main character became a passive plot device that accidentally bumps onto the conflicts for about half the duration, and when she finally does, the whole thing becomes so melodramatic is quite hard to watch. There is so much teen drama in this season that there is barely any music in it, you know, the core element of the show. And the yuri bait in this season was just as strong as in the first, if not even stronger, only with different characters, and of course there is no outcome for any of that. Overall this season gets a negative rating from me.

-Both seasons got some of those very short specials that exist just as excuses for buying the physical copies of the stuff that was already shown on tv, and they range from meh to just bad to plain awful, as they switch the usual tone of the series and behaviour of the characters, to typical moe caricatures, screw that. These two installments also get a negative rating from me, especially the specials of the second season.

-Both seasons received recap movies. The first one was so rushed for trying to cram all the content into less than two hours by skipping all the preparations for the competitions, that deserves a below average rating from me. The second one did what its season should have and took away almost everything regarding Nozomi and Mizore and focus on Kumiko and Asuka instead, thus is better by default. Despite that, taking it away completely makes part of the dialogues between the core characters to lose part of their meaning, and the whole thing is still kind of rushed for the same reason as the first, even though not as much, partially because it is a little bit longer. I do not think is bad, and is the second entry I love, just behind the first season, but I can not consider it anything above average either.

-Then some boneheads had the idea to make Liz to Aoi Tori, a spin off movie about Mizore and Nozomi. THANKS, NOW THE WORST PART OF THE SECOND SEASON HAS AN ENTRY ON ITS OWN. To be frank, I do not fancy this part of the franchise much, is the reason why I barely liked the second season, and why I loved its recap movie a lot simply by removing it. It took me a second watch to even tolerate the whole thing. The beginning is somewhat similar to what was already shown, so what is the point? This part of the movie is plain bad, and no amount of playful directing about unimportant details can save it. Some had issues with its change from the usual artstyle of the franchise to something closer to Koe no Katachi, but despite the long necks of the characters, I do not mind that much, and it is a good choice for the visualization of the tale that the movie is based around. Eventually the movie turns up to not be as overdramatic as the second season was, and the characters confront each other and get a very needed sense of individuality and a good sendoff of each other, culminating Mizore’s character arc on a very needed musical scene with some spectacular directing. Thus as a whole the movie starts really bad but becomes better in its second half and gets a proper conclusion. The negative aspect is the strong yuri bait that again gets no payoff, and this movie renders the first third of the second season even more pointless. Not bad as a whole, but probably takes more than a single watch to fully appreciate. At least that was my case.

-The third movie takes place between the second season and Liz to Aoi Tori, introducing the characters that appeared there that no anime only knew a thing about, another issue of that movie I guess, though it is somewhat minor all things considered. Just like the first movie, this one has the problem of being too rushed, and is worse this time around because it is not recap material, it is content from the novels that should have had more duration or a proper series. As it is, the new characters are presented in a hurry, they come off as unlikable, and their drama seems unimportant and very exaggerated. There is a even a second year character that can not play in the esemble any longer, and do you care? Of course you do not, there was no time invested in her. Thus, this one also gets a negative rating from me,

-After getting content from the franchise on each year, four years were needed for more content out of it come out, partly because of the fucking arson done by that madman that tragically killed a lot of people, if you remember. The Ensemble content ova is just like the extra episode of the first season, it does not have much content in it, it is essentially filler but not bad for any particular reason. I wish I could say something else about it but besides some very specific moments in its directing and my own enjoyment about it, I do not remember much about it.

-Then there is the just finished third and final season and the sendoff of the franchise. I know there will be some more crappy specials and perhaps a recap movie about it just to milk it, but as for the adaptation of the actual content of the source material, this is where it ends. In tone and direction, this entry is close to the second season, as music takes a very secondary role for the teenage drama to be the main focus. The big differences are that it is nowhere near as overblown in here as it was in the previous series, and this time around it is almost entirely focused around the main character, thus you are given a reason to care. Characterization wise, is the season where Kumiko gets explored the most as she struggles to fit in the position of the club president, gets to face her old self in the newly introduced character Mayu, and even gets surpassed by her in what is easily the biggest and boldest change in the canon made by the studio, of which I have nothing but praise for them for it and for not chickening out about it, and for what it means for the protagonist.

Despite that, no one can deny how very little music there is in it, how competitions are completely skipped, essentially making the preparations pointless, and how the little bit of drama and explorations other characters have is especially rushed in setup and resolution. This is particularly bad for Mayu, who is an important character but otherwise remains a mystery throughout the whole season, and only gets a tiny bit of exploration when it is about to be over. Essentially, just like it happens with the third movie, you only care about the older cast that was present in previous seasons, regardless of how much screentime they have, but not enough about the newer cast. The conclusion is alright I guess, is well directed and what the audience expected and needed to come at some moment, but I could not be convinced that it was as effective and satisfactory as it would have been if it was the older cast getting that result instead.


As a whole, the praises I gave to the franchise in the beginning of the review should be seen as the core minimum of the series of its kind, even though they are the reasons why I like in the first place. It is beautiful to watch, good to listen to and is well directed, and has minimum attempts at a plot and characterization with enough results to get an overall average score from me, but otherwise is still not very good in terms of writing and tone, especially at its lowest points that inevitably deserve some below average ratings. It is my favourite anime franchise, and I will go back to it for sure as I did several times in the past, but in my eyes it is otherwise average in its purest form, and there is nothing wrong in admitting to enjoy something like that, instead of blowing it out of proportions.

My personal ranking for the entries

First season

Second movie

Third season

Liz to Aoi Tori

The Monaka special

The Ensemble ova

Second season

First movie

Third movie

First season specials

Second season specials

Note: This will cover all the entries up until now, as I don’t find much to say about each one.

I was never a fan of moe series and stuff because to me they’re a bit tryhard in trying to pass their characters as cutesy and adorable while simultaneously making them seem stupid and mentally younger than they actually are, and also I just straight don’t like cutesy and adorable stuff much. Not only that but on my experience whenever a show goes for a moe aesthetic, it is never about what it’s supposed to be about. Basically, moe shows are generally shallow and aesthetics overshadows concepts and themes in them, even if they are slice of life.

Not to say that that makes them bad, they are still harmless watchable shows when they are slice of life, but I often feel like I’m watching nothing shows about nothing happening with childish characters, and as much as I might enjoy some episodes, I get bored with them pretty fast.

Yuru Camp is an exception that I like, but it still suffers from all of the above a bit, it’s not more than an average show to kill some time in my eyes, even if I enjoy it.

Still, at least the show is about camping first, and cutesy characters after. Here’s a club about camping, here are characters that like to go camping, tips about camping, information about what’s needed to camp, and you see the characters camping, even having some jobs in order to make money so they can go camping.

Throughout the franchise there’s a lot of traveling because the idea is to also show Japan a bit, like all series of this kind, they make for good tourism campaigns, whether they intended that or not.

And well, the underlying theme or message about this kind of shows is to appreciate the beauty of nature and life itself while having a good time, you know the deal, and it goes well with the relaxing atmosphere of the series and its intended experience while watching it.

The characters are cute and seem younger than they are but it’s not done to the point where they act like children, not having any chibi type of humour also helps.

Despite being the pure and friendly girl that loves everyone and is loved by everyone, Nadeshiko is not dumb like other similar protagonists, she knows a lot of stuff and in turn learns about more, later on she works and gets more hobbies, and she is also the sporty type. In the third season it’s revealed that she was worried about not making friends and feeling lonely before the events of the first season, but as you already know it turned out fine. Despite that, she tries and begins to enjoy going camping alone and not just with all her new friends.

Rin is the exact opposite, the calm and quiet type that always gets paired with characters like Nadeshiko, a girl that prefers going camping and doing most stuff alone, and since she rides a bike she is the one that explores most places out of the roster. Throughout the seasons she begins to accept going out camping with everyone else every once in a while, and even gets a friend with similar interests as her, so I guess she brings the little “development” the franchise has into the equation.

Other characters from friends and families are fine as well but honestly they serve a much more secondary role and even the families of the secondary characters feel like extensions of the main characters. Sakura is like an adult Rin, Inuyama’s family are all trolls just like her, everyone in Rin’s family seems to always be relaxed, you get the idea.

Oh and there’s an alcoholic teacher, can’t have an all-girls club themed moe anime without an alcoholic teacher that’s also into whatever the girls do, but this time she’s not a lesbian shipper with weird tendencies toward little girls…

There’s an original/non-canon sequel movie released before season three where the girls are adults but personality wise they remained the same, they just work, open their own camping site against all odds, and sensei’s alcoholism rubbed off on Chiaki over the years, it looks like.

The not very liked Heya Camp short entry is practically the same thing as the main series only far shorter and with the objective of collecting stamps so they have them in their club inside the school. I don’t get why is it disliked much, it practically remains the same.

The only entry that I rated negatively was that Sauna and Bike Heya Camp special, as it was very clearly just a promotional short about, well, a bike.

Visuals are not great like in, let’s say, a KyoAni moe anime, but they serve their purpose just right, particularly in the first season and movie thanks to the care put into the backgrounds and the artwork, although not great, is well done. The character designs, motions and special effects are all ok. The second season changed the backgrounds a bit for a combination of CGI and what seemed like traced real photographies, but it’s balanced out with better animation. The third season was done by a different studio and man you could notice the drop in quality, the backgrounds are dry, the character designs changed for something far worse and done with less care, there is a lot of more and more noticeable CGI. The series is no longer cute to look at.

Luckily, the atmosphere remained cute, relaxing, cozy and comfy as it should thanks to the audio department, cute sound effects, cute voice acting, chill music, including the endings. The opening of the third season wasn’t as good as the one from previous entries, especially the very first one, but is still ok and fits the series well.

So yeah, what’s more to say? Want to relax seeing some cute girls doing some cute camping with a chill atmosphere and visuals yet not coming off as stupids? This is your show. If you want plot and more substance, what are you even doing checking this subgenre? It’s not even a real thing, it’s just an aesthetic and tone, which fits the intended purpose of this franchise well, and for a rare instance, I’m pleased with it.

Note: This will cover the whole franchise up until now, I don’t find much to say for each entry as a whole.

Somehow, KonoSuba stormed the world 8 YEARS AGO through some gifs and shorts as the most hilarious anime ever, and obviously that ended up attracting some haters later on. Personally I think of it as “haha funny” the anime, I don’t remember enjoying the first season much, but every major entry afterwards always got some smiles and chuckles out of me, and for me, that’s all I ask for when watching comedies.

The plot is the typical of a light novel isekai, otaku/geek/neet guy dies, gets transported to a medieval fantasy type of world that conveniently for him functions like an RPG, meets lots of girls which he forms a party and/or friendships with, and battles against a Demon Lord and his army.

The difference is its comical, almost parody kind of a approach to it, the protagonist is the opposite to the shy and kind white knights of the genre that are around since the 2010s, he is a pervert and lives off everyone at his first chance, and doesn’t mind throwing hands at women if he feels the situation calls for. He is a 90s protagonist in an era full of main characters that belong 20 or 30 years in the future. And the best part is how, unlike other worse protagonists in that regard like Rubeus or Meliodas, he always catches shit for that and has to pay for all the shit he does in one way or another, nobody sees Kazuma as a white knight in a shiny armor because he isn’t.

Not that he doesn’t has his good points, as he is also not overpowered and always has to come out with some ridiculous plan and improvise on the fly while making use of the abilities of his much more powerful female companions to get stuff done. Expectedly, things rarely goes their way and he has to do more and different stuff in the middle of the situation they try to fix, usually causing a lot of trouble that does get punished.

The same thing applies to his party, the female characters, which, yeah, are a big part of the reason why the anime is popular in the first place. They are cute and fit a stereotype but also become memorable for being reverse parodies of the roles they are supposed to fit.

-Aqua the goddess and archpriest/mage of the party, probably the most powerful creature in the whole world with a vast amount of different useful spells, and yet instead of the wise and more experienced character, is the dumbest and often useless because of bad compatibility against their enemies, plus she is lazy, an alcoholic, childish, and always waste money.

-Megumin is another wizard with tremendous destructive power in the party and instead of a wise an experienced old man or woman, is a little chuunibyou girl (despite actually having powers) and only focuses on one single spell to master it, that lets her show off in front of everyone and be remembered by them because of that, she becomes completely useless after just one cast of her only spell.

-Lalatina Dustiness Ford, nicknamed Darkness for reasons I can’t pretend I care to remember, a noble knight/paladin that, even though she shows her etiquette in front of other nobles, in reality is everything but classy, she is clumsy and possibly the biggest pervert in the whole show, with masochistic tendencies. She is also the tank of the party and even though she is referred by others as muscular, her design doesn’t reflect that one bit, she looks like just another girl. Plus she is a terrible fighter and that is part of the joke, she is the tank but a terrible fighter and masochistic, you see.

So basically the whole gimmick of the main characters, and by extension the whole show, is that the gang that is supposed to be the promise and hope to save the world from the big bad that threatens everyone, are just a bunch of idiots that constantly fuck up even when they do achieve something, and bounce off each other and thus become lovable for the audience, but would be very irritating to actually have nearby.

Same thing applies to the rest of the characters, the secondary characters friends of the main cast are good at almost everything and lovable, but are otherwise dumb and terrible at very specific things and thus always mess up.

The enemies, generals of the demon army, are there just because they have to but more often than not mean no harm, that’s why they either become friends with the main party after they are defeated, in a fighting shounen-like fashion, or only get on the offense after the good guys attacked them first. Thus once again, the problems happen because of the heroes fucking up.

The extension of the joke is how the world works mostly differently from Kazuma’s expectations of the fantasy worlds and otaku stereotypes he is used to. Typically weak enemies can be very hard to deal with, the strongest creatures attract lots of enemies they are weak against, no one has the personality he expects them to, everyone constantly messes up, and hell, even the most normal person in the world, YunYun, is always lonely because she is normal and not an idiot like everyone else.

And that’s the joke, the show is called something like “Bless this Wonderful World” and yet is nothing like the dreamlike idealized world of the protagonist, but not in an edgy attempt of a dark subversion of the typical fantasy story, but in a comical way.

For those that don’t tolerate lewd stuff, the show is full of ecchi because of the perverted characters, but is often very tame, especially for coming out these days, and said content is usually present because of the protagonist, who always gets shit as a consequence.

The show is not a harem at least in the beginning; no girl really likes Kazuma at first because of how much of a pervert and a dick he can be. And even then, from what I understand, his characterization and the lewd content are far tamer than in the original light novel. I’m actually thankful for that, as those bits are the thing I like the least from this franchise.

Now for the entries in specific:

-The first season is more of an introduction phase as expected, whole episodes are dedicated to introduce the main characters, but there are clear pacing issues as enemies and future friends (Wiz) and secondary characters (YunYun) are introduced out of screen for the sake of rushing through the first major fight, they even needed to reintroduce YunYun properly on a later entry. And even then, there are a bunch of minor missions that could have been omitted in order to introduce those characters properly. Another issue could be the abuse of running gags, such as Aqua getting traumatized for being eaten by frogs on three out of ten episodes.

-The first ova gets a bad rating from me, as it is only an episode of Kazuma being a jerk towards his party and female friends, meaning, it’s just the worst bits of the franchise.

-The second season suffers from having to properly reintroduce the characters that appeared out of nowhere in the first season, and it’s a bit more pervy than the previous one, but it also has a more clear linear plot, beginning right from the end of the first, and can also become a bit more serious and action oriented in its final moments.

-The second ova is about Kazuma wanting to show off and unknowingly being ridiculed by the girls, in my mind is a superior payback for what he did in the first.

-The movie is the best entry in the franchise in my opinion, it can be a bit annoying for its sexual content around Megumin; some will probably be bothered by how it makes light of Kazuma almost being raped; and it is undeniably a bit transphobic, plus the movie takes itself a bit more seriously by prolonging the final fight compared to the original novel. Despite that, it is the one with the most and more linear plot, it is the only one that feels self-contained, and is the most focused on characterization as it fleshes out Megumin and the beginning of the romantic aspect of her and Kazuma. Plus Sylvia is probably the most likeable antagonist in the whole franchise, you feel that she is the victim of a whole village of delusional weirdos attacking her just because instead of the main villain. Plus she cares for her allies and subordinates and is a Disney princess wanting love on the inside, that got played around by Kazuma in a way.

-I suspect because of the movie and while the third season was being produced, a spin off prequel about Megumin came out, and most didn’t like it as much as the main series. Although still a comedy, it had a much lower energy than the main show, the other chuunibyou characters didn’t add the same dynamic bouncing off her as the main cast does, and there are contradictions with the main series. Megumin more like acts as a chuunibyou instead of being one, and she and YunYun are together almost all the time, while in the main series it seemed like they didn’t see each other for a long time. Plus her backdrop was already shown in the movie. Personally I liked it like the rest and didn’t find it bad, but it is the second worst entry just over the first ova.

-The third season that just finished is a middle point between the spin off and the previous seasons of the core series, in my eyes. Unlike the previous ones, it didn’t have any weird timeskips and although primarily a comedy, it had a lot more of a serious and romantic feel to it, and with three girls canonically in love with Kazuma, the series can now be labeled as a harem. Not only that but the content of this season is just not as fun, it’s about Kazuma getting over his trauma, getting involved with the nobles while stealing stuff from them, and then having to rescue Darkness from an arranged marriage, again. Despite the plot progression feeling a lot slower than in the previous seasons, I can’t deny the more linear plot in this season, and the focus on Darkness, while also building events throughout its whole duration, and even over events from previous entries. It is still weird how this season got the longest duration and content, while the others were cut a bit short affecting their narrative a bit.

Visually the franchise has been passed around three studios by now but it keeps the tendency of sacrificing a polished artwork for the sake of deformity, along with suffering from jerky motions, but it’s ok because it’s not the result of cheap production of techniques, it’s done for the sake of comedy. The backgrounds are typical but well done and the special effects are usually good, and even better during the action scenes, besides the occasional crude CGI. The character designs are simple and follow a clear single color pattern around them (green, black, primary colors, etc.), but effective. The first season was fine, the second was a bit better, the movie was the most polished, the third was a bit worse and close to the spin off (made by the same studio) but still ok, and the spin off was the worst because it had the lowest energy and care just like everything else in it.

In terms of audio, the sound effects can range from just fine to spectacular, and the music, including the openings, is just your typical fantasy stuff, but it fits. The endings are always relaxing jpop songs sung by the seiyuus of the three main girls and they are cute and always good to listen to. Too bad that actually getting to listen to them is a bitch because of how protected they are by copyright, good luck in trying to find them on Youtube before they are deleted, and don’t even think of listening to them on Spotify. The voice acting is…peculiar, it’s about characters yelling like it’s usually the case with anime comedies, but because of the tone of the characters and the way they talk over others, it can be pretty funny and effective and not irritating, in short it’s well done for a comical voice acting in anime.

In conclusion, it’s an ok franchise as long as you don’t mind a bit of lewdness or stuff making fun of some serious stuff, and it’s extra better if you got sick and tired of the typical escapist self-insert isekai adventures that are more present than ever. But yeah, neither plot nor characters are nothing special, the pacing feels either too fast or too slow, there is no real substance or credibility of any kind in it, only one entry feels self-contained, and on later entries it has become a more typical than how it began as. I don’t think it has a rewatch value nor is that memorable, but I consider it a passable and mostly harmless time killer to chuckle a bit once a week once in a while before moving to something else.

Despite not being exactly mainstream, Welcome to the NHK is easily among the most hailed franchises in all of otaku media by elitists and also one of the few that was also very well received by a more casual audience. It is also a title that I wanted to check out for a while, but was holding back because I was expecting it to be a lot darker and harder to consume and face. I recently watched and read all three versions of it, not counting the sequel novel that is still coming out, so I figured I could say something about them in one single review, so this should be a long one.

The concept is well known by now; NHK is a black comedy and primarily a critique on otakus and more specifically hikikomoris and otaku culture in general by showing them in a ridiculous and critical way. It is also a self-critique of the author, who was and still is a hikikomori himself. It is also very clearly about escapism and anti-escapism, but if you look at it from a sociological level, it is also about Japan being plagued by religious cults, scamming schemes, online bets and the addictions that come with them, suicidal tendencies and groups, drugs, dropout students, parasites living off of others, and young people being mocked and feeling insecure about getting a job.

If you want to think about it also on a level that is not only sociological but also philosophical, you can also interpret it as the journey of the characters in trying to find a purpose in life, while also experiencing first hand that, as selfish and sufficient humans could be, as sociological and rational animals, they are still needing of being in company of someone else in order to build a project and purpose in life, and feeling mentally sane and emotionally complete.

Whatever one’s evaluations about these ideas may be, no person could deny them being interesting on paper.

Although the very core is the same in all versions, there are noticeable differences among the executions between them.

STORY

-Novel 8/10 (2/2 premise, 2/2 pacing, 1/2 complexity, 2/2 credibility, 1/2 ending)

-Anime 7/10 (1/2 premise, 2/2 pacing, 2/2 complexity, 1/2 credibility, 1/2 ending)

-Manga 5/10 (1/2 premise, 1/2 pacing, 2/2 complexity, 0/2 credibility, 1/2 ending).

CHARACTERS

-Novel 7/10 (2/2 presence, 2/2 personality, 1/2 backdrops, 1/2 development, 1/2 catharsis)

-Anime 8/10 (2/2 presence, 2/2 personality, 2/2 backdrops, 1/2 development, 1/2 catharsis)

-Manga 6/10 (2/2 presence, 1/2 personality, 1/2 backdrops, 1/2 development, 1/2 catharsis)

The concept is interesting but more so in the original novel, since it takes some chapters for Satou and Misaki to encounter, while in the anime and manga that happens almost right away. Thus the original work is about a look into the mentality of a hikikomori first, and everything else after, while the anime and manga delve faster into the aspect of the premise being about a cute manic pixie dream girl helping an otaku just because. It does not help that the way the characters try to fix their problems is by delving more and deeper into the self-indulging cause of them.

Its first issue could be at the same time one of its most interesting and strongest aspects, how by trying to leave some addictions and fixations, and trying to face oneself’s own insecurities and anxieties, one relies in the same things that started the whole issue, while also depicting how one can fall backwards again in a circular pattern, while trying to move forward.

The main difference between the three versions is that the novel focuses mainly on Satou himself and his hikikomori life and mentality themselves. He has issues with drugs and alcohol and hallucinations and becomes a porn addict with pedophilic tendencies, but also gets confronted about those things a lot faster and more seriously than in the other versions. What the original version lacks is everything else; as the reader does not get to know his parents, nor see much about the lives of Yamazaki and Hitomi, let alone delve into online RPGs or suicidal groups, and Megumi and her brother are nowhere to be found. What it has that the others lack, is a deeper look into Misaki’s religious group.

All those elements and more are present on the manga and later on the anime, effectively making them more complex works on paper. The main issue is that the characters kind of bump into each other in a casual way, and for how big and serious their problems are, they always seem to find easy or convenient solutions to them.

Granted, that always end up leading to more problems and mini arcs, that although can get a bit frustrating to watch and read, at to a point is good in reflecting the cycle of which the characters have it hard to escape from, while also giving those versions a far richer content on paper.

On execution however, these easy solutions and circular patterns are what make the story in the anime and manga worse in my opinion, since the novel is faster, more direct and straightforward and makes more sense.

In terms of pacing the anime is equally good as the novel, if only slightly worse, despite having more elements and mini arcs, because it dedicates enough time to each thing without making it feel like the theme exploration and the progression of the events are rushed.

The manga is the fastest in that regard but also the more rushed of them all, as it burns through the same events of the anime in half its duration, or more precisely, the anime choose to end at a midpoint while the manga was still ongoing and adding more stuff. The faster pacing in the manga makes the issue of how convenient things play out a lot more noticeable. It also does not help that, perhaps because it was published on a shounen magazine, its tone is a lot more light, playing off lots of events in a more lighthearted way or that they are not real or did not happen to the characters, who made them up, such a shame.

The novel is the most serious and best of them all in tone, while the anime balances out the mood of both previous versions by being a comedy like the manga, but knowing how to have a lot more just serious moments, closer to the novel.

Before moving on to the conclusion, is important to talk about the characters, since they are in a way part of the story itself. Their presence is strong in all versions for initially being well known stereotypes, but eventually becoming a more looked into and darker versions of themselves. The novel focuses a lot more on Satou while also has Misaki on a middle point between her other two versions, as she is more direct and less mysterious around Satou as she is in the anime, while also nowhere near as screwed as she is in the manga. Yamazaki is a character that was treated far better in the anime version, as he gets a relationship with Nanako, and more backdrop and focus than just being a support character with two lines of backdrop like he is the novel, and perhaps even more in the manga.

And of course Hitomi and her husband are a lot more explored in both the manga and anime versions, and Megumi and her brother exist, unlike the novel which does not feature them in any way.

The main issue with the manga is how screwed every character is in there, by extension becoming more unlikable and harder for the reader to tolerate, let alone empathize with. One could argue that that is beneficial for the main point of the product itself, but it also becomes very frustrating to keep seeing these characters falling more and more for more stuff, being fooled time and time again, repeating mistakes, not moving forward, becoming worse and more damaging versions of themselves, and what is worse, being more mean and manipulative towards others.

As the manga is double the longer than the anime, and even more than the novel, as the equivalent of the ending of both versions happen only in the middle point of the manga, it also changes some characters dynamics and goes deeper into their backdrop stories. This sounds better on paper but again the issue comes in its execution.

First of all, the manga has Misaki interacting with Hitomi and her husband, who here has a different job, and she is also the one that helps Megumi’s brother, and although that makes the characters more interconnected as a whole, it also makes everything to feel a lot more convenient in how the characters just bump into each other or influence others.

Another issue is the manga refusing to take itself seriously; it shows the same backdrops as the anime, but then has the characters playing them out like jokes or lies to manipulate others. One could maybe say that they are downplaying their issues, but being subtle is one thing, while being ambiguous about everything and everyone is another completely different.

Also despite the characters getting more focus, is not exactly for the better, as Yamazaki gets into a dysfunctional relationship with Nanako, only to end it with a joke, it shows Hitomi’s marriage becoming really fucked up, only to not mattering in the end, and Misaki gets a lot more focus, only for her whole story to play out as a lie and her being far crazier, delusional, insecure, mean and manipulative than her other counterparts.

Although a less idealized version of the character, more flawed and with more dimensions should be better, it is not. She fixes others’ problems with ease, going to extreme and not very sane lengths for that, and treats everyone else as inferior, especially Satou, who she has a very toxic and unhealthy relationship with.

Plus the narrative of the manga in the second half becomes very messy, as characters’ backdrops and relationships are shown in between others, you could get two pages centered on a character, then another one on another, then another two on another, then going back to the first character, what is up with that? Why do it like that?

As the conclusion of each version is directly tied with the catharsis of the characters, the closure of the characters arc ends up affecting the overall message and the quality of both the story and piece as a whole. The novel and the anime share the same finale, and although both leave the spectator with an “mm ok” feel, the novel feels like the most logical conclusion because of the major focus that the two main characters have, and because of Misaki’s characterization, the best out of the three. The anime is almost as good in that regard but because of the almost angel like figure that Misaki has over there, and because she doesn’t anticipate stuff about her in the same ways as the novel does, her backdrop and resolution feel a bit more sudden.

Either version is better than the manga, which goes for longer than both the anime and novel and making every character more messed up and miserable and plainly a bad person. It becomes really hard to tolerate them and you stop wanting them to do good after a while for how toxic and manipulative they become, and for how the manga almost becomes misery porn, it gets that bad.

The manga finale should be more complete, as the whole cast gets more focused and a resolution, but because of what I said earlier, and because of a time skip right in the last chapter and before the very end, the whole thing feels undeserved and that came out of nowhere, with nothing leading to that direction. Yamazaki was doing fine in the farm. How? His whole life crumbled. Hitomi was doing fine with her husband. How? Their relationship was the worst. Megumi and her brother seemed to be doing fine. Ok that is the most logical one but it also does not make sense based on how previous events play out. Misaki was doing fine on school. How? She could not even be there.

It all feels like it just kind of happened during the time skip and out of screen because there had to be a happy ending. It is not the finale itself what is bad, it is the whole thing prior not leading to that in an organic way.

And message wise it feels like the novel and the anime end up saying something like building relationships and slowly getting small opportunities and solutions will help with the problem, although it won’t be fixed because the characters are still blaming someone or something else. The manga on the other hand rushed through the whole thing without showing how to get to that point, plus the main character almost ends in the same spot as he began, only now in a very unhealthy and toxic relationship with a bad and manipulative person, how does that helps or serves with the anti-escapism message?

VISUALS

-Novel 5/10

-Anime 7/10 (1/2 artwork, 1/2 character designs and figures, 2/2 backgrounds, 1/2 motions, 2/2 special effects)

-Manga 8/10 (2/2 artwork, 1/2 character designs and figures, 2/2 backgrounds, 1/2 motions, 2/2 special effects).

Visually the novel only has two illustrations by Yoshitoshi Abe, and even though that means that they are well done, with such a small amount, and with his typical design as always, just with different clothes, I can not give it more than the base average score.

The anime was heavily criticized because of its quality drops in artwork and character figures, even though they stand out for a 2006 anime and even more compared to the novel. The motions could also be notably jerky at times. Backgrounds and special effects are well done, even if they include CGI, which is used subtly and sparingly, plus more often than not they reflect the hallucinations of the characters, so they serve a purpose in-story.

The manga is the best in that regard, with the best artwork and special effects, different styles for the comical moments and for when the characters play videogames or hallucinate. It also has the best backgrounds, as they reflect better the different settings, both real and virtual within the manga, and also for not falling for the white, empty backgrounds while characters talk that most manga use sometimes to save time. The character designs are still simple, there are not very interesting sequences to talk about motions, and the change in artwork at times for comical effect turn the tone a bit goofy in a way that feels like mood whiplash.

SOUND 8/10

The anime can be pretty immersive with its sound design and effects, the music is good as well and fit the mood well, even the normal jpop anime-ish songs are fine because they have an in-story reason. The series has two versions of the same opening, which sounds like a generic romcom opening, but thanks to the lyrics it fits the anime well enough, and even more in the more sad and melancholy second version used during the second half, which even has darker colors. The second ending has a similar feel as the opening, and the first is both awful and amazing, but it is a cool rocker and reflects the more insane bits of the series well. All of them are worthy to check out, even better if they have lyrics at hand. The voice acting is ok, Satou’s voice is a bit weird but fits his awkward personality well, and Misaki’s voice felt a bit too young for me but I guess her angel like characterization she has on the anime, while it would be unfitting for any of her other two versions. As a whole the voice acting feels decent enough but I was mostly unimpressed by it.

VALUE

-Novel 7/10 (Somewhat known but not so much in the West, unforgettable, it doesn’t have that much of a reread value but there is nothing bad with doing that because of how short and easy to read it is).

-Manga 6/10 (Somewhat known and unforgettable, but becomes very frustrating in the second half and the ending feels unsatisfactory, plus is the worst version in characterization and theme exploration, thus I don’t think it has a reread value of any kind really, it is more of a one-time read).

-Anime 8/10 (Known enough in the West, well known in Japan, it is included in several best anime of all time lists, it is also unforgettable and thanks to its balance of the complexity of the manga and a close execution to that of the original novel, it is the one that I find to have the highest rewatch value of the three).

PERSONAL ENJOYMENT

-Novel 7/10 (Very enjoyable two days read that unfortunately felt too short for me to love).

-Anime 7/10 (I would cringe out during the more otaku oriented bits which I’m glad that the novel does not include, but the most serious moments made it a pretty enjoyable watch).

-Manga 6/10 (I was very engaged at first but at some point I hated the switches in tone and the characters).

CONCLUSION

Every version is worth consuming based on characterization and theme exploration alone, and even more because of the mediums they belong to, but the novel feels short and the manga stretched out and dragged out and becomes worse in writing, so I only see it as just another version in case you want more of the same story. The anime more or less combines all the appealing elements of the other two, so it is the best version in my opinion, and even then it had some episodes that are worse and more cringy than others, for focusing on otaku culture. It is a good little franchise, but I think it is also way inferior to the kind of similar Tatami Galaxy.

FINAL RATINGS

-Novel 7/10

-Anime 7.5/10

-Manga 6/10