Reviews by Fernando Leonel Alba

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

Sonny Boy was a relatively hyped up anime from 2021 of which I did not care much when it came out but eventually decided to check out in my hunt of the titles that plot wise stood out the most in recent years.

The premise is mildly interesting more for the combination of elements it presents and for the time it came out, rather than being anything really innovative on its own. There were already isekai of whole classrooms before (Hyoryu Kyoshitsu, Arifureta, Kumo Desu Ga Nani ka?, for examples) and there were shows of people being transported to different worlds across different episodes (Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai, Akane Sasu Shoujo, Flip Flappers, Yami to Boushi, for examples). It’s the combination of both of them, in a time where most series in the genre are generic RPG-like fantasy worlds with self-insert gary stu protagonists, that made it stand out in a civilized Lord of the Flies meets Lost kind of way.

The series itself holds up more for its concepts and ideas than plot and characters by themselves. At first glance, it is just an episodic isekai with very slow plot progression and a focus on a different character on each episode. As the series move forward, you notice that finding out how every world worked was slowly hinting at the core of the situation the characters are in, and how their powers made it all begin in the first place.

At the same time, on a conceptual level, the series is about the characters introspecting about something within themselves that they have to resolve in order for then be on good terms with the others and help finding a solution to the situation they are in. In a way, it is also anti-escapism, since some of the worlds were manifestations of the ideal worlds of some characters.

And since the worlds are manifestations of a character’s subconscious or state of mind, that means that everyone is looked into on a basic level, exploring their backdrops, which range from typical to inexplicably weird for a mundane setting, and some development and catharsis for the main ones about facing life head on.

The main problem with the plot is how some of the episodes didn’t seem to add much to the whole, did we really need the one where they play baseball with some monkeys? Or a whole episode about the backdrop of the dog? Maybe they were needed on a conceptual or symbolic way, the show is full of stuff that could lead to different interpretations, without pretentious seemingly random imagery or quotes, mind you (a fine detail for me), but that is something that could only be appreciated on a second watch, not the first.

And the issue with the characters is that they are atypically normal, they are very low energy and although that makes them stand out in the sea of overpowered hyperactive stereotypes in the genre and currently the medium as a whole, it also makes them quite boring to watch for both a slice of life and an adventure fan.

Some other issues are how lots of the students wanted to get out at first but then seemingly accept staying at some point out of screen, or how nobody lost their mind once they found out about their identity midway through the series. Compare that to the reaction of the characters in Abenobashi, The Amazing Digital Circus, or Deca-Dence, those are way more believable in that regard.

The antagonists also work only on a conceptual level and not as characters themselves at all, that teacher was just antagonizing for the sake of conflict since nobody in the whole classroom snaps even when it looked like they would. She first wanted for the students to get out and was blaming the protagonist, then was the one convincing them to accept staying on some of the worlds in the series, what’s up with that? Then there is the God which just serves a purpose as an antagonistic force that the characters have to go against in order to move on in life, and because what kind of isekai would it be if there wasn’t any kind of divine figure? By himself, he is barely just there.

In regards of visuals, they are very solid. Good artwork, very well made backgrounds and interesting to look at because of how they change at every episode, and there are interesting perspectives and transitions used when the characters jump through worlds, or even cool visual effects when their powers affect the setting itself. The issues come from the series not having much motion, let alone good, how plain the characters look, and how at times some don’t have faces. At points, there is a narrative or a mood sense for that, at others it just happens.

A thing that stands out is that, even if there is a lot of dialogue to explain the logics of the worlds that the characters are in, lots of details are actually shown instead of told, for the audience to figure out by themselves. That’s always a sign of good directing and storytelling that always stand out as a positive for me.

The atmosphere is also very solid, although that can also alienate a lot of people. The series doesn’t have an opening song, only an ending, and for the first half of the show it doesn’t have a single theme or song as background music, thus enhancing the impact of the sound effects and the voice acting, which is also atypical in a way that’s hard to appreciate or enjoy. It is different from the usual voice acting, but not quite as serious or mature as the best within the medium, and it is also not as natural as the ones from some movies or series that specifically went for a cast with very little experience, or even people that weren’t voice actors at all.

As a whole I do think it is a worth watching show on a basic level, especially for coming out in 2021, a year which in my opinion was very poor in level of quality in the medium. It definitely could benefit from a second watch once you know how events play out and can pay attention to a lot more details, and notice how lots of different little things are slowly making a solid whole. But that is hard to do because of its style and atmosphere, which personally I don’t feel like going through again because I was bored out of my mind with the series as a whole.

Ninja Kamui is a series about a former, well, ninja assassin, who left his previous organization to live a happy life with his wife and kid but swears revenge on them after his family is killed by them. So basically, it stands in a middle point between Ninja Slayer and John Wick, using very similar plot elements as the latter but without the weird mix of attempt at drama, over the top comedy and shitpost crappily animated action from the former.

It was also mixing it up with FBI agents, buddy cops developments and Mission Impossible-like technology, but since it was clearly made with a western idea of what an anime is supposed to be in mind, it also featured ninjas, ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu, and eventually robot suits. So it was combining western and eastern action aesthetics in a way that didn’t make any sense but was still cool to watch as a style over substance series.

A rule of cool type of product rarely has a good plot, but it can have a good story, and Ninja Kamui seemed to have it with it mix of ninja assassins fighting all over the streets and FBI agents investigating a corrupt corporation slowly taking over the governments and people’s lives with its technology and stuff.

Not that the writing was any good, since fights were taking place out in the open in the streets with no repercussion whatsoever, and revelations were somehow both obvious and still unexpected because they were coming without any anticipation nor build up.

Another good thing it initially had was top notch production values that made you think it was going to be one of the best animated anime ever. Great artwork, good backgrounds, detailed motions, great directing and battle choreography, dynamic camera movements, and character designs that stand somewhere between realistic and similar to those of Gundam Thunderbolt. The only bad thing in it were some weaker special effects for the ninja techniques.

Unfortunately as the series went on it lost everything that was making it a good rule of cool type of show. It kept piling up action clichés, it kept mixing some silly jokes with an overly serious tone for the backstories and plot, all the while slowing down the initially fast and engaging pacing, it kept presenting boring and very simple characters on every side, and it didn’t go anywhere with any of its plot elements. On top of that the plot structure had the protagonist fighting enemy minions one by one in a way that felt more and more like a typical fighting shounen.

The best and worst aspect simultaneously was the character Emma, who on one hand was the only one getting fleshed out, thus the only one worth following, but at the same time she was accumulating more and more roles and being more and more involved with every important aspect in the story and having more and more relations with the main characters, in ways that weren’t anticipated nor built upon in any way and never felt plausible, she was playing behind everyone’s backs in ways that simply could not be possible.

The others didn’t matter one bit, they were one dimensional, or overly serious and boring, or weren’t fleshed out until they were about to die, with their backdrop stories even slowing down the pacing.

And on top of that, the production values became way worse as they initially were, the artwork began to suffer, the character figures going off model, the weak CGI becoming more and more prominent thanks to the fights of the Kamui robot suits taking over the ninja battles and techniques, and the motions going to shit. The directing was still good for a while but near the end not even that was left.

Strangely enough, what kept its level of quality from beginning to end was the audio department, which was never that good. The music is clearly western inspired with its combo of pop, rock, rap and more stuff, everything in English, expanding to even the opening by Coldrain, so it was never something amazing by still fine and fitting. The sound effects on the other hand could be awesome at some moments and lacking on others, and the voice acting was clearly done after the English one, since the seiyuus sometimes wouldn’t even match their lines with the mouth movements of the characters.

In the end, I think that if you don’t expect for stellar animation and you’re a fan of action, you can enjoy this title, I did in fact, but it’s undeniable that there was very little story and characterization and the initial hook was eventually lost to call it a worth watching series. In my opinion, this could have benefit from being a movie, shortening its length and keeping the good visuals and fast pacing, excusing itself for any possible lack of substance and common sense, think of the anime and live action movies you know that fit that description, but as it is, it’s better to just watch John Wick and consume some other ninja entertainment that you know of.

Ad Astra does not start very well because it presents Hannibal with an almost supernatural fated image and aura about him, a manifestation of the spirit of his country of sorts that can even intimidate a way older war general and although the raw GAR energy of it can be very appealing, in terms of writing is kind of too much to take.

Thankfully that is only for its first chapter and from the second and until the end there is no element nor moment like that ever again, and the manga becomes 100% a political war epic full of on field, tactical and mental battles and debates, political struggle both between the two enemy countries as well as for each one on their own, as the manga bothers to also cover the internal issues they had at the time both in their political systems and societal classes and even between the generals themselves.

And unlike other political war epics, Ad Astra does not really suffers from rule of cool, there are a lot of very strong and imposing manly characters but it never feels like what they are able to do defies the rules of their world, like Huo in The Ravages of Time. Plus there are explanations for everything to at least make it seem like everything makes sense, and the setups are explained before the plans and tactics are put on motion in battle, they are not thrown in nor explained as they are happening, thus they do not feel ass-pulled at any time.

The manga is also fair for both sides in the sense that every major character has a moment to shine and even when defeated and during their last moments they can give the winners a hard time or have a badass and cool end.

Unlike other series like it, Ad Astra is also not hard nor very heavy to follow, the dialogue is about complex topics and well-constructed, but never really to the point that is hard to grasp and need a second read, nor becomes tiring for the mind.

The length and pacing are also really good, just look at the number of chapters, and the plot moves forward at every moment.

In terms of characterization, it feels like the manga does something similar to LOGH with its own Yang and Reinhard. It is true that after the first chapter and a big time skip, Hannibal is presented mostly as serious and focused on the war without relaxing moments nor flashbacks to flesh him out more, but he is explored through his relationships with other characters and all the difficulties he had to face. Plus the realization of the consequences that his attitude leads to and the way it comes to bite his ass at the end is a great moment to behold, you feel like everything up to that point was made deliberately that way just for that catharsis.

Scipio on the other hand gets most of the focus, as he learns and grows mostly from his number one enemy and uses his own strategies and tactics against him, you can even say that there is point in that, in how they were not very different in the end and that eventually, in a sense, Hannibal was his own downfall. Scipio’s sad ending is also really something to behold.

Other secondary characters are also fleshed out in the same way, whether by getting the right amount of spotlight, or through flashbacks, or by getting their own development through gains and hardships in battles.

It is also interesting to see how even when they are sworn enemies, the characters from the different countries show respect for the others exactly because of the things that make them stand out.

The artwork is solid all the time, with good backgrounds, movements and special effects, and the only issue for me are the designs, which by going for realism (mostly), ended up becoming kind of repetitive and hard to tell apart, even more when they are in the battlefield.

As for the negatives, there are some minor secondary characters that are plain one dimensional rapists and murderers that are an unnecessary edgy addition that takes away from the overall seriousness and level of the manga, but luckily they disappear from the story almost as quickly as they are introduced.

The manga also has some comedy and just like is the usual case in anime and manga, it sucks. To its defense, at the very least it is not present at all during serious moments.

Honestly, at the end of the day there are very few things I can complain about it, the exaggerated supernatural elements and the inferior minor characters disappear completely from the story and the comedy, although awful, is never used in a way that ruins the tone. Thus I find just a few and very little issues in the manga, which is why I reflect that in the rating.

I wasn’t really interested in this series at first because in my experience anime about videogames tend to be crap, but this one got quite the positive reception so I checked it out, out of curiosity, and surprisingly I found it to be fun and I enjoyed it.

Unlike other videogame anime this one doesn’t have endless exposition about how videogames work, partly because the protagonist doesn’t care about the lore of the game he plays, and partly because the director realized he could add all the information needed as quick short descriptions in or outside the HUD of the videogame for those who don’t play and don’t know the terminology of MMORPGs.

Since a big part of the second part it’s about a specific boss raid, it means that part of the buildup to that it’s showing the lore behind that boss, or train in order to defeat him, there is more exposition than in the first half unfortunately.

Same thing happens with the pacing, although there is no long term objective, thus it’s weird to say that the series was moving well in the first half, it was definitely faster and with more energy than the second half. But still, it makes sense when you consider that part of the second cour is the fight against a raid boss that can literally kill the characters in one hit, so they have to get around that somehow.

The show also lacks all the stuff that people that want a videogame anime don’t want to see in them, no slow moody bonding between sad people like in .hack//sign, no tons of plot points that overstuff and ruin the series like Good Night World, no pretentious and cringy sense of empowerment for playing fucking videogames like in Accel World, and no overpowered protagonists with an endless harem for a sense of a self-insert male power fantasy like, well…a lot of titles with a similar premise actually. And it’s also not an isekai or a semi isekai, thus it doesn’t feel like you are following a setting that should be natural and instead feels artificial. You know this is a videogame being played by real people, so you can adjust to the mechanics and simple lore and world building much easier.

Did I say world building? Yeah, there is some explanation behind the lore of some npcs, enemies and weapons, but because the characters don’t care much about it and don’t properly explore it, it feels short, simple and disjointed from everything else.

The show focuses on people having fun playing videogames, simple as that, and it looks like the author pays enough attention to actual mechanics and builds, since the protagonists goes full aggro focused on damage and agility with twin blades and masters parries, like the dude that solos her in Elden Ring that became a meme. I mean he even goes half naked with a short and something on his head and nothing else, like that player. Actually the whole thing feels like if From Software made a VRMMORPG, and now I kinda want to see that happening, but with their usual tone and aesthetics.

The power and level scaling feels mostly appropriate as well, since even though the main character is particularly good at videogames thanks to all his previous experience playing lots of them across different genres and implementing that knowledge and mechanics into the titular one, he still gets his ass killed easily by a secret boss that he found randomly, as it sometimes happens in videogames of this kind.

He also unlocks secret scenarios for the first time, and it’s cool to see how everyone else reacts to that in a way that feels plausible.

Oh, and I also have to mention how no one takes the game nowhere near as seriously as I have seen in other anime, so I never cringed with this title as I did with all of those other anime I mentioned earlier.

It’s not like everything about it it’s believable of course, such as the placing of the bosses and the amount of players that the game can support at the same time, among others that have been called out, but for the most part I can buy the way things in this series are presented and play out.

On top of that the series is pretty well animated, especially in its initial episodes. The character designs are typical both in and outside the videogame, but the artwork is often very good, the backgrounds are pretty great and so are the motions and special effects. The directing is quite good in portraying the parries and following every element and abilities or spells used during the fights, and even implementing the HUD and effects such as the parry confirms into them. Now that I mention that, perhaps there are some moments that deserve a seizure warning. There is some CGI but for now it’s well rendered and mixed with the rest of the visuals, even though it’ll inevitably look worse in some years. In the second half, some episodes looked and were overall worse than others, but overall it was a very well animated show.

As for the audio, the sound effects are loud, impactful and just very good as a whole, the voice acting is nothing special but properly done, and it’s funny how sometimes the seiyuus imitate the characters of others during some short lines. The soundtrack is composed mostly of electronic themes and although I’m not into that genre much, it fits the action scenes well, I otherwise prefer the more fantasy themes and the insert songs sung by the seiyuus. The openings are typical j-rock stuff and the endings are typical j-pop stuff, I liked some of them but they don’t deserve any special mention.

The thing about this show that prevents me from giving it anything more than an average score is exactly the same thing that can make it enjoyable for its target audience, there is no long term objective so what are you watching this show for? There are no antagonists besides some player killers that get disposed of quite easily and fast, there are no stakes whatsoever besides some in-game death penalty that hardly matters to these hardcore gamers anyways, and there is of course no ending.

And the characters are completely shallow, they barely have some presence and personality, and are otherwise given no immersion or characterization whatsoever beyond their play-style or short scenes of their everyday life, plus the girl that’s in love with the main character for superficial reasons acts like a creepy stalker half the time, even if it’s played as comedy.

The anime also has a comical mini segment after the ending and a similar issue that Megumi no Daigo has, the recaps at the beginning of every episode that takes away runtime from it and makes the pacing feel slower than it actually is. It’s not as bad as it is in that other series, but it’s still a problem, even more so because this series even had special recaps, outside the episode count, like that other show, were any of them even necessary? The plots in both series are extremely simple to begin with.

So those are my two cents about the show, well made in aesthetics and accessibility for its target audience or anyone else that just want to kill some time with something easy to watch, but also lacking in any actual content, substance or characterization to care for in it, which is what ultimately makes it a title that you watch casually and most likely forget about once it’s over.

THE MEH

The premise of Sengoku Youko is both generic for a fighting shounen and familiar coming from its author, who was working on Hoshi no Samidare at the same time. Two siblings (not really in here) defeating both bad humans and demons and telling them to do better, out of love for either one or both species.

The initial plot structure is one of the same for a fighting shounen as well, the main group gets formed while defeating minor enemies, antagonist organization and big bads appear, more and more powerful bads appear later on, the good guys get stronger by getting more and more power ups, some romantic interests thrown in, and there you have it, your fighting shounen served and ready to go.

The comedy can be a mixed bag, there’s a lot of the usual silly yelling, funny moments thrown in during serious ones, overreactions and the like, yet there’s also some good comedy about subverting those typical shounen moments by cutting them off out of annoyance around one of the protagonists, so it evens out.

The powers are based on elements, spiritual energy, illusions, and the fights revolved completely around either fist or sword fights with demonic powers or transformations in them. At most they mix some boxing in it but that’s about it for innovation, which is very basic and inferior in terms of choreography compared with Hoshi no Samidare.

At least the usual craziness from this author is still there and if all you want is epic scales and scope in your fights, you will have them in both parts of the manga.

The art is overall decent but can be rough around the edges since the author was never very good at drawing. The artwork is simplistic and often lacks details or backgrounds, the character designs are simple and generic and feel kind of reused from other works, the motions are so-so, and as a whole there’s a very sketchy feel about what’s on the pages. At the same time the special effects are really powerful, and combined with the sketchy art style, the darker, hypest and more psychological moments in the manga have a raw feeling that make them immersive, impactful and memorable enough.

THE BAD

You can’t have your typical fighting shounen without its typical elements and moments, and that’s where all the bad writing comes in:

-Convenient power ups in battle, with even its own nine tails like Naruto.

-Quick training sessions on rooms where time moves differently so the main characters can conveniently become way stronger in order the defeat their opponents. Sometimes not even that but training montages through flashbacks and after time skips instead.

-Forgiving old bad guys that become future allies against stronger new enemies.

-Lack of permanent deaths in the long run. For the most part that’s present as well, but at least the characters that do die in here are more fleshed out than the ones in Hoshi no Samidare.

-Meh antagonist organization. As a whole they are fine, there’s enough variety amongst them and both good and bad guys in it but individually almost every member in it is lacking powerful enough characterization. Eventually two or three of them are fleshed out but the vast majority of them are not. Later on more antagonists appear and they leave a lot to be desired for how hyped they were when they appeared for the first time. Plus their existence is confusing in a way that feels like a plot hole. They come from the far more advanced past and despite claiming that they try to prevent their end, descendants keep over the time on which the series take place in, how is that possible?

-Random anachronistic element that doesn’t fit the historical setting, in the form of a rapper like villain that even speaks in English randomly, what the hell is with that guy?

-Lots of last moment saves and characters appearing randomly when needed.

THE GOOD

Despite the criticisms I’ve made, I think that Sengoku Youko is overall a decent one time read fighting shounen plainly for its second half, which although it still has the issues from the first, it also amplifies the good parts of it and adds some more on its own.

First of all, it takes an interesting narrative choice by switching the roles of some characters, thus you have some good guys from the first part being the antagonists while some bad guys are now the protagonists, while at the same time it follows every single recurrent side character or antagonist from earlier with a new role and newer character dynamics with some others, thus everyone remains kind of relevant for the story and plot and there is a sense of evolution for most of them that way.

This is done by not forgetting anything from both the earlier and the later parts, as every seemingly unimportant side story and character reappears with a role in the final battle and arc, while it also tries to make some sense out of the stuff that previously didn’t have much, or any.

The themes are ok as well. As it seems to be the case with this author, it’s anti-suicide, edgyness, depression, losing yourself out of greed for power, people getting a new perspective and identity in life and all that stuff, with this time the relationships between humans and demons as an addition.

Last year we have had several anime depicting demons in different ways, Frieren as irredeemable, Helck as victims, the S-Rank Adventurer Daughter anime as something in between, as there were demons that were just evil, as well as others that could be reformed with better nurture. Sengoku Youko takes a similar stand as the latter, as there are both demons that kill for hunger and humans that kill any demon indiscriminately, as well as demons and humans that coexist peacefully, since even though they are different on the outside, they still share presence in a same spiritual world, thus being essentially the same. The end of the manga also shows how demons can be reformed by being taught a different diet.

The key to the theme exploration is the presence of characters that are both human and demon, products of artificial experiments. Thus both demons and humans learn that coexistence is possible through them, with the key characters for that aspect being Shakugan in the first half, who was not just a friend for Tama and a romantic interest for Shinsuke, but also the one that helps the human hating Jinka notice that.

Tama is important for the theme exploration as well, since she was around humans or half humans as well as demons her whole life, which is why she is the mentor for everyone else in the main group, in terms of getting along between the different species.

And finally, remember that golem from Hoshi no Samidare with an existential crisis that was one of the best, if not the best character from that manga? Well Senya here is the same but done much better, coming from an empty husk of a character to an amnesiac little boy to a dangerous monster that can’t control his powers, to a suicidal half demon half human character with an identity crisis and full of guilt and repentance, to the hero of the story that never really breaks the power scaling, and finally a Buddha like figure that spreads forgiveness, hope, pacifism and coexistence between demons and humans, exactly because of the nurture, psychological introspection and character dynamics and development he has throughout the whole story.

The evolution of other characters is good as well. Jinka starts as an edgy hotheaded character but we also learn how good he is with other demons, and he develops by learning that coexistence between species is possible, before losing himself in his own power, requiring every other character to cooperate in order to stop him.

And Shinsuke begins as a comic relief character that turns himself into the edgy suicidal loner before he also learns the same thing as the other characters, and becomes a mentor for everybody else.

The female characters, as a whole, have an important role also during the fights, which is kind of rare for a fighting shounen, and although they never really match the males in power, for its genre and time period in setting, their roles stand out and deserve a mention, as they are not just romantic interests, plus the seemingly most powerful creature in the series (for the longest time at least) is a woman. Another good thing is that, although they are presented as cute and romantic interests, and although there are some nudity moments in the manga, they are very few and are never shown in a sensual way, thus the women are never treated as fapservice.

The second half also fleshes out other characters that up until that point were fun but shallow.

The conclusion is solid as far as characterization goes, as everyone gets a catharsis, and although easygoing and with a typical happy finale, it is also kind of bittersweet in a way, as it bothers to actually show the inevitable pass of time and its consequences, without a happy ending that skips character dynamics like Hoshi no Samidare, thus I consider this one to be better.

Bottom line, as it’s usually the case with straightforward action fiction, this is not a series you really follow for the writing or substance, even if it does become better in the second half, but the changes in it in the later stages of the manga and the characters, along with the epic shit moments, that make it a one-time worthwhile read.

The original Megumi no Daigo anime was a story about firefighters combining action, drama and romance but was quite over the top and cheesy in its approach and rushed and poorly written mostly because of its short runtime. It was more of a promotional material of a long manga than anything else.

This series is not an adaptation of that manga either, but an adaptation of the sequel manga, which came out way later. So, what you have here is the adaptation of a sequel, of a manga finished long ago, and not a sequel of the forgotten and never really popular ova, so if you try to watch it as a sequel to that entry you will be completely lost. The best thing to do is watch this entry and treat the other one as background lore or some shit.

So this series begins with a flash forward where you see THE WHOLE OF TOKYO ON FUCKING FIRE and the two main characters as friends, before moving to the beginning of its plot with a training arc that covers how they met, didn’t have a good relationship at first, and then became friends.

As it usually happens with series that begin with a flash forward, the actual content you follow for the whole season is never as fun as the initial scene that hyped you up, and I already know that the two main characters are going to become friends, so what’s the point in all of this? Well, the training I suppose, but where’s the fun in that?

Plus, the whole thing still felt over the top and more than that, like propaganda, as if trying to get more people into joining the Tokyo firefighters, instead of telling a proper story.

Speaking of over the top, the series has been criticized for how unrealistic it plays out in situations, procedures, and the behaviour of the main character, who is quite suicidal. It’s all done to showcase the heroic spirit and job that people associate firefighters with, so it’s properly done in that regard, but bad for everything else.

And even that is questionable when you think about the backdrop of the protagonist, as he basically wants to atone for something he didn’t do, and after someone else told him to do that. Well, you begin to ask yourself, does he really want to help and save people, as heroically as firefighters are portrayed to do in series, or is he doing it just to fulfill the task that was imposed on him, to atone for something that he wasn’t responsible of? And that’s without talking about the female lead that partially joined the firefighters so she wouldn’t go out searching for revenge.

And after the training is over and you think, well, we are going to see the characters on real action now, a tournament arc out of a fighting shounen begins in the second half and it doesn’t even show its actual ending on screen, although it doesn’t completely take away the real missions. Even then it’s questionable if you really would have someone training while on real rescue missions at the same time.

Another issue is the pacing, as the most common criticism towards this series is the recaps that every episode has, which along with the opening and ending songs take about a third of the episode, making it feel like there never was enough material for a 24 episodes tv series to begin with and they had to resort to that to stretch the duration as much as possible. There were even weeks without episodes that instead aired some more recaps, as if they weren’t enough in the series, and as if they were even necessary. To make things worse, there were a few episodes that were basically recaps in disguise.

Not everything in the series is bad though, as the visuals, although weaker in the second half, are not exactly bad. The artwork is pretty good, as are the backgrounds. The character designs though are very simple and hard to distinguish one from another when they are all suit and geared up, the motions are ok but nothing more than that, and the special effects are…good when they are not CGI, but when they are CGI they look really crude. The thing is, during some episodes of the second half the artwork, motions and even the in-betweening were pretty bad, the first two episodes after New Year’s Eve were particularly bad in that regard, even more so because one of them was a disguised recap with a very minimal amount of motions.

The sound effects and soundtrack are good, impactful and convey that heroic feeling that the series goes for, and that goes particularly for the opening, which sounds like it came out straight from a 90s fighting shounen. There were two ending songs and they were weird on a first listening but ok as you listen to them after that first time, one is kind of very melancholic and the other one is quite upbeat, both initially feeling unfitting for this type of show, but they grow on you if you like ballads and they give a hopeful feeling, which goes well with the more relaxed episodes and especially those after some citizen was saved and wants to thanks the firefighters or those after a tragedy was avoided. The voice acting is well done but nothing that remarkable and it feels quite typical.

Another good thing is that the characters appear simple and archetypical at first, and although they never really grow out of their archetypes, the more they interact with other characters and the more backdrop information about them is revealed, even showing how they are more interconnected as they seemed to be at first, they don’t remain as two dimensional as they initially are, which is particularly good for Shun, who had a lame ass backdrop story of wanting to be a firefighter to impress the female lead, until his real reason for becoming one is revealed.

So in the end the chances of enjoying this show or hate it come from the expectations which one approaches it with. If you want an ongoing plot, then you’ll most likely not going to like it, if you want a realistic drama about firefighters, then you’ll probably hate everything about it. As you’ll surely do if you don’t like fiction that feels propagandistic, unless you agree with its agenda. If recaps are the thing you hate the most while watching a show, then don’t even bother with this one. If otherwise you go into it and accept it as a hot-headed callback to retro shounen and something akin to a sport series than anything else, then you’ll probably like it.

The first thing to clarify about this anime is that the databases have their information a bit wrong, there are technically three episodes but they are not 30 minutes long. In 1995 a 95 minute movie was released, covering all those 30 minutes you see there, and in 1997 and 1998 two sequel OVAS came out, each one being an hour long. So the episode count is right, but the duration of each and the total in your account if you add it as complete is not.

The second thing to clarify is how hard it is to even find it, the movie can be watched without a problem but the sequels can only found as RAW on YouTube by searching them by their English name, and the translation of the automatic subtitles in them is hilariously wrong more often than not. So unless you know Japanese you won’t really get the story as a whole, thus making it a hard to recommend title.

As for the anime itself, it’s a political war drama about some nationalists Japanese marines stealing a nuclear submarine as an undercover mission, only to betray even their own country and declaring independence, scaling to show the political conflict it leads to between the implied countries, Japan and the United States, how each of them want to deal with the situation, and how different political parties want to benefit from it, and also heated arguments in congress about the situation, while it is also not bad in terms of battles.

With that said that last aspect stands in a place between realistic and spectacular, thus I think not a lot of people would be please with them, as the ones looking for realism would be annoyed by the not very realistic moments, while those that prefer spectacle would be bored with them most of the time. As for me, since I know nothing about how submarines work, I was mostly pleased with them and the combination they presented, thus even though there were some moments when I thought “huh? How’s that possible?” I didn’t have any real issues nor immersion breaking moments regarding them.

Since the show is overall low on action, it might seem slow paced but the truth is that at every moment the characters are investigating about the submarine, finding it, dealing with the nationalist ideals of the protagonist, showing some battles, as well as the States and Japan accusing each other of treason, then the latter and “Yamato” discussing, for the whole world to see, the dangers and necessity of nuclear power in the hands of powerful nations like the United States and how a little slip in trust could lead to a global disaster, as well as Japan is falling behind in militaristic strength and depending on others, with the weird logic of the main character being that Japan needs to have nuclear power to stand against others if needed, but ultimately deciding that, for nations to be at ease, the whole militaristic power should be exclusively in the hands of the United Nations. I guess the anime takes a stand in showing his reasoning as madness so that’s ok. And the whole third OVA is action, so there’s that.

The presentation looks and feels old by now but was good for its time. The artwork has its weak moments and there are coloring mistakes at times, but for the most part the anime looks very good for when it came out. The character designs may look simple but they are serious, mostly realistic, not repetitive, and have some of the best jawlines in the medium. I remembered the backgrounds being limited to just the submarines but turns out I was wrong, as there are a lot more things to see in it, and everything is really well done in that regard. The motions are good but mostly absent as the series is mostly characters sitting and talking, and the special effects are also really well done.

The audio department has limited but good orchestral music, sometimes with even an in-story reason for its use, and some beautiful endings. The voice acting is hands down one of the most mature and more fitting in the whole medium. The problem are the sound effects, which are really old, and even often unfitting, imagine torpedoes impacting and what you listen are sound effects from guns from the 50s while that is happening, we are talking that level of weak. Based on the Japanese people commenting this anime on YouTube, the sound effects are reused from Uchuu Senkan Yamato, thus we are talking about a series from the late 90s with sound effects from mid to late 70s, easily the worst aspect of the whole show.

Not to say that it doesn’t have any other important problems, there are three in fact:

-No ending: The anime is based on a long manga and thus the adaptation is far from over, it doesn’t even have any kind of conclusion on its own, it ends in the middle of nowhere.

-Not very good characters: Though character driven, the anime is clearly more focused on the plot, thus although the characters are mature and with good characterization, and no one is a caricature nor demonized, they are also dry, don’t have much of a backdrop, development or catharsis, and are not very memorable.

-One sided presentation of the conflict: As I’m sure I mentioned in the past, it is an issue when a war drama has clear cut good and bad guys, in the case the United States being the latter. They are not demonized, and the anime doesn’t feel like propaganda to me, but still it’s worth to mention that they are clearly presented as treasonous and inferior than the awesome Japanese marines.

As a whole, it’s a serious and well-presented political war drama for the most part but that can also make it very unappealing for most and there are serious weaknesses in the narrative that some might be even find offensive if they are Americans. Luckily I’m not and I happen to dislike that country most of the time, thus I love this anime, bite me.

Someone recommended me to watch this title last year months before it began airing as a similar series to Mahoutsukai no Yome, and although it also has a mage and their disciple studying, training and traveling together, and the main characters share voice actress, I don’t see much resemblance beyond the premise. Concept wise, I find it to be more similar to Fumetsu no Anata E, since it is about a long-lived non-human protagonist learning about mortality and the short live span of humans while traveling around the world and getting some friends and new abilities.

The issues with that title are that the protagonist didn’t have a personality initially, it was full of emotional manipulation to make you cry, the main character was becoming stronger by acquiring the abilities of his dead friends, thus coming off as feeding off of them, the secondary cast got a lot of focus on their mini arc and then disappeared from the story completely, essentially wasting time and screentime, and the protagonist changed completely after a time skip. That’s where I dropped that show but from what I understand afterwards the series mutates from a road movie type of drama to a fighting shounen which in turn drops tremendously in visual quality.

Frieren doesn’t have those issues. To start off, the animation is pretty good for the most part, there are some weak moments in the artwork and backgrounds but they are usually consistent and very good, even if typical for a fantasy series. The lighting and shading as well as the rest of the special effects are very good, except for the offensive spell that some charracters use, I don’t know why but that looks very outdated. The character designs are very simple and even kind of childish, which are not bad but kind of unfitting at first with the melancholic feeling of the show. The motions are very good at every moment, even the most relaxing ones, each character even has their own distinct way of walking, the facial expressions are very varied and well done, and the action scenes tend to use dynamic movement, like Burn the Witch, Majo no Tabitabi, Akudama Drive and some others did in 2020, and Trigun: Stampede did last year. Overall it’s pretty good in that regard, even if it doesn’t compare with Shangri-la Frontier and Kusuriya no Hitorigoto, which were airing at the same time.

The presentation is good, it’s just that the aesthetics are nothing special. Same thing applies to the audio department, the sound effects are really good and impactful and not too loud and not saturated, the voice acting is ok, nothing special. The soundtrack is really fitting, it’s just typical background music for a fantasy show but it’s very well done and at times even absorbing. The ending song and the insert song (to my understanding, used as an ending for an early screening), both by Milet fit the series really well and are quite beautiful on their own, and the lyrics go very well with the anime. The openings are not as good but the second one is better than the first, which although it had good lyrics for the story, it was strangely upbeat for this time of anime, and thus didn’t fit very well. The second one had a little more energy as well, but at least it felt more appropriate for the second half of the series.

Characterization is not the strongest aspect of the anime, the main characters have a name with a specific meaning, and their whole characterization is based around that, in anime terms, the two female are basically kuuderes and the male is the typical kind hearted but misunderstood and poorly treated harem lead. No, I’m not saying nor implying this series is a harem, I’m just saying that the characters fit some of those archetypes, and although that makes them easy to remember because of that, they don’t have very elaborate nor complicating personalities for the same reason.

What they do have, however, is backdrop stories good enough to flesh them out instead of just leaving them as dry archetypes, and they more or less serve to explain the way the characters are. More and more background information about them is revealed and they also come to learn more things about the previous important party, as it also does the audience that way.

People really seem to like the possible romantic dynamic between two members of the party, I personally don’t give a shit about that, the boy is kind but treated poorly by the girl for no reason besides “comedy”. I’ve seen the same dynamic in anime from the 90s and 00s and got tired of it. At least she recognizes later on that she was acting like a brat and they become friendlier with one another afterwards, and for some people they seem to be “couple goals” or some shit like that, I don’t really care.

What’s important is that even the basic main cast here is better than the rock turned wolf turned boy from Fumetsu, he couldn’t even talk, he had no personality nor backdrop, and he changed completely after a time skip, thus that doesn’t count as organic character development.

This anime has time skips as well but they are nowhere near as big, they don’t skip the scenes of characters learning new things, especially for the main one Frieren, who comes to realize, she knew and was closer to her original party than she always thought and she gains a purpose in life by doing what they want her to do after they died at the beginning of the story, and it all happens on screen, not between time skips.

It’s even related to the themes, despite being one of the most important heroes in history, Frieren never stood out and never truly cared for anyone else, she never had ambition and never understood how brief a human life could be for an elf like her, until she found out when trying to reunite with her old party, that’s when it clicked in and when she notices that she always took that time for granted and regrets not spending more time with them or getting to know them now that there is no going back. The rest of the series she dedicates to fulfill the last wishes of her old party and recall old times in their adventure, thus coming to realize she knew and cared more about them that she ever considered to, while also collecting some more magic here and there.

That way, the series also has the chance to flesh out the older support cast that dies early on through flashbacks, and I also realized where the main appeal and value of the series might be, as a sort of company of sorts for people who have recently lost someone and regret not spending enough time with them.

Sousou no Frieren is not a tearjerker however, the drama is presented more in a melancholic tone than anything else, which is something I appreciate about it, considering that there are so many shows out there filled with emotional manipulation.

The other mains are fine on their own, they also get flashbacks and learn new things and like I said they become closer with each other, it’s just that the focus is clearly on the protagonist, so they come off as simpler and more inferior characters, especially the guy who gets completely sidelined in the second half.

Also, compared to that other series, Sousou no Frieren is clear about what it is from the very beginning. There is some action here and there and is usually well animated, directed, choreographed and has some tactics here and there, but for the most part it’s a lighthearted road movie type of fantasy adventure where the character we follow through for the whole show is the strongest, thus the stakes are low. She might not be the most powerful in-series, but we only know that thanks to some throwaway lines, we never really get a sense of urgency or that Frieren might lose or struggle against someone. It’s a show meant to relax to and look back at some of your past relationships, with some magical beams thrown around from time to time for flavour.

Some other things I want to praise the writing for is caring about some very specific things that add to characterization and world building despite being such small details. First, since elves are so long-lived, they get easily emotionally detached from everyone else, they don’t have strong feelings for anyone, neither romantic nor sexual, and that’s why there are few of them and why the protagonist herself is so cold at first. It also helps to explain why, despite being one of the most well-known heroes in history, no one seems to recognize her at first, like Luffy in One Piece, but here is far more believable because the setting doesn’t have the same technology and the main character herself does as much as she can to keep a low profile.

Another good detail is the explaining for why there isn’t any transportation magic and for why flying magic is limited, which also forces the main cast to actually travel through the fucking setting, whereas other series have several ways for the main cast to be where they need to be when the plot requires them to. This also helps in making the anime feel like, well, an adventure, because how can you have a proper adventure if there is no adventuring, no travelling, no exploring the setting? It’s not like Sousou no Frieren has a world that needs much building nor explaining, it’s a very typical fantasy setting with typical classes, creatures and archetypes, but at least is properly written and established, and it is actually explored, while it also doesn’t function like an RPG, how many other modern fantasy anime can claim the same, eh?

That’s why the characters can’t just go wherever they want and in any ways they would like, every city and every place has its rules, and since Frieren herself knows the route well, you get a bit of lore or history from them, having the rest of the party going on their first adventure also helps, since that way the author has a reason for all the explaining to be done, the exposition is excused.

Not to say that this anime is perfect of course, since there is no clear reasoning why, despite magic evolving so much for being studied for decades and even centuries, basic spells still work the best against newer, supposedly better instructed mages, or why the only mages that know how to control and repress mana in-series are the ones related in some way to the main character.

Then, the whole thing about Frieren kind of falls apart when you consider, “wait, wasn’t her teacher a human? Doesn’t that go against her whole character arc and the main theme of the show?” And the answer from me is yes, I have no excuse for that, and consider it a big flaw in the writing.

Likewise, the second half of the show is inferior than the first, exactly because it falls for the same issues as the series I compared it to. It is a tournament/exam arc that you would find in an action shounen instead of this one, it completely sidelines an important character, and although needed for the characters to keep going, the plot stops progressing completely for a lot of episodes instead of the mini adventures from earlier, and there are a lot of unimportant secondary characters getting a lot of rushed focus.

Other series do that as well (Dragon Ball, Hunter x Hunter, Naruto, Yu Yu Hakusho) but being long fighting shounen, their characters don’t disappear completely from the story until way later. I’m an anime only here, thus I can’t tell if someone from the second cour is coming back at some point or not, but I hardly doubt it and I’m sure they don’t join the main party, essentially meaning that for at least this first season, they work against the plot by killing time and taking screentime for no reason.

With that said, it’s not straight up bad, since there are still moments to flesh out the two main girls and see them interacting, and there is still some cool action from time to time.

And also, well, there is hardly any plot in here, it’s just low on action and stakes basic traveling and adventuring with an overpowered protagonist that goofs around before solving most things thanks to how powerful or experienced she is, and although I like that she is kind of like Maomao from Kusuriya no Hitorigoto, neither an idealistic hot headed idiot typical shounen protagonist, nor an asshole that doesn’t give a shit about people like Elaina from Majo no Tabitabi, she still doesn’t actually do or not most things on her own wish, that’s why she says things like “Himmel would scold me if I did that” or “Himmel would praise me if I do this”.

Thus, despite part of me respecting the value and appeal it might have for some emotional people and for how mostly well established the writing and presentation are, the cynical bastard I am only finds boredom in here, because there isn’t much plot, the characters are simple, the stakes are low because the protagonist is overpowered, the plot devices are not the type of which I’m usually thrilled about, the setting is basic, the energy is low, the aesthetics are simple, and the second half, although it still fleshes out two of the main characters, is inferior than the first by falling for the usual meh writing of other shows. In the end I consider it a decent relaxing time passer that can be very appealing for some viewers, but nowhere near as good as the general consensus says it is, and a complete chore to watch for part of the audience, myself included. At least I can say that this anime doesn’t have recaps neither inside nor outside the episode count, which is more than I can say about the other shows I was following at the same time.