"Ping Pong The Animation" is an exceptional show and of my all-time favorites. You don't have to be a fan of sports anime or Ping-Pong - this series takes you on a ride you weren't ready for. It's a coming of age story for several young aspiring athletes who come to the realization, that they probably never will be the best in the sport they love so dearly. And while that part of shattered dreams is heartbreaking, how you move on and make the best out of your life regardless, is beautiful.
"Ajin" is a dark and thought-provoking anime that explores themes of identity, morality, and the consequences of scientific experimentation. Set in a world where a small percentage of the population are immortal beings known as "Ajin," the series follows the journey of Kei Nagai, a high school student who discovers he is one of these mysterious creatures after surviving a fatal accident.
Aiura is an older short format anime I had big hopes for, but ultimately had to settle for mediocrity, although the character design is really nice. The series follows Kanaka, Saki, and Ayuko as they navigate the ups and downs of adolescence, from mundane school activities to humorous misadventures.
"91 Days" is a gripping anime that takes viewers on a thrilling journey through the dark underbelly of the Prohibition era. Set in the fictional town of Lawless, the story follows Angelo Lagusa, a young man seeking vengeance against the mafia family that brutally murdered his parents and younger brother.
"12-sai." aka "Age 12" is the story of innocent Hanabi, a sixth-grade girl who is neither an adult nor a child. She deals with youth issues, physiological changes, her first love, and all the other adolescent topics you can think of. I was pleasantly surprised how mature the anime ended up being and enjoyed this coming of age seriesa lot.
"Plastic Neesan" is a short-form gag anime series that was released in 2011. It consists of 12 hilarious episodes, each lasting only a few minutes, so you can watch the whole show in like 30 minutes. It was adapted from the manga and stayed true to the fast-paced comedy that focuses on the daily lives of three high school girls: Iroe Genma, Makina Sakamaki, and Hazuki Okamoto, as well as their classmates.
Noragami is a popular series thanks to its unique plot and hilarious main character, Yato. Yato is a deity or god, who's trying his best to not be forgotten and help as many humans as possible with their problems. If you are familiar with Japanese folklore and the Shinto religion, you will find the world of Noragami very interesting, if not, you are about to learn a lot of new trivia!
This is the strange love story of Chise Hatori, a 15-year-old Japanese girl, who was sold for five million pounds at an auction to a tall masked creature named Elias Ainsworth, who is looking for a special kind of bride. Of course there is also plenty of action and world building going on in "Mahoutsukai no Yome" aka "The Ancient Magus' Bride", with dragons, alchemists, mages, elves, and a bunch of other magical characters we get to know little by little.
"Kono Bijutsu-bu ni wa Mondai ga Aru!" aka "This Art Club Has a Problem!" is a comedy anime series based on the manga of the same name. I liked the manga better than the anime adaption, not sure why. Maybe because I binged the anime, and it was just the same jokes on repeat, which was too much for me. The plot is simple enough to sum up in one sentence; Usami is a member of an arts club, where no one is taking the club serious except her.
I enjoyed the manga on a monthly basis, but when they turned it into an anime, I enjoyed "Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san" aka "Teasing Master Takagi-san" a lot less. I guess, knowing how the jokes will play out had an effect. The story is basically about middle schoolers Nishikata and Takagi, who is constantly teasing Nishikat until he blushes, who then wants to tease Takagi in return, but is never able to beat her at this game.
Hunter x Hunter is one of my and many others favorite manga/anime of all time. This review will concentrate on the 2011 anime adaption, which follows Gon's and his friends and frenemies adventures. But don't be fooled, this is not a typical kid's show, with every arc HxH gets darker and more enlightening.
This is not your typical romance anime, this is a gag anime pretending to be a romance anime. I enjoyed this funny take on one-sided crush that develops into more, one episode after another. The story is about high school girl Sakura, who's in love with her classmate Nozaki, who's secretly a shoujo mangaka. He is oblivious to the fact that she isn't his fan but in love with him, so he makes her his assistant, and hilarity ensues.
My introduction to this series happened in 2016, when the first season of "March Comes in Like a Lion" aired. Not a big sports fans, and I know nothing about shogi (Japanese chess), so an anime about a shogi player sounded interesting enough to me. I was pleasantly surprised that this anime didn't have much to do with shogi but instead gave us a wholesome slice of life plot, where shogi is in the background and the characters are the stars.
Beelzebub is an anime that reminded me of Gintama, except our main character Oga is a high school student and has to take care of a demon baby, Beel. But other than that, it follows Gintam's slice of life comedy style with a bunch of fighting, jokes and supernatural themes.
I wish the story of this anime would be as first class as its animation. So crisp, the colors so vibrant, pristine landscapes, creative graphic displays during mystery solvings, and the character design... so damn beautiful. I wouldn’t have minded watching this with the sound off.
Writing a review about this anime is a bit difficult for me, because I can't possibly describe in words, what I felt watching this. I'm also afraid you won't understand what I'm talking about, you will have to watch this great anime yourself.
1000 years from now in Japan. Every 'human' has mantra and can use telekinesis (imagining things and then make those things happen). For example, they look at white paper and paint a motive without using paint, or break a bottle and then put the broken shards back together, without touching anything. It's all done with imagination - which is an important message during the whole anime - anything is possible if you can imagine it. (Spoilers ahead)
The story involves 6 friends, (Saki, Satoru, Maria, Mamoru, Shun, Reiko) who were born and raised in a tranquil town, Kamisu's 66th district, they go to school together and are one group. We learn quickly that the school system is pretty cruel, all the weak and dangerous kids get killed, everyone in town (students, parents, teachers) know about it and find what they do is acceptable and necessary to protect their utopian world from collapsing. It kind of reminds us how our society works and treats outcasts. No one cares about the weak ones among us, and at the same time, we are scared that somebody else could become stronger than us, and they could do us harm (terrorists). That's also an important theme in Shinsekai yori - FEAR.
We follow the kids, watch them grow and experience all the pretty and all the dangerous things of life, we learn about creatures other than humans - queerats (we find out more about them as the story goes on), and why humans now can use telekinesis also called "cursed power" or the "gods' power".
Later what everyone is afraid of happens, one of the group's weakest gets killed by impure cats (humans don't kill humans, because it would cause them to die as well, death feedback), then another one becomes a Karmic Demon, a fiend, how the residents of district 66 call people, who lose control of their telekinesis power and kill everyone that is in sight. Those demons are exactly what humans are most scared of, so the "government" decided it would be best to kill the boy and erase everyone's memories about him. The remaining 4 friends can't seem to remember what his name was, what he looked like and so on, but they know something is very fishy about this situation and want to find out the truth, which brings them into more trouble.
Now the government is after friend 4, Mamoru, and sends cats after him, but he's able to flee. The others of his group go look for him and find him. Maria decides to leave the town (that all of them started to hate) with the runaway, which later turned out to be a big mistake. Again many similarities happen between our world and theirs.
We see a lot of time skips, things seem to happen rash, I wish they would have taken some more time to explain and explore, but everything makes sense in the end, so be patient. We get very attached to the characters, after seeing them grow up with those cruel rules, and how desperate they are, because they can't find another way to deal with their dangerous supernatural powers (they don't have enough knowledge, because so much is forbidden to talk about). Technically, all of them could become Karmic Demons and erase humanity, that's why they 'the government/residents of the town' have to be careful and take care of the problem kids early on. And at the same time, it's such a cruel thing to do, simply killing your own children, because they could potentially become Karmic Demons, although they are still normal kids/average students, there's no mercy.
Big time skip - To be honest I don't want to explain what happens next, if I write more I will REALLY ruin the show for you guys. All I'm going to say is, shit gets real and the queerats history gets explained. Please give Shinsekai Yori a try, it's a show that demands all of your attention, you will be surprised by the twists, I enjoyed this much more then I expected!
The animation actually can be breathtaking at times, but at other times the characters look like scribblings, it has a funny effect though and fits well in the story. There's no opening for this anime (I don' know if I have ever seen that before) but there are two different endings. The soundtracks we hear are mostly by an orchestra or a children's choir, that give you goosebumps like crazy! Again it fits perfectly to the story, no Japanese pop music to be found here.
The characters are thankfully realistic. The girls kick ass, the parents aren't preaching, the boys make out with each other and that's perfectly normal, the government sucks, like in real life, and the queerats have balls! I was so happy that this anime didn't turn out to be one of those, that have a good plot, but terribly stereotypical acting characters! Like I said before, there are a lot of time skips so the characters grow and change after every few episodes, but that is what's so awesome about this show. This could have gone really bad, rushing through important steps of life, but Shinsekai Yori doesn't miss the important steps, no, everything you see matters, even those small things you wouldn't even dream of to be the slightest relevant, are relevant for the story, big props to the writer of the novel (in the U.S. also knowns as 'From the New World') that this anime was adapted from, Yusuke Kishi. Great message that makes you think about our society, and all the things, we could do better. It's pretty depressing actually... humans are cruel animals, but we can change. Yeah, that's my conclusion. One of the best anime of its decade.
Don't say the title didn't warn you! This anime truly is a blast for all comedy fans. I love their parodies of other detective or action anime, but if it would be just that, I wouldn't have enjoyed this show so much. Strange+ has a lot more to offer, yes it's a funny, silly gag anime, but at the same it's their amazing main characters (who always make everything worse), that make this show unique, ridiculous and hilarious!
Most of the time, you have no idea what the hell is going on, things just happen, but it's fine, because the show delivers, it's full of surprises, references to really old anime and weird twists, introducing new characters like it's nothing, explosions, random weapons, magic, "traditional traps", villains who disguise themselves as maids, whatever, you name it, this show has it, it doesn't have to make sense, it always makes you laugh - the WTF moments are pure gold and the characters reactions to them as well. To me it's never too much, because the episodes are only about 4 minutes long, so you can watch the entire season in less than one hour. Short anime FTW!
Characters: Oh man... where do I even begin? In this strange world there are 4 strange detectives, Takumi - a very confident attention loving bishonen blue haired boy who likes to cross dress, and the 'boss' of the detective agency they all work at, Kō - his younger brother (although he looks like the big brother), who is nothing like him, he's probably the least strange character - every gag anime needs a 'straight' guy, then there is Masamune, the strong, for some reason African looking, guy who you would accept to save the day, but like everyone else, is not as competent as you might wish and last but not least a female character, eye-candy Miwa, who's loyal, weird and super hot but that is mostly ignored. Then there's a bunch of side characters (villains/allies) that make the show go round, sometimes they appear once and then never again, sometimes they return by just popping out of nowhere to take revenge or something, who really cares? It's hilarious.
Although the art is nothing special, the voice actors did a great job. I had a lot of fun with it, so I gave a very high rating. (I could list some great quotes from the show lol, but it's so much funnier if you just watch it yourself).
"Shounen Hollywood: Holly Stage for 49" was a big surprise for me. A nice slice of life with a lot of J-Pop, 6/10.
I'm genuinely impressed with the show, it doesn't mind telling you straight out some of the negative aspects of show business (especially how Japan produces their Idols). They have some profound lines here and there... I'm not a big fan of J-Pop, so the music isn't really why I enjoyed watching this (and I'm sure with less of it I would have given it a higher score), there's also no yaoi even if you would assume that by having an all male cast!
We follow our characters in what they're doing in their everyday life, as well as their training to become Idols. Kakeru is a high-school student that was scouted, Ikuma the oldest member used to be a delinquent, Kira has always been in show business as a child actor, Shun wants to become a musician, Daiki is an orphan and fan of the original Shounen Hollywood group... so a colorful bunch that got together under 'Shachou' (former member of Shonen Hollywood) who manages the guys. We find out more about each one's backgrounds and dreams later on.
What I appreciate is, that you not only see those characters having the time of their lives and saying things like 'This is great, I'll fulfill my dream of becoming an Idol... blah blah' sunshine and rainbows. No. They actually say things like 'I don't want to do this' or 'this is ridiculous and embarrassing'. They are holding a mirror on male Idols and what they have to go through. This show is more realistic and less melodramatic than other anime in the same genre, and partly responsible for that is the experienced manager, who tells Kakeru how it's going to be for him in the future. His friends won't be his friends anymore once he's famous, they'll probably sell private story's about him (whether they are true or not), the media is merciless and you won't make it with just talent or just hard work, and getting a fan base takes time. The manager already went through that, so he knows show business is never a save career.
All those uncomfortable subjects are processed and I think 'Shounen Hollywood: Holly Stage for 49' is refreshingly different. So even if you don't like J-pop like me, this show has a lot more to offer than just hot guys and music. The members want to accomplish something out of the ordinary (maybe you have dreamed of performing on a big stage one day too), they're still young and inexperienced and many times lose hope and want to quit. The character development is well done, and so are the dialogs, and the pace of the anime is relatively slow, which I always prefer in slice of life.
Now what I don't like so much is the animation, compared to other anime it's really nothing special. The band's performances weren't spectacular, sometimes it was rather cringe worthy. And some moments were simply dull. But I was always waiting for the next episode because I wanted to know if they will become successful idols, and if in the end that was what the boys really wanted. The journey of them becoming the next big thing looks pretty exiting.
"Sousou no Frieren" is a breathtaking anime that delves into the profound themes of friendship, mortality, and the passage of tim...
