Shinsekai Yori aka From the New World 9/10

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.

Mitsu x Mitsu Drops aka Honey x Honey Drops 5/10

 

After I read the reviews for this classic anime (effectively agreeing, what crap this show was), I couldn't resist watching this myself, and I'm so glad I did.

First of all let me say, if you don't want your eyes and ears to bleed while watching this, I'd suggest you to stop taking 'Mitsu x Mitsu Drops' serious (although the show takes itself quite serious). The best thing would be to turn off the function of your brain that's asking, BUT WHY...? I watched this thinking of it as a comedy show and that way I was having a blast! There were so many unreasonable dramatic scenes that became unintentionally funny, because of the outrageous ridiculousness... At some point I was thinking maybe, just maybe, there is a brilliant mastermind behind this, yes this must be a parody of some kind, but no, they're serious till the end!

Worst storyline ever? - Possibly. I'm not even going to put in the effort trying to explain what the f this show was about (because most of it doesn't make any sense whatsoever). It's all over the place with no goal, no introductions, no emotion. Forget the dialogs, forget about the sexual harassment, forget common sense damn it!

Were really all characters awful? Yes indeed (especially the main character, baka honey). Disgraceful portrayal of a woman. What about art? Although the characters were good looking, bad. I guess the manga has better visuals.

So why on earth did I enjoy this so damn much?!
It's simple, I love to laugh! Even if that wasn't what the writers wanted (I don't know what the hell they wanted). Of course a lot of people are totally annoyed by this nonsense (understandably), but to me... man I was really having a good time.

Strange+ 9/10

 

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).

Yugami-kun ni wa Tomodachi ga Inai aka Yugami doesn't have any friends 8/10

 

This manga made me laugh quite a lot, so I thought I should write a review to bring some attention to it.

We meet Yugami through Chihiro who just moved to a new city and is a transfer student at Yugami's school. At first glance, he seems to be really nice and helpful, but that impression doesn't last very long. They both not only end up in the same class, Chihiro also sits next to him now. She tries to become friends with him but her attempts are shattered by him either saying something weird, rude or simply ignoring her, although it's not really his intention which makes those situations really funny (for example 'could you please eat somewhere else, I don't want to to be seen eating with you'). Most students in class try to avoid Yugami (hence the title) because of his eccentric behavior, and warn Chi not to get too close to the weirdo, but Yugami is absolutely fine with it.

He turns out to be the schools' baseball ace, and baseball is the only thing he actually likes, next to precisely planning his days. The baseball team doesn't necessarily like him (nobody knows what's going on in his head), but they need him to win games, so bare with him.
Chihiro watches some baseball matches and later starts helping out the female manager, hoping she could become friends with her. But at the same time, she has to deal with bizarre Yugami, who tries giving her ridiculous life advises, telling her she should try harder at finding friends, stating theories and opinions (which are sometimes surprisingly good) when no one around him wants to hear them, but because of that he actually starts talking more and more with others.

We just follow Yugami's life and all the challenges he has to overcome, like friendship, love letters and baseball. But self-centered Yugami has good sides showing up as well, whenever he sees that Chi is having trouble he's trying to help her out, well by giving silly advises and buying rare curry bread for her. He is a funny guy, but not very sociable (he's more comfortable alone), he has trust issues and thinks everything can be done by himself. He may didn't realize it yet, but despite trying to keep a distance from everyone, Chihiro seems to become his first real friend after all.

A manga by Jun Sakura full with comedy and two hilarious main characters, I'd definitely recommend it to people who want to read something light and funny. And if you don't like manga, there's anime adaption out as well!

Shounen Hollywood: Holly Stage for 49 6/10

 

"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.

Tenkuu no Escaflowne aka Vision of Escaflowne 4/10

 

A while ago I remembered an anime I used to watch when I was a kid (9 or 10 years old), "Vision of Escaflowne". My memory of it was hazy to say the least. What I did remember were those characters with the long noses, the pretty guy with long blond hair, and a very memorable soundtrack (the German OP was great). So I had a strong urge to re-watch it, and I did, the unfortunate result was, my memories of this fairy-tale like anime were shattered.

Escaflowne starts promising (girl travels through worlds, meets knights and royalty, can use magic, some interesting adventures) but the more episodes you watch the more plot holes appear. Things often made no sense, or they simply ignored important details, added or just changed rules for convenience (to get out of a tricky situation, for example).

Don't even get me started on the lazy, repetitive dialogs, or how many times a character yells out another one's name to make things 'dramatic'.
Most characters were irritating, mainly because they were walking stereotypes. The antagonist role wasn't really explored, his past, his plans, his purpose (except he wants to destroy the world as we know it and mess with faith), just what was going on in his head? The Van's brother suddenly became a good guy and all was forgiven (this could have worked out better if they didn't rush his development, it only took one episode for him to do a 360).

Many elements just got smashed together here; fortune-telling, robots and all kinds of machines (whose origin never was explained), luck enhanced soldiers that defied logic (lack of logic in general), magicians, atlantis, faith everywhere, shoujo romance, and the climax - utter disappointment.

Let's talk about the romance. Three (or more) failed love-triangles, which had ineffective build-ups and were executed poorly (I just didn't care anymore at one point, it was too much). The main characters never even showed they really liked each other until we were reaching the end, which was a mistake if that couple was supposed to be the main selling point of this anime, it wasn't believable and I couldn't root for them. And then once Hitomi realizes who she loves (and it was all faith), she leaves his world forever because...? They don't explain that part either, so much for true romance.

Art? Well it's an anime from 1996, so I can't complain, it's actually a pretty good production. The world the director created looks beautiful, that's the one thing my memory hadn't failed me at. As well as the epic soundtrack, it might be the best thing about Escaflowne (later found out it was done by Yoko Kanno) - but nothing can save an anime that has so many inconsequent story lines such as this one, and it's sad because it had potential.