Starting things off we'll go with new stuff and I'll do my continuations from previous seasons last.
To give a rundown of what the whole Black Clover idea consists of. In the world of Black Clover the entire world consists of magic and the entire Clover Kingdom was going to be wiped out by demons until one single mage with his Four Leaf Clover Grimoire killed all the demons and was named the first Wizard King. The title now gets passed down generations to the strongest wizard in the world and he is also the one in charge of all the companies of the Magic Knights, those who protect the Clover Kingdom with their magic talents. The story is about Asta and Yuno, two kids who were abandoned at a church in Hage Village a place way out in the boonies. Yuno, is incredibly gifted with magic and actually receives the Four Leaf Clover Grimoire and after taking the entry exam for the Magic Knights chooses to be a member of the squad of Magic Knights only for nobility: the Golden Dawn. Asta wants to be the Wizard King but is born without magical powers, he sees Yuno attacked after getting his grimoire which unleashes his ability and gives him his own grimoire, the Five Leaf Clover, which allows him to brandish a gigantic sword that can nullify magic (we later find out that Asta has demon powers but that isn't in the show yet). Asta gets chosen to be in the Magic Knights squad the Black Bulls, the misfit squad, but he fits in perfectly. So far the anime has done Yuno and Asta becoming knights and now doing missions with their respective squads.
Am I going to keep watching it ?? Yes, because despite his annoying voice, despite a few flaws it still has a good story as far as Shonen stories go though since it will be a 54 episode show and that means it will carry on into Winter 2018 it will take a backseat to the much better Shonen story that is Seven Deadly Sins. I have enjoyed what I've seen so far even though there are some flaws.
RECOMMENDED (only if you like Shonen anime/manga though)
The story starts off with Moriko Morioka, a hard working Japanese business worker quitting her job to become what she calls an "elite NEET" because she chose that lifestyle herself and being a NEET wasn't just something to do with her laziness. It's implied that the stress of working became too much for her and quitting was her only way out. She gets back into MMO's and when she boots up her computer, the one game she used to have fun playing with one friend is old and outdated so she finds a new "cool one" on the internet: Fruits D'Mer. The game is a high fantasy style and for some reason she decides "I'm going to be a hot guy in this game" and creates her player character, Hayashi, and is just Dark Souls'd to the max in the first dungeon until she meets Lily, a cute female healer character who goes onto play with him constantly. The two end up becoming "partners" in the game because they become so close to each other and in the real world, Morioka, coincidentally bumps into a man named Sakurai, who she gets set up on a date with through a mutual friend of theirs and neither of them know they're "in game partners" already. It goes deeper I don't want to ruin it though.
Now that we know what it's about what I have to say is that I loved the story, it is a very adorable romantic story between two people who've known each other online a lot longer than before they bumped into each other accidentally in real life. Something about these kinds of stories always make me happy. The show is very bright and colourful in the video game world and very realistically coloured in the real world, it provides contrast between the two places Hayashi & Lily (in game) and their counterparts Morioka & Sakurai are. I do enjoy the fact that even though it is an MMO and the game is clearly shown being played as one, including text chat, that when they cut to the created characters they still treat it like a SAO/Log Horizon/Overlord "in the game" idea with talking characters and so forth. Each character when they do this is very unique and interesting which makes you want to see what the people who are in charge of them are like. I enjoyed the characters, animation, story, and voice acting in this one; Recovery of An MMO Junkie is a fantastic show and just one to kick your feet up and enjoy for a good time with no seriousness needed.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - IT'S JUST FUN TO WATCH
Chise is a girl who can see spirits, a sleigh beggy, who sells her rights as a human and is put up for auction and sold to a unique individual, The Thorn Mage Elias. Elias plans to make Chise both his apprentice, to teach her how to control her massive amounts of magical power, and to make her his bride as well. We also find out that because of this massive magic that Chise will die in 3 years but Elias is looking to fix that. The two go on several different adventures: to see the Land of the Dragons, to investigate problems at a local church that they think are being caused by a spirit, just to meet a friend of Elias' in London, to have a talk to the Fairy Queen Titania and Fairy King Oberon in the forest. Each of these adventures I just really don't want to get into too much depth into here because each one is so fantastic as far as a story. I also don't want to reveal too much about Chise and Elias either.
Part of what I like is that Elias is such an enigma, you can tell he has flashes of goodness and humanity in him, but a lot of what he does you know he must have ulterior motives for. A big key in that sentence is flashes of humanity, I see Elias the way people in the show do, something not human but is trying to be human and could be if given time or love. Chise seems to be warming up to him in terms of love and it may actually work the way he wants.
The animation is gorgeous, though I'm not a huge fan of the way some of the eyes are drawn but everything else is fantastic. Elias is just an awesome character, especially his "other form". The show does this funny thing where if it does a quick comedy bit that the animation switches tones drastically to an almost childlike drawing of them and it's a good break in tone. The show I found out is being split between the Fall 2017 and Winter 2018 season, 12 episodes per each, so I still have some to watch and I'm looking forward to it.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
This anime version is the story of Nobuaki Kanazawa, a quiet and shy kid who starts in a new high school after "something happened" to him at his old school. Because he knows what happened and that it could easily happen again he tries to stay away from others but it doesn't last long and then the entire class gets a text from the King with an order. Nobuaki must kiss Natsuko Honda before 24 hours passes or they will be punished. At first everyone thinks it's a joke and that the new kid just wants to get a popular girl he has a crush on to kiss him and that everyone seeing may make it work; having seen a King's order before though Nobuaki knows it's no joke and tries to warn his classmates to no avail. He does kiss Natsuko after a lot of pressure on her part, because we find out she too is the survivor of a King's Game just like Nobuaki, which avoids them both dying. That's when rules are laid out:
The rules of the King's Game: 1) All students must participate, 2) After receiving an order from the King, the order must be completed within 24 hours, 3) People who do not complete their order shall be punished, 4) Withdrawing from the game midway is not allowed.
Then other orders issued and some chose to not follow those orders, they died, in different ways: hanging, decapitation, etc. which freaks out the students and they get together they think Nobuaki is doing it (see the clip below) but find out this game is serious. Then over the course of the next several days experience one of the worst things of their now shortened lives, we do what we're told or that's it a very painful Game Over. The way Nobuaki would toss flashbacks in whether thinking to himself or talking to his new friends about what happened in his last King's Game was a great way to incorporate both first two manga. I don't want to get into each episodes punishments and challenges but each one ended in a fantastic way though I feel the manga created a larger sense of dread and was far more gruesome.
I liked the animation in the show EXCEPT for the censoring, I DETEST censoring and yes I understand on Crunchyroll it's probably not a great idea to see some kids throat slit open upon failure before the rest of his head comes off shortly after and spurts blood all over, but it's a horror anime and a horror manga. Don't censor it with black bars because you think "it's too much" or whatever the case may be. The story is great because Ousama/King's Game is honestly a fun game you can play with friends, this one just adds the sickest most grotesque punishments to the punishment side of the game and offers challenges that most friends wouldn't put in a King's Game they played together like Person A and Persona B must have sex together. The deaths regardless of censorship played out how I wanted and I'm genuinely looking forward to their version of Ousama Game: Annihilation.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - IF YOU LIKE HORROR/GORE/VIOLENCE....MOSTLY GORE & VIOLENCE
It's a show about a girl named Yuzuki who is transported from present day Japan to a feudal Japan, one where monsters like vampires and werewolves are common.....oh but they're all good looking dudes so it's ok. We find out that she has mystical blood that awakens the powers of these creatures and therefore every army is after her. The first one that finds her is one led by Hideyoshi, a vampire, who doesn't plan to use her blood but becomes smitten by her and plans to make her never want to back to regular Japan. She gets taken by army after army each one being a group of pretty boy monsters who all become smitten with Yuzuki, in that regard the show got repetitive because you knew that each army and each member of their army would fall for her.
Honestly, if the show wasn't so flashy with good fight scenes with the animation slightly unique, if it wasn't something I can't explain, then I wouldn't watch it but it was enjoyable enough with some good laughs.
NOT RECOMMENDED IT WAS JUST OKAY
This is the story of Haruka Shinozaki and his love for the class representative Akiho Kosaka, a girl he thought was way out of his league because she was pretty and in charge, but all it took was a "will you go out with me ??" and they were together. Now, what Haru expected was the prim and proper girl you'd expect from a class rep with a little bit of girlishness to her, what he got is a girl who is very very very blunt about everything especially sexual matters. You realize she was raised this way when they have an episode where Haru meets Akiho's parents, they are a mirror image of the two of them only older, her father a laid back yet shy person and a very sexually blunt mother. The other girls in the series are: Shizuku Ariyama, Haru's childhood friend and someone who's recently taken a more romantic interest in him despite him always seeing her as his big sister. Kanata Shinozaki, Haru's younger sister, who never takes her cat hoodie off and acts like she is the only girl worthy of her brothers attention. Rina Saijo, a rich transfer student who attended an all-girls school and had many female relationships before but is now looking at Haru as an example of manly boyfriends and what they should be. Those are the main girls but there are others such as the prudish class president, Saori, that make their presence known in the show too.
I like the animation in the show, it's very simple, colourful, and pretty at the same time it fits the genre. Speaking of the genre, harem/ecchi anime for the most part seem played out, but the way they did this with Haru desperately avoiding any female besides his girlfriend Akiho and with him downplaying any sexual anything from anyone it changed the harem dynamic enough to make it "different" than other shows. Shizuku and Kana are my favourite characters in the show, one is the older sis style trouble maker and the other the younger sister that wants what's best for her bro and her cat hoodie is awesome. It does present a few adult scenes where it's very clear that, "hey guys see the creme and yogurt, that's implying semen, hey that banana is a dick, etc, etc."
RECOMMENDED AS A GOOD LAUGH OR IF YOU LIKE HAREM/ECCHI ANIME
Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
What happens next is the formation of Team 13: Boruto, Sarada, and Mitsuki. Sarada despises the idea of working with Boruto and the only way for them to change teams is for her to bring a complaint to Naruto about it, but he's off training, so they all work together to get past several obstacles in order to reach him. Only to realize they truly are a great team so their only request: can we be renamed the new Team 7. Passing down the team number from generation to generation of course is something Naruto happily does and thus Team 7 exists again.
Things are starting to ramp up and now that they've gotten a lot of this stuff aside you can tell they're going to be doing a lot of interesting missions and probably have a good side story before getting ready to put the movie into official cannon by adding it to the show as they just did their Genin Exams so doing the Chunin Exams already is a bit too soon. Once the movie is part of the show, similar to what they did with "Battle of the Gods" and "Ressurection F" for Dragonball Super, then we're finally going to get past that part of the show and finally get to see the curse mark of Boruto's left on his hand by the Okatsuki Clan he helps defeat and how Sasuke tells Naruto about both that and Boruto's dojitsu eye: the Jougan.
Also, I only have the Japanese opening video and an episode in Chinese, it's easier to find the show clips done in their native language than dubbed into Japanese with English subs.
I'm looking forward to the continuation of the series
Himouto! Umaru-chan Season 2 Umaru is a show that I absolutely loved the first season of but never got the chance to enjoy the 2nd season of until now. I'm currently watching it but will not have it watched for this review. From what I've seen from the 1st episode is that they do seem to be focused on the relationship of all 4 main girls and all 3 of Umaru's personalities. | Junai Tensen: Zodiac Wars Junai Tensen: Zodiac Wars is a great concept and the four episodes I watched were very uniquely animated and good in their own way, I just had a hard time staying into it. I'm sure one day I'll watch it again to finish it but for now I was only able to get that far in before getting bored. |