HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10
HIGH RECOMMEND - 8.5/10
RECOMMENDED - 8/10
RECOMMENDED - 7.5/10
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10
SPY X FAMILY Spy X Family is the big new show of the year, not just the season, it's something that has the internet caught up in a storm. The show is set in the country of Ostania who is in something of a Cold War with its neighbour Westalis. In order to keep peace in the world Westalis' spy agency WISE sends their best operative, the spy known around the world as Twilight, to Ostania in order to stop Donovan Desmond from starting a war between the two nations. WISE created Operation Strix for Twilight, he was to create a fake family, have his child enroll at Eden College, become an Imperial Scholar, meet and get close to Donovan Desmond through this, and stop a potential war. In order to kick this off though, he needs his fake family, posing as psychologist Loid Forger he adopts a young girl named Anya, whom the orphanage seems desperate to get rid of. The reason being, and no one knows this, is Anya is an ESPer and can read people's thoughts so she can come off incredibly odd; there are a lot of times this comes in handy later on for the Forger family though. Twilight got a daughter now he needed a wife, he found one in Yor, a good civil servant girl who was worried about people thinking she was a spy because she was in her 30's and not married; she didn't have to worry about the spy thing, just the fact that she's the Thorn Princess a world renowned assassin. So a spy, an assassin, and an ESPer all living in the same house as one of the oddest families you could possibly imagine. Needless to say this is a show that is much better watched and experienced than me telling everyone what happens per episode but it has amazing performances by the voice actors, great animation, awesome music to go along with it, it's just an amazing show and it blew me away. Like I said, this is a show best experienced, in order to get the jokes and action and sappiness first-hand. My biggest takeaway is I can't wait until Part 2. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10 SHIKIMORI'S NOT JUST A CUTIE This show was another one like Spy X Family that had the shit hyped out of it before the season started. Coming off of My Dress Up Darling, everyone wanted to see if the screenshots and trailers of this Shikimori girl could provide a new "girl of the year" in anime. Well, it provided as such. I think what makes Shikimori an interesting character is that she's never portrayed as a helpless girl that needs help with everything. In fact, it's the opposite, it's her boyfriend Izumi that is more of the damsel in distress. She comes to his rescue all the time from the smallest things to major things that happen; her friends, her classmates, and even Izumi often reference how she comes across as the Prince Charming more often then not. Like I said, Izumi has to be rescued a lot, and that is because he has tremendously bad luck like if something bad is going to happen, it will happen to him, and it always did to the point that his childhood was miserable. That all changed when he met Shikimori (there's an episode about it so I don't want to give it away) but these two come off as perfect together, she saves him all the time and is always there for him and her goal was to re-invent herself as a cute & cool person for high school, which Izumi saw before anyone else. Their side cast in the show are their best friends: Nekozaki (an athletic and competitive crazy girl), Hachimitsu (a lazy shut in), and Inuzuka (a very chill guy and someone that Shikimori sees as a rival for Izumi's affection even though the two are just best buds). Then there's one other important character that I can't speak too much about without blabbing about the story. Each side character brings a great part to this series and honestly, if you don't have great characters who compliment each other, then a slice of life show (which is also a rom-com but still) doesn't play out well. The show is beautifully animated, well acted, the music fits perfectly, I just genuinely enjoyed this show. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10 TRAPPED IN A DATING SIM: THE WORLD OF OTOME GAMES IS TOUGH FOR MOBS As someone who's played dating sims. both the guy with girl choices and the girl with guy choices, this was a show I had to check out. Totally worth it. Basically a guy is forced to play and beat an otome game (dating sim where you are the girl and there are routes for all the guys) for his sister, getting all the routes and ends, before she gets back because she wants to hear all about it. He stays true to his word and does it, but when he goes outside to take a break, he trips down his stairs and well.....dies. He wakes up as an incredibly insignificant "noble" in the world of the otome game he just played; a mob character, whose life it is to just be in the background. Unfortunately, with the knowledge of this entire world, that's not exactly what happens. Despite his claim to always being a mob character, he consistently involves himself in the lives of the otome games story. He is confused though because Olivia, the games female protagonist, ISN'T the lead and it's some small girl named Marie; what he doesn't know is that Marie also came from his world and has the same knowledge so she just managed to insert herself in the same role that Olivia was in and make the Prince and his crew fall in love with her instead. Well, Olivia becomes fast friends with Leon for Bartfort, and you can obviously tell there is something there on both sides but Leon specifically says in his head he won't make any kind of move because he's just a mob character and Livia is supposed to be with one of the five main guys. He also then steps up and becomes champion for Angelica Redgrave, who was the Prince's fiancee, and all she wanted was for Marie to stop twisting his thoughts; again getting involved in main character plots even though it wasn't a mob's place. The thing is, he uses the games knowledge to get through so many obstacles that should be impossible for someone in his station to get through; and it leads to him progressing higher and higher in the noble ranks because he passes off the credit to others but the high ranking families know exactly that their sons haven't done anything and it's all Leon's doing. The show is full of a lot of funny moments, a lot of great things, some mech fights if you like that, some romance, and I really enjoyed the show. HIGH RECOMMEND - 8.5/10 THE GREATEST DEMON LORD IS REBORN AS A TYPICAL NOBODY A reincarnation of a Demon Lord anime, which I don't know if it's a full on trend yet but with this and Misfit Academy I see that it could become one. The thing is I really like the reason behind the reincarnation of Varvatos into Ard Meteor; having to kill his only friend because she was cursed, he couldn't take the loneliness and died to be reborn in an age where he'd be able to make friends. Which he does when he's a young lad, Ireena, a young elf girl that has no friends and seems rather ostracized from everyone but becomes attached to Ard when he saves her. Fast forward to their joining a magic academy, seeing a young succubus girl Ginny, being bullied he decides to confront the bully in a duel. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't expecting his reincarnation to be so soon that his teacher would be one of his former subordinates, who almost immediately figures it out, when she sees him use a massive spell called Giga Flare and double casts a protection spell on the kid he used it on; apparently no one has double casted since Varvatos' era and no one has used that spell except him. Things and knowledge he had no idea about. Then moving forward another of his subordinates, Sylphie, is told by another of his subordinates that Ard is Varvatos and so she joins the academy to test this out; he tries to dispel the notion but in a sword fight he basically gives himself away. There are a lof of enemies Ard has to deal with in his secret form, where he merges Ard with his best friend Lydia's soul to create a "new Varvatos" that he can use, some of which you don't expect to be enemies and some that are very clearly world destroying enemies. You find out a lot about each character along the way based on small stories they are told and you find out the most about Ard/Varvatos when they are sent to the past when Varvatos is still alive and so is Lydia. I urge anyone who likes fantasy shows to give this a shot, especially if you like that overpowered magic and Demon Lord stuff. RECOMMENDED - 8/10 LOVE AFTER WORLD DOMINATION What if you were a Power Ranger and you fell in love with and then started a relationship with your worst enemy ?? That is essentially the premise of Love after World Domination. Fudo, the Red Gelato "Ranger" of Gelato 5, falls in love with Desumi, the "Reaper Princess" of Gekko their mortal enemies. At first, she thought he was teasing him when he asked her out, tricking her because she had never had romance experience but after proving his sincerity they made it work. By constantly "fighting" each other during the Gelato 5 vs Gekko battles, Desumi and Fudo only have one or so regular dates, most of them are tricking either Gelato 5 or Gekko to going to an amusement park or whatever so they can sneak off with each other. It's a very sweet story of a meathead guy who's shown no interest in love in his life until the one person he finally does just happens to be one person he is ABSOLUTELY not allowed to. It's a Romeo & Juliet situation but HOPEFULLY if this has a light novel or manga that it really doesn't end the same way that story did. This story right now just has Desumi and her other Princess series friends doing things and Gelato 5 doing things and coming together in typical super Sentai battles fashion. I'm a BIG sucker for romance/rom-com shows and this one's funny mix of that Sentai thing makes it hilarious. All the characters are great in it on both the "good guys" and the "bad guys" side; honestly, if there wasn't such a "need to take over the world" from Gekko I could easily seeing them all work together as friends (even though a few of them are monsters). RECOMMENDED - 7.5/10 DATE A LIVE IV One thing I heard from a person whose opinion on anime I respect a lot because he's one of the people that got me into it, to the extent I'm at now anyways, is this he asked, "Do people actually still watch Date A Live??" Well the simple response is yes, a lot of people still watch Date A Live because this is Part 4 and spoiler (but not really a spoiler) but they immediately before the credits of the last episode just say Date A Live V in big font.....so there will be more. I think that the series is fantastic, yes it has some fanservice but I wouldn't expect a show where the hero, Itsuka Shido's goal of saving girls called Spirits by sealing their powers via their affection towards him to not have some. The nice thing about Date A Live is that while it can be considered or is considered a harem style show, it actually has a great story to it, and that is something that is incredibly rare. Date A Live IV was fantastic, each season they introduce new and interesting Spirits and they are always so creative and unique. This time we have Sister aka Nia Honjou, who is actually a famous mangika; she was captured by the bad guys DEM Industries, who tried to Invert her so they could use her powers for evil. Nia has the ability to use her book Raphael to find out just about anything she wants, which is extremely powerful. Then we meet Zodiac aka Mukuro Hoshimiya, who is a Spirit that is floating aimlessly in space and has shut herself off from the world. She has the ability to use her key and close off people's thoughts and other interesting abilities and movements. To me though, the stand out moment of this season is we find out more and more about Tokisaki Kurumi's plans and desires, why she wants to devour Shido, and I have to say that it is AMAZING and I love it. It's also why I can't wait until Date A Live V. So besides the great new story, this new season of the show has a completely new art style, some people might hate it but I love it; the colours pop, everything is vibrant and it is very pleasing to look at. It's a great new addition to the show. The other thing about this season is that they new Spirits are both acted incredibly well, their voice actresses do a great job bringing out these neat personalities. Though I'm just super jazzed about all this new stuff to do with my favourite character Kurumi. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10 KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR -ULTRA ROMANTIC- We start off the show with another banger of an opening theme song by Masayuki Suzuki, who's obviously huge in Japan, but what I love is that they've gotten him to do ALL the seasons of Kaguya-sama Love Is War. Let's move forward though, Ultra Romantic is the 3rd season of this super popular show, one that I really like myself. The comedy this season has ramped up even more than past seasons, the jokes are funnier, the moments are better. There's been new characters introduced like Shijo Maki, a relative of Kaguya, who make for interesting situations and more great comedy or serious spots depending on the situation. I like that more and more characters play a bigger role, Hayasaka has a huge role this season moreso than previously, as well as Shirogane's dad and his sister Kei. The biggest thing this season go around is that love actually seems to be in the air. We find out that our boy Ishigami has a massive crush on Tsubame, his senpai and leader of different clubs he's been in, but he sees her as rather out of his league and doesn't know how to proceed until being pushed by of all people, Kaguya, to make a move when he's ready. To do something before you regret never doing it. Which is something you can tell both Shirogane and Kaguya seem to understand this season, that high school is flying by and their just wasting it doing the silly games they've done over the past 2 seasons rather than just confessing and dating. The way the end plays out is great and having personally read the manga, I know where it's leading but I really like the anime and the way they've brought it to life; I always enjoy seeing pages brought to life. It's funny, sweet, great to watch, just enjoyable as a series. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10 THE RISING OF THE SHIELD HERO: SEASON 2 The Rising of Shield Hero returns with its second season following the adventures of The Shield Hero Iwatani Naofumi, this time with his name clear of the things in season one and being treated like the true hero he actually is, he sets off to meet Queen Melromarc along with Raphtalia, Filo, and new party member Risha (a former member of the Bow Hero's party). She tells Naofumi that one of the Sacred Beasts of the world, the Spirit Tortoise, has awakened prematurely and is now on a rampage and causing mass devastation; he agrees to help, while the three other Cardinal heroes refuse to help out. Armies of the world unite to take on the Spirit Tortoise, whom we we find out is being controlled by someone thanks to the Tortoise's familiar Ost Hourai. She becomes something of a temporary party member and speaking of temporary party members, who Naofumi's group finds in the tortoise, is even more surprising because they "team up again" with L'Arc, Therese, and Glass; surprising because last time they met they were told the next time they'd have to kill each other. The only way to truly stop the waves is for the Cardinal Heroes of their worlds to invade and kill each other, is what we knew about this beforehand but that has to be put on hold. Those 3 came to look for the man causing these problems, the Book Hero, Kyo Ethnina. After Naofumi and company battle him, they chase after him into his world, unfortunately this splits the party up; Filo is lost, Raphtalia becomes small again, and all of them are Level 1 again to top it all off they're locked in an inescapable prison. They find all this out from the Hunting Hero, Kizuna Kazayama, who's been stuck there for a couple years. Naofumi manages to get them all out and the race to stop Kyo is on. Raphtalia is seperated from them after this, she then becomes a hero herself, unintentionally after meeting L'Arc, Therese, and Glass while in prison. The show picks up the pace and the action this season, there's more grand set pieces, the story broadens it's scope with the new world the heroes went to, you see things you didn't expect, all of our favourite heroes get a boost, some new people become more important, it's a great season and I'm looking forward to the continuation whenever that is. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10
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AuthorThere's not much to say about me other than I'm an avid gamer, comic reader, sports fan, etc. just passionate about things I love. Archives
October 2022
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