#this sounds like a romcom harem in the making

[sluttyten]

Over the last few days I’ve been looking at a lot of Amazon kindle romance books for the Stuff Your Kindle deal that’s going on (ending today, I think) and I’m like loading up my kindle app with so much stuff 😂

[brucebocchi]

i can't believe i'm saying this but The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You is incredible.

it is the apotheosis of harem anime. it's peak trash. it makes rent-a-girlfriend look like nausicaa. i haven't seen an anime comedy this consistently insane since asobi asobase. it's like every romcom trope got fused together, became sentient, fell into a blender with the panera lemonade, and got mainlined directly into your eyeball.

and i want to be clear that this is 100% intentional. it's funny in all the ways it wants to be. it's meta and self-aware without getting all joss whedon about it, and it doesn't subvert expectations so much as it shoves your nose directly into them. it's basically sneering at you, "oh, you like harem anime? have all the harem anime in the world" like you're homer simpson being force-fed donuts in hell. it is as purely anime bullshit as anime bullshit gets, and it revels in that fact like a pig rolling in shit.

i caught up on girlfriend girlfriend so i could be up to speed on the second season, and this honestly puts it to shame. hyakkano does the harem comedy, the tropey characters, and even the genuinely sweet romantic moments so much better. it's also the first anime i've ever seen make use of the DJ airhorn sound effect, which is instant points in my book.

watch it. i'm serious.

[strawsoldier]

Summer 2024 Anime Round-Up

Supposed to come out last week but MHA and Monogatari decided to be weird and bleed over into next season (Not waiting for your final episode Monogatari)

Anime of the Season: "Oshi no Ko" Season 2

Best Opening: Tsuyogaru Girl (Makeine)

Best Ending: Burning ("Oshi no Ko" Season 2) & Kamakura STYLE (The Elusive Samurai)

Drops: Atri -My Dear Moments- & Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian

Plans to Watch at a later date: N/A

Completed:

Shoushimin Series - (9/10)

As it turned out the creator of Hyouka wasn't a "one hit wonder". (Though I don't know if they have other works outside of these two). Absolutely fantastic character study that can balanced being thoughtful, suspenseful and completely unhinged. I can't wait for S2 where we'll -hopefully- see Osanai finally punch someone.

Psuedo Harem - (7/10)

A anime with 'Harem' in the title that isn't trashy and is acutally...good? In today's society?

Been a while since I've seen a romcom this cute. Warning to any Saori Hayami fan watching this though. You definitely will fall in love with her more by watching this.

The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Archenemies - (9/10)

The circumstances surrounding this manga are tragic but that didn't take away from this being an very well produced shoujo series. Bones definitely sought out to honor the late mangaka with this production and it paid off in the direction and cinematography. Also, as I grow older, I can't help but appreciate 12 minute anime episodes; as rare as they are.

Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines! - (8.5/10)

The show I was most looking forward to every week. I don't think this writing was as smart as I thought it was, and lord knows I'm tired of light novels trying to be as meta as possible. But this show had a lot of heart and was very well directed for the director's (Shoutarou Kitamura) debut. Really hoping we get more of this someday.

Yatagarasu - (9/10)

My dark house of anime this cour. And maybe all year. This was one of my "Check it out cause it's getting good word of mouth" shows, and was instantly captivated. The world-building and character drama is so intense that every episode was exciting. My only critique would be how stiff the animation looked but from what I've gathered, this show was working with a rather small team at Pierrot. Please watch this show.

The Elusive Samurai - (6/10)

I really wanted to like this show more than I did. I was a huge fan of AssClass and a work from Cloverworks with Umehara as AniP? Sounds like a recipe for success. Unfortunately, this show didn't know what genre it wanted to be and it hampered my enjoyment quite a bit.

NieR:Automata Ver1.1a (Cour 2) - (8/10)

A2 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

(also I need to keep playing the game cause wtf was that final episode)

Wistoria: Wand and Sword - (7/10)

You can take the Black Clover out of Yoshihara but you can't the Yoshihara ou- uhhh.

Honestly I'm not sure how to write my feelings on this show outside of "Danmachi/Black Clover" love child. We will be there for S2

"Oshi No Ko" Season 2 - (10/10)

They told me Tokyo Blade arc was a peak fiction...At this point, my only fear is that OnK can only go downward from here.

Also everyone in this show needs therapy (though if you've seen one episode of this, you probably knew that already.)

Mission: Yozakura Family - (7/10)

Damn you Disney+!!! How many more shows must be put in your jail and remain hidden from the world. This show reminds me a lot of Hitman Reborn which maybe is why I stuck around to watch it till the end. It did get kind of dumb once they explained the powers but still very enjoyable.

Also shoutout to the ED "Kekkon Koushinkyoku" for being a really really cute ending that didn't make my favorite ED of the season, but still felt it worth mentioning.

My Hero Academia Season 7 - (8.5/10)

Usually when a show gets a new director it get's a decline in quality with the size of that decline varying from show to show. But sometimes, you get a new director that just knows what she's doing and takes MHA to some of it's best seasonal run since Season fucking Three back in 2018!!!!!

*cough* what I'm trying to say is "MHA IS FUCKING BACK"

Monogatari Series: Off & Monster Season - (8/10)

Fuck you monogatari for not finishing in time and delaying my round up. uhh anyway Monogatari is back and still as peak as ever. Nadeko and Shinobu are high up in my "best monogatari girls" tier list (Shinobu is actually no.1) so it was a treat to see them get focus again. Nadeko's arc high the hardest for me in what it means to confront and move on from you past. Just great writing once again. Can't add more than what I've been saying since Bake.

[ohbo-ohno]

book recs pls? U have amazing taste

im gonna assume this is half in reference to the lilith vincent book i mentioned earlier so i'll give you some of my favorite romances 💞 i tried not to rec a book i've already suggested here before, so some of my very favorites ever are left out!

the authors I'll read like literally anything by are Tessa Bailey, Lily Gold, Ana Huang, J.T. Geissinger, Elsie Silver, Harley Laroux, Rina Kent... and probably someone I'm forgetting tbh but those are some of my favs

also i got a little out of hand and these are kinda all over the place lmao, but here we go! my standards for romance are very low btw so don't judge my taste

Darker romances:

Sticking with Lilith Vincent - I love her books Brutal Intentions and (to a lesser extent) Pageant. Brutal Intentions is a step-dad romance, Pageant (the first of two books, I think the second is wayyy better) is like... dark, mafia, reverse harem, kidnapping, a whole lot tbh. Look up trigger warnings!!! I think she lists them at the start of the book

I don't particularly like H.D. Carlton (I very much so disliked Haunting/Hunting Adeline) but I fucking LOVED her book Does It Hurt? If you want fucked up characters, toxic relationships, noncon, and a pretty well-written subplot for a self-published romance I would recommend this one! (tbh I'm half convinced it's ghostwritten, I cant fathom Haunting Adeline and Does It Hurt? being written by the same person)

Sinners Anonymous & it's sequels by Somme Sketcher. Mafia romance. Age-gap. Kinda trashy but very fun imo. Also read Danielle Lori's Made series if that sounds neat to you!

M.L. Marian's Claimed & Tamed series. Each book follows a different man in the same family where the tradition is that men kidnap their wives. My favorite is Caught <3

Romcoms/Lighter stuff:

I like most Mariana Zapata books, but my favorite is either Under Locke or Luna and the Lie. I've read 7 of her books and they're all basically the same structure with the same characters, so if you read one and like the dynamics you'll probably like her others

One Percent of You by Michelle Gross is my favorite single mom romance of all time. Tattoo artist who hates kids falls in love with his over-worked neighbor who's a single mother of two. SO cute and soft

Bittersweet by Morgan Elizabeth. tattoo artist x baker, this is one of my favorite romcoms ever.

Sunny Disposition by Deanna Gray. Amnesia, college, hockey, roommates to lovers, this is a very soft and fun read that I enjoyed as a bit of a palette cleanser. Iirc it was a little long, but a good time

Other??:

When a Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare. I don't like historical romance much, but this doesn't really feel like one to me! A woman makes up a soldier to write letters to so she can avoid getting married, and years later he shows up on her doorstep ready for their wedding. This is so much fun

Transcendence by Shay Savage - two words for you: Caveman Romance. This is told entirely from the caveman's perspective and tells the story of him meeting a woman who's very odd (because she's from the future) and their life together. It drags a little bit at times, but I think it's so so fun and the end had me crying

King by TM Frazier goes a little off the rails, but I had fun with it. The main character is called 'Pup' for like 90% of the book and that was enough for me. Our FMC has amnesia and is taken in by a local gang leader and the plot goes from there

Under His Heel by Adara Wolf - ok before I say what this is about, I cannot overstate how dark and fucked up this book series is. They're disturbing. I loved them, I've read them all at least twice, but they are deeply upsetting. It takes place in space in the far distant future and follows our main character Alex as he becomes an indentured servant for a sociopath named Captain Tracht. These books are a weird mix of porn and plot, but if you want fucked up smut and fucked up relationship dynamics, this is the holy grail

[just-antithings]

My favorite romcom manga just got an anime announced!!

It's about a dude who gets told by God "I fucked up bro. You are 100 different women's soulmate, and if you and your soulmate don't get together you both die of heartbreak, so you're boned, my bad"

And dude is like "I'll simply love all of them"

It's a parody of harem romances, it's super wholesome, all the women are interesting characters with lives outside the romance, and there's EVERY kind of het ship you could want (plus a little yuri as a treat)

You want tsundere? We got plenty of em to go around

You want old lady age-reversed into loli? Right over here sir

Mommy gf? Oh yeah we have like 3 of those

Masochist athlete? Mad scientist? WWII veteran? 6 foot tall muscular farmer girl who is a cinnamon roll? Teacher who is obsessed with American culture and dresses like a cowboy? Drunk and depressed 20-something who lives in a tent behind the school?

Think of a type of woman and this story has it, and they're all dating the same 16-year-old dude and he becomes literally superhuman in pursuit of the necessary skills and power to make all of them happy

Title is "The 100 Girlfriends Who Really Really Really Really Really Love You"

sounds amazing i love it

[warm-soda-solutions]

LN loser guy anime

watched the first episode Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines! because the art looked nice and i heard that it was sort of a parody rather than the typical boring wish fulfillment slice of life romcom and i thought it was pretty good overall! i mainly didn't watch this earlier because the title made it sound like self-insert harem garbage, but i think it's interesting that the whole LN angle to this is clearly from the protagonist's perspective specifically since it frames those elements as a fantasy that the protagonist has rather than just the fantasy that the show is providing for the viewer. like the protagonist here is kind of this mid, cringe, nerdy high school guy like a lot of protagonists in these sorts of shows are, but he feels a lot more like an actual person at that stage of his life where it's fine to be sorta cringe in the way that he is since he's still growing up. the show doesn't seem (so far) to bend over backwards to make the fantasy he has in his head into the reality he experiences, although he clearly has a somewhat skewed view of the situation he's in because of that fantasy and i'm curious to see where it goes. the show seems to have a theme of teen romances being pretty much ephemeral so i'm hoping that applies to him just as much as everyone else in the show since it would fit better with the semi-grounded vibes of the show than just everything going his way. in short, i like that nobody is instantly in love with him for no reason and that he's written like an actual person with a personality instead of a bland audience surrogate that you're supposed to self insert into.

also helped that i thought the whole situation with yanami was pretty funny and where i felt the parody aspects were the strongest.

also the ed was absolutely gorgeous! this and shoshimin are definitely winning for me in that department this season. definitely watching more!

[tavina-writes]

8 shows to know you

I saw @jaimebluesq make a post about this, and I was like "oh... that sounds so interesting I want to make one" so here I am. This goes in chronological order of when I watched these and they ended up in my brainspace. (I also wanted to make an entirely cdrama list because !!!! cdrama lives in my brain rent free and has since I was a kid.)

Legend of the Condor Heroes - 1983

This is the classic version of LOCH! Made by TVB in the 80s! Turned a whole generation of people into HYS apologists bc this show was written by HYS apologists. Beloved (kind of evil) Wuxia Dilf and Petty Conwoman Daughter remains beloved and cute in my heart. My love for them is >10000.

2. The Eloquent Ji Xiaolan - 2001-2009

The inherent comedy of these three! This series remains one of my childhood favorites and honestly kudos to the actors there's like 145 episodes of this Qing Dynasty political corruption show. (Also there was drama once because my dad lent out the dvds of the third series of this show that he'd bought in Beijing and carried back to the US in a suitcase to a so called "friend" and they straight up never gave it back.)

3. Scarlet Heart/Bu Bu Jing Xin/Startling By Each Step - 2011

One of the most UE UE UE of dramas AND one of the most banging soundtrack OSTs. Tell me that listening to Ivy Yan's "Three Inches of Heaven" 三寸天堂 does NOT make one UE UE UE into the nearest Kleenex.

4. The Story of Yanxi Palace - 2018

In my opinion, theee palace harem drama. As this poster explains there are only like two men in this drama. It's like the opposite of a danmei this drama is so sapphic vibes and I have so many ships and it's NOT FAIR NOT FAIR NOT FAIR. Anyway the reason I could get through this one when I have to persuade myself to think long and hard about Qing dynasty dramas in general is because there's really only 2.5 men here and they wear hats sometimes so I can ignore that they're bald. IN ANY CASE: WATCH YANXI.

5. The Story of Minglan - 2019

I watched this show as it came out and I think it's forever altered my brain chemistry when it comes to writing about historical women and also thinking about history and writing in general. There are no words to describe how much I love this show. The force of 100000 suns. THIS SHOW. I rewatch it almost every year and have since it came out, and honestly like, there are new things to discover every time I watch it. This is an amazingly well put together production and it deserves every episode it has and more.

6. Love and Destiny - 2019

It will be a very long time before they make a xianxia show like Love and Destiny again, with all the lush gorgeous visuals and the lavish costumes plus the classic xianxia reincarnation identity reveal plotline. This was a big budget production and it shows in how absolutely beautiful it looks. I love the main ship in this so much, but I also really really really love the mortal arc of this show (and honestly mortal arcs are kind of ehhh for me overall so anyway this show banging.)

7. The Untamed/CQL - 2019

While this came out in 2019, I was deep in my Minglan-L&D era at that point and did not listen to @autumnslantern who tried to get me to watch this until around like, March of 2022. Which probably is a mistake because now I'm a NHS apologist which could've happened sooner but like, here we are. Beloved flop man....

8. Love Between Fairy and Devil - 2022

This was my favorite show of the past year. This is a xianxia, which looks like it's a fun tropey romcom between star crossed lovers until it sneaks up on you and starts shanking you with a knife. And then you thank it for shanking you. and giving you feels. Anyway I'm so glad I watched this and WHILE the mortal arc is full of clowns....this is just a SHOW.

tagging @shadaras , @fortune-maiden, and @autumnslantern!

[animedegens]

A few things I’ve watched so far! (A thread)

1. Red Cat Ramen: Really fun & Cute shows about cats running a ramen shop! This show seems like it’s going to be dialogue and character interaction heavy! Love the attention to detail such as the “cat hair policy”. VA cast is phenomenal. One of my faves after ep 1

Who doesn’t like Nekos?

2. My wife has no emotion: really cute artstyle! I like Mina (the robot), She’s interesting! I’d like to see them dive into how she’s able to use the internet to change like she has.

Male MC is a bit cringe at times.. he makes me feel like I’m watching a Tamer version of RAG. This has been a semi funny show so far! Def towards the bottom of my list rn!

I want to see the other characters interact with them now!

Love the OP, it’s a bop & it fits the show w/ a robotic feel

3. Days w/ My Stepsister

Pretty good 1st ep! It seems like they wanna be serious & not just do it because it’s funny or taboo. Also seems like they wanna touch on the more serious side of things & show the issues that come from 2 older teens starting to live together all of a sudden.

Both MCs seem to have their own issues with themselves. I hope they stay true to what they showed us in the 1st ep & it might accidentally be a decent rom-drama. 50% chance of anime anime-ing

4. Psuedo harem

VA Saori Hayami (Yor & Yukino) shows off that she can do any trope style in this one!

Super fun, esp since Rin is basically a one girl harem act! But she’s not the only outstanding VA! Eiji’s VA (Bakugo & Himmel) really puts on a great performance in the 1st ep too! This should be a fun romcom!

5. Senpai is an otokonoko

One thing that really stands out is their use of the simplistic chibi art style when they’re trying to be funny or drive home a point. I love it!

I’m kinda wondering how deep they’re gonna get with this one? Is it just gonna be a lighthearted romcom? Or is it gonna dive deeper into acceptance & bullying? It’s also fun to note that 2 out of the 3 MCs have both male & female Japanese VAs according to anilist!

6. Alya sometimes hides her feelings in Russian

Really cute art style & show! I like Kuze, maybe bc he stays up late watching anime & playing games. Sounds familiar lmao.

Kinda hope they don’t go too crazy with fan service tho. But I also love that he knows what she’s saying in Russian. Which makes me wonder, who is the Russian girl he used to play with? Pretty funny romcom so far!

7. Failure Frame

It’s the typical weakest class loner dude isekai…

But I do like a decent underdog story. I love seeing them prove all the egotistical bullies wrong lmao.

But, this one is gonna be hit or miss, cause the monsters so far has been noticeably bad.. so I wanna see how they handle the fighting… we shall see!

😈 I’ll have more 1st episode thoughts soon!!

[translationandbetrayals]

The Hikikomori

The noun "Hikikomori" identifies both a phenomenon and the individual who tends to isolate himself socially, and primarily affects adolescents or young adults who lock themselves in their rooms for six or more months. Some of the reasons for this tendency are: Disappointment due to family, personal or social conflicts, social phobia or social anxiety problems. It can also be caused by agoraphobia, avoidance disorders, extreme shyness or experiences of bullying or social rejection.

The anime

These Japanese cartoon-like cartoons are the representation on the big screen of many of the famous stories that we can read in the manga. But it's not as simple as it sounds, not like some simplistic and stereotypical occidental animated movie, you could argue that anime has more depth to itself. Although anime can be deep, there's also more plain arguments in it, specially in a genre like romantic comedy and harem.

The link between the two of them in Japan's today's society

Anime fans in general can generate dopamine by seeing how beautiful it can look sometimes. But many of those times we can come across content that only shows unreal situations, false representations of life, how perfect and easy it may seem that the protagonist will get everything right no matter what mistakes he/she makes. There are different thoughts that may cross the minds of young people when watching this type of content. That's when the hikikomoris (or social rejects in general) start to think. Why can't I be like that? Their life is far from it, many men and women do not have the grace that a romcom character can have, nor the bravery of a hero, nor the intelligence of a protagonist with a giant brain. Reality can become much heavier, even horrible if you also do not meet the standards of beauty imposed by society, for example. Hikikomoris may recognize that what anime shows is unreal, but in their eyes, they can't do anything about it, and they won't take away the pleasure of watching these stories depicted in anime that may seem so beautiful.

It is worth noting that, seeing the massive sales that anime can achieve, much of that money does not come from a place of pure appreciation for anime, but also from an epidemic of youthful loneliness that is far from over and is growing everyday.

Anime needs to reinvent itself once again, not only for the sake of Japan's hikikomori, but for all of the youth around the world. People need to start living their life again without fear of being themselves.

~~Benjamín Pino Parra

[locria-writes]

OK if you don't want to write a fic how about a description of what Vezian Lulu and Launcelin would be like as serial killers? What's their method? What's their preferred type of victim? Is Mc a victim or their sextoy captive? Would they get caught or end in some gruesome way?

that’s not fair anon you can’t ask me these questions and expect me to have the self-control to not let this consume my life smh

launcelin

method of killing? poison! specifically, chronically poisoning his victims :D

victims? okay this sounds really bad, but he’s probably a kind of bluebeard and kills his s/o. throwback to when launcelin was originally an antagonist, likes ‘vulnerable’ girls, basically anyone who makes him feel like he’s wanted and loved until they go against the ideal he’s built up of them lol or he just murders ppl who remind him of his dad idk maybe both

mc would totally be his little plaything lmao, and probably his favourite one yet is she really a victim let’s be honest for a sec

i feel like he’d never get caught tbh. he looks and acts too put-together, and can play the grieving widower act very well. more likely to lock mc up rather than kill her

vezian

method? idk but smth violent, but still kinda elegant? like two bullets to the head to make sure the job is done?

victims? 100% ppl who remind him of his dad lol. he’s gotta take out those daddy issues somehow

mc’s totally not a victim!! she just happened to catch his eye and he just happened to kidnap her and lock her in some shady shed. he’s probably not kill her okay. she voluntarily stays there after he politely asked her to :D

would totally get caught bc he gets too angry and too impulsive when he’s emotional, and i feel like his type of victim particularly irks him lol

lu’anyu

method? whatever’s the most convenient for him lol. doesn’t really care about it that much, but definitely has a preference for more visually gruesome and theatrical methods

victims? anyone who so much looks at mc wrong is on his kill list lol. he’s totally that yandere villain in shoujo who’s all like “won’t divulge my feelings but i’ll kill anyone who loves her”

mc’s not technically a victim! has no intentions of directly hurting her in any way and is very much her #1 fan and supporter except when he’s murdering her suitors lmao

idk i feel like he might get caught eventually? or maybe no idk lulu can lie like there’s no tomorrow

[natsspammityspamspamham]

Why You Should Watch Romantic Killer

This is the new anime series that premiered on Netflix a few days ago! Before you inevitably cancel your subscriptions, give this show a go! Trust me, it'll all be worth it! (I'm personally riding on my sibling's Netflix, so I got to watch it officially!)

Edit: I think it’s important to mention since it’s in the very nature of the show that nobody is actually forced to fall in love with Anzu or vice-versa. It’s all purely consensual in terms of that even though the wacky circumstances are not.

I even made gifs for this post just to convince you, reader of this post!

Story

A high schooler named Anzu Hoshino is living the life. She has games, chocolate, and a cat named Momohiki. One day, her life is turned upside down by the devil-- I mean wizard, Riri. Riri confiscates her three most prized possessions with the ultimate ultimatum: Fall in love or live life without your most cherished commodities. Living in this awful world, Anzu swears to not fall in love out of pure spite for this arrangement and for Riri, but unfortunately, Riri has plans in store that might make things harder than they seem. (source: me)

For such a nonsensical story, it fricking works. I like it. As someone who's aroace, I feel this. I really do. I don't object romance, but I sure am not looking for it, and I would be pissed and spiteful too if my belongings were taken.

Characters

Anzu is so much fun. She has got to be my favourite reverse harem protagonist of all time. Her reactions to everything are absolutely priceless, and I love how they incorporate random references. I never thought I'd see Kazuo Umezu face incorporated into a fricking romcom! Characters like her and Bakarina make the genre worth watching (even if Bakarina is too... baka at times). I want everyone to experience this anime without me giving too much away.

The side characters are good in their own right. Sure, Riri is annoying, but that's kind of the point. They canonically don't have a gender so the "they/them" pronouns were used in the subtitles I'm pretty sure. Tsukasa is pretty cold, and I felt indifferent about him until I found out his reasoning for being like that in the last few episodes, and let me just say, whatever you're expecting, it's probably not going to be that. I've never seen a show handle that type of situation for men quite like this RANDOM ROMCOM did. It puts its male characters into situations where they don't need to be strong, and they aren't criticized for it. That right there is positive masculinity. I like it. It diverts the idea of traditional macho masculinity, especially those of archetypes in dating sims. The characters and their dynamics actually seem pretty natural for such an unnatural situation and setting.

Music

Yooo, that soundtrack fricking fits. I like it. Sure, it doesn't stand out, but with the absurdity of this series, I'd be lying if I didn't laugh when a certain string track came on. I don't even think that was the point (I think it's supposed to be when the audience swoons).

That ending theme fricking slaps harder than it needs to. I watched the opening once. Look, that opening skip button is so tempting. I only watched the ending once, but it was the background music for the voice actor interviews, so I got to know it better.

Voice acting

YOOOO, THIS IS THE PART I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT. Sure, they hired your local "ikemen" to play the "ikemen" characters, but can we talk about Rieri for a second? She makes this show good. Her and Mikako Komatsu apparently auditioned in a pair, and you can see, hear, and feel that chemistry. It is absolutely fantastic. Not many anime have had me laughing out loud, but I kid you not, I laughed a few times watching this. And yes, Umehara and Gakuto did sound good. I will give them credit where it's due. They did fulfill the ikemen part really well. Almost too well.

Art

You know what? Even though the art was pretty mediocre, I'm going to give it a pass. It's hard to make a coloured manga. And it's hard to make an anime look good. Plus, they probably spent all of the budget on Anzu's face to the point where the guys look mediocre at best and can only be given "ikemen status" based on their voices alone.

Conclusion

I get why this anime might be a bit mixed in the aroace community, but I think we should enjoy media as it's handed to us. And what was handed to us is a genuinely good show that requires zero brain cells until the last half! Zero brain cells? That's me too!

Unlike most of the shows that I watch, I will rewatch this. Without a doubt. I'm rewatching it as we speak. Even for specific moments that made me laugh.

[sscrambledmeggss]

what are some of your favorite romance animes? I haven't really watched any, and I trust your taste ✨

JDDJJD THIS ASK HAS MADE ME SO HAPPY THANK YOU <3

Shoujo animes are a mess BUT they are my mess so it’s okay 💖 I haven’t watched a few of these in years, so I might be masked by nostalgia but shoujo animes are all about having a good time at the end of the day, and I’m pretty sure these will give that to you 🕺

Fruits Basket (2019):

Genres: romantic comedy, supernatural, drama, slice of life

Length: 3 Seasons, 63 episodes in total (+ a movie, but I don’t like the relationship in the movie so I don’t talk about it 🥰)

Okay okay, so like the plot to fruits basket out of context sounds like wild heterosexual bullshit. BUT I SWEAR, it is such a wholesome show, and it’s probably my favorite shoujo anime. It’s even complete with soap opera drama on occasions 😫 (I would definitely look up triggerwarnings though!)

Synopsis: orphan girl moves in with three guys, they are secretly furries 🤨 (aka they are cursed so when the opposite gender hugs them, they turn into the Chinese zodiac animals 😭) surprisingly this is not a reverse harem anime, and you actually want her to live with the guys 🤨 it also like handles toxic family relationships, and grief really well. It also has a lot of queer coded characters 😭 2001 is a lot goofier, but 2019 is way more dramatic, and actually has the full series. :)

ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki Kun:

Genres: parody, romantic comedy, slice of life

Length: 12 episodes

This one is really fun!! It’s also very cute.

Synopsis:

Sakura Chiyo has a crush on this guy Umetarou Nozaki, and somehow ends up joining his manga team? Nozaki basically writes shoujo manga under the pen name, ‘Sakiko Yumeno’. He’s actually really open about it, but nobody believes him. 🦧 anyway she basically just gets to meet his team, and it’s a really fun and cute time <3

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Ouran High School Host Club:

Genres: drama, romantic comedy, harem (but like it affects nothing, they are all mainly besties)

Length: 26 episodes

This is really unsurprising 🦧 BUT it’s a really fun time. A lot of things haven’t aged well in it, but for its time it really was changing things. Its a very episodic, romcom, making fun of a lot of common shoujo tropes, while still acknowledging that it’s basically the same thing it’s parodying.

Synopsis: Haruhi Fujioka is a scholarship student, at a big fancy school. She accidentally breaks a vase, and it puts her in debt with one of the clubs. Which happens to be a host club?? 🦧 so now she has to dress up as a guy and flirt with women <3 basically everyone is a stereotype, and it actively is making fun of rich people. 😭

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Yona Of The Dawn:

Genres: romance, high fantasy, adventure

Length: 24 episodes + 3 OVA

Admittedly I haven’t watched this one in years, but I remember absolutely loving it. And luckily a friend of mine has watched it like this year, and she loved it as well. So I’m hoping that means it stands the test of time LOL.

Synopsis: Princess girly gets a reality check, and now has to girlboss too close to the sun <3 but it’s very fun. (This is all I can say without giving spoilers ig 🦧)

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Snow White With The Red Hair:

Genres: fantasy, romance

Length: 2 seasons, 24 episodes in total + 1 OVA

I also haven’t watched this one in years, BUT I remember being obsessed with it. Sometimes I still check in on the manga to see what’s going on, I do not understand what’s going on. 💖 it’s very relaxed and cute though. And also nobody is in high school, which is always a good change 🦧

Synopsis: Shirayuki is a pharmacist who gets proposed to by a prince for straight up just having red hair?? 🦧 doesn’t want to marry said prince, so she then cuts off her hair, and runs away.

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My Love Story!!:

Genre: romantic comedy

Length: 24 episodes

This one from what I remember is really wholesome from what I recall :)

Synopsis: basically a guy who is seemingly “scary” is actually really sweet, like he’s not even a bad boy. He’s like anime equivalent season two Sam Evans. Gets a girlfriend, and the whole plot is just them being cute + the guys best friend being their bestie.

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Kamisama Kiss:

Genres: romantic comedy, supernatural

Length: two seasons, 25 episodes in total + 2 OVA

OKAY, so this one is a very good time from what I remember :) it’s main flaw is that the girl is in high school, and her main love interest is immortal?? So like an Edward Cullen type beat 😍

Synopsis: a girl ends up homeless (this is a very prominent trope if you can’t tell 🦧), and she runs into this guy, who kisses her on the cheek?? Turns out he’s a god, and has just given her his god title? So she’s just a god now. And she has to go to his shrine, and do god things?? And his old familiar (which is basically like if instead of working for Jeff Bezos, he just adopted you 🦧) isn’t very happy about it.

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Anyways they are very much fun to watch <3 even if a lot of the time there’s a lot of “🤨” moments in shoujo anime, (they have an awful age gap issue) but they have been a very long time guilty pleasure of mine LOL. My friend and I have been purposely watching the bad ones, because they are equally as fun as the good ones.

[otakumagicmusicgamer]

Spoilers Ahead for the first season of My Next Life As A Villianess <3

Oh where to begin. First of all, when the summary said it was a comedy of misunderstandings, I got scared. I have really bad second hand embarrassment and it’s a very fine line of Dense Misunderstandings For Comedy and A Cringefest of Pain For “Comedy” (even playing an anxiety spiral itself for laughs). But oh! How I was happily surprised! It really goes with the flow and doesn’t rely on ridicule or anything. There’s just Catarina, dense weird wonderful Catarina, and everyone in some fashion accepts her for her. So this is actually pleasant to watch!

Now, Catarina- what a delight. What makes her interesting is she takes Fortune Lover Catarina and humbles her. Takes selfish and mean and spins it 180. If she puts out mean into the world, it comes back at her in the end. She knows she has the potential for a ‘scary face’ and actively chooses not to use it. And her feelings on the matter are not just for survival, theyre genuine too. But what makes this fascinating is her lack of accounting for things *not* in the game. She doesn’t consider, by blazing a new path in the game -where Catarina is nice- that new ‘routes’ form. She focuses on Maria’s pov so much, she doesn’t see her own. She doesn’t see the good she’s put out, cuz she’s supposed to be the antagonist. She’s so focused on the doom flags, she doesn’t realize there *are* no doom flags. There’s nothing for the game to doom, no punishment for cruelty. What’s more, even by taking the place of ‘The Suitors’ in scenes with Maria, she doesn’t consider /any of them/ having feelings for her. (Geordo kisses her neck for crying out loud.) Why? Because Catarina Claes is not a romanceable character in Fortune Lover. There are a lot of paths, but she is not one of them. She has no successful romantic relationship, nor any. Which makes this whole anime downright Fascinating. By taking out the antagonist, there is no doom. By inserting a reborn earnest friendly kind tree-climbing high school girl in her place, there is no Fortune Lover. The fact that she is aware of Fortune Lover makes her almost omnipresent, and putting all her points into Survival and Durability and Craves Sweets and nothing else, makes her human. No high marks, denser than bricks, but damn if she ain’t the prettiest embodiment of a Nokia phone. She’d be an apocalypse survivor. “How did she survive a landslide in a volcano? Idk it’s Catarina.” Oh, and the last scene? The friendship ending? Yeah, she’s not wrong. It is a friendship ending.... for Maria. She ends up with none of the interests and stays good friends with them, no bad blood or nothing. Cuz again, Catarina isn’t a love interest. It just so happens that the entire company present in the area is so fucking in love with her that they say the Line Of Romance to her and, while they may bicker, they do not hold bad feelings for each other. If all of them could be married to Catarina and live in a big ol house together, they’d be so fuckin content. And best part? None of this is condemned. No “ya gotta pick one and only one”. They saw a harem and went ‘ya know? Let’s embrace this’ and now the characters r so chill with their plant growing, tree climbing gf. (I’m sure her mother wishes *something* good could rub off on Catarina lol) You hear that? That’s the sound of a Polyamorous nerd feeling validated. (It’s me, I feel validated by this Polyamorous romcom anime, this is my home now)

My thoughts on the rest of the cast aren’t going to be as long. The anime does a good job of going through each characters thoughts and arcs. And I adored Anne’s POV on things as well, how she is also moved to tears by Catarina’s good heart. Even her mother, who is harsh but only because she cares. (I would have loved to see the look on her mother’s face when she was in the coma, how she would have grieved, what she would have reflected on. Her father is a bit more transparent in emotions, but he would have been great to see too). I also would have loved to see Mary and Maria in the book of desire. I figure Maria would kinda be like Alan, but oh, what would Mary have done? (Guess I need fanfiction to answer that lol.) Keith’s role as a love interest for Catarina is the only least liked thing I have on here. And honestly it’s cuz they keep *calling* them brother and sister. I know they’re not actually siblings, mostly that’s left over from Fortune Lover, and “distant relative” can and is shorthand for a lot of things so like it’s even possible they aren’t related at all. And the characters don’t find it horrible that he loves her, and probably know he’s a Distant Relative so they’re like whatevs. So like, it’s not incest. It’s not even as potently close to incest as anime can get. But it’s the only thing that could be deemed a Flaw about this anime, so it stands out. I do wish the ending couple of eps could have been a little more Maria, and her having a bit more importance in general. Also her light magic having an effect a bit in the ‘fight’ with Sirius. Although I do want to think the green glow of hope was Maria, tho I’m pretty sure the assumption is Acchan.

Which btw can I say was an absolute treat? I suspected something was up with Sirius but I did not suspect that. I wonder what his base magic is, if it isn’t dark magic? I had thought he saved Sophia and Catarina and thus also had wind/light magic. But oh man, when he started lashing out on Catarina cuz he thought she was also faking kindness? That she was purposely saving people? That a part of his resentment of nobles was being projected? That somewhere he also caught Feelings and thus the mage doubled down on his control? That when Catarina looked at Sirius and touched his hand and face, her (Nerd™️) instincts kicked in and pieced everything together and also saw him in such pain and misery? That she holds herself to the antagonist title, that she’s there to ruin and thus can’t *save* anyone, (a bittersweet sentiment) so she’s not intimidated by the burst of dark magic and just honestly wants his friendship and sit with him through his pain? MY HEART! IT SCREAMS! (I love this sort of dynamic yes Ive loved Fruits Basket for years don’t look at me like that).

What else.... the little peppering in the fact that Oh Yeah She’s Dead hit like a truck. The little bit with her family, of her past life? Yeah, ouch. Got me crying. Don’t think to much into that rabbit hole, you’ll get sad. I fucking ADORE the twist of Sophia being Acchan, or at least part of her. Her being so scared of loosing her best friend (and love of her life) again? Yeah, tears man. Catarina accidentally mending the relationships between Geordo and Alan and Maria and her mother was great. Having Mary and Sophia dance with Catarina at her birthday party was a delightful touch, as was not having all the romance novels be m/f, and none of it was a joke or negatively placed- just *there*. I do enjoy the interests butting heads with each other over private time with Catarina. It was mostly Geordo and Keith (“they’re such good friends” girl if they had a tenth of lil Alan’s Fight Me energy you’d have to put them on leashes) but I loved the little bits of Geordo vs Mary and Sophia cheering on Nicol and I reeeeally hope to see more of that. To provoke subtle sass from Alan and Maria would be a great sight, and more of Raphael joining the ranks. I laugh at all the times they mutter “gotta protect her, she’s seduced another one” cuz like, girl ain’t doing shit but running into people that happen to be Moron-sexual, holding their hand and refusing to leave. And they KNOW that. And it’s great. edit: HOW COULD I FORGET HER MAGIC! God I want Catarina to get better at magic. More than just Earth Bumps pls

All in all? I love this anime. 9.5/10. Tis good stuff. And if ya read all my late night/oops it’s 4am ramblings, good on you! I feel bad tagging this cuz it’s long but I’m also on mobile so god knows what this actually looks like but I needed my thoughts down so hey, thanks

[cavesalamander]

My brief thoughts on this season of anime!

Just a quick review of the ones I’d recommend and/or keep watching. I managed to find all of the below on Funimation or Crunchyroll or Youtube!

Horymia: (Yes) This is looking to be a very funny romcom slice of life style anime, and seems to be a fairly good one! Had me laughing a lot. The Main couple are a nerdy quiet boy who’s actually dumb as a sack of bricks using his disheveled appearance to hide his tattoos and piercings, and a popular pretty girl who’s actually a total homebody. Their friends seem to have a lot of potential to be fleshed out as the series progresses and I look forward to seeing how it goes!

So I’m a Spider, So What?: (Yes) Whooo another isekai (excited)! This time a girl and her entire class!? Get isekai’d in a massive explosion. The main character reincarnates as a trash monster in a dungeon and must fight her way up the food chain just to survive. Meanwhile her friends who have mostly reincarnated as Cool Humans or the occasional elf or baby dragon, have mostly found each other, and want to figure out what happened/why and if they’re all okay. It’s genuinely pretty funny, though leans a little too hard sometimes on the gamey aspects of this new world. I think it may get darker as it goes along too.

Mushoku Tensei: (No) Whooo another isekai (derogatory). 34 yo old man gets reincarnated and uses his worldly experience to Learn Magic Fast and creep on his mom and prepubescent tutor. If you can stomach that stuff, it actually has a fair amount of potential? It did set itself up to touch on some interesting stuff down the road, but I’m kind of Over the horny toddler/young boy trope and it kinda just seems like the protagonist is Just Awesome At Everything but not in a remotely charming way.

Cells at Work Code Black: (Yes) If you liked Cells at Work, this is that but dingier, and is able to tackle some darker themes - like what stress, smoking, drinking, and probably eventually STDs can do to your body.

Kemono Jihen: (Yes) I don’t wanna explain TOO much about the plot of this one because it looks to be a mystery series, and the first episode sets it up the characters very very well. A man from the city is called to a rural town where animals are being mysteriously killed and found rotting. He’s tasked with finding and killing the perpetrator, assumed to be a monster of some kind. It does the horror very well, and even in the first episode manages some twistyness.

The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter: (No) Even for a blatant fan service anime this one is just......... stupid. It might have a scrap of joy to it if the protagonist were anything other than a boring sycophant. His harem just all seems to be random girls who’s singular personality traits are to be in love with him in various stereotypical ways, that he just uses to min max his Cool Stats. But like, it’s not even self aware enough to make that into an interesting premise.

Sk8: (Yes) It’s a racing anime that seems super stylish and fun and very well animated. The protagonists have some cool chemistry already, and it really leans into the Underground Illegal Racing part of the fun - all the various characters who battle in death defying races through this abandoned mine, all have seemingly ordinary day jobs. Definitely worth a shot if that sounds up your alley.

Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies moved to a starter town?: (Probably) Okay so the premise is just there in the title and is actually pretty fun. Think: a random NPC who is considered pretty weak where the monsters are lv 50 moving somewhere where the monsters are scary at lv 5, shenanigans ensue. The MC boy is hilariously oblivious to the fact that anyone with a shred of sense can see he’s insanely over leveled to the area, and just trying to be nice and polite to everyone ^u^. The tentative nature of my recommendation is that it is kind of leaning harder on the Girls are Obsessed With Him train than is ideal. How much it depends on that as opposed to utilizing the premise to its fullest extent will have an enormous bearing on how fun the show is to watch going forward.

Ex-Arm: (Absolutely not but yes) It’s a fucking train wreck.

Heavens Design Team: (Yes) God decided to outsource creating animals to a team of angels, and works as a client giving weird ass requests for the angels to fill. Hilarity ensues, and it is peak edutainment to boot. It’s so much fun learning weird shit about animals, or trying to guess the animal these seemingly random train of failed attempts leads to.

Dr. Ramune -Mysterious Disease Specialist-: (No) It has a promising premise and some good moments. The main characters are solving these weird “diseases” that people get by finding the actual emotional cause and using magic of some kind to monkey paw it into a resolution. This could be really fun and interesting, but something about the execution just... falls flat? Like maybe it picks up as the season goes on but for now it’s not rly worth it.

Vlad Love: (Yes) I was going through the list of anime this season and was like wtf is this and literally just now watched episode 1. It’s about a girl with a blood donation kink and her vampire girlfriend. Literally. It’s rly funny and over the top ridiculous but like, gay vampires.

Back Arrow: (No) It’s like... fine. It’s about these two warring kingdoms surrounded by a wall with a mountain range between. They worship the wall as god, and occasionally get gifts from beyond it, in the form of mech suits they use to fight each other in. One day a boy shows up from beyond the wall in one of those suits and no memories of anything and he wants to get back. Which... could be promising I guess? But something about the show just didn’t grab my attention.

Skate-Leading Stars: (No) It’s like Yuri on ice if it was less gay and less well written I guess...? The first episode set up the Drama competently enough, but I just... couldn’t give a shit.

Project Scard: (No) For some reason part of Tokyo has been turned into a post apocalyptic hellscape where people just murder each other. They also have super powered tattoos and use them to fight each other. Animation is very similar to Handshakers - which is an Aesthetic that may not appeal to some. The first episode didn’t rly do much for me but I could see it going somewhere if it tries.

Wave!!: (No) Might have been a tentative yes if I hadn’t gone on and watched the second episode. First ep went hard with the queerbaiting cause they want to be the new Free! but with surfing, but Ep 2 just forgot all about that entirely. Dialogue is mostly boring and there’s like 3 sets, which becomes painfully obvious very quickly by ep 2.

Idoly Pride: (No) Literally looks like they ripped off the waifus of a bunch of other more popular anime and made an idol anime with the most basic ass idol plot. Nothing exceptional here.

Gekidol: (undecided) It’s an idol anime... set after a mysterious apocalyptic event? It’s mostly so far seemed intriguing as hell but not my jam. Mysterious craters destroyed parts of Japan, and its rebuilding and the MCs wanna bring light to the world. Maybe aliens exist? Idk! I’m intrigued.

I*Chu: (No) Another idol anime but this time it’s cute boys! Idk maybe this is a decent idol anime but it rly didn’t grab me and idol stuff isn’t usually my jam. I couldn’t tell anything exceptionally unique about this one from just the first episode.

WIXOSS Diva: (No, but) I don’t normally watch spin-offs of series but I didn’t realize until halfway into this that it was one cause Crunchyroll didn’t attach it to the core line. It’s like... magical girl battle idols in VR! Which honestly if you’re a fan of that it might actually be worth checking out.(edited)

Idolls!: (No) Another idol anime! But this one uses mocap 3d models. Phoned in plot line delivered by a weird tiki statue that tells the girls what to do. Seems extraordinarily low budget, and more just a way to sell music. The whole episode happened in a single set and  was basically just... girls want to make it big as idols... oh no... gotta book a stage! Yay they got one! Now must get an audience! Like... ok

Hortensia Saga: (No but) Sword and sorcery fantasy setting that’s mostly sword, main character is a princess masquerading as a male knight alongside the son of her dead parents’s also dead bodyguard. The first episode is very lore heavy and felt kinda like the prologue to a video game. So it ended up feeling a little expository and trope laden, but it has potential. Seems a bit Game of Thronesy? Wasn’t like... bad or anything, so if it’s your thing you might enjoy it.

Otherside Picnic: (Yes) I think it’s gay first of all, two girls going exploring / treasure hunting / monster hunting in a bizarre mirror world to their own. Girls are cute, it’s very interesting premise and writing seems solid.

Wonder Egg Priority: (Yes) It deals with some HEAVY themes? But it’s... a bit of a psychological horror but in a way that feels very like it’s dealing with some of the real life issues. The main character girl comes across as neurodivergent, and it’s just... idk man the first episode was good and left me wanting more.

[deltaengineering]

Winter Anime 2019 Part 3: High on Concept

If you wait long enough, you’ll find something good to say.

Doukyonin wa Hiza, Tokidoki, Atama no Ue / My Roommate is a Cat

What: Misanthropic mystery author picks up tough stray cat, both get healed.

✅ The cat acts like a cat, the misanthrope acts like a misanthrope.

✅ The approach of telling the same simple story from the perspective of two characters that can’t really communicate effectively is interesting.

✅ This is very basic, but it works. I like both characters, and it's generally inoffensive. Pretty much Barakamon with less of a focus on telling you exactly what to feel. Might watch more of this.

❌ I see we’re now at the point where shows get localized titles that sound like lazy translations of bland Japanese names even when the Japanese title is not that bland to begin with. Lovely.

Dimension High School

What: A bunch of kids press XXX and YYY and are sucked. Wooow.

✅✅ The wraparound segments look extremely realistic. If there was more lensflares and shots of feet I’d almost say someone has finally beaten KyoAni in making anime look like a cheap, egregiously overacted J-Drama.

❌❌ Sadly, the puzzle dimension they end up in just looks like homemade MMD animation, because it is. I mean, at least it’s mocapped, but apparently with a Kinect.

❌❌ E.g., they make jokes about clipping and they kinda have to because everything clips into everything else all the time.

❌❌ Did I mention that all they actually do is solve lame puzzles and fail to be funny about it? It’s really getting to the levels of the dreaded “barely animated voice actor improv podcast” at these points.

♎ Suwabe’s in it, and that’s never an outright bad thing. He’s voicing the quizmaster, in the process proving he’d do anything for a paycheck. I wonder if he has a fiverr acocunt.

Domestic na Kanojo

What: Highschooler loses virginity to one night stand, finds out that it was the sister of the teacher he has a crush on. Incidentally, the mother of both also just married his father. Zany!

✅ This is presented like a low-key, slow drama, and it’s not even bad at that. Some good directing going on here, at least in the beginning.

❌❌ Really just too bad that it’s impossible to take seriously with a setup as contrived as this, not to mention taking it as seriously as it apparently wants to be taken. It’s also not exactly original.

❌ I’m not gonna say that sketchy relationships can’t work (it worked fine for KoiAme, for example), but embedding your suddenly also incestuous pupil-teacher affair in the setting of a harem comedy, complete with other sister walking in on attempted drunk blackout kiss, is not giving me confidence that this has the chops to pull it off.

❌❌ The show this reminds me the most of is Love and Lies, and that’s a real bad calling card to have.

Girly Air Force

What: Girl-shaped fighter jets fall in love with a dude.

❌❌ It’s just another military-hardware-is-cute-girls-actually show in the vein of Strike Witches, the kind where they think that having a few plane CG models is already thrilling content.

❌❌ But then it doesn’t even turn out to be that in practice, because most of the episode is taken up by lame “worldbuilding” (i.e., coming up with excuses for why your fanservice show has to be the way it is) and trying to make your bland harem lead interesting, which is a futile endeavour.

❌ The most interesting part is still the CG dogfighting, such as it is. It’s not great either. Also, girly planes are pink.

♎ Honestly got a laugh out of them randomly picking a Gripen as heroine unit  in addition to actual JSADF hardware, because that’s a sleek-looking plane. The biggest prank the JSADF ever pulled on the otaku industry is buying the chubby F-35, which is nowhere to be seen here.

Go-toubun no Hanayome / The Quintessential Quintuplets

What: Empoverished highschooler is hired as a tutor for some rich quintuplets with large breasts.

❌ This is a blatant harem setup that would make a 2003 bishoujo VN blush.

✅ However, in practice it’s much better than it sounds. It knows it’s a wacky romcom with a dumb premise and it does not pretend otherwise.

✅ So it’s lighthearted, but it’s also surprisingly classy. In fact, it’s classier than Domestic no Kanojo, which is a show that’s actually trying to look respectable and failing.

✅ The relationships are also very feisty, with an energy that a comedy needs. There’s a lot of sass to go around here. Probably the best of these I’ve seen in a while, so I’ll give it three eps.

Kemurikusa

What: After getting pulled off the sequel, the Kemono Friends crew made their own version. Presumably there are blackjack and hookers in this show’s future.

❌ If you are a fan of KF’s “charms”, fear not, you would not be able to tell these people made another anime before. It's still total amateur hour.

❌❌ It’s not even the “looks”, though those certainly are not a highlight. The design is okay and the animation is bad, but I’m not incapable of enjoying shows with bad animation. What really kills it is the editing. I usually don��t comment on editing because that’s almost always competent and only very rarely great, but Kemurikusa has uniquely lazy and badly timed editing. Every shot being seconds longer than it needs to be is already an annoyance in low-key dialog scenes, but the alleged action is laughable and allows you a long, unblinking stare at every frame of bad animation. I really do wonder why they even bother with it when it’s so terrible.

✅ The setting seems alright, even though it’s just a reskinned Kemono Friends. At least it’s not gijinka nonsense this time (which makes one wonder where the gimmick characters are supposed to come from, but I digress), and it’s more upfront about what it actually is too. I’d call it mildly intriguing.

❌ I don’t mind mystery and certainly prefer it to exposition bombs, but instead of that this episode quickly establishes the most basic facts... and then repeats them over and over and over some more. Combined with non-editing, this makes for horrible pacing. 

♎ I had no opinion on KF’s longer-term qualities, because the first episode was so boring I never got any further. I won’t have an opinion on this show’s long-term qualities for the same reason.

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka

What: Magical girls are tragic, shoot gun’s.

❌❌ Yo bro, what if magical girls but dark? Surely such a thing has never been attempted.

❌ The particular source of grim here is that these girls are war vets and fight with semi-realistic weaponry, so there’s a fair bit of the ol’ milwank in this one as well.

❌ The best part of the entire show is that the enemies they originally fought looked like cute teddy bears. Of course, this is dropped in favor of just slicing and dicing some random terrorists in the main narrative. I guess “dark magical girl” is still too outlandish a concept, gotta go with ripping off The Punisher again.

❌ The characters so far are nothing special, you got your PTSD Rambo and the generically cute tomodachis she swears to protect. Such contrast!

❌❌ If you must make these 80s action movies with some otaku gimmick pasted on top, would you mind making the action look good at least? Because I don’t care how many gallons of blood you paint in your dramatic but conspicuously non-moving pans.

Meiji Tokyo Renka

What: Spiritually sensitive lonelygirl gets kitsuned to the Meiji era, which is full of delicious beef and some handsome men too I guess.

✅ This isn’t an outright comedy, but it goes all in on everyone’s fabulosity level to a degree that it’s really already three quarters to Dame x Prince.

✅ Similarly, the lead is not quite as unimpressed with these hams as Ani was, but she certainly has a lot more interest in roast beef than in these guys always trying to pull her into sparkly chin-holding poses &c.

✅ Meiji Tokyo Renka doesn’t seem to be anything special, but it gets the tone right and is expressive enough to not become boring.

♎ While certainly watchable right now, with these there’s always the chance that it decides to launch into real drama in the long run, which in turn almost always goes wrong.

Yakusoku no Neverland / The Promised Neverland

What: An orphanage’s happy daily life gets upended by the realisation that they’re just pizza rolls for some demonic entities.

✅ I watched this right after Kemurikusa and let me tell you, it sure helps if you’ve got professionals on the team. This is a highly competent show as far as cinematography and editing is concerned. While there isn’t any reason to go all out on the action sakuga, this show looks real good.

❌ I’m not feeling the character design, to be specific I think everyone’s chin is too big. This sounds like a real assholy nitpick, but be aware that this will impact around 90% of the time you watch this. 

✅ The premise is workable for a shounen manga, even if hardly original (remember Owari no Seraph?) At least it’s not kids with superpowers spamming beams at each other while discussing the nature of heroism, and seems to be going for a more mindgames-based approach in the vein of Death Note. The characters are just barely good enough so far. In the end it’s not so much the premise, but how well the production values are able to sell it. And that’s what Neverland is good at.

❌ It’s specifically a Weekly Shounen Jump manga, and that is huge red flag. Sure enough, while the visuals and mood deliver, the dialog writing justifiably assumes the reader is a moron. Almost every line in this is either straight universe exposition or someone reading someone else’s character sheet back to them. It’s insane and not even necessary because their actions establish all of this just fine, but hey, WSJ readers amirite?

❌ Also, since it’s a successful WSJ property, don’t expect an ending or be prepared to watch this show for years. Most likely both.

♎ This seems like it could be entertaining once the exposition is out of the way and the real meat of the narrative starts. Then again, at that point pacing would come into play, which is yet another achilles heel of WSJ-style shounen manga. Against my better judgement, I’ll probably have a look how this develops, but I don’t expect much.

[selie1412-blog]

Number 3 is here!!!! Now all you otakus out there when you read this line what anime instantly comes to your mind??? Yep! You guessed it, Ouran HIghschool Host Club!!! Ding! Ding! Ding!!!! So sit on down, and grab your instant coffee and enjoy. 

This review will cover both the anime and the manga, so there will be spoilers shown below. Continue with caution. 

Ouran Highschool Host Club: 

"The Ouran Host Club is where the school's handsomest boys with too much time on their hands entertain young ladies who also have way too much time on their hands. Just think of it as the Ouran Academy's elegant playground for the super-rich and beautiful."―Tamaki Suoh

Summary:

So basically a super smart, but comparatively poor girl, Haruhi Fujioka, attended a super elite private school on academic scholarship. Back near the end of her middle school some random kid stuck some gum in her hair that would not of come out, so she did what any normal person would do and cut it all off. Doing this it gave her a bit more of a masculine appearance. One day while she was looking for a quite place to study she came across the notorious Music Room #3 because somehow all of the libraries on the campus were too noisy. It turned out that the Music Room #3 was the headquarters for the schools exclusive Host Club. While trying to clear up a misunderstanding with the head of the Host Club Tamaki Suoh thinking that she was in fact a he as well as being gay Haruhi accidentally breaks a 10 million yen vase, (don’t quote me on that number) and goes into debt to the Host Club. The only way to pay off this debt is to work for the Host Club crossdressing as a guy! Only to make things more complicated the majority of the members of the club are in love with Haruhi too!

Review:

Similar to Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Ouran Highschool Host Club is a legend in the anime community for being one of the best shows created of all time. At least in my life it is the only romcom that I can get my guy friends to watch because it is so funny! The characters and personalities shown in this series are endlessly entertaining! While the anime version of the show can be viewed as more comedy cintric, the manga continuation introduced a more serious tone to the show that brings the comedy high down to more realistic levels.

Immediately after the anime ends, and then manag picks up Tamaki is send back home to France. This allows us to finally meet his family, more than the family that he has created out of the Host Club. When we finally do we learn the horrible truth of the sad childhood that our puppy prince had to endure. To compensate from disjointed he created a new family inside the Host Club. That is why he feels so emotionally connected to the Host Club, and he reflects family identities onto them because to him they actually became his new family. This is an excellent example of the fact that the mental state or wellbeing of a child can heavily influence the way they are raised , and how they perceive the world around them. 

The aspect of the comparison between the rich and the poor was very interesting in this show. Usually it is only shown from the side of the poor looking up, and experiencing the lives of the rich. Although, in this show it was the other way around. From the members of the Host Club constantly asking, and then expecting the life of someone who is ‘poor’ provides a new viewpoint for the audience to enjoy. From when Tamaki made the entire Club, not just the members, experience the ‘commoners’ instant coffee, or the various trips to the grocery store it was a hilarious event to observe because those are things we do normally. Quoting myself from my last post this anime provided the ‘unrealistic’ approach to realty by bringing the unrealistic aspect to reality, and forcing it to adapt to it.

Ok, getting away from the serious talk this show is a harem, granted a reverse harem, so that usually means that there is a clear choice for who the main character will end up with even though all the other characters are in love with them as well. Some other shows that are similar to this one is Brothers Conflict and  Kamigami no Asobi just to name a few. Tamaki was obviously the one who was going to end up with Haruhi, it was fairly obvious from the very beginning, but in my opinion he was not the best guy of the show. That award goes to Hikaru Hitachiin. This is for his sheer amount of personal growth in areas of self-confidence (like asking out Haruhi out on a date), humility (after the ‘first date’ they had where he comforted her in the lightning storm), and finally relinquishing his love for Haruhi so that she could be happy with Tamaki. Sounds familiar doesn't it (Rem anyone)???

Beside the equal distribution between the comedy and seriousness that the show contains, granted for a shoujo and romcom, the character development in the show was exceptional. LIke normally, not counting the passing by characters who only appear in a single episode or arc every character has some sort of background or backstory detailing out who they are/ why or how they got to where they are now when necessary or even when not. The amount shown was not excessive. I could even say that the series could of allowed for more without there being too much, but the amount that it has felt comfortable. 

Overall I would rank the show to be about the same as Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood at an 8.5/10. Once again the show is too good to simply just give it an 8/10, but there was significant information about the series lacking in the anime compared to the manga that really hurts the score. If I were to just rate the manga and the anime separately then their scores would be 9/10 and 8/10 respectively, giving an 8.5/10 average (the same as my overall score). Series that I review that have both a manga and anime version I will rate each individually when the anime does not contain all the information the manga deos or the anime strays from the manga. If they are idental, like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, then the score given to it will count as both.  

Thank you for reading once again. Please if you have any further comments or addition I may of missed please state them in the comments below or simples PM me.