Category: Anime Reviews

Kannadzuki no Miko is a mecha-romance anime, with a heavy emphasis on the romance-part. It features a very passionate love relationship between two very good friends. Be sure to expect lots of yuri an shoujo-ai elements.

When Kannadzuki no Miko started, it made a very strong first impression on me. The first episode very cleverly starts with all of the clichés from a standard high-school drama, and ends the episode by offering lots of juicy twists and turns. This anime then tries to continue at the same level, though its element of surprise has subdued a bit. It tries to make up for this by being extremely dramatic, and by putting our main characters in a lot of heavily emotional situations.

And that’s where the major problem with this anime lies. There’s a line between dramatical and overdramatical, and this anime just keeps hopping over it. Some scenes are definitely worth the watch, while others just seem to try too hard. This makes 50% of this anime great to see, while it makes the other 50% laughable.

The characters are pretty interesting. They’re typical characters, developed in a non-typical way. We’ve got the shy girl who can’t do anything, the cool girl who’s incredibly rich and a fangirl-magnet, there’s also a very popular boy who’s the best at sports and has sworn to protect the person he loves, and of course the set of bad guys who come to assault our main characters isn’t missing. Still, at the end of the series, each of these characters has turned into someone unique

Kemonozume is an adult-themed love story with a little dose of action. It’s set in a world in which humans are plagued by creatures known as flesh eaters, human-like beings who can change into monsters and eat anything they see that moves. It follows one of the strongest hunters of these flesh eaters, who falls in love with one of them. The two of them elope, and leave their surroundings to deal with the consequences.

The first thing that strikes the eye when watching this anime is the art. It definitely sets itself apart from all other anime due to the extremely messy art, both character as background. Getting used to this art may take a while, but it fits the mood of this anime perfectly. Especially in combination with the weird themes which come across the screen, you can really say that this anime has a unique style.

Kemonozume start with two introduction-episodes. In my opinion, the first episode starts off well, though episode two was the worst episode of this series. It’s a bit too formulaic and standard. But afterwards, Kemonozume really sets off with a set of very interesting, but in theme very different episodes. One episode can be a very funny comedy-episode while the next you see a naked guy, tied up on a chair with a paper bag over his head, or a normal slice-of-life episode featuring an old couple or an episode dedicated to the history of our characters’ parents. Then, at around episode 9, the climax starts forming with a couple of very dramatic scenes. And with dramatic, I really mean dramatic, a bit too dramatic perhaps. The ending itself was pretty decent. Very strange, but pretty decent.

Also, like I said, this is a show with adult-themes. Bodies get cut in half, arms get ripped off, lots of naked men, women and sex scenes pass the screen, so I’d keep this away from your little brother or sister. Overall, Kemonozume was a very nice watch. It kept a good balance between drama and comedy, but I felt that the great climax in the final episodes tried a bit too hard, therefore losing its effect.

When I saw the first episode of this series, I immediately dismissed it. Every direction pointed to a standard shounen series. Pubescent male, check. Female love interest, check. Sudden huge unexplained outburst of power coming from main character, check. At that time, I saw absolutely no reason to continue this show.

Boy, was I wrong. Thank god I got curious when I saw Maya‘s entries about the series, and managed to catch up with the series. I’m so glad I did that. Yes, it remains a shounen series. But one heck of an incredibly well developed shounen series. The romance between the main character (Renton) and main female character (Eureka), which I initially gave no chance of success, turned out to be so well developed and fleshed out. This really is a must see for anyone with a bit of patience.

Basically, the series consists out of four part. The first part is the most boring and misleading. It’s mostly meant to introduce the cast of characters, and covers about ten episodes. The second part suddenly starts introducing a huge lot of mentally disturbing scenes. Boy, that was a huge surprise. By the end of this part (episode 28) I really was hooked to this anime. The creators made perfect use of the fact that Renton was just an idiotic boy. He just keeps causing troubles to his surroundings, and Eureka as well, because of his naivety.

Then, starting from episode 29, the third part begins, and all of the disturbing scenes just stop, and the series enters a season-long intermezzo. It’s mostly meant in order to develop the different characters and flesh them out a bit, with the emphasis on Renton and Eureka, though it may be a pain to get through. Then, at episode 40 the series picks up pace again, and at episode 44, the fourth part of the anime begins, attempting to finish the anime. The fourth part turns amazing again. It fully utilizes the basis that the third part set, and delivers six episodes of pure awesomeness. These episodes were so incredibly sad at times. Unfortunately, the creators had set their mind on an epic ending, which threw this anime into the pit of predictability again, unfortunately.

The second and fourth part make this anime incredibly worthwhile, in their own way. The second part focuses on conflicts, while the fourth part focuses on trust and faith. Emotions skyrocket during the many climaxes and confrontations. Unfortunately, the fact remains that the first and third arc are rather essential for this anime, even though they remain boring. At times, Renton also acts like an annoying brat for comic relief, that wasn’t really exciting to see.

The story of this anime, indeed, is one huge adventure. But what else can you expect with a fifty-episode anime? The story focuses around an interesting world, created by the creators of this anime. The plot is very complex and multi-layered, and this anime does a fine job introducing the different elements. Still, there are a few unanswered plotholes left at the end of the episode. Our main character’s sudden outburst of power never really gets a decent explanation.

Overall, this anime has great characters. During the right parts, they really shine like no other. If you’ve got enough time for a 50-episode series, I’m definitely recommending this.

Utawarerumono is a fantasy war anime. It basically follows one man, who claims the throne of one country and uses his forces to defend his people, combined with your occasional cute characters and slice of life when the battles have stopped for a bit.

First of all, this show is based on a hentai game, so yes, it’s got a lot of cute girls: a couple of busty angels, some sexy warrior females and a couple of cute girls who don’t belong in a battlefield. Furthermore, most characters, with one or two exceptions, look like they’re either in their tens or twenties. The anime seems to have never heard of the concept of “war veterans”. Oh, and yes. The main character is your typical harem lead, apart from the fact that he wears a mask and seems to be an actual adult, instead of a 14-year-old brat.

Like expected, things just go too easy for our main character in the beginning. We do get to see some war tactics, but this anime does not attempt to move away from the basics. Also, especially near the beginning, characters join the main character’s army for no apparent reason. To simulate battles, the creators also decided to use CGI for animating the different soldiers fighting. Let’s just say that that doesn’t work.

Still, that doesn’t mean that this anime doesn’t have good point. Starting from episode 11, the battles actually get very exciting. The creators actually decide to try out a few more things, with very interesting results. The plot actually gets a bit of substance, and this anime really goes into the right direction. Aside from a few humps and bumps, these scenes were pretty interesting to watch.

But then suddenly, inside the pure fantasy world, this anime starts to introduce mechas and zombies. Something that so doesn’t fit in the atmosphere, and it’s indeed not surprising that this atmosphere gets ruined because of this. The anime then finishes with some interesting final episodes, but it never really managed to fix the damage done by the sudden introduction of science-fiction elements. That’s a real pity, as this anime really was heading in the right direction of a good fantasy anime.

Oh, and one final remark. The main focus of this anime is the good guys. Don’t expect the bad guys to have any substance at all. They’re either evil because they’re manipulated, or their reasons for being evil is simply never explained. The good guys, however, do get healthy doses of character development at times. I also liked the way that at a few times, this anime takes a break in the middle of one storyline in order to focus on yet another, totally different storyline. When that story is finished, the first story reappears, and also gets its conclusion. It’s a nice way to keep people interested.

Overall, if there ever was a series with its ups and downs, it’s Utawarerumono. It’s got so many good point, but for every good point, it seems to have a bad point.

Kamisama Kazoku is another one of those generic harem-anime, but with a twist: the main character is just not any ordinary main character, he’s the son of god. He has to live in the human world to get accustomed to the human culture, so that he can do his future job in a better way. Concept with potential, no? Well, unfortunately, this anime starts out horribly.

Our main character, Samatarou does remain a 14-year old brat. God himself turned out to be a horny bastard, eager to fulfil all of Samatarou’s wishes and his mother and two sisters are eager to help him in this. They’re the reason that the first few episodes are just chockfull of useless, unfunny fanservice jokes. Still, luckily as the episodes progress, this problem gets solved when God returns to heaven and leaves his family behind, so that they can get some actual personalities.

The biggest problem with this anime is that it focuses on the love relationship between Samatarou, and an angel who was sent down from heaven in order to take care of him. This relationship does have one or two good moments, but most of the times it either milks on tried concepts or it’s just horribly boring, predictable and doesn’t contain any substance, even though a major part of the anime focuses on it.

The series consists out of thirteen episodes, divided in three arcs. I have to admit, each of these arcs contained one actually good episode. But then again, the other ones were mostly boring. I must also warn you that the creators like to push the reset-button at random times. Another annoying element is that at times, the creators throw in some convenient plot elements, which don’t make any sense at all. More than once, a character falls in love with another character at first sight, and then later this character conveniently turns out to be important to the plot.

I don’t really have anything to say on the music and graphics. They’re mediocre. Not outstanding, but not bad either. Overall, Kamisama Kazoku remains an average anime with some enjoyable moments. Not really something to recommend.

Muteki Kanban Musume is a comedy-anime. And a pretty successful one as well. Where most other comedies fail, this anime actually dos things right. The story follows Onimaru Miki. She’s a 20-year old girl who works as a waitress at her mother’s ramen restaurant. The only problem is that she’s an extremely violent girl. She likes to randomly attack people whenever she sees the chance, which doesn’t really make her the perfect employee. Apart from that, whenever she messes up, her mother smacks her knock-out, she keeps getting bothered by a sadistic girl who works across the street in a baker-shop and seems to have some kind of grudge against her, and by a hyperactive guy who keeps challenging her, only to lose after one hit.

I think that the biggest problem with this anime is that it takes a few episodes to get used to the characters. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it will drive potential watchers away. Still, the fact remains that most of the jokes used in this anime are character-based. You need to know the characters a bit for the jokes to really become effective. But once you’re familiarized with the characters, this show picks up steam, and delivers hilarious scenes.

The characters work very well with each other. It’s not like each character is extremely violent either. Right next to the ramen restaurant Miki works is a vegetable shop. In there, another main character works, who isn’t good with fighting at all. He offers a more sarcastic look at things. And there are more non-violent characters like these who balance the violent ones very well.

The show consists out of twelve episodes, each divided into two standalone parts. If I had to make a guess, then more than half of these parts worked out very successful, while the others missed the mark a bit (at times, the creators use the same concepts a bit too much, other times, the jokes don’t fall well, etc). Still, this is much better than any average comedy can achieve. While it’s not the best comedy ever, Muteki Kanban Musume definitely was worth the laughs it provided. I really recommend it if you need something light to laugh at.