Jeoffrey

To enjoy any sports anime series, I usually expect it to have some sort of suspense. In other words, I want the individual matches, fights, races, etc. to have the right amount of tension so that it keeps me glued to the screen, and so I can look forward to the main protagonists kicking everyone's ass or even losing so that they can become even stronger next time. I also demand intense training montages, discovering new strategies, and some interesting storylines which develop away from the pitch, race track, stadium, etc. I grew up on the Rocky movie franchise, so what else would you possibly expect from me? So that is why I am quite surprised at how much I enjoyed this relaxing and enjoyable sporting affair, which is packed with friendship, smiling, sunshine, sand, and girls in swimsuits. This is not a typical sports anime, this is more of a "cute girls do volleyball" kind of thing. There is a search for lost confidence, the power of friendship and partnership, and we find out that volleyball is no place for aces... It is heart-warming, pleasant, and a little bit educational. Plus, the last episode could have easily been awarded five stars. There is a brilliantly orchestrated (and even quite dramatic) showdown, an important match, as well as the post-match excitement, including a collective reconciliation and a promise for the future - in other words, this ending will leave you feeling satisfied and positive (with a slight wink at a possible second season, or at least an OVA, because there is definitely one more big game waiting for the girls). Furthermore, at one point the soundtrack is absolutely great, so one of the final scenes featuring Kanata and Haruka is the best of the whole anime series for me. Oh, and a few words about the fan service - beach volleyball is played in swimsuits (just for the people who don’t know that) - so sometimes the camera does find itself wandering and ending up with shots of those interesting and beautiful places on the female body, which we gentlemen are naturally able to locate ourselves. However, these shots are in no way overused, cheesy, raunchy, or in any way objectionable. So, as an ordinary healthy man, I would only comment by saying: "Was there any fan service? Well, the only thing I saw was just some girls in swimsuits!". This was a charming, enjoyable and surprising show - 7.2/10.

I think producers should feel free to borrow ideas from a whole plethora of anime series like Sword Art Online, .hack//SIGN, or Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day - if they are able to mix it up in an original way or at least create something of the same quality... Unfortunately, this anime series is just an unimpressive damp squib, which is deeply unsatisfying. The first episode could still have been great, it has some interesting twists and with the right treatment, it could have been a mysterious fantasy show dealing with the problems of dear Asahi. We could have had a mysterious atmosphere full of surprises, a decent narrative - in other words, something more memorable... However, we instead get some very fragile relationships, more entangled than the entirety of Beverly Hills 90210, and the main protagonists are involved in a drama worthy of elementary school. Again - with the right execution, this could have been a deeply emotional show, something to shake us up or maybe make us cry - in other words, a quality romantic anime series. However, unfortunately, the relationships would have needed to be better written not just as though the main protagonists had the emotional maturity of ten-year-olds. So what about the conclusion? If you are expecting to see some stuff sorted out, then tough luck! There is just another clichéd ending about the power of friendship and how they all get through everything together - is that it? Instead of meaningful conclusions, we just get more questions, and about the only things that are somehow wrapped up are the supposedly romantic dramas. Well, that is just not enough! Now, because of all the above, I know for a fact that I am not going to even remember this anime series after one week. 4/10.

A tsundere boy has a girlfriend. The girlfriend has a tsundere father. The tsundere boy has a tsundere sister who has an ambiguous relationship with her brother's classmate. He goes to a school where there is an ordinary teacher who is a bit of a tsundere, and his student has a passionate crush on him... In addition, they all meet and like each other, however, because they are all tsundere, they say stuff that they probably do not really mean and that is kind of it... The people who are not tsundere understand almost everything their tsundere counterparts are trying to tell them, they are patient and incredibly nice because they know that when your sweetheart says "you fucking pig-eared ugly monster" to you, it means something like "you are so amazing my darling love"... Well, there is just "Tsundere! Tsundere everywhere...". So the next time someone at work tells me to go to ... say, for example, to go to hell, am I going to have to think about if they are actually professing undying love for me? Unfortunately, that does not seem to be how it works... Anyway, it would not be that bad, perhaps it is even quite cute in some romantic way, however, because the anime series is so short it does not have time to say or show that much, and the intensity of the interesting scenes is just very weak in the end. Plus, I am probably not really that into tsundere (with exceptions like Palmtop Taiga). 4.4/10.

This is a charming show that is pleasant humorous, is a bit over-the-top, has various extravagances, and delivers exactly what I was hoping for. This show is more restrained and chilled out than that other show about school madness released at the same time (Asobi Asobase), yet I still found it endearing, occasionally deranged, often amusing, and is quite original... Plus it has lots of interesting characters, and I am only slightly put out that Chio and Andou did not get more screen time because I enjoyed their supposedly romantic subplot very much. This anime series is just perfect for the summer because it is just (like Grand Blue) very refreshing in its own way. 8/10.

What can I possibly say about this installment, which I have rechristened "Overlord Alternative: Boobies’ Talks"? Well, it is definitely an experience, or rather should I say it is full of experiences... Where else could you see a sequence lasting several minutes where two girls are talking to each other although the camera is simply alternating between the two of them wholly focused on their boobies? All of a sudden you have got some small boobies talking to some big boobies, and I am just thinking how much did ecchi anime series evolved in here. Add to that the sometimes realistic erotic scenes and moments you cannot be sure if you are watching hentai (Yeah, I can feel Diablo inside me...) and I just have to admit that this is "something new" after all. Sure, it is bad, however, it is so bad that it is good, it is quite entertaining and even interesting. Hell, even the dreaded Krebskulm must have massive boobies... Add to that all the irony of the antisocial guy who is not a fan of people but is helping others, the demon lord protecting people from demons, and the total beta male who cannot communicate pretending to be confident and alpha, and I could not help but chuckle again, and end this journey with all its massive shortcomings at a solid 6/10 Why? Simply because, for the first time in a long time, I genuinely had a really fun time watching something like this (isekai + ecchi)...

This review contains SPOILERS - both direct and indirect - so if you do not want spoilers, you should not read it... I am not going to deny that Scalpelexis once again wrote what I am about to repeat, although what can I say, we probably watched the same anime series... What is it about then? Well, it goes around in circles, but even so, the magnificent power of love conquers all in the end... Unpredictable? A little. Shocking? Not so much as the idea of how it might have ended if Rinne (the first, though actually probably the second) and Setsuna... That is quite enough now! I am just going to say that the part of my brain which deals with the classic "What if…?" questions is annoyingly rather very busy at the moment... I am thinking that the fact this is Visual Novel adaptation, and that I know about Japanese people and their fetishes, which scares me a bit, and that if this is canon and VN offers a lot of different possibilities... Well, let us just say I would probably rather not play this game... But enough already! As far as the anime series goes, the start is unnecessarily drawn out, not very interesting (or rather, not mysterious enough) and it feels a lot like this - main male character has three girls around him, so he has to go around them and help them... Exposition, I think it is called, which crawls along at the pace of a snail. Well, then suddenly they decide it is probably time to actually start solving problems, so there is then an interesting part which happens somewhere else (or rather in another time). However, because of the preceding long drawn-out exposition, it does not get as much screen time as it probably requires so everything feels quite rushed and it does not have the effect it probably should... Do you want an example? Well, children die, in fact, many many children, and it did not really affect me at all. I did not feel angry, I did not feel sad, I did not feel anything... Was I shocked? Perhaps, a little... However, that is probably not enough at a time like this - don’t you think? In addition, there is the ending, or maybe it is a new beginning? Setsuna proves that Hououin Kyouma is a nincompoop, because he goes and solves everything immediately so there is no suspense, no fatalities, we saved that for the final point of all this - it is quite a good one, even though it is a message that left me with many doubts and unanswered "What if…?" questions, although by then I am back to square one... In the end, it is like a badly put together puzzle, there is some kind of a picture, however, it could have been put together in a much better way...4/10

This movie taught me that a person could live his whole life either in peace like a coward, or one day take a risk and perhaps even die like a hero... This is a very simple fairy tale, slightly rushed in some parts, with mediocre animation but a rather nice soundtrack. My feelings about this are probably something like "It is not going to offend anyone, but neither is it impressive either" or "It is a fine movie for killing time on a summer afternoon". On the other hand, children could have really liked it and I was surprised that the creators did not try to make it more like a classic fairy tale - the message that it is better to be a hero than to cower in a corner - but instead, they rather deal with it like it is just merely a simple choice, and that each person may find different things suitable for them... 5.2/10.

Perhaps I am going to rewrite this review (even though I do not think I will) after I have finished watching the final episode, however, I am now at the forty-six episode mark and it is all still quite the same. I think I have watched enough to safely say that Black Clover is a very poor example of a shonen anime series, it features all the biggest tropes, clichés, nastiness, and atrocities that we have already seen many times before in other shonen productions. In other words, take the most irritating things about Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Fairy Tail, and many others and you have got Black Clover. There is an excessively hell-bent main male protagonist (Asta) who is incredibly shouty and annoying, he is so awful that he makes Ichigo look like a nice guy, makes Naruto look like a chilled-out dude, and finally makes Monkey D. Luffy seem like an amazingly endearing guy. And his voice is so terribly loud and high, it can even wake the dead! As far as the episodes are concerned, each one starts with a three-minute recap, which unnecessarily wastes valuable time they could have spent on the plot, and once again there are some rather out-of-place and vibe-killing flashbacks during some suspenseful scenes, which are not as long as an entire episode, but are still quite disturbing. The fight scenes are like something out of Bleach, where the hero has to get his ass kicked at least three times but he is always getting up again because he is still not done ("mada mada..."), at the most opportune moment, accidentally discovering that he has some new abilities, and then finally winning. The only thing stopping this from being perfect is Dragon Ball leveling up to ultra-super-duper-god levels and beyond, even though that could still happen... The supporting characters are mostly just a bunch of clichéd formulaic stereotypes, there to kill time between the main male protagonist’s fight scenes. They also seem to be there to sometimes (repeatedly by the same characters) supposedly be amusing and serve as motivation, because the "power of friendship" must prevail. Their development is the same as the main male protagonist’s, getting smacked around, only to find new strength and get smacked around again, or getting rescued by someone else (usually the aforementioned Asta). Well, what about the narrative? As regards "I want to be the Wizard King!" - this has obviously been done before (The Pirate King, The Hokage)... Plus there are the magic guilds like when you cross those from Fairy Tail with the divisions from Bleach. Summing up and reiterating, Black Clover is just an unoriginal and very-poor shonen anime series, and the only thing that keeps me going is probably the fact that I am a fan of this particular genre (because they are action-packed and have fight scenes...) + that it is set in a rather likable and an interesting fantasy world (the huge demon skull at the beginning alone grabbed my attention...) + that there is at least one cool character (Yami). So far 4/10. EDIT 09.04.2020: The whole epic Elf Reincarnation Arc was quite interesting, and it turned out that at least the fight scenes have improved, although it is also obvious that this is going to be very long, and to be completely honest I almost do not care what happens next. Yami is a great character and so is Zora, however, that is still not enough for me to continue watching this show. I have wanted to give up on it several times and this time I am really going to (or perhaps I just need a longer break). So in the end I am going to drop it after the one-hundred-and-twenty-ninth episode and throw in one point for the elves. I am giving Black Clover the tag "mediocre shonen". 5/10.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has been recommended to me many times and it has some fairly decent ratings. I have repeatedly tried to watch it, but I always quit the show after just a few episodes. This is like a soap opera intended for guys! I am used to anime series being crazy and over-the-top, however, the intensity and melodramatic storylines just got too much for me. On top of that, the melodramatic dialogues are full of pathos that are supposed to be edgy, cool, and perhaps entertaining, however, I just could not get into it. I am sorry, I can be such a horrible killjoy at times and I am just not into this level of macho, testosterone-fueled fan service, rough fights, over-the-top twists, and melodramatic dialogues. I can see why it gets such good reviews, so perhaps it is a bit like Tarantino movies - there is always something going on, things are always over-the-top, and characters overact while looking cool and conniving... However, I thought that all too often it just does not work in this particular show (just like I thought that it did not work in some Tarantino movies). I think it is way too over the top and so instead of having fun and enjoying myself, I simply have to hang my head and concede, “this is too, too much”.  I also had to raise my eyebrows suspiciously at some of the dialogue and melodramatic monologues... In conclusion, I could not get on with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and I am done with it after six episodes (which is the furthest I have ever gotten with this show, as I could not usually make it past the first three episodes). Dropped after the sixth episode and I am awarding it only 4/10…

They do not know anything about love but they are not afraid to just make stuff up! At first, it seemed like this show had a typically stupid narrative featuring cute girls doing cute things. They have their own secret club and they are researching the world of romance and love they are so ignorant of. I occasionally chuckled at the silliness of their seduction techniques and strategies and that was it. Likewise, I was not really feeling the initial whiff of drama when Eno and Sayo were trying to uncover this secret club. In addition, I found that everything was resolved way too quickly and easily, in other words, it was not really as dramatic as I was hoping for. I did not find the first five episodes very impressive, they were kind of average, sometimes amusing, and sometimes incredibly stupid. From the sixth episode onwards, however, I thought it visibly improved, partly because the narrative involved a second pair of girls, this time from the Newspaper Club, who basically wanted the same thing as Sayo and Eno (to expose the girls from the secret club), only they took a more interesting and responsible approach to it, and in the end, they even gave the girls quite a hard time. However, most importantly, from the sixth episode on, actual boys start appearing in the show! Suddenly it was all much more fun to watch the girls' naive illusions as they met reality, the results of those relationships, and all the even more absurd situations that arose as a result. In other words, it was mainly when the boys turned up in this anime series about cute girls (I know, it sounds very strange...) that made it a much better and, most importantly, very entertaining show for me. I was laughing almost all the way through from that sixth episode to about the tenth one, and even the screaming, crying and exaggerated melodrama in the final episode could not spoil how I felt, good feelings about the show. It is just a shame that it did not pay much more attention to the relationships involving Riko x Nagi and especially Maki x Yan. I really enjoyed that part of the show a lot and I would like to see some of those insane seduction techniques tried by the girls to do romance in real life... Therefore, in the end, thanks to the entertaining second half, I wound up pretty satisfied, and if there were a follow-up sometime in the future, I would be sure to check it out. 6.9/10.