Tag Archives: comedy

Fukigen na Mononokean Review

54218824.jpgCompleted 12/2016

Type: TV

Episodes: 13
Aired: Jun to Sep, 2016
Premiered: Summer 2016
Producers: Square Enix, AT-X
Studios: Pierrot Plus

Fukigen na Mononokean is a manga adaptation originally by Kiri Wazawa.

I’ll give in a silver. It’s entertaining and by the last episode, I was a little sad it was over.

It’s a basic premise which is seen and a hundred different anime and this one fails to bring anything particularly new to the fray. Apart from the finale, the final arc is pretty good as far as originality goes.  A high school student discovers the world of the supernatural and has to learn to deal with it. Or in this case gets blackmailed into working for an exorcist and helps the youkai and humans alike out with their problems.

 

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Help me!! 

 

The mascot for this anime is adorable, the lovely fluffy. Like many mascots for supernatural anime, he starts as an ‘enemy’ and ends up being an ally. In this case, it is more the MC, Hanae, gets attached to fluffy and vice visa so Fluffy wants to stay with Hanae. So Fluffy stays and as loyal as the dog he(?) once was. Mascot aside, the colours are nice, as is the animation. The anime is well made and a joy to watch.

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For a thirteen episode anime it’s well paced but there didn’t seem to be enough time for much to happen. The story was sweet and I would like to see a second season to develop all the threads they started but I doubt it will happen. There is a lot of potential here and a lot of space for the characters to evolve into people to care about. As it was I didn’t really get attached to any of the characters like I normally do to this type of anime

As far as a sequel goes, anything is possible, with a anime like Natsume Yuujinchou getting a fifth season after a few years of hiatus, I feel like this genre is in at the moment. I have no issues with this.

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New Game

new-game.jpgCompleted 12/2016

Type: TV
Episodes: 12/12
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Jul to Sep, 2016
Premiered: Summer 2016
Producers: Kadokawa Shoten, Delfi Sound
Studios: Doga Kobo

New Game is a manga adaptation originally by Shoutarou Tokunou.

New game is a surprisingly entertained and refreshing slice of life anime. Then again between Poco’s Udon and March’s lion my slice of life animes this season are quite dark. The anime is about a girl who after she graduates from high school joins a games company and ends up working on a game she has always admired.

 

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The graphics for the game they are making aren’t half bad either.

 

So lots of anime rules in this one. It’s moe so the main character, Aoba, still looks like she’s in grade school (which is mentioned several times to her annoyance), the company she works at only has women and there are random panty shots. Not of her admittedly but of her sempai. Her boss often spends the night at the office and sleeps in her pants. One of the more different ways I’ve seen but after the first few episodes, it’s pretty much just plot based. There is one episode where it comes up again but it feels a bit like they went ‘f*** we forgot the fan service. Ok, let’s do this!’.

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Storywise, the shows pretty solid. No random trips to the beach or anything like that, it keeps fairly on track as to what someone’s working life is like for the most. The problems Aoba faces as she adjusts from high school to work life is amusing, and I like the fact the show shows Aoba interacting with her best friend from school too. People don’t just disappear (well not completely) when you get a job or go to university. It’s harder to see each other but most are still about.

The emotions are more girly than I usually like but compared to some moe anime, still fairly realistic. Still moe-ified though and very dramatic. All the characters aren’t complete carbon copies of most moe animes as well which makes a nice change. To be honest that probably gives a silver on its own. Aoba’s earnest and hard working and her colleagues around all are fairly distinct and quite unique. There is an office cat as well! Just to add to the endless moe tropes.

 

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I think this cat and a hedgehog are the only named guys in the whole series lol.

 

The colours! Oh this anime is pretty and vibrant and I’m a sucker for any anime who colour their character eyes so prettily. Not enough to rate it higher than I think it’s worth, though. Animation wise it was really good as well. There were no glaring mistakes when it came to the positioning of the eyes and the characters all moved really well.

So I’ll give is a solid silver and recommend giving it a go 🙂

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Pani Poni Dash

W68901atched 11/2016

Type: TV
Completed Episodes: 3/26
Aired: Jul 2005 to Dec 2005
Producers: Square Enix, Starchild Records, GANSIS
Studios: Shaft

Pani Poni Dash is a manga adaption originally by Hekiru Hikawa.

Stone

It’s bright, it colourful, it tries to put as many jokes as it physically can in each episode and I just didn’t like it. Classroom anime’s like these are 50/50 with me anywhere because of the format but adding in the parody element meant this was never going to be my favourite of this week’s anime.

Some people love these types of anime but the humour in this one fell flat on me and I didn’t particularly like the animation style either. So I gave up. I gave it three episodes but I just didn’t click with it. I liked the concepts that aliens were watching them. Plus it wasn’t just one class of characters to deal with but two.

Good luck if you like these types of anime but it’s not for me.

Ichigo Mashimaro Review

11042l.jpgWatched 11/2016

Type: TV
Completed Episodes: 12
Aired: Jul 2005 to Oct 2005
Premiered: Summer 2005
Producers: TBS, Movic
Studios: Daume

Ichigo Mashimaro is a manga adaptation originally by Barasui.

Gold

This anime has been described as tooth-rotting sweetness. It’s an apt description. This is about five girls, one who is 20, smokes and is in university (Itou) and four who are still in primary school and are best friends. Itou watches over the four young girls and their antics which often breed trouble. The four girls have fairly distinct personalities which mesh together well.

It’s cute, well designed and the animation is well done. I’m actually quite curious about the manga now because of the story itself. They are just silly little skits but they are very entertaining. There is a standard on about going to a festival, but there are also ones about finding jobs and losing weight.

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Miu, in particular, is a strange mix of adorable and annoying. She’s extremely energetic and random. Which basically means she gets into the most trouble and is often the centre of attention. She does have a soft side too and gets lonely on occasion when the others don’t cater to her madness. Doesn’t stop the watcher wanting to strangle the girl at times but meh.

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One thing which is amusing is the use of cigarettes in the programme. Itou smokes and it is an ongoing thing that she needs a part time job to pay for them and borrows money off her sister. In some ways, it makes it more realistic because people do smoke but I can’t imagine it happening in modern anime.

So it’s cute, has a good plot line and has good animation. Plus I enjoyed it lots. So Gold.

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Kamichu Review

24641Watched 11/2016

Kamisama de Chūgakusei

Type: TV
Completed Episodes: 12/12
Aired: Jun 2005 to Sep 2005
Producers: Aniplex
Studios: Brain’s Base, Production Reed

Kamichu is an original adaptation written by Tomonori Ochikoshi, Koji Masunari, and Hideyuki Kurata.

Gold

This is was a delight to watch. The main character Yurie is adorable and a real sweetheart who ultimately does her best in the new role she has found herself in. The show is heavily influenced by the Shinto believe that there is a good for everything in existence. One morning Yurie wakes up and knows she is a god. Not quite understanding or believing what has happened, she accidently summons a typhoon and from there her new life as a god begins. Alongside being a middle school student.

 

What’s really amusing is that everyone just accepts the fact she is a god and the first middle school student god. Not to mention teasesher mercilessly (in a good natured way). Kamichu is a hopelessly sweet anime which is hard to pin down in one genre. We have aliens, cats and boats from ww2 which all need Yurie’s help and she goes about it happily. With the occasional hitch in her own life.kamichu 2.png

She is still a mostly normal girl though and has to deal with her crush and trying to keep up in school. Her two friends are with her throughout her adventures, one who has grown up in a shrine and understands matters of the gods a little better than Yurie and another who unfortunately often ends up being possessed by gods to do their bidding. For example putting on a rock performance.

There is nothing which fazes these girls.

Music wise, it’s good. The opening song suits the anime well. The animation itself has its own flare which makes its unique. Not in a way which is bad, I actually really liked the anime style. It’s great to see a style where the characters actually more with a bit more freedom. The way the characters move really adds to the flavour of the anime.

I don’t quite think it makes my favourites but I certainly enjoyed the anime more than some I’ve been watching lately.

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Patalliro Saiyuki Review

3887Watched 11/2016

Type: TV
Episodes: 26
Aired: Jun 2005 to Nov 2005
Producers: Magic Bus
Studios:Magic Bus

Patalliro Saiyuki is a spin-off of a manga by Mineo Maya.

Silver

This is basically one of the many manga retellings of the traditional Chinese story Journey to the West. With more comedy and a dose of shounen ai for good measure. Not that I mind that at all. The story is basically about a monk travelling to obtain Buddhist sacred texts in order to learn more of Buddha’s teaching. Along the way, he faces man trails and demons and ends up with a demon bodyguard who is a monkey. The monk is too divine and the bodyguard is too demon and during this journey they learn to respect each other.

In this version as well as a monkey demon we have a cat demon who seduces the monk and normal crowd which appears in this tale. The episodes are only 10 mins long as well.

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This anime was actually really fun. It wasn’t brilliant but it was certainly fun to watch and a lot easier to watch than some anime’s I’ve been watching recently. The plot was well done and very funny while mostly keeping to the originals plot ideas.

The animation could be better. It not actually bad but the manga was started in 1978 and so the character designs are extremely old. This gives the show a dated look which makes it worse than it actually is. The music is pretty good but there are little to no effects. It’s clearly animated in a traditional style too. Not an anime to watch for art style for sure.

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One thing I quite enjoyed about the story was the narrator. He was an amusing addition to the story to explain the things that weren’t necessarily obvious or known in the story.

Beautiful or not I do think this anime is worth a look at and for that I give it a silver.

Amaenaide Yo! Review

w32071atched 11/2016

Type: TV
Episodes: 12/12
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Jul 2005 to Sep 2005
Studios: Studio Deen

Amaenaideyo is a manga adaption originally by Sogabe Toshinori.

Bronze.

It’s alright. It has its moments when its funny bit for the most point it’s just a standard ecchi show from this period of time. The boy is 16 and is your standard pervert (aka a normal 16-year-old boy) who lives with a bunch of girls as he trains to become a monk. Why? Um. Well, I guess its a family thing? Either way.

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The basic premise of this show is Ikku is a pretty weak monk and as little spiritual power  but when he sees the girls naked he turns into a super-monk and can exercise any demon. I assume because to a horny teenage boy there is no purer feeling that seeing a girl’s breasts.

The situation skits themselves are pretty standard situations for high schoolers to be in, monks in training or not. Still, they are entertaining enough. The ecchi moments are easy to spot. There are no missed opportunities here, if there is a chance, the show will make a point to empathise the girl’s boobs or pantie shots. Some of the girls care more about it than normal and will punish Ikku for making any comments.Or just being there when they are angry. He gets beaten up a lot just for being the man in the group.

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Poor bloke. It’s one of the trends in ecchi anime I’m kind of glad has become less common in recent years. Aka, the ‘pervert’ being beaten up for anything which happens (even when unrelated to him) because he’s a pervert. It’s one thing when he’s actually doing something perverted or making a perverted comment but another when he’s simply in the room when one of the girls is pissed.

I guess these animes were targeted at masochists who dreamt of living in a harem and getting beaten up by the girls. Not really a healthy message to send young boys while I appreciate the fact these women are strong and independent from men. Partly in this anime because they are nuns and have sworn off relationships but meh.

Once thing which did pleasantly surprise me was the ending. For one thing, there was an actual story and plot there in a show that was mostly one show stories. It was impressive given the genre. Even if it was still a fairly ecchi premise in itself.

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Anne Happy Review

cunhappy.jpgompleted 10/2016

Type: TV
Episodes: 12/12
Aired: Apr 2016 to Jun 2016
Producers: Sotsu, Contents Seed
Studios: Silver Link.

Anne Happy is a manga adaptation originally by  Cotoji

Silver

Anne Happy is one of those animes which properly works perfectly well as a manga but I don’t think should have been made into anime. It’s adorable and cute and very go happy. It is basically what it says on the tin. There is a class of girls who are incredibly unluckily and are being taught to be happy. Or possibly a little luckier. Anne is ridiculously unlucky and as it typically goes, incredibly happy and genki.

 

I’m actually struggling to come up with more to say about this anime other than ‘meh’. Ok that’s a lie, it was oddly addictive. The opening song was really good and stories got more entertaining as the show continued. Not actually sure how I went from not liking the anime to enjoying it but it happened.

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The animation on this one was shoddy with silver link trying to use some 3d effects which I’m pretty much most 1st-year animation student can use down to make some of the scenes more dramatic. The movements are awkward, though they do actually move the mouths in this one unlike some of their earlier works.

Not entirely sure if the lack of faces on the other students in the case are laziness from Silver link or a style choice from the original artist. Either way, it’s a little disconcerting. Forget the jokes about major characters having brightly coloured hair in anime, in this one its simply having a face.

So yeah. Originally I gave this a bronze, I’ve since updated it to a silver. Not sure I would ever really recommend this but it had a strange charm.

Kokoro Connect Review

39665l

Completed 10/2016

Type: TV
Completed Episodes: 13/13
Aired: Jul 2012 to Sep 2012
Producers: Starchild Records, Enterbrain
Licensors: Sentai Filmworks
Studios: Silver Link.

Kokoro Connect is a light novel adaptation by Sadanatsu Anda.

Gold

Kokoro is about five high school students who don’t fit into normal clubs. In Japan clubs are a really important thing and as they can’t fit into one, the teachers make a new club for them called the ‘cultural research club.’ One day the students switch bodies and antics ensure.

Turns out an alien called Heartseed is messing with them to seeing what interesting things happen. The first act has some switching bodies, the second has their emotions going haywire. Heartseed is a bit of a jerk who I think really is just a bored godlike creature. He often apologises in advance for his actions but that doesn’t negate the fact they often cause a lot of distress for the main characters.

‘It just so happens you are some pretty interesting people, I guess.’

‘The phenomena will end when it’s no longer entertaining.’

He’s not kidding with the first statement. Ignoring the back they aren’t part of normal clubs they all are unique people with a mostly unique back stories. Appearances aside. Silver Link is low production so I’ve mostly given up on expecting any form of unique character designs from them. Sadanatsu Anda, on the other hand, seems very good at writing characters. There is a lot of character development in this story.

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Not all of the situations are sad or upsetting, some are quite funny. Most are serious through to high school students and cause a lot of fighting. Most of which evoked feelings similar to how I felt when I watched Anohana, which is properly why I have rated it high.

It has good animation and voice acting. It has a good story.It has strong characters and made me feel emotions towards them. All of which rate it a gold to me. It’s one thing to have a good story, another to make the audience actually care about the characters.

Or possibly I relate to Inaba a little too much, but hey! I don’t claim this blog is official. If anything the bad grammar and writing is proof of that. These are just my own personal feelings lol.

As for the ending well. It suited the story 🙂

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Shomin Sample Review

76542lCompleted 10/2016

Type: TV
Episodes: 12/12
Aired: Oct 2015 to Dec 2015
Producers: Sotsu, Contents Seed
Licensors: FUNimation Entertainment
Studios: Silver Link.

Shomin Sample is a light novel adaptation by Takafumi Nanatsuki.

Bronze.

This harem anime is very entertaining and has a slightly different plot to most which I come across. Plus the main character isn’t a complete pervert. He likes girl’s thighs but most of the time it’s not obvious. Even when the other parts are on show, they don’t really evoke more than embarrassment from the Mc during the inevitable ecchi moments.

The basic plot of the anime is, there is an extremely rich school for just girls where no males are allowed. Except people have realised that it doesn’t exactly prepare the girls for after school, so they decide to kidnap a normal foreigner  to help ‘prepare’ them. Only to protect their purity, they pick a ‘raging homosexual who has a muscleman fetish’. Don’t we all love our best friends? XD So Kimito has a suffer through pretending to be gay or be castrated.

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Something which is kind of hard when he is surrounded by beautiful girls who are very naive and innocent. Half the situations which happen are through no fault of his own. But he is well prepared with a collection of muscle-bound videos and other things to show the head maid when she suspects he is not as gay as he ‘claims’.

There are 4 main ‘interests’. Though the loli type in this one, Haruo, is barely acknowledged as more than pretty. Kimito generally treats her the age she acts and looks, like a child. My main issue with her is the face she strips when she’s doing maths, which is pretty often. The anime does a good job of censoring but it’s still a little uncomfortable.

shomin-3The other three are a well-refined blonde, Reiko, a shy but brash and honest red head, Aika, and a slightly violent but cute sword girl, Karin. They all have their own personalities and are pretty oblivious to the world around.

The plot is pretty good. The girls learn about the outside world and antics ensure. The school does have a slightly darker side, however. It is basically a finishing school where parents of boys can find ‘appropriate’ wives for their sons. The finale looked to be built up to be really good and then it happened and it left me feeling a little disappointed.

We went from a mostly normal story (antics of people with too much money aside) to magic powers and super tech within seconds. Then the confrontation was just a disappointment. After Kimito makes his point, the ‘enemy’ just backs down so easily it’s a little embarrassing. Unfortunately, this was enough to knock it down from a silver to a bronze.

I do not stand for bad endings. If you have made me watch 12 episodes, make the ending a good one!shomin-2