For something I wrote off as nothing more than a lowly harem series, this anime gave me alot to talk about.
Tomozaki is the best gamer in Japan of Attack Families, a Smash Bros style game of which he puts alot of effort into to the point of obsession which makes him believe life isn't worth much, when he finds out his main rival is Aoi Hinami, the two argue with Tomozaki calling out Hinami for taking life in easy mode while Hinami calls out Tomozaki for not even trying, Hinami wins the argument by saying, "don't blame the game for your failure" which prompts Tomozaki to try the game of life, with Hinami coaching him, Tomozaki discovers a side to himself he didn't know he had and with a colourful cast of characters, Tomozaki is on the fast track to being a normie.
I was wrong for calling the anime a harem as it suits romantic comedy better but with the female cast prominent in the marketing it's hard not to see Tomozaki not falling into the harem protagonist role especially with how well he adapts to socializing leading to the satisfactory climax of Tomozaki Uno-reverse carding Hinami; it's hard not to see Hinami as being incredibly manipulative as it's obvious she has serious issues as she refuses to drop her mask even once, this creates friction with Minami who is competing with her and especially Tomozaki, Hinami completely abandons him when Tomozaki calls out the morality of her methods, season two will likely resolve the conflict holding her back but it's hard not to see Hinami as being nothing more than a petty control freak who gets off on the fact that she has emotional control of her biggest rival, there's layers to this anime waiting to be found and it shocked me to find out how deep it goes, even if the messages they want to give especially when explained in a gaming context are completely off the mark.
Dub is competent but there is an over abundance of current generation terms that break the immersion somewhat.
Final Verdict: An anime I expected nothing from ended up giving me alot to talk about and explore even if I don't necessarily agree with everything they bring up.
Quite a few months in the making, it's Love After World Domination.
The Elite Hero Team Gelato 5 are forever at war with the evil organization of Gekko, that is until Fudo, Red Gelato falls in love with Desumi, Reaper Princess. Due to the nature of their teams being natural enemies, the two date in secret avoiding their colleagues constantly whether it be love rivals, enemies or even monsters, nothing can stop Fudo and Desumi's love.
Desumi absolutely steals the show by the nature of her being so incredibly wholesome and adorable, every scene she gets just makes everything feel warm and fuzzy, it's hard to believe she's on an evil team but said evil team is closer to Team Rocket rather than an elite terrorist group.
As for Gelato 5, Fudo makes for a good match for Desumi with his clueless take on social situations, the rest of the team may as well not be there as they contribute way less than the Gekko princesses.
The story is balanced enough as a comedy and a romance story to keep your attention and you'll definitely fall for Desumi for her sweet personality and adorkable takes on dating.
Dub is decent, but sounds way better in Japanese.
Final Verdict: A sweet take on the forbidden love story with great characters and sweet moments especially from Desumi who easily steals the show.
I'm so happy I get to talk about this, we start the first real review of the year, Dirty Pair Project Eden.
The feature starts with Kei and Yuri stopping a smuggling operation of a substance called Vizorium, a necessary ore for space travel, with Yuri's delayed arrival the younger smuggler gets away while Kei and Yuri arrest the other with copious amounts of collateral damage.
The mining operations on Agerna are being disrupted by xenomorph like creatures created by a mad scientist named Dr Wattsman who believes that he can revive the species locked within the Vizorium substance but is no closer to succeeding.
Kei and Yuri are sent to investigate the labs, running into the smuggler from earlier named Carson, as they learn more from Carson about Dr Wattsman, it's left to the three of them to stop the evil genius, even if Wattsman does end up mistaking the three as his creation.
Right off the bat, the effort made for this feature is astounding, this released in 1986, and while I did have the luxury of HD quality, that doesn't take away from the sheer amount of effort each animator went through for Dirty Pair's sci fi world, aesthetic and soundtrack.
The story on the other hand, isn't anything special, Wattsman does mix bumbling and intimidating quite well but the actual Dirty Pair seem to stumble their way through the campaign, it doesn't help that Carson has a habit of taking the edge off the Dirty Pair's bad ass reputation and plenty of very dated 80s writing can very often make some scenes not so fun to watch, the climax more than makes up for it though.
Dub is pretty solid at least.
Final Verdict: Gorgeous looking for any sci fi anime fan but very dated writing can make this tough to get through.
I really wanted to like this anime.
Kashou and Shigure would like to welcome you to Patisserie La Soliel, a unique cafe staffed by catgirls, things seem normal for the catgirls until a stray kitten wanders into their lives after lead catgirl Chocola takes pity on her, the kitten later named Cacao joins the extended family of catgirls and adds more fun to their lives.
To get the giant cat out of the room first, how does this world function?
The Catgirls look pretty human for the most part but quite often their behaviour isn't much different to regular cats and it's shown in the ending theme that they grow at the same rate as a house cat, I really shouldn't think too hard but it is distracting, with that in mind, how old is Shigure meant to be? Her body suggests teenager but her mannerisms, her network of friends and the fact that she owns the business suggest she's closer to her thirties, just another thing to think about.
But what about the catgirls themselves?
Honestly you couldn't pick a more generic set of personalities for these catgirls.
With the exception of Vanilla who is best catgirl every personality has been done to death and doesn't stand out anymore than other anime characters of their types.
Probably the worst of the bunch is Maple and Cinnamon, Maple lacks any personality at all while Cinnamon is the only character reminding me that the Nekopara game is supposed to be a H-Game, the problem with that is that this anime is played like a straight up slice of life anime with no lewd situations, this is especially jarring when Cacao, a kitten, takes the spotlight more often than not.
Nekopara really fails to win me over as it always seems at odds with it's gaming counterpart along with one too many distractions from the world building side, thank god I've never heard a dub, it would be unwatchable.
Final Verdict: Nekopara is slow, uninspired and constantly giving me too much to question in regards to world building, I really wanted to like this but in the end, I only like Vanilla.
No one is ever ready for this anime.
In 2040, Reito is put into cryostasis in order to cure a rare disease, after five years of cryosleep, he reawakens in a very changed Earth, a virus known as the Male Killer virus wiped out the world's male population with Japan alone having only 5 males left as they were all in cryostatis during this time.
With each male having their own story, Reito is trying to locate Elisa and discover more about how the virus came to be all the while being encouraged to repopulate the Earth.
Oh boy, this is the death of harem shows right here, have you considered the idea that most harem shows don't actually behave like a harem show?
The idea of men being wiped out bar one isn't anything new in the realm of fiction, there's even variations where every male becomes a female, the problem with World's End is the motive behind the events of the virus, a group of women discover a way to reproduce without the need for men so they kill off the male population only to take humanity as a whole down with it, it's the Thanos snap scenario where no one considers the ramifications of creating such a catastrophe, such extremist views do not create the scenario that should be associated with harem anime, none of the female cast are interesting and the only three men we follow, Reito doesn't participate in breeding, Kyoji does but we barely see him, then there's Shota who ends up becoming a monster, also I don't think I see a single woman get pregnant and actually repopulate the planet, this is an anti harem anime, what makes this anime ten times worse is having gone through a real life pandemic makes the whole anime in very poor taste.
I hope it never gets dubbed either, I'd rather not imagine who they would get to voice these characters.
Final Verdict: A horrible attempt at trying to insert social commentary in a genre well known for being crass and devoid of plot, it kills any dignity the harem genre had left as the characters are dreadful, you're better off watching Kampfer, Sekirei or even Skelter Heaven, all terrible anime that are better than this.
