After so long of waiting and all the backlash, does High Guardian Spice deserve it's hatred? Let's find out.
Rosemary and Sage are off to High Guardian School to learn how to be Guardians, together with Thyme and Parsley they'll fulfil their potential and become the best Guardians they could be.
I could easily name ten franchises that did this better and this is what really defines High Guardian Spice, it's so called influences did it better.
Soul Eater, Little Witch Academia, RWBY, Precure, She-Ra and Steven Universe to name a few did everything much better.
But wait, High Guardian Spice has strong LGBT representation, isn't that what counts?
Yes and no, yes this is one show that nails the LGBT elements but no I argue still that there are better options out there.
Visuals are amateur, characters are amateur, except Parsley who might be the show's only decently written character, voice acting is amateur, it's just one big lacklustre experience.
Look I'm going to be blunt, it's just amateur, on it's own merits it doesn't warrant half of the problems that YouTubers kept going on about, but I'm not going to offer it a free pass, overall it's a disappointment for not even living up to it's discord.
Final Verdict
It's not terrible, not even close to Top Hundred bad or funny bad, it's just mediocre and amateur, throw in controversy and you give this series way more coverage than it deserves.
Wow an actual review, where has the time gone?
Hibiki Sakura has an insatiable appetite but is fast gaining weight, the solution is joining a gym but upon meeting it's prince charming trainer Machio she soon meets his super macho body, from there she quickly gets drawn into the world of muscle training, along with a few friends, Hibiki is on a quest to get the best body.
This is the first anime I've binge watched in years, I can't even believe how much I enjoy this series, it's an obvious fan service show, yet it genuinely gives you great advice on workouts and training that you can't help but try out yourself, by the end of the first six episodes I made dumbbells out of some large water bottles and trained myself, it's amazing how positive the series is, especially it's crowning achievement, positive male role models.
This is the first time I've seen a macho body mixed with a gentleman like persona, yes there are the posh British boxer archtypes but never for a body builder, it's refreshing to see.
The other characters are great too, Hibiki is a few steps off having Machio's strength, there's the Russian otaku, the rich girl who has a muscle fetish, the boxer best friend, the late 20s cosplay idol teacher.
The only thing that lets it down is that the dub isn't worth watching as all the charm gets sucked out of it.
Final Verdict: A genuinely good anime mixed with very useful lessons on maintaining a good healthy body without being preachy or patronizing, the dub isn't worth anything so I'd avoid that.
Hey there, let's review shall we?
This OVA sees the young Prince Marth begin his journey to liberate the worlds taken by war, an anime re-telling of the first game in the series but it only covers so much as all Marth runs into are pirates and bandits as he recruits more people to his liberation army.
I came into this anime expecting it to be bad, especially after seeing the memes come out for the silly dub voice acting but in all honesty it's competently written and really the dub voice acting with it's heavy accents and some silly line delivery and the fact that Marth is called Mars shouldn't make you detract from what is a decent showing of Fire Emblem and is proof that it can hold itself as an anime.
Final Verdict: Not disappointed, worth a shot.
The pandemic as well as personal family issues have kept me away for a while but not entirely.
Saizo is a cold hearted killer, not bound by a master, the ninja cuts through his enemies without mercy until a chance meeting with Isanami draws him into the feudal conflicts of one Sanada Yukimura. Whether he likes it or not, Saizo is charged with protecting the clingy priestess Isanami who has an artifact that can destroy life. With many enemies after her, Saizo will need all the help he can get to keep Isanami safe, god help him.
You could probably guess from my not so subtle sarcasm that I greatly dislike Isanami, she's kinda the real reason why damsels in distress are so disliked; let me explain, when hearing the term damsel in distress you immediately think of a princess locked in a tower awaiting rescue so basically Princess Peach; Isanami is also a damsel in distress as she to gets kidnapped regularly with the lead needing to save her all the time but that's where the similarities end.
Princess Peach has been shown attempting escape a couple of times, her problem is that her Toadstool subjects are pathetic and that Bowser is way more prepared than she'll ever be, Mario is really her only option.
Isanami clings onto Saizo, can't make a solid action without him coming along, feels sorry for herself regularly, does practically nothing to escape and has to lose herself entirely just to unleash her death powers and despite all this, Sanada Yukimura deems her worthy enough to become one of his 10 Braves.
Isanami's character is just painful to watch, although Saizo is too much of a smuck to really commit to his edgy personality, the rest of the cast are a bit more interesting but you aren't really getting your money's worth out of them despite taking from the Sengoku period, an easy source of good characters.
I don't believe there's a dub, thank the lord, I think Isanami would be ten times worse if it did.
Final Verdict: I really wanted a good cast out of this, but with both leads being terrible and a supporting cast of average and okay characters you're really not getting a good anime.
Another trip to Aikatsu for us today.
Aine is in the regular class at Star Harmony academy until a meeting with best friend Mio opens up a path into the idol class opening up a path to become Diamond Friends, the highest rank.
Not really much has changed only the focus is now on pairings and how they interact and perform in the Aikatsu world. While the songs have a serious upgrade along with the Idol business being greatly expanded, it still possesses much of the same problems as the original, it's fine in small doses and the characters aren't that memorable but it's saddled with a couple of extra problems that is unique to this series, the first being the lack of an exciting support cast, the other being too formulaic as everytime it focuses on a different pairing they tend to go through the same plot. The Honey Cat pairing have had arguments in every episode they led while a number of episodes see Aine try too hard only to backfire but get better after, the original doesn't have this problem.
It's still an enjoyable series at it's core and the serious music upgrade is welcomed in this genre.
Obviously no dub, it would be wasted otherwise.
Final Verdict: For the music upgrade alone it's worth continuing Aikatsu but you will be missing a few features from the original.
