This was brought up recently, so let's see how we do with it.
Fumizuki Academy prides itself on it's unique testing system where by your class is based on your testing score, A being the highest and get the best equipment where as F being the lowest get all the crappy equipment.
Using an avatar based Augmented Reality, the students can summon them to battle with the stakes often being better equipment, how strong your avatar is, is based on your test score also.
Himeji falls ill on the day of the placement test, forcing her to join Class F and their unique set of students, Akihisa feeling bad for Himeji, wants her to be re-tested as she's actually a genius. Sensing a chance to takedown the system deeming it unfair to the lower classes, class rep Yuuji sets the students on a quest to use the summoner test war to bring down the whole school proving that you shouldn't underestimate the lower classes.
This is a very anime way of explaining that test scores don't mean everything, something that a number of school systems need to remember. It's definitely the characters that make this series work, Yuuji is more intelligent than he let's on as his real reason for going to class F was to avoid a stalker, Akihisa clearly has learning difficulties as his avatar can do things others can't, Minami is German and can't read Kanji, Himeji herself maybe book smart but is socially bankrupt, then you have Hideyoshi with the running gag that no one can tell his gender (he's male but looks more feminine than his twin sister)
It's a delightful cast of characters that really make the anime work, the plot is a little too much and way more anime than most.
Dub is fine and features some great moments.
Final Verdict: A great cast of characters in a school series that goes way too anime at times.
Even the name of this anime can summon one of the greatest openings of all time.
Ikki is a typical punk kid who gets into hundreds of scraps but after getting humiliated by a gang wearing a new form of skating gear known as air treks, his adopted sisters take pity on him and introduce him to the world of Air Treks and the very gang like world it has created; becoming entranced by the extreme skating craze, Ikki forms an air trek team with his friends and a couple of former rivals called Kogarasumaru as he aims to dismantle the establishment on his way to the top, completely unaware that Ikki's adopted sisters are part of a more legendary team known as Sleeping Forest.
The art style, the setup, the lore, they didn't need to go hard on it but hard they did and my god is it over complicated but still friggin awesome yet not much of the manga was covered in the anime.
I dabbled in skater culture in my teen years and I discovered Air Gear a little too late to really push that interest further, the aesthetic, that killer opening and some of the best urban art of display, it's a perfect canvas of the edgy 00s.
Dub was fine, prefer the sub.
Final Verdict: Finishing this series can be a chore but the experience is a good look into the early 2000s culture, there are very few other shows in any genre that could do the same.
Yet another dime a dozen OVA from a game no one played.
Princess Minerva is bored, so she enters a battle tournament in her disguise Cutey Mask in order to find some bodyguards to join her in her adventures much to the dismay of her actual bodyguard Blue Morris.
After uniting a boy thief, a dominatrix merchant, a cleric, a young half elf, a bounty hunter and a mercenary, Princess Minerva goes up against the evil Dynastar who kidnapped Blue Morris by mistake.
This is a prequel to the games really but nothing about this is even remotely good mostly because Minerva herself isn't even the slightest bit likeable, not that she's incapable or anything but she creates this scenario through pure selfishness, she doesn't seem the type who learns from her mistakes either, the other cast members are well balanced especially the merchant girl, really it's just the title character that's putting me off.
Dub has that early charm but Minerva puts on her Excel Saga dub voice which can be grating.
Final Verdict: Would've preferred Princess Minerva without Minerva, pity as it had enough for a decent attempt.
This one has a little bit of a complex history.
Before I dive into the plot, this anime is a spinoff from another franchise.
The anime Hit o Nerae, is about a woman trying to make her name in the movie making business hoping to be taken seriously as an adult but ends up directing a hero show instead of a detective series, another spinoff called Love Love features a romance between the writer and one of the actresses during production of said hero show which is called Cosmopolitan Prayers or Cosprayers for short and this is the anime I'm reviewing.
Koto is just a normal schoolgirl who likes Cosplaying but a bit of play acting as a miko transports her to another world, now chosen as Miko Reiya, she along with international themed Miko from European, Indian, Native American, Arabian and Chinese cultures must destroy the black towers to resurrect amaterasu, but there may be more at stake than they realise when the enemy captures their mentor.
The concept is amazing, it feels like this is what an all girls Shaman King would be like, but the execution is terrible.
First off, Scarlet is a total bitch, secondly the other girls really don't get enough screentime and they have quirky personalities to boot that really wastes their potential, thirdly the twists are poorly executed and make the characters look really stupid, and finally it squeezes everything into and absurdly short running time of eight half size episodes, there are dvd extras that expand on some episodes but unless someone has ripped them, I ain't tracking that down, not worth it.
If there was a dub it would irritate me more especially Scarlet barely being torable in Japanese.
Final Verdict: A great idea with terrible execution spunoff from a franchise that isn't even the same genre, really not good.
Something a bit more wholesome now.
Kaede Honjo is persuaded into joining a virtual mmorpg by her best friend, taking on the in game name Maple she sets about sorting all her stats and to quote the subtitle "I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense" is exactly what she does, keen to stick to that promise along with natural curiosity and an unorthodox approach to gaming mechanics, Maple soon becomes the most overpowered player in the game who can pretty much no sell any attack. Joined by her friend whose in-game name is Sally and a number of other players who form a guild with her, the poor game mods have their work cut out as Maple tears down the limits of the game world every time she logs in.
This anime is extremely laid back even if the situation looks dire, there's always a real feel that she really is just playing a game and it envokes the same feelings that games are supposed to do, unwind and relax, the experience reminds me of watching a vtuber play games; I also appreciate the absence of politics which ruined Dot Hack for me so I do appreciate Bofuri doing that.
Even with season 2, it felt like more of the same as early as episode 9 on season 1, I already feel they exhausted all the ways Maple can be overpowered, plus there's not really a plot, you are just watching cute anime girls play a video game. It's not for everyone as the genre relies on you tolerating the cuteness in the first place and Maple is hardly the type to snap and do Shonen Rage mode.
Dub is meh, sub is best experience.
Final Verdict: It's just a nice series to watch, devoid of politics, relaxed atmosphere and a protagonist too cute for her own good.
