Review Clannad the movie

Our charming Heroine

Tomoya Okazaki was a young man who drifted through life after an altercation with his father resulted in an injury that made him quit basketball. One day he meets a mysterious but very cheerful girl named Nagisa. Nagisa eventually tries to draw Tomoya in an effort to reestablish the disbanded theater club. Tomoya also has a reoccurring dark dream, how will Nagisa fit into that as well as the rest of his life?

I will make this into a sports anime, darn it.

The Clannad movie is one based off of a visual novel and has another adaptation done as a television show. The most obvious difference between this movie and other versions of the story is that given that the movie is only an hour and a half long there has been a lot of material cut out of it for sake of brevity.  While there are movie adaptations that can handle this well in the case of Clannad important emotional scenes in the television show were neutered. 

Some interesting visuals in this movie though

While it is to be expected that the movie would limit it's material to Nagisa's route in Clannad it even trims things down to the point of things like Nagisa's parents and Ushio are gutted in terms of personality. The movie has a strange visual style to it and the high point of this movie is the directing. I do wonder if someone who is totally unfamiliar with the franchise would enjoy this movie more.

Overall I found that Clannad was too large of a story to place in a hour and a half movie. 

Rating the bronze curry (angel beats) for a movie that was cut too short to be made in it's full potential.

Review Ringing Bell (Chiren no Suzu)

Aren't they adorable

Chiren is a little lamb who is innocent to the world and like any lamb lived in the meadow with his mother. One important thing she told him was to be wary of the king of the wolves and not to wander far from the flock. However one night tragedy strikes Chiren and that gives him the drive to become strong like the king of the wolves.

There is a lot of attention paid to the backgrounds of this movie.

Ringing Bell is the story of an adorable little lamb and his descent into darkness via revenge and violence. This movie has the makings of a family animated film despite how unexpectedly dark the movie is for a family film. In all honesty I was planning on watching this movie on a lark but was honestly surprised by how good this movie was.

I don't think those are good horns.

This movie is a short one but I found it long enough to tell a story that was short but very compelling. In terms of plot it is rather simple but in this case I believe it's simplicity is an asset as opposed to a detriment. Although the story is dark it never felt pointlessly exploitative. The animation style is very different from what one would expect from anime and it is not only unusual it is very pretty as well.

Overall if you are interested in anime as an art form I recommend Ringing Bell as something that can expand your horizons.

Rating the silver little unicorn (Unico) for being an old anime that still holds up all of these decades.

Review Amagi Brilliant Park

Sometimes you need to get told you got punk'd

Seiya Kanie is a young man who used to be famous but now just coasts through life. One day is asked by Isuzu Sento, one of his classmates, to become the manager of a rundown amusement park. This park is special because it's employees are fairies and if the park closes down they will lose the magic they need. After some convincing Kanie takes up the task of getting half a million visitors in three months.

On your right we have an interdimensional pirate ship

Amagi Brilliant park is an anime series based off of a series of light novels. Although it has an overarching plot in getting Kanie to save the park for the most part the show is episodic with most episodes featuring on some aspect of the park. This show is also mostly comedy with some light action and drama as well as fan service (it isn't heavy enough to call it fan service show) thrown in for good measure.

Sento dealing with customers

Amagi Brilliant Park is a character based show and fortunately the show has a pretty decent cast of characters. I felt there weren't any really amazing ones but on the other hand no character is overdone. Kyoto animation does a good job with the animation and keeping the show interesting. In short it's a show with a little bit of everything which makes it a bit hard to describe but the elements of the sow balance each other out.

Overall I found Amagi Brilliant Park to be little more than a simple entertaining show but sometimes that is all you need

Rating the bronze

Review Iwatobi swim club

Little know fact, Rei's hand smells awesome

Haruka Nanase is a young man who loves water and swimming but only swims freestyle. One day Rin, an old friend of his moves back to Japan and challenges him to a swimming match and beats him easily. This motivates Haruka to start a new swim club with his old friends. But do Haruka and his friends have enough talent and skill to become great swimmers?

Sometimes those fanfics practically write themselves

Free is a sports anime show and one that is somewhat infamous for having some controversy about it. In my opinion I found it completely unnecessary as animation studios are mercenary entities that will please any demographic that could be profitable. On top of this I found Free to be a decent show regardless of any pandering to a female fan base that that this show has.

But would a good girl be snooping on other's conversations?

I found this show to be a decent enough sports show with decent enough characters and a plot to be considered a good (although not great) show simply by narrative merit. There is equal parts character drama and some light comedy to keep the show from being too dark or heavy. There is of course fujoshi based fan service but at least it isn't something used to distract from the show's failings.

Overall Free Iwatobi Swim Club is a great show for fans looking for hot guys in their anime and it should be tolerable for most everyone else.

Rating the bronze Suzaku (Fushigi Yuugi) for be a decent show regardless of being full of bishonen.

Review Kiniro Mosiac

Hair wings

One time a Japanese girl Shinobu stayed with an English family and became friends with their daughter Alice. Years later Alice decided to visit her friend in Japan and she decided to live there. The two of the them as well as their friends go about their everyday lives in this situation.

Don't feed the wild moe girls

Kiniro Mosiac is a slice of life show based off of a four koma manga. As such it doesn't try to have much of a plot and centers around being cute and funny. Doing cute is something that this show does very, very well. The humor is a bit more hit or miss but I found it mostly goes hand in hand with being cute.

With posture like that you know it's not a sports anime show

I wouldn't call this a slice of life show that really tries to be anything special but it works as a very decent vanilla show of it's genre. Like many shows of this type it has some soft yuri vibes but with everything else about Kiniro Mosaic it is very innocent and generally goes nowhere.

Take it Off!

Overall I found Kiniro Mosaic to be nothing more than weaponized cuteness and it is kind of proud of that.

Rating the bronze Hokago teacup (K On) for being a nice and decent slice or life show.

Review Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Stardust Crusaders

Really enjoying those cherries

Jotaro Kujo locked himself in jail to avoid causing more trouble with the ghost haunting him. It turns out that the ghost is actually a power of his called a stand. The stand is caused by the resurrection of Dio Brando a century old vampire. Even though he can withstand the new power it will be eventually fatal to his mother, so begins an epic quest to defeat the evil Dio.

Those perverts are just animals

Jojo's bizarre Adventure Stardust Crusaders is a shonen action show. Even though this is the second season, watching the first season is not necessary to enjoy this show. This show is a very much a series of monster of the week episodes (although there are a lot of two episode long fights). There is a little humor on the side but this most definitely not a comedy.

Sometimes you just need to laugh

To put it simply this show is an exception to my belief in simply brainless action shows working as well as movies (for what I said read here ) primarily by being a string of monster of the week fights with little breathing space. The show works like catnip to a certain type of fan but unless you want supernatural fights and little else, Jojo's Bizzare Adventure has nothing to offer you.

Overall Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is sort of like Wolverine, it is the best at what it does even if the show is kind of a one trick pony.

Rating The silver over-sized sword (Berserk) for being a really neat brainless action show that is diverting as all get out. 

Review Yuki Yuuna is a Hero

Pill Popping magic girls

Yuki Yuna is a middle school girl who is in a group called the Hero club with three other students. One day they learn that there is more to club than simple odd jobs, they are chosen to be warriors defending the sacred tree Shinju from invaders. However this is not the only secret there is to the world and the ones left uncovered can be terrible to behold once they are held up to the light.

Sadly Fu never realizes her dream of becoming a pirate

Yuki Yuna is a Hero is a magical girl show with several episodes of being a slice of life show. I found these segments not only blended together but complement each other. For example the plot points in episode four for example not only stand on their own but also reinforce a particularly dramatic scene in episode nine.

The average viewer by the end of the show.

While this show is something that will be instantly compared to Madoka Magica I do feel that this show does manage to be different enough that the show stands on it's own. It does have an interesting art style but it is more reminiscent of a mecha show from Bones than trying to copy Shaft. I also found the darker elements to be not only supported by the narrative but also something that doesn't look like it trying to copy other shows.

Overall I found Yuki Yuna is a Hero to be a good and interesting magical girl show which is a good watch for anybody even slightly interested in the genre.

Rating the Silver Kyubey (Madoka Magica) for being a really good dark magical girl show.