Rate the last anime you watched out of 10

Adieu Galaxy Express 999
Finally got these films on BD and saw the first film a while ago. Think this is the third time I have bought the films. One of the problems with Rintaro's work is that he goes for the grand spectacle over story or character development. Luckily the script is pretty good and isn't overwhelmed by the visuals. There's a few changes from the first film, the major one being that the Galaxy Express can speak and interact with the crew and the rest of the cast. One of the things that does amuse me about this film and other works by Leji Matsumoto is his stance against technology. I suppose what he's trying to say is machines need humans to control them and automation is wrong, but it does come off as a little bit contradictory considering how technology plays a large role in a lot of his works. Regardless, the film still looks amazing nearly 40 years on and story is great. 8.5 out of 10.

B't X
This almost forgotten TV series from the mid 1990's was based on a manga by Masami Kurumada of Saint Seiya fame. As a result it does feel similar to that series, but is more of a mecha show. Of course there are plenty of fight scenes. Some of the animation, especially in the first episode, is pretty woeful; very off model and bit substandard for a mid 1990's TV series. However it does improve a lot. Most of the series has the hero, Teppei Takamiya, trying to rescue his brother from the Machine Empire using an artificial lifeform (robot in reality) created by the empire called B't X. The story is a bit more involved than that, but for the most part follows a typical shonen manga template with lots of fight sequences, cliched baddies etc. The DVD set form Anime Midstream is OK for the most part. There's a couple of glaring typos in the subs, a couple of bad audio glitches or dropouts in two episodes, but mostly it's quite good. There's no translation for the Japanese cast though. The show doesn't have a proper ending as the manga was still running at the time of broadcast. However the follow up series B't X Neo concludes the series. 6.5 out of 10.
 
The Woman Called Fujiko Mine (Rewatch)

Definitely enjoyed this one more on the second viewing. At the time it came out, the Lupin franchise was still hung up on trying to have high stakes and epic heists every time, so in part I think I was too busy looking for that to appreciate how well it works on a smaller, more intimate level, but it also took me a while to wrap my head around the often unflattering depiction of the characters. I don't think it even portrays them in the caustic way Mamo did, but the Lupin gang has never seemed so flawed and fallible - their foibles are often so foregrounded that it can be hard to notice the moments of subtle redemption. This is particularly noticeable with Fujiko herself (she is the focus of the show, after all), who is suddenly a complex, multifaceted person, encapsulating elements of all her previous iterations, as opposed to the three or four possible versions we usually see in shorthand.

I'm not much given to numerical scoring, but I feel like the show has gone up in my estimation from a mild seven to a strong nine - it's a strong, stylish character study that is still the most consistently interesting thing to come out of the Lupin franchise in many years. My only lingering complaints are that it leans too heavily on some stylistic devices (that crosshatching, gee whiz) to cover up the presumably modest budget and the ostensibly apocalyptic Cuban Missile Crisis episode is inexplicably dull. That aside, would highly recommend.

Rhea Gall Force (1989)

This was a far bigger departure from the original Gall Force trilogy than I'd expected - the reference point is now clearly the future war scenes from The Terminator, as opposed to Alien and Star Wars - but I appreciate their trying something different and I liked this one quite a bit. While there's not a lot of development given over to the characters, it still feels like there's enough here for it to work and, given the cyclical nature of the story, it's kind of a nice touch that the same character archetypes have emerged again (it's almost a little reminiscent of Blackadder) and a few of the original cast now have a new, yet slightly different equivalent.

Whether it's a higher budget, an improvement in production techniques or just a better transfer, Rhea also looks noticeably more polished than Stardust War did. Visually, I think it feels a lot closer to Bubblegum Crisis and presumably the animators have learned from their experiences of working on that. Equally, it hadn't occurred to me before that, presumably, the producers were trying to mould Gall Force into an ongoing series in a similar fashion to BGC - that might explain the decision to make two films of Destruction / Stardust War.

If I was being hard on it, I think some of the direction for Rhea lacks flair at times and I did miss the familiar theme tune, but I'm curious to see how the next instalments will pan out.
 
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I finished The World God Only Knows.

The concept appealed to me and I thought it started off really well, but it began to lose steam halfway through and limped its way toward the end. God only knows how it got another two seasons.

Good: The first few episodes are good and made me look forward to the rest of the series. It's quite nice to look at. The OP/ED are both pretty great (except the ED for the last episode, which is an abomination).

Bad: It tries hard to be funny, but mostly fails. Most of the supporting cast are very forgettable and the regular characters are annoying. The second half of the series is a mixture of boredom and nonsense.

5/10
 
Weather Report Girl (1994)

Oh boy. The story of an unscrupulous young woman who seizes her chance to install herself as the new idol of a flagging tv station, this was far more sexually explicit than I'd expected, but I think there is genuinely something to it beyond smutty exploitation. Protagonist Keiko is a terrible person, but her unrepentent reign of punk terror is nothing if not compelling, as she gets involved in an ever escalating game of one-upmanship for dominance of the airwaves, first with her rival weather presenter and then a charismatic anchorwoman.

Its art is a bit crude and the comedy of awful people doing awful things to each other will not be for everyone, but there are plenty of lowbrow laughs to be had along the way, and it even flirts with a bit of satire. However overblown the characters become, there is a definite ring of truth about their cut-throat attitudes and willingness to play along with the media circus, in order to stay on top. The only thing I did find a little jarring was that I found it difficult to believe that Keiko's gleefully corrupt, ultra-cynical worldview was really that of a 22 year-old - she comes across as much older.

I don't know that it's something I could recommend without feeling acutely embarrassed, but it was certainly more entertaining than I expected and, god help me, I might even read the manga.
 
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Glad this thread still going strong, with all the mini-reviews. I died a forum/internet death long ago but people caring more than me about sharing their thoughts is nice to see.

Just a quick note about the Yona post on this page: hit the nail on the head, I feel. The anime was a manga advertisement as far as the story went. The 'princess and her bodyguard' interactions were funny and endearing throughout, and the early development helped a lot in this regard. The squirrel will always be my number one, however: puk kyu, and puk me, too.

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Belladonna of Sadness: 6.5/10
Decades ahead of other anime. Beautiful realism, paired with watercolour surrealism. More art than entertainment... and animation given the lack of! Disturbing rather than erotic; penetration / bats esp. Main vocal theme reminded me of Kill Bill A LOT!

Belladonna is one-of-a-kind...which is weird to type when it came out in the 70's (compare it to Cleopatra / Tezuka's cartoonishness and... lol). It might very well be the oldest anime I've watched/finished, and you wouldn't know it to look at it: the non-manga artist was not influenced by the medium in the slightest, and the preference to pan over still images as opposed to... lip flaps like in modern anime made it feel more like a sequence of paintings, at times. The animation was saved for the psychedelic lust sequences, in the main. The problem with it was there really wasn't much story, or at least not enough to match-up with its artistic merit. The descent into lust was compelling but not a lot else. And it just... ended, with a bizarre French revolution nod.

Flip Flappers: 5.5/10
After ep1 zZz, £$£ creativity won me over: the magical girl OPM. Mad Max to arsty rabbit world; school girl horror to Evan-mecha... then lost itself via rushed ANIME 'evil dream momma' 4-5ep nonsense. Budget + imagination died. Papika's JP "Cocona!" <3~

Flip Flippy turned out to be massive letdown. Its first ep nearly sent me to sleep but I gave it another chance and had a lot of fun with the episodes that followed. The animation budget was thrown around creatively, with everything glued together by the girls' partnership/Papika being a cute puppy-sidekick and Cocona being more uptight. I especially liked the timeloop school ep which was a homage to all those Japanese school horror flicks. The voice sound effect I recall was... unnerving. Unfortuantely, it ended like many anime: 'DEEP' world ending bollox involving dreamworlds / whitevoids. I think the staff found out the show wasn't selling, or getting a sequel, and towards the end they jarringly tried to cram in a plot. Badly.

Fate/stay night Movie: Heaven's Feel - I. Presage Flower: 7-7.5/10
Weird 1st half pacing: slow intro (WHER RIN), then all but skipped UBW content / early action. ufotablesmex won out in last half once Lancer & Assassin went at it in non-talky style. Just a pity it took so long. Sakura not gonna be developed 'till sequel.

Heaven's Feel was roughly what I expected it to be, I suppose?... I was a lil' surprised it went slow before the action, then fast-forwarded past the fights seen in UBW (glad this wasn't my first FSN rodeo), but it got there in the end. It grabbed my attention starting with assassin/death(s). My main disappoint is that it seems like movie #2 is where Sakura is going to... err, blossom? She's no Rin up to yet. And now I'm going to have to wait forever, or watch... a camrip of the second movie. Suicide might beat MVM to releasing the next one, I fear~
 
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Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works

Its much better than F/SN but I probably still prefer Fate/Zero. The increased focus on Rin is a big improvement. The only real problem is that I just find the main character a perfect storm of annoying and tedious. It wasnt as bad as in F/SN however.

The story was well paced and exciting. Even though some of the same exposition has to be covered the new events taking place keep the tension and surprises coming.

The action scenes were designed and easy to follow and the animation was really great I them too.

Overall this is a fun series and probably the best starting point for the franchise. 7.5/10
 
Rwby vol 4

Really enjoyed this chapter of the Rwby saga. After the near constant action of vol 3 this was a well deserved slower story focusing on character. That's not to say the action was absent but story through character development was the focus here and after the dramatic events of the previous vol it was good to spend time on the emotional aftermath of that.

It should also be noted just how good the animation has become. From the blocky lifeless backgrounds of vol 1 we now have vibrant bustling locations at times very artistically depicted. And the action scenes that are here are excellently executed.

My only real criticism is the same for all Rwby where the humour doesn't always land for me.

The show has steadily improved and continues to do so here.

8.5/10
 
I finished Oreimo. It's a very sweet series, with a likeable cast of characters. The story is nice - there's plenty going on and it never gets boring. I prefer watching shows dubbed where possible, but I still loved this even though it was sub-only.

I'll watch something else next, but I've got season 2 to look forward to!

9/10
 
Darling in the Franxx First Part 7/10
Not as bad as I remmbered.
It has a lot of good elements that made worthwhile for the most part.
Zorome was my favourite character despite being shafted after episode 10
Zero Two is cool
Hiro is lifeless as potatoes but least he wasn't offensive like Yuno or Shu.
Overall pretty soild first half.
I hope part 2 will be good.
I hope the Blu-Ray fixed the crappy animation in the final 4 episodes.
 
Just finished Golden Kamuy and I loved it, 10/10. Great characters that are really lovable, interesting story with comedy moments as well as more dramatic scenes. I rarely read manga, only when anime picked my interest, and I'm going to read Golden Kamuy and I'm hoping to see next season soon.
 
FLCL: Progressive

In the end, I liked this a little more than I expected to. I'm not the biggest fan of FLCL, but this still looks and sounds great, and I wouldn't say I enjoyed it any less than the original. It could do with either developing its characters and themes a little more or losing about half an hour from its running time, but I think it does enough to justify its existence as a sequel, beyond a mere attempt to cash in on the illustrious name. At the very least, it deserves to find an audience, rather than being sent into oblivion by poor decisions on where to release it.
 
Bacano! Blu ray

This show is so good. Effortlessly cool. Crazy characters, mad story, non chronological story telling and a fantastic OP. It also looks great on the blu ray version.

Even the "epilogue" episodes were way better on the rewatch. The amount of character story being told in them is actuallyboretty astonishing and really drives home the shows primary question of "what even is a story?"

16/10 (one point for every episode...yes I realise that's a little pretentious of me but whatever. This show is awesome.)

Edit: also the voice acting in the dub is exceptional
 
Scum's Wish

Well that was intense. Huge web of love, lust, lies, caring and cheating. The show is very bittersweet generally leaning towards the bitter but it is very good. The animation is excellent and makes great use of artful still panel shots overlaid on the main screen with internal monologues incredibly well. I watched the dub version and the acting is excellent. We hear all the main players internal monologues at some point and the voice acting is always on point.

It's a very emotionally charged show about a group of people ultimately lacking in self esteem and self worth and look for validation in others. It can be sad and it can be cruel but it always feels like it could be real.

10/10
 
Taking notes for those, before I start forgetting half of them. (Those have been across a couple of month...)

Concrete Revolutio
So a colorful Magical Girl-ish style mixed with some 009-ish character design main guy, some superhero antics and some quite good sakuga. And nobody really seemd to have watched and liked it. Somehow in my mind this was grouped along with Punch Line in the "went under, but not so bad" pot.
And it wouldn't have been so bad, if it didn't try to hard to subvert the more traditional plotline of these superhero/magical girl stories. Good guys in a group and fight the evil, oh surprise the goodies may not be so goodie after all and one goes astray. (Of course the astray ones go all dark, which looks a bit more cool.) The timelines were a complete mess and what's worse, except for years title cards there was almost no cue for orientation. Nothing visual and since it's happening right from episode 1 there is no chance to differentiate via character reactions. (You don't know any of them yet after all.) It felt like they forced spoilers in, right in the first episode, before those spoilers could possible ever have some impact. Plotlines got even more messier by the by and this show is going to last for a while for feeling rather unsatisfying by its end. (That finale was strange in its weird build up.)

5/10, only for some of the sakuga

Yojou Senki
I head it was one of the better Isekais, but since it all reeks like some Nazi-clichés mixed with Otaku-Loli cliché plus isekai I expected it to be chiefly being just edgy. I was duly surprised, that it's not some Hellsing-ish Nazi stuff at all. It doesn't even really play Loli-tropes-cards out either. Having a villain as the hero is quite rare and then it's even a villain you kind of have to not like, but at the other hand you can't help but sometimes come to root for him. The servings of "serious comedy" are delicious. Most of it ends up being Schadefreude, but as the protagonist regularly reminds you that she's really not a good person, there is no need to feel too bad about it either. Directing and animation are also quite good. The last episodes fight is really cool to look at and for the directing its Match and Jump Cuts stood out to me most. Visual Humor or marking the passage of time clear to the viewer done really expertly.
Only downside, now that I was late at catching up on that, I should have waited a bit. Then I'd not have to wait for the movie. =X

7.5/10

Little Busters!: EX
I thought I liked Little Busters. Or Refrain at least. But it's been a while. EX was... a bit of a drag. Blond girls Saya's route has an interesting base set up as revealed in the end, which blends in well to the Refrain plot, but Saya is such an awfully one dimensional character and rather hard to bear. Second arc was even more terrible with that Ojousama-girl, but again, the twist as revealed wouldn't have been so bad, if it weren't such an unearned tearjerker. Kanata's part was somewhat decent in comparison and picks up a loose end from the main series. But somehow it doesn't have all that much of a conclusion that's so diffrent from the main series.

5/10

Omoide no Marnie
This might be the first Ghibli that captivated me. (I usually always find them very good, but not too enjoyable.) The only thing after watching it is that it turns out to be actually a family drama, which was decidedly guessable halfway through, but for that the film had way to many Yuri-vibes somehow. Regardless, it had such a nice atmophere and I really like those dreamy-elements in general..

7/10

Gi(a)rlish Number
I've heard about this as the cynical extention to Shirobako, turns out I liked it more than Shirobako which I watched right after.
But it does its job with handling Chitose really well. The girl is so lazy and undiciplined, but posseses the skill of having some absurd luck. And yet, plot convenience doesn't befall her, her laziness has effects regardless and she still actually has to put in some actual work in, after all.
Also, quite a nice show to give a reason, why you might grind yourself through some work, you don't actually enjoy whatsoever.

7/10

Shirobako
There is a lot of positive stuff around for that show and I see it's really good (and educative), but something about it... doesn't seem to want to resonate with me. (Especially the antics of the director were a bit tiring.) Might also have something to do with the visuals. Something about the colour palette screams "boring!" right into my face. Which is a bit weird. sure work life is a drag and it looking like it is fine, but it had so many of those inspiration-moments for the characters and they were still not very visually engaging to me. Given that scenery porn is P.A. Works main attraction to me, that was a bit of a letdown. (The key visuals also look a bit more colourful.)

But still 7/10

Little Busters!: Sekai no Saitou wa Ore ga Mamoru!
Figured I could complete the franchise anime-wise after EX. This OVA kind of went in and out straight away. At least it didn't stand out as a complete waste of premise. Could easily be one of the random episodes in Little Busters S1, without standing out.

5/10

Big Fish & Begonia
That one was a bit of a surprise. I've been on the lookout for Chinese Anime even 10 years ago, but back then there seemed to be a good bunch of talented people, who however seemed to hit a dead end, since there simply was no domestic market for it. Absolutely didn't catch that it came from China. Actually also didn't catch that it's totally not a Pixar-ish 3D style animation film, as the internationally most known cover suggests. Talk about misleading marketing. The movie remains a bit of a mixed bag regardless. So many themes, but none seem really fleshed out. The fantasy world seems to real and rich of details at times and completely underdeveloped in key parts of its world building. Characters at times feel flat, but then it has two really intriguing excceptic old characters which were to poignant in their presentation, but ended up being the ones with the most underdeveloped character backgrounds of them all. Regardless, even with all the potential going unused, it does use up some and that part stirrs interest into more of it. (Supposedly a sequel is in the making.) And all things said and done, I really just like those atmopshere dense dreamy things and in that department it hits full force.

7/10


Recovery of an MMO Junkie
Is it just me or does the opening kind of sound like some Vocaloid song? (Or more like Kagerou Daze-ish?) anyway, the opening deserves some heads up for being resourcefull of materials used, while maximing effect via competent directing. It's astonishing, it doesn't actually have all that much animation, it even reused footage from the show, but its one of those I kept watching almost every episode. Nice enough the show itself is also pretty well directed, it's sense for cute-dorky humor is really just likable. Also adult characters dipped in worklife, which gives everything a nicely down to earth dark tinge. Somehow it misses to address is a bit more, but the subtle indicators suffice, too. There are a bunch of too many coincidences, but at least they are aware of them in-world. Parts of it make it clear, that it's just a partial adaption, due to unaddressed side characters, but in terms of main characters, it's nicely round with the last episode's open, but uplifting ending. (Only for it to be partly disabled by Funimation labeling the extras episode as 11 with no hint of it being a sequel-but-still-isolated extra, so I got confused.)

7/10

Expelled from Paradise
So Urobochi does a Madoka and Psycho-Pass, has success with it.... and he gets to write for a movie that's completely CGI and in general has completely unremarkable marketing. What went wrong there?
Either way, I wasn't too interested in that, until somehow the German Blu-ray ended up on my random watching piles. Turns out the CGI isn't quite so terrible as anime-CGI-only sometimes (mostly) ends up being and the plot is compact. While also nothing too innovative, it also escapes the pitfallof being all too pseudo-phisolophical as the topic premise would suggest. Also thumbs up for a organic explanation, why the female agent gets to be a teen in a mecha again.

5.5/10
 
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One-Punch Man Specials - I had a load of fun watching these. I've been watching season 1 at the same time, but I finished the specials off first. There are six episodes and they're only 11 minutes each, so they were nice to watch when I had a few spare minutes here and there. Each episode focused on a different character and every one had a unique plot, so there was plenty of variety in there - nothing ever felt boring or padded out (TBF, the main series is the same). There were loads of funny moments and the ED was great too. I liked all the episodes, but the Blizzard one was probably my fav.

I've seen some series recently I haven't enjoyed too much, but this gets the same score as the previous anime I commented on on this page (Oreimo) - 9/10
 
This morning finished Golden Time

This turned out much better than I expected. I thought it was just gona be a rom com and it started out that way but soon it became an emotional drama. I even got a bit emotional in the last episode.

I feel like this show is trying to capture the magic of Clannad. It doesn't quite manage it but it's still a good watch. Some characters are a bit annoying to begin with and it's not until later that they open up and we get to really understand them.

It's not perfect and it plays one plot device a couple of times too many by the end. But by the end it's a great group of core characters with a good emotional send off and a nice complete story in 24 episodes. The animation is good if not spectacular and the last ep does some nice work.

7.5/10
 
Rwby vol 5

This was a great volume. The animation really is very good now! Yang, Weiss and Blake all get great arcs through this volume. Ruby is left a little bit in the exposition group this time around but we start to learn about the bigger picture of what's happening and we get some great world building. Jean also gets a good arc after the events at the end of vol 3 having plagued him until now.

The action really is very good now. It's more lighthearted than the last volume was but theres still good emotional weight to it.

Vol 3, 4 and 5 have all been very good. The only thing that annoyed me this time was they left all the credits in rather than editing the episodes together as a movie. Having the theme song every 15mins was a little to often and I've enjoyed not having the flow of the story broken up in previous volumes.
8 /10
 
Rosario + Vampire. It was alright. The girls are cute, the main character is a standard harem MC piece of cardboard and there are some nice songs in there.

The episodes were very formulaic and got a bit repetitive/tedious toward the end. The fanservice was never over the top. The dub was pleasant enough. I doubt I'll remember much about this series in a few weeks, but it was a decent way to pass some time and it was never bad.

A very alright series - 5/10
 
Gintama: The Movie. Ugh.

I've never watched or read Gintama in my life. I knew this movie was a retelling of an arc of the anime, but I assumed it would be the first arc. Apparently it's the fourth.

It made no sense, I didn't know who anyone was, the voice acting was bad and the humour was cringeworthy. I know the series is super popular, but this kind of stuff doesn't appeal to me at all.

I'd been slightly interested in Gintama before this - but it was so bad, I never want to watch or read anything else to do with it.

The absolute pits - 2/10
 
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