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The first season of Free! was a surprise discovery for me and I said a lot of nice things about it, together with the first movie Early Days. Since then I can't get enough of the show and have watched almost everything the series put out; up to this season... Where I feel like the fun waterpark ride has come to a stop. This isn't bad anime by any means, it's not even a bad installment of Free, but compared to how it started it's simply not as strong as before.
The events of this season carry on where it left off with the Take ... Your Marks specials, with Haru, Makoto and Rin heading to university and the beginning of their adult lives. Gou, Nagisa and Rei are still in high school- they were underclassmen so this is obvious- but is where the problems begin. Then we have a whole new bunch of characters introduced from the different universities, setting up new rivalries for Haru and Rin to compete with in national competitions- the tournaments on the path toward international competition. THEN the show decides to reintroduce a couple of characters from the Early Days movie- Ikuya and Asahi- plus another- Hiyori (oh yes, I'll get to him in a minute!) ... AND THEN! They introduce some personal trainers who find their way toward Haru and Makoto who have their own backstories- and we still revisit Sousuke who is planning to head to Tokyo for surgery on his shoulder (busted rotator cup- ouch!!) but wait there's more- the Iwatobi Swim Club is still going but now headed by Rei & Nagisa who recruit a couple of new (including a really cute girl I thought was a boy at first but still am not sure) OKAY HAVE YOU KEPT TRACK OF ALL THAT????

There are so many spinning plates in this act- that if you hadn't been paying really close attention to the first couple seasons and already know the main cast, you could never keep track of all the names. Not to mention there are some international swimmers who show up- in addition to Rin's Aussie friends... to put it another way, a new bishonen shows up every episode and they're getting harder to tell apart.
Of course, the stakes have shifted completely from the first season of Free that was really about the four boys Nagisa, Haru, Rei and Makoto (and Rin) discovering themselves and trying to understand why they want to swim and what is the meaning of teamwork. But in Dive To the Future, it's about so many different characters going their own way on different paths toward adulthood- and the teamwork dynamic is no longer a thing. Now it's all about the INDIVIDUAL. What do YOU want to do? Why do YOU want to compete? What's it mean to YOU?
And this is fine with Sousuke and Makoto- especially Makoto who has a very strong reason for wanting to contribute something to the next generation. But Haruka was never a well defined character- he spent 3 seasons staring into the blue and not saying much; and shouting at his friends when they tried to get him to just consider where he could go and who he should be. Now, he's making a decision- but it's never clear in the show if he has fully made it or not. He never seemed to care about winning before- "I just swim free" and probably because he always easily won. Now suddenly he has to care- and that transition hasn't fully matured.
And then we have HIYORI who is by far the biggest problem.
He isn't just a jerk who says nasty things to people; and naturally he's really good in the water- making him a difficult antagonist- but he's preventing Haru and Makoto and even Ahase from even seeing Ikuya, and acts as a barrier between Ikuya and every other character in the show. This is not a good thing. And his reasons for doing it only make him scary. His manipulative, possessive, ive aggressive demeanor that tries to shift a fake smile depending on who he is talking to- just gave me the creeps.

But the show's biggest sin is simply the huge cast has forced it to prioritize some characters over others- and that meant Nagisa and Rei (and Gou even) get relegated to background roles and are hardly seen or heard from. And every other character in this is fighting his own personal battle, so it never feels like a cohesive unit the way Season 1 and Early Days did. And if you ask MOST fans of Free I think they would mention the teamwork aspect; or how they all felt like a family, as one of the strongest features of the anime. So as a result it feels like something is missing- everything above is what's missing.
As anime it's just as good looking and well animated as previous seasons. I would say there wasn't quite as much movement in the water as before, and it doesn't try to do anything really special.
For all these reasons I can't give Free! Dive To The Future nearly as high a score. It's only good if you have watched everything that came before, and those previous seasons and movies were better than this. So it's an extremely well made anime, that left me feeling somewhat disappointed.

Mahou Shounen Majorian is a manga by Atsuko Ishida: if you look up “Majorian” on eBay (to look for a copy) you’ll find a load of Roman coins for sale. 

If you look up Atsuko Ishida to see what she’s been up to (besides this obscure shota BL manga) you’ll find… A LOT. 
She has worked on everything from Magic Knight Rayearth to Ranma 1/2; she’s done work on Bubblegum Crisis, on Megazone 23, Windaria, even Wanna-Be’s!!! I literally have a VHS copy of that old OVA- this lady has been involved in nearly all my beloved anime that I was in love with in ... my college years, I cannot believe it! So you might find it surprising that a character designer who is also a mangaka with a few DOZEN titles to her name did this Magical Boy BL, or by the diversity of her resume, assume it’s just another day at the office…

Either way, I was immediately intrigued by the story- I have been trying to draw a similar type of story, about two boys with one who is a bully and the other who is cute (or ‘effeminate’) and I have some pages drawn, hand drawn on paper- same type of thing as here but… mine is nothing like this! 

Ishida is an artist whose inkwork flows like water.
I’d go as far to say she’s a brilliant artist. She uses visual cues like soft, rounded curly features on the cute boy’s (Iori) hair- and harsh straight strokes for the bully’ (Masaru). Eyes uncolored stand for shock or bewilderment, lightly shaded with a dot for anger- and fully inked pupils for a casual or satisfied gaze… but when the characters transform (into Magical Girls!) her lines turn into something that- well what’s the manga equivalent of sakuga? THAT. Whatever the word for THAT is. It’s impossible to describe- you have to see for yourself. Yes it’s probably present in lots of manga, but it’s also true that a lot of manga today are made on computer; and this was hand drawn. I couldn’t stop staring at her drawings and wondering at how they flowed vertically on the page. The visual style of the two different boys carries over to their Magical Girl equivalents- rounded, soft features and curls for the softer, gentler one; and a determined pose and harsh stare for the harsher boy. But there is more at work here besides just the visual style of the characters and drawings- there are also themes that stand out: such as how the two bunnies who give the boys their powers are a black and a white rabbit; while Masaru has black hair and eyes, and Iori is drawn with white (uncolored) hair and eyes…. it’s that familiar concept of YANG and YIN. Masaru is angry, energetic, ill-tempered, unbalanced- he has too much Yang. Iori is so calm and sweet and dutifully helping his mother cook and clean, and care for plants- and he doesn’t even complain when Masaru attacks him- “Why don’t you complain!!” he shouts- Iori is the embodiment of Yin, like he’s overflowing with it. They transform into Magical Girls and Ishida’s inkwork flows into abstraction as Yang and Yin swirl around each other… as they always do.



And if I stopped this review here I’d have had this as a masterpiece, with no complaints of my own. But unfortunately- I do have a bit of Yang in me- there is one aspect of this manga I didn’t care for nearly as much as how it looks: the story. The story was frustrating in a way that I felt like… maybe it’s actually brilliant but I was desiring something less harsh. I am more like Iori, I like cute and calm, I wanted to see a relationship develop but instead what unfolded was a whole lotta drama. The first volume was good- but by the end I really thought Masaru’s bullying was so cruel and unnecessary that I wondered, does this author like boys getting bullied? The second volume things go sideways, and more sideways in volume 3… to the point where she has an event take place that let’s just say I wish she hadn’t. I do not and have never understood the fixation with it- and I’ll leave that comment there, I’m not in the mood to spoil it nor to put down the author.


She has taken the route of having the two little bunnies who bring the boys their powers become evil- something that today would be taken for granted- but six whole years before Madoka Magica even came out. 

So this is actually quite a unique and interesting manga that came about when Ishida just ran with an idea as her own personal ion project. I would say it’s more for female readers than male- I doubt many men would be interested in this. But it’s also a bit overdone with the drama and some unnecessarily mean actions that happen, it has TOO MUCH YANG is what I mean to say; it needs more Iori and his sweetness to balance out the tornado that is Masaru and his emotional outbursts. She wrapped up the story in a nice way but then it got too wordy. 
The only place I know to get this is online- I haven’t found a copy for sale yet, and don’t expect to, it’s already 20 years old. Try to go slow while reading it, and gaze at Ishida’s ink work. She really did a good job. Except for the monster designs though- those were terrible. 8/10

The first movie of the series Free!

This is the only installment of the series where the boys are shown as their younger selves- but like with the first season; they still look older than I'd think they would (this is middle school); only Haruka (Haru) and Makoto are present this time; well Rei and Nagisa have cameos. It follows the events after Rin left for Australia; but before high school. Haru & Mako are hesitant to Iwatobi school's swim team; a couple other boys try to talk them into playing basketball. This is also the first time you see the two of them as ... being pretty good at another sport... which was kind of interesting. In class, a cute boy with green hair keeps looking at Haruka. They the club, and end up being paired with a couple other boys- the green haired boy is one of them, along with Asahi who is enthusiastic (sort of like Nagisa, but he's more the monkey type, kind of dumb but a lot of fun). The green hair boy is Ikuya. And I've already spent a paragraph and this is just the setup- the movie is almost 2 hours long!
I mean, you have a bunch of guys that are supposed to be in middle school; but are way more mature than that, and Makoto towers over them all. The coaches- team captain and trainer are actually students but they also act like adults. So it felt kind of awkward when they show them later sitting in desks in a classroom. It doesn't help that in the English dub they use the word "Sir" for "sempai" which I think is just our two languages not quite lining up with meaning. Haru's mom leaves town after a call that their dad was 'injured' at work- but no context was given. It seemed like they just wanted her out of the way, they don't even bother showing her face- but it becomes important later.

The four boys end up becoming a team together- so the team dynamic has to be built, ground up again, with two new characters from the viewer's point of view.
They do not work well together. Ikuya tries to copy everything Haru does- Asahi flounders in the water; and Makoto gets thrown off by a comment from the trainer that he's only swimming because Haru is. All of this sounds kind of ridiculous now that I read what I've written, like a fangirl gushing over her favorites in Fruits Basket..
It's hard to explain, there's something in this show that just elevates it
It's the ion clearly put into its production, the voice acting, and the music. This is KyoAni at their best. I just spent the whole review making fun of the drama, how it all feels so forced, but then you see one of the boys break down and cry and realize with the way his voice is heaving- that it's something you've experienced before and just like that it pulls you in. Seeing the four of them sitting together, having a sleepover, was a moment of bonding, but also makes me think of the childhood I wanted but didn't quite have. You just want to be in the same room with them and absorb everything.
So they go to their final competition not just as a club, but like brothers, and when you see how incredible they achieve- it feels exactly as exciting and moving as watching your nation's hero win Olympic Gold.
Then the screaming rock song at the end.... this happened to me once before, I think it was Manaria Friends, and that was when I got emotional: The singers are clearly not good at English... they butcher the words so badly, why did they put English words in this song... but only when you try to understand them.
If you don't- all you hear is the ion in their voices.

So much ion went into making this movie, so much emotion and beautiful visuals and with great characters and I enjoyed every moment of it that I even backed it up in several places just to see a scene again and again, or hear a line one more time. I would definitely watch it again. I can't give it anything less than 10. You watch it and tell me I'm wrong.
And all this from an anime that supposedly was just made as fan service for girls. You win, Free. You had me completely captivated. I could only hope that a single ecchi anime on the other side of that spectrum could be even half this good.

Well, this was a pleasant surprise. It's hard to believe Free! is a 12 year old anime. 2013 is when I started streaming anime seasonals and the year I moved into my condo. It's been that long, I've changed a lot since then, not all for the better- and I when this came out- and caused quite a stir.

Well the age of time and how we change, not always for the better, is the major theme in Free. A group of boys decide to start a swim club at their high school, but three of them were involved with another boy who is the ... main antagonist when they were younger- but have since grown apart. The theme of change was there throughout, an early scene shows them going by their old middle school- while it's being demolished. Demolitions are another thing that I have witnessed a lot of since moving to my city; the ruthless destruction of the past in favor of bigger and more- burying it forever under the dirt... but the beef between the two main characters runs deep. What's the cause? Will Haruka, Nagisa, Makoto and Rei figure out how to get through to former friend and rival Rin?

The first couple episodes are a little slow; but once it gets going it gets REALLY GOOD.
But a lot of people never find out, because of the elephant in the room...
There are plenty of things to criticize. Nearly all the boys in this anime don't look like teenagers exactly, they look like grown men. They're all tall, apart from Nagisa, and have chests that would make Michael Phelps look out of shape, when they wear their 'uniforms' which is shirts and ties they look like bankers- and in the English dub they talk like adults. The girls look like typical anime HS girls- but there's a noticeable lack of romance subplot that I was expecting- oh no step aside ladies- this anime is all about the guys.
That's possibly the one thing preventing some people from watching it; oh it's made for girls (horse shit!) as if it's behind crime scene tape. But even though there's a few shots I could see were intended as fan service; I never got the feeling it was forced. Not forced as hard as in most of the bewb-bouncing lunacy you see in most fan service anime anyway.

That's because this isn't really a fan service anime- it's a SPORTS anime. Sure Haruka's whole "I only swim free" thing is kind of ridiculous; and a lot of their motivations for not wanting to compete seem contrived; and some of the drama feels forced... but by the mid-way point when they finally compete together in a regional, things fall into place.

The most compelling character from my perspective was actually the guy with glasses- Rei. I haven't seen a stronger piece of character writing with him- he has this totally unrealistic "maths and analysis" approach to sports at first, but his motivations are much more believable- he is just determined to try; and being a total beginner he felt the most relatable to non-swimmers, and his voice actor really sold it. All of them did actually, this is a really great English VA effort. I don't want to get into the plot or anything; I can just say I had a great time watching this- the last 3-4 episodes were incredibly good and I turned into a total fanboy by the end. It made me cry, then laugh. I got super invested in the characters.
I can't believe how lucky I've been this month to find so many great anime that I have actually enjoyed and not hated having to get through. I actually can't believe the rating of this is just over 7. It was way better than that; and it's been watched by over 800,000 s. That's not a small amount. Sometimes there really is wisdom in a crowd.
Ignore all the BS about it being a fan service anime for girls and definitely watch it. If you ever enjoyed watching olympic swimming or anything like that, the sport itself is perfect for an anime. It doesn't matter if you don't like seeing guys in swimsuits, because they are way stronger as characters and you'll be more interested in what's going on and why. I enjoyed this a lot and am watching all the next seasons and hope they are as good.

Who could say no to this adorable demon girl!!!
This sat on my must-watch list for a few years, and I finally started it LAST year. I like demon-lord reincarnated comedy shows I suppose. And the first cour/season 12 episodes of Great Jahy did not disappoint. There were some moments in this that were so funny I laughed myself hoarse, and cried.
It's sort of similar to the Level 1 Demon Lord One Room Hero anime of a couple seasons ago; she was "2nd in command" of the Dark Realm, and ends up somehow in our world, but lives in a 'one room' apartment and has no ... money. Jahy's goal is to try and make some money and search for 'mana crystals' so she can accumulate enough of them to return to the Dark Realm.
Her efforts are in vain; and she ends up having to work part time at a restaurant. She doesn't have enough power to maintain her adult form; so she alternates between being a little girl (with just that t-shirt on) and a busty woman with kind of bikini attire and boots (well the proprietor lady at the restaurant gets her some normal clothes) She works herself half to death, and finally finds a single mana crystal and thinks she is on top of the world.

My favorite parts of this show were the 2 minute vignettes at the end where Jahy explains some of her cost-saving hacks- like how to make bean sprouts with all these different flavor packets that are 20 cents different in price- if you were a struggling college graduate, or know what it was like to be one, you'll relate to all these scenes and it's comedy gold. Jahy has a heart of gold. You just want to see her be happy.

If I could have rated just the first season, I would have given it 9 or 10 it was so good. But then the 2nd half really takes a nosedive. I barely recognized the show by the end; Jahy is still the center of everything that happens; but the jokes just aren't as good, the situations aren't as desperate, and I said in my episode review that with comedy if the joke overstays its welcome- it becomes long in the tooth. They didn't even do the little vignettes at the end anymore. The anime lost the kind of Riches-to-Rags feeling it had going on in the first half. It dragged so bad from episode 13-18 that I sort of dropped it; and didn't pick it up again til a couple weeks ago. I just wasn't motivated to watch it anymore. There are some good things that happen- after Jahy meets Kokoro, a little girl that thinks she's actually a child like her (this is all VERY funny at first) she eventually fights the magical girl, gets help from her landlady etc but it just isn't as FUNNY. And if a comedy isn't funny anymore- that's game over.
It isn't all bad news- The character Suarva remains funny throughout- apart from Jahy she was my favorite character; and the voice acting in this English dub is excellent and the person who plays her as Chibi-Jahy REALLY SELLS IT even when the script itself isn't as tight as it was in the first half.
But the way it drops off in the 2nd half just drags the show down, and I can't say it's really a great show anymore. So if you watch this, watch 1-12, it will make you laugh very hard. There isn't much reason to watch the rest. It's sort of like with comedians, they can only be on stage for a limited time- stay too long and you tire of the jokes. It gets long in the tooth... and seeing her fangs in that cover picture makes that actually kind of a funny joke in itself haha- 7/10

When this was announced, I saw the cover art of a cute elf boy (he's actually demonic) with long braids and thought- oh yes sure this looks interesting. When I learned it was an epic fantasy, I was excited. When I found out it's actually a very long manga series that started in the early 2000s- I was surprised. When Amazon picked it up- I was apprehensive- but I have access to someone's ^_~ so no problem there. But when I saw the first episode of the anime.... I was laughing.
How does this look so terrible? Why is that monster head just sitting there ... on the ground and why does it look so goofy? Why is everyone in this show so dead serious, but I'm finding it hilarious?
Ubel Blatt (which I quickly nicknamed Ubel SPLATT, then Ubel BLEAAAAAARGHHHH!!!) is one of the most perplexing viewing experiences I've had this year. I'm still on the fence about whether it was actually good or not. To determine that- normally I look at the production, everything I see on screen, how it flows together, how well it's written, being as objective as possible then adding in how entertaining it was overall as a more subjective take and score it that way. But here; the two sides of that are REALLY far apart. I mean really, really far.

So, the animation. This is a pretty big studio eh?
I mean, the titles I see under Satelight aren't small properties. So what the hell happened here?
The first problem is with the set design: most of the backgrounds are fairly standard fantasy-world architecture; wooden houses, stone fortresses, cobblestone streets, wagons and horses (and elephants... oh you just wait- we'll get to that!!!!) Well there's nothing wrong with the world, but everything is covered with this purple and black goo THE ENTIRE 12 EPISODES and it just makes the whole thing look dim and difficult to see. It's trying to be GRIMDARK, okay fine. Then there's the characters- they're a mix between very pretty attractive characters like Koinzell, the main protagonist who is a reincarnated (not in the isekai sense trust me) warrior in the body of a demon boy. Aht, an equally cute warrior with a skimpy outfit, and a pink haired girl (unfortunately named Peepi... just roll with it) like most of the female and Demi-human characters look nice. Then there's the men, who all look like they came from Berserk. Big, muscular, ugly bastards. But none of the characters move well. At times, they make a shocked face and just stay still; and 2D cutouts of the characters are just moved up and down on the screen without any of their limbs moving!!!
It's alright when they're flying over scenery or just walking around a town, but when they start fighting (which happens in this anime A LOT) things really fall to pieces. A good chunk of the action actually is stills- just stills, no movement, and it looks so cheap and flat it just brings out laughter again and again- for scenes that are supposed to be dramatic and momentous.
The storytelling. Here, I'm afraid it's not much better.
I don't need to spoil this in a review, but I can say it really does storytelling the same way it does animation. It just jumps from scene to random scene, showing people running going "RAWWRRR!!" and knaves getting slashed in half etc, then Koinzell or another character will jump off a dragon or something and slash someone- then there's a scene with two people talking to each other- only to realize it's a flashback or something shoved in. It's an absolute mess. The pacing, the dramatic timing, it's all over the place. It basically just feels rushed. Like the studio got commissioned to adapt several volumes of a manga but with just 12 episodes. Rather than pick one arc, they decided to just jam as much as possible into this and run.

But over all of this, there were moments Ubel Splatt JUMPED THE FUCKING SHARK so high I could only put my hat on and tip it to the man who thought "Oh yea, I've done a good job on this"... and no moment captured that feeling better than the invasion of one of the cities by enemy troops, who deploy a couple of ELEPHANTS with their cavalry..... Oh sweet Jesus.... I don't think I've ever laughed harder watching an anime in my life. That there, that was some God Tier level of GOOF.
They don't move (obviously) but oh man ...

So was it entertaining? Hell yes. That's what makes this weird- it's another one of those so-bad-it's-good experiences; except it shouldn't have been bad in the first place. It SHOULD have been better. At no point was I ever bored watching this, I liked and cared about the characters, only for the flaws of the awful animation and the clumsy pacing to SUBTRACT FROM THAT EXPERIENCE.
"Just go read the manga" is what I'm going to be told, but I'm watching the anime, and no matter how good the manga is the anime has to be judged on its own merits and I'm afraid- it's just average.

Re:Zero- Season 3 (though if one is honest, this is like the 6th actual season of this show) The most recent installment of the Other World Adventures of Subaru Netsuki and all his friends... it seems everyone has forgotten this is actually an isekai.
The story has really focused around Subaru's curse of regenerating after death- sort of like a time-loop, being forced to relive the same sequences over again Groundhog Day style until he gets it right and can move forward.

The problem is, we've long lost sight of where or how he began; and he's died and revived so many times he has come ... to treat the curse more like an ability- an escape hatch for when he gets caught in a situation he can't fix, or a cheat against an unbeatable opponent. Nevertheless, the guy still looks and acts exactly like he just stepped off the bus at his low-income public housing complex in District C... he hasn't really adapted to the world he's in nor built himself an identity other than 'pathetic whining victim' who whines and complains about his predicament.... FORTUNATELY this season deemphasizes his worst tendencies; but it also suffers from some very obvious flaws that prevent it from being a truly great show.

The worst problem is the size of Re:Zero's cast has swelled to include so many people that I honestly cannot keep track of the names- even of characters I know I love (like Otto- what's his brother's name again?) and Julius (had to look that one up) and all the Princess Candidates (Priscilla, Anastasia, Crusche.. I'm sure there's another, need to look her up) Now there's Garfiel (not "Garfield" Mr Autocorrect!) who has a brother and sister and of course we have Wilhelm and his whole family basically... it just goes on and on. Rem and Ram (who?) also used to be characters in this show!
The problem with a cast so huge is obviously it leaves no room for most of these characters to really come into their own. What is Reinhard really, besides a heroic warrior who comes to save Subaru's ass so many times? How is that different than what Julius does a couple of times? The show could live without Anastasia, and Crusche really only works as someone for Felix (I mean "Farris") to play off of... and I love Felix, but he's another character who gets hardly anything to do in this season.

But the show still introduces NEW characters- like Lilliana, and I have to say, she's a wonderful ray of sunshine and an inspiration.... a great character on her own, but her story is shoved in the middle of a long-running isekai about someone else; she deserves an anime of her own. Someone like her would have breathed desperately needed life in the dull slog that was Frieren for example.... but I digress (again)

Yet despite all these criticisms I make, the whole season taken together is really great. White Fox does a super job with the backgrounds, the world design, the Italian style architecture (count how many Duomos you can spot) and the character models are jaw dropping. Everyone looks sharp and attractive and just lovely. It portrays sunshine in a Renaissance City just as well as dark, grim, and destruction. And the music- especially Lilliana's string song- the opener and closer- are excellent. The episode about Lilliana is the high point of a terrific season. Even though I gripe about the details; the huge cast the lack of narrative direction and yes it sort of devolved into a Battle Shounen with just an endless fight that dragged on for 6 episodes or more (and had an abrupt, totally disappointing end) I still enjoyed every single episode. I picked this up mid-season and caught up to current VERY quickly. Both the English and Japanese vocals are superb- the English track is actually slightly superior (Emilia, Subaru, Beatrice and Lilliana are standouts); but they stopped dubbing up to 3 episodes before the end so I had to make the awkward switch to the Japanese vocals and... the show remained just as good.

No, you will NOT start here if you want to start watching Re:Zero, you really do need to start at the beginning. So this review really isn't very good as an ment to newcomers, but if you are wondering whether to bother continuing after the last season- YES- DO IT, Definitely. It's good, you will not be disappointed.

Ever since Hand Shakers, the modest studio GoHands has had a reputation. Hand Shakers was awful because of its characters and story, over-rendered CGI notwithstanding… but every season this studio debuts a new show, the criticism has been a little too predictable. MAL featured an article about this show that caught my eye, and rather than do what everyone else says and moan “bwaaah Gohands!” …I decided to give it a try.


It is a huge, huge improvement over Hand Shakers. A group of girls are hanging out in a very glossy, crisp and clean city- but there are no other people around. They meet ... someone new- a girl named Renge- who is bashful around them and has some adorable funny faces as she fusses about how to introduce herself. Each of the girls is very pretty, beautifully drawn, and with different color hair, stylish outfits, and their own pet phrases. But what you may notice first is- the camera angles.
The camera swoops all around in I suppose GoHands signature style, birds-eye, worms-eye views and all kinds of other angles, but the girls themselves are possibly more animated than anything you’ve ever seen before. Their boobs bounce- up and down and left and right- they move their heads and shoulders around constantly, and EVERY STRAND OF HAIR is moving- and it’s not choppy- it moves like fluid. You can criticize the stylistic choices and the lackadaisical plot, but you can’t deny the characters are beautifully animated.
As the show progresses, the laid back feeling finally shifts to some action and even a shocking character-death that was really very dramatic… the number of people watching the first episode had dropped to a dedicated few by the mid-way point, and all I could wonder was why?

Yes it’s true, GoHands has an offbeat style… more like they lean way too heavily on 3D graphics programs, and someone at the studio can’t keep their hands off the ‘increase contrast’ knob; and for some reason they are obsessed with making cherry blossom trees glow brighter than the downtown of a medium sized city on a Friday night. And the monsters they fight, even the weapons they fight them with- have neon colored glowing liquid LIGHT spewing out of them… if you were vegging out on a typically boring, visually flat episode of Magic Maker and suddenly switched to the middle of one of these fight scenes, I’m pretty confident your eyeballs would catch fire.

But maybe that’s why I love this show so much.
Aren’t people tired of seeing the same crappy 2D drek with the same archetypal isekai protagonists, dull colors, wooden dialogue, and the same unimaginative magic crap in season after season of mass produced slop? What is the real reason you like anime as a medium? The stories? You can read a story in a book. Don’t you want to see ANIMATION???
That’s what this show was made for!
I have a completely different view of it- and the studio GoHands- than I did at the beginning. The reason anime became so popular was that it did radical things western animation didn’t attempt, it had exciting camera movement, (and stories for grownups), action-packed fights, memorable characters and…. loads of cute girls. All of those things are packed into this anime, it is a dazzling overload for the eyes- maybe that’s what anime should be.

I can’t understand the appeal of liking something because it’s flat and boring and safe.
This show is bright, colorful, loud, obnoxious, confusing, and absolutely bonkers-
and that is EXACTLY THE REASON you should watch it.
Now- you CAN look for every flaw in the scenery or point out the direction of the shadows not matching up, or some other pedantic gripe about some background detail. You COULD also sit back and watch the world spin, see colorful girls twirl around and scream while riding guitars through the air attacking some hilariously stupid looking glowing monster..
When it’s put that way, that choice seems easy- I had a great time watching this show and I wish more anime were like it.

What makes ANIME special? What sets it apart from animation from the west? What makes it so popular for so many decades?
There are so many ways to answer this question- and it might be the same answer as why it’s still popular. When you think back to some of the great anime from years past- like Akira- it’s a simple story about a guy becoming so powerful he became a monster- an interesting concept, but the way it’s animated is what makes it special.
Western animation didn’t do anything like this. Everything from the colors, to the camera angles, to the concepts, to the ... design of its worlds and characters. When Japan wants to- it can put out some of the best animation the world has ever seen- and do things that make Hollywood studios with their billions of dollars jealous. Anime can be an amazing medium. 


Then there’s this.

It’s hard for me to understand, how an industry that created all the incredible stuff it has over a century would even bother making something like this.
What makes Magic Maker special? What sets it apart from other animation from the west?
What sets it apart from other anime?
The answer is simply nothing.
Absolutely nothing aspirational, hopeful, useful, inspiring, exciting, thoughtful, creative or interesting has been put into- nor expressed by- this anime.
It is NOT about interesting concepts. It is NOT well animated. It is not creative. It’s a miserable pile of cardboard cutout characters and generic CGI backgrounds and glowing bubbles of mana mashed together into a painfully boring 23 minutes of flavorless pith.

Normally I would not rate a show so harshly when its characters look at least mildly well drawn or the backgrounds were decent- but I am not giving credit anymore for a major studio like this who are just importing a bunch of stock backgrounds; while half the episode consists of a non-animated chibi of the character talking against a blue or green background; and the other half takes place with a brick wall pattern behind the stock characters, or the stock house they imported from minecraft. They can do better, and with enough choices, so can I on my own PC.
The entire reason so much of this rubbish gets made is not just because it’s popular but because it’s EASY. It’s cheap. There is hardly any animation in any of these episodes, and even the fight against the goblin, and near the end the demon guy, were barely anything, and the goblin was another stock character import (and they didn’t even bother to integrate it!) It’s low effort mass produced chaff. There isn’t even a need to write a story, because the ‘story’ of most of the episodes is: boy tests making mana bubbles, boy tests making more mana bubbles, he fights a monster with them, sister and father look amazeface, the end.

No it is not the worst anime I have ever seen, its biggest sin is just being BORING.
Week after week, I had to force myself to watch this. It does not attempt anything interesting with its animation, camera angles, designs, story, or characters. It plays it safe in every department, it remains content to just be as bland as possible. I cannot see how anyone could be impressed by this, unless your expectations were so rock bottom that anything better than a total train wreck would have seemed brilliant. There was a time when anime had something to prove, and went to great lengths to create things you couldn't even imagine. And we have come full circle to something that does not even try.
It depresses me that the once great animation powerhouse that was Japan, who have produced so many incredible, inspiring, fascinating anime for so many decades, has fallen so low.

I wasn't even going to bother reviewing this. But I feel compelled to warn future generations about its awfulness, as a kind of public service. It was on Crunchyroll of all places (I wonder if the execs are aware this is in their catalog) and that means it is extensively censored- and all I can say is:
THANK GOD this is censored.
The other reason I review this is as a way of demonstrating what makes a terrible anime distinct from everything else. I have seen plenty of bad anime, in fact watching bad anime is a fun pastime of mine. But some cross over ... into the downright offensive, or are so badly made and incompetent that they are irredeemable. This is BOTH of those things.
The pink haired main character is named Makoto (that's all you get to know about him) and he looks different in every scene. Not like he's in disguise but like he was illustrated by a different person each scene- off model. The guy in black, who only wears a sleeveless shirt and no pants, is Kintaro. He is Makoto's bodyguard because all the guys in his school are trying to assault him basically... and that's all the plot there is.

This is 9 minutes long, but felt like an hour. It will take longer to type this than it did to watch the anime (and longer still to wash it from my mind). I uttered "Ohmaigaaad" at least 16 times while watching it, right from the very opening scene a warning appears that says it's not appropriate for children- which is an exclamation mark- and then TWO dots appear below the exclamation mark, which then sways back and forth. How is that for subtlety?
It's basically straight up hentai that has MERCIFULLY been censored to hell and back. Some dude steps up, says he's gonna hurt Makoto, then naked guy says "Uh uh" and, as far as I can interpret, puts so much dong in their faces that they give up and ask for forgiveness.

The amount of professionalism, care, skill, and thought put into making this was zero. The amount of perversion is on the opposite end of that scale. The only positive thing I can say about it was it's kind of goofy, not violent, and wants to just be humorous BUT it's really just a 9 minute long perverted joke made by someone right handed with their left hand, while their right hand was doing things the Catholic Church advises you ought not.
Now I need to go wash my eyes out. WITH ENGINE DEGREASER
The one positive thing I can say about this experience was that it was mercifully short, and at least I know now what kind of BL I do not like. I guess that's two things. It's okay, that's two for the price of 1.