Forum: Anime, Manga and Video Game Reviews

Suzume is about a titular character, a girl who meets a guy who seals doors to keep a giant worm from causing earthquakes to places in Japan. Without giving away anything more, it was directed by Makoto Shinkai of Your Name and Weathering With You fame. Talk about outdoing yourself. This movie was...

Can an anime with a thin plot and cliché-filled storyline still be entertaining? Oddly, yes. Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya has a few things going against it. The story seems too familiar and predictable. Yet the 3D animation is great, and the character development suburb. I actually found...

Season 2 of Vinland Saga is available, so let the blood flow freely. The second season starts off several years after season one ended. Thorfinn, the cold-hearted Viking warrior, is now a slave. How that came about we don’t know yet. Or at least through the first 16 episodes, we don’t know. ...

I admit to being at a disadvantage here. I have seen a few episodes of Case Closed, but I never really followed the series. Still that does not seem to have interfered with my enjoyment of Case Closed: The Culprit Hanzawa, a fun-but-dump spoof of the parent series. I did have to do some...

Mononoke is a series dealing with the supernatural. A nameless medicine vendor travels through Japan fighting these demons known as mononoke. Well, that’s about it. I did want to like this stylish series, but unfortunately, it does fall flat. The twelve episode series tells various tales...

OK, so what was I watching here? Bee and PuppyCat seems to be a remake of a remake by the original creators of a short animated film. It is not a Japanese anime. This series is American made, but it does have some Japanese anime story elements. There is a talking cat, which only Bee seems to...

She’s back! Retsuko, that cute little red panda with a death metal heart, a job she hates, and a non-existent love life. . . . Opps! Wait a minute! She now has a love life! Retsuko has finally hooked up with Haida for season 5 of Aggretsuko. But things are not quite as happy as they should...

What is an anime series doing with a name based on a Clint Eastwood quote? Fortunately, the title is the only thing about Make My Day which I didn’t like. I did like the story, the characters, and of course the action. Jim is a would-be artist working part-time as a prison guard on the planet...

Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre is an anthology series based on manga by Junji Ito. Each episode is a separate story or two dealing with some sort of supernatural horror. Though original, some of the tales are not that interesting. Others, especially those at the end of the...

It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Well, most likely it is. Gudetama: An Eggcellent Adventure combines computer animation with live action to give you a series for the whole family. The plot seems more made for kids, but like all really good children’s’ entertainment, it provides a bit...

So here is yet another coming of age anime. True Tears really doesn’t add anything new to the genre, but it does have a character driven storyline with some interesting characters who are well defined. Shinichirou meets Noe, a strange girl who rumor has it can put a curse on people. She is...

I’m sorry. I tried my best to get through this series, but six episodes is all I could stomach. I just can’t watch any more of From Me to You. If I tried to stick with it for all 25 episodes of season one, I don’t think I would have survived. So we have a high school girl named Sawaku who...

I have yet to play 'Digimon Survive.' But for those who have, what is your review of it? I will say this: I did see some game-play and the in-game anime scenes and it was VERY impressive! :D

Netflix Streaming now has the first five episodes of The Way of the Househusband, Season 2. I previously wrote about season one: https://www.animeforum.com/showthread.php?135351-The-Way-of-the-Househusband-(2021). It’s a Dumb, but Fun series based on a one-joke premise. A former Yakuza boss...

I want to see this movie sooooooooo bad!! Even though I'm a little spooked by the plot surrounding two teens often switching bodies. Though I can relate, as my body's been SNATCHED too!! lol :rolleyes:

The TV series Violet Evergarden tells of a young orphan trained as a killing machine by the military. When the war ends, a disabled Violet must learn to live in the world of everyday people. This also means learning how to experience and interpret her own emotions. This she does working as an...

Exception is a Japanese series made for Netflix Streaming, so the original dub is in English. This should make it a bit easier for English speaking audiences, since we don’t have to worry if the translation is accurate. But is the eight episode series still worth watching? The answer is yes. ...

Weathering With You is a 2019 Japanese anime film about a boy who runs off to Tokyo and meets a girl, who can somehow influence the weather. Boy falls in love with girl, encounters danger, violence ensues, romance blooms, there are tears, and there you have it. I went to the theaters to see the...

Maybe I expected too much from Jujutsu Kaisen O. It’s just that when I go see an anime movie, I expect more than what I would get from an anime TV series. After all, the filmmakers have more resources and time available than if they were working on a series. Watching Jujutsu Kaisen O, I felt...

I certainly prefer to watch movies which have some sort of point to them. Drifting Home really has a hard time coming forth with a point. I guess you can make up your own. Or it is intended for a younger audience which really doesn’t care either way. Nonetheless, Drifting Home is an...

Four years ago, I reviewed the action comedy/adventure Tiger and Bunny: https://www.animeforum.com/showthread.php?133382-Tiger-and-Bunny-(2011). It took a long time before a second season was made, but now we have Tiger and Bunny 2. It seems there was a movie or two in between, which will...

Tekken: Bloodline is based on a video game. That’s OK. I have seen other anime based on video games, and most were pretty good. As for Tekken: Bloodline? Well, let’s see. It is a short six episode series with an international mixture of creators. The writer, Gavin Hignight, is American,...

What image enters your mind when I mention Romantic Killer? Maybe a suave, debonair ladies’ man who leaves behind a trail of mutilated corpses of women attracted to this fiend? Well, guess again. Romantic Killer is a coming of age comedy. High schooler Anzu is not interested in boys. Her...

Housing Complex C is a four episode mini-series which recently ran on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. The good news for those who missed it is that it can be seen on Comcast Xfinity’s On Demand, if you go to the Adult Swim page. The story takes place in a low income apartment building and centers...

Most of the new anime I am watching now is through Netflix Streaming. They have some interesting shows – and a few bad ones. Uncle From Another World is somewhere in-between. Yousuku is a 17-year-old SEGA game player who, after a street accident, spends the next 17 years in a coma. The only...

Haven’t we seen all this before? Yes, we have, and we have seen it done better. So much for Sekirei. Minato is a loser who just failed his college entrance exams for the second time. Suddenly he makes the acquaintance of Musubi, who not only has big boobs, but is also a big boob. Anyway,...

Someday in the future, cheap, petty crooks will be armed with cyberware making themselves infinitely stronger. That’s the premise for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Based on a video game, this series gets by on action covering up a thin plot. But the action sequences are well done, although the series...

I do remember watching one or two episodes of the first season of Black Butler, so many years ago. I never got around to watching the rest. Then I saw that the series was available on Netflix streaming, and thought I’d finally watch it all. It turns out that what Netflix has is just the second...

In her first year in high school, Shouko Komi is the most beautiful girl in her class. Put upon a pedestal, the other students flock to her. The problem? She suffers from severe social anxiety to the point where she can’t even talk to people. Yes, you guessed it. Komi Can’t Communicate. ...

It’s dark and at times depressing, just as I like it. But what really draws me into Madlax was the way it tells what seems to be two separate, unrelated stories, and then turns them into one. Margaret Burton is an innocent, naïve schoolgirl. She is the orphaned daughter and sole survivor of a...